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 at Galactic Comics and Collectibles at galactic comics and collectibles.com on this episode, we welcome Utkarsh Budkar to the podcast to chat his comic he co wrote with Hannah Rosemary called the Guy in the Chair. Utkarsh is known for his acting, writing, rapping, singing, but he's also known for acting in roles such as Pitch Perfect, the Mindy Project, Ghosts, World's Best, which he also co wrote. The Guy in the Chair is his miniseries debut at an independent comic book company. He had a story as well in Marvel Voices, but this is his debut in comics writing an entire series.
The book's amazing. The Guy in the chair comes out October 8th from Dark Horse Comics. But before you listen to this episode, please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky, threads, all those places. You can also rate, review, subscribe over on Apple or wherever you find your podcasts. You can also find us on YouTube and as always, you can visit capesandtights.com for so much more. But this is Utkash and Budkar talking. The Guy in the Chair right here on Capes and Tights. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. How are you today? How is it? How's it going for you?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Hello, everyone. I'm Utkar and I'm doing great. I'm absolutely excited. I actually am extremely excited to be on this podcast. Is this just audio or do you tape this thing, too?
[00:01:29] Speaker A: I do video to it. Here's the deal. So most people watch. Listen to this, like most people are listening to their car or at work, something like that. We do a video version of it just so people have it.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: If I were to use a fake microphone. Right.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: There you go. See that ego.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: I like to see.
The difference is I don't know how to plug mine in.
What's going on, Justin?
[00:01:54] Speaker A: I. Listen, man, It's. It's beautiful here in Maine. I live in Maine. It's like 77 nice. It's great. It's. It's a beautiful day.
I got to see a building get torn down today. That was pretty cool.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: All right.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's never seen that before. You go with a front loader with, like, the claw, like, grabbing the building and tearing it down. It was pretty. Pretty epic, I'd say that.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: I mean, are you.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: It was a crack house.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: So you're just watching a Bunch of poor crackheads see their home destroyed and you're finding joy in that?
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Well, for case I work for a brewery. My actual full time job is working for a brewery and I'm a creative director. And so there's this property that was next to our brewery that's been sitting there for like forever and for five years we tried to buy it and finally last week we able to buy it and for five years no one's lived in it. It's just been empty, it's been uninhabitable. And so finally we were able to buy and they tore it down today. And so it's been, it's just. Yeah, rats were running out of it. It was crazy. It was, it was, it was a sight to be seen that much.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: So you embellished the, the crack house aspect of it or were there actual crying crackheads outside and then you just.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: There used to be. How about that? So it used to be a rehabilitated crack house. How about that?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: These crackheads jobs at the brewery, what are we doing here, Justin?
[00:03:11] Speaker A: They're not there anymore. I don't know where they are. They left five years ago. So they're, you know, they're long gone. Moved on to a new, new and better things. Right? That's what I'm hoping for is that they're, they're on better things. They're doing, they're doing great. But yeah, it's a crackhead.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: We honor you. We honor you crackheads. What's the name of your brewery?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Orono Brewing Company. We are in Maine or no, Maine, where the University of Maine is.
So right here, near. In Stephen King country. It's what people call it up here because that's where Stephen King's from. So.
But yeah, he lives in Florida most of the time though. But yeah, yeah, we have some fun up here.
We're out of the way a little bit, so we have a little bit of ruralness, but a little bit of city ness, a little bit of everything. And I'm loving it up here. But yeah, a little bit further away from where you are, I'm guessing you're in a different time zone. So that's at least a different traveling time.
But yeah, yeah, we're here to talk a bunch of stuff.
So you're an actor, you're a writer, you're a rapper, you're a bunch of things.
You're.
Your names after your name are. There's a lot of them. Yeah, but, but you know, and we got connected here because of comics. So what's your history in comics? Like, let's. Let's talk about what. Do you have a love for comics? Have you always had a love for comics? Is this something that you're new into, which is fine, too, but, like, what's. What's. What's your history of comics.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Obsession with comic books since I can remember.
So I'm a lifer.
Anybody who collects comic books, who I assume is most of the people listening to this, I have, I don't know, hundreds of shoe boxes full of them. I probably have every single issue of almost every comic that's been put out in the last 25 years.
So I started off like most of you guys in your early 40s who are listening. I'm. I'm born in 1983.
Jim Lee's X Men. Really? That number one cover really captured me. I'm a Larry Hammer, GI Joe guy.
Then I'm. I'm Indian, born in the U.S. but I would go back to India every summer or every other summer, and they would get all of the 1970s Green Lanterns, Superman, all the DC books that became, which I didn't know were seminal works. Also, you'd get the Archie Comics, Richie Rich, that whole world, which is very funny.
And then as I sort of became a, you know, wore my Stussy shoes and all that. Your JKO's. I, Todd McFarlane, hit and spawn. Hit and Spawn is the last comic that I read in my beginning before I hit puberty. And what happened was, is I was in the mall and I had just bought Spawn number three, or maybe it was Medieval Spawn.
And some girls from high school came saw me, and I was a freshman in high school. And they were like, why do you have a comic book? And I lied and I said I was buying it for my baby cousin.
And I'm ashamed to say that I stopped reading comic books that day until my senior year of college in New York at nyu. A friend of mine named Akil had the Parallax Green Lantern run, and he brought that, and I fell in love. It was like a bicycle. I had never left.
That summer I left to do my very first movie in Baltimore called Rocket Science. It's HBO Films, a nice. It's a very sweet movie. Anna Kendrick and I did that was our first movie together.
And I kind of felt like I had all this per diem and I didn't have much to do in that movie. And so he gave me like 90 bucks a day, which, when I was 20, 21, is an exorbitant amount of Money and I would go to the Barnes and Nobles and I just, that I just bought every graphic novel they had in the shop and I. That's where I like discovered, rediscovered Ultimate Spider Man.
The Ultimates storyline. Avengers disassembled. Basically, like, I caught up everything I had missed in the last five years and I just fell in love with Civil War.
House of M.
Marvel was just crushing it. And then DC was doing some great stuff too. I mean, identity crisis, like just some really great storylines. And then like most people, I kind of got hip to the fact that there was a new crisis every six months in Marvel, in dc. Some life changing thing that stopped mattering to me.
So I dove into Vertigo and then I found all the stuff that you guys have already read. Why the Last Man, Preacher, Ex Machina and the Exterminators. And then really started getting into the, that sort of world of Vertigo, image, horror books and more character driven storylines. So I'm an every Wednesday comic book shop kind of guy. I know that's a bit of a long backstory for me, but I am fully into it. Like, I didn't know if this was a video podcast or not, but like, these are the books I just picked up last week. I'm like, I'm on this Steve McNiven, Daredevil, stay in Hell.
And then this looked really interesting to me. I was a fashion school serial killer.
I picked that up. And then this. I got a writer. I just love this title, Wolverine Revenge.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: So I got these Wolverine books and then I'm gonna read these and got a little Silver Surfer stuff. But I've always wanted to do comic books. I had a chance to do Marvel Voices, number one, Avengers. I wrote an Iron Man 10 page Iron man story for that.
Shout outs to Marvel for giving me that opportunity.
It was really short, not enough time, you know, And Marvel has a lot of restrictions and rightfully so. It's a corporation. They have so much canon that you, you can't really change storylines. I really wanted to do a storyline where Tony Stark, as we all know, is an alcoholic in recovery.
But what nobody knows is that the Juggernaut is his sponsor.
And so they fight, fight, fight, fight, fight in the streets. And then they go in and him and Caine Marco just talk about their deepest darkness.
Like, and then they just walk out onto the street, put their helmets on, fight again.
And they were like, well, Kane, Marco technically is not in recovery and he's not Iron man sponsor. Iron man already has a sponsor. And I was like, well, well, man.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do this.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: I also wanted to do a support group for like C list heroes and what that would be like, like all the guys who.
I mean, let me just see real quick. I have a stack of these Marvel Sapphire cards. I'm sure I can find a C list hero.
Bronze? Who the hell is Bronze? It's like, it's like Black Knight City with who else? Jack of Heart sitting with Forge sitting with and just being like, yeah, nobody. No. Nobody comes to the signings. Nobody ever asks. Nobody recognizes me in the streets. I fought. I fought Apocalypse seven times and I still don't know what I do still.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Man, he's like, he's like, he's, oh, I'm super tall all the time, but no one even notices me. They look right underneath me.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, they like, they just walk right, right by me.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: That's a, that's a funny. They honestly think that that's what would get most people because I have a very similar track record in my life about getting out of comics and going back into comics and Civil War and all that stuff. I'm. I'm not Indian and I don't go back to India. So that part of the story is not like me. But everything else, well, just like, you.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Know, they were behind. So that's where I got that.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Yes. You got the next section?
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I got some history.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean, it's. But the series having this big apocalyptic style thing all the time just drew me out of the Marvel for a while there and going independent comics and I do like that story. That part of that story is like getting that. But I think that would get us all back. If you told stories like you were just saying that weird, obscure, kind of like off the wall, kind of weird story would get me be like, oh, I want to read that book. I want to read the book about a sport group for C list characters. I want to do that. I want to pick that up every Wednesday.
Marvel.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: Funny, because Marvel Comics are so much like what before James Gunn did, Marvel comics were more like the dceu. They're so dark and they're so like, you know, just get Jonathan Hickman to make up a language and just put a bunch of symbols on a page and you're like, what? Mutants are what? What is happening, bro? I'm riveted because Lionel is an incredible artist and I will read anything. I won't even look at the words. At some point, I'm just like, this is gobbledygook. I'm just looking at the pictures or Like a Jerome opa. Like I will watch anything that that man draws.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: But, but these character driven stories, Preacher, why the Last Man? Where you really get into the, the, the love that these people have, the conflict, the humanity. It really. I love it.
And so that brings us to the guy in the chair.
Dark Horse comics. And I'm just so excited. So part. I know everyone's like, this guy does not take a fucking breath. And I just, I love comic books. I'm so excited about this book.
And I don't know, I know I don't have much time with Justin because he's got to go kick some crackheads out of another house so he could pour his beer and put his peanut shells on the ground. I don't know.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: What was that, Was that Lauryn Hill song?
Pave a parking lot put up. Whatever that, that, that line. Because it was like we're actually putting a parking lot where that house was. So it's like, take a crackhead, track us down.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Joni Mitchell song.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Famously covered yes, yes, yes.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: That's what it was. And it was, it put up a parking lot. We were pretty good parking lot. But no, we got in the chair. So. So you were writing this with Hannah Rose May, but who tell you right now, people. And this is not. This is a dream come true too. Talking here today because I'm a huge Ghosts fan too. So like the fact that you two were on an episode together too, which was, which was awesome. But yeah. So you two connected. How did you two connect to get this to like, how are you co writing with this with Hannah?
[00:14:04] Speaker B: So these, this is just magical universal intervention. Which is where San Diego Comic Con Hannah is there celebrating and pushing a book that ended up becoming one of the bestselling books of the year called Rogues Gallery.
Anyone who hasn't read it, it's about toxic fandom. It is an image comic book. It is freaking phenomenal. Must read. It broke the bank.
Meaning like it really like broke records for a first time writer.
Hannah's there. I'm doing our first year post Covet of Ghosts, all our ghost panels with the whole cast. And we're like, you, you. They shuffle you to all these different auditoriums. And as I'm walking, I see this tall redhead walk by and we lock eyes and I'm like, well, she looks interesting. And I'm like, well, don't stare too long. Don't be a freaking repo.
And I turn around to talk to Roman Saragossa who plays the Sopis and I turn back, and this tall redhead is literally six inches away from my face. And I was like, geez, I didn't know I was that magnetic. What the hell?
And she goes, I'm coming on your show on Monday.
I was like, excuse me? She was like, I'm coming to play the maid, Hetty's maid, the show on Monday. I'm going to be in Montreal on Monday. My name is Hannah. I'm here promoting my book. I was like, wait, what? Now you have a comic book? She was like, yeah, this is my comic book. I was like, okay, you have to sign.
I need to sign right now.
And I think she thought that I was just blowing smoke, that I was just trying to be polite.
And I was like, no, no, no, you don't. In my mind, I was like, I have to prove to this person that I actually am about this life.
So fast forward a few days. We leave San Diego, we meet in Montreal, and I'm like, look. And I bring my stack of comics. I'm like, look. And they're not just superhero comics. I got everything. I got Ice Cream Man. I got Nice House on the Lake. I got Real dude. Like, I was like, you know, I'm snobbing. I'm, like, showing for my record collection.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: And, you know, whether or not you'd have. I wish Hannah was here, but she's really busy finishing up a big IP that we're not allowed to talk about. And she's got another amazing book out right now called exorcism at 1600 Pen, which is also just breaking records as a horror, so.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Great. Yeah.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: The truth is, she's going to Ireland tomorrow, and she told me to carry this one solo, Justin. So that's the kind of partner that I have. Anyway, we're on set. We're obviously connecting over the fact that she is a comic book creator, which is a dream of mine, and I am on tv, which is a dream of hers.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: And we.
I don't know whose idea it was first. And she. I must have been Hannah's. She's the brains of the operation. And she was like, I'm been mulling thinking about this, spinning something on its head, about taking somebody who's not the star and making them the star.
And then I was like, okay, well, we need a ton of explosions, and I would love to add a cultural element. And can we make it romantic?
And so that's how the idea of this spy fi romantic action comedy called the Guy in the Chair was born. Literally out of a chance Glance across a room at San Diego Comic Con, which led to now two, three year long, incredibly fulfilling creative partnership.
And now we're finally here, man. We talked to Dark Horse. They gave us a chance. Love me some Dark Horse.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Who doesn't?
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yeah, Great logo.
And our book comes out in October. Issue one of the guy in the chair drops in October.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Yeah, October 8th. It's exciting because, yeah, first of all, Rogues Gallery is phenomenal. Exorcism at 1600 PEN was unbelievable. And so like, you had some, some bangers coming from Hannah in the first place. And then, you know, obviously, like I said, I was a fan of Ghosts and seeing that connection and seeing, I mean, my wife was like, we started watching Ghost and I was like, wait, he's Mindy's sister. Brother on the Mindy project. I was like, yes, that too. There's a lot of things in here, so. But having this whole connection, I love this and I love the crossover in, in, in, like you're an actor, writer, you know, that's your thing. You do that instead of, you know, you can't ditch comics as you're an actor. No, you can do both. There's definitely in the passion behind it. And you can hear it from you, like when you actually hear you say, you know, it's not like it almost feels like you have to. Just like you were saying to Hannah, you have to justify that you're not just like, oh, I don't just read Iron man every week or, or whatever comes out. You know, I actually like the, like the indie titles and the obscure titles and things like that. You almost have to feel like you might have to justify yourself that you're not just in it to make money. Because here, let's be honest with you guys, it's not a bunch of money in writing comic books. There's. It's more fun than it is. Like, you know, you're. You could spend the rest of your time on set and do a better job financially than it is to write a comic book, but you're passionate and you have a. Want to do this.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And honestly, like, look, the, the business side of things for. Just to be completely transparent. Yeah. I mean, I'm in an IP driven industry and I'm in an IP driven industry with very little existing IP that represents my culture and my ethnicity and my experience there. You're not going to go like David Corn Sweat. They're not going to replace him with frickin Cal Penn. You know what I mean? Whatever. Or me, I'M not going to get to play Nightcrawler. I won't get to play Iceman. I'm not get to play Forge. These characters are already visually set in stone and when they're changed, there's out outcry, public uproar from the stands, which to some degree I get because I'm a traditionalist. Also, I fall in love with these characters. But we can all agree that these characters all look one kind of way.
So from a quote unquote business standpoint, by creating an ip which I love, maybe provides myself or another actor an opportunity to embody this role of our hero. His name is Abby. He sits behind a computer all day. He is the technical wizard who helps his assassin Merlin complete her missions.
He's madly in love with her, which is obvious in the first two panels of our comic book. That's not a spoiler.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: She may or may not know that he exists. She certainly values him as a work partner.
And the organization that they work for, the Observatory, which sends them out on all their missions, peacekeeping missions, as they're told they are their organization. They are strictly forbidden from ever meeting each other or talking to each other in the real life. Punishable by dot, dot, dot. Who knows? I mean, you'll find out. But punishable by dot, dot, dot.
And he's just sort of content to sit in this cubicle with no life other than the screens that he watches Merlin really be an adventurer in.
Until one day, after a long day, Merlin, who he's never supposed to meet, she shows up at his door and she's a total freaking badass, by the way, bloodied and bruised and asking him for help.
And they sort of go on the run together trying to figure out who's after her and why and may or may not fall in love while they do it.
And as somebody who's written for Disney and Fox and the Netflixes and all that stuff, and I'm known for my comedy, I hopefully will make you laugh out loud with the book as well. It has a deadpool irreverence to it. I want to be winking at you, the reader, at all times.
I don't know if you've had a chance to read the first issue.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: I read issue one. I have issue. They gave me issue two as well. But I.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: You tell me, guys, I'm going to shut the fuck up. You listen to Justin. Justin, you tell these people about the book. Pros and cons.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Well, there's just the right amount of humor in it. And there's Just the right amount of action and there is just the right amount of love story. So like sometimes to me, if you hear, oh, it's got a love story. And it might turn some people off who don't want that in their comic. But like you, to me there's just that amount. And in like you said, the cultural aspect of it is there because obviously you have your main character who's not this white guy with a combed over hair and sitting behind a computer.
But also it's still see myself in that person, if that makes any sense. Because we've all been there. We've all been the person who thinks we're closer to someone and are telling other people about this someone.
But that person, again, may or may not know that I actually exist as a person beyond a certain.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: Whether it's a voice or, you know, a picture or whatever.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: But yeah, it speaks to an online existence that we all live in where we can be like best friends with people on a headset playing Call of Duty or Fortnite that we've never met.
And also to the pandemic experience that a lot of us now have grown used to where we're talking on screens and it's just wild. I met somebody yesterday who I know and hugged and we never met in person. And this is someone that I've logged hours, zoom with and we'd never met before and neither of us even realized we hadn't met before in real life. So it's. It sort of speaks to that mentality as well.
But now tell them what you hated about it.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Honestly, nothing. And that's. I hate to say that because it's true, because it is. I mean I haven't put a review out there and I will put a review out there at some point on the actual on our website. But like as we get closer to the comic release. But you know, it would be a top rated comic because again, it has that little bit of everything. It's a little bit different, you know, especially after just reading. For example, if you connect the Hannah Rose May part of this. If I just reading exorcism at 1600 pen is a lot darker and horror aspect of it. It gives you something different to read and that this is when those things that I don't know how many times I would have just immediately jumped and grabbed this book. But because of the connection of the writers and things like that that I like about it, that's when I grabbed it. The name of it's also, also awesome because it just reminds Me of also again, more recently, the Spider Man. Can I be your guy in the chair in that aspect of it? So it's great. And then just again, the comedy and the him explaining. And I get. I don't want to spoil too much, but like him explaining to other people about this person. And I'm like, well, where's your friend? So he must talk about this person all the time to other people. But no one's ever met this person and they don't know that he hasn't met this person. So that. That part of it is. It was awesome. Because you don't get that in the type of movies that are based around a guy in a chair on a mission. You know, you're born supremacy.
Your war, espionage type films are all about the action and the mystery and the thriller of it all. Not as much about the love story. And if it is, it's about the damsel in distress getting, you know, saved by someone in some sort of military operation and falling in love after the opposite. Yes.
It's different. You're shaking things up. You're making something a little different here.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: I hope so. And here's a real question for you because for those guys listening, and I'm sure you have lots of listeners who are like me. I'll be honest with you. I don't give a About the writing. In most books, the first thing I do is open up to the second or third page and I look at the art.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: And I want to see how the colors feel. I'm very visceral with my comic book experience. I'm not a digital guy. I. That's why I love the McNivens, the Opana, the Finch, the Lionel, you, the pencil work. I love the Dylan's. I love anybody creating strange and weird feelings within my body with what they're drawing. What do you think of the artwork? Be honest.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Guillermo is great. It's this.
It has the comic book feel to it with an action comic. And so it's like it has that edge that. That explosiveness you need in a comic book that has action in it, but it has a cartooniness that it's in it. And I. I never. I don't think I. I can go back and look. I don't know if I've ever actually visualized this artist before. I don't know how much. Much about the artist. Guillermo Sana, he's in.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: He's somewhere in South America. We, we.
I think he's in Brazil. Everything is Google Translate back somebody. Dark horse put Us in touch with. And, you know, Hannah, you. Hannah gets really frustrated with me because my aesthetic is like, I love the 1600 pen. Like, more lines, more shadows. I kept saying, like, I want movement. I need the pictures to move. And Hannah's like, what the are you talking about?
And I'm like, like. Like, Lionel, you scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
What are you talking about?
So it took us a while. Took her a while, I think, to figure out visually what it was that I was obsessing over.
And we had a lot of opportunities to work with some great people, and Guillermo just found the right amount of pop and sort of unique pen work where you. Where you feel like the action pieces are really, quote, unquote, actioning.
Like, I want a car chase to look like a fucking car to feel like a car chase. I don't know how else to explain it. Like, you see Nemesis and. And read that or Super Crooks, and you see what. Like, Lionel, you. And what McNiven did with that. You can feel the movement.
And that's what I was aspiring to.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: And I think there's one of those. There's a. I love this style of artwork. Like Vanessa Del Rey. Her artwork for 1600 pen is perfect for that comic.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: And so it fits that comic and a story, and so the same thing goes with this. I feel like maybe if you would asked me if Vanessa did this book, I might have been like, excellent. But it doesn't fit correctly. I think there's something about Guillermo's artwork in this that fits the story itself. But, like, if you and Hannah do another comic book together, and you're like, oh, everybody love Guillermo, but it's just. The story is different. That it might be a different artist is necessary. And I think that's what's cool about. We are.
[00:28:48] Speaker B: We have. We are working. News is coming for. For a next book with a. With a company we all know and love. And Hannah and I are about to dive into our next adventure together, and we're really excited about that. I mean, the amount of news, I cannot tell you about.
[00:29:02] Speaker A: It's regular. It's a normal thing on this. I understand that. What I don't like is when someone comes up because I go, what are you working on? Is there anything you can't talk about? And they're like, no, not really. I'm like, well, then you have a long time without doing any work, because if you don't have something in the hopper, whether it be acting, directing, writing, producing, whatever, or comics or whatever, then you probably have a long time before something actually is going to be made because you got to have those things you can't talk about. It's part of the industry in general. But yeah, I think this comic will speak to a lot of people. There's the action, there's the love, there's the comedy. And I think that's what we need right now. I think something that's.
And it sounds really bad, but it's not something you have to think hard about either. I wasn't sitting there like having to investigate words or demons that I didn't know about or whatever it may be. This is pretty straightforward.
Missions need to be accomplished.
There's a love story that you can relate to 100%. I'm not the guy in the chair as much as I want to be right here and I'm not talking to people who are on these mega missions. But again, I've been there, I've talked to people, I've had friends, friends that are physically. You mentioned the Internet part of it, but I've had physical people close to me. We're come to find out like years later, I'm like, wow, I was way more of a friend to them than they ever were to me. And not like in a jealous way, but in a way that I thought the relationship was two sided and it really was only one sided. And so we've only been there. And I think that's the relatable part of it. And it makes you want to read more and learn more and discover more about. And the first issue has a great cliffhanger in a sense that you're like, I want to read the next issue. But enough of the story's told. That's another thing about. And that's one of the reasons why I didn't go into the second issue yet. I will. I was lucky enough to get it.
But it was one of those things I wanted to go into this with. Like, I want to be where everybody else is on October 8th talking to you. I want to know. I don't want to do too much of a forward read.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Because I don't want to have too much in my head to. To want to talk about and have people like get spoiled. So yeah, it's exciting to have that thing there. But I mean, guessing you had Marvel voices, so you've had this experience, you know, writing something for comics. But October 8th, when you go into your local comic book shop to buy this comic, what's that experience can be like for you?
[00:31:08] Speaker B: First of all, my Local. I'm going into every I can find.
I want. I really want a secret sign. Books.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you want to stand there next to it, though, and be like, yeah, that's my comic.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: No, that's not actually. You know what?
Because I'm so excited.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Like, when it's movies and tv, this is going to be sound douchey, but, like, I've had the experience now for many years of sort of that. So if I'm on a plane and I mean, just two days ago, somebody was watching this, a Disney plus movie that I wrote and co produced called World's Best.
An elder couple was both watching the movie right in front of me, and Danielle Pinnock, who plays Alberta on Ghosts, was sitting next to me on the plane like, yo, fam, I got to tell these people right now. And in a situation like that, I'm like, no, no, no, let them have their own experience. Like, don't ruin it. Please let them watch. I want to see if they turn it off. Like, I want to see how much they get through. God bless them. They both watch the whole movie with their eyes open and headphones on. So. But I'm used to it, so I don't intervene or interject. But honestly, I'll probably tell everyone, like, I will probably. It feels really, really good to go and see something where you're like, you know, I never.
I never.
When I was getting, like, Bishop's first appearance and, And. And the whole Carnage saga and Maximum Carnage for Spider man and buying variant covers and, you know, I've never not been in a comic book shop since I was 5 or 6 years old.
And so it's a very, very, very cool thing. And to do it with Hannah, who I consider to be one of the best, if not the brightest voices in comics right now, and the way she advocates for me as a partner, the way she stands up for me, the way she uses her powerful Irish white woman energy.
White hot woman energy.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Protect her guy in the chair. It really appreciated.
And yeah, so I'm really proud of. Of her for I'm really grateful to her for choosing me, and I'm really proud for. For us that we get to do this together because I know how hard she works. I see how. How in demand she is, how.
How well she. She sets herself up for success. It's really cool.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: It's nice to also have. I mean, I know, you know, the partnership and bouncing ideas off of ID people and it's helpful, but you guys are also both busy people, and so, like, you have, you know, both crazy worlds to go around. Flights taking flights and on set and offset and writing comics and all that stuff. So to have the partnership of it, it probably makes it a lot. Little bit easier too. And then someone is as talented as Hannah. So, like, it's not just like, have a partnership.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Yeah, partnerships are very difficult to make work.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it's.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: It's. There's egos, there's. There's time, there's finances.
There's a lot of stuff that can get in the way. And creatively, obviously, like, you can have very, very, very different opinions. Now. I've had two or three creative partnerships in my life that have gone seamlessly.
Hannah and I work together as if we're one mind. I don't know what's happened. There's always a yes. There's always. I see where you're coming from. The disagreements are always constructive.
She is a straight shooter, as am I. We don't have subtext in our conversations. It's very, very clear.
I'll be like, I want more bullets. She'll go, no, why?
[00:35:04] Speaker A: About.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: Why can't we crash a helicopter? Because it's a love story, you idiot. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I think they should smooch here then. And she's like, you're right, they should. And that's it.
And that's how a rewrite gets done. It's just that simple.
So I'm. I'm really grateful because. Yeah, the truth is, I work on Ghosts. Season five is coming out a week after this book dropped October 16th.
Season five. I'm shooting right now in Montreal.
We're 18 hour days, five days a week for seven months.
In between that, I'm in post production on two movies. I'm. I'm constantly working on new music and I'm writing two other movies, so. And Hannah has more books than She's Queen NDA right now, so there's no. Nothing I can tell you that she's doing. That's how dumb what she's doing is.
I wish I could tell you, but I really glad. I texted her last night to ask if I could.
I got several paragraphs in response with a lot of capital letters. So just letting you guys know. It has been relayed to me that I have to shut the up, which I understand.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: I mean, it's.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Hey, I got a tendency to spill the beans, Justin.
My bead holder's got a hole in.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: The back hold in the bottom. Yeah, I guess it's fun. But I also, like I said I love this crossover between people who. Who are on screen and want comics because comics are a passion of mine and a passion of other people and people in the things. Some of the best comics I've read in recent years are by Patton Oswalt and Jordan Bloom with minor threats and too many people out there who are like, oh, Patent's an actor, he's a comedian.
The guy is obsessed with comics. So, like, there's no reason why I.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: See Patton every time I go to freaking revenge of. He's always there in L. A.
He's at all these things. We were meant to do a panel together at comic con, but I think he was working and I think Jordan might have moderated that panel.
Anyway, point is, all I ask from the listeners, it's called the guy in the chair. Yes, Dark Horse Comic.
Just do me a favor and pick up issue number one.
It is independently made. I know it's Dark Horse, but I'm telling you straight up right now, I did not take a penny to write this comic book. Every cent went into the book. I was not paid.
I did not expect to be paid. I wrote this book essentially for free so that every dollar would go into the product.
And.
And as such, I hope you give it a chance and know that whatever $10 I would have gotten went to that ink, baby.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Exactly. It's phenomenal. It's beautifully.
The logo is great. The first issue I've been lucky enough to read. I'll probably end up diving into the second issue tonight and getting that chance to get, you know, ahead of it. It's great. The downside of this, I can't talk to anybody about it for freaking two months. It's like it's a whole thing. However, it's.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: I'm happy if. Yo, I'll tell you right now.
Leak it, man.
No, no, don't.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Because I. I have a relationship with dark orders too, that I gotta keep going too.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: I can't.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: I. I heard you.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Spill the beans.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: You can't do that.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: It's not like this is recorded, bro.
Between you and me and nobody else.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: It'S phenomenal. How about that?
They'll never know who. How are they going to know? How are they going to find out?
It's excellent. So it's worth giving your shot the first thing. But we're at a position too, where you can go and just tell your comic book store you want it. If they don't get it, they'll get it, whatever it may be. But it does do wonders to get this first Issue, because that tells Dark Horse to, hey, we want to do another comic with you two in the future, and so on and so forth. So that helpful. But it's also a great story, so that's worth it, too. But I also could see you and Hannah acting as the main.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: I mean, that would be that Hannah was very, very adamant that she would not do that.
And I was.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Adamant.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Total opposite. I was like, yeah, man, make this dude look like me.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: I thought the same thing. The writer by the Berkowitz brothers and Josh Gad. I was like, wait a second. That guy looks a lot like Josh Gad. Is there a reason why that's like. Well, you know, got a subliminal message in here, man. If someone looks at the comic and do a casting, you gotta make it look like him. But yeah. Yes, you have. October 8th is when. When the guy in the chair hits shelves. Then it's a. It's a monthly series coming out.
Four. Four issues. Yes, four issues.
And then obviously, there'll be a trade coming out after that too. So if you are happy to be a trade winner, I understand we're not gonna go into that right now, but there'll be a trade out in the future, so check that out. Ghosts, Season 5, October 18th of on CBS. Super excited. Some crazy stuff's gonna happen. I'm guessing this season. When are you gonna go to a compost shop on the show? That's what I want to know.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: See, I've been begging them. I go to a comic book shop in Montreal where we shoot all the time. Shout out to Captain Quebec.
I think it actually might be October 16th.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: Is it 16th? It's 16th. You're right. Thank you very much. I have the eight in my mind for. For the day. The comic comes out October 16th on CBS.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: And yes, if you can just go to your local shop. Look, it's a Dark Horse book. I assume they'll have it, but if so, we all know that the LCS sometimes has to pick and choose what they get, but yeah, just ask for the guy in the chair. When does this air, Justin?
[00:40:39] Speaker A: That's up in the air.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Well, it'll hopefully be on your shelf right now. Who knows?
[00:40:47] Speaker A: This will air before the. The. The issue hits the shelf. So the latest. This will air Octo.
So that would be a week prior. So you have the ability to go in there and tell them to hold a copy, put it in your poll box, do all that stuff. Make sure you get it. Buy all the. Any covers there are buy multiple copies.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: And I really want. Have you talked to Hannah yet? Hannah Rosemay?
[00:41:09] Speaker A: I have not talked to Hannah's. I've missed Hannah twice because I was supposed to talk to Hannah about 1600 pen as well as on here. So one of these days we'll get.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: I'm gonna really push for her to hop on because you guys should hear it from the genius's mouth. She's the queen, the brains of the operation. She's the queen and the king. I'm the court jester.
[00:41:30] Speaker A: You're the guy in the chair. I don't know who you're talking about.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: You're the one in the chair, dude.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: You're the one helping control things from a distance. The difference is Hannah knows who you are. Hannah's met you and Hannah. That's the difference. And. And hopefully she's not showing up on your front steps tonight to go on some sort of weird mission to figure things out. Hopefully that's not happening, but other than that.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: So. And Please pick up 1600 PEN EXORCISM at 1600 PEN & ROGUES GALLERY, Harley Quinn. Any books with Hannah Rose's May on it? Hannah Rose. May's name on it.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: Are more than worth picking up. Get ahead of the curve because before long she's going to be the most sought after writer, I think, in the industry. If she wants to be.
She's blowing up.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: Well, don't let her that big because then you'll still start dropping you off a little bit and then you don't want that. Maybe you'll be on your own at that point. Maybe you'll do your own book.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: It's already happening.
Like, she's already like, bro, you might want this guy.
You want to branch out? I'm busy, but I love it.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it's good to watch my friends shine.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I completely appreciate you taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat here on the podcast because I know how busy you are. But like, talking comics is fun, especially with people again, you know, people you look up to. Ghost is like literally one of my favorite shows. My wife and I watch it every. Every week it's on and so I'm excited for. For more and I'm excited for more comics from you and all that stuff. So it's a. It's a pleasure to talk to you. But thank you for taking time out to chat with me too. I appreciate that.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Thanks so much, guys. And anybody who didn't get the cold slither sdcc, hasbro GI Joe exclusive. I accidentally got four of them. So if anybody needs one, holler at your boy. I'll give you a good price.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: That's perfect. Thanks, buddy.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: All right, see you.
