Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtites.com I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends at Galactic Comics and Collectibles at galactic comics and collectibles.com this episode is Brandon Montclair talking about writing the new DuckTales series over at Dynamite Entertainment hitting shelves November 6, 2024. We talked DuckTales, we talked the theme song, we talked the animated series, we talked all kinds of things on this episode. But Brandon McClare is also known for comic books like Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur over at Marvel Comics. He also wrote Rocket Girl over at Image, has been an editor in the comic book industry for years. A lot of his properties out there, you would know. So check that out online. But yeah, Brandon came on to talk about DuckTales hitting shelves November 6th at Dynamite Entertainment. Before you listen to this episode though, check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blue sky, threads, all that stuff. Subscribe, rate, review over on Apple and Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts, you can visit our YouTube channel. And for so much more information, reviews, content, all that stuff, check out capes and tights.com but this is writer Brandon Montclair talking DuckTales at Dynamite Entertainment. Enjoy everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. How are you today?
[00:01:24] Speaker B: I'm doing great.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: That's, that's, that's wonderful. I'm, I'm glad to hear it's a little cold. I'm here in Maine and it's a little cold this morning, so I, it.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Turned cold real quick. I'm in New York City and it was nice last week. It was actually hot last week and now it's winter.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: So I, my wife did say that it was gonna be nice on Halloween though, which is kind of interesting. I'm like, I have a three year old and a seven month old and we're gonna go trick or treating. I'm like, that's a great thing that it's not freezing.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Very good.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: It's one of those things being in New England, you're always like, oh, cool, we got a great costume. And then you're like, it's 38 degrees on Halloween. You're like, no one could wear it.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I have a 15 year old and a 7 year old and there's been a lot of bad luck with weather recent years. But, but I'm also in the city, so. And I'm in a very big building now and set part of four big buildings that are a Lot of. My wife works for nyu, so it's a lot of faculty and a lot of kids. So you could basically just stay in those four buildings and, you know, and it takes an hour and a half or two hours to go through them all. So that's. Bad weather isn't the worst thing, but you like to go out and pick around the leaves and stuff like that, Right?
[00:02:28] Speaker A: So it's. It's funny. Yeah. And then yesterday was. We got beautiful, like, New England, you know, falls, and then it gets a one big rainstorm or windstorm, and they all end up on the ground. And you're like, cool. I got like 30 seconds of this beautiful New England weather.
But, yeah, we're not here to talk about the weather. We can do that anytime. We're here to talk about comics. Uh, you know, you're a comic creator, a comic writer. People know you from, you know, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, probably. But when DuckTales was being. Coming. Was being told that I was coming to, you know, Dynamite, I was on cloud nine for this. First of all. First of all, Dynamite's been killing it on these, like, nostalgic, like, just, you know, they just announced Silverhawks with Ed Brisson and the Herculoids, too, right? Yep. And so you've got. And you've got all the other stuff that's come out recently, you know, the Thundercats, things like that. And I was just like, oh, DuckTales. Hell, yeah, DuckTales. So it's funny that every. My son watches DuckTales. He's three and a half years old, and I almost forced it on him for the first time because I was like, you know, I need you to watch this thing that I watched when I was a kid. And you're going to love it.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Don't worry.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: You're absolutely going to love it to be amazing. And at first he was like, I don't know, whatever's going on screen. But then when he realized that that theme song was going to come on, every single time they played an episode, that kid was, like, so happy. And they. Last night we put an episode that had been paused and we're getting ready for bed, whatever. I'm like, hey, watch a little bit of TV while I finish up getting your sister ready and stuff like that. And it started after the theme song. That kid was pissed. He's like, what happened to the theme song?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: I wanted to dance.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: And so he. I had to restart the episode and things like that. But DuckTales, man, like, that. I think it's one of them. First of all, I think it's one of the most iconic theme songs to it, to a television show in history. I do think it has this nostalgic feel to it. It has this amazing multi generational, I think, like it could be a kids thing, it could be an adult thing. I think there's all that wrapped into one thing here with doing ducktales.
Was this a life? Like, was this a thing that you really were just into with DuckTales prior to being signed on as the writer for this series?
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Definitely. But first, not to, you know, not good, underplay the song's significance. The song actually drives me a little bit crazy.
So I was, I think I, I worked it out. I was 11 years old when that came out. I. Or 12. 12. I think I was just turning 12. And so you think that's the perfect age, but at that it almost seemed like a little too young because I was more used to E. Man. And yeah, we're talking like Silver Hawks and Thundercats and the stuff that other stuff that some of, some of the other titles that Dynamite's bringing in and GI Joe, of course, and Transformer and all the obscure stuff too. But so, but I still watch it because you watched everything, you know what I mean? And DuckTales is a really well put together show and it kind of holds up. It's a lot easier to watch that stuff now with my own kids than it is maybe a He man episode, which are cool and a special place in my heart, but maybe aren't as well put together. Right. If that makes any sense.
But that song always annoyed me. Annoyed me when I was a little kid.
Annoyed me when I was a little kid too. But now that I work on this book, it's not just guys like us with, you know, you look at behind us, full of comics and toys and a million other things, but literally everybody. You could be a dentist. And I'm waiting online to pick up my, my 8 year old and you know, you say, oh, what are you doing? Oh, comics. Oh yeah, I'm doing a DuckTales book. That's the new project that's coming out. And they'll start singing the song or they'll at least sing Woohoo at the end.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: And so it is. It is an iconic song, you're right. And a part of the series, very much so. And as much as it made me cringe when I was little, I said, oh, I gotta, I gotta make sure I incorporate even some elements of the song as much as you can into the book here and there, you know, little things here and there. You know what I mean?
[00:06:18] Speaker A: So you were to hate my variant idea. My variant idea was the idea that, you know, like, you have the greeting cards that you open up the greeting card and it plays a song. I was like, what about some store, store exclusive that you opened up the issue and it played the theme song.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that. That'd be. That would be a nightmare for me. But probably people would like it. A lot of people do that. Like, they. You know, they'll. They'll put it with a. They'll do a pressing, right? They'll put an LP in with, like, a fancy edition. So they can do a. They can do, you know, the. An old version of the theme song. Yeah, exactly. I just. It was.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: It is one of those things that if you love it or hate it, you know, exactly. When it comes on, what is about to come on, you're gonna see Uncle Scrooge. You're gonna see, you know, Huey, Dewey and Louie, like, those guys. Like, the whole. The show itself is one of those ones I, you know, with other ones, Chip and Dale, all those ones. And back in that era of cartoons, and it's coming back, it's not just Dynamite. Like, Dynamite is doing a great, dynamite job and bringing these nostalgic characters, but it's just like, we all live in a world of nostalgia right now. And there's some things where it's like, you feel like they're beating a dead horse, but then there's some things that just make so much sense. And, uh, my buddy Joey Esposito is writing the two issues of the Sesame street comic.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: And I thought the same thing, and I was like, well, okay, Sesame street comics or whatever. But my son at three and a half years old was enamored by the idea that he had Sesame street comic book he could give. He loves Spider man, but for some reason, there's no connection between Spider man comics. In Spider man, the character he sees on, like, Amazing Spider man and his friends or whatever.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: You know, I mean, like, he sees it and he knows it and whatever, but he's like, screw the comic. I want to know these guys. But, like, when I got. When I brought home the Sesame street comic book, he was so, you know, enamored by it. I feel like the same thing on November 6th when this. When this series hits, it's the same thing going to be, I think, where he's going to be like, oh, DuckTales. I see that and see the comic and See that? And for me it gets two issues sold for you. Because I'll buy one, my collection and I'll give him one to destroy and that will be that. You know, that's a good thing. It's like a children's movie for theaters. You always get the adult ticket and the kids ticket.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: This one you might actually get the sale of. Adult sale and a kid sale on this.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah. And that being said, you know, and I'm sure you're going to say nice things about it, but I hope every adult who reads it likes it because it's not, you know, I take all ages to mean all ages, you know, it's I. So I think if you watch the Simpsons, the Simpsons, you can watch it with a kid even. You said you have a three year old, I'm sure you could watch the Simpsons. And how much of it is the 3 year old not going to even get? But they're happy because it's funny things going on on the screen and it's, you know, some loud stuff going on and you know, and you're laughing and they're laughing. So Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, you know, and not even so much like a family book because it's, you know, you try to put some humor in there, you try to put some subversion in there, but something that an adult can have a different perspective on and read. I've tried to bring that to DuckTales also. I think any kind. I work a lot now in, you know, for younger readers and stuff like that, whether it's little kids or tweens or young adult to really make it appealing to everybody. So, you know, it's, it's not going to be like the books you maybe get, you know, that are like primary, right. For school where like where they teaching you how to read or write or lessons or stuff like that. It's a really good story, you know, but so is the cartoon, right? So that kind of tone we try to preserve for everyone to do it. But you know, and as you say, everyone's worried about kids and you know, they're distracted by their devices or they have video games or they have so many other things. What are the time for comics? I've always found that kids love comics and if you have a comic book sitting around, every single kid, all the boys, all the Girls, whether they're 5 years old or 15, are going to wind up picking it up and reading it. So it's. Yeah, I'm pretty excited to be working in comics with DuckTales. Not just for the nostalgia of DuckTales, but just because Uncle Scrooge has been around for so long and such an important character, you know, it was bigger here in the 50s and 60s and 70s, but internationally is still such a huge character. Like Uncle Scrooge is like, you know, as big as Spider man, as big as Batman. If you're in Belgium or if you're in France or if you're in the Netherlands, or if you're especially in Italy where all the artists who are working on not just DuckTales but a lot of the dynamite Disney stuff, it's like there's still huge viable properties, all of them, but especially Uncle Scrooge is kind of like top dog. So even just from a comic and comic storytelling point of view, you know, we consider, you know, the teams, me and editor Nate Cosby and Tommaso Ronda is the artist and kind of like in the legacy of Carl Barks and Don Rosa and all these great cartoonists who work on Uncle Scrooge and Huey, Dewey and Louie that we want to bring to DuckTales.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.
It's a book that can be read all ages. I think there's one of those missed conceptions that all ages or ones that say that this is middle grade or young adult or whatever, whenever they say a certain label to it that some people are like, oh, that's for that age only. And not specifically like though that age is the minimum of what we want people to rereading these things. Like, you know, when someone says it's a, you know, you know, ages for 13 enough, they immediately just think 13, 14, 15, 16 right around there. And it's like, no, a 75 year old person can read this.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And yeah, it's so hard to tell too. Not that many people pay attention to the ratings on Marvel DC comic books, but Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur was rated teen. You know, it was like the last thing it was. It's like, you know, it's like because teens are kind of hard because they want, they want what they want, but it's definitely for kids. And then I said, well, the adults can like it also, but you know, it's just a marketing thing. So if we put anything other than teen on, if we put, you know, all ages or something, no one will buy it. So, yeah, it's like, it's. Yeah, I don't know how much of that stuff even makes sense to the people putting it together, but you know, to me it's, you know, A lot of people will see will remember the familiarity of Indiana Jones when they're looking at the old DuckTales cartoon.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: And obviously you had, you know, a couple of the Indian Jones movie. The third one, I guess, would have been coming out also, so. And they're looking for treasure. There's booby traps and ancient gold mines and all this other stuff. So it has that Indiana Jones flavor very much in the cartoon. But, you know, both Lucas and Spielberg have always been very open about how much they loved the old Uncle Scrooge comics when they were kids and how much that influenced them doing Raiders of the Lost Ark. So, yeah, it's like, you know, kind of just like a big adventure story also. And, you know, as much as you. The first time you watched Raiders of the Lost Ark or any of the other ones, at least in my opinion, you like them just as much now. Right. So I think it really is a good adventure story that you can, you know, read by yourself. You can read with someone young. You can give it to someone young. It kind of serves all masters, hopefully.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: And obviously you mentioned earlier, like, I am going to say some good things about it, mainly because I do like it. That's one of those things that, like the benefit we get about talking on these podcasts. I don't work for a big corporation who is like, you got to talk to Brandon. He's, you know, got a new comic coming out. You got to talk to him. I get to talk to people who I actually want to talk to, and that's a benefit. And because I like the stuff that they do and so on and so forth. And so, yes, there is that nostalgic feel to it. But there is a story in there. There's a story that actually gripped me that goes from page to page. It's just not just like, oh, this is nostalgic. This is a fun little romp back. Because if it was just that, you'd buy issue one, and that's it. You buy issue one, you'd get that nostalgic. You check that box office is cool. And you might not buy 2, 3, 4, or 5, you know, like those extra issues, because you're like, okay, I'm tired of it. There has to be some sort of meat on the bones to actually make it more than just I. My day job is doing beer cans for a brewery, and all I need to do is that one static image on a can that's like an homage to something. There's some sort of throwback to something.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: And that checks the box, if they don't need to have any meat to it. Because the me is, I get you to buy the can. It's cool, whatever. You drink the beer, and then it's over with. You have to sell the next couple of issues. And so. And plus, you're telling a story. This is not just artwork. You're also telling an actual story. And so, yes, there's meat on the bones there. There's fun stories. It has the feel of the original cartoon, but you have your own twist on it. There's not just this. You know, you're not taking stories and adapting them from the first episode of the series and putting them into comic book form. This is news stories. This is great stories. And you have that main story that's going in the background, and then the. Then. Then Uncle Scrooge telling tales in this, too. And the artwork's different, which is cool, too. It has that feel of a throwback, like you show a different style of artwork so that people can tell, this is not a current story. This is a previous story.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we're doing a lot of stuff. So, you know, like I said, because the first issue and the first five issues will all take place in Duckburg, I wanted to do that because it's such a cool location, like Gotham is for Batman. You know, Duckburg is. It's already that way. Really make it a feature of the series. And, you know, and it kind of reverses the expectation, right, because Donald. Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and Huey do. And Louie, they can travel through time, let alone going to a foreign continent they go to with aliens. There's other dimensions. There's all kinds of crazy, wacky stuff going on. So it was a bit of like, let's turn it around and keep it on Duckburg, because I think Duckburg can be very interesting. And the idea being like, oh, you know, you don't have to travel all around the world. You can go outside. And issue two takes place in the local movie theater, and there's a mystery behind it and kind of the history of it. But that being said, you said, well, you have to have the flavor of, you know, like I said, foreign lands and kind of exotic locales and alien stuff and all that goodness. So, like you said, we have some flashbacks where Uncle Scrooge is kind of, you know, sometimes they're begging him to tell a story. But then I think the idea is that, you know, he really wants to tell all these stories anyway. Like, you don't have to ask him too hard to Set them off. And then those were like, you know, those are flashbacks and those are taking place in the different eras and they're part of a younger Uncle Scrooge. You get to focus on some of the bad guys in that in the first few issues because really it's just focusing on, you know, what I call the core four, right, which is a Huey, Dewey, Louie and Scrooge. But yeah, but we're doing those in the old eight panel grid, you know, Karl Barks style. And, you know, I'm sure you saw a digital format of. It's sometimes hard to tell the colors, but like, certainly in the printed one, it's, you know, it's much, much older flatter colors, a little bit like a grainier type of, you know, newsprint feel that you want to go for it in the storytelling. There'll be stuff like thought balloons that you don't see much in comics anymore and things like that. Using it to have a bit of a throwback feel. So there's a lot of good comic booking, if I do say so myself, I guess.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely. There's more. You can tell his thought going into it. Like we mentioned off the top that you must obviously have known the characters. You know, whenever someone complains about someone writing something that's based on an intellectual property of someone, they're like, oh, you know, they just got hired to it. Like, they wouldn't have hired you to do it if you didn't have at least some sort of knowledge about Huey, Dewey and Louie. And, you know, in, you know, DuckTales in general, you wouldn't have been, you know, on this project if not. So you have these stories that basically you probably want to tell too, but you have a care and a love for what you're telling. You're, you're, you're professional, first of all, you're not just this person doing this on the side. And so you're trying to put out the best possible product. But doing this as your, you and your creative team here doing this special stuff that makes it feel different. Like I said, I feel you flip the page and you start telling that story and you feel like you open some hand you a different comic and you're reading a different comic for a.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Couple of days, that's exactly what it is. It's like it's the comic within the comic, so to speak. I like stuff like that.
But yeah, no, definitely, you know, I, you know, if it went back, the first kind of major book I did was Rocket Girl for Image, which was obviously Image Comics, is all creator own stuff.
So that was cool to be able to do that. And then at Marvel is basically, they said, hey, we like what you're doing on Rocket Girl. Why don't you come and talk to us about doing something? I'd done a little bit of Marvel work also, but that turned into, you know, it started with Devil Dinosaur, just Devil Dinosaur, and then it became obviously Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, really the feature character of it once that was developed. But even that is kind of a reinvention, you know, because Devil Dinosaur, we treat a little differently. And you know, all due respect and love to Jack Kirby, he only got nine issues out of devil dinosaur, we got 50, you know what I mean? And still going around doing and everything else. So it's. But Moon Girl, as much as she's a huge part of the Marvel universe, it was another original character, by and large, especially how you approach it writing because, you know, you had to both make it interesting, but also establish and kind of give, you know, now it's at a point where other people, whether it's for the cartoon or she appears in a book, or if there's a new miniseries or a new spin off or new ongoing series, as that stuff comes out, other creators can kind of use it. But, you know, with DuckTales, it's like, oh, I don't have to. There's nothing needs to be changed. You know, it's. So I take, you know, and I have no. Maybe if I hadn't been able to do my own thing, I'd be like, oh, what's my new take on DuckTales? What can I do to make it different? What can I do to change it? Or it's like, no, like I said, you know, if you like the old ducktales, you're going to like the, you know, Brandon's and Nate's and Tommaso's ducktails also.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Because it's, it's just that kind of, you know, it's. It is that you love it and it is. I mean, I guess if I, if. I mean, I'm in a nice enough position in life that if I didn't want to do this book, I wouldn't do it. You know what I mean? I wouldn't, I wouldn't be on it. But, you know, so there is a love. You could certainly say that. And it's probably necessary for me to like, take this kind of gigantic, but it's really that it's not necessary to change anything. They're Such great characters. They worked before even DuckTales came out. And then DuckTales. Like, we just spent so much time in the beginning talking about just the song and how well that works and how much people remember all the cartoons. So. Yeah, so. So as a writer, I think it's. It's. You don't want to change it. You know, obviously, you're going to have your own take on it. As much as there's been tons of even ducktale comics in addition to Uncle Scrooge, you're still going to do your own comic book storytelling on it and stuff like that. And so. Yeah, and it's not like I. I'm itching to redo, you know. Oh, wow. I wish I could take Glomgold and make him something else. You know what I mean? It's because he doesn't work as, you know, what, you know, as a Scrooge double, you know. No, it's perfect to have that. He's the Venom to. He's the Reverse Flash to Uncle Scrooge. So it's just such great stuff to work on, and it's just so much fun. It reminds me of being a little kid and you had, like, Star wars figures, right? Or you had a bunch of Transformers and you would just kind of move them around in your own adventure. So that's. And that's what it feels like to me.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: That's. That's insane. So you obviously watched some of them as a kid. We mentioned that. But did you go back and watch, like, all 100 episodes of the original series before you did this, or was this.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I got the good advice from the editor that said, you know, you don't. You don't have to watch them all. Like, you know, and maybe you shouldn't.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: And I kind of, you know, if you've been in this business long enough, you kind of get what he's saying. Like, don't be too slavish to it. Don't. Because then you can get kind of lost in all of it. So I did watch a bunch, and I still watch bunch, certainly not all 100, because I tend to watch, you know, maybe, you know, depending, you know, maybe I'll go a week without watching, and then another week I'll watch three or four or five or whatever, you know, and, yeah, it's. It's so. So, yeah, the answer is somewhere in between. Right. I certainly didn't say, well, I'm not going to watch it. Not to be influenced, because some people can get in their heads. That's not me. I can watch this stuff and try to forget about it, but I do like to watch it to keep up with. It's so ingrained in little Brandon's head, the voices that I didn't have to say, well, how am I going to. How do they speak? What do they do? Type of stuff. And it's very hard to move any spoken, like, any spoken dialect. So any movie or TV show into comics is very tough to do voices with because you just. There's. You have so many literally less words to work with. You know what I mean? If you. If you wanted to translate, if you just took a script from, you know, the GI Joe episode and turned it into. Just for the amount of speaking, you would have 20 pages of just, you know, dialogue balloons, obviously. So there is an economy just technically to doing it, so you have to kind of reduce it. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's been done by Karl Barks. It's been done by Don Rosa. Mark Wolfman had a long run writing duck tales also. So, yeah, there's plenty of stuff you can kind of lean on. I didn't really need to, though, because for whatever reason, it was already stuck in my head. But watching the cartoons has been fun, and sometimes it gives. Like I said, the second issue is in a. Is in a movie theater. I kind of always had the idea. So what I did was I don't want to, like, I don't want to take anything from the cartoon by accident or offended. You know what I mean? Like, continuity wise, offended. So I just did like a Google search and said, oh, is there a Duck Berg movie theater? And it's the Scrooge Rama Dome. I said, screw, Drama Dome is a better name for a theater than anything I could come up with and let me watch that episode. And they were having, like, a movie monster marathon, you know what I mean? And so I kind of had an idea always to do a kind of Phantom of the Opera. So it's the Phantom of the Screw Drama Dome is issue number two. And yeah, it was. It was. It, like, made it. So in that sense, I was able to take that and I wanted to do a. It's hard to say, would I have done the movie theater anyway or did I watch that episode? And then I said, now I definitely can do it, but I didn't take really anything except the name. And I was. They had the monster movie, so I'm gonna put that in the book because that's cool, too. So, yeah, it's. It's pretty Casual, you know, but there's a lot of. You know, I would say they're Easter eggs, except I'm not placing them like Easter eggs. It's not like little mods and winks. It's just. But if you're, if you are the super fan who, you know, who watches every year you go through a cycle of all hundred episodes, you'll see a lot of correlation there too.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: I just, I'm just picturing someone being like, okay, it's time, guys. Let's just put on DuckTales. Let's watch all hundred. There are people. I will say that to me, it's more of a. That nostalgic. It's in the background. I'll watch it. My son's watching it. That enjoyment that. The enjoyment I'm going to get now as an adult is reading something like your comic because it's a new story. It's, it's. It's in a format. I've always said to people why I love adaptations or different takes on IP is that you can't just sit in front of a TV all day as much as kids and everybody think they want you or I want to watch movies all day or whatever. It's like, it's just not possible. So like, to me, you know, taking intaking my media in based in comics and books and audio books and audio podcasts and movies and TV shows, there's just time for everything. Because I can, I can sit at night with the light off while my son's falling asleep and read my iPad and so I could, I could sit there and read the, the preview I got of DuckTales and. But I can't watch a movie or I can't, you know, like those kind of things. And so having an ability to take this fun show that I watched as a kid and to be able to read it in a new format, you know, written by, you know, comic writers and things like that is phenomenal. I love it. And the artwork looks so similar and that's as cool too. It's like Tommaso phenomenal job on the artwork, making it so that I feel like the characters jumped off the screen and into the comic book. But also slightly different enough to make it so okay. Thrown their own touch on it. It's not exactly from the TV show.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I've only interacted with him so far through the editor, you know, so because he's in Italy, I don't know. His English is good. Is bad. I don't even know I had the experience.
Natasha bustos who was from Spain and lives in Spain for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. And it takes a couple of issues. I had worked briefly with Natasha before, and I had recommended her for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. So I was a little bit. I like to work with the artist, you know, whenever possible, as closely as possible.
So Tommaso, there's been like, that filter. But these guys, he works in a studio and they do a lot of Disney stuff for Panini for the European market. And Disney, like, keeps stuff very separate, right? So, like, that stuff even, like, they don't. They say, well, we'll keep the European stuff in Europe. We'll keep the American stuff in America. You keep our DuckTales is 1987 only, like, don't bring anything in from 2017 reboot and stuff like that. So there's that, like I said, that bit of a filter. So, you know, I saw. Write a script and, you know, I'm sure, you know, the editor knows what he's doing and Disney and Dynamite know what they're doing, so I'm sure it'll be fine. But I wish I could kind of just see and be sure and look at it. But then I saw, like, the first preview pages and stuff coming in, and it was so good. It was so unbelievable. There was nothing, you know, that was.
That didn't not just follow what I kind of saw in my head to make sure that the story works. And as a writer, you can get too precious and you have to be able to step aside for that. But what you really want and what I 100% got was somebody who gets it but makes it better, you know, and because they're visual storytellers, of course they can make it better. If they could draw it. If they only drew it as well as I could see it in my head, then there's no. There's no reason to have an artist, you know what I mean? Or I would be an artist, you know, so, yeah, so it's. It's so good. It's got so much of a love of Golden Age and the history of cartooning, but so much of a love for just like the kind of Disney style also just ducktales proper. But like I said, this just cartooning and storytelling is so fantastic. It's. And some of these covers that they're putting on them are just so unbelievable. And Dynamite does like, you know, they're not shy about.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: That's what I was gonna say. You're gonna get. You're gonna get your perfect number of.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: COVID probably seen yeah, I've probably seen 15 or 20 covers just on, you know, just on a few issues that are done so far. And it, it is so good. And there's such a passion project, you know, for so many people. Because I think, like I said, Uncle Scrooge being so big in the European market and with a lot of European artists working on it, Italian artists working on it, they are bringing their A game and it's. I'm so incredibly lucky. I've worked on, with great artists. I worked, I think on great looking books and this is as good as anything I've ever worked on as a writer or an editor. And I've worked on some good books.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, you have. And so the other part I love about it is that DuckTales is an intellectual property. It's been around for a number of years. There are people that you mentioned that probably do watch all 100 episodes in a year. There's these die hard fans who have T shirts and tattoos and all that stuff. But they're also probably not nearly as diehard as some of the other properties you could be writing.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: You know what I mean?
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Like if you were taking on a Star wars comic or Star Trek comic or something like that and doing that, there's a little bit more people are like yell at you and scream at you on the Internet because you did something. I really hope there's not anybody out there being like you screwed up Scrooge McDuck like that, that side of things. I hope that there's, that, that there's a level headedness to this fandom between DuckTales.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't. Yeah, you're right, I haven't seen that. But I think, I mean there are some. Aren't there like crazy Lilo and Stitch fans aren' There's.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Yes, there are some.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: There's not. Just the kind of teen boys of the 70s and 80s and 90s stuff that I think people feel passionate about. I think there's some other things. But yeah, you're right. DuckTales is universal enough, but not so. But no one, you know, no one demographic owns it. So and so passionate. You know what I mean?
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Because I've talked to people who write Star wars and such. I'm having Stephen Barnes on in a couple of weeks who just wrote a new Mace window book. And I was like talking to those people it they writing stuff and people were like, you screwed up the entire world of my life because of this thing. And it's, it's because in their head they wrote Their old Star wars movie. You mean, like, in their head, they're like, the sequel trilogy should have been this, and you didn't make it that way, and so therefore it sucks. And that. That's not how it should be. It should be like, you know, I. I probably could have, you know, watched all 100 episodes of DuckTales and created my own, and, like, oh, it'd be kind of cool if they did this. But in the end, when you told your story, it's not like your story sucks, because it wasn't what I had in my head. And I hope that's what people in there reading this comic book go. There's not this fan clubs out there just boycotting Dynamite now because you ruined your childhood.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's. It's. It's. Well, you know, I don't think anybody should ever take anything too far. It's not a hard thing to say, you know, and I've gotten. Not that I had, you know, anything to do creatively, but when I was at work at dc, I was an assistant editor there under Bob Schreck and then Karen Berger. So I worked on some cool books, which I was regular Batman for a while, but that was all, like, kind of really cool, awesome special projects. And then I worked for him, Bob Schreck again, and Karen at Vertigo. So I did books like Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth, did the Hellblazer for a little while. I did Day Tripper, which was a. Which was a great book. I did Paul Pope's Batman Year 100. I did all Star Superman, but I also did All Star Batman, and that got some of it right. Some people were like, oh, you're. You know, Batman would never be like this. Why is he doing. Why is he treating Robin that way? Why is he the goddamn Batman? It was, you know, it had nothing to do with. I can.
I can talk about it now at ease, because I wasn't telling Frank Miller and Jim Lee. Right. So it's like that was the story they wanted to tell.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: And I love. I love All Star Batman. You know, it's like All Star Superman is such an iconic book, and it's going to be. A lot of it's in the movie, and everyone's read it and, you know, sold copies in every single format all over the place. So that was a very fun book to be an assistant editor on. But I love All Star Batman so much. And I. And I use this example a lot, too, because as much as I make a point that when something ain't broke. Don't fix it for me. Like, and I try not to put myself into it. And you put your own kind of experience in your basket of skills into anything. But I don't feel like it's a writer's job to reinvent something or insert themselves. Right. But there's a lot of material out there, and creators out there who do that and are great. If we did, if someone never thought that way, we'd have the cowboy Ghost Rider, you know what I mean? The white on white on white, instead of that really awesome motorcycle dude with the chains and the hellfire and the flaming skull. So, you know, and like, I said devil dinosaur, you know, he was basically just a dinosaur eating other dinosaurs and cavemen on Dinosaur World. But we said, oh, well, we got to kind of make them. Put them in the modern world. Give him a. You know, make him basically Clifford the big Red Dog. He's the big red dinosaur and really someone just for a moon girl to bounce off of. So there is a place, I think, and there are certainly a lot of successes that we all like when something's been reinvented.
But, you know, if you're worried about DuckTales being reinvented, that's not. It's like I said, I think I speak for all the creative teams and the public. Sure, yeah. That it's such a perfect property. It's such perfect characters that you don't even like. To me, you know, the only reason you'd want to change it is if you're contrary and say, well, there's no reason to change it, so I'm going to change it. And I guess, you know, I can kind of. I can get into that mindset sometimes. But, no, this is stuff that's really great and. And works so well.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: I mean, one of those ones that reminds me of is Deadpool. I mean, you know, Liefeld created Deadpool. Completely different than what people are seeing when people watch the movies and things like that nowadays and see the Deadpool and younger generations see that and read that like, oh, this is amazing. That's not how it was originally created in the comic book. So there's been times where even people who create a character potentially retool the character and things like that. But you're right, it's like one of those things that, like, don't. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Those kind of things can. Can work. And who knows? I mean, you're. I mean, is this scheduled to be an ongoing series? Is that the plan? Is that. Yes.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So they kind of. It's a lot. I'm actually kind of on board and okay, let's plan out the first 12 issues for a year. But being thinking that's an ongoing. When I did Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, I never had 12 issues, like I said in front of me. Like, you never knew what was going to happen with it. So.
So, yes, it is ongoing. Like I said was the first year of stuff's going to go out as far as what issue number 13 is going to be, that'll be dictated by kind of the direction and the response to the. You know, we won't be thinking about that for another few months at least how people respond to the format. Because the first five issues, it's interesting because, you know, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur obviously was a monthly Marvel book, just like every Marvel book's been for 50 years. But it really only reached its audience as a collected edition. It sold a ton through Scholastic Book Fairs, if people remember those as a kid, and then through, obviously Amazon and Barnes and Noble and comic shops, but comic shops as a trade paperback.
So I have a feeling that, you know, DuckTales, as much as I want everyone to buy every single copy and cover of number one and number two and number three and number four and enjoy it, I think it's going to reach its audience also when it gets collected. And I think, you know, even I don't speak for the publisher, but they. The reason they're doing all this Disney books and they're getting great reviews is fantastic. And I think that makes you think, oh, my God, when it's collected because, you know, not a lot of people have access to single issue comics. Not a lot of people even, even if you can get on the, on the computer, not a lot of parents are thinking, I'm going to pay for a new monthly 22 and then come back in a month. They're going to wait for it to be, you know, 1499 or whatever it is and collect it and be able to press a button and get it on Amazon or get in the library and take it out and borrow it and stuff like that. So in that format, the wisdom has always been, and it makes sense that kids like longer stories. So let's.
It's a lot harder to write, at least for me, 100 a single. The 22 pages, 110 pages of the first five issues of DuckTales, and you have to do them in 22 page chunks. I actually got two extra pages for issue one. So I guess it's 112 pages. It's a lot easier to write 112 page story than it is to write five 22 page stories. And it's, and it's. For me it's something. Some people are not this way. But for me, if I could do five totally separate unrelated, single one offs like, like a cartoon episode. Well, this time it's, it's. They gotta save Christmas because it's the Christmas episode. Next time they're going, they're in a submarine and they're looking for sunken treasure and stuff like that. I can kind of come up with that quick and be over and done with it and not have to put the thread of a long story through everything.
So the first five issues go together is a long way of saying that the first five issues are one big story that goes together. Issue six is a standalone, I think, you know, seven and eight and stuff like that are going to be standalone also and we'll see how people respond. I kind of like the episodic nature where it's just one and done all the time. It gives you some flexibility, lets you do kind of special things you can tie into an event or a holiday or a mood or just a wacky one off or stuff like that. So, so we'll see. And where we kind of land if it's a mix of both or if we do like a, like a Moon girl and devil dinosaur. We needed to do big stories, but because it had to be monthly and you needed kind of the art team on that needed to be there need to be breaks. It took us a very long time to get to, okay, Natasha does a five issue story and then we'll do a special one issue. And we used Ray Height and we used Gustavo D and we did some cool stuff. But it took almost like 30 issues to get to that pattern. And then Natasha had a baby and then, so she was on maternity leave and Alita Martinez took over as the main artist and then, then we're wrapping up the series for us and everything else. So we, so as soon as we hit that stride, which took a couple of years, it was, it was then the show was over. So hopefully, hopefully we'll get into some kind of pattern on DuckTales sooner rather than later. But if it's, if it's up to me, it'll be leaning on kind of one off stories because it's a little easier and more it lets me do, to be honest.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it gives you some freedom, some flexibility on that too. And I do think the collected Addiction thing is as smart as. You're right on the nose there with that because my buddy who owns the comic book shop that I go to has sold like billion of the Lilo and Stitch, you know, collected edition trades.
And he. We. I think he has all of the issues still in backstock for all the single issues, but he's flying through the trades on that. And it's the same thing as anybody who's reading Leatherland Stitch and they're trying to get that demographic is wanting that full story. And honestly, it's a hardcover, which is also awesome for the Lil and Stitch one, which is like, you know, durable in that sense too, which makes sense. But yeah, the trades are for young, Younger, younger generation are great too. And I think it's the collectability in the single issues. You mentioned all the different covers and a lot of stuff. That's where the. You're gonna get that buying power on that one is the people who are willing to buy the 1 in tens, the 1 in 25s, those kind of things. And then hopefully you'll sell a bunch of trades too, because again, that. That's the future anyway. I think in general, I think it's going to be the collector's market is going to keep the single issues alive and then the reading of market is going to keep the trades alive.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's also. It's the future and it's also the past. Right. Because, you know, talk about Uncle Scrooge and.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: You think Uncle Scrooge McDuck, obviously. Right. But if you go back to Dickens, there was always serialized. Right. Wasn't. They're always serialized in magazines over, you know, months and months. And then they would get a book this big at the end of it that they. Novel, you know, novelizations are always serialized. And obviously, you know, it's kind of the format now with the single issues. But yeah, to be able to, I think in a way, a single issue, even if you're not somebody who hunts down the 1 in 25. Right. I think you still have to be somewhat of a collector. Right. Even if you're not looking at the two to get on something really pricey and hard to get, you still are the type of person who, you know, has a. Has a. Has a want list, not a want list, you know, a list of back issues that you're missing for your run that you have to fill in. You know what I mean? That you have folded up. I guess people have it on their phone now. I still have mine folded up. That I put in my pocket when I'm at a convention going through $.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: That's awesome. I love that. It was a guy, a gentleman, that comes into Galactic Comics, the bookstore, comic book store I go to with a binder, or not binder, but a pad of paper. And he's got his list on it. He's like, check in. And he comes in the next day. And we're like, we're in this, like, rural, but like more rural area of Maine. And I'm like, dude, the comic book shop hasn't bought any new comics since you were here yesterday. But you're more than welcome to go look to see if that issue you're missing is there. But, yeah, you know, it's. It's a.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: It's a thing.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: And I think they've also touched with the, you know, quickly. They've also touched on making the trades slightly smaller because of the way that people read the things and stuff like that, too. So there's. There's always a future. The thing that's cool about single issue monthly comics like DuckTales and the comics you've done in the past is that you've got this, like, multiple level of marketing. You got the every month you're marketing this book, and then you get the trade. And then potentially next year or two years from now, Dynamite's like, let's make the smaller version of it. And they make the smaller version of it. And there's all these different things, the digital copies, all that stuff too. And it's a fun thing. You've got a year ahead of you on this. You know, with DuckTales, you're involved in this. I think they're doing that with most of the series. Honestly. I think it's basically Dynamite is doing like, Space Ghost was the same thing.
That's a year and so on and so forth, which is pretty cool. We can all. If you invest in DuckTales and you want to read this story, you get at 12 issues. And that's awesome to hear that you get to have that.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: That future. Yeah, that's. That's just reality of the market. I don't know. I don't know that any ongoing has. Has a leash that's within 12 issues from issue one. I said that honestly. Instead, it's not because I'm so special or DuckTales is so special. Yeah, but it is. But it does show very much a commitment to do it right. Yes. By Dynamite. And I think the early returns on Lilo and Stitch and even like Cruella Deville and then they had the, the, the Dark Wing Duck and those. The Duck team. Duck Duck. What's it called? The Might Not My Ducks is a hockey team together. What is it? Whatever it is, They've had a couple of.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Stuff that's gotten a few issues and been collected already and they did some Nightmare Before Christmas stuff. And I think, I believe they're happy with the, you know, with the quality of the books and the sales and certainly good buzz about all that stuff. So I was excited to, I was excited to be asked because I think they're really doing some, some great stuff.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: And you get your 12 months to do this. And so it's a, it's a long time, but you're doing, it's planned to just, you know, focus on DuckTales in the next, you know, few months.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: I have, I have, I've been working a lot on stuff that's original graphic novel. Some of it's like film and TV and game stuff, which, you know, you know, the hit rate on that. It may never come out. Obviously, I do a book. I'm lucky enough that no matter what book I do, it's going to come out. But I had some kind of like a, you know, some trouble getting some of the original graphic novels that I'm doing for the book market, like, you know, like with bookmarket publishers like Penguin. Right. Some trouble getting some of those stuff done and out. So I really was happy to be, as much as we were talking about DuckTales will maybe ultimately 10 years from now, you're going to be reading the trade paperbacks rather than unbagging you taking something out of the backboard and reading it. I am very happy to be monthly again. It's exciting to have a launch for number one. But man, like, with, like I said, every 30 days I'll have something to talk about. I'll have some amazing covers to do and cool story and cool art to promote. So for a guy like me who's been a Wednesday comics guy for my whole life, it's, it's, it's nice to be on a monthly. I'm happy to be on a monthly again. And I have to give my, I have to give my editor a little less stress on the monthly book because I'm too, I'm too used to like, oh, I got plenty of time. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's. Oh, like if I pitched a book to the book market today and sold it today, it wouldn't come out until. Literally it wouldn't come out till 2026.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: So it's like, oh, and now it's like, oh, okay, well get. It's. When's it coming out? In three months. I was like, oh, you got to get going on this stuff.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, you say 2026. That's like if nothing else goes wrong like that.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Well, exactly, exactly, exactly. I have stuff that was, you know, is supposed to be in production back during the pandemic and that still hasn't come out yet. No.
[00:44:18] Speaker A: Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. I'm a big floppy. I don't know if you can see behind me. Floppy comics are a big thing. I do collect trades as well. Depending on the issues of series, if I want to read it over and over again, I'll buy the trade because I just, again, it's that part of me who's like taking out the bag in the board. You're ruining it. Even if it's a worthless like issue three of some random series that's never. It's gonna end up at a dollar bin someday, I still have to protect this comic. It's just, it's ingrained in my brain.
And so seeing the DuckTales like this is gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun to see which cover I want, things like that. It's gonna be a fun. Like I said, it's a trip into history. It's a nostalgic part of it. But it's also when I read the first issue and we'll have a review up on our website too at some point before, before November 6th, that the. It's just. It also has these new stories in this new feel. And again, you can be 75 years old, read this comic book and really get something out of it, but you can also be a 3 year old and enjoy just looking at pictures and seeing that. I think that really this is an all ages book. I truly believe that.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: Thank you so much. That was definitely. I'm glad it hit that way for you because that's definitely what we're going for.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So November 6th, it hit shelves. All the covers, all the stuff. And then monthly from there on out. And so I hope people tell your local comic book shop that you want it. And if you go in and they're out of it, don't fret, just tell them again that you want it because they can potentially reorder it. Hopefully maybe we'll go into second printing because people want it so much. So. Yeah. But yeah, it's coming out November 6th. You excited?
[00:45:45] Speaker B: I'm terribly excited Justin and I appreciate being able to talk, to talk about it. It's been fantastic.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to chat with us here about DuckTales and again I think you should just play the song on repeat for you.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Just there is a very good Arnold Schwarzenegger, not really him but somebody doing Arnold voice over the song that came out a couple months ago which I thought was really good but you know, so I'm sure, I'm sure if you search YouTube or the other places you'll find it on Twitter.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: That's amazing. I love it. But yeah, thank you so much Brandon. I appreciate it and keep up the good work and hopefully It's a great 12 months for you and maybe we'll have you come back on in the future and chat about your next project or whatever sometime in the future. Sound good?
[00:46:28] Speaker B: For sure. Thank you.
