[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtights.com, i'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and Collectibles in Bangor, Maine. You can Visit them at GalacticComicsandCollectibles.com but this episode is Fred Van Lente, writer of the upcoming novel over at Blackstone Publishing called Bloodshot. Based on the characters from the valiant universe in the comic book world. Bloodshot hits shops everywhere, bookstores and all that stuff everywhere. January 21, 2025 from Blackstone Publishing. But Fred joins us as a six time New York Times bestselling comic book writer as well as novelist and playwright. He's written for Dark Horse, DC Marvel, Valiant, idw, Boom, Dynamite, Mad Cave, and so on and so on and so on. He's also the current writer of the series over at Mad Cave called Murder Kingdom, which is currently being put on shelves. Yeah, we checked a Bloodshot novel on this one, a new take on the Bloodshot character from Blackstone Publishing, which is phenomenal, which is me. Available in book and audiobook format. So check this episode out. But before you do, visit us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky, threads in all those places, as well as rate review, subscribe over on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. You can check our website
[email protected] for so much more information, lists, reviews and more videos. This is Fred Van Lente talking the Bloodshot novel. Enjoy everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. Fred, how are you this morning?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: I'm fantastic. How are you?
[00:01:36] Speaker A: I'm doing wonderful. It's the new year here. We're here, we're ready for 2025. But did someone did say to me the other day that the last year that w as in Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the year started off with was 2020. And so that's WTF. And I was like, yeah, let's hope it's not the same. Let's hope for a better, let's hope for a better 2025.
But yeah, well, welcome to the podcast. This is a, you know, a first for Fred being on here. I'm excited that you decided to do this, but let's get to know a little bit. I mean, how did you get into writing in general? Like, what caused you to write comics, novels, things like that? What made you get this urge to want to write?
[00:02:14] Speaker B: You know, it's hard to say where it comes from. I mean, I've had it since I was very, very Very little. I started writing my first novel when I was 12.
I don't think I had my first novel published until I was like 45. So keep at it, kids.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: It's not that novel, right?
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Never give up.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: It's not that novel. Like the first novel wasn't.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Oh no. Yeah, thank God.
I really love comics, but I grew up in a small town in Ohio and it seemed like very sort of abstract getting the comics industry because everybody seemed to be from New York. But I went to school at Syracuse where I met a bunch of people who were studying to be illustrators. We were on the comics club together and so I started writing for them and that really excited me. I really liked how they brought those ideas to life. And so after graduation, we all moved to New York City, tried to break in the industry. Only took nine years for me, no problem. So remember, patience is a virtue always.
And. And I still work with all those people today. Like one of the guys I went to school with, his name's Steve Ellis, he's a great painter. Did a lot of comics at one point, still does from time to time. We did a book called the Silencers that was about a bunch of mafia super powered mafia enforcers who have to become independent operators when the family they work for gets wiped out. And that got really well reviews and they got hired by Marvel and that was around 2005.
And yeah. And so the comics hasn't been able to get rid of me since.
I also do a lot of nonfiction comics. My collaborator Ryan Dunleavy, who I still work with, we did Action Philosophers, the Complicated History comics with he I also met at Syracuse. So we've worked together since. For about 20 years now. 21 years now, yeah. And then what ends up happening? When you become known in a certain field, people from other fields try to get you to do things. So that, that did. That is how I ended up getting a first novel published. I was approached to do a book.
The high concept was Agatha Christie's Tenel Indians or and Then There Were none, depending on what the title is.
But with Stand Up Comedians. So it's this murder mystery called 10 Dead Comedians that came out in, I want to say 2016 and this bloodshot is going to be my fourth. So it's been a fun second career so far.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. I was just funny because every once in a while before someone comes on, I'll go to League of Comic Book Geeks or something like that to get your background on comics and things and you look at goodreads maybe. But the funny thing about Goodreads is to be a comic book writer and a novel writer is the fact that there's 1300 published works, according to Goodreads, of what you published. Because every single, like issue one, issue two, like Murder Kingdom, all that are on their individual issues. Well, yes. That's not what I. I want to know what his collected edition, I guess, would be. How many comics?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if there's an easy way to do that. Amazon.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Yeah, probably, actually. Yeah. But yeah, it's. It's a. It's a fun thing. And so what's funny about this Bloodshot? So I never, honestly, until I got Blackstone reached out to me and said, are you interested in reading Bloodshot and reviewing Honest Review and stuff like that? I was. I had never. I've heard. I'm a big comic book fan, obviously, and I've never. I've heard of obviously Bloodshot. And I've known people who read Bloodshot, but I never even dabbled in Bloodshot comic books. And I even asked my local comic book shop owner. I'm like, people order Bloodshot comic book. He's like, I have one guy that I special order the comic books for. And he buys all the Bloodshot and all the. Honestly, all the Valiant and stuff. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, but that's about it. And he does the same thing with Star Trek. There's not a lot of Star Trek readers in my area. He just. He buys them for this one or two extra people. And he's like, cool.
Was it?
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I was like, oh, this is.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: You know what?
[00:06:10] Speaker A: I'll give it a shot. You know what, this would be a fun thing to do is. But the funny thing is, I don't know how many people's first dabbling with. With Bloodshot is going to come from a prose novel instead of. Instead of a comic book. I mean, that's an interesting, you know, entrance into the. The world of Bloodshot.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, who knows, you know, I mean, we live in a very sort of siloed media environment these days. Right. So it would not surprise me if a not insignificant number of people come to the book just like in the title, like in the COVID or like in the concept or like having read my other prose novels. But yeah, I have no idea.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: It's a. It's a. It's a weird way, but I guess I don't know. Bloodshot is a. People know him because there was A movie made for him as well, which was. Okay, but this is not your typical Bloodshot story either, right? I mean, you took it and made it your own thing too. So I've seen a couple of people online who are super pumped about that, and a couple of people online that don't want you to ever write again. And so kind of typical. Well, I think that's just the Internet as it is nowadays. I mean, people can say what they want to say on there and so on.
But, yeah, I was super pumped to read it, and I'm so glad I did. What? You. You've obviously wrote and written a bunch of Bloodshot comics in the past. You know, the characters.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Really?
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Okay, so you have.
Did you go into this with being.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: A fan of Bloodshot? I did a book for Valiant called Archer and Armstrong that crossed over with Bloodshot.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Christos Gage, who was the Archer or was the Bloodshot writer, and I kind of did the book together. So that's about the limit of Bloodshot comics I've written. Although, actually, I should probably. Shouldn't have been so quick to correct you. But, you know, because I experienced this as the author in a different way. Right. Because since I wrote the novel, I've now written a lot of Bloodshot comics.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: So technically, you're right. It's just the way I experience it. Right. Is from, you know, from being the guy doing it and then from when it all comes out. So. So, weirdly enough, my first actual Bloodshot comic will be coming out from Valiant the same month that the novel comes out.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. That makes more sense, because I'm like, wait, you're right. In the sense that if you look online. Yes. So you wrote this novel and wrote Bloodshot comics around the same time? In a sense, but they're already releasing in a different order, so that I'm going to read this. People might read this before they actually read the Bloodshot comics. Or around the same time as the Bloodshot comics. Yeah. Were you a Bloodshot fan going into this? Or is this something that you had to, like, research to write these things?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I'm a fan of very little things.
So, you know, if I only wrote things that I was a fan of, it would be a very limited list. You know, Like, I was. I was a big fan of Spider man, right? So I got Spider man and Web of Spider man for a few years, and that was awesome. But then when I finished doing that, I was like, I never want to get Spider man again.
I wouldn't. I Wouldn't go so far as say, I'm no longer a fan of Spider man, but had that level of like, you know, it's the old cliche of when you work in the sausage factory, when you go home, the last thing you want is a hot dog. You know, it's. So I always approach every project, coming at it fresh and trying to read everything that's been published about that character. Particularly when you're doing something like the Bloodshot novel, which to the delight and dismay of various people on the Internet, the mandate for the publisher was this is brand new continuity.
And to a certain extent it was going to skew a little bit younger, which at first I was kind of like, okay, electronic power is guns, plus the ability to heal from being shot by guns. This would be interesting. But I felt like I had sort of an interesting perspective on that because one of the more well received things I did at Marvel was this book, Wolverine First Class, which was when they came to me and said, we want to do a Wolverine young adult comic. And I was like.
But we ended up pairing Wolverine with Kitty Pryde and like in like the early, like Claremont Byrne Days of X Men.
And that ended up being really successful and fun and I really liked how they interplayed with each other. Now the approach to Bloodshot is very different than that book, but I felt like I could handle it, you know, like, like, like I knew how I could sort of wrap my brain around the material and, and to be totally blunt, you know, like more women read prose books than men. So I wanted interesting relationship with a strong female character that was also going to be something that could attract them. So kind of want a nice big tent, right, and invite everybody in when you're writing one of these things.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: And you mentioned that too. I think there's also, I mean, there's a lot of. There are crossover between people who read novels and people who read comics. But there is a separation at a certain sense too that, like myself, I never read a Bloodshot comic, but I was able to read this and do it well. And so I think that's a cool thing. I mean, Bloodshot was introduced in what, 92? And so you have 32 years of comic books continuity that some people try to stay away from. We've talked about that. My comic book store has a graphic novel club and every month we read a new graphic novel and he's like, oh, let's read a Marvel one or a DC one. It's so hard to do if no one has the background. Like There's a few of our group members who are like, I only read Marvel. And so if you try to read a new graphic novel from the DC universe with a bunch of background continuity that you don't know, it's kind of hard for someone to really understand or get the grasp of what's going on. And so having this ability to have a starting point for me of something new is fun in a different format, too.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. No, that's really cool. And I really love the Valiant universe. I was one of the first writers when it got relaunched in 2012 with the aforementioned Archer and Armstrong, so. And the take I took on Bloodshot is very similar to the take that Dwayne straczynski did in 2012 when the bloodshot book got revived.
I don't want to be too sort of spoilery, but it involves another aspect of the Bandicoot universe called Psyots, or Harbingers. And very much since you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about, that very much plays into that was an aspect of 2012 revival that never, I thought, got the support that it needed. So I kind of ended up making that. The main spine of my book is this idea that Bloodshot has been created to hunt down people's superpowers, basically, specifically teenage kids with superpowers.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Do you think is it easier to write a character like a comic book character for a book? I mean, obviously easier, but is it.
Is it different to write prose novel about a comic book character than a comic book itself? Because there's no visual medium to it?
[00:13:02] Speaker B: No, the exact opposite. In fact, one of the things I had to like, because, as I said, when I was a kid, I started out writing prose and I college then I kind of got away from it once the comic book thing really took off. But when you're writing comic scripts, the most obvious way to think about it, or I guess the best way to understand the difference, is that it's the difference between being an architect and being. And being construction worker. Right. It's the difference between laying out a plan for a house and actually building the house. You know, novelist is both architect and crew, right? You're designing and building. When you're comic book script, or you're just designing, you're just handing the blueprints to the artist and saying, do this, and where I look bad, make me look good, you know?
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a collaborative effort too. I mean, if some good artists are able to say, hey, if we. What if we do this or what if we do that, and so on and so forth. There is that person you can bounce things off of here. You have your editor and stuff like that over at Blackstone and stuff. And I'm guessing there's people who are involved from. From Valiant and things like that. Is that correct? I mean, was there or is it just Blackstone was able to do what they want to do with this book?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: No, we had to get approvals from Valiant. They were hands off. They were cool. I know them. It's been the same crew at Valiant since it's the same crew sort of approving the novels as it is approving the comics. So they're already familiar with them and vice versa.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: So, I mean, yeah, because, I mean, it is a intellectual property in that sense that Blackstone's the one physically publishing the novel. But like, it's like Del Rey publishing a Star wars book. They still have to get approval from Disney and Lucasfilm before they can actually print anything.
Yeah, it was interesting. I'm always interested in books that are. Because I'm a big comic book fan, there is a love for comics because you get that script, you get the word bubbles, you get the imagery you can actually see. And obviously a really good writer will let the art speak for itself at the same time as the story itself. But reading a novel about a comic book character that has been around for a while I thought was pretty cool. And you did a good job getting me, me ingrained in the actual story without having to have that visualization to it. But my always thing. My thing always is, what would this look like? So now as I'm reading it, I'm like, oh, maybe this should be a comic book too, or maybe this should be a movie or something.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: But also, don't want to be upset with when I picture what the characters look like or what people look like or elements look like. And you do it differently. That's what I'm like. I'm going to be pissed off at you, not my own mind, for the fact that I pictured it that way.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Right, well, it's always an interpretation. Right? Your interpretation is your interpretation. It's no more or less valid than an adaptation. Adaptation is just that, Right. It's another person's interpretation of the material, which is exactly what your brain is doing when you're processing the words on the page.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly, exactly. And so when you go to write these things out, I mean, obviously you plot these things out differently when you're doing a prose novel versus you're doing a comic book, like you mentioned, it's different mediums, different way of producing these things. Did this take you a couple years, or was this something that, you know, obviously you didn't bang it out in a couple of weeks, but, like, was this something that you had on your mind for a while here to make this novel, or is this something that came up pretty basically?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Blackstone published my previous novel, which is called Never Sleep, which is a historical thriller. You can sort of see it next to the D and Fred up there in my shelf.
Very different kind of book, although still technically in sort of the spy. It's kind of a spy genre. But, yeah, they got the Valiant Lions license. I was already one of their authors. We talked, and at first they wanted to be an Arch Armstrong book.
And like, have you heard of this comic, Archer Armstrong, the Michelangelo Code? I'm like, yeah, I wrote it.
That would be an interesting. That would be exactly what you're talking about, but in reverse.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: I would have been adapting my own comic book for prose, which would have been really weird. And so I was kind of grateful. Also. Poor Archer Armstrong. They're never the prettiest girl at the dance, right? They're like, of the Valiant properties. They're like, who should we bring out first with novel? God, I'm a little bit of movie. So I was very. Actually kind of relieved when they were like, no, I do Bloodshot instead. I was like, okay, do something different.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. But this is cool. I mean, like I said, I. I am so glad. And I don't. The number of times I actually listen or get an email from a publisher of any sorts, and we're like, hey, would you be interested to read this? The number of times I'm like, yes, sounds good. I'll do it. Just because already I have so many things on my plate trying to juggle these things and things. And a lot of times the benefit I get, you know, with running this podcast and stuff, is I get the ability to pick what I want to read. Meaning that, like, I don't not forced to read anything. So if I'm going to take time out of my day and read something, you know, I'm going to read something I really want to read. And I don't know if it was just Blackstone's publicist even, like, convincing me or me just being like, I actually. I conversed with the LCS owner, and I was like, hey, should I do this? Should I read this book? He's like, I don't know. You should maybe should read some comics first. I'm like, no, I'm going to go into this blind. I'm going to go into really not knowing anything about the character and see how it goes. And I think that. I think you nailed that, in my opinion, for someone who's. I guess I can speak to the point where if you're not a fan of Bloodshot or don't know Bloodshot, that this is a great jumping on point and this is a great point for you to get introduced to the character. And I'm hoping, and I'm guessing Valiant's opening, that people become huge Bloodshot fans after this and want to buy comics and purchase things from Valiant. So it's a really cool way of going into it. I honestly didn't even think about it much until we started talking that I was introduced to Bloodshot from your novel.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: That all sounds great.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: It's a fun way of doing it. I don't know. Again, Alex Segura wrote a book called I Can't Remember. I just literally just bought it. But it's what happens to Bruno in Encanto, the movie Encanto, Disney's Encanto or Pixar's Encanto, whatever it was. And so in the movie, they say we don't talk about Bruno. And so this novel is about why we don't talk about Bruno. But I wasn't invited.
I didn't stumble upon Bruno from this book. I obviously knew him from this movie that my son watches all the time. And so I'll have a little bit of a background in the character context of what's going on with Bloodshot. Like I said, I knew the character. I knew what he looked like, I knew he was Valiant property, I knew he had guns, and that's about it. And I went in, now I know a lot more, but again, I know a different continuity. Right. They were saying, this is not going to be. Is this going to continue on or is this going to be something that comes into comics? Is it just a standalone novel or can you not say?
[00:19:25] Speaker B: I. You know, you've read the books. You know, it's obviously open for more stuff, and I'd be happy to do more stuff, but always that's. That's the publisher's decision even come out yet.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: You know, they haven't made it. They haven't done. They haven't picked you up for a second season yet even.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: Right? They haven't picked us up for a second season. That's right.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: They haven't gone right straight to series.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: I also don't like. I also think that, like, and this is probably getting way too much in the reads for Weeds for your listeners, but regardless, it's just like they're trying to get like all the. Because as you may know, or maybe you don't know that there's going to be other valiant novels. Like, there's going to be an Eternal Warrior one and a Livewire one.
And I can't remember what the fourth one is, but they're all their own separate continuities.
Now, whenever publishers, I'm like, are you sure? But then they get into like the, you know, I have a kind of a different attitude about continuity. Like, my attitude about continuity has always been it's only confusing if you don't do it right and you don't introduce it. The problem with continuity is that, is that I think too many people attempt to kind of info dump on you and they think you need to know everything about, I don't know, the Vision or Green Lantern or Bloodshot or whoever. When instead what you should be doing is Cherry picking absolutely 100% the most important things that you need to know about the character and then dump the rest. Don't even mention it. Right? It doesn't matter, you know, because people, as we've established, are going to complain about something no matter what, because people always want to see their own views reflected back at them, right? So if you care about a particular aspect of the character and you don't see that reflected in the new work, you're going to be annoyed. And I get that, and I'm guilty of that as any other fan, you know.
But to me, all continuity is like, you and I had lives before we sat down to do this podcast, and our lives will continue hopefully after this podcast ends. We're all coming from somewhere and going to somewhere else, right?
[00:21:29] Speaker A: And.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Continuity is just your past, Right? And so what? I like using continuity as a way to sort of give the character's life beyond the story. And even if readers aren't consciously aware of that, I think they appreciate it, you know, and that was one of the fun things. And that's part of the reason I think, that the Bloodshot is such a easy jumping off point for people simply because it's about a guy who wakes up in the woods with no memory and it's written from the first person present, which took me a while to wrap my brain around, but I realized that it was the way to go because it's written that Most novels are written in the past tense. This book is the present tense. Because this is an amnesiac who has no past.
And I thought that'd be a great way to sort of get people immediately into his head, you know?
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And it worked. It definitely worked. Fantastic. Yeah.
I was actually way more surprised. Like, you know, it was one of those ones that I set myself. I'm like, oh, it's gonna be good to be good. You know, I heard Fred's good comic book writer, and, you know, he obviously knows comic book characters. And so I was like, oh, that's whatever. And I read it and I was. I was just enamored by it. I was like, turning pages and I was actually like, wow, this is pretty interesting. I just don't even know if I picked up a Bloodshot comic if I felt it would feel the same way. I don't. I gotta try that. I gotta figure. I gotta figure that out. See if I. If I get the same reaction or emotional reaction to. To a Bloodshot comic as I do this novel. And it's not just because you're on here talking to us and why I'm gloating about it. I really did like it a lot, and it's a great book to have out there.
The continuity we don't need to know.
I don't need to know about. I need to know about your past, to talk to you right now about comics you've written or books you've done or your history in that sense. But it's like, I don't need to know what you did in high school outside of writing. Outside of being 12 years old and writing a novel or trying to write a novel. I should say is I need to know the key points.
Get to have a conversation with you. And that would be the similar thing, is you can be friends with someone. You can meet someone. We could be best friends from this point on, and I really don't even know. I need to know everything about you to be friends with you. And that's the same thing. I think that you're right on that. And that's what I've argued about this book, comic book club. We're in this graphic novel club. It's like there may be some missing pieces. And if that person's missing pieces is causing them not to, like, with the graphic novel that we're reading, allow them to go back and read whatever you don't need to read to catch up. Otherwise, we'll be fine. I think they'll be most graphic novels that we would choose from Marvel or DC or something like that are going to be contained enough that you'll get enough out of it and get a reaction out of it that you don't really need to know the entire Vision continuity to understand the Vision series that came out a couple years ago or whatever.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah. What you don't want is a badly written Wikipedia page. Right. You want to. You know, that's sort of the bottom line. The story's characters trying to pursue goals. That's it. That's all it is, really.
And you only want things you don't have.
You know, you just sort of boil that down into the essence. And what does the character want and what is in their way of getting that? That's it.
People need to unlearn a lot of nonsense to sort of get to that point. You know, a lot of professional writers have to unlearn a lot of nonsense to get to that point. That's really kind of all it comes down to.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: And let's be honest. So Bloodshot. So when they announced this a couple years ago, it was, what, 20, 23. They announced Bloodshot, that they were Valiant, was partnering with Blackstone and announcing these books. It had a subtitle as Awakening, and now it is just called Bloodshot. Now, was that strategic? Do you know anything about reason why that was like that? Or is it just because this is a Bloodshot book?
[00:24:56] Speaker B: I don't. I think the Awakening subtitle came from my pitch, which was basically a paragraph. It was very straightforward. It was Bloodshot. You know, anyone who's read a lot of Bloodshot stuff knows his memory gets wiped a lot.
And that was one of the more effective things about the Vin Diesel movie, which is not terrible.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: No.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: But it got. It has its issues.
But then I think they just decided, you know, lose the people are. You know, I think they're losing interest in subtitles. Like James, Superman movie was originally called Superman Legacy.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Now it's just Superman. Yeah.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: And I guess.
Well, I also think too, if you're.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Rebooting it, there's never been actually been.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: A movie called Superman before. Technically, the Christian Reeve movie is called Superman the Motion Picture, the actual title of the movies. I think somebody went, hey, wait a.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Minute, we got this. We finally were the first ones.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: It's like the Batman.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: We don't need the Superman, you know.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: But, yeah, it's. It's. It's. Yeah, you're losing the subtitle actually helps it. And again, it makes me think that it's something new. It makes me As a person who is from the outside, who reading it, it's just a Bloodshot book. Okay. This could be something new. By putting the word awakening on, it almost sounds like there might be a backstory to it, that there might be more to this story that you don't know yet.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Or it's a prequel.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Yeah, exactly. And so having that be a standalone thing, and book readers do read multiple books, but it also is. This is a contained story. Like, this is a story where you don't need to know anything really going into it. You set that up at the very beginning to let us know what's going on and what's really happening. And you unravel things as you go along and you get to the end. And yes, it can have more, but if it never has anything else, I'd be satisfied. And so that's what you really want, I think, in a book is because you may lose this. You may come up with three more of these, and someone goes, wait a second. How did I miss this? And not even know they were out there.
But they were able to read this first novel and understand everything that was going on. So that's a plus in that sense, which is what you're probably doing, because if you don't end up getting another one, you don't want to have a huge cliffhanger, like a massive cliffhanger, where someone's, like, in the middle of a sentence and then you never actually finish it.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Title neatly.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: But, yeah, I mean, I've always wondered, like, the. The. The. I've always wanted comic books that are adapted into novels and novels that are adapted into comic books, too. So I always love the idea of seeing something that I like, like this book, Batman. Is it Resurrection, that new book that just came out, which is the sequel to the Batman, the 1989 Batman. There's a book that came out.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: Oh, cool. I know. They did a comic sequel also.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah. And I was like, oh, that'd be cool to see that as a movie or a comic book, because I want. Like I said, I want to see the visualization as a comic book reader. But. But also, if it's never anything else, this is just what it is. I'd be happy to. I'm super pumped that it is actually out there.
And you are happy to play in the Bloodshot universe more. You talked about comics coming out and stuff like that. You're willing to. If they ask you to.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Well, I'm writing the big Valiant Comics event right now, which is called Resurgence, and so that's wrap up also in January, also with the Bloodshot resurgence. One shot. And then there's more stuff to come. So it's. It's all very exciting.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: That's really cool.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: In a neat revival right now. And I'm doing a title for them. Two new titles, actually, that I'm very excited about.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: That's awesome. Are you gonna write more books too?
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Novels, yes. Nothing on the docket immediately, but that could change at any time. I'm kicking some stuff around.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Okay, everybody. And I have back. I don't know if you can see it, but I have Murder Kingdom is out right now over at Mad Cave. Oh, yeah, I do. Yeah. And so it must be exciting too. I mean, I like personally on my side of things is the media side of things. I love working with Mad Cave. I actually just got a Christmas present from them, a 10th anniversary T shirt that's like printed in gold and it has like the, like the 10th anniversary logo on it. They sent me a notepad thing saying, you know, merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and so on and so forth. All that stuff from Mad Cave. But what's it like working with Mad Cave from a writer standpoint? Has this been a good experience?
[00:29:02] Speaker B: It has been.
My editor, Lorna Tsausen, is actually in my D and D group.
She actually started at Valiant. That's where I first met her.
And so she wanted to know if I had any ideas. And so I came to her with this idea that I had for a long time that actually, here's another sort of. We keep circling back to this. It started out as a prose novel in the vein of tended comedians. It was. It's about a. You know, as, you know, it's about a serial killer essentially in Disney World, killing people based on the gory old fairy tales from the Grimm Brothers and such. But then the novel deal fell through. But then I sort of realized it would. Because it was so visual, it'd make a really terrific comic book. And so Matt Cave really liked the idea. And they paired me with Chris Ponda, the artist who's fantastic, who's designed every aspect of the Storybook Kingdom theme park, right down to the different, like, historical eras of the movies they put out, as you'll see as the series goes along. So it's just really been a joy. And I'm doing another. Write another Mad Cave book for them right now.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: And that's it. I feel like they didn't come out of nowhere. Like, obviously they've been around for 10 years, but all of a sudden, out nowhere There was like, this, like, boom of Batcave just being, like, knocking and not even just making a bunch of comics, but just knocking comics out of the park, like, getting these comics where I'm like. I feel like they're, like, could end up on the comics of the year list for us here at the podcast, just because of how well they've been putting out comics.
And so just exciting. And then the creators that are getting to write these comics and to illustrate these comics are phenomenal with. You have issues 1 and 2 are out for murder Kingdom 3 comes out in January, February is 4, and then 5 will come out in March, which is awesome.
Obviously, they're all written. Are they all done? Have you seen them all, or are they still working?
[00:30:50] Speaker B: Yes, in fact, we've already. The graphic novel's done.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Look at this. There you go.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's fantastic. Chris has just crushed it. And Becky Kerrick did a great job with lettering. I tried to put her through her paces.
[00:31:04] Speaker A: Is it something you do? Do you get more out of writing comics than you do books? Or is it similar depending on the project, depending on the situation?
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Oh, it's just a very different, like, you know what I enjoy is that when I get frustrated working the comic, I'm like, I wish I was working on a novel and I'm writing a novel.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: Sort of working on a comic. Boom, boom, boom. You sort of fall back and forth. So it's. It's cool to have that, like, balance system in your life, to, like, when you're frustrated about one aspect, you can leave it alone and then move to this other thing. And we have to. You know, it's really been great for my mental health.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: I bet. Yeah. And I've always seen is like, I've talked to some authors who started off as authors. They're only. And then they dabbled in comics and, like, it was a cool thing to be able to write something and hand it off to someone and be able to do something else, because that person is now drawing it or lettering it or whatever, and then see the finished product and see what someone's mind came up with based on the. On the notes or whatever. And seeing the actual visualizations is pretty cool on that side. And I said, it's one of the reasons why I love it, the collaboration, the partnership and that stuff is why I love comics, is because it's like a team and something that you see growing. It's weird. It seems not growing, but I feel like they're growing. Growing in a way that's. That's different than the past. And I'm excited for comics, but I'm excited for people to read Bloodshot. Fred Bloodshot is phenomenal. Comes out January 21st. Blackstone Publishing Pre order it because it helps a lot to let people know that people like the book. And I will say, as a person who's not a fan or never has been a fan of Bloodshot, entered it empty, no knowledge at all. Loved it. So does that. And I hope that people can get something out of it. I can see that if I was a fan of Bloodshot that I'd at least be able to get something out of it in something new and some fresh and something, you know. And if you're a fan of something like Bloodshot, hopefully this brings in new fans and that you should be happy about people wanting to learn about Bloodshot. You shouldn't be pissed off that it's not the Bloodshot that you wanted. You should be happy more people are.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Potentially reading Bloodshot or the Bloodshot that you already know.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Right?
[00:33:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: This is a. This is a different take on the character and it, you know, Look, Batman survives 700 different variations. I think Bloodshot will be fine, but.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: Will shoot his way out of it.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Exactly. Bloodshot will be shooting his way into the future. Is the bottom line is there going.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: To be an audiobook for this? I don't. I couldn't tell. I'm guessing yes, because I'm almost positive there is.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: Blackstone started out as an audiobook.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: That's how I said it'd be really weird if it didn't have a audiobook.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Valiant Handlebad also nag them to give me more info on that.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: I was just going to look it up really quickly because I love rereading books or reading books for the first time on audiobook, but also rereading books.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Oh, that's really interesting.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: That's got to be fun.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: It's because you get, you know, things that maybe inflections in way people talk, in the way people, you know, accents or things like that. You get to pick up a little bit different on that. Yeah. James Fowey F O U H E Y is doing the narrating on that. It comes out the same day.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Valiant praised him. They were clearly very happy with what he said.
[00:34:05] Speaker A: So I think that that's pretty fun. So I'm hoping for more and I'm hoping that you get out there. I I'm glad we got to chat on here. I'm glad it's before the end of the new year. Because I could say, Happy 2024 to you, you know, into 2025.
And I hope, hope nothing but great things for you in 2025. I hope people buy this in. They walk out of bookstores with stacks of them so they can give them as presents to friends or whatever.
You know, all those gift cards you guys got for Christmas. Buy Bloodshot with those gifts, right?
[00:34:34] Speaker B: That's right. If you have any money left over on those cards when you're hearing this, buy Bloodshot.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: I really appreciate it, Fred, for coming on and chatting Bloodshot in comics and stuff. I do appreciate it.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: No, my. Thank you very much for having me. This has been a blast.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: We'll talk soon.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Enjoy.
Sa.
