[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandtights.com dot. I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and collectibles on Hammond street in Bangor, Maine,
[email protected] you can also find them on social media as well.
But this episode is Ben and Max Berkowitz, also known as the Berkowitz Brothers, from the founders of Not a Billionaire, a global creative communications and marketing firm specializing in social first content and strategic storytelling from major corporations, nonprofits, and influencers. I know that sounds like a lot, but for this episode, guess what they are. They're comic book writers. They co wrote along, the two of them, along with their friend Josh Gad. They wrote the writer over at Dark Horse Comics. The first issue is out. Second issue is out. Check those out at your local comic book shop. But they came on here to talk about the writer and the history behind it and why it was made and how it was like to be made, so on and so forth. So take a listen to this episode with the Berkowitz brothers, Max and Benjen. Before you do, find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blue Sky threads, all those things, as well as on apple podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Subscribe, like, follow, share, all that stuff. You can find out way more content over on capesandtights.com dot. But this is the Berkowitz brothers, Ben and Max, talking about the writer at Dark Horse Comics. Enjoy, everyone.
Well, welcome to the podcast. How are you two doing? Well?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Are you doing well, Max?
[00:01:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, we're both on the same coast now, which is pretty crazy.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Is that the west coast or is that or east coast? Where are you guys located? Like, where are you, like, situated? East coast or west coast?
[00:01:48] Speaker B: So I'm in San Francisco now, and Max is in Boston. Boston.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: So I'm kind of near you. We could have just done this with your office.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Well, I just talked to Joey Esposito, who's a writer for the upcoming the pedestrian comic book over Athenae at Magma comics, and he lives in Bath mean, which is like an hour and a half from us. And I was just like, why didn't we do that? He's like, yeah, we should meet for a beer sometime. Yeah, that's probably cool, but.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: And then go to the lobster pound, because that's what we used to.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah, see, but, yeah, it's, it's funny because even I record with my local comic book shop owner every once in a while. We do, like, really random movie reviews. So we do, like, we did, like, a review of Nick Fury's Agent of S h I E l D with David Hasselhoff, um, from, like, the early nineties or whatever it was. So we do things like that, and he's just, like, a mile down the road. We still do it via Zoom because it's so much quicker. You sign on, you do the talk, and you sign off, and you don't, like, before or after discussions or anything like that. You do, like, 45 minutes an hour, and you're done. So, yeah, even if we were Dexter each other, it's not as much fun, I think, doing it in, in person nowadays.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: And it's better because you get to throw up all those, like, you know, those makeup filters to make you look a little prettier. So I usually darken my eye.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Well, they had that thing too, over a little while when I put a thumb up, like, the AI or whatever on the screen.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: I know, I hate that because I do thumbs up all the time. And in serious meetings, people, it, like, throws everything off in a meeting where.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: You'Re like, yeah, so half of you guys are getting laid off, and you're over here, like, explosion.
And Ben, someone has died.
[00:03:28] Speaker C: Ben finally taught me that, like, I can look. I can shrink my screen so I don't need to look at myself the whole time.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: I think it was half the time. I have a, like, notes here on the screen that I usually, like, put in front of my face so that I don't see myself and be like, ah, why do I look like that? No.
Yeah. So you guys are from Boston? Like, is that where you originated? Was Boston?
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Yeah, we're from right outside Boston.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Oh, well, that's what we tell everyone we're from Boston. Because when you say. When you say, we grew up in Wellesley, mass. There's just, like, a different.
A different expectation that comes with that. But right now, our family lives in the heart of Boston, right across Henry Park.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: I lived in Andover, Massachusetts, for, like, ten years, and I would always tell people, like, anybody, like, not from New England. I'd be like, yeah, it's just Boston. Like, this easier. It's 35 minutes from Boston, but still, it's just easier to say Boston.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, and, like, nobody knows, like, really. I mean, Wellesley, mass, except for, like, Wellesley College, and they always associate with, you know, Hillary Clinton.
[00:04:33] Speaker C: Wait, what about Sylvia Plath?
[00:04:35] Speaker B: That's where Sylvia Plath, that's a good one. And that. That's a good connection to the writer.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
Not a good ending for her, but.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Hopefully ours will be a little better.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: But, yeah. Yeah, hopefully.
That's pretty cool. I love talking to people from New England, and it's weird. I liked it, but I don't like it because sometimes you get into conversations, we're like, oh, you know that sandwich shop down the street? And people, like, in the west coast are like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Never been there. And so it's nice to talk to people that kind of get some references from New England. But in the same sense, don't. Let's not go too far into it, because unless you're talking about the Celtics, which I'm very pumped about, this shirt that's going on right there, our world champion Celtics here.
I mean, there's a little reference to the Red Sox in the writer, which is it not. It's not really the Red Sox. Let's get that clear so you don't get in trouble here.
Exactly.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: And we may have given a little origin story to a Red Sox mascot that is also unofficial, so we'll see how that goes over. We have, like, in full transparency, we did speak with the Red Sox, and they love everything redhead.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Um, but, uh, yeah, we, um. Uh. Oh, you have a background too, right? You.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: You work.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: You worked with Nesta and stuff like that too. So that, that does. There's a connection there. But I, before I did this, I was working sports journalism a little bit, too. I did mostly hockey, east and college hockey. I covered some of the bruins here and there and stuff like that too. But, like, when I was a graphic designer in Massachusetts, I actually. When. When someone stole Wally, do you remember this? When they stole the mascot, I created a. Just a quick, like, ten second wanted poster or missing poster, I should say, for Wally and then Ness and use that as, like, a thing on their twitter and stuff like that. It was like, a highlight of my life at the time.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: And so I think I still have, like, a save somewhere. But it was just a picture. It was, like, black and white. It was a picture of Wally. It just said missing on it. I made up some, like, you know, you know, weight, height and weight or something like that on it, and they ended up finding it, like, shortly after they posted it. And they're like, well, you know, maybe we'll see. It used. It helped get the. Get the mascot back. We'll use your image.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: You're gonna have to, like, in the in post after this, you're gonna have to put that up for everyone to.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Say, I can't find it, but it's kind of funny. I noticed it. I said, like I mentioned in, you know, in the review, is that it's. I saw that there, and I was like, that's amazing. And some other people might not get it. People who are not huge Red sox fans or huge New England fans, they may not understand the little reference there, but I like, like, the little tat hat tip. And it was great. But before we go too far into the writer and stuff like that, I mean, you guys work in all kinds of different mediums and things like that, and so this story was obviously an important story for you to tell. Before we get too far, is someone want to give a kind of, like, elevator pitch? I hate that term. But, like, of what the writer is, before we go too far into this.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Older brother. Do it.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Older brother. Yeah. But what's funny is that everyone recently has been saying, we're either twins or I'm the younger one.
[00:07:48] Speaker C: No, that's not true.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Well, that's.
[00:07:49] Speaker C: Cause I had. I cut my hair, I shaved it. You know, I look young again.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: I'm good, I guess. You know, kind of the elevator pitch of what the writer is.
You know, Max and I, we had seen this, you know, this trend where jewish identity in comic books was kind of getting erased or put on the back burner when these characters made the jump from page to screen.
And, you know, there were shows like Moon Knight, which, you know, I thought was a great show, but I think they kind of did a little bit of a disservice to his jewish identity. His father is a Holocaust survivor and a rabbi, and that played a pretty big part of his kind of character and his journey. And in the show, they kind of removed that.
Sorry.
Yeah, so it was really important for us to.
We kind of evaluated it, and we're like, you know what? We need to create a story that's representative of jewish identity, jewish experience.
And there are a lot out there. There are a lot of great storytellers telling, like, jewish stories. We wanted to tell something that wasn't niche and something that was dynamic, that kind of showed the spectrum of jewish identity. And so we were, like, one who could be a superhero, who could be a jewish superhero. Of course. We were like, Josh Gav.
Like, why not?
First of all, he's amazing. He's a Disney legend, so let's turn him into a comic book legende.
So we pitched him this concept, and he kind of, he fell in love, and he also felt this sort of gravitation towards, like, the jewish experience not being told as properly, even though jews historically have kind of built the comic book industry. So, which was kind of interesting.
So we tapped into this idea of exploring jewish folklore mythology that hadn't really been tapped into in both comics and film and tv.
You know, you've seen sort of Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark. That's very much a story from, like, the Torah, but we wanted to push that even further. So, you know, one of our biggest inspirations in comic books is Mike Mignola. He does a phenomenal job of taking folklore and kind of, like, putting his own spin on it. And so we took jewish folklore and really wanted to, like, make it less niche, more commercially driven, and we put our own spin on these, you know, stories that have been around for thousands of years.
So we tied, for example, we tied the origin story of quote unquote Wally the Green monster, which people will meet in issue two. Spoiler alert. To sort of this blend of jewish folk tales.
So we built this story around, like, kind of the idea of the jewish experience, our jewish experience experience jewish folklore, mythology, and also the importance of words.
In Judaism, words are incredibly important. They have, you know, the meaning. They have the ability to change how we think and change our experience and reality. So we took that concept literally where our character, his power is to write down a superpower on a piece of paper, eat it, and gain that power temporarily. So he literally has the ability to take words and change reality.
So that's kind of, you know, where we are with the story, and hopefully people are enjoying it so far. Max, do you want to add. No.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: I mean, we both love comics, but I really, really, really love sports. Ben loves playing it, but I love watching it. So we needed to add this to the comics, because in Boston, everyone talks about sports. Like, in DC, they talk about politics, but sports is life in Boston. So you're gonna see a lot more of baseball in this comedy.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's true. Did you feel any, like you had to tell the story, but, like, did you feel like it's a risk because it is kind of, like, it's very personal to you, too? Like, it's like, in Josh too. Like, is this, like, if people didn't like it? I know it's not. It's like everybody wants something to like everything, and obviously everybody doesn't like certain things and so on and so forth. But, like, this seems like a very personal story as well. So, like, does it seem, was it difficult to try to put this out there for people, or is this just what you guys do now, put things out there and just hopefully people like it?
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think Max and I have kind of, you know, over the years, developed this attitude where, you know, we're like, we want to do things that we enjoy, that we like, and hopefully people will like it if they don't. We don't give a shit because we did this. What?
[00:13:24] Speaker C: We look at everything. We see everything.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, we see everything. But we do this for ourselves. Like Josh and Max and I and Ariel, we do this work because we love it and because we enjoy it.
And yes, it is personal, but hopefully people will get it. And what we love is that we built into this story kind of like our own journey. This is our first time writing a comic book, so we sort of built that into the characters and the story, how it moves along from issue to issue.
So hopefully that will come across and people will get that. A writer's journey and exploration as they kind of dive in to moving from drafts, from ideas and, yeah, it doesn't.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Seem like you guys, this is your first comic book. I'll tell you that much. It's a good sign. I mean, because it is obvious, I think sometimes you guys work with mostly tv, film, you know, stuff like that. And so not everybody can cross mediums like that. Like, there's even authors out there who have written comic books. You're like, eh, stick to the prose side of things. It's not, you know, but, like, when you read, when I read this book, it wasn't like, oh, these are first time comic book writers. Like, this is definitely, they don't know the, you know, but I do think coming from tv and film to comics is slightly easier, in my opinion, than coming from books or novels to comics, because it's a visual medium as well. And you have to, like, set up the next page by, like, not giving away the thing on the next page at the bottom corner of the first bit. You know, like, there is some things where you guys, the scripting is well done to a point where I wouldn't tell. I wouldn't, if I didn't know this already, I wouldn't be like, this is their first comic. I will give you guys credit on that.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Getting emotional.
No, and I think you're right. I mean, you know, this was definitely a learning process for all of us. You know, we were so lucky to have the brilliant Ariel Olivetti, who was very much a guiding hand through this process.
But, yeah, from kind of, like, moving from film and tv into comic books, it's like, in comic books, you're working in individual frames of videos, but, like, each frame, the mise en scent has to tell so much story.
So, yeah, they're definitely like, my brain. All of our brains kind of had to, like, make a huge shift to work on this, but.
Which wasn't easy, but, no, thank you.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: And was it the plan from the beginning to make the character look like Josh Gad? Like, I mean, is that, like, I know you reached out to him, but, like. And obviously he's helping you write this stuff with you guys, but, like, was it originally a plan? We've seen this recently over at Boom Studios with Keanu Reeves. Looks like berserker. Like, looks like him. It's obvious that it's him. And I'm like, first of all, I thought to myself, I'm like, okay, comic book creators nowadays, if you make yourself look like the character, the studios who option your comic kind of have to go with you as the star. So now, obviously, if this gets optioned as a film or a tv, obviously we have to now hire Josh as the main character. We can't. Can't go away from that.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: Well, I like, we kind of took that. Yeah, yeah, no, you know, we saw that trend, and, you know, and Whoopi Goldberg just, you know, she has the change, but we kind of, you know, want it, you know, made it a little bit of a satire because, you know, you'll. You'll have to, you know, you'll see the whole. The whole book.
You know, you'll have to get through it. But there is a very specific reason why we chose to make him look like Josh and almost be Josh. And it's not so much to do with, you know, making this a tv show or a film.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: But sort of a commentary on that trend in comic books with celebrities.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: And you can see it changes a little bit, but I won't go too far into it.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you noticed that.
Oh, well, I don't know. Like, even in issue one, the character starts to subtly change a little bit.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: How he looks more jacked.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: There you go. Hey, it's illustration. You can make him look however you want to make him look.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Honestly, Josh made the joke to Patton when we did a signing recently at Golden Apple, and Josh was like, look, I get fatter in every page, which is actually the opposite.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: I don't think eating paper is a lot of calories. I think it'll be okay.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. It is kind of funny. The eating the thing is awesome. I love that aspect of it, too, but. Yeah, I know. And the same thing. It's patent, too. It's like, it's also a thing of, like, comics are for everybody, in my opinion. And I hate when someone, when people all up in arms at post Malone was gonna start writing comic books for a blaze, or it was a blaze, whoever it was. And people are like, oh, he should be in a stick to music. And I'm like, no, this is truthful matters. If you do it right and you have the right partners and you have the right publisher and things like that, I feel like, you know, I don't think it hurt your sales of this compa. Because Josh's name was on it. Like, I don't think that's, like, what people are like, oh, screw Josh Gad. He's just Olaf. You know? Like, they, they actually, there's people who probably bought it because they may not know who the Berkowitz brothers were, but, like, they know the name Josh Gad and the same thing. There's a. I mean, recently, David Desmaltron has comic books over at dark horse and things like that, too. I think that it's a positive thing. Not that that's what your plan was. Not that we were like, oh, we could probably sell more comics. Josh's name was on it, but I don't think it hurts. And I think that letting people tell stories in comics that are good, I absolutely love this story, as you both know, after reading a review of it and stuff. But I think a lot of other people do too. And I think that's a thing. I think that's worth saying that if you want to do comics, do the right story and do the right publisher and have the right team and do comics. So if Josh wants to join up with you guys and do comics, then do it. And so I think that's awesome. And I think that, you know, putting the hard work and effort into it and doing these interviews like this, hopefully people will learn who you two are as well. More in the comic book world. Hopefully there's more coming from you guys.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Don't do a deep dive into our background.
[00:20:05] Speaker C: Yeah, please don't. It's scary.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: No, but it's too many dark secrets.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: But, Justin, it is. It's a labor of love. Like, bringing on someone like Josh means it takes longer to come out.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Yes, because you got to work around.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: Their schedule and write with them. So it's not easier.
I mean, he's an incredibly creative person, but it definitely takes longer because.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Oh, sorry.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: No, go ahead. Go ahead.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Like, you know, we all love comic books, and I think whatever, you know, gets more audiences to buy comic books, like, not just ours, but all other comic books in general. I think that's like, that's our goal with all this. So if you have a story to tell, tell it in comics.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: And Josh, yourselves, and Josh and your rest of your creative team and all the other people that are out there publishing comics want to tell stories. And this is another medium to tell stories in. I don't think I've always, I said multiple times on recording podcasts where, like, you can't sit there and hopefully for you guys benefit, people are sitting there just watching tv and film, but, like, you can't just sit there and watch tv and film. So, like, how do you supplement that? And I think that great stories in literature, great stories and comics, great stories in other formats, podcasts, whatever it may be, you need these. And I think that this is just another avenue. This could have worked straight to tv or movie. Like, it could have probably been okay on that. It would have worked. I think the visuals, visualizations on it would look cool on tv and movie. But I think it works great for comic book format. I think that I may have not seen it, I might have missed it if it was on tv, but because it was in comic books, and I do get the emails from Dark Horse and they're like, hey, this is coming out. I was like, I'll give this a shot. And I gave it a shot. I was very happy I did. But, like, I think having another medium to tell stories and is just a great avenue. Whether this is the only comic book you two ever write in comics, whatever, I think it was success already. So, you know, hopefully you guys write more, but, like, we'll see.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: We've got a few others cooking, so, you know, we've kind of, like, fallen in love with this process. Personally, I like it more than filmmaking.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: But there's tons of money in it, guys. I'll tell you that right now.
Well, I don't know if anybody can tend to sense my sarcasm in that, but.
[00:22:27] Speaker C: We understand everyone asks, how much you guys making from it?
[00:22:32] Speaker A: How much are we spending on it? Is that what you're asking? How much are we spending on it now? It's true. And it's one of those things that people say the same thing about podcasts. Again, there's ten podcasters in the world that make a ton of money on podcasts and the rest of everybody makes do, and then everybody below that has to work a second job. It's the same thing in comic book industry. It's like you get a name for yourself and you're fine, but like, the people in the middle there, you're just making comics and having fun. And then there's people who are starting out being like, I have to work a second job to do this. Like, when I contact people to interview them and someone responds back to me and says, well, I could do it at 07:00 at night because I have a day job. And I'm like, that's the way the world works most of the time in comic book industry.
There's your thumb, your thumbs up there. I don't know where that came from.
Zoom telling me I'm saying something nice about you, but yeah, it is a labor of love. And like you said, I think that's great. I think it's a cool thing. But I think that you both know that you guys couldn't do just comics right now only.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: No. And I think what's interesting is, like, a lot of people, I didn't even know this going in is that, you know, a lot of creators, most creators, if not all, like, everything is on them from, like, you know, the writing to the creative to the marketing, everything. I mean, you know, the publisher is wonderful and supportive and does a lot of work, but, you know, at the end of the day, it is on, you know, us to make sure that people see the thing.
And, yeah, Max and I, you know, we, we have our, we have our day jobs. You know, we run our company and, you know, we did a lot of this writing, you know, after we put, you know, after I put my kids to bed and, yeah, we're up till one and then wake up the next day at six. So, yeah, this is definitely a labor of love and I hope it comes across.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: It's one of those ones. I think that I will say it is confusing is called the writer because I feel like every time I write down that you're the co writers of this book called the writer, it's like, jeez, can you hear the word writer? Don't use that as an SEO term. It's going to come up on everything. But no, it came up. I think I saw it the first time in the previous catalog for diamond, and it caught my attention. I think the COVID caught my attention. I'm a huge Jeremy Hahn fan, so that also didn't, didn't hurt at all. Jeremy is an absolutely wonderful artist, but also a wonderful writer, so that's pretty cool too. But Jeremy's artwork was just phenomenal on the COVID I think the simplicity of it, too. And having your main protagonist character right there on the COVID was an awesome thing, and so that called me into it then. I love dark horse and all that stuff, so, like, you know, and I will say Josh's name helps me want to pick it up and say, who the heck is. What's this going on? Because I honestly hadn't heard about you, you two, yet, which is okay, because, you know, it's not, like, my favorite.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: Like, who the hell are the Berkowitz brothers?
[00:25:32] Speaker A: You know, they're behind the scenes. You didn't realize that they're, like, running the country. No.
Oh, God, no. You don't want that. No one wants that. But no, no one wants to do that. No one wants you to do that either. I'll tell you that right now. Barely know you guys yet, but no one wants to do that.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Come on.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Yeah. It's all that stuff together. And then, you know, when I reached out about doing this, you know, with dark horse, and things obviously move differently than we wanted them to, but now that we're here, the.
I don't know, it was just a unique comic book, and I think that's a big thing. I also think that with, you guys are telling a story about a superhero, really, you know, if you boil it down, it's a superhero story, but it's not your typical superhero story. And it's actually hard to write a superhero story when you're not working for DC or Marvel. I don't think people take him as seriously. I don't think that they're like, if I'm gonna read a superhero story, I might as well just read, you know, Spider man or Batman or, you know, Superman. They're like, but this does something differently for me. And I think that's a big reason why being at dark horse and having their. Them as your publisher, uh, gives you some freedom to do whatever you want. You don't have any backstory, uh, that you have to, like, continuity wise, you have to stick to. And you guys were able to tell your own story and put a spin on it that made it unique. And I think that's big in comic books right now, that there's a lot of the same. Even in horror comic books and all that stuff, it's just the same thing being turned out with different filters on it. This is different, and I love that about it. That's the number one thing I love about it, honestly.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: Well, thank you. Um, yeah, I think, know that was also, you know, one of our goals is to create, you know, a character or a group of characters that felt unique and genuine to us.
And we. We very much inserted our own family into this book. The mother character is literally our mother.
So she doesn't own a gun, but.
[00:27:33] Speaker C: She does drink a lot of coffee.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: So we wanted to bring that sort of authenticity to this and not make it, like, characters who have to just, like, who suit up. And it's a satire of this. We love the boys. We're obsessed with minor threats, of course, but, you know, again, we wanted to kind of, like, bring our sort of experience and journey into this, and I think, you know, and, like, again, I like the mother character, who I love, because we have to love. It's our mother. You know, she's also.
We don't have to.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Well, you have to say you do on tv or podcast. You have to say it out loud. You do.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: We do. We do. We love you, Liz.
But, yeah, and, like, we added in, like, into the backstory of this character that, you know, she's also a cancer survivor, which our mother is. And so, you know, there are certain elements like that that we're hoping that, you know, sort of differentiates us a little bit.
Yeah.
[00:28:39] Speaker C: And, like, the character in the book, our mom is not afraid to say what's on her mind at all.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: No.
[00:28:45] Speaker C: She literally is the female version of Larry David.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. She drinks a lot of coffee.
[00:28:52] Speaker C: Oh, I'm not kidding. I think she might drink, like, eight cups a day.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: More. More.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: I just spoke earlier about having to drive from. From Massachusetts back up to Maine, and I was, like, had way too much coffee, and I had, like, an upset stomach to the point. Like, I drink quite a bit of coffee, but I was like, I don't know what it was. I didn't eat or whatever. And it was like an espresso, like one of those cans of Starbucks espresso. And it was just like. I was like. I was like, oh, my God. I haven't felt like this since I drank too much the last time.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: You're in New England. Why isn't it, Duncan?
[00:29:23] Speaker A: I I make coffee at home. There's that there. I don't. But. But I will say the. I don't like busyness of people. Like, I don't like going into stores and, like, restaurants. I mean, like, oh, my God, it's packed in here. And every Starbucks or every dungeon in New England has a line, and every. You know, there's no. And I have also. This is not just the duck Adornas problem. This is a problem with fast food in any restaurant. Customer service has gone, like, drastically downhill in the past ten years or five years, to the point where you stand at the front counter and nobody even says hi to you for five minutes in there. So I don't like going in. But when you go to a gas station, you can buy the espresso in a little can from Starbucks, which is a lot better than any pre made duck and dark brand.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: I just like going into Starbucks to see what name they'll put on my cup, because it's never my name.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: I always thought that no matter where you guys are, what's going on, they always just write the Berkowitz brothers on everything.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: You guys aren't separate people. You are actually one entity, and everything is just the Berkowitz brothers, or most of the time.
[00:30:30] Speaker C: Oh, thanks, Ben.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: See, my family, we like to talk a lot, and that's one of the reasons why I have a podcast. But, like, my older brother likes to talk and then, like, over talk. So, like, he just talks over you and then says, so you can't say anything. So at a family function, it's just like, he's there, and we're all just there, even though we all like to talk. So it's an interesting thing. So, yeah, see, this is a good.
[00:30:51] Speaker C: Dynamic right here in person. I'm the one who talks more than on these zooms. Ben talks so much, but it's okay.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Were you.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Were you mostly on, like, on screen journalism, or was this, like.
So you did talk on screen. You're very good on camera.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:31:09] Speaker C: And also, we did, like, live events, too.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: Where I, like, talk in front of, like, 300 people, and I love it. It just zooms. I don't get it.
I'm just looking at myself the whole time.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: You're like, oh, crap, there's a pimple there.
[00:31:23] Speaker C: Oh, crap.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: They have to touch up my appearance thing on this. But, you know, it's pretty. I don't know how that works, but, you know, you can touch your parents up. You look great.
It's funny how you keep mentioning minor threats. I think that's another, you know, a Patton coming into the industry of comics patent absolutely nothing, saying you guys don't like comic books. But I was. That's one thing I think I always said about people, and they. They judge the whole, why is someone, like Patton doing writing? Comic books. I say that guy loves more comic books, I think, more than I like comic books. And that's like, I, he has multiple facets to his, his career, and comic books are like, if he could just write comic books or be in comic book things, I think it's all he would do, honestly.
[00:32:03] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, Patton and Jordan are just, you know, they're brilliant, and the world they've created is just next level, but, yeah.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Is there a writer? Minor threats, crossover?
[00:32:16] Speaker C: There's going to be, there's going to be a jewish deli.
Minor threats.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: That's the dream we were talking.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: No one says it can't happen. Like, this is like, one of those things that, like, it's not even like you're at two different publishers. Like, they're literally at the same publisher. And so they can, obviously, there's no reason why this can't happen unless they can happen tomorrow, but there's no reason this couldn't happen at some point where you have these characters, you know, show up in minor threats and part of their universe. Now you can do a multiverse episode or issue, I should say. We're planning things here. Don't steal our ideas.
It's out there in the ether now. I can't, can't do anything about it, but, yeah, so comic books must. You mentioned comic books earlier. I wanted to get actually into that, too. Is, like, really quickly. Is that you always been comic book fans, like, since you were younger? Like, you guys are hanging out at home. Would you guys collect comics and read comics as kids, or has this been something, that game later in life or.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: I, so I have always been in the comics. I got Max in the comics. He was very much, you know, more of a sports person. I mean, you can see, like, look, I got my, I got my magneto helmet in my hands right here, you know? Of course you know.
[00:33:25] Speaker C: And downstairs you have the Bob Kane Batman with the signature.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Yep. We have a Bob Kane original printhead downstairs that was given to our parents when I was born.
Yes.
Our family ran a restaurant, and one of the customers gave it to my dad as, like, a little gift.
But, yeah, I mean, we've kind of always been into comics. Like, I remember, you know, growing up, we would, every Friday, we would go to our papa and Nana's house. We would sit in front of the tv while my papa would sit behind us in his chair, and he would draw. My nana would play cards or read a book, and Max and I would be drawing and, like, you know, talking about, like, superhero, Superman Batman.
And that's. And, you know, and that was, I can't even remember, I think, you know, and I still have a comic book I made in first grade.
That's terrible. But, yeah, you know, we've always loved it. And, like, my wife keeps telling me that I need to stop buying action figures.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: They take up a lot of room. I mean, single issues and comic books take up room too, but, like, they're at least flat. Action figures take up space, man.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Like, so much space.
But so I'm surprised my shelf hasn't fallen over. There are, like, it probably will during this interview. So if I sign off, it starts to collapse.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: It's. But there's also a sports member that takes up space too. So, like, it's just, like, some of us have just this collecting, you know, mindset. If it's not one thing, it'll be another. You could be, you know, collecting crack pipes. Who knows?
[00:35:11] Speaker C: Like, is there sports memorabilia in your background?
[00:35:14] Speaker A: There's. There's not. I've got a Mickey Ward signed garden Gnome. I was interview him. I went to, I used to cover the Lowell spinners was one of my teams that I covered as a beat writer. And they did a, Mickey Ward was there signing things and they did a garden gnome night with just Mickey Ward basically with this fist up and it had a garden gnome kind of thing.
Most of my sports memorial is not, I got jerseys over here. I got a mugsy bogue sign jersey and Nate Archibald signed jersey. They're around the corner. But, yeah, I was humongous into sports in the comic books like that. There wasn't very many people that I knew that that crossed over. It was like one or the other. You were a nerd or you were an athlete kind of thing. And having the crossover was big for me. So, yeah, I have a mookie bet sign bat that mookie game used that he gave me when I was covering the spinners to rest in peace to the spinners because the spinners don't exist. Exist anymore. But, yeah, so I have some, but most of it comic book related or beer related because I obviously designed beer labels too. But, yeah, the Mickey Ward thing. I got dog man here from the spinners.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: Oh, nice.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Let's see it. Oh, that's amazing.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: It's got, like, real mustache hair. Like, it's actually, like, furry.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: No, it's not.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: This is a very, like, ultra regionalized. But, like, dog man was the, like, equipment manager or something like that for the spinners for many, many, many years. And he was always the guy that he'd bark rough, ruff rough or walking around dogma. But yeah, I mean, sports is one of those things that, like, it doesn't have that much of a crossover. I do like this ability to have this in this comic book, too, because, like, there is that crossover between the two worlds that there isn't much. But when there is that, it's really cool to me. And maybe that's why not saying that I'm the only one that this comic book resonated with. Hopefully it resonated with a lot of people, but hopefully that's another reason why you have your, you know, your Josh gad, your guys, the jewish folklore, the superhero. There's like so many multiple facets to this comic book that we're in one single issue so far. I mean, obviously, as we recorded this, the second issue has now come out. Hopefully people have read it, but there's so much going on in a good way and it's paced well. And I think that, I think people can get a lot out of it. There's going to be, but I also think it can be polarizing. I think there are going to be some people who just don't like it, which don't visit comicbookroundup.com. that's, that's one thing I will say to people who, who are writers, creators of comic books.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: Just refreshed it again.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that, like, not that our reviews are on there, so I like to have that. But, like, creators should not be reading these things. Cause it's just like, it gets you. So, like, I get depressed in comic books that I like that people don't like. And I'm not even had anything to do with it. I just talk about it and.
Yeah, good.
[00:38:07] Speaker C: You know, you know what Adam Sandler movies, like, they don't have great tomatoes reviews, but we all love them.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Yes, but Adam Sandler's also making millions and millions of dollars to make those movies.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: True.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: So he's feeling good.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: He's sleeping at night on his bed of money, so it's fine.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: I've actually loved, like, you know, there have been like some great responses to the comic book a lot, but I've actually really loved some of, like, the really intensely negative responses to it. I, which, because they pointed out exactly what we wanted them to point out.
So I just, I kind of chuckle and, you know, when I, when I read some of those. But, you know, and I'm also grateful that people are taking the time to give us these like, in depth responses.
So that's. That's also kind of meaningful. Like, you know, if it's bad, if it's good, you know, it's all, it's all great to me. I mean, does it give me, you know, heart palpitations reading, call me every.
[00:39:11] Speaker C: Minute once we get one? Yes.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: You have a Google alert set up for all of them.
It's just funny because it's not.
I don't know. I feel like part of it is there's so much, so many comics out there that to pick up a book that you might not like and read is one of those ones where I'm like, I always feel bad when I'm like, oh, I haven't given a one star review ever before, but it's like, I don't think that I would pick up a book that's a one star review, in my opinion, because I don't think from the outset of reading this synopsis, cover art, all that stuff, that I probably wouldn't even just read it. I just ignore it, whatever. But there is one of those ones that goes from the possibility of being a mediocre comic book to an excellent comic book. And I think that that's where most of my comic reviews lie in there, that spot where it's like, I could have taken it or leaving it or I want more. And I think that the writer definitely fits in the I want more category because I want to know where the story goes and where it progresses and so on and so forth. It can happen the other way, though. It can be so bad that you want to know, like, can they save this? Can they figure this out? Issues two and three to be like, okay, that was just an issue. But, yeah, I think that I also believe in, with things that are serialized like this, where a comic book or a tv show is that you can't judge an entire series based on the first comic book. You guys did set the footing well, I think. I think you set the stage well for what's to come, but I think that you need the whole picture. I think you need at least three or four issues or two or three issues to get into and go, okay, whether you like it or not. So it's kind of hard to judge it on one issue. So hopefully, the people who did not like issue one will pick up issue two or three and go, okay, maybe I'll go back and revisit this in the long run. But I've just too many people where I'm like, you got to watch the Walking Dead. And like, yeah, I watched the first episode. It wasn't very good. I'm like, no, no, you got to watch the first season is only six episodes. Just watch the six episodes, then tell me you don't like it.
[00:41:06] Speaker C: There's so many shows where the first couple episodes are slow, and then it really heats up.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And, you know, and like, do we wish we had, you know, a couple more issues, you know, to flesh out this story?
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:41:19] Speaker C: You mean, you know. Okay.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:22] Speaker C: Pages. Just do some, you know, some comics get more pages per issue.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Yeah. But I will say, though, nowadays that people do shop with their wallets and don't associate pages with cost. And so, like, when you go into a comic book store and it's like 599 for issue one, even though it's a 47 page issue, 50 page issue, they don't, the average comic book purchaser doesn't connect the two dots. Okay. I'm getting two issues in this one book. That's why it's $6. But so a 399 cover price for this first issue, honestly does probably pretty well because someone's like, oh, the only comic books that are cheaper than $3.99 now is Todd McFarland's spawn universe, which is $2.99 just because he's been keeping it that length price forever.
But, yeah, so $3.99 is like, the people were like, okay, that's good. They don't realize that, okay, it's a 22 page issue. It's just the normal going rate or whatever it is. And so having it any higher than that, even if there's more pages, may have not had people purchase issue one, which is a, could be a bad side. So I don't know. It's not, doesn't work equally. It's like a 499 book doesn't always the same number of pages more. So I don't know how that exactly works. But a $3.99 book is a perfect spot in my opinion anyway.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: So, no, and, you know, we would prefer people, of course, you know, buy the physical book.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Because, you know, I always love holding it, but I think it's still going on. There's like an Amazon Kindle special going on for 199 for issue one, you know, just to get people in. I think that's, that's awesome.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, and some people trade wait. Some people will wait for the whole thing to come out and trade paperback. And I think that it's a, that's an understandable thing in my opinion, too. I think, I mean, I do have trades over here as well as, as floppies, but I'm usually the kind of the insane person who buys floppies enough. I really like the book. I buy the trade too, which is.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's how I am.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: And it also works that my wife laughs at me because anything that one of our quotes has been pulled on and put on the back of the book to sell the book. I buy that trade and she's like, you have all the issues. You got the free copies for the review. Why are you buying this? I'm like, because I want to collect it. And they're smart because they just got one extra free, one extra purchased copy by putting our review on the back of the book. And that's all it matters to.
That's what the publisher is thinking. Like, okay, we put this on there. Who's going to buy the book if I put this on the back? Or that guy? Okay, we'll put that on there. You know, one more sale for you guys.
But, yeah, so I get just distracted here and all over the place today, but, yeah. So you are not comic book creators, but now you are. Are you excited now that people have read the book? I did look on the user like, there's the reviews from comic book Roundup that's like the press, and then there's the consumer side of things. And those are all mostly hugely positive. So that's the important thing is the people that are buying your comic book. Are you excited and happy to see people out there who have purchased the comic book that like the book?
[00:44:17] Speaker C: Well, I'm excited that, you know, it's over with. Ben won't be freaking out beforehand. I, because you call me, like, I'm so nervous about the reviews.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: You know, we didn't do it for the reviews. It's just like, all of a sudden it catches up.
[00:44:34] Speaker C: I know, but your first time, you're.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Obviously like, yes, definitely. But I mean, like, yeah, it is the coolest thing in the world to now be able to call ourselves comic book creators. Um, I think almost more so than, um, like, again, we, we love film. We work in film. But I, it, for, for us, it's almost cooler to say we're comic book creators because it's, it's, it's almost harder. It's, it's a, it's a much harder process, really.
And I don't know, at the end of the day, like, even though there's like, maybe less, less money in comic books, it's just like, way more rewarding because of how dedicated readers are like, I think comic book fans are just. Are some of the best and also worst, but some of the best audiences just because they're so passionate. I mean, movie, you know, it's just like, movie and film and tv is just shifting so much now, but comic books are just, you know, there's, like, a tried and true method to them and just, yeah, we. We love readers. We are readers. And this process has just been, like, amazing.
[00:46:00] Speaker C: Well, and I'm going to create baseball cards for comic book writers, you know, with their stats on it, with all the reviews.
[00:46:06] Speaker B: Good work.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: That's amazing. But so we talked about, quickly, as we finish up here, we talked about you two writing this comic. Obviously, you had Josh as a writing partner as well. We touched a little bit on Ariel, but, like, is this something that dark wars connected you with the illustrator, or is this something that you guys knew ahead of time and you did your own work? Because obviously, being newer to the comic industry, it's not like you're just pulling from your catalog of people that, you know, is this something that dark horse helped you out with, or is that.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: That's a really great question.
So dark horse, they were amazing through this whole creative process, and they presented us with a number of, like, brilliant, brilliant artists that were amazing. But for us, we kind of always had this idea that it was Ariel.
I've, you know, I grew up on Ariel's work. I've loved everything he's done.
Brutal nature.
Was that comic book. Just the artwork in that is insane.
And in the second, I think it was the second volume, there's, like, an image of a. Of a dragon flying over the city with these, like, two. This elderly couple. And I was like, oh, my God, this is.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: This is.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: This is our. This is the artist. So I actually dmed Ariel on instagram and sort of gave him this, like, two line pitch. And we had this conversation, like, almost, like, immediately with him and his agent, Delfina, who is also the loveliest human on the planet. And, you know, he was just so passionate about this. He was like, I have to do this story. So we were so lucky and grateful that someone, his talent and level, who can bring, like, a level of, like, mythology and almost, like, biblical nature to his work, to this story.
So it was just, like, the perfect fusion.
[00:48:18] Speaker C: And it's funny, like, he. The way he illustrated some of the men in the comic, it does look like men from Boston in the eighties nineties with the mustaches. Like, our dad had a huge mustache, which is. It's amazing. Like, every guy looks like our dad, and we didn't.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: We didn't even give him that direction, and he just, like, threw a mustache on everyone, which we love.
[00:48:41] Speaker C: It's great.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: It's great.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: That's why it makes a perfect team. You just can read your mind in a sense. Like, it's fine. And I do love that. Ariel's also the illustrator and colorist on it. Like, there. I do. Like, I think there's people out there, just phenomenal colorists of their own, right? And so seeing them as a colorist on a comic book is great, but having that one person, it probably also streamlined them some things, creating the comic book, to have it be like, that person's doing all of that. And then Frank Sinkiewicz, I can always say it's. I never say his last name, but the letterer Frank.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: I don't know if you saw our little Berkowitz brothers video, but I also screwed it up, so Frank is also Frank. We still issue three.
[00:49:22] Speaker C: Say the last math.
There you go.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: There you go. Second.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:49:28] Speaker A: I see that. Because he's also the book that came out last year. Now I'm not going to be able to remember the name of the book.
Lost. Lost boy by.
They're in alphabetical order, so I will be able to find it.
Maybe not.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: Oh, there it is.
[00:49:48] Speaker A: Also from Dark Horse, Lost Boy by J. Martin. Frank did the lettering on this, and this is another one that's always been, like, key to me when I look at a graphic novel and be like, this is a great lettering job, because the true lettering job is one that you notice, but you don't. And I think that's another thing with. With the writer is that I had to look up, like, who is the letterist? Because that's another reason why I. You're going to be like, they did a great job not taking away from the comic book. Also adding a bunch of things to it that made it special in that sense.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: I mean, just like, what Frank, frank, and Ariel, they just, like, they would take our ideas and, like, with Ariel's art, like, you know, we would imagine something as, like, dark and gloomy, but Ariel would totally flip that and, like, make this scene, like, sort of, like, bring these, like, brighten this bright palette to it, which made it even creepier, and I love that. And then with Frank's lettering, I mean, like, he just. He's on another level, and, you know, we really pushed him on this one because of the fact that this is sort of a meta story, and so I think you'll start to see this, like, evolution in the lettering, even. That is really exciting.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: That's so exciting. And I already mentioned Jeremy Hahn with the COVID of COVID issue one. But then issues two and three are different cover artists, right?
[00:51:18] Speaker B: Yes. Matt Smith is issue two, even though I think on the website, it lists Tonsi.
But Matt Smith, who we've been obsessed with because of his work on Hellboydeh, he's also from Boston.
Yeah, it was really hard deciding, because he did this crazy Boston sort of landscape in one version, but we love his cover. That he did, and Jeremy was a genius and got that. We wanted an homage to Jack Kirby's Captain America.
Jack Kirby's a huge influence on this story.
And, you know, Tonsi, who did cover three, I'm obsessed with that cover because, one, I love the daughter character, Izzy, so much. Like, her character really comes out later, and just the swirling of the colors and everything, it just, like, he just nailed that for me. And Ariel's cover just, you know, it's funny, with Ariel's cover on issue four, everyone is like, this reminds me of page master.
And I'm like, you're clearly all millennials, which I love.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah, they're all beautiful. I love that. That side of things, too, because usually there's sometimes people just like, this is the COVID artist, or they do a bunch of variant covers or whatever, but this is just like, you have a different cover artist to the four issues so far, that this is a unique way to bring in a bunch of different artists, too, which is pretty cool.
Yeah.
[00:53:00] Speaker B: And I know Ariel would have loved to have done every cover, which we also would have loved, but it was kind of, I think, important to also showcase all of these different talents. And we were just so grateful that these artists wanted to jump on this unknown book.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: So, yeah, I just. I don't know why. It doesn't say, you know, the Berkowitz brothers and Olaf at the top. That's. That's. That's offensive, I think, to people, friends of those that know. Um, but, no, it's also, like I said, it pulled me in a little bit, having Jeremy Hahn as the art cover artist. So I think that also might be one of those things that, like, nothing against Ariel's work, but, like, to me, that was like, okay, I'm a big Jeremy Hahn fan. I collect a lot of Jeremy Han's covers and comics, and so I. Jeremy's just, you know, a great, great person, and so that helps add that to it.
[00:53:50] Speaker B: Amazing.
He did that cover, which was like a giant skeleton. I forget which book. It was just, like, sitting on a building.
I can't, like, I can't remember which book, but I remember seeing that, and I was like, this. This is our. This is our guy.
[00:54:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I just. The beauty has been amazing. I loved the beauty. And then he did that whole, like, thing during the pandemic where he released that hauntology thing. We had all of his artwork in there, which was phenomenal. And so, like, I don't know, there's just something about his work on red mother. The covers are some of the covers of red mother and stuff. Phenomenal. And so, yeah, he did a black Adam one recently for the night terrors thing, but, yeah, Jeremy's phenomenal, and I do, I appreciate more of his writing recently, too, so it's kind of cool. That's another reason why seeing someone like Jerry Hahn do a cover has always been like, you haven't drawn things in a little while, so it's nice to see you get out there and do something.
Some of these artists who are taking your. Your jobs as writer, I'm just kidding. As writers, they're seeing their artwork back out there is always nice to see that too. It's like, I'm a big Scottie young fan of a stupid freshman Scotty young tattoos, and seeing he just did little giant marvels, whatever they did, in one shot, and he did the COVID in the entire interior in his little baby Marvel characters, and I was just like, that's amazing, because he doesn't do that. And so seeing that out there is pretty cool. So seeing Jeremy's artwork on a cover, again, was like, I like this. Oh, yeah.
[00:55:22] Speaker B: And speaking of tattoos, I know we're, like, limited.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:26] Speaker B: This is, again, just to prove how much of a labor of love I literally got the sword of Moses recently tattooed on my arm in hebrew calligraphy. So.
[00:55:38] Speaker A: So. But the thing about it is that it was a successful comic launch, I think, in my opinion. I don't know the numbers. I don't know any of that stuff. I think it was a great book. Overall, I've seen mostly positive reviews and positive talk and discussion about this. I think it's a multifaceted comic book, like I mentioned. But one of the things is that it has a meaning to it. There's a heart to it. There's a social meaning to it too. Not just a funny book, you know, thing to it. So there's a bunch that goes into it. And so. And this will be always what you two are known for from the beginning, you know, I mean, like, from. No matter what you do, from this point on, it was the co creators of the writer. And so having a tattoo is not crazy. I mean, I have a tattoo of one of my beer can labels that I've done, and someone at work the other day was like, oh, you guys, you have to work here forever. I'm like, not really. I mean, I've been here for seven years. It's part of my history. So the only downside is gonna be, like, if one of my owners of my business, like, says something super racist or sexist or something that, like, makes the company look bad, that's going to be difficult for me. That was my whole. I have Stan Lee right here. And I was like, oh, all that stuff was, like, coming out towards the end there, and I'm like, please make it that he's not a horrible person.
Please don't do that to me. But, yeah, it is a labor love. And getting a tattoo is, you know, I would call him a friend of mine now, Daniel Krauss, who's the author, who also writes comic books, got a whale on his tattoo because he released a book called Whale Fall. It makes sense.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:04] Speaker C: Spent going to cover his whole body.
[00:57:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Maybe we'll convince Josh. I don't think so, but okay, here's my question.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: How does your mom feel about the tattoo?
[00:57:13] Speaker C: Oh, she loves it. She wants to get.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: She wants to sleep now.
That will happen, but I think she does.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: They make ink blocks. You could just get the temporary ones and put them asleep on it. That'd be amazing if she just showed up one day and she had, like, a. You're like, oh, my God. And just all fake. It's all just fake temporary tattoos. And not even good temporary tattoos. They're just like those machines at market basket where you just like, oh, again, another New England. New England call out there saying, market basket. There you go.
[00:57:44] Speaker C: Good deals.
[00:57:47] Speaker A: But, yeah, so the first issue came out in June. We had the second issue dropped, and July 24, then there's a little bit of a gap between now and the next one, which is September 11, I believe. Right. Which. The next one comes out. Which issue? Three. And it's a four issue series or a five issue series.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: Four issues. Yeah.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: So five would have been nice, but.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Five would have been wonderful.
[00:58:12] Speaker A: And then they're talking about price, though. But four issue miniseries also makes the trade not as expensive, usually. So, like, there's that too. You can get people to purchase your stuff. That's the main reason you're trying to make some money. No, you want people to read it. And I think that's a, it's one of those borderline things now. It's whether or not the material is good and the cost is good. I think it's a huge thing.
[00:58:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and yeah, and yeah. We're just so excited. I like, it's funny, like, everyone gets their hands on the physical copy before us, so I, my girlfriend got it.
[00:58:46] Speaker C: Puerto Rico before everyone else. Like, the day before it was released, which is insane. It was at one of the stores there. It was really cool.
[00:58:55] Speaker B: We got our copies like, like almost two weeks later, which is fine. You know, we get it.
[00:59:01] Speaker A: But yeah, this is before, this is the week of Comic Con, so it doesn't make any sense for people. Like, go see you guys at comic. Are you guys going to Comic Con? Are you?
[00:59:10] Speaker B: Yeah, we are going to Comic Con. We have assigning the dark horse booth on Thursday, and then we're doing three panels on Friday.
And one of our panels is at 1230 to 130 with Josh and Ariel.
[00:59:29] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:59:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: Which we're really excited. And then our final panel is with Brian Posain and Nathan Hamillen, which, yeah, it's about, like, new, new comic creators.
So we're super excited for that one as well.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: So we should have said, we should have been like, so Comic Con was amazing, right? Because this comes wonderful, great trip, right?
[00:59:51] Speaker B: Comic Con was terrific. Yeah, Max got Covid, but I feel.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: Like that's the way it works nowadays.
But, you know, it's worth it nowadays. I think with traveling to something like San Diego and doing this and going to San Diego now as creators is probably pretty cool, too, because you guys could have gone, you know, so many times if you wanted to as fans or as people there. But going there as someone who has a book out, that the book's already out so you can sign copies and things like that. I know a number of creators is, like, awesome. My book comes out August 14. That's amazing. I can't, you know, I can't even bring to the convention. And seeing that having you guys do that signing there is pretty cool. And doing all that stuff is a. It's fun. So you guys are comic creators, and I am a very fan, big fan now of it. So anytime I see your names on things now, it's going to be out there. I'm going to be purchasing and grabbing that stuff as well as anything on moving pictures and the small screen as well. I'll keep an eye out for anything going on there. Anything you have to promote for that stuff or is that just, is this what you're promoting right now? Is right now?
[01:00:48] Speaker B: I mean, we've got a lot of things we can't talk about right now.
So, yeah, we're just kind of, like, focused on the writer, you know, this is our baby. And so, yeah, we're just, we're excited to be at Comic Con. This is my first, this is our first time at San Diego. We've done, we've done Wondercon, we've done New York.
So to be there as a creator is just next level. And, you know, it also goes both ways. We're now huge fans of yours, so.
[01:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah, so you have to come up. We've always this, we do it. We do a comic. I put it on a comic show in Maine. So at some point we'll actually have to kind of make kind of cool things, too, is get you get back out east at some point in the future and come out and do that. Maybe when you have multiple comics or even sooner than that, it doesn't matter to me.
So we've talked to people about that, and there's a couple people, like Joey Espysito I was talking about earlier about living in Bath. He's like, yeah, dude, I just drive up and go to it. It's a little different when people are from a certain area and they have to go back to it. But, yeah, I love meeting creators from New England and so on. And so it's nice to see you guys doing living the dream. Honestly, if you guys are sitting there on your couch or on the floor drawing and writing in mind, talking about comics to now actually having a comic book out there that I, like, I.
[01:02:05] Speaker B: Said, I think still sitting on the floor writing and drawing. Yeah.
[01:02:09] Speaker A: So I want to know when the Berkowitz brothers cover is going to come out for one of these things.
Second printing of issue two is going to be the Berkowitz cover.
[01:02:18] Speaker B: Maybe Dark Horse will include it in the trade paperback.
[01:02:23] Speaker A: Ben Bishop from Maine, who does the turtles, working on turtles last Ronin stuff. He has like, a subscription thing that he does sends to his fans. And one of the things he sent out was one of his original comic books reprinted. Like, he went and copied it like staples or whatever, and, like, reprinted it all and sent it out, which was pretty cool. So I actually have a copy of his, like, really drawn comic book. So, hey, you never know. Bonus material in a trade would be great. See little illustrations from, from you two.
[01:02:52] Speaker B: Should we should include, like, a stick figure version in the trade paperback that you can read.
[01:02:58] Speaker A: You just do remarks on it too, for people. Like, draw a little picture on the COVID for extra, extra money or a donation to a charity or something like that. But yeah, no, I appreciate both of you taking time out of your days to come on here and talk about your comic and so much more. Grab the writer. Hopefully it's sold out of your comic book shop, but if it's nothing, grab it off the shelf there, grab issue two, grab it digitally if you missed issue one, and then grab issue two or whatever. Or wait for the trade. Whatever you need to do. But read this book. I really hardly, I really strongly suggest reading this book.
[01:03:32] Speaker B: So, Jeff, Justin, thank you so much. This was the best conversation I've had since I talked to Max, you know, an hour ago.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: So I made your head really big. That's why I said a lot of good things about you. Now you can do the rest of your day with being like, you know, at least one person likes me. No, yeah, exactly.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: Thank, no, but seriously, thank you so much for having us on. And, yeah, please go buy the writer.
[01:03:59] Speaker A: Yes, buy the writer. Exactly. Thank you so much.
[01:04:02] Speaker B: Thank you, Joe.
