Episode Transcript
[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 at galactic comics and collectibles.com this episode is Ed Brisson, writer of books such as Old Man Logan, Iron Fist, Deadman Logan, Sons of Anarchy, Batman Incorporated, Predator, Sins of the Salton Sea, the Displaced Alpha Flight, and so many more. But this episode, Ed came on to discuss his upcoming comic book over at Dynamite Entertainment, Silverhawks, based on the 1980s cartoon with the same name. Yeah. Before you listen to this episode with Ed Brisson, check out us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blue sky threads and all those things wherever you find on social media as well as over over on YouTube as well. But you can check us out on Spotify, Apple or wherever you find your podcast. Please rate, review subscribe on those platforms. This episode is Ed Brisson talking Silverhawks. Enjoy everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. Dad, how are you today?
[00:01:07] Speaker B: I think I'm doing okay. Yeah.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: I think it could could be worse. I mean, I know I live on in Maine. I believe you live in Canada, right?
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: So I live close to Canada.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Like, I'm like up just above you.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Yes. And so we're not, say, safe up here in New England, but we are, we are definitely better up in northeast of the, of this continent than other places in this country or this continent. I should say. So.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: I've always, we talked about it in my office about how Maine is pretty safe in that sense. I mean, there's no, like, insects that are going to kill me. There's no real tornadoes or hurricanes. We have to deal with snow. Right. And that's about it. I mean, the weather's pretty, pretty tame in the overall scheme of things. And so I'm going to stay up here in the Northeast, I think for a while.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: It's Tamish. I'm originally like, I've lived all over, but most of my life that lived on the West Coast. So I've only been on this coast for seven years now. And yeah, I'm not used to the big storms. Like we get the nor'easters, nor'easterns coming through here, and those are pretty intense. I've never had to deal with those. And also the bugs, man, the ticks, okay, they'll slowly kill you with Lyme disease. But living in B.C. and British Columbia on the west coast, ticks are like a thing that people talk about. But like, you never really see. It's like a grizzly bear. You know, they're around, you know, one person who's seen one, but you never actually encounter them yourself. Whereas, like, they're just everywhere here.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: They're ridiculous. It's a scary thing. I used to remember going, playing it as a kid in the woods here in Maine and just having fun, like just exploring. And now my 3 year old, I'm like, no, no, no, no, you, you have to stay out here. Stay, stay, stay on the pavement. You're less likely to get a tick on you anyway.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: That, that's my, that's my major complaint with the east coast is the ticks. They got to do something about it.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: It is not the blue one, not the big blue tick that, that, that's, you know, the, the old animated character in cartoon character. But no actual scary ticks. But yeah.
You're a comic book writer. How did you get into comic book writing?
[00:03:18] Speaker B: I took a very long path into comic book writing. Originally, I wanted to be a comic book artist. And if anyone's seen an interview with me, they've probably heard this before. So I apologize to those people. But when I was younger, I wanted to be a comic book artist.
I lived in a town called Kelowna in British Columbia, pre Internet. So there was no way for me to meet writers, like people who wanted to be writers. Except there's one guy through like my local comic shop who wanted to be a comic book writer. We met up and we worked, started working on a project.
But like a few things went wrong pretty quickly. One, he was just kind of a dick and he was like. He was like the worst sort of collaborator. You want comics and that. Like, he's a writer and he's like, I'm the idea man. This is. I'm the brains behind it. I'm the, I'm the star of the show and the artist is just the person pushing the pencil around the page and making my dreams a reality. So I. It felt like I was a tool more than a collaborator, which was a weird feeling. But like, also, he wasn't a terribly good writer. I don't remember a ton about the story, but although it was very ElfQuest inspired and ended with it all being a dream. And even then, like, I would think I was 17 or 18, I realized, like, at least I know I could write as well as this guy. Like he was a good writer I could recognize. I knew I could write just as well as that guy. And so I just started writing only so I would have stuff to draw, right? And so I wouldn't have to sort of be in this like, abusive collaborative relationship with a, the writer. And I just, yeah, I just started writing out of necessity because I needed stuff to draw. I wanted a break in as an artist. Not too long after that is when the sort of whole Image thing happened and blew up and Image Comics became, you know, Image Comics. And so there was a lot of artists who just left and were writing for themselves. And so I was like, well, shit, I'll just continue doing this. And I did that for a long time. So I wrote, I drew, I lettered, I colored all my own stuff for Jesus Christ. 14 years, I think. Roughly give it 14, 15, actually, I think 16 years, irrelevant. But I, I did that all, you know, so I was honing my skills. I, I, I took a couple, you know, I took, you know, I went to college two different times throughout that period. I went first for fine arts, I wanted to be an artist. And then I went a second time, just took everything and took a bunch of writing courses and I just kept honing my skills. And eventually after a little about 15, 16 years, I realized I, I don't like drawing. I thought I really wanted to be an artist, but through, you know, developing my skills as a writer, I realized actually just the writing is what I wanted to do. Um, and like through that I had done a couple like short projects where I'd worked with other artists and I really, really enjoyed working with an artist, collaborating with an artist and, and sort of building things together. And I'm not someone who like thrives on working on by themselves, you know, just kind of tucked away. I love having a partner and bouncing things off of them and sort of us building this thing together. And so after like about 15, 16 years of that, I just stopped drawing. Like quite literally on my birthday I had this sort of like sit down conversation with myself and I stopped drawing and I only focused on writing. And I started a series called Murder Book, which is short crime stories.
And I just decided to kind of prove myself as a writer. And I did that for, God, I think I did it for like three years. And I started just writing stuff, self publishing very short crime stories. And actually two years, about two, two and a half years is when I got my first Image book because I'd run into Michael Walsh. We'd done a couple short murder book stories. And then we started pitching stuff to Image because we really liked working together. And that's kind of how I got my first Image book. I did Five or six books at Image. And then, you know, started getting like, you know, offers for Marvel and DC, et cetera. But that's the 10 cent tour of how I got into writing.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: That's awesome. Do you feel like as a writer, you, poster are illustrating that you get to tell more stories? Because it doesn't take as much time to illustrate it is to craft a story, I think.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And that was actually part of my frustration with drawing is just that writing.
I could sit down and I could get the ideas down and I could get them out. And like I'm, I would say I'm like, I'm a little bit of a slow writer. Like, so I think, you know, like some people can turn out a script in a couple days. It usually takes me, you know, if I'm sitting down, seven to 10 days to do a script. So, like it, I can tell three stories writing in time that it would take me to draw one story. And that was a big thing. I think when, why I made the switch is because I had all these things I wanted to get out, but because I was drawing them, I felt I was, I just wasn't moving at the pace that I wanted to. And it was like pain. I felt like a, you know, it's like you're like a horse kicking at the barn doors. Right. You just want to get out and kind of do it. And, and that's, that's part of why I got into it is, you know, it's because I want to. There's a whole bunch of stories kind of locked inside my brain that I need to get out there. And I would never get to it if I was drawing them all.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Exactly. I think a lot of even artists nowadays, well known artists that are known for their artwork seem to be writing a lot more than illustrating because of the fact that they have a lot of stories they want to tell. I know Kyle Starks has mentioned that. Scotty Young has mentioned that. The idea that you can't draw everything because if you do, you don't have any time to tell all the stories that you want to tell. But you've told stories, you've told Image, you mentioned image. So you have creator owned stuff. You've told intellectual property in well known characters, you've done Marvels and dc, all that stuff. Is there one that stands out to you that is either the most fun or are they all basically that just have their own individual bonuses and positives and negatives?
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that for the most part, everything just kind of has this like Everything kind of serves a different bit of excitement for me. Right. There have been some things where, like, I worked on a project that I would never want to repeat. You know, like some things that just didn't work out. But I like trying different things. I like to, to sort of branch out and, and sort of stretch my muscles, I guess, a bit. But yeah, like, I, you know, if I had to sort of lock myself into a genre or two, it would be crime or horror or, or, you know, a mixture of both. But, you know, like, for me, I grew up reading Marvel and dc, so working on all those projects, you know, is very exciting for me because these are, these are things that have been around my entire life and I've always wanted to take a crack at same with like, you know, I did Predator. Yeah. I've done three volumes of Predator and I'm a massive, massive Predator fan from childhood. And you know, even when I was younger, before there was a term for it, I would write like, you know, Predator fan fiction when I was in elementary school. So, you know, they kind of, these are things that serve these like, kind of long held interests of mine. Um, but I think with like a lot of the crime or a lot of the creator own is where I get to get like more sort of deeply personal. Like, like the, the Displays, for example, that came out earlier this year is, it's like deeply personal story for me because, you know, it's a, it's this big sort of mystery about what happens to the city of Oshawa. But on a deeper level, it's about my own relationship with the city that I grew up in, because I grew up in Oshawa and Ontario and moved away when I was a teenager. So there's a lot of me sort of working through a lot of my feelings about the city.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And sometimes you can't tell those stories with Deadman Logan or Iron Fist. Like, that's kind of a little harder to weave those things in. Sometimes you can, but like, it would be a little harder. I just thought of something. So you're, you did Predator and Zach Thompson did, did, did Alien Rhymeless. Is there an Alien versus Predator for these Nova Scotia people that needs to be coming from Marvel at some point?
[00:11:55] Speaker B: You know, that would be great if they are, but I, I don't know what their plans are with that, to be honest. Like, when they first hired me to do Predator, I, I, that was one of the first and they said that they wanted to build up to it, so. Yeah, so we'll see.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: But Yeah, I just think it's funny. You guys both from Nova Scotia right now. They'd be great neighbors.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: He's in Pei, which is.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah, just next door. But. But yeah. And then, you know, so it's a Maritime. We're all in the Maritime.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: And, like. And, you know, people from Nova Scotia have recognized that a lot of the planets and bases and stuff in my Predator run are actually named after Nova Scotia towns and villages and such.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I forgot about. That's Pei. Nova Scotia. Nova. My son's name is Nova, so we call him Nova Scotia all the time. So it's always in my brain. But yeah, sometimes you just call him Scotia, and he's like. People are like, what? Like, don't even ask. And it's not named after the comic book character either. I was literally after the fact that I was like, oh, yeah, there is a Marvel character named Nova. No, but yeah, I was thinking the two, you know, two people who reside in Canada. It'd be funny to see you guys do Alien versus Predator on that. But ye. You. You've done Predator, you've done Thundercats, Hellraiser, 24, Sons of Anarchy, Robocop. I mean, those are all, like. A lot of people have a lot of fandoms to these things, and you've been able to dabble in these. And you have an upcoming Silverhawks comic book coming out too.
You just get to play with people's childhoods. It must be fun.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: It is. Like, I, you know, I usually will only take on a project if it's something I've got some sort of, you know, attachment to. So for me, like, I'm, you know, I'm. I'm going back to my own childhood or going back to my own interests and such.
So. Yeah. And hopefully the other people who are reading have the same attachment that I do and feel the same way about it.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Or you absolutely ruin someone's childhood.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's definitely, you know, like, that definitely can happen too. You know, not every. It's not possible to please all people all the time. For me, I'm just worried about, you know, telling stories that. That excite me and that I. I want to see and then just hope that everyone feels the same excitement and. And, you know, has the same feelings about it.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: I think that was cool about it, too, is with. With. With you and those, you know, Thundercats stories and the upcoming Silverhawks is that there are, I think, a generation of. Of new readers to comics or even, you know, people who like animated television that may not even have ever watched or seen these things that are just stumbling upon these now, too. Do you. Do you feel like a. A sense of responsibility to usher these new. New readers in?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Like, Silverhawks is. Is an interesting one because that, you know, I think, like, it was on the air 39 years ago, right? Like, it's quite a while, and they haven't had. There was a comic book that came out at the same time that ended, I think, in 87, but we haven't had any Silverhawks anything since then. Like, you know, we've had plenty of Thundercats along over the years. There's been two TV show reboots. There's been, you know, four or five different comic books.
But, yeah, Silverhawks has been like, it. It's always the kind of. Like, it's the sister show to Thundercats. It's the second one that came out from Rankin Bass. It only lasted a season, which is weird because it's also 65 episodes, which is.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: It was. Was week. Was it weekdays? You. Like, it aired Monday every day.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's. That's the equivalent of like, eight seasons of a show these days.
But, yeah, it's. It's one that I loved growing up and always thought, you know, there was a lot of potential with it to sort of there. Like, a lot of the bones are great. A lot of. A lot of the stuff that was there is great, but there's a lot of potential as well to sort of, you know, modernize it for, like. Or update it for, like, modern audiences. There's a lot of. There's a lot of really interesting stuff that's. That already exists. It already has. Like, you know, we've been talking about it as this. Untouchables in space is sort of our approach and. But that's our, you know, that was already there and baked into the cartoon. It's. It's about an elite group of space cops put together to take down this international or this intergalactic mobster.
So, yeah, but for sure, I think.
I don't know if most. But a lot of people who are coming to this comic don't know what the Silverhawks are. Are not familiar. So there is that sort of pressure. Like, it's like, it's the first time it's had a crack at being anywhere in four decades. So there is this pressure to really, like, make sure it lands and make sure it sticks and that people will stick around for it. I try not to think about that when I'm sitting and writing, because it's that that pressure might crush me, but it's definitely there in the back of.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: My mind and I do believe. I think. Can you. Can you even watch them on. I think you can watch it, like on YouTube. I think you can pay for each episode. I think it's still able to be watched. I just don't think it's on TV. The last time it was on TV was like 2000. I think it was syndicated for a little bit.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: I'm not sure because I probably haven't had proper cables since then. So I've been streaming since about 2000.
Whenever. Whenever they launch all the streamers. So. Yeah, yeah, I. I know you can buy it because I. I own digital copies of it.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Did you watch a bunch before you started writing this again?
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I. I mean, I've been like. I. I watched three or four a day to get through the 65 episodes and. And I'm going back and forth because I'm also writing Thundercats Loss.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: So where there's 120 some odd episodes. And so I. I keep going back and forth between the two, the two shows to make sure I'm up to date and. And going through for like a second time. Just, you know, to keep all that sort of stuff in my brain.
It is available.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. That's one of those things that rightly, like. So one of those things where you can just like pop on Netflix and watch all the episodes. You have to.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Right. You have to buy it. Yes.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Which it may in the future because it sounds like when the sellers, they're working on things that are potentially going to come out at some point with this stuff too, which will be kind of cool. But, like, do you think that without alienating those people who are big fans of this original series, do you think it holds up?
[00:18:23] Speaker B: So I think the thing it does really well is the action and the characters and stuff. They're really fun.
It periodically has some story threads that sort of continue, but not terribly. It kind of resets every episode almost. We have a new status quo. Mobstar's back out there doing whatever he's doing in the galaxy. See, I think one of the things that we're doing that I think the show was a missed opportunity in show is like we are starting a little bit further back with. We're kind of starting at the same place and further back because we do start with Monstar breaking out of prison, which is the inciting incident in the show. But we are also taking a step back with each of the members of the team and showing who they were before they became Silverhawk, showing how their lives are impacted by Monstar and his crime cartel. Everybody, everybody is impacted in one way or another by him, either directly or indirectly.
Which is why they, they choose to sort of join this program where half their bodies are replaced with metal and you know, they're not, they're not quite the same as they were before. So we're taking a bit of time so that you can get to know the characters a bit more. Which is, you know, in the show the characters kind of. You have like a 10 second sort of scene where somebody introduces who they are briefly before that they were on the team and then we're at it and we don't really get much of a sense of who they were beforehand. And so we're trying to do that, we're trying to round the characters out a bit more and we're also trying to put our feet on the ground a bit more on like, you know, in the Silverhawks cartoon, they're protecting Bedlam. But we never really see like we, you know, we have some flyovers of Bin Lama or like some very brief scenes there, but we never actually get to see the people who live there, what their day to day lives are like. So we're kind of playing around with that a bit more. So we're using the cartoon as like a starting spot and we're kind of expanding on a lot of stuff that this cartoon would had talked about or alluded to. And we're, we're just doing deeper dives.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Well, I think you have the ability to. Your, your, your audience is maybe a little bit older now 2 days to nowadays because you're, you're focused on, you know, that nostalgic part of it too. So like someone who's 15 years old may not know who the hell Silver Rocks is at all. Right. Like some of myself when I'm 38, which like okay, it came out the year I was born, but I didn't really watch it right off the bat because obviously I can't. I mean I could have watched it, but I'm not sure what going on. And so you have the ability to like, you know, flesh things out a little bit. Whereas in the cartoon was really just trying to get people to interact. It was also, I mean those that was used as a gap for Thunderhawk Thundercats as well as, I mean selling action figures, comics, all that stuff is the secondary or the motive of a TV show back in the 80s and 90s. So yeah, you have the ability to do this so you'll do. Telling news stories, but also like, so you don't need to have. Have watched Silverhawks the six.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: No, absolutely. We're like, this is very much a new reader friendly book while, while also not ignoring the people who are coming to it because they're fans of the original series. You're still going to get that thing you loved from the original series. It's just going to be a deeper dive. You're going to get to know more about, you know, Bluegrass, you get to know more about Quicksilver, you know, Copper Kid, et cetera. Including in some cases their real names, which were never like revealed threat. Like the show pretty much was just like, oh, here's their, their code names for, for people like Bluegrass or, or Hot Wing. They never had actual names. So, you know, these are things, these are some gaps we're kind of filling in. So if you're a fan of the show originally, you're just gonna get. It's, it's. It's the same like, but it's more if that makes sense. And if you're new to it, don't worry, we're gonna catch you up. Like it. It takes four issues before the team is even fully together and out there fighting a Silverhawk. So we spend some time sort it.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: That's awesome. I love that way of, of telling a new. Telling a new older story. I mean, similar what I was so proud about with Netflix and the Daredevil series where it was like, Matt Murdock didn't really actually like wear the costume till the end of the first season because you're like, okay, he wouldn't immediately just be like, I'm Daredevil and here's my costume. Like, you have to get to that point. And building the team is, is a, is a good way to get people introduced to, to Silverhawks.
Are you surprised? I mean, you obviously are working on this product, this project, but with Space Ghost and with all the Thundercats. Is this a surprising thing to you that these are actually this popular right now, or is it just because of the nostalgia we live in right now?
You're not really that surprised about it?
[00:23:05] Speaker B: I honestly, I don't know because, like, it seems there's a lot of love right now for a lot of these 80s cartoons. You know, like Transformers and GI Joe as well. We've got the Thundercats, there's the Oni's, got their whole line of stuff that they're doing as well.
It's cool because this is a lot of the stuff I grew up with. So for me, I'm just very excited to see these things come back around. And, you know, in some cases, you know, they're like, with Silverhawks, it's their second chance to sort of shine.
I think things. I think there's some good ideas that were almost lost to time that are now finally being brought out into the light. And so I'm excited about it.
Yeah. Surprise. I don't know. I honestly, like, I've given up trying to predict how things are going to do because it feels like, you know, it feels like I'm right about half the time. And things I think are just not going to do well, do amazingly and things I hope will do well, you know, don't.
But yeah, I like. I don't.
I think that the age. It makes sense with the age of readers and when these things had their original sort of heyday. So. And I hope it continues just for selfish reasons, because these are all properties that I like. And I think the stories I've been reading with most of them have been really good. You can feel that there's this love for the original properties that's kind of being poured into it.
You know, that's what we're trying to do with our book as well. And I think you can feel it. I can think you can feel that love and attention and care. And I think more than anything, that's why these things are doing well. I think the nostalgia is a thing that gets you through the door, but it's not going to keep you there beyond the first issue or second issue, whatever. I think it's. It's that attention that care, that the fact that the people writing and drawing these things are legitimately fans of the original thing, I think that's what's keeping people there. There's. There's a real energy kind of going around and. And I feel like that's. That's.
That's, you know, the thing we're trying to capture. This thing, I hope, keeps all these books going for a while.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: I think it's. You're right about that because of the, you know, you've written a number of Marvel characters and so on, so forth. You've been a Marvel fan, you know about, say, you know about Logan, you know about Wolverine and so on and so forth. But you may not be. This is not saying specifically you, but the writer may not be a super Wolverine fan. They know enough to get the comic book written and so on and so forth, and they obviously do their research and so on and so forth. But these people getting attached to these things, these new, you know, reintroductions of these 80s and 90s characters, all are very big fans, like you mentioned. Like, I feel like there's not a single person. They're not going to tap you and be like, hey, have you seen this show? Cool. Watch all the shows. You have never seen it. You don't care about it, and then write a comic book. You're actually going to be passionate about it. And so that's what's cool. And you can feel that. I felt that with Daniel Warren Johnson doing Transformers. I felt that with David Peppo's doing Space Ghosts. You feel that this person loves this character, really wants to do it.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: Well, I've mentioned it, I think, in other interviews before, but I was.
I was going hard at Dynamite to let me write Silverhawks before there was a Silverhawks book. Like, when Declan was announced as writing Thundercats. I'm friends with Declan, and immediately I was like, let me know when they're doing Silverhawks, because I want to write that book. And every couple months, I would check in with him. I'm like, okay, Thundercats did amazing. Silverhawks is the next logical step. And then when Nate reached out to me about doing Thundercats Apex at one shot.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:55] Speaker B: You know, when he got me on the phone, I'm like, the first question I asked him is like, when are you doing Silverhawks? I want to write a Silverhawks book. And I think, you know, that's. I think, why? You know. Yeah, I think why I got the book, because I was kind of on top of them, but, like. Yeah. It's like, this is the thing. As soon as I knew they were going back to this universe, this is, you know, I wanted. I wanted the Silver Hawks. And so very happy to be here talking to you today.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Yeah. About Silver.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: I think it's funny.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Worked.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: I really feel like they were just like, you know what? Let's just do a freaking Silverhawks comic.
We'll do it. It doesn't matter if it sells well or not. We'll just get it. It'll shut them up. No, I think it's one of those things. It's funny because I'll, like, go through the previews catalog at my local comic book shop, Galactic Comics in Bangor, Maine, and I will flip through things and I'll be like, oh, look at this. And someone will go, Thundercats. And, you know, like, it was just, like, really just surprising thing. And then, like, when Silverhawks like silver, and it brought this, like, this talk and discussion that I felt like no one forgot the show, but it was like all pushed to the back of their minds. Like it wasn't in the forefront. It wasn't like none of these people were like, die hard Silver Hawks. It had all, you know, all of them on DVD and were like, doing all. It was literally just like, oh, my gosh, I forgot about that show. And it brought back this, like, I don't know, like, there's this discussion in the comic book store that we don't typically get nowadays. And they're like, oh, do you see this new Wolverine story? Or, you know, see this Ms. Marvel story? It's like it was this weird discussion that I just felt like. I don't know, I felt like it was in another world. It was like this cool time where people like being nostalgic and then, oh, hope they do a comic book of this one or whatever it may be. And I feel like that's what's cool. What Dynamite's doing right now. Not other companies are doing it as well, but Dynamite seems like they're really pulling. Pulling these nostalgic strings for people and getting people talking, which is really cool.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah, agreed. And like I said, like, you know, hopefully. Hopefully it resonates and then we can keep going Silver Hawks, you know, forever. You know, I'd like. It'd be great if we could outlast like the original comic book series. And I guess that was only seven issues, so it won't be hard.
Or the TV series, you know, hopefully we go several seasons.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: Well, one season, 65 episodes.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: It was so funny when you see that back in the. Back in the 80s and 90s, the TV shows, there's ones that were like 20 episodes for the first season, 75 episodes for the second season, 18 episodes for the third season. It was like this weird. They didn't. They just like, okay, we're gonna cut the season here. Sounds good. Nowadays there's so much, like, thought that goes into these things to make how long these episodes are or these series are. It's kind of funny. I still think your best comic is the TMNTX Files crossover.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: You like that one?
[00:29:34] Speaker A: I'm a huge X Files fan and a huge TMNT fan, and I've always complained about the fact that there's some crossovers with TMNT or other teenage style comics that don't make any sense to me. I love TMNT Batman, but it didn't make as much sense to me because of the fact that TMNT and Batman don't live in the same worlds. The one recently, the Stranger Things ones made sense to me. Stranger Things TMNT because they're both 80s, they're both teenagers. All that made sense to me. X Files, they're. They're mutant turtles. So it makes sense for a crossover. So that's what I like about it.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: So that was. It was a weird one because that was one of my very first work for hire gigs. I think that was 2013. So I just had. My image series had come out in November 2012.
Yeah, it was aware because IDW they contacted me and they're like, we want to do a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X Files crossover issue and want to know if you want to write it. I'm like, that feels weird to me. Like, I don't know. I. And I actually had to debate it for about a week. I didn't know if I want to do it. I'm like. But there was part of me, I'm like, just wanted to see if I could make it work, you know, like, because it felt like there are two things that I love. Right. I grew up reading the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: You know, obviously I was into the cartoon when it came a little bit later. And X Files was a huge X Files junkie. I lived in Vancouver, so, you know, it was always filming around me. And one of my biggest regrets is actually I was supposed to be an extra in one of the final episodes, but couldn't. I got scheduled for work and could not get out of it.
So go be there. Would like, you would never have seen me. It was a big crowd shot. But you had that on you.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Like, you've been like, I was there, I did it.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: I was there. Yeah, but.
But yeah, I just trying to make those things. Two things work. And yeah, I had a lot of fun writing that because it did a sequel to an X Files episode called Bad Blood, which is Vince Gilligan from Breaking Bad fame episode about the pizza delivering vampires.
And that felt like an easy in with the story, you know, with the pizza delivery guy and. No, it was a lot of fun. And, you know, I got to work with. With Walsh again and Adam Gorham actually inked it. Jordy Bel Air colored it.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: It's an all star crew if you think about it.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Pardon me there. It was a lot of fun. But yeah, it's one that doesn't come up very often.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: No, it doesn't. And I always remember, I think it'd be amazing. I think if you ever got that chance to be the extra on. On it, you should have just been like, that's how you put your, like when you go to conventions, is like, writer of these comics. And then at the very end it says extra on the X Files. Because I feel like my buddies who own a convention always get contacted by like, hey, I was in the Walking Dead. They're like, oh, cool, what'd you do? I was. I was Walker7900. It's like they always use that as their, like, resume. They were on the Walking Dead. I'm like, you could have used that. You could have used it to get like, you know, signings and perfect, like, photo ops with people.
I was on the X Files. No, but it's amazing. I think the Silverhawks, you know, coming out here on January 29th from Dynamite is gonna be a cool, again, nostalgic trip, you know, down our paths. But also, I think some of these characters that people forgot in time, giving them an opportunity to read something that maybe they even missed, they didn't even understand was there. And I think that there is this. They are hand in hand with Thundercats. So if you're a Thundercats fan, I think that the themes in the story, the stories that are going on and the way they're told, I think people will be fans of Silverhawks as well. Do you agree?
[00:33:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say I think so. You know, they're. They're very different kind of world.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: You know, but I think Thundercats is more like kind of fantasy based, even though they have some tech involved and. But yeah, Silverhawks is definitely like sort of future sci fi, but it's got a little bit of that with, you know, with Monstar. You know, he's basically like almost like a werewolf in the way that he changes powers. He's not werewolf, but, you know, the way he.
Which is the thing where actually his power changing is something we're sitting on for a bit. It's not going to happen for a little bit, but, yeah, I think so. If you're digging Thundercats, you'll probably dig Silverhawks.
It's been a ton of fun to write. Working with George has been pretty incredible. He's a great artist. And Nate, the editor is.
It's been great. He's a really sharp editor. Really great notes, really helping to sort of guide this whole, I guess, universe. So it feels, even though they feel unique, it all feels as part of a larger.
A larger universe.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: And you have Thunderbacks, Thundercats, Apex, and then you have Thundercats Lost coming as well. I mean, are you working on other stuff too or are you solely focused right now on Silverhawks?
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm working on Silverhawks, I'm working on Thundercats Loss, which is a. Just real quickly is about a separate convoy that's sent out from Thundera before it's destroyed to try and find a new habitable planet. And it's about our. It involves the second season Thundercats. So Bengali Lingso and Pamera, a couple new Thundercats that Rafa and I created together, they're kind of shut down behind enemy lines and being hunted and trying to survive on the strange new planet. It's been incredible amount of fun to do. I have four books at different stages of development aside from these that haven't been announced yet. But mostly my last year has been spent and still right now I've been working video games. So I'm writing, I'm working on a video game that I'm a writer on and you know, which is all top secret stuff until it's announced I guess. But so yeah, I realized I was just about to say that's why I haven't been working on it as much lately. But then like I just also said I have six books coming out so who knows what the hell I'm talking about. But yeah, these are the two big things right now are the Silverhawks and Thundercats book. I do have a Tales from the Crypt story that just dropped or is just coming out from Skybound. And then four books that will be announced in coming months. I think two of them are going to be announced in the next month or two.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Nice. That's it. I love obviously your Marvel stuff and I'm a big fan of anything you dive into these IP stuff too. But Sinzo, Salton Sea and Displace were amazing recent creator owned stuff. The displacement was phenomenal in my opinion. And so we're definitely looking forward to more from that from you. But in the meantime, Silverhawks is available on January 29, so hopefully people will grab that and also grab your Thundercats stuff as well. And obviously displaced in those other ones. Like I said, since the Salton Sea are all available in trade as well. So that's worth. We're picking those up, you know, in 2025. But yeah, I really appreciate it, Ed coming on and chatting comics and Silver Hawks and all that stuff here. I hope that the rest of the winter you stay warm. I know it's a little cold.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: It's actually not too bad. It's Halifax. I don't know how you guys are with snow and stuff right now, but it's, uh. Like, we don't have much snow. It's, uh. It's okay. I'm. I'm getting by with a sweater. I don't even need a winter coat on right now.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Now. Yeah, we had snow over the weekend, but other than that, it's been. It's been up and down. You know, it's. It's the. The world of climate is very different nowadays than it has been in the past, so I don't know what to expect. I'm always like, oh, yeah, I could wear shorts tomorrow in Maine and then the next day at Blizzard. So it's a. It's a unique world we live in right now, but I really hope that, you know, maybe we'll cross paths sometime in the future. But until then, I appreciate you taking the time out to talk comics and so much more. Yeah. Ed, good luck with the release of Silver Hawks.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Awesome, man. Well, thanks for having me.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: No problem.
