[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtights.com I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. Once again, this episode is brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and Collectibles. At galactic comics and collectibles.com we welcome back writer David M. Boer to the podcast for I believe the fourth time with the first time in a long time to discuss his story in EC Comics Shiver, suspense stories from Oney Press, as well as his Kickstarter that launched on November 17 and got funded this morning. And as we're recording this episode for Malik the Dam number one, so check that out over on Kickstarter. But David talked about a ton of things on here, including surviving the fire that happened last, last year. So this year, earlier this year in California in comics and so much more. So check this episode out before you do. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky, threads, all those places you can rate, review, subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts. You can also find us over on YouTube and as always, check us
[email protected] for so much, much more. This is David M. Booer on the podcast right here on Capes and Tights. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome back to the podcast. David Booer, how are you?
[00:01:15] Speaker B: It's been a uneventful what we decide. Almost 24 months since the last time I saw you.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: It's like, it's like what, 20, 21 months or something like that and 100 episodes and a lot of stuff's happened. I mean I, and I didn't even talk about this. Like, so I had a kid, like we talked about that, my second child. We talked a little bit off the air about that. But I had wrist surgery and I bought a house and all this stuff and you had, well, then you had a verse.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: I'm gonna one up both of them.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: So I had heart surgery and we lost our house. So in the, in the wildfire. So you just gotta stay positive. You just gotta stay healthy and positive and just keep moving forward because you never know what's going to happen over the course of 21 months.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Exactly. It's crazy. So, I mean, so speaking of that, so how's your heart? How's the surgery? Did the first surgery stick and stay and we're good. We're good. You can run a miles and miles and miles now or. No.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well, actually I'm training for. Well, actually I'm training for our first half marathon in February.
So the Heart feels really good. Last few weeks have been a little more stressful on my heart due to Kickstarter.
But that aside, that is the stress of it all aside, it's. They, they were able to repair it back to 100, so it's where it should be. And no need to go back in and do any additional follow up surgeries. No medication, none of that. It was a fix it and move on.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: That is excellent. It's so good to hear. So good to hear. And you're in a building of some sort. This is not your, your house that you had structure, your inner structure. But how has that been? How has life been like? Is. Are you finally feeling like there's some sort of sense of normalcy ever since this fire happened? Are you still, still like reeling from it?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Like, sense of what? Of what, what is that normal? I'm never.
So I, you know, it's, it's really, it's interesting. I don't want to.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: You know, I try to. We try to stay as positive as possible, but I think now we're about 10 months, 10 months out from the fire and it's, and it's a little, it's gotten even a little more challenging now than it did previously, at least sort of trying to find some certainty and some positive anticipation of the future and that sort of thing. So we've finally been able to take some steps forward to some certainty.
So next year I'm sure we'll see a lot of changes that are coming for us personally. But right now we are in a rental house.
Insurance has come through for us and the dogs are.
Right now, they're question naps right here, just off camera. So they're comfortable, we're comfortable. So I think that's, that's their, you know, what we can ask for right now.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: It is true. It's. I just saw cj, lead author, last month and her house is one of the houses to get lost in the fire about 10 months ago.
And she's just not. She's living in her car now with her boyfriend. They're just, they're just traveling across the country. They're like, they're just like, they're like, you know what, forget it. We'll just be on the road the whole time. Then I'm like, I guess you can if you have that kind of a lifestyle. But like, yeah. She's like, I can be in New Hampshire for an event and I'm just in a hotel and we'll make it. I'm like, okay. Sounds like you're making the best of it. I mean, none of us really. You know, it was. It was. It was. I remember the day you were one of the first people that I saw post a picture of it. I had some other creators that I've chatted with on this podcast who have also lost their homes or. Or had to be displaced and things like that. And you were one of the first. I walked into the comic book store, and I'm like, oh, my God. And I'm.
I'm talking to the LCS owner, who's like, oh, yeah. And then someone else is like, who's David Booer?
And I was like, oh, man, hold on. Let me give you a trade right now. Let me find a trade for you. No, it was. It was one of those things that it was like. I felt it. I'm on the east coast, and I felt like this. You know, I have people that I care about and I read about and creators that I know who lost the thing. So it was 10 months ago now, or roughly 10 months ago now. We're hoping that 2026 brings much better things for you. But, yeah, I'm glad you're here right now chatting with us. Right. I mean, that's.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: I'm so happy to be here. Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: You're alive.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Well. And I've been working. You know, you just got to get back to it. It's.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: I just keep telling, you know, I keep saying this, that you can't choose the bad things that happen to you. You could just choose how you respond to them. So, you know, it could have been 10, 11 months of just wallowing in the.
You know, and the things that happens.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: And instead, we just. We just, you know, do our best to move forward. And when we couldn't have done it without the community come to coming together, I mean, it's just been an extraordinary response. Continues to be an extraordinary response. I just got today from a friend of mine.
I'm gonna bring it into camera. Could I. Could I pull it into frame?
This.
In 2050, I did my first series ever with Vault comics.
And in 20, I want to say 2015, maybe 2016, at San Diego Comic Con, the first ever words of mine in a comic in print appeared in a ashcan preview of the series that we were going to be launching.
And I had nine, eight signed, and I CGC'd them all, and I lost all of them in the fire.
And just today, a friend of mine came. Came through and had this copy. So it was 2016. So there you go. It's signed 2016. This is the first ever of my writing that was in print.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that is awesome.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: I got a cop. I have a copy.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: So is there, like you had mentioned, you know, in your post back, you lost, like, First Edition Stephen Kings and First Edition in Joe Hills and things like that. And you're obviously, your comic collect, amongst other things. We're talking comics here, so we're gonna focus on that. But, like, is there some sort of, like, small, I don't know, happiness of rebuilding it, though? Like, is it like a. You know, like you only not happiness, but, like, are you trying to find happiness? I guess in the sense of trying to rebuild some of this, because I know I own XYZ first edition or XYZ number 1, 9, 8 signed, but I'll never get to do that again, if that makes any sense. Like, I'll never be able to buy that again or find that again.
Not say never. But the chances are. Are hopefully slim. Is there some of that, like, still trying to, like, oh, now I get to piece this stuff back together, or is it just, like. It really sucks?
[00:07:50] Speaker B: I mean, it does really suck, but, you know, it's. It's. It's. You have to make a conscious effort to.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: To take the joy, you know, to find the joy in that. Because for everything that I have to do, there's. There's two sides of it. There's.
I had some Valiant comics. I'm a big retro video game fan and NES fan, Nintendo. I grew up with all of that. And so, so Valiant published the Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, all those comics in the early 90s. And I had a bunch of the number one slabbed, and, and I lost those and so at San Diego Comic Con this year, and they're expensive. And I found a Zelda number one in a nine, eight slabbed. And I was like, you know what?
I'm gonna get this. I'm gonna buy this. I'm gonna spend the money, because this. Having this and looking at this will bring me joy. But I had to make.
You have to focus on that because otherwise everything that happens, you just start thinking about, well, I'm taking joy and I can buy this now because I lost it. And so you start, like, it's very hard just to. It's so easy to spiral into focusing on the negative. So you have to just approach these things and, and say, in this moment, I'm. I'm. I.
I'm feeling joy, I'm feeling happiness, because I have the opportunity and the means to buy this.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: To have this, and then that will bring me joy. So I guess. I guess that's the answer is, well, opening.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Opening this box, this person mailing you this comic book, say, and seeing this, the joy. I mean, this person, your friend of yours, probably had joy in sending it to you or giving it to you. Like, the idea that.
Yeah. And so there's this joy to that aspect of, like, seeing that again, opening again. Oh, my gosh. I mean, half the comics in my collection, if they were to fall off the back of my house and never see again, I probably would not care as much, because I read them, I enjoyed them. I don't really need it. It's the. It's the special stuff that I would really. The stuff that's behind me and things like that, that I would probably have to do it. And there's a lot of things, like, you know, and I want to continue on about this fire stuff, but, like, there's a lot of stuff I have. I have a whole wall here and a whole thing of signed comics from guests from the podcast. And, like, those are so gonna be, like, so much more difficult to reacquire. You know, those nine eights, those special things like that. So. Yeah, but it's like I said, in the moment, when you go to buy the NES comic book, in the moment, you're like, I get to do this again, even though I don't want to have to do it. I get that. And that same thing with that box being open or seeing that dash can, it's like, oh, it's an enjoyment to see that again and bring joy to someone else in that. But. But in the meantime, since the fire and since the surgery, you've been writing Ghostbusters, which has been fun. We talked Ghostbusters last time you were on. But since in between then you finished that series and you started another Ghostbusters miniseries, and that comes into trade paperback this January from Dark Horse. I mean, you've been steeped in Ghostbusters, so you've been enjoying this Ghostbusters time writing.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: I have.
I'm just gonna pull.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: I'm gonna pull a bunch of stuff from off. Off the screen.
Heck, yeah.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Oh, look at that.
Yeah.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: My stay puft pillow. Yeah, so. So I. I loved Ghostbusters when I had the opportunity to write it. I. You know, I grew up with the Ghostbusters 2 was my movie as a kid. And then the real Ghostbusters, the show, the cartoon I grew up with, I watched it after school on Saturdays, you know, as. And so I love Ghostbusters. So when I got the opportunity to write the first series and then the second series, I mean, you just throw yourself in. And so in this new series, it's called Dead Man's Chest and I did some research on, I was like thinking of ideas because they sort of let us kind of create our own ideas or stories in the world of Ghostbusters. And I googled Manhattan ghost stories because like, that's kind of cool. And I found out that Captain Kid, the notorious pirate, he owned a house on Wall street where, where he lived with his family.
And by all accounts he was an upstanding citizen and he was not this notorious pirate that we all know from history.
And I dig into it and I find that historians are split between whether or not he was a pirate or if he was framed by the British Crown and hung for piracy because they, they wanted him out of the way.
And I thought, you know what if I, if that happened to me and I stewed for 100, 250 years about being wrongfully executed, I would be mad if I came back.
So what happens in Dead Man's Chest is Captain. The ghost of Captain Kidd is resurrected and he brings with him all his ghost pirate buddies. And his mission is to turn Manhattan into the 17th century Pirates harbor that it was back then.
So there's ghost ships, there's ghost crackers, there's ghost everything.
And his pirate. I was like, ghosts and pirates?
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Are they not? They're may not. Those are the two best things. Let's put them all together. Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: I mean, to be honestly, one of my favorite series from the past. I don't know, five, six, seven years was Dead Seas by Cavis gotten. It was ghost. It was like ghost pirate type stuff. It was pirates or ghosts that were on ships and things like that. But yeah, but yeah, it's a fun thing to see Ghostbusters and see your name attached to it. You know, to me selfishly, I'm like, I like a lot of your creator owned stuff. So like seeing Ghostbusters like, oh, this is great, but I'm like, I want the next thing. I want the next David creation, the true 100% from the ground up creation on that and getting what you wish for. Yeah, we're getting there. We're going to get to that here in a second. But it was cool. I always, like I said, we Talked about it 100 episodes ago about being able to touch someone else's property like that, that it's really, you know, it's. It's a safe place. Like, people, like, they don't want you to mess with it too much. And I think that with the creation of the films like we talked about, I think 100 episodes ago, was that they did such a good job of bringing us back to the original films with this gap and this bridge to. To reboot, slash, remake, slash, whatever. The comics kind of fed off of that, and I felt like that was cool, too. So I think in a spot where you have a new generation of Ghostbusters fans and things like that, and having to be able to, like, write stories for those people must be pretty cool.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: It's fantastic. And the biggest challenge is to, you know, you can learn how to. You can learn how the characters and their backstories and personality quirks and what they look like and. But really, like, get. Getting their voices down and getting the tone down. Like, what are these two.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Like.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: When Phoebe gets in a room, what's the jokes? Yeah, what's, you know, Phoebe and Gary. Yeah. Like, what are they going to say to each other? What jokes are they going to use against each other in these moments?
And there's this great opening sequence that's really funny. I'm so glad they let me do it in Dead Man's Chest where they are fighting a. The sculptor who is a ghost of a sculptor who's inhabiting this modern. It's kind of like the Guggenheim, but not the Guggenheim.
And he has brought all these different modern art pieces to life.
And they're fighting, and Gary has all these dad jokes and Phoebe has all these Phoebe jokes. And it's just. It's you. I feel like you have to be a fan to be able to nail that tone. And that's what was fun for me, because I was such a fan. And I love their voices. I love their personalities. So to get to do this, you know, and craft a story around that is.
It's. It was fantastic. It's fantastic. I hope to do more. I've got more ideas. I've got some fun. I kind of want to. My. My new thing is I want to bring in some of the villains, the ghouls from the ghost. Real Ghostbusters, the cartoon, and that'd be fun.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: You have the ability to do, you know, some fun things and touch on a property again, you grew up watching, even though you're a fan of Ghostbusters too. We. We've gone into that. We've figured that out. You like that movie?
[00:16:01] Speaker B: There you go. I'm a bigger Stan 100.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: No, it's pretty funny. And actually it's kind of funny, you know, I think was McKenna Grace. McKenna Grace, who plays Phoebe in the movies, who's obviously the likeness of the character that becomes into the comic books. I want to say it was funny because I feel like she was like the daughter for. On like Designated Survivor or something, like some sort of TV show that I watched. It was like the President's Daughter. And I always.
I always go back to the fact that she's, like, fighting ghosts now, even though she was like the first daughter of the United States. And I was like, trying to like, okay, this is different tv. This is different properties, different everything. But I always do that whenever I like, because, you know, the comic is drawn for Phoebe's likeness, which is basically the. The movie character.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Of course.
I'm always like, okay, she's.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: She.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: The President got out of the office and now she's. She's fighting ghosts. Crazy.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: I mean, her parents are so busy that why not. Why can't the first daughter be a. Also ghost?
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Whatever.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Right?
[00:16:59] Speaker A: It is what it is. No, but like, see, I see Ghostbusters. And then. So when I reached out to you originally, I was like, I haven't talked to you in a while. I was like, I want. I want to talk to you. And then I was like, hey, I want to record. And then I said, hey, I can't record because my son's sick.
And so we had to move it. But no, I wanted to talk to you about this. EC Comics. Suspense Stories. Shivers.
Which is amazing because, you know, I'm guessing as a fan of comics and a fan of horror and things like that, that you actually, you know, you. You're a fan of EC Comics as a whole.
But they have this, this holiday anthology.
They have anthologies, but they have this holiday one called Shiver Suspense Stories. And last year they had one, this year they're having one. And you got lucky enough to be partnered with Lucas Kettner. First of all, Lucas is phenomenal artists, like, one of my favorite artists out there right now, but for this anthology. So because it's holidays, it's right around that time. How did this come to be? How did you get into the fact that you get to write this story for. For this anthology?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: So actually, it was just. Actually. Well, actually, I'm gonna do that so many times.
So last week, I want to say last week or maybe the week before, it was announced that ONI is publishing a middle grade, spooky graphic novel series that I created called Tales of Lake Erie. E E R I e.
That's about three 12 year old kids who live in this town that's on the coast of Lake Erie in Ohio where all this weird stuff happens. And they call themselves.
I don't know how much I can reveal, but they call themselves weirdologists. And none of the adults in town believe that there's anything strange going on. So they're.
It lands on them to sort of investigate everything. So it's inspired by Goonies, Encyclopedia Brown, if you remember Encyclopedia Brown. I loved Encyclopedia Scooby Doo. And then my childhood growing up in the towns right along Lake Erie in Ohio. So it's like an adventure in your own backyard.
Middle grade series. It's really fun. Sarah Turner is the artist on it. And Sarah, you might know Sarah Turner, if you have kids who are middle grade, they click series.
It's very popular.
So ONI is publishing that. So I've been working with them on that and I know that they have ec so I've been like, badger, I've been tugging on Hunter. Sierra is. Sarah Hahn is the head of it.
The editorial. Head of editorial, yeah. And Hunter's publisher. And so I've been tugging at their shirt sleeves going, I want to do ec I want to do ec.
And so I pitched some ideas and the EC folks responded to this one story called Red Season.
And it's set in 1987 in a mall on Christmas Eve where we have a mall Santa, a very typical mall Santa that you envision back then, who maybe is drinking too much to cause to pass the time. And the kids sort of progressively get more creeped out by him and he gets increasingly annoyed, but he ends up passing out in the mall in the shed, the elf shed, when they shut down the mall and lock it down for Christmas Eve. So he wakes up like 30 minutes before Christmas and he looks around, he's like, they really just. Did they lock me into. In this mall from Christmas Eve. He's like, it's going to be a merry Christmas after all.
And so of course, in true 80s fashion, we cut to immediately to the montage of hijinks.
But then he finds out that he has, through his actions, landed on the naughty list. And so it becomes. I'm not going to say anything more about it except Lucas is so incredible on this as an artist that I sent over the script and once, once Lucas got it, we started getting back layouts.
It's clear to me that Lucas, I don't know any of Lucas's bio details, but if Lucas did Not grow up in the malls in the 80s like I did.
It would be remarkable because he actually put in all the Easter eggs. Yes, I, I threw in a couple Easter eggs, but then he took the rest of them. He's like, well, he's going to walk through. Walk through the mall. Yeah, he's going to pass these stores.
So you have stores in there that are not exactly what they were, but you know what we're talking about.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Well, I love how you say it was 1987 and it was like, well, you can't really base a mall story in 2025 because, like, not everybody knows what it's like. My mall in Bangor, Maine is like three churches, two theaters, a shoe store, a Hot Topic, and like a bunch of empty stores. Like, it's just. There's like three anchor stores, Dick Sporting Goods, a furniture store, and the Sears, which is empty because the Sears closed. And then there's like a leaking roof and they're like, we're not going to do anything about it. So they just like sealed it off. And so like that is a horror story right there, I guess. But like, yeah, saying it's based at a different time time frame is probably more accurate because no one goes to the mall to see Santa anymore.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: That's so funny that as you were saying that, I hadn't heard the word Sears said out loud for a long time and I was thinking about him like, what if it's a shutdown department store and it's called Sears, but it's because the like hell has taken over and it's a portal to hell and Sears actually means like burn. Like Sears. Yeah, that's what it means now.
That's what we're here for. People just, just accept it.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: It's funny because we actually. It's funny this mall. So the comic convention, the, the, the.
I run a comic single day comic book convention, but I also work with a pop culture expo kind of convention where they have very little comic book stuff, but it's more like celebrities and things like that. And in the process of going from the big arena we had that had bad management to this is like right around the pandemic time to they're back at the arena because there's different management. But there was a time in the middle there they needed a place to go and the mall, which was 90% empty, was like, come to the mall. So they ended up like using like old large department stores as like, okay, this is celebrity room one celebrity room too. And so on and so forth. And then The. The. The walkway or the hallway part was, like, where all the vendors were. So, like, it was. It was kind of funny, but, like, there were celebrities pulling up to it. Being like, this is in an abandoned old mall.
It was like. But then once they got in there, they were like, this is actually pretty cool.
That used to be Build a bear and that over there, you know, like, all this other stuff, and it was kind of funny. And I'm like, oh, this would have been great to be like. You know, at that time, I was like, dead mall was being put up. Adams, Adam Caesar should have been there because it was in a mall. And, like, all this stuff should have been great for a mall series. But no, it's.
Malls are crazy.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: San Diego Comic Con, just being in the world's biggest mall because, like, we have all these convention centers, but why not just. Just a fully empty mall? And that's it. That's. That's how. That's how it.
I mean, I would be there immediately.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: But each store could be like a different. Like, okay, Oni Press gets their own storefront. And, like, all this, instead of having it, like, we have booth. You actually walk into an old store.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: That's freaking great, because I think publishers would lean into that. You actually create your own sign.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah, let's find a big mall that's abandoned in this country that there's not that hard and do this. We'll do, like, a convention there. But no, because that year, we set up as a podcast. We were. This episode. We had Dana Snyder on who. Who voices Master Shake on. On. On Aqua Teen Hunger Force. He was there. And there's a longer story on that that I won't get into right now. But we were actually set up in old GameStop. It was an old Gamestop, and we were actually set up there live podcasting from the convention. And you'd walk back there, it had, like, the gray slat wall, and, like, it was just bringing back so much memories. And I'm like, I really want to walk behind here and find like. Like a regional Halo in the. In the.
In the box.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: You see those posts on Instagram? Like, somebody was breaking down shelves at an abandoned Toys R Us, and they found a sealed Pokemon, and it's, like, covered in dust.
Pokemon Dia, you know, Game Boy advance or something like that.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: I was like, I still want to do this. This is amazing. But it was just kind of funny. I'm like, we're actually here broadcasting from a GameStop. I guess this is a. This is a notch in our Podcasting, you know, career here to broadcast live from a GameStop. No, it was kind of cool. So, yeah, I think the mall. The mall thing obviously, obviously brings people back. I mean, I think this is a nostalgia to Christmas as a whole, because you always think about previous Christmases when you're talking about things like, my wife and I were going to watch movies the other night. She's like, a previous Christmas? Well, we watched this two years. It's all about the past, really. You never think about, like, four years from now on Christmas, I want to do this. It's like you always talk about four years ago you did this. So, like the nostalgic part of that. But I talked to Chris Ryel and Jordan Hart about Dread the Halls.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: I know, just recently, right?
[00:25:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: It's coming out in a week from tomorrow.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: It's so amazing and so phenomenal. But this, I think this puts it up there. I think this EC Comics one Shiver Suspense Stories has that. That vibe. What do you think that brings in holidays in the juxtaposition to happiness and joy and horror? Like, I mean, there's this.
There's this weird thing that, like, I don't know, I just love the fact of seeing like, Sienna with a. Like a sword or, or like, you know, reindeer that are possessed or things like that. Like, what is it about horror and holidays that go together, in your opinion?
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
Well, I think.
I mean, for so, so many people, the holidays are hard. First of all, if you embrace it. That's so much work. It's so much work to do. And if you. I mean, some. Sometimes they're not.
I don't know. That's a hard question. It's just, you know what? I'm.
Throw all that out. I don't. I'm not gonna be fancy at all.
I think it's cool because usually it's about joy.
Somebody's getting slaughtered on Christmas. That's really cool. And it create. And it brings another layer to horror as a genre.
I think horror can. Is so versatile that you can put it anywhere. Horror, Valentine's Day.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Or the horrors of the Fourth of July, all that stuff. And to add an extra little layer to it for Christmas, I think it's just. It's fun. It's fun. It goes back to like, I. I grew up on Tales from the Crypt, the TV show. And there's the famous, famous episode where the woman is trapped in. In the house on Christmas Eve as the serial killer comes and dressed as Santa.
The. With the ass. Yeah, sort of. An iconic moment. And I think that is if you love horror, you love.
That's such a fun twist to it.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's like there's this. We're in certain times, we're overjoyed. So if you can bring it way back down, like the complete opposite, that helps with that too. And I think that it is one of those things where it's like you're supposed to be happy during this season.
So let's make it not. And then also like Santa Claus is supposed to bring joy to people, but if you have a Santa that's like, you know, a bad Santa type Santa, or you're a Santa that's in. That's in this, you know, EC a Shiver suspense stories story. You have this, like, that's not how Santa's supposed to be. You just be joy, you know, like, it's like one of the. We just watched Red One over again.
The. The one like was like two years ago or last year came out and it's like he's so happy to be Santa. But then if you watch like Fat man with Mel Gibson, it's like he gets shot at and things like that. It's like, it's just so much fun to see what you're expecting tilted on its head. And I think that's why, that's why I like that Hard eyes that came out last year. Like, it's like a Valentine's Day horror was like the idea that we're supposed to be happy on Valentine's Day, but then there's a guy like killing people who are happy on Valentine's Day. Like, that was cool. And I think that's what's bringing this whole thing to it. I think that your story was great in E.C. shiver suspended stories. But I'll tell you right now. Lucas, did you read it? Yeah. It made it so much better.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: But did I send you the whole thing or just the bit?
[00:29:12] Speaker A: No, you only press sent it out Friday.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: What? I don't know anything about this.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: I got so they. They.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: So you know the twist? You know the twist?
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Did you see it? Did you see it coming?
[00:29:26] Speaker A: No, No.
I think some. I thought something was gonna happen, obviously, because if you just walked at the mall, the day went around, I've been.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Like, yes, because there was. There was. There's one direction you can go with it and then there's another direction and you chose the other direction to go with it. I'm just going to be curious if people reading it, but if you're not Spoiled. If, if that's going to be a surprise, readers are going to be like, oh, okay.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Do you feel like it's hard to write comics in that many pages?
Like a story?
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Really? Honestly, I love it because one. It's, it's, it's.
He keeps work like he keeps. Allows me to keep writing stories that are. Then get out there. But I mean that they gave me 10 pages. I asked for the extra. I was going to do eight and they gave me. And I asked for 10 because I wanted to do those mirrored. Yeah, the pull the.
So the preview is out there. So the first Polaroid. Yeah, like pinup page. I wanted to do that and they let me, but I wanted to mirror them so they let me have a couple more pages. But I love it because it's something that I can do fairly quickly.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:30:36] Speaker B: So I've done, I've done several in anthologies that are crowdfunded, like Kickstarter anthologies.
I'm hoping to do more of these horror.
But gotta, you know, finding the right niche for it.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes.
It's a. I just thought, you know, it's like, I don't know, sometimes I'm like, I'm a big single issue person. But then like I get to the end of a single. Like I just read Malik the Damned and I'm like, God, I want the next one now. Like, it's like one of those things where like, if it was me writing that, I'd be like, I want to just tell the whole freaking story right now. I don't want the whole serialized thing and then take that and truncate it even more by making it half that size or smaller. I can just be like the same thing. And it's like, however, I have seen a lot of these things with hello Darkness and the tales from the category, all the different EC comics ones that they are starting to think about spinning off some of these stories and other things. And so you are seeing full 5 issue miniseries that are spun out of their 10 8ish, 8 episode 8 page, even shorter story that's in these anthologies. So it would be. I would, I would read a longer version of your story in next Christmas if you were to put that.
Yes. 1988.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: The reporter standing in front of the mall that's been closed because of the carnage.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Like, oh, what the heck, one year ago. And now we're having a holiday comic con at this mall.
Right. There you go. We figured it out. No, it's fun and I think that. But these things. Go ahead.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say, but I, you know, I don't know if those spin offs are by design, if they're, if I, I haven't talked to them about this. So I don't know if those series that spun off are.
Let's do a little short in the anthology, knowing that we're gonna spin off or if the short comes in the anthology and then the response to it or something like that, they look at it and they go, you know what? That would be a good.
Yeah. To go farther. I personally did not want to.
I would love to have a spin off, but I want the spin off to be organic. So if it's something, if it's an idea, if it's an idea that like, if for some reason we spit off this red season.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:50] Speaker B: A longer series, I want it to be because readers really loved it and they come back to me and like, let's do a longer thing.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Rather than having something in the wings, putting it in there. And then unless you advertise it, I mean, it could always be that here's a 10 page short in the world of this that's now going to be, that's going to be a series coming then, you know, I feel like readers, sometimes the more honest you are, just the more loyal they're going to be to you.
If you're just honest with them and say, yeah, this is a preview of something bigger or just going to chew the scenery for 10 pages. Justin.
Celebrate the holidays.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: It is. And it's one of those things that I feel like, you know, as I said with other anthologies that are holiday based or certain time of the year based, you know, whether it's, you know, it's a Dread the Halls or this one or Dread the Hall H, which is like summertime, like Comic Con season, is that you can repeat, go back to them. And I think that's what I want to normalize. Like if I go back and watch Red Season again after I saw it again or whatever, I guess the Dread the Hall H. There you go, attendee.
I want to watch it again. I mean, I watch Home Alone every year. I watch, you know, a Christmas story, those kind of things again. Why can't I normalize that with comics? Why can't I hold on to this, pull it out of the box and read it again next Christmas and be like, okay, I'm going to read these stories over again. And the cool thing about these, I think, is like the 52 pages or the longer ones is you can read a story and put it down and then go do something else and then come back and read the second story. Like you don't have to sit there and commit to the whole thing.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: Anthologies.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's great. You can read part of it and then go back and then, you know, those kind of things. I think that I'd love to be able to. And I mentioned again, this is kind of repetitive in the sense that I've done a discussion about holiday anthology before. Is that the Deviant's amazing from James Tiny. But it's a five issue series that started in like August. So you're reading like about Santa Claus and things like that, like in the middle of the summer when this has to come out around this time. And it's great because it's one issue, it's an anthology, you know, single one shot that you get to get to read these stories. And when I heard you were part of it, and then again, I didn't even read who the artist was. I was like, okay, I'll get to your. You know, I'll. You know, I'll read through him and oh, this is cool. It's a red season. I'll start reading it. I'm like, wow, this artwork is phenomenal. And I got to the end and I'm like, who is the artist back? And I was like, oh, that makes sense. That. That makes sense why I like that. It's like when you finish a movie and you're like, oh, that's. That's the director. That's no wonder I like that director.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: That feels like Zach Krager. Oh, and it is Zach Krieger. Let's go.
Yeah. No, Lucas had. Lucas was just. Just leveled up the series, so the story. So I certainly hope that there's opportunities on to work with Lucas again.
Just his ability to internalize. I mean, that's what you want with an artist. If I feel like that's with me and Drew on Kanto Y. You know, it's a. It's truly a collaborate, collaborative creation where we both internalize the story and bring together, sort of level it up in a way that you just can't do when you just produce a script and give it to an artist. And an artist is just like, okay, these are the blueprints I'm going to execute.
[00:35:57] Speaker A: It's true. And this one comes out so which is great because I think the dread the halls one comes out the third and then yours. This one, the EC Comics Shiver suspense story number one or 2002 25, whatever they're calling it comes out the following week. Yes. Two. Yeah, two. Number one or something like that. Because I always have to put number one on things to try to sell. I always love that.
[00:36:17] Speaker B: Well, I think it's for distribution purposes. You have to add a number one number, which is weird even for one shot.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Could you technically make it? Didn't they used to do it like annual or like the special? Like, one shot like that, it would be like holiday special number 1986. Like, couldn't they just do it that way? Couldn't it be like EC service? You know, number 20, 25. Like, and so that's the number of the comic. But we all number one cells.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Some tiny, tiny bit of experience with computers. It seems like somebody should be able to fix that. But whatever. I don't know. It's beyond my pay grade. I am interested because like you said, Dread the Halls is coming on December 3rd, and then Shiver Suspense Stories is coming on December 10th. Yeah, I'm sure hello Darkness has some sort of holiday. Yeah, they do anthology, so there's a lot of them, but it's not on the same week.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: It's the week after. It's the 20. I think it's the 2017. I think his is the 24th. Honestly, I think it's Christmas Eve and it's because Tyler Crook is coming on to talk about that one, and Tyler did some stuff in that one. So I think.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: I feel like especially Dread the Halls and issues Chris may complete and Jordan may completely disagree with me on this, but those anthology stories, it's not. I know everybody stretches their dollars everywhere, but I feel like if you vibe with ec, you'll vibe with Dread the Halls. If you vibe with the Halls, you'll vibe with Ecstasy.
And so having them both come out on the same day actually means you. I think we. I think we would get readers just to buy both of them.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: So hopefully we have the returners on the 10th. Hopefully those folks who are looking forward to the 10th come to the. On the third for dread the Halls.
I don't think it's competitive. I think.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: No, no, no. I think it's great. And I think actually it's. It's nice in the sense that sometimes it's nice to have it on the same day. But like, those people who are weekly price conscious country interest, like, they're. They're like, oh, I got. I could spend the 5, 6, 7, $8 on this one this week, and then next week I could do the next one and wait, you know, I'm sure there's one coming out on the 17th that I'm just not thinking about. But I know the hello darkness number 17, which is the holiday themed one, is on the 24th and they can spend the money on that one. So it's like, it's nice for those people who are like spreading their costs out can. Can pick up Dread the Halls. Read that while they wait for this one and so on and so forth.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: Which is cool. And the cool, the different. There's also differences between them. Like this one EC the Shivers suspense stories in the hello Darkness are a bunch of different people.
Whereas Dread the Halls is Chris and Jordan doing the writing and some of the artwork is, you know, like I said, Jordan does some of the coloring and some of the lettering and stuff like that. But then they have artists that come in, but the stories are all them. And so like, there's a. There is a different feel to all of them, but they're all horror anthologies that, that if you like horror and you like the idea of a horror during the holidays, then you're going to like them all.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: Like, this is not literally describing subscribing to Shudder.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. And it's better, honestly. It's better than that because, Because I just put together. Yes, every year I put together 10 horror holiday films. I didn't do it last year because I forgot, honestly. But now this is my third out of four years that I've done it and I'm getting to like the bot. The dregs of the, the list of holidays. I'm like, okay, these are, these are horror holiday movies. But I can't promise that they're good. Okay, so here you go.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: That's. That's all they need. That's all some of them are just. So the idea being that you go to shudder and literally, yes, as a horror fan, I'm a horror hound and I can just watch movie after movie after movie. So with these horror anthologies, these holiday horror anthologies, if you're, if you're a fan of them, just, you know, you can, you have the opportunity just to get one after the other after the other and just keep enjoying them.
[00:39:57] Speaker A: And it's, it is good for your wallet in the sense that you're not committed to having to buy four or five months of these things. You can commit to the 1 Dread the Halls, 1 EC Comics version of it or whatever, or Shivers Stories. And then whatever it is. And that's what's kind of cool too is that they're, they're, they're. You're buying a thing and getting, quote, unquote, a complete story, whether it's complete small short stories or a longer story. But like, you're getting that you're finished when you read Red Season, you're done. You don't have to worry about waiting till next week or next month or anything. You're done. And you can.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: Well, that's true, true. And it's such a. That's such a bane of our existence as comics creators and publishers is that drop off of issue two and issue three and just trying to get folks to come back with these one shots, especially these anthologies. It's such a low, low commitment.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: And so, so we had an idea in the comic book store the other day is to do like, issue one is like the end of the story. In order to fight, you have to like or like issues one. And you do. Issues one, three and five are like, in order. And then two and four are like the end of the story.
So you buy them all. You're forcing someone to buy them all to actually get to the story because you're buying the last issue first, right?
You buy issue one is the first part of the story, issue two is the last one, and then you get them in order. So you're like, you're forced to buy the last issue.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Well, so what's intriguing about that to me is that when you're, when you're writing film, you can start with, yeah, the climactic moment.
I love the idea of a number one being the climax of the story.
And it's so. Can I swear on this.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: Podcast. It's so batshit crazy. What happens that at the end you're like.
It's the voiceover.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: So you're probably wondering how we got here. You know what I mean? But that's the cliffhanger is how I had this.
So I haven't read it in a very long time. But there's this book by Kurt Vonnegut called Cat's Cradle.
And there's something in cat's cradle called Ice 9.
And it is a chemical composition of water that if it touches. It's a molecule that if it touches water, it will reconstitute the molecular structure of water to make the freezing point temperature higher.
So imagine 32 degrees Fahrenheit is the freezing point of water. If call it ice one, and ice two is 40 degrees, ice three. And so ice nine, you get to room temperature, you get to the temperature outside, and that's when water freezes, which means water on the earth will not be liquid anymore. It would just always exist solid.
And I mean, this is just the way my brain works. But I'm like, what if you opened a movie where, you know, you establish it immediately that the one drop that's falling into the water is going to change the composition of all water on the planet, like in Cat's Cradle.
And then that does that. And then you cut to like two hours before and you go through real time. Two hours. How they got to that point where the world's going to be destroyed by that one drop falling. And I thought you could do that. You could say that. I. I mean, I would buy it. Maybe I'll. Maybe I should try it now.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Like, I guess you get pissed people off. Like, screw this series. I'm not buying this series.
But no, I think it's good.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: I think you write it in a way that people will be like, what in the ever love and F. And then you could do the issue number one. Like the first part of the story is issue two. And then you just sort of fill in the gaps.
I don't know. You'd have to.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: I feel like that would help with issue too. Whether or not you still get issues 3, 4 sales or 9. But I think it was one of the issues 1 and 2 might do well. But I. I feel like that's a weird way of doing it. I think that thinking about outside the box is a way to get this comics, you know, the. The upkeep on these things and trying things out and doing it backward. Doing the. The Life of Chuck kind of way of telling a story in that sense. Like it might help in that sense. But yeah, these anthologies are pretty easy though, because they're like, you buy it, you read it, you're done, you move on to the next thing. You don't have to commit to. To anything longer.
Most of them are 52 to 72 pages. So they're. They're tend to be heftier and tend to be more money. But that doesn't mean that. But you get the quant. The price you're paying is because it's no more pages. It's not just because it's more expensive. So you are getting more story usually or stories, I should say for anthology when you pay more for it. But yeah, it's. It's easy because people are in this world of like trade waiting and buying trades and doing all these things and not wanting to have to do month to month.
And so, you know, anthologies are just perfect for that.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and I think there's more bang for your buck because when you're paying 499 for a single issue, I, I, I support that because that's the model right now.
But if you're paying699,899, and you're getting double that, it just feels like it's something. It feels more substantial.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. But we mentioned the art in Lucas Kettner's art in your story Red Season in Shiver Suspense Stories, which is out December 10th from ECU Comics/oni Press.
The art is also a key part of Malik the Damned, which is, is, is, is phenomenal. And it was kind of funny because you kind of teased me. You're like, I'm launching this. The pre launch page is here. And I'm like, well, what is it? And I'm like, gosh, I wanted to know more. And then you finally, you, you, you, you stepped up to the plate and you sent me the, the actual issue.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: I fulfilled my responsibilities on this side of the podcast.
[00:45:39] Speaker A: Damn, man. Like, you keep doing this. Like, I am a big fan of your writing. I'm a big fan of things, but, like, I think there's a huge thing when there's certain people's writing like yourself. It gets paired with a specific artist that, that works so well together. And I think that it looks like you guys had fun making this too. This is not just like, oh, let's get a book written and things like that. It looks like it's created this. This is amazing.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: Let me explain you. Let me, Winston, explain you. Winston Gambro is the artist on Malik the Dam and helped co create it. And if you look at this is the main cover and you can see that, like the skulls and no, Malik himself, it's all painted.
But then you've got this Steamboat Willie reject here in Malady. You've got Jessica Rabbit, you want to be here. And Mrs. Vetusosa, and you've got this steampunk beach ball in Egan. If you look really close, it's. He's an architect in hell. And so it's all blueprints. Yeah.
I think Winston is so unbelievably talented. And the fact that I could throw at him all those different styles and he just is like, oh, you mean like this? And he creates Maladie, who's the cutest little thing. She looks like that because in hell, she, she lived on the level of hell where they torture all the pedophiles and child molesters and all the people who are evil to children, and she just is Endlessly amused by the idea that she looks like she's an extra from Steamboat Willie and she's like ripping these sinners apart. She just loves that.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: So.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: And it's the same idea that each character, the style is inspired by why they, who they are in hell. So the premise of Malik, Malik the Damned is that Mo Malik is this noir, rye whiskey drinking detective who's on earth investigating supernatural crimes. And he's on earth because he was thrown out of hell. And the reason he was thrown out of hell is his dad is Satan. So he's the son of the devil and he came out to his dad as gay.
And of all the horrible depravity that exists in hell, Hell, apparently being queer is the worst. And so his dad yeeted him out of hell.
Think about what he's done.
Malady Egan. They get swept up in the backdraft as Mo Malik is flying out. He's coming out of hell, it turns out, and now he's stuck on earth. And every time he hears a hint of a supernatural sort of angle to some sort of crime, he is looking for a way to get back to confront his dad.
So in this four issue series that we just launched on Kickstarter and just funded this morning. Let's go.
[00:48:29] Speaker A: We get a binder goes.
[00:48:35] Speaker B: In this four issues, there is a quadruple murder suicide committed by. It's in the opening sequence, so, committed by a, by all accounts, upstanding minister in Alabama.
And it's got demonic fingerprints all over it. So Mo goes there with his, his buddies and is going to start investigating what's going on here and maybe find a way back to finally have that conversation with his father that he couldn't have before.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: I, I was reading it and I was like, I love your subtle statement.
Subtle, subtle statement of saying, saying I'm using that ironically or sarcastically, I should say, about how being gay in, in hell is awful. Like, like that.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: I was just writing a response to an interview question about this and I, and I really thinking about it, the reason that this series exists is because I cannot personally fathom any parent whose child comes out and the parents like, get out of my house.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: I cannot, I cannot understand that. I cannot. Like, you've raised this kid for probably close to two decades and suddenly this is the deal breaker. It just does not compute for me. And so as I thought about it, I thought, Justin, what is the most absurd way to put an exclamation point on it?
And it's if the devil threw out his son Coming out it's like we'll embrace you. Murder.
[00:50:07] Speaker A: Yeah. There's people more willing to, to stand by their, their, their son because they committed murder. And it's obvious that that person did it than they would be if that person said I'm gay. And then you know like that could be. You're more apt to. You took someone else's life and you're more apt to be accepted by your family. More than that then that's, that's a.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: So yeah.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: He could have murdered people in hell and the devil would have kept them by him side.
[00:50:28] Speaker B: Yeah, you can torture. I mean he loves the torture.
But there, there, there are a lot of. Beyond that send up and that obvious sort of, you know, poking the bear on that respect. There's a lot of emotional layers here that we're gonna unpack for him. It's fun, it's funny, he's wry, he's, you know, these companions are kind of pains in the asses but there's a lot, there's a lot of emotional, I mean I don't want to get. Yeah too deep. But there's a lot of emotional layers to the idea that like imagine I imagine being mom. Alec. And now you have to inter. You gotta deal with psychologically the fact that you're dad is the worst entity that has ever existed in human history.
And suddenly you're too bad for him. He can't deal with you because you're too bad. And so it's like what level of rejection do you have to deal with with that? And we're gonna find that there is a. There's some twists and turns to that that really I think is going to put a great exclamation point on what it means to be part of the queer community and have to deal with those kind of things.
And, and that, and that's why I love this series and I love that. I think it looks beautiful. I think it's coming out great. People seem to be jumping on board and I just, I'm glad that it's going to be out in the world because it feels like it's something that will live out there as people continue.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: To discover it in, in, in Kickstarter. So it's with Lifeline Comics, their imprint, Deathline Comics, which is I'm guessing more horror. So I, I'm not a big, I don't know what Lifeline Comics is. Can you. What is that? I'm not, I, I want to.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: So, so they're stupid. But that's okay. It's Phil Falco and Cat Colamia and Michelle Abenator, who's a very good friend of mine. She is the editor of the Deathline line of comics. So Lifeline Ray has launched many different series. Most of them are queer focused, okay.
Series on Kickstarter. And I think they just got hit the benchmark of cumulatively over a million dollars raised for all their.
So they've been doing a lot of really good stuff. And Deathline was launched to be more of a horror centric and Malik is.
I feel like it is just. It's left of mainstream. So it's left of mainstream comics. So this felt like the perfect place to launch it and get it out into the world. And the reception has been great. Like I said, we've been. Today is our first full week.
We just completed our first full week and we just funded this morning for this issue one. There'll be four issues. So folks will get notified if you go to Kickstarter and you.
And you back it and you'll be notified of issue two. Three.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: Two. Yeah. And so on and so forth. But yeah, so, yeah, you mentioned a little bit like how stressful it is. So getting a comic.
[00:53:29] Speaker B: You mean my week of 1,000 days?
[00:53:31] Speaker A: Yes, well, getting a comic made is stressful in general. And we know this, we've talked about this, we've talked about creators and so on and so forth. When like say your. Your book ends up at boom or whatever and they make the comic and so on. So your stress is then is people. Are people going to buy it after it's made? You know, I mean, like you got to create it, but it's going to the shelves now. You're stressed about issue two and so on and so forth. But like, this is like this comic could not have been made technically. Right. I mean, there's a possibility if people didn't side with you or want to do this and you didn't get funded, there would have been a possibility of this not even being. All the work would have been. Not for nothing because you would eventually figured a way to probably release it. But is this gratifying now that it's funded, that people actually want to read this comic from you?
[00:54:12] Speaker B: Yes. The relief from the stress of having it going.
I'll be honest, we were pretty. We put our heads together and we were pretty confident based on everything that we would. I mean, we said 11. 11,000 was the funding goal and we felt good that we would be able to get there. But there's always the risk that it's just, you Know, it lands like a lead balloon and it feels great. It feels great. I can't thank folks enough for jumping on board.
I think it's. If creators, writers, artists, whatever, in comics are listening to this, I think Kickstarter feels like a ne.
I think now, maybe not necessary, but an important component to a holistic approach to how you make comics. Because like you said, there are some series. I have series coming out with Dark Horse Oni.
I had, you know, specs with. With Boom. There's different uncertainties with those. But if you can build a body of work where you're taking major publisher, book publisher, Kickstarter for something that maybe doesn't fit right there, you're building audience in all these different places and then you bring them to the different way. So the next. The next series that I launch and point people back to the Kickstarter, if you like this, you're like, yes. You know what I mean?
So I love that. This is a part of my whole body of work now.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Is, are there all four issues done? Like, are you guys done with this series? Or you still have to create this after you're, you know, you're still working? Are you still working traditionally now? Like, obviously this issue is, you know, it's completed in a sense that, I mean, I don't know if it's completed, ready for printing, but it's completed in the sense that it's. It's written, it's illustrated and things like that.
But are you doing that now? This is done now. You guys are going to get to work on issue two and so on and so forth.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: So we've been already working on issue two under the assumption that, you know, we would be able to go forward.
[00:56:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: But it's really interesting with Kickstarter. I have been told by the Kickstarter experts that unlike single issues and comic shops, where it's a monthly, you can. You can spread out.
[00:56:24] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:56:25] Speaker B: Issues.
So issue two will probably be sometime in the spring that we launch the campaign for it.
Also, the idea is that you accumulate new readers. So issue two is going to be funding for issue two, but also we're going to have a lot of backers who will get issue one and issue two together, and then issue three comes along.
So there's folks who know. The folks at Lifeline know exactly how to do this, and so they are going to proceed. But we are working on. We don't have the four issues in the can. We are working on this. I'm working on the script right now for issue two. And I really love it. I love where we're going with it. I think it's going to be an interesting twist to what we have set up.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: It's awesome. And I do, like I said, I feel like the artwork is so amazing in the painting part of it that I felt like it would have worked with just that. Like, it would have just. That would have been a beautiful comic and it would have worked. You know, it would have done its job in that sense. But having that different medium styles in there adds that who Framed Roger Rabbit, you know, adds that, you know, Steamboat Willie type feel to it. Like, it adds that, like just level that just changes it the slightest bit. That makes you go, okay, now I need to know about this. Like, I feel like if I saw that cover alone and didn't. I'm a fan of yours, so that, that, that drew me in first place. But like, if I just saw the COVID I'd be like, I need to know more about this comic.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: Because I felt that's how I felt too, as a comics reader when Winston sent this, this cover to me. Yeah. With all these different characters on it. I just thought, you know what? This looks different from so much that's on the shelf. This looks different. I would probably pick this up going into my comic shop and fig and just, you know, going along for the ride, knowing nothing. So we have some other covers. I want to plug them now.
We have.
I'm a big famous Monsters of Filmland fan. So Chris Anderson, the artist on American Caper, did this fantastic cover for our famous Monsters of Filmland issue.
Trish Forstner did this tribute cover to who Framed Roger Rabbit. It's our Centendo cover.
[00:58:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.
[00:58:38] Speaker B: I absolutely love that because I'm a big Nintendo fan. So this is, this is the tribute to who Framed Roger Rabbit, the NES game.
So one of the things you'll notice is I am being punished by the heavens. You can see the sunlight for making. For making this comic.
No. In the rental house that we have now, my office is actually the closed in finished porch.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:03] Speaker B: That existed.
It started life as a hunting lodge in 1885 in the middle of LA.
It's wild. So this is closed in. So there's windows all around. And so when you hit like a magic hour, so just all things shines in.
[00:59:18] Speaker A: Yeah, like, well, my old office used to be a garage, so I got no light in that one. Now I have a window here. And so, like, if I don't have a curtain there, it shines right in on me, too. So. Yes, I know.
[00:59:28] Speaker B: It's like flavor. It's flavor.
And then our. And then our most popular is Flops right now.
[00:59:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: We. We had some medals that we was a surprise drop this morning.
[00:59:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:41] Speaker B: And they sold out, like, right away, which was great. Flops is wonderful.
What a good dude. I'm so glad Flops is having the moment that he's having now.
[00:59:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:51] Speaker B: He did this for us a year ago, and we had it in the can. I actually, you know, fun fact, before this was set up with publishers, I had all of those covers commissioned.
[01:00:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: And I paid for all the art for the first issue.
I just thought this. This series is something that is not like, I need to show. Yeah, just tell. I need to show. And so we made the whole first issue, Winston and I, and here we are.
[01:00:17] Speaker A: It's awesome. I think, again, you do. You're meeting a different place with this Kickstarter stuff. I think that there's this. People who are just, like, want to back Kickstarter because they feel like there's just more homegrown ness to it. There's just more. Like, there's no, like. And obviously you have a publisher, you know, orchestrating this, but, like, there's no big publisher that's like saying, you can do this or you can't do this kind of thing. I feel like this is feeling of, like, rebelling by going to Kickstarter than there is. It's not. It's just another avenue. I think it's one of the things. But the problem. The thing is, I think that one of the benefits you have is you've created a name for yourself.
[01:00:53] Speaker B: Sure.
[01:00:54] Speaker A: That helps with that, too. Like, I don't think it's as easy as it is. Like, a week is awesome for you to get. To get funded on this. You know, there are people. I've seen people get funded in 24 hours or whatever like that, but it's also people who are like, we don't.
[01:01:07] Speaker B: We don't talk about those people, Justin.
[01:01:09] Speaker A: But I know personally, people that live in Maine who have done that, where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go back them. I'll get to it tomorrow. I'm like, God damn it. They've already funded. I can't be part of the. I help them get funded. I can help them, but I can't be part of that. Like, I was there at the beginning and.
But there's this. Also these people who are scraping on day 30 of this thing, they just need 50 more dollars or that nothing happens. And you're trying to get people like 10 people donate $5 or. Or one person, you know, that kind of thing. And so now you're in this nice spot where you can like, the more the better.
So let's keep it going.
[01:01:43] Speaker B: But we do it.
[01:01:44] Speaker A: We're gonna make it. It makes a little bit those people who are waiting that maybe there's people out there that are waiting because they want to make sure it was funded before, which is weird. Just think about. But yeah, there are people that like, I don't want to have my money. Just it's obviously not taken until the end of the pledge. But I don't want to commit to this thing that isn't possibly going to be made. But now they know it's going to be made. And so now they'll hopefully, you know, attack on that extra dollars that make things funding. So what, you have some stretch goals, I'm guessing.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: I don't know what the stretch goals they have planned. We are looking more toward. There's tomorrow, there's going to be announced a Black Friday special that's going to last through. It's going to be a variant cover and it's going to last from Friday to Sunday. So it's only going to be a limited window. So we're not going to limit the print run. It's just going to be whatever gets ordered in those three days between Friday and. And Sunday, which I think is great because the flops middle cover was limited. It's very limited to 25 and those went right away. So I think mixing it up, I. I think we're gonna have to talk about stretch goals and figure out what those stretch goals are. That's the thing partnering with Lifeline, it was. It's been great because they bring their fans, I bring my readers to this and it's the like, it's worked together where I don't have to go on Kickstarter and navigate it on my own. I have a partner, we have a partner who knows what they're doing, clearly.
But then if you go traditional publishing, you sort of give up. You give up all of your control. You might give up some of your rights, you might give some of the adaptation and you give up the control. So it really comes down to do they. Are they going to devote the marketing resources to supporting your book? Whereas on Kickstarter, it does fall a lot on me, but at least I feel like, I feel more ownership because we know that that's. We know Kickstarter is going to be successful if I put it out in on my social media, if I'm pushing it. If I don't push it, then it may not be successful. But it's not like I'm waiting on a marketing arm of a major publisher to decide, oh, this is the time to do it.
[01:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you get the little control of when, like I said, you mentioned issue two, issue three, all that stuff comes out. Let people read it and get it in their hands. So it's Kickstarter. We want people to back the Kickstarter so that you can get this, you know, first come, you know, first issue.
Is this one of those things that people will be able to get outside of this at some point down the road? Do you think that you will see it in comic book shops or is this going to be like Kickstarters?
[01:04:14] Speaker B: It's, you know, when we get down to the trade, I think that's the conversation that we'll have. This really is kind of like single issues in comic shops. You know, it's, you know, a lot of them get launched and they are the sort of marketing vehicle for the collection.
[01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:30] Speaker B: That then lives, lives on the backlist. It lives forever as a collected edition.
[01:04:34] Speaker A: But I think that those people who are single, single floppy issue kind of people, then back the Kickstarter if you want to get that. And then if you're, you know, someone like myself who's going to back the Kickstarter as well as buy the trade for my low later on, because I'm just, I just have punishment for spending money on comics is that I'll have both of those. And I think that if you want the comic in trade or single format, then back the Kickstarter. It's always the way it should be. But yeah, I think at this point you're at $11,454 now. I refreshed it when I was watching.
[01:05:04] Speaker B: It and it went up like 70 bucks. I have a right on my monitor in front of me. I, I refreshed the screen.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: It went up like 70 bucks. I was like, Jesus, the things they.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: Don'T tell you About Kickstarter is one, the first week is going to feel like 1 million days.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:18] Speaker B: Two, you're going to refresh the website every half second.
It's going to be a life. Morning, noon and night sleeping. You're going to be thinking about it, all those things.
But, and I wrote about this in my latest substack that came out today. It, it's, it's. They also don't prepare you for how much gratitude you feel just for folks. You launch a Kickstarter and it's like throwing it into the abyss and you're like, is the abyss going to stare back at me or are people going to jump on board?
And the fact that we've had enough in seven days. I know there's Kickstarters at launch and, you know, 20 minutes it's funded and that would be wonderful.
But I also think that some of.
[01:05:58] Speaker A: Those are like, oh, we need two grand or something like that. Like, you had probably two grand the first 24. Yeah.
[01:06:03] Speaker B: If it's a. If it's a hot yes artist or it's like the spec market gets into it. I think we're getting a little bit of bump from the spec market because of the Flops cover. But, yeah, it's still orderable.
And I think Flops did such a good job, understood the assignment so much on this that that's why it's such a good cover.
[01:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:27] Speaker B: So it just, you know, you take all those little pieces and you put them together and you find out that you really. You like me. You really like me.
[01:06:36] Speaker A: Well, it's true. And it's like, I think that's part of it. I think that's. And again, I think the people that I'm talking about that are funded really quickly are the people who have a massive, like their own Facebook groups that are following that kind of thing.
You know, I mean, like, it's one of those.
[01:06:49] Speaker B: It's our mutual buddy.
There's.
[01:06:52] Speaker A: There's a bunch of people out there. I say a bunch. There's a few people out there that are like that. That had like the Roman thing and then that. That's easy. They could just say, launch the Kickstarter. And they've got, you know, they know they're gonna get the.
[01:07:04] Speaker B: I mean, I may be wildly wrong about this, but I bet if we launched Kanto as a Kickstarter, I think it would go really.
[01:07:13] Speaker A: There's certain products like that or projects that are like that that are just like, you know, it is what it is. And they've got such a following in an army. I mean, my buddy Joseph Schmolki from Maine here, he's got. He's got the Schmolky army that, like, he just posts one thing and things like, is this. It's insane. And that he just. All of a sudden, I know where, like, things are funded and people are buying stuff, and I'm like, where do you guys get your money?
Like, I want to. I Guess it's a little different too because people like that are not like in the podcasting like this. I talk to so many people. I become friends with so many people. I want to back them so much. There's so many of you now, 256 episodes that I'm like, oh, some people are just like, I'm a Joseph Smolke fan and they back anything he does. And that's okay.
[01:07:54] Speaker B: I'm like, I'm looking. I just, I just went on his website right now and I'm like, maybe there's. Maybe Schmolke will do a Malik cover for us.
[01:08:04] Speaker A: He.
Joe is awesome. Joe.
It's got a comic book coming out with Amanda Call, who's from my area here in Maine called Prophets of Doom, which is phenomenal. And he's coming up doing a pop up my local comic book shop. And he's just like, yep, 20, 20 covers of one issue and we're just. Or 20 limited to 20 for that day. Grab it. And he's just doing things like that. People are going to show up. I, he's come up a thousand times. People still will show up to see him. It's so cool to see that. But yeah, it's, it's, it's. But a week, A week is nothing to sneeze at though. Like, I mean, a week funding your project.
[01:08:39] Speaker B: I'm so happy because I could go into the Thanksgiving being like, okay, now it's going to be a jolly holiday because we have.
[01:08:50] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Well, that's right. Now you can focus on. You still, obviously you can't let it die. You can't let it not die, but you can't let it just float. Now you still have to do your work. You have until December 11th to do this. So you still have work to be done. But now, you know, this is where the real fun part comes in because now it's just like it's going to be made. People. We're going to do this. This is amazing. Let's just keep it going, have more people want to read it and so on and so forth. Because as of right now is 193 backers or so.
You want more than 193 people to read this comic book. So let's hope that more people will back it just to read the issue.
[01:09:22] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and it's such, it's. I was thinking about this and it's such a, such an ironic scenario where you get, I think many fewer eyeballs when you do a Kickstarter. But ultimately I bet on this Kickstarter, I will make the same amount, like in my pocket as I do going through a traditional publisher that 10 times this.
[01:09:44] Speaker A: You're right.
[01:09:44] Speaker B: It's wild. It's wild.
[01:09:46] Speaker A: But I mean there's like the, there's the album. Wasn't Wu Tang Clan have an album that was released or they, they did an album that no one's allowed to listen to except for the person who bought the album and it was like a million dollar purchase or something like that. It's like, oh, that's cool. You made your money. Probably made more money off of it than you would something else. But like no one else can listen to it. So part of it is two edges double, you know, two sides of that. Like 193 people will get to read this, but then there's also thousands of people who don't get to read it because they didn't back the Kickstarter in the first place. And so I would like it to see more people because I would like more people to read it.
[01:10:16] Speaker B: I agree.
I'm excited to see as issue two comes along.
[01:10:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:10:20] Speaker B: And then one and two.
So we'll have a bunch of people who will get on board, you know, for the first time, and then three and four. So hopefully we're building up momentum so we can get into the thousands of readers. Tens of thousands, Hundreds of thousands. Millions.
350,000 copies.
[01:10:41] Speaker A: I, I, it's, it's really, it's a, I say fun. Horror is fun to me. I love horror. So there's that too. I think the, like I said that moment, that, that thought process, you know, I have a lot of people that I know that I know that would laugh at the fact, you know, people part of the gay community who laugh at the fact that you did that. Like the idea that even, even you're not welcome in hell. Yeah, like, like there's a bunch of places that you are welcome and hell's not one of them. And that's, that's just the way.
And who knows, there's. Maybe it's something personal with the devil himself. It doesn't, not that it's a good thing. I'm just saying that, like, are you.
[01:11:19] Speaker B: Trying to figure it out already?
[01:11:20] Speaker A: I'm trying to, but I can't. But it's a phenomenal first issue. And that's the thing is, to me, it's the only thing I said. Like I said, I'm the person who, I mean, got to read it because of this discussion we're having.
And I don't want to wait till the spring, so I want it now. So.
[01:11:37] Speaker B: Okay, but it's to you as soon as it's done.
[01:11:39] Speaker A: No, but my point is the fact that it's like, it's. It's. That that's a good sign. That's a sign that I want more from the story. I want to know where these people are going and these characters are going and where the story's going. And I think that there's a. You know, it's, It's. It's different. The artwork's phenomenal. I think that the Kickstarter part of it, to be part of a small group of people who gets to experience this and those people who want limited edition things. This is which. Well, I mean, issue one, cover A would technically be considered a limited edition if only.
[01:12:09] Speaker B: 200. 200 copies?
[01:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:11] Speaker B: And then imagine this like some. Something happens down the road and you get 200. You know, there's 200 copies that exist of this. Of this book. So I mean, we want.
[01:12:24] Speaker A: It's exciting. It's, you know, we want more. That's the part of it. Mainly because I want to share with. I am so happy with this and I love the comic book so much. I want other people to read it because I can have conversations with them. It's hard to not have conversations with people who are like, yeah, I didn't back that Kickstarter. I'm like, cool, maybe I should just go buy a bunch of copies and then just give them to people for presents.
[01:12:42] Speaker B: I mean, I. I can't give you an opinion one way or the other because it's a conflict of interest. But yes, buy as many copies.
[01:12:50] Speaker A: It sounds like it sounds like a good idea. No, it's excellent. I think that it's fun. I've been waiting again, like I mentioned earlier in this episode, episode before, for creator own project to come out. I mean, obviously had Kanto come out, but I meant like a new project with your writing skills on. And I'm happy when I got it. I was super excited. I read it immediately and then I read it again today before I discussed this episode. And it's just fun. I think it's. Like I said, it's fun. It's got this, like I said, to be. Not be allowed in health because you're gay. Is it really?
It's. It's sad to say it's funny because it's not really funny, because it's not. This is like. It's just a real world issues. You're Dealing with here. This is not like, you know, people.
[01:13:35] Speaker B: In the community I think will read that and they'll laugh immediately. They'll go, wait.
[01:13:39] Speaker A: And then cry.
[01:13:42] Speaker B: That's actually true. That's accurate.
[01:13:45] Speaker A: Like, ah, no, this is not. As the world we live in is not very much fun for. No, but no, it's true. And I think that taking that, putting that out there and putting that and you know, to have people read into it and go, yeah, you're right. This is not. This is actually sad. Funny. Like, this is funny because it's so sad that this is true. That. That this is probably.
[01:14:04] Speaker B: This is an absurdity to it all.
[01:14:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's an absurdity to. It's absurdity to your characters. I mean, you think about it like your different style of the character's artwork and the different. What they. What they. The reason why they look, the way they look and the way they act and so on and so forth. There's an absurdity to it. This horror. There's excellent writing and excellent artwork. It's just. It's amazing. You should back this on Kickstarter. So I'm trying to say Malik the Damned.
It will be linked in our things on Spotify and all those places be on the website and stuff like that. But you can do it. We'll put up something else to help push it as well. And. And so you'll find links there. But just, Just go to Kickstarter and type in Malik. Actually just go to Google and type in Malik the Damned. It comes up as one of the things.
[01:14:43] Speaker B: Don't tell me if there's another Malik out there, because I don't know.
I think there is. M A M O L L O C H which is the Marvel character. So we tried to navigate that. But yes, go on Kickstarter, search M A L L O C H Or you can go into any of my.
My social media is plastered with this right now because that's the nature of reality.
You can go on Substack. I just started one of those. We'll be doing updates and that sort of thing. Instagram, where I most, most, most active. You can see where I have Snow Whited a squirrel.
[01:15:20] Speaker A: I didn't click. I didn't actually view the thing. I just saw you. I just know. I just saw you with like a hand.
[01:15:25] Speaker B: The, the.
[01:15:26] Speaker A: The feature image is like you with a hand with a squirrel on it. I'm just like, what is going on?
[01:15:33] Speaker B: We're, you know, we're. We're pet sitting for the cats next door. And they also rescue squirrels.
And so they have a rescue that lives in the backyard. And you just bring out some pecans or walnuts in your hand and he just will come. Yeah, he was very demanding. Now we're like three days in. His name's Biggie.
[01:15:53] Speaker A: Okay. Oh, hey.
[01:15:54] Speaker B: There were two of them together. Biggie and Smalls.
[01:15:56] Speaker A: That's amazing. I have squirrels that run on the rooftop. Like there's an attic above me and then there's the roof line that touches the trees. And so they get onto here and then my decks right here.
And there's always like nutshells and like shells like on my deck because they sit up on top and they crack open their nuts and it just falls down on the.
[01:16:13] Speaker B: It's just your ASMR at that point. The little.
[01:16:17] Speaker A: Well, it's scary because it seems like they're running in the attic. And I'm like, no, it's just. And then you go outside, you can see them running across the roof line. I'm like, ah, yeah. See, but Malik the Damned on Kickstarter. Go. Go back it. Go do everything. Tell your friends about it. To all that stuff. Grab the trade paperback of Ghostbusters, Dead man's chest.
Grab EC Comics Shiver Suspense Stories on December 10th. Grab Specs in trade format. Grab all the Kanto stuff.
Grab Rain. Grab all the stuff that you're part.
[01:16:51] Speaker B: Of, you know, and then follow me on Instagram. I just got some fun news that that will relate to a big mid year comic event.
It's not a convention, but.
[01:17:04] Speaker A: That a mall? No, I'm just kidding.
[01:17:07] Speaker B: I hope.
[01:17:08] Speaker A: Full circle. Here we go. No, David, I'm always excited to talk to you and it doesn't mean that like I was thinking about the other day another creator that I'm really excited to talk to again that I'm going to put on the schedule in the early next year. But I usually try to help promote things that I'm excited for. And so it tends to be like this gap between things.
The only reason I didn't talk to you about Dead Man's Chest is a little bit more difficult because Sony has to approve a lot of this stuff. Stuff. And so I'm like, yeah, I'm just gonna, you know, I'll skip David this time. But no, I. We don't need that. Let's just come on. It was just come on sometime in 26. Just to talk and hang out and talk comics and shoot the shit and all that stuff. So. So we'll do that for sure. 100 coming up. I won't wait 18, 19, 21 months before we talk again because that's not fun.
[01:17:53] Speaker B: Barely anything happened since the last time, so what could go wrong?
[01:17:56] Speaker A: And. No. Yeah, exactly. And I don't want houses to burn down or major surgeries to happen between now and then either. Can we.
[01:18:01] Speaker B: Can we.
[01:18:01] Speaker A: Can we try that, too? I just bought this house. I don't. I don't want anything to happen to it.
But. Yeah, so. Absolutely. So, yeah, grab all that stuff. I'm so happy you took the time out to talk to us today. I had. My kids are knocking on the door over there wanting to come in, and so we'll take a. Take some time to say goodbye and we'll talk soon.
[01:18:19] Speaker B: David, always so great to see you, Justin. Every single time. This is so fun. So thank you.
[01:18:26] Speaker A: No problem at all. Now, happy holidays, happy Thanksgiving, all that stuff. Happy New Year, and we'll talk in 26. But before then, go check out Kickstarter and type in Malik the Damned and get your copy of Malik the Damned number one on Kickstarter. So. Thanks a lot, David.
[01:18:40] Speaker B: Thanks, Justin.
