Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to the Capes and Tights podcast right here on Capesandtights.com I'm your host, Justin Soderbergh. This episode is once again brought to you by our friends over at Galactic Comics and Collectibles at galactic comics and collectibles.com this episode we see the return of Daniel Krauss. Daniel Krauss is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV and film as well as comics. He is the author of books such as the Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, the Shape of Water, the Living Dead, Pay the Piper, Whalefall, angel down in the upcoming book Partially Devoured in the sixth nick. Yes, and that's only some of them. The movie adaptation for Whalefall is set to hit theaters this fall starring Josh Brolin. And as well, the angel down adaptation is coming soon as well. But this episode we talked Partially Devoured his book that's a quasi memoir but also a huge history about the Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero, as well as touched on the sixth nick towards the end of the episode. But before you listen, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, bluesky, threads, all those places you can rate, review, subscribe over on Apple, Spotify or wherever you find your podcasts. And as always, you can find us on YouTube.com but visit capesandtights.com for so much more. And this is episode features Daniel Kraus, New York Times bestselling author of a book such as Partially Devoured. Enjoy everyone.
Welcome back to the podcast. Daniel, how are you today?
[00:01:26] Speaker B: I'm doing pretty good. How you?
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Good, good, good. I'm glad you're back here. It's been a while. You've been on a couple times, but I'm glad we got a chance to talk again.
We actually, it's funny too. It's like I feel like we chatted some comics, we chatted Whale Fall, you know, and Pay the Piper. But then you've had books come out since then. Now you have like multiple books coming out this year and your movie Whale Falls coming out. Like, it's just been, you've been, you've been busy. I would say that much.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: I have been busy.
You know, I keep saying that I keep meaning to slow down and I really mean that. I really do. Like, I don't know how this like jam up of projects keeps happening, but I really do. My, my, my honest hope is for the next, you know, five years to really slow down a bit. I can't, I can't promise anything on the Movie side. Well, what happens on the movie side happens on the movie side. But as far as books go, I would like to get into a pattern that I have not been in since the very first two or three books of my career, which is a book maybe every other year, like, that would be. That's like a normal person's output and I would like to try to achieve that.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: And I didn't mention your graphic novel come out too. So there's that too. It's not just books and other things like that. But I mean, you have two books coming out this year. But like, they're different in a sense, you know, like.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Well, technically.
Technically I have three. I have the final book in my middle grade series coming out in October, so that. So technically I have three books and I guess a movie. But yeah, I mean.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: But I mean, basically, I mean, when you're the movie stars is post production now. So like, that's basically just like your hands off now at this point. Right. They just wait for the time.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you know, there's. It's still being edited and you know, a part of.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Sort of that in a tangential way, giving comments and stuff. But yeah, all the hard work for me on that is over.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: But, you know, I wanted to say something to you though, is I hadn't. We've. We've known each other for a couple years now. We've talked in the podcast. You've came up and visited up here in Maine and. And we had a great time and stuff. But, like, I hadn't read Zebulon Finch yet until this year. And if people are sleeping on that.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Oh, I know.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Serious dude. Like, and I think it's funny, this who is like, every time we talk, it's like, it's always that. Like, I think one of my favorite novels actually that I've written is the Zebulun Finch novels. And I'm like, it's somewhat the size of the novels that kind of turns people.
But I think that, like, I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna do it.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: And.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Oh my God, it was. What I kept on telling my wife was like, it was like 12 or dozen or more different novels or stories with one connective tissue that's. That's Zebulon Finch that's living throughout this space of time that doesn't actually affect what we know as history, but is involved in a bunch of the history. It's just. It was fascinating. And I wanted to say, you know, I can't believe I slept on it. This much. And I hope people read it.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: You know, I really appreciate that because I always talk about it as one of my favorite things I've ever done. I mean it's in like at least the top two or three.
But you're right, no one's read it. Like some people have read the first volume, but the second volume was a disaster, a publishing disaster. It really had nothing to do with the book. It was just other professional things that were going on with the company and whatever.
So to this day it's probably my one of my least read projects, which is, was for a long time a hard pill to swallow because it's this massive epic that required research beyond which I will ever do again.
And then to like do that and write, you know, what is essentially like 1500 page historical epic. And then it sort of just get, get lost like a gum wrapper. It was, was like, it was tough, it was tough to take and still hurts a little bit. But yeah, it's, it's is a major project for me and it really set it. Even if people didn't read it much. It really solidified for me how I work. Like I had to write because I wrote those, that entire thing in like two years, you know, so an 800 page novel and like a 650 page novel in two years.
And it to do that I had to really come up with ways of functioning because I still had a full time job too at that point.
And it taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about research, taught me a lot about outlining, it taught me a lot about everything. So it was, it was not wasted on me anyway.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: And you obviously learn as you go through. Yeah, like you said, like you actually learn through the project. But like one of those things that's like, you know what, like I keep saying, like I've read your stuff and I enjoy your stuff, so like what else can I get into? And it was always like, I'll get in the Death and Life of Zebulon Fitch at some point. It's just a lot of an undertaking for me too.
And I was like, oh, you know, so I just pushed it off. And then finally I was like, screw this, I gotta do it, I gotta start reading it. And I'm the kind of person that when you have novels, those came out obviously at separate times, but like when you have those that I can't usually go one to one. Like I can't just go back to back. And so I read something in between it to just like, you know, refresh My palate and stuff like that. But like, at the end of the first book, I was like, I've got to see what happens next. I got to see where it goes because obviously it's chronological. So, like, I want to see where the next years of his life or death go. And it was just. It was just this fascinating thing. And I actually listened to Hybrid and Reddit Hybrid. So the audiobook is phenomenal too. And the audiobook narrator, you use that person a lot, right? Most of your books at least.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Kirby Hayborn. I use him. He's sort of my audiobook alter ego. He does most of my books.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Like, if people don't know what you sound like, they think you sound.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: They assume I sound like him. Yeah.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: But it was. It was great. So. And I. The end of the second volume is what I listened to an audiobook.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: And that was like. It was so interesting to actually listen to that versus, like, reading it.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: I can't imagine what that even. I think at some point I knew what. How they handled that in audio, but I don't remember.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: It was just. It was trippy, dude. I did. She was just like, oh, my God, this is interesting. But I, Like I said when I was like, oh, I'm talk to Daniel soon. I want to mention life and. Or the death and life of Zebulon Finch. It is phenomenal. I know people out there might say it's too long, but read it because it's. And you can also read it in sections too. It's not like you have to do the whole thing all at once. But like, yeah, it's like, it's like
[00:07:58] Speaker B: 10 novellas, basically, that are all.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Kind of stitched together and you touch
[00:08:02] Speaker A: on such amount of history that's like, he's involved in all these things. But then it's also like, not. It doesn't change how we see history. Like, he's there, but he's like, not like impactful enough to change what you know as history. So it's like. Then you go, oh, was he actually there? Is this based on a true story? Like, was Zebulon Finch actually at like, you know, X, Y and Z? But yeah, it's. It was phenomenal. I'm so happy that you. That you wrote it in the film first place. But. But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about. Partially devoured your new non fiction book. This is your first non fiction book, right?
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Correct. Yeah.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Yes. And you teased this when we talked Pay the Piper. Because I had Mentioned like, is this the last Romero thing you're doing? And you're like, well, sort of. And this is that thing, I'm guessing, right?
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: So it's. It's a history of Night of the Living Dead as well as a Surrey quasi memoir about you as a person. How did you land on doing that as the version of the story you were going to tell?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: It was. I mean, the whole thing was completely unplanned, really, for something that is this complicated. That's a strange thing to say, but it really came up by accident. I had some free time during. You probably wondering, how did I have free time? But. But in the.
A month or so ahead of Wellfall coming out, I just had a lot of interviews. And so I. I was like, I'm just going to basically have to take off the month, this whole month, and do press, basically.
And that still meant, though I had these little odd periods where I'd have two hours here, an hour there, and in that, those spaces. I opened a copy of Night Living Dead on YouTube and just started watching it. Like, I watched a few seconds of it and then wrote. And I don't know what I intended.
I probably thought that it was going to be in something from my webs, something for my newsletter, maybe, you know, an essay basically.
And I just started from the beginning and I watched. I mean, I don't know, but let's say I watched 10 seconds of the movie and wrote 20 pages on it. And I was like, wow, I have a lot to say here.
And then it became more of a challenge to myself, wondering, how long can I keep this going? Like, could I do the entire movie? Why run out of things to say at some point.
The answer ended up being no. In fact, like, it's something interesting with, I guess, non fiction books. But until the very, very last second it went to print, I was adding stuff in. Like, I just, I kept like every day up until publication, I was learning new things.
So it was hard to let go of.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: It's a.
I was very excited again, being a fan of Daniel Krauss and being a fan of Romero and that of the Living Dead. It was one of those things where it's like, we've talked, I've heard stories from you, we've talked on the podcast, things like that. But I was like, I still want to learn more about your history and how you got to where you're at here and books. Obviously, being an author wasn't the main first thing you wanted to do. You obviously wanted to make movies and now you're getting to do that too with like helping co write major films. Let's just say you did obviously make some, some other films as well, but like co writing the script for the screenplay for Whalefall and now tackling the screenplay for Angel Down.
But that wasn't what you originally, originally wanted to do. Movie stuff, not books. And that was an interesting part of the book that really stood out to me.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it was kind of back and forth. Like I'd been writing stories since, you know, first grade, I think, and so I wrote most of the time growing up, I wanted to be a writer. And then when my family got a little the World's worst Video camera in, you know, around 1989 or 1990, I kind of went into a detour where I made silly movies with my friends and then in college got more serious about it.
Ultimately. When you look at Back on My Life, the sort of movie making thread, the. The idea of directing movies anyway was a relatively short period. There was probably 15 years in there where I did it for fun and then did it some professionally before sort of going back to books, which were kind of my first love.
But yeah, I'm kind of doing a little bit of everything now, which is, which is. It's great. It's, you know, it's fun.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: It sounds like fun. But like, I think one of the cool things I think about this book is that you like Night of the Living Dead, right? I'm sure about that. You pretty sure you like the movie?
[00:12:33] Speaker B: I mean, I like it. All right.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: And you've seen it a few times, right?
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Yes, I've seen it a few times.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Well, it reminded me when you wrote this book is there's an episode of X Files where, where this woman's in. In having a baby and she talks about that. She's like. She thinks she's having Luke Skywalker's baby. I don't know if you've ever seen this episode.
The guy with the. The tail, he has a tail and he can morph into other people. And so he like sneaks into people's houses and basically becomes their other half, like their husband or their, their boyfriend.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: I don't remember that one.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: It impregnates them and they all have these babies that have tails. And it connects it. But one of the things that she says is, I know it's Luke Skywalker's baby. And they're all like. And then like, obviously, you know, Scully's kind of like, yeah, this is obviously not real. And she asked the woman how many times have you seen Star Wars? And she was like, 3712. And I was like, that's the answer that Daniel Crowson said about Night of the Living Dead, you know, a couple hundred times is probably what this answer is.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, the. As it states in the book, my best guess is 300. But I. Who knows? Like, it's not. I was. I wasn't keeping track for most of my life.
I didn't start a tally mark when I was like, 5 years old.
So it's all. I could be off by who knows how much.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: But obviously, it's other people's favorite movie, too. This is not like an unusual. This is not one of those things where you have this obscure film that's your favorite film that, you know, no one else knows, but. And you talk about in the book. And I don't want to give too much away from the book, because I do want people to read the book. But, like, what drew you originally into this movie that connected, like, at that age, that made you go, I want this movie to be something part of my life?
[00:14:11] Speaker B: It was almost entirely my mom. You know, it was like. It was the stuff she was watching.
And as I've said in interviews since the very beginning of my career, everything began with her watching Night of the Living Dead, which was always on tv, and Twilight Zone, which was on every Friday back then.
And everything for me starts there.
And it wasn't.
She didn't approach it as something scary. And so I, not knowing better at five or six years old, you know, I didn't approach it as that either. And of course. Of course I. You know, it's human. So occasionally I would get scared, particularly at Twilight Zone.
But Night Living Dead existed as almost a fabric of just growing up or almost a background to just hanging out with my mom.
And, you know, like, TV was different back then, right? Like you. We would rarely probably ever see the whole thing. Like it. We'd catch it somewhere in the middle and we'd bow out before it was over. And that's just how TV watching happened back then.
So it was. It was this sort of loose thing that just sort of existed as opposed to Twilight Zones, which were, you know, 22 minutes long. So I would sit down, I'd watch the whole thing, and I would understand it. I think an understanding of Night Living Dead took years and some, and I guess I could argue took, you know, most of my life. And it's still going like. I'm still trying to understand all the parts of it and all the parts that. How it interacted with me and I've come up. This book has acted much as a therapist would. I think I've learned so much about myself and why Night Living Dead and horror stuff in general has, has affected me.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: You mentioned, as you write this book, you know, looking back on it, like, I try to think of certain times in my life and it's all hazy sometimes. Like, did you actually. Did you remember most of the stuff you talk about or did you actually have to talk to other people to say what was it like at this point when I was watching this movie?
[00:16:19] Speaker B: No, I, I remember. Everything that's in the book are things I remember.
But the funny thing is I have a really poor memory. Like when I, when I talk to like people I grew up with, like, they remember far more than I do. So you're getting the tip of the iceberg here because they're always telling stories that I have no recollection of. And all I can think is that maybe since I'm continually filling my brain with so much new research all the time that I have limited space in there and some, some old memories are getting flushed out at a faster rate.
But I did, you know, during the, you know, in the book it refers to a kind of a capsule diary that I kept for four or five years. And I did dig that out and that was, was pretty illuminating. Like it, it firmed up a lot of memories I had and it gave like exact dates to a lot of them, which was interesting.
It mostly was that most of the diary is a huge disappointment. It's like cub scores and stuff like that. But it did, it did, you know, just thrown in there like, like casually were these a couple like, you know, more than a couple handfuls of, of important data that clarified things at the very least, if not brought them completely back to, back to life in my memory.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: It's funny, I just recently chat with Barry Hertz who wrote a book about the Fast and the Furious. And it's kind of funny, I was like thinking about these, these books I've read recently. I mean, I talked to Ashley Collins about the Scream. She wrote a book about Scream. There was this one the Parcel devoured the Barry Hertz book. There's just these books about these things that I was super passionate about. And I was talking to Barry and I was like. As I was doing the research to talk to Barry, I was like, I remember skipping school to go see the Fast and the Furious in the movie theater. And then I looked at the time on the date of the movie came out, and I was like, yeah, I wasn't in school at that time. Like, that's how my memories sometimes work. And then I figured it out and talked to a buddy of mine. It was that we skipped to see the second movie because we liked the first movie so much. And that. But in my mind, it always set like. It was, like, hard in stone that I skipped school to go see the first Fast and the Furious movie. And it wasn't. It was in that same vein. And so I was just like, that's where my mind goes. I have these memories, but sometimes they're not as solid as I thought they were.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: It was. I think, largely, I've forgotten most of my childhood, but. But the. I would say my diary really showed that what I do remember was pretty accurate. Like, I don't remember the exact dates, but they're all in there. And the stories were basically as I recall them, which is.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Which is awesome. And in the way, I guess what I would say. I'm a fan of yours, right? But are there enough fans of yours that would say, I want to read a story about Daniel Krause that didn't intertwine with the Night of the Living Dead? Do you think that if intertwined, people would be like, I'm going to the shelves right now to buy this book?
[00:19:11] Speaker B: I don't think so. It would. Not for the topic alone. You know, like, in theory, a good writer can make anything interesting.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: So I guess if a standalone memoir was good enough, it can. It can sort of succeed with anyone. But no, And I certainly didn't expect Partially Devoured to have as much memoir in it as it does. And it doesn't have that much. It's not 15%, 20%, maybe.
But I didn't expect it to function as deeply as it does. Like, it became a real core element of the book.
And I didn't expect. I expected it to add some humor here and there. I didn't expect it to become quite as deep and meaningful as it does in the book. That came as a surprise.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: None of it feels like a stretch. I feel like if I was the one to write the book about the Fast and the Furious that Barry Hertz wrote, I would write a whole chapter based on this one memory of me skipping school, and I'd be reaching. You know what I mean? Like, I'd be trying to pull the story into it. But as you read this book, it makes sense that this book, this movie is so influential in your life.
The things tie Together so smoothly. And I. You know, you might. Some people might exaggerate things, but, like, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like everything is honest and truthfully feels that way.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah. It doesn't lead to anything unbelievable like, I didn't murder anyone or anything like that.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah. You can put that in the book at least.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Right. That's a fuzzy memory at best.
I don't know. It came. Everything about this book, like, certainly this book changed radically in editing. I mean, it did change, but it got significantly longer in editing because I kept learning new things. But, you know, the first draft and the structure of the first draft basically held was entirely on instinct. Like, most of the first draft was just based on stuff I already knew. And then all the research and all that stuff was sort of layered in later.
So I was going off instinct, like when I. When something in what was happening in the movie and I lived dead and the book kind of goes through the movie from shot to shot.
And it sparked something in me that I thought of something personal. I would just follow those urges of those impulses. Like, there wasn't any grand plan to it.
I wanted it. I liked the idea of a book full of tangents and tangents to tangents and just sort of this.
That's one of the unique things about. Neither is that because of its, you know, copyright problems and stuff, it just. It's threaded through our culture unlike almost any other movie. And there's just endless things to say about it. It's like the Beatles, in a way. It's just like. It's. It's. It's in everything. It influenced everything.
And then for me, doubly so. It was. There was always bubbling beneath whatever scene I was writing about. There was always something that seemed to apply in my own life.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: As I opened the book, I say, open. I was digital, but I. I read the book digitally. And I'm reading it and I'm reading the first chapter, and I'm like, I've seen the movie many times, so I know what happens in the movie. I know the scenes. Not as vividly and not as well as you know the scenes, but I know the scenes. And I go, I'm just gonna be able to read this. Like, I finished the book I did before, and I'll just get into this and I'll just be able to read it. Then I was like, okay. After the first chapter, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna watch the movie again because I need to have a refresher into what's going on and then when I finished the book, I was like, now I gotta watch it again. Cause I gotta like all these tidbits that I learned along the way. And I, you know, and I've mentioned this to people I've talked to again before about similar books.
I love the stuff that like when you passionate about something, when you love to watch something, I know I want the behind the scenes of Jurassic park, the behind the scenes of Back to the Future, I want all those ones because those are iconic movies from my childhood watching them. Obviously some of them came out before my childhood, but I watched those so many times. I want to know the behind the scenes things. I love Jurassic Punk, which, about the animation in the structure of the things in Jurassic Park. And so I wanted to learn more about this, but I was like, I have to watch the movie again because I need to have at least some fresh memories of it. And then at the end I'm like, all I wanted to do was watch that movie over again because now I learned so much about it.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: It's interesting. I've heard all sorts of comments that, and some are like that and some are completely opposite. Like some people.
I've heard from plenty of people who never saw the movie before and have read it and liked it, and then hopefully they'll at least watch the movie. Now I've heard from people who are watching the movie along with the book, which sounds like a nightmare to me because it's like you're gonna be watching the movie in like five second bursts, which just seems like a terrible idea. But some people are doing that and you can, because there's time codes everywhere.
And then there are the uber fans, you know, who've seen it 100 times and think there's nothing new under the sun. But there is. I promise them.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Like, there's times I don't understand how I didn't catch certain things that you, you bring up in the book. I've seen the movie.
Like, how do I. How did I not see X, Y and Z that he points out in the book. When I've seen it, I mean, I've seen it probably, I'd say 15, 20 times. Like it's not like, you know, it was probably the first horror movie that I actually watched, honestly, because I remember, I guess I don't remember a date or time, but I like remember someone saying this might be too much for you. And I watch it and I remember the zombies walking outside in, in the, in the graveyard. Like that kind of me. Like that's vivid. To me. So it's probably the first horror movie I ever watched. And so. But, like, there were still times where I'm like, ah, God, Daniels noticed this thing that I didn't notice. And I'm like, it makes me think that you're, like, much better at this.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: But no, well, yes, that. That's all. That part's true. But also, it's just that I'm going through it often frame by frame. Like, I'm watching it in less than a second bursts.
So that first watch that I did through the book, a watch that probably took six months, you know, like, when you're going frame by frame through something, of course you're going to notice things that you never saw before.
Like, you know, there's. And it's all in the book, but there's like, think times where I'm scrubbing through the frames very, very slowly, and, you know, there'll be a swish pan. That means that your eyes can't register when you watch the movie at full speed, but radically slow down.
You can see everything that it passes. You can see all the film equipment. And all these things just make me like the movie more. They felt like little hidden gifts, like little snapshots that were hidden inside the film because you're seeing, like, evidence of it being made. Like, you're not. You know, it's like when you see in the background, you know, Styrofoam cups with people's initials on them, you're like, ah, this was made by real people. You know, this was like.
This wasn't AI but also wasn't a Hollywood machine. It was just like, real people cobbling this together. And it's. And it's satisfying in some ways to see evidence of that.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: And nowadays you'd see, like, not even AI or anything, but just a digital scrubbing of the. Of the screen. So if someone did leave a cup in the background, you might.
We'll just get rid of that. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes you watch the show and you're like, there's a Starbucks cup. And that, like, way more obvious than frame by frame, where a guy's, like, literally has Starbucks cup.
But no, it was just like, seeing that. And I'm glad you mentioned the whole, like, some people are watching it with the book, because I thought about that originally and I'm like, well, I don't have the time for that. Like, that. That's. That seems like a lot of time. But also, like, my. My wife was listening to some sort of, like, companion podcast for The Office with Pa.
Jenna Fisher's on this podcast, and they talk about an episode, and then they go to the next one. She's like, I'm gonna watch along. And I'm like, she got to, like, four episodes in. She's like, I just want to keep on watching this. Yeah, the next episode doesn't come out yet, and I just want to keep watching the Office over again. And so I can see that, too. I could be like, the first couple of chapters be like, yeah, this is great. And then I'm like, I just want to watch the movie or I just want to finish the book.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: I think it'd make a very arduous and unsatisfying view of the movie, having to start and stop, like, just absolutely constantly.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: And, like, getting to the point where you're like. Because, like, the book is laid out that way, and you even use time codes as chapters and headings and things like that. And so even to the point where you didn't pause fast enough, now you have to go back a few.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Nightmare.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: It'd be a huge.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: It was hard enough on YouTube, like, to, like. Because you can't go. You can't reverse. Not that I know of. You can't reverse, like, slow mo. Frame by frame in YouTube. Not that. That I know of. And so I'd have to kind of go back and play it again and try to hit pause at the right exact second. And I mean, these are first world problems for sure.
But it.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, just going back to something you said before about you think it was the first horror movie you saw, I think that's. A lot of people think that about Night Living Dead. And I. I think that one of the reasons is.
Is that it resonates with a kid. Like, it's so simple. And we all understand. Like, one of the first things you understand is like, a toddler is that home is safe and everything outside is scary.
And that's what I learned that is about, like, safety is here. There are invaders outside.
And. And kids also, one of the first things they know are, like, arguments in the family. And so not only does the inside outside make sense to a kid, they know what it's like when parents yell and kids yell at each other, and it all just makes. It's all just extremely graspable.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: And the arguments between upstairs and downstairs and those kind of, like, you see it from both sides and you understand, like, that's an argument that we could all be like, who is 100, right?
[00:29:05] Speaker B: In this.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: In this conversation. This Argument because you can see from both sides of it, like, obviously one does end up and I'll be able to be able to escape is a huge thing. But, like, the idea that, like, oh, it's safer because they can't get to us and if they. You know, that kind of thing. So I could understand that argument as well.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think as a kid, had you seen Rosemary's Baby, you might not remember it because it's. It's like stuff that doesn't make sense to a kid. Husbands and wives and living in apartments. It doesn't make any sense.
And then what you're saying about, like, who's right? And, you know, that's a popular discussion point among I Live Dead fans. And I think both sides are wrong, so I may get into that too.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: But is it the. The equivalent of Star wars, of Han, who Shot First? It's like the. The upstairs, downstairs thing. Yeah, I can see that.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: To summarize it, very quickly, like, it's been a.
For the past, like, I don't know. I don't know, 20 years, it's been a blistering hot. Take that. Harry was right. And the cellar was the safest place. But that's. That is actually misconstrued because Ben's plan was never to stay upstairs. He outlines his plan very clearly. So we all stay upstairs so we can hear the rescuers come by, and then when we need to, we all go downstairs. We get the best of both worlds. Like, his plan was never just to stay upstairs.
So the dichotomy between upstairs, downstairs is a false one.
Ben was right. He said, let's do both.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: And yeah, I can see that totally. But, like, it's so funny how people are going to take a stance on that. Like, it's. It's an older movie too, so that's an easy thing people to say. Like, you know, your favorite movie being a movie from the 1990s or 2000s is like, there's not as many times people have been able to see it. It's not as easily. I mean, this movie was easier accessible, again because of copyright issues and things like that as well. Like, it wasn't one of those movies that you had to watch at a specific time or whatever. Like, it was easily to get.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: I mean, it was.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: I mean, if it was YouTube, then it would have been on YouTube.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah, we had our version of YouTube, which was that it was available for like, $2 and every bargain bin at every grocery store. Like, you know, because of the copyright issue, everyone released it like, everyone released their own version of it's been released on home media more than any other movie in. In human history.
And so I myself owned multiple copies growing up because I would.
I would just see a new version of it and had lost my other version or thought maybe this version looked better because, you know, for the first 40 years of it being around, or maybe 30 some, it looked just awful.
Like you couldn't even see what was going on half the time.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: It's. To me, it was like the Fantastic Four movie that wasn't released. Yeah, I mean, I've seen that now and it's like I want it so badly to marvel. Just like, you know, embrace it and be like, we're gonna put the actual. Like, we'll find it. We'll. We'll do editing to it. Whatever we need to do. We need to modernize it, make it at least the 4K, whatever it is, so you actually get to see it the way it was, like, potentially intended to. But now we're seeing like the copy of the copy of the copy of the copy now.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: It's funny you mentioned that when that little Fantastic Four movie came out, I worked at a movie theater, but it was also video store. And we had. We had it because they had sent the video store a.
Like an early version of it to.
Just to promote, I guess.
So we had it and then we never. I don't think it was allowed to come out officially, but we had a tape of it. We would, you know, it was as wild as it looked.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Oh, and you can watch it on YouTube. And my buddy Paul Eaton, who owns Galactic Comics, Inclactables. We're actually. Daniel did a sign in. He was up here in Bangor, who's actually moving to a new shop, which is awesome. It's right down the street. Beautiful new shop, which is great. He's moving this weekend. But we watched it and talked about it on the podcast and we talked about how it's like the best representation of Dr. Doom there has been yet. And it's like no one, like 90% of the fantastic Four fans haven't seen it. And it's like, this is. I mean, there's a lot of problems with the movie, but like the fanta. The Doctor Doom part of it was actually pretty good. And so we're like, we want people to see this movie. We're like, you can see it on. It's on YouTube. So if anybody wants to see it, you can.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: There are items like that, like the Star wars holiday season special or whatever that you just, like, you want people to just have a sense of humor and like. Like release it already. People are obviously interested just to embrace it.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: I also don't understand it's money because I feel like if you released it, you'd make a bunch of money off of this. I don't understand. Like, there aren't all these businesses in there for the money. Like, I don't like. To me, it's like this. It's funny because, like, this book, partially devoured, will get people to watch the movie. So in a sense, even if it's not officially connected to the movie itself, it's like, this is gonna do. If someone reads this book, in all likelihood, there's gonna be a sale or a rental or some sort of streaming thing of this movie. So it's pretty cool to see that. So any movie, any book about a movie or a TV show or whatever it might be does well for that thing. Because the fact that, again, if you've seen it and you read the book, you probably want to see it again or watch it before or watch with it, right?
[00:34:11] Speaker B: And there's. There's a lot of.
Just because of kind of who I am and because of people who have blurbed it or whatever, I think people who have never. Who horror is just not their bag and have never been interested in seeing it are gonna see it.
Colson Whitehead fans, you know, he's. He's the. The. The lead brother, Brian, who are probably the Colson Whitehead fans and George Mineral fans probably don't intersect all that much, but they should.
And I think this is. This is the kind of project that will bring it to the attention of people who would have discounted something like this before.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: And I think that it's. If you're not into the terrifiers of the world, this is not that. And I think that's what's awesome about it too, is it's like. It's got suspenseful fear and horror in it, and there is some graphicness to it, but it's more the suspense in the. In the.
The potential of being attacked by zombies that's more fearful and horrifying than. Than someone being cut from, you know, top to bottom on, like, a terrifying movie. And so I think horror is one of those things. I don't do horror. And it's like, well, there's different levels of horror. And so this might be one of those ones that could be an entry point to someone in the horror genre, for sure.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. But I think.
I think what I intended the book, and I think it's basically succeeding in this, is that you don't have to have any interest in Dead. Because the point is. I think the point that comes out pretty clearly pretty quickly in the book is that, like, everyone has something. Like, they don't. It's probably not Night Living Dead for you, but you've got something. You've got some movie, some album that has been important to you across the span of your life that has, like, changed you maybe multiple times throughout the years.
So you get it. Like, I think anyone who reads this is going to kind of emotionally substitute whatever it is for them that they have. That for me is Night Living Dead.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Do you want to know what it really is for me?
[00:36:13] Speaker B: I do.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Newsies.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Newsies.
[00:36:16] Speaker A: I mean, have you ever seen this movie?
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Yeah. I saw it, like, when I was young.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: So it's funny because my. My brothers and I have two brothers, an older one and a younger one. We wore the VHS tape out. I don't know what it was about. It. It was just something that drove jurist in. It was like, it's about a serious thing. Obviously, it's about a strike Newsy straight. But, like, it was bubbly in the idea that it's a musical.
And it was funny because as I. As I get older, I saw it on Broadway because they brought it to Broadway and I now introduced it to my son, who's five or going to be five in May. And he loves. He's absolutely ecstatic about it. Like, he watches it. He watched the Broadway version of it, the regular one. So it's like, been that Hand Me down hasn't changed me a lot, but that's the one thing has stayed with me mind. Like, obviously I love my Jurassic Parks and Back to the Futures and Star wars and all that stuff, but, like, this is the thing that stayed with me and I was able to pass it to the next generation. Something that's like, obviously the Broadway musical did wonders for it because it brought it to modernization to it. But, like, my son may never have ever been friends are never going to introduce this to him. Other family members aren't going to introduce this to him. Even my brothers are probably, like, it's probably, you know, lost in their memory a little bit more than it is with me. I mean, I have to have autographed pictures from people in the show. Like, it's. Yeah, it's one of those things that's always been, you know, with me. And it's, you know, the Living Dead's a more Edgy and cooler version of that. But like, you know, yeah, you're right. Everything there is something for everyone that stays with you throughout time.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: And yeah, I mean, it's partially devoured. Bears, you know, not much resemblance to Stephen King's Dance Macabre, but like it. I remember in his like forward to that book, when I read it as a kid, he said that he always got asked why he was interested in this stuff and he wrote the book so that he could just point to the book and say, here's why.
And I do feel like that this book, it does kind of serve that role for me. Like people can say, why do you do this stuff? Why do you write this stuff? Why are you interested in this stuff?
And if I want to now I can just hand them this book or show them a picture of it so they have to go buy it and say this is why. Like it's. It's all in here. Like all the answers of, of how this genre has affected me and helped me and all that stuff. It's all, it's all in there.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Well, I mean, as a, as a reader, as a fan of yours, I also thanked out of the Living Dead because I got the books you've gotten now basically because the. Your love for this movie, like you got stuff I've gotten now because it's changed you as a person and involved you as a person to getting. I mean, Rotters is still one of my favorite books of all time. I'll tell you that right now. Something about it just always attaches its myself to me obviously love Whalefall. And so there's these books that you've created over the years that again, I think back to the whole, like, if it was slightly different, if your mom never. You never watched this movie, would I have ever even gotten Rogers? You know, like that kind of thing. It's something to think about and it's really cool. So I think that it does talk to people. It's talked to people who are a fan of cinema, talks to people who are a fan of horror, talks to people who are a fan of yours. Like it talks to all these people that potentially could do this. Even if you've never seen the movie or have no real interest in seeing the movie. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: It's a good. I think the first category there is of some interest to me to discuss like people who are just interested in movies. Like it's. There's not a lot of.
I mean there's a lot of books as you've listed some of them. There's a lot of books out there about the making of certain movies, but I don't think there's many quite like this. And part of what sets Partially Devoured apart, or. No, I'm sorry, partially what sets Night Living Dead apart is that, you know, a lot of these books are about big movies, like, about stars and producers and money and special effects and, you know, with. With the exception of George Amiro himself, these are regular people who did not get rich at all off this. And no one knows their stories. Like, if you talk about, you know, Apocalypse now, kind of everyone. Everyone has some. Any movie fan sort of has a sense of the personalities involved and how they clashed and what the issues were, but no one really out there, you know, in any sort of wide sense knows that about nihilism Dead.
They don't know what they might have a sense of the inspiration of it and how effective it was for people, but they probably don't know about kind of the tragedy of it and how it really hurt a lot of people in the making of it.
And so that's all, I think would be of interest to really anyone who's interested in how movies get made or just art gets made and how the artists can never really partake of the art like the consumers of the art can. Like, they're always.
It's always a far, far more complicated situation. And I know it as well as a creator of art. Like, there's. You could pick out one of my books, and I could tell you, and you could be like, this is my favorite book. And I'd be like, well, in my head, I'm thinking, here's the compromises I made with that book. Here's the people who felt slighted from.
From not being in the acknowledgments. You know, there's. Here's the problems I had had with this editor. You know, it's like there's a mountain of things that temper any excitement for an art project when you're the creator of it.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: It's. It's. Yeah. And I think that when I watch something. When I went to look up Whalefall, researching the movie Whalefall, about talking to you, and I was like, oh, who's who? I know Josh Brolins. And I know, you know, it's like, who else has been cast in it? When's the protection projected date? Did it all that st. And when I hovered over and looked at the people that were in the movie, what else have they been in with something that, like, it's just a normal thing for me to do. And it's like a movie that is as famous as Night of the Living Dead. At least, you know, in the zeitgeist of people talking about horror movies is you don't know many people from other things as much as you might in another film. And you watch a new the Scream movie that came in out, you know, recently, you can look at everybody who's been in other things or what movies they're going to be in next. It's like Night of the Living Dead, like Stands on Its Own Little island is not the only thing like that. But it's one of those movies that does. That has so much fame to it.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: I think one of the, the, the big points of that is Dwayne Jones because he's so good in it. Like, he's, he's. He's beyond what anyone in a film of that size should be. Like. He, he could have been a massive Hollywood star.
And so for him to sort of vanish offers up a whole bunch of new questions like, how could he have been this good? And then he had like, you know, maybe four other starring roles and small movies that have been mostly forgotten. And he's amazing in those, too. So what happened to this guy? How could someone this talented in a movie this famous just vanish? And so that out of all the. And I dig into everyone in the cast and crew, to me, in a lot of ways, this movie is about Dwayne Jones more or this book is about Dwayne Jones more than almost anyone else. It's just trying to understand him and figure out what happened to him.
And it's a story that's, you know, half of its tragedy and half of it's just amazing. Like, he was an amazing person.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: It showed me, it proved. It proved me again how good the movie was and how the struggles that, that it made to get the movie made, to put it out there, the struggles after the fact the movie was made with the copyright issues and things like that, but also how much someone can be influenced by something like this and create that stuff again. It's also one of those things that we chatted, we had lunch together. We still didn't be able to dive into some of your parts of your childhood or how much. So it's really cool to see this and read this from someone. Like I said, you're a fan of their work and their art and stuff like that, from books to comics and now, you know, movies that I get to see coming up here pretty soon. But so Partially Devoured quickly before we. I want to finish up here pretty soon. But like, you say it in the book, but so people don't understand it. What is partially devoured from. It's obviously from the movie. But like.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: Yeah, so if you've seen the movie, you know that there's often a radio playing and a TV playing and the personality on both of those is the same person. It's this real life broadcaster named Chuck Craig.
And several times he uses the very specific phrase partially devoured. And it's not something like, I was aware of the phrase before, but I didn't realize until doing this book how often that phrase comes up.
And just as sort of one of the strange things that happens when you're writing, I started connecting the phrase partially devoured whenever it came up to something that was happening at a deeper level in the film.
And so it just sort of gradually emerged as the phrase that began to be the most impactful to me and announced itself as. I think this should be the title of the book even.
So I don't want to go too into it because the phrase, it gets sort of discussed all the way into the very last words of the book. So.
But yeah, it's. It's.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: It's probably.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: It's one of those accidents.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: Just. Yeah, the book is full.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: It's a great thing. I also think that. I don't think that, like, I've watched other zombie related things and it's such a. Such a great term or words to use for what a bitten zombie or eaten zombie is. Is partially devoured. So that's pretty cool, too. When I read that, I was like, oh, it makes sense. And then when you read it through the book, you know, when you read it and you actually have a section where you talk about it, you know, like when you see like a movie and you're like, oh, they said scream in this movie. You're like, it was like that moment too. It was really cool. You're like, oh, he's talking about it. Which is really cool. But obviously this is a book that took a different way of crafting. You also have this book cover. Sorry, sorry. Partially Devoured is out March 10th from Centerpoint Press. It's phenomenal. I loved it. I think everybody should buy it and read it. You also just finished up reading the audio or narrating the audiobook, is that correct? And so you get to hear Daniel's voice for a number of hours on an audiobook. But yeah, you can get that. I believe that Libro FM has that as well. Which where I would recommend people who buy audiobooks and listen to audiobooks get it from.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: But.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: But you obviously have the sixth, sixth Nick coming out in June as well, which is obviously a completely different way of writing between Partially Devoured and also we've talked about this before is also your first sci fi book. So like you try to change up genres a little bit. There's horror in it so obviously you're still have some previous, you know, experience in horror. But just give us a little bit about what six Nick is while we finish up here.
[00:47:01] Speaker B: I definitely have not started any promotion for 6 Nick so I don't have a good pitch on it yet. I don't know how to describe it quite yet, but it is there it is. It's a dark sci fi, you know, a real sci fi with like spaceships and planets and all that stuff.
That's a bible. I really don't know how to describe it yet. It's. It's a journey I guess about this young girl who has these kind of mysterious technology implanted in her brain that allow her certain abilities. So she is, she is sort of added to this crew of this living spaceship, the spaceships that's made of like living organic material to this far off planet that was essentially a plague planet. People were sent there who had the plague to figure out why. They've sort of gone offline.
But it's a very gnarly kind of body horror ridden book.
Sort of about bodies, I guess, sort of about bodily autonomy and how different people can in groups can kind of fight over the rights to other people's bodies.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: It's fantastic. I was able to finish it and it's a wonderful book. It's a cool thing. One of the things we've talked about before too is you do change genres here and there and change styles and you do. You take. Obviously angel down was written in a certain format and stuff like that. It's cool. I just read a bunch of books by the same author. It has the same character and it's 14 books as Paul Dwarren books about a game warden in Maine and it's their mystery books. But it's the same characters in every book and there's new ones involved and the same themes and it's a mystery and all that stuff. But it's one of those things I'm always like, I'm excited to read your next book because I'm excited to see where you go with it and so see what you do with it and it's like, yeah, I don't read that much sci fi.
So like, to me it was like one of those things where it's like. I think I even wrote in my review, which was like, like, if it doesn't have Luke Skywalker in it, it's like probably not something that I'm usually. Or Star Trek or something like that. Like, it's not something I usually gravitate towards and. But it's like one of those things when you have faith in a specific creator that you can actually be like, okay, I'm probably gonna enjoy the book in some form of fashion. And that's what this was. It was like, I got you. It was, you had your stamp on it.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: But it was also different, which was really cool. I like that.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that's how I appreciate that. That's how I like to operate is I have a lot of respect for that author you mentioned. Like, for people who can write 15 books with the same characters.
I don't, I don't see how it's pop. I, I could, I can't imagine it. Like, it's, it's impossible for me to imagine. Like, I want to, I want every book I do to, to be the furthest thing away from the previous book as possible because that's what keeps me interested and that's what keeps me like wide awake.
So I don't, I don't understand how people do it. I don't even understand how people write in the same genre of and over. Like, I just feel like that's not enough change.
But I do understand it in a sense because it makes very, very solid business sense.
So it's the everyone in the world, in the sort of publishing world or movie world or whatever kind of medium we're talking about everyone sort of subtly or not so subtly channeling you to do that. Like, everyone. If you've had a success in something, everyone's going to want you to continue that.
So you have to be very stubborn and, or very risk taking in a way. Like, I've just made turn after turn in genres and there's probably nothing I could have done that was worse for my career.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: But.
[00:50:43] Speaker B: But I'm fine. I'm doing fine. Like it. Eventually I got to where I wanted to be, where it's like, people are having your reaction now, where it's like, I want to see what, what this, this writer does next. Because I expressly. Because I don't know.
So that's usually a bad thing. But I'm hoping after all these years, I can sort of twist it into a positive.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: And it's your first book at Saga Press, right. You have.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: You're.
[00:51:08] Speaker A: You're doing books over there as well. So this is pretty cool. I mean, Saga, great publisher to be. I've read so many books. Right. I don't know if I've read a bad book from Saga, to be honest with you. I probably have, but I haven't. That doesn't. Top of my mind. I can't think of a book from Saga that I haven't liked. So that. That helps too, for those people who are big book readers and know a publisher that they trust and rely on as well. And obviously you're excited to be publishing with them as well.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm with two publishers right now, Saga and Atria, who are the. The best too. And I've been. I've been all over the place. I've been very.
What's the word? Impatient is not a word. And I've been. I've been very willing to move around, to try new things, to try new editors, just like I try new genres, try new new new homes.
And I've never been happier than I am with Atria and Saga. They're both just tremendous places to be.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: And so we're going to finish up here. But like. So you have. Obviously the script for Whale Fall is done, obviously, because they filmed the movie. Now they're editing it. Are you currently writing Angel Down Script? Or is that something that's already been done? Or is there something you're working on later? Is it.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: It's. It's already been done. Okay. So we're in sort of the. The phase of, you know, getting a director.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: All that stuff that goes with it too, obviously that's a little bit different. You. I mentioned too, you have a graphic novel that came out.
I want to butcher that name. I cannot pronounce it for some reason. What's it?
[00:52:31] Speaker B: People have a hard time with it.
[00:52:32] Speaker A: I don't know why. It's like. It's the weirdest thing.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: Athanasia.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Okay. There, See? See? Once you say it now I'm going to be able to say it, no problem. But kind of like a horror superhero vibe in it. It's phenomenal. Again with Vault Press, which is. Vault Comics is amazing. Publisher of comics as well. But that's out there. You've got your teddy bear. Saga, you're going to talk about coming out.
You're just busy. You're just all over there.
I'm guessing you're also working on the next book.
[00:52:59] Speaker B: Yeah, my second book with Saga is right over here. I was working on it before this call started, so.
Yes.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: Hard at work. Hard at work. It's awesome. I'm so pumped about it. And I'm so pumped that you came on here and chatted. Partially devoured available March 10th at your bookstores everywhere. And again, audiobook available at Libro fm. Check that out. You can order your partially devoured on bookshop.org is where we recommend getting it. Or your local bookstore.
Worth going there because this is coming out a couple days before the release. Go there and tell them you want it so that they get it in for you as well. So don't sleep on that. Go to your local comic book store and get all your comics. I got Trojan back here, which is right here.
I want more autumnal for some reason. I don't know. I just. I keep on going back to that comic, for sure.
[00:53:46] Speaker B: Yeah. We've talked about. We've had very, very informal, loose discussions about what we would do.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Well, I want more comics from you in general, but I know you're busy and I know you got other things to work on, but, like, that's, you know, I love your books. I love everything, but, like, I don't know, your comics are great. So.
[00:54:03] Speaker B: Okay, I'll put that into the consideration
[00:54:06] Speaker A: because I know it's right up towards the top. You know, Justin said that he wanted more.
And then the Six Nicks, Six Nick comes out June 23rd at bookstores everywhere as well.
Daniel, I appreciate everything you come, you talk about. You come on and do this. Take time out of your day. You're busy, scheduled to talk to us. And I'm glad that things are going well and I'm glad. Congratulations on the success of angel down as well. We didn't get a chance to talk about that, but the movie's coming as well. So I'm hoping that at some point we'll get on to theaters, but we're going to see Whale Fall at some point this year. I'm hoping. That's exciting. So, so pumped about that. But, yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: You got it. Anytime, man.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: Thank.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: You.
