November 24, 2017

An Interview With Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris of Taylor Swift: Girl Detective (DINK 2017)

November 24, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris of Taylor Swift: Girl Detective about their take on publishing indie books. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/15/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Larissa Zageris & Kitty Curran at DINK 2017.

Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris are the creative minds behind the successful Taylor Swift: Girl Detective Kickstarter that last year led to their first published novel, The Secrets Of The Starbucks Lovers. I met these ladies at the first Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo in 2016, before their crowdfunding had even begun. The past year has been busy for them with their first novel being released and a second officially on the way. On April 9th they were back in Denver for DINK 2017 and ready to discuss Betty Boop, Upworthy and appearing on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Neil Greenaway: It is great to see you ladies back at DINK for a second year! Last year’s show was your first time tabling at a convention. What drew you to DINK?

Kitty Curran: We had been looking for cons to table at, really. We knew that we were launching the Kickstarter, and I had been a part of several anthologies and other projects. It seemed like the next logical step, to start promoting ourselves and our work, would be to star tabling. And DINK was the first show to accept us. It was our first ever show.

NG: Have you gone to any other shows since then?

Larissa Zageris: We have. We’ve done the Chicago ‘Zine Fest, and we did a comedy show in Chicago with this group called The Nerdologues. They did a night of monologues surrounded by the theme of Intrigue! So we set up and sold there. And we will be at Thought Bubble in the fall. DINK 2017 is still only our third official show!

Books and prints from Larissa Zageris & Kitty Curran at DINK 2017.

NG: The last time we had spoken you ladies did not have the actual physical Taylor Swift book in your hands. You still needed to raise the funds. Now that you have the book out in the world, are you seeing a positive response from the public?

LZ: Yeah, a hugely positive response. Even after the Kickstarter had finished and been successfully funded, we kept getting press as if it was still going. We had pieces run in Time and Hello Giggles, Brit.co, a bunch of outlets ran a little story on it. Then, we got picked up by a couple of local Chicago shops. From there we would get interested emails every week or so asking about it. Here, at the show seeing people pick it up and laugh and buy it is great. We are on our second print, we completely sold out of the kickstarter print run and had to order more. I think that people are showing a positive response because it’s something that is fun and clever. And I think it’s straightforward. We are kind of dorky and kind of old-school, but I think that a lot of people are coming back to that. People like things that are straightforward and earnest.

NG: Something a lot of people asked after your last interview was “Is Taylor going to be ok with this?” Have you heard anything on that front? Do you think she knows?

LZ: We haven’t heard anything. Has anyone heard anything on the Taylor front lately? Except that maybe she’ll be releasing a new album? (laughs) No, we have not heard anything, and the book was excerpted in a giant coffee table book from Simon & Schuster. We take up a good chunk of that book. We were nervous about that. It’s a very transformative work, so we didn’t really think that we were stepping on any toes. But we thought that if we were ever going to hear about it, that would be the time, and we didn’t.

Taylor Swift: Girl Detective - The Secrets of the Starbucks Lovers by Larissa Zageris & Kitty Curran.

How Ill Is Your Repute? from Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris.

NG: One thing that I noticed in reading the book was that in the back, you have an add page for the rest of the series. Have you given any thought to actually writing out any more of these mysteries? As an aside, the Ed Sheeran Adventures look amazing.

LZ: All of his song titles could be song titles could essentially be the names of mysteries. The Shape Of You: An Ed Sheeran Mystery. (laughs) We have so many ideas for more books and actually we just came up with another one this weekend. So we now have three or four really solid ideas. One involves an Alex Turner crossover with the Noir-ctic Monkeys. We have so many ideas, but so little time.

NG: So there are other novels set in this same universe?

KC: I would say to be continued, in a “we don’t have time because we are working on so many other projects” kind of way. We’ll see how it goes, really.

LZ: Yeah, I am hoping to turn that into a definite yes next year, but we just don’t know because we keep losing time.

The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire question.

NG: Your book was referenced in one of the questions on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire back in December. Having only just recently joined the cultural zeitgeist, how does it feel to have work mentioned on a game show?

KC: It felt completely surreal. I have watched the video several times at this point, and it still does not feel like it actually happened, but its great! It was amazing!

LZ: There was also a Minnesota morning talk show that did a video panel on it. CBS or MSNBC or something like that. And we both work and we freelance as well. The year that has passed has been crazy. I wrote the script for a Betty Boop comic. But we also have real jobs. I work in food service, Kitty works in customer service. And so it is a huge confidence boost that helps to keep us going. To have these positive energy in little pockets, like people writing reviews. And then you can work your job and do your best, and keep going.

NG: Larissa, you mentioned writing a Betty Boop comic and I know that ran in Woman’s Day. How did that come about?

LZ: It came about because a friend had recommended me, or at least included my name on a list for their editor. The editor reached out to me wanting to do something that was fun and included Betty Boop. They were trying to breathe new life into the brand. She is a timeless character that they wanted to bring back out in a fun way. The art on that story (by Hilary Barta & Jason Millet) was killer! So it had to be relevant to today, and we had all this health research. We worked out a fun, trippy little story and they really liked it.

Bettie Boop: Heroine of Hearts by Larissa Zageris & Hilary Barta, from the March 2017 issue of Women's Day.

An interior page from How Ill Is Your Repute? from Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris.

Taylor Swift: Girl Detective  - Intrigue sticker. — Taylor Swift: Girl Detective - Intrigue sticker.

NG: And then for Kitty, you did some illustrating for Upworthy. How did you hook up with them?

KC: I had worked for them in the past as a contractor, I was making stuff for their Instagram page and other social media. They just sort of kept me in mind and when they need a comic illustrator, they reach out. So I’ve done one about how hope is a four letter word, I illustrated the story of a man crossing the border illegally. He wasn’t taking photos, so I provided the pictures. I get some of the tougher subjects, like a new treatment that is being pioneered in Seattle for overdoses. They ask me to make it visually pleasing when they have a harder topic like that.

NG: While we are speaking of some of your other projects, what are you currently working on?

KC: We are currently working on a Choose-Your-Own-Path historical-romance-parody novel. That will be coming from Quirk Books, who did Pride & Prejudice & Zombies amongst other things. That will be coming out next spring. So that is the main thing that we are working on right now. I will also be contributing to Speculative Relationships 3, which is a Sci-Fi/Romance comics anthology run by Tyrell Cannon. We’ve got just a few things in the pipeline, basically, that are taking up all the time.

LZ: I also have an upcoming radio show that I am trying to produce that will be like Stardust meets Downton Abbey.

NG: Would that be a Chicago local radio show, or would that be something people could find online?

LZ: It would be something that people could find online, but with Chicago actors. We were trying to do it with a live performance aspect, kind of like Welcome To Nightvale. Where it’s live, and they do Foley sound, but then it is also produced as a podcast or a radio show. That feels kind of far off right now because we have to finish all of these other things first.

NG: Getting back to your Choose-Your-Own-Path historical romance, is that something that you plan to crowdfund, or is that something you would do through Quirk?

LZ: Quirk Books has actually commissioned us to write it. So it is a book deal that we signed for them. They will be putting it out, and it should release in spring 2018. It is official, it was announced on PublishersWeekly.com. It’s awesome!

NG: Where can people look online to find more from you ladies?

KC: You can find us digitally at KittyandLarissa.tumblr.com or you can visit my website or my tumblr.

LZ: I can also be found at my website. Or look for us on social media. We are all over the internet, all the time.

November 24, 2017

An Interview With Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press (DINK 2017)

November 24, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press about his take on publishing indie books. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/15/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Denis Kitchen is the king of the underground comix movement. Starting in 1969 with the decision to self publish his own comics, he created a model for independent comic distribution that led to a thirty year career and his own publishing house. Denis was in town for the second annual Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo and I took the opportunity to talk with him about his love for self published comics, what Kitchen Sink Press is doing now, and his involvement with the Cannabis & Comix tour.

Neil Greenaway: This is your second year at this show. How did you come to be attached to DINK?

Denis Kitchen: I was invited by Charlie LaGreca, and I am always intrigued to see what is going on in the indie comics movement, because I feel a kinship there. I had not been to Denver in many years, so I thought, all right. Let’s do this. I had a great time and I met a lot of really good people. So, when Charlie asked if I might be willing to do an encore, I said absolutely. I go to a lot of big shows (like San Diego or New York) that are kind of obligatory professionally. I can get very jaded about those shows but a show like this is full of passion. The only thing comparable is maybe SPX or MOCCA, and in a way even they have been around for a while and they no longer have that freshness that you find here. I think that the Denver scene is really an exciting one to witness.

NG: Do you find that you do well at this show?

DK: I do well enough to be happy, but its not really about the money. I’m here for the experience. I came in two days early just to see the city and its surroundings. Ted Intorcio from Tinto Press was my tour guide, and we had a great time. That was a bonus, a lot of the time I will come into a city for a show and I never really see beyond the convention center or hotel. It’s like you weren’t really there. These days, more and more, if I go somewhere I want to see more than the hotel.

Books and prints from Denis Kitchen at DINK 2017.

NG: How did you get to be a part of the Cannabis & Comix portion of the show? Was that just a natural extension of your being here?

DK: I guess that it was. They had an old hippy for a guest, and what can you do with an old hippy? At that time, just a year ago, I believe that Colorado was the only state with legalization. Since then my state, Massachusetts, has voted. Last fall. But it was a chance to see Colorado at that moment of legality. Remember, when I was young, one of the movements that I was a part of was to legalize pot. I don’t think that we ever thought that we would see it in our lifetime.

*As we are talking, almost everyone who walks by stops to thank Denis, or introduce themselves, or tell him what his work has meant. He takes it all with the calm grace of a seasoned professional.*

NG: A lot of the people here sort of fawn over you. Do you get that a lot at conventions?

DK: Sometimes, I guess. It is a little embarrassing, but if I’m not the oldest guy here I’m close to it. I just see it as a sign of respect. I appreciate it. When I was young and attending my first conventions, I was anxious to meet some of the older professionals. I get it, its a part of that continuum, and of comics history. I just know that I am hardly mainstream. The guys who created the super heroes are always going to be the ones with the long lines. That is understandable. They sold books in the millions compared to my tens-of-thousands or hundreds-of-thousands. I am more cult for my underground stuff. At the same time, people like Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, and others I’ve published are certainly mainstream in their own way. Of course by the time I collected their work, they weren’t contemporary in the same way. But I have always felt a dedication to preserving the best comics of the past. If someone else does it, that makes me happy, too. I’ll buy their edition. I feel like it is almost my obligation to keep those works available. To keep them in libraries and good comic shops. Because of that, because I wear so many different hats, there are people who know me for different reasons. I can never assume that I am known for one thing. There are people who know me as a publisher but don’t know I’m an artist. So anytime someone says something kind, I appreciate that. But I can’t take it too seriously.

The Best of Comix Book from Kitchen Sink Press, at DINK 2017.

Everything Including the Kitchen Sink by Jon B. Cooke, at DINK 2017. Cover by Denis Kitchen.

Denis Kitchen's Chipboard Sketchbook by Denis Kitchen, at DINK 2017.

NG: Speaking of the many hats you have worn, which do you more see yourself as: a publisher, or an artist?

DK: The clue there is in the cover to my “Everything Including the Kitchen Sink” book. It has me surrounded by all the hats I wear, but the one I am wearing is the general’s hat that says Artist on it. I see myself as an artist, but the publisher hat is big too.

NG: I like that the Publisher hat is being handed to you by someone else.

DK: Yeah! And the agent hat is a klan hood because that is my least favorite, but I have to wear it. I put the File Clerk hat at the bottom to remind myself that I have to do a lot of shit work, too. I think that it is both a curse and a blessing that I am able to cross over into these other areas. I say curse because originally I wanted to be a cartoonist, period. I got involved in the business side. I don’t necessarily have any regrets. I was good enough at it that it flourished and lasted 30 years or so. There is that part of me that wonders, though. If I had just stuck with it as an artist, would I have found any degree of success or not? I don’t know. I have never stopped drawing, and I’ve even released a collection or two of material. But it is a relatively modest artistic achievement compared to all the books that I’ve published.

NG: Are you still creating new comics to be published?

DK: Periodically, I will do one. I don’t do even a story a year anymore. Typically, an editor will ask me to do something. Like, 2 or 3 years ago Monte Beauchamp was putting together a book called Masterful Marks about cartoonists doing comic style biographies of other cartoonists. And he asked me to do Dr. Suess. Well how could I turn that down? That is the last relatively long thing that I did. It was fun, I just don’t have the time to do that regularly. I am more likely to do it if an editor that I know, like, and respect asks me and the deadline is far enough away. But it is rare these days for me to sit at my drawing board and do a comic. I would like to but I am pulled in too many directions.

NG: In that same vein, is Kitchen Sink Press still seeking new works to publish?

DK: Technically, yes. But as a practical matter the imprint is only doing 3-4 books a year and right now they are focused on what I would call monograph-type books. The most recent one that we did was Will Eisner: The Centennial Celebration. Will would have been 100 this year. I curated 2 art exhibits, one in France and one in New York City, that will travel. Basically, the new book is a catalogue based on that show. It is focused on the art, but next year we will be doing a deluxe edition of Contract With God in 2 volumes. We’re doing some more Kurtzman books. We did one last year, a big Artist’s Edition type book on Frank Miller’s first volume of Sin City. We are really not an imprint set up to do new work. With that said, if some full blown genius sent something in, yeah, we would find a way to do it. But that is not anything we are “seeking” at this point. What we really have now is a way for me and my partner John Lind to make books without being publishers. After doing this for three decades, the last thing that I want is to deal with distribution, manufacturing, warehousing, and marketing. All of those things that I am thrilled to have Dark Horse do, and they in turn are thrilled to get a book just handed to them on a platter where they don’t have any editorial time invested. At this point in my career, it is a way for me to be creative without needing to have any employees or other complications.

Little Nemo in Slumberland 3D print by Denis Kitchen, at Dink 2017.

NG: Do you still enjoy seeing the wide variety of indie publications being put out? Do you still find that exciting?

DK: I do, I do. In fact there are several people here that I sought out. Tinto Press had a couple of new ones that I wanted to pick up. Kilgore has the Noah Van Sciver stuff, like Blammo. I basically come back from every show with a stack of new reading material. That’s part of the fun. I don’t get a lot of time away from the table at these things. If I had my druthers, I would be able to slowly go around and discover these things. More often than not, I look for recommendations from people I trust. Or the awards. I saw the DINKy awards last night. I am more likely to go and seek those out because they were good enough to at least be nominated. But I can’t read everything.

NG: If people want to see more of you or of Kitchen Sink Press, where can they look online?

DK: There is always DenisKitchen.com. I am not on Facebook myself, but we have a professional page that announces new projects and appearances. We have one of those for Denis Kitchen and one for Kitchen Sink Press.

November 24, 2017

An Interview With Charlie LaGreca, Founder of Denver Comic Con and Denver Independent Comic & Art Expo (DINK 2017)

November 24, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Charlie LaGreca (founder of DINK) about his take on running an indie comic convention. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/15/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Charlie LaGreca is a man who knows the convention scene in Denver. As one of the founding fathers of the Denver Comic-Con, he helped Colorado get its first taste of a truly epic pop-culture experience. Now, with the Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo (or DINK! for short), he is bringing a more artistic convention experience to the Mile High city. This is a convention focused more on artistic flair, diverse representation, and self published comics. I sat down to talk with Charlie about DINK’s new venue, why diversity matters, and his own artistic inclinations.

Neil Greenaway: Can you give us a little bit of background on how you got DINK up and running last year?

Charlie LaGreca: This was just like when I started the Denver Comic-Con. I started it from the ground up, I found the funding, and came up with a vision. The venue was already chosen. They had called me when I was first looking for a venue for Denver Comic-Con. I remember peering into the Sherman Events Center through the windows with Frank Romero and wondering, what is this weird place? We took a tour and it was beautiful, with all the columns. It was not the right fit for DCC, but I knew that we would be back there. It was too beautiful to be missed. I thought that more people in Denver deserved to see it and more artist friends needed to see it. But for Denver Comic-Con we knew it was not the right place. The rest of the convention came together with a lot of love, passion, hard work. Great people, a truly great staff who are just there behind it, who are willing to volunteer and put in the hours. And we got a lot of help. I was calling on the people that I met through DCC, calling on the people that I’ve met in the comic industry in New York and L.A., calling on old friends. A lot of the people that we had here the first year were friends that we met who have now become more famous. Like Nate Powell, people like that. And for next year we already have Jeff Lemire, who I’ve known since he was doing tiny little indie comics, he will be one of our guests of honor next year. We just announced him. This has all come together though, really and truly, through a lot of passion and hard work. When I was trying to put together another convention after DCC… I don’t consider myself a producer, I consider myself an artist. Building these shows is an art form, so it was time to create another piece of art along with other people.

NG: Is the creation of these shows in your blood then? Having created Denver Comic-Con, and now DINK, do you think that you will feel the need to create other shows in the future?

CL: Wow, that makes me think! (laughs) I can’t say that I would ever let DINK go, like letting someone else run it. At least right now I can’t see that ever being the case. If this show was ever to take wing and be really flying, if I was having other opportunities, maybe. I would still have to be able to assist with DINK and make sure that it kept its mission. That mission will be maintained, always.

NG: What is the mission you hope to maintain here at DINK?

CL: From the minute you walk through the door, everything that you experience should be independent. There should be independent comics, independent beer. Everything should go from the person who made it to your hand. It should all be independent in some way, with hopefully nothing corporatized. And the reason we want that is because, while we think that corporatization can be good for an artist (to make them profitable) – you also start to see a homogenization. I think that the Walking Dead is a perfect example of that. First, there is this comic. And you love it. And it grows until it gets so big that zombies are seeped into the culture now. They’re everywhere! And everyone loves zombies, which is amazing, but it also removes a little bit of the special connection that only you had with the Walking Dead. But we can maintain that connection with a show like this. Enzo Garza is upstairs, and you can go and be in touch with his art at this beautiful moment. And we hope to see that blossom.

There are also logistical missions as well. Like kids get in free, 16 & under. I don’t care how big we get. I don’t want those kids to be like I was when I was a kid, unable to go because they have no money. I want those kids to come down, get in free, and enjoy a convention. And maybe they can be inspired to create art of their own or at least to support artists.

And then we also have a literacy mission, which has always been near and dear to my heart. We have Camp Comic Book, which has the idea of taking inner city or under-served kids up to the mountains and making sure that they get an amazing experience in the summer. There will be comics, and hiking, and doing fires every night with discussions on the mythology of heroes and villains.

The DINK mascot, standing gaurd over the entrance.

NG: Who do you get in touch with to pursue the educational aspect of that?

CL: I had 2 teachers that were working with me on the Comic Book Classroom who had always wanted to do something with me. And then this amazing property up north contacted us to see if we wanted to work together. So we have this 2000 acre property, right off of a creek, everything is farm to table. Everything that you eat there is grown there. Last year we raised the money to put a deposit down on the site, and this year we hope to raise enough to send 10 kids up there to enjoy it.

NG: There is a lot of talk these days about how the convention model that is currently in place needs replacing. With everything getting bigger, it seems more and more that pop-culture is pushing the comics out of conventions. Do you see DINK as a place for preserving those artists that feel pushed out?

CL: Absolutely! That nails it! Right there. We are here to preserve. We provide a spotlight for the artists who have not been discovered yet, who are new and need help. And also to maintain veteran artists and creators that people may have forgotten about.

Custom toys from The Sucklord at DINK 2017.

Intersections by Olivia Hunte and T, winner of Best 'Zine at the DINKy Awards.

Trans Man Walking #1 from Andi Santagata at DINK 2017.

NG: I saw R.C. Harvey upstairs. Just to watch him sketch is a pleasure.

CL: Isn’t that cool? And we have Mike Keefe, who is a Denver Post editorial cartoonist. I want to keep getting guys like that. They are still out there, doing stuff. Even when they are retired, they’re still creating.

NG: Touching on that for a moment, you have Denis Kitchen here as a rather large part of your Cannabis & Comix tour. How did you get hooked up with him?

CL: I was talking to Mr. Phil, our artistic curator, and he knew Denis a little bit from conventions. And we were thinking that he would be the perfect person to bridge that discussion between cannabis culture and comix culture. We wanted it to be classy and not just “Hey, come smoke weed!”. We do want people to come and experience cannabis and art. But we also really wanted to discuss what it was like taking your comics to the head shops. What was that like, what was the synergy there? If you are going into a head shop, you probably weren’t looking for comics. But the only place these underground comix are being sold is in the head shops. There had to be a synergy there. So we reached out to Denis, and he was a little hesitant at first. We were able to convince him and his wife to come out and now we have become friends.

The Foreverscape by Vance Feldman on display at DINK 2017.

NG: And then, for this year, how did you get the Hernandez Brothers to come out? They are an amazing set to headline with.

CL: The Hernandez Brothers have been in my sights since DCC2012. I have loved their books for years. Their work is just inspiring and changed the face of comics. I was able to reach out to them, we had some mutual friends in New York. We made it very clear that we wanted all three of them. For us, it was important to have them all. And they agreed! Not only that, then they agreed to give us the art for this year’s DINKy award! They are really pleasant, amazing people. We had a great Cannabis & Comix panel with Mario Hernandez and Denis Kitchen yesterday.

NG: How did Mario get involved with the Cannabis & Comix portion of the show?

CL: He wanted to do it! Isn’t that cool? He asked. So we just started out with talking about how cannabis had affected his art and his creating of comics. That led to a whole discussion about how the indie distribution model today mirrors the head shop model of the old days, so that was cool. Everything was done off the grid, with money being sent in envelopes and everything under the table.

DINK 2018 guest announcement of Jeff Lemire & Matt Kindt.

NG: I think that in the indie comic world, the Hernandez Brothers and Denis Kitchen are both huge names. Do you have any plans for the guests next year?

CL: Yes! we already have announcements for next year! April 14th & 15th, Jeff Lemire & Matt Kindt are our first announced guests. We do have some other really cool announcements that can’t be made yet. We are also trying to bring out the weird, quirky people that you might not know about, too. Like this year we brought out the Sucklord. Or the ForeverScape. Guys like that might not fit at a comic convention.

NG: I have been talking to some creators that are here from out of state, and one thing I keep hearing over and over again is that the representation here is amazing. Specifically, a friend from Phoenix walking around said, “There are a lot of women here! And a lot of POC creators. And a lot of trans creators!” He told me that he has never seen this kind of diversity in a convention. Do you feel that the diversity here is an important aspect of the show?

CL: Oh yeah! Now more than ever! With this administration, and the current state we’re in, we want to be a voice that is loud and proud for all stripes and colors. Everyone is welcome here, and we want everyone to come. But if you come, you will treat the other people well. That being said, I also love to discover a new viewpoint. I want to see from a trans viewpoint. There is a table upstairs, for Melanie Gillman, and the card on the table just reads “Queer Smut Comics!” In big letters, like this is what you’re getting, if you can handle that. And that’s what DINK can do. I can have adult comics and erotic comics. And people need to know that. At this show, absolutely you can have kids. But we are not afraid of art, and we will not censor art. This show is all art baby! I want it to be aggressive, and charming, and sexy. Art should be all those things.

The Pizza Book by Beth Hetland & Kyle O'Connell, winner of Best In Show at the DINKy Awards.

Menagerie Party by Lizzy Tiritilli & Ashly Powley at DINK 2017.

On How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Worry! by Lizzy Tiritilli at DINK 2017.

NG: I see a lot of ‘zines on the tables and other things that might not be considered comics at all, like political brochures. How do you find the artists that are making those books?

CL: That is hard work! Honestly, that is mostly Kelly Shortandqueer. He is the curator of our ‘zines. That is very important to us, because we are partnered with the Denver ‘Zine Library, they produce the show with us. We raise money for them. Kelly has been involved with ‘zines for about 12 years and works with the ‘Zine Library, which has one of the largest collections of archival and preserved ‘zines here in Colorado. These ‘zines are important because its sort of an area that gets forgotten about. it was really big in the ’80s and then the ’90s with the whole punk rock movement. Now with the internet, I think people are more into blogs than ‘zines. But they are still out there.

NG: Everybody speaks very highly of DINK as a show and a lot of my artist friends that have never seen it say that they need to come up and check it out. How do you breed that kind of good will in the artist community?

CL: That is a good question. How do you breed good will? I think that it starts from the top down, but it also needs to come from the bottom up. So I need to be setting a good example and leading by example, but I also need to be learning from those around me and listening to their ideas. If an artist comes here, my job should be to support them as best that I can. And hope that they support me the best that they can. There needs to be a mutual respect. Also, I like to be very connected to my team, so weekly meetings are a big thing around here. On top of that, I go to a lot of conventions. And you can learn a lot from watching others. You see the mistakes of course, and learn what not to do. But you can also see the charm, and try to figure out how they achieved that.

The McNichols Building in downtown Denver, home of DINK 2017.

NG: Everyone keeps talking about how this show will keep growing, and it has already undergone a significant expansion from the first year. Do you think that you will need to expand again next year?

CL: We purposefully left ourselves room to expand in the McNichols Building. Aisles were left a little wider than needed, some areas were left open. We have signed a three year commitment here, which is amazing, so we left ourselves some room to grow. But it can only ever grow beyond our means if we allow it to, it should be very organic growth.

NG: For artists and creators that might be interested in learning more about the show, or maybe even submitting to be in next year’s show, can they do all that on the website?

CL: Yeah, we are going to get that opened back up right away, so look for that on the website. You can also find us on Facebook. It is a curated show, which helps us to keep new people getting in. And at the end, when we are done picking, we do have a lottery for the last 15% of the floor. So if you are an artist wanting to come to Denver, or if you are in Denver already, please go check it out.

November 23, 2017

An Interview With Mister V of Death By Dive Bar (DINK 2017)

November 23, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Mister V of Death By Dive Bar about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/14/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Mister V (also known as Mathew Veraldo) is a cartoonist from Granby, Colorado. Sometimes he makes comics about really wild and offensive things. Sometimes he makes comics about really quaint and pleasant things. But no matter what, he’s always making comics about something. At the Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo (DINK!2017) last weekend, I took the opportunity to sit and talk with him about comics, ‘zines, and medical weed.

Neil Greenaway: You have a lot of different books out right now. Can you give a brief rundown of what kinds of things you make?

Mister V.: I put out everything. I put out everything I can. I write a few comic strips for a small newspaper in my county called the Grand Gazette. I also write comics that can be so vulgar that my wife yells at me and goes to bed. Like my newest book, Death By Dive Bar, which was nominated for a DINKy (for Outstanding work by a Colorado Creator). My wife read that book, which is not your run of the mill stuff, and she got mad at me because it was so far past the line. So she yelled at me and went to bed.

Getting back to my range of books, I also have a children’s book called Craterface, and a collection of my single panel newspaper funnies, called Them There Hills.

NG: You also have several ‘zines available. What can you tell me about those?

MV: The ‘zines are a great venue when I have something that I want to put on paper, but I don’t want to spend a lot of money putting it out. It is also a great way to support my local economy. I have a local copy shop, and I like to kick them some business. It’s also a great way to get people to stop by your table, maybe spend a dollar or two. But even that gets your name out there in their minds.

Craterface and Call Of the Wild by Mister V.

NG: What have you been doing lately? Has it been mostly working on Death By Dive Bar?

MV: Yes! I just finished work on my DINKy nominated book. After 4 years spent working on that, I finished it. So right now, I’m just trying to let the well recharge. I mean… Dear God! 4 years worth of anything. I look back and it’s like, that is how long I spent in high school!

NG: Is it a collection at all, or is it a completely original work?

MV: Completely original, and non-linear. It is a pick-a-plot style book. It’s only 140 pages, but it is deceptively dense. So it took 4 years to write and it also takes a really long time to read. (laughs)

NG: You have some books about medical marijuana that are actually called Mile High. What can you tell me about those?

MV: Oh, that’s a lot of fun there. I was in the unique position of exploring marijuana in this state before it was legal for everyone. I had a stomach ailment that went undiagnosed for a number of years. I would go to doctors, and they would try to give me pills. When I was young they thought that it could have been abuse. There were so many examinations, and nothing worked. So when medical marijuana became legal in CO, I thought, let’s check it out. Let’s see what happens. And it worked. It actually helped me. But at the same time, I was part of this weird underground culture that had sprung up. There were people buying marijuana from shady doctors offices and shady dispensaries that were popping up as fast as they could be shut down by the state. We had doctors losing their medical licenses for writing prescriptions incorrectly. It was anarchy, like the wild west. It was horrifying, and entertaining, and fascinating to be a part of. I had to preserve it. Because it’s legal in our state, and it’s only a matter of time before its legal everywhere. It is inevitable. So this time needed to be preserved, for posterity.

Mile High: Adventures in Colorado Medical Marijuana books #1 & #2 from Mister V.

T-shirts and 'zines from Mister V at DINK 2017.

NG: Are you involved in any of the cannabis portions of the show here at DINK?

MV: I’m not, but I would like to be. Maybe next year? We’ll see. I would like to be a part of that.

NG: What is it like working on a newspaper strip? How did that come about?

MV: The Grand Gazette is run by a woman named Kim Cameron, and I just sent her some of my scripts and she said I was hired as freelance. It has been really challenging. I have flourished on the other side of the line, where I can push my boundaries as far as possible. It’s weird to have to step back over to the all-ages category. It has caused me sleepless nights on more than one occasion. Did I go too far? I don’t know where the line is anymore! I worry, you know? Am I going to get angry letters? Am I going to get socked in the local grocery store?

NG: Have you received any negative feedback at all from the strip?

MV: No. Not at all. Which is a huge relief.

An interior page from Death By Dive Bar from Mister V.

NG: This is your second year attending DINK. What do you think of the show?

MV: It has been fantastic. DINK is an absolutely wonderful show. It is so great to get in on this one on the ground floor, and then to watch it grow and expand. I was speaking to Charlie LaGreca a little bit ago about the DINKy award ceremony, and I was hit by a sense of my place in time. I am so happy that I can say that I can say I was here for the beginning, because this show will only continue to get bigger. The best thing I can say about this show is that the people who come here care about art. They care about what we do. And it sort of doesn’t matter if the people who stop buy your book or not because you can have a conversation with them. But you don’t feel obliged to make small talk about Batman or Star Wars. You can talk about art, or whatever you want. That is the best thing about this crowd.

NG: So you are going to continue to be a part of this show?

MV: I will keep coming as long as they let me through the doors.

NG: If people wanted to find you online, or see more of your books, where would they look?

MV: I have Twitter, Instagram, and my website arborcides.com is always a good way to find me.

House of Whorror, a tiajuana bible from Mister V.

The Princess and the Pauper, a tiajuana bible from Mister V.

November 23, 2017

An Interview With Enzo Garza of Gutt Ghost (DINK 2017)

November 23, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Enzo Garza of Gutt Ghost about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/14/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

I have been hearing about Enzo Garza for months. All of my comic making friends want to know if I’ve read his book. Pictures of his creation, Gutt Ghost, flood my social media. Who is this guy? His bio on the DINK webpage says very little aside from the fact that he has a wife and son, and “continues to produce all manner of foul nonsense for the masses.” When I get to the Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo (DINK!2017), I get asked almost immediately, “Have you spoken with Enzo yet?”

No, but I think I should go introduce myself.

Neil Greenaway: Can you tell me how the Gutt Ghost comic got started?

Enzo Garza: It actually started in my high school art class. I did a doodle of this horrible Mickey Mouse smoking a cigarette, and across from him was this ghost lifting his sheet to expose his guts. Then in Oct. 2015 there was a Halloween drawing challenge I was doing. Day #1 was to draw a ghost, and I remembered that weird ghost I drew. So I thought, oh, I’ll do that. So I did that drawing and set it aside and didn’t even touch it for about a year. Then I decided to do my first convention, which was Megacon 2016, and I was trying to get this comic done for the show but I ran out of time. I wasn’t going to attend the convention because I had nothing, but my wife kept telling me to get some prints and maybe a ‘zine and just go. One of the prints that I took was that ghost drawing, and it sold out at Megacon. It sold so well. And it really connected with people. After that, I was thinking maybe I should make a comic. And so by June for Heroes Con I had the first issue of the Gutt Ghost comic, and that was the beginning of it all. It’s just crazy.

NG: Before Gutt Ghost, had you put out any other comics?

EG: I put out this weird little, 4-page tiny comic called Sensation Boom. It was about this drifter who wore ratty clothes and goggles. All he did was fight monsters at the end, he would just explode and take out the problem. I kept making these as mini-comics, and I had fun but eventually someone pointed out that the concept was basically the same in every issue. And he was right, it was. But that was all I had done before, just silly stuff like that.

NG: One thing that has impressed me about Gutt Ghost is how the word has spread through the indie comics community. You seem to be the indie artist that all the other indie artists are talking about. How did you achieve that kind of acclaim from your peers?

EG: I honestly don’t know. All of this is still very weird to me because I like Gutt Ghost, and I see why other people like it. But it started as just another drawing that I did, amongst a whole bunch of other weird drawings I do. So when I started hearing people say that they could really connect to this character, or that they understand what he’s going through, in a way that’s what I was going for. Even though it’s this weird concept, it was supposed to be grounded in reality. So what can I attribute his success to, the fact that he is more well known? Perhaps the fact that it is a strange drawing. I don’t think I have come to terms with how much that drawing clicks with people. When they see this blue ghost exposing his guts for some reason it works. And just the name Gutt Ghost. I have people at conventions walk by and just start laughing because it is such a weird concept. So I attribute that to an idea that just clicks. It’s weird and it works. But beyond that, I am trying to tell stories that are grounded in life. A little comedic, a little sad. I love doing detailed line work. I love the pastel colors on flat colors, I have fun with that. I think that all of those combined and clicked just right for this book.

An interior page from Gutt Ghost #1 by Enzo Garza.

Gutt Ghost DINK 2017 Special from Enzo Garza.

NG: Looking forward, do you see yourself continuing with Gutt for a while?

EG: Yeah. My original plan (and still plan) is to tell his story over about 12 issues. I do have an ending in mind for him. I would always be willing to go back, though, and tell other stories that he had. But I definitely already have his story played out in my head. It does play heavily into life, and the emotional stuff of life. How life can get kinda sad sometimes. Death, dealing with death. While I do have a lot of fun playing with the comedy aspect, I still am very interested in the emotional aspect and the aspect of life in general. I do have 12 issues in mind that I want to tell his story. But one thing I have noticed about Gutt Ghost is the fan art – just some weird, out-of-left-field concepts. I have seen so many strange takes on Gutt Ghost, and I’ve learned that it’s sort of out of my hands, in a way. It’s not just for me anymore, now it’s for everybody. One of the first times it happened, there was a pin-up I commissioned Shaky Kane to do for me, and he actually drew it in his universe. And he had Gutt Ghost have his own detective agency with one of Shaky’s characters. It was just the weirdest thing. I was just like, ok, I guess Gutt Ghost once had a detective agency. So I have started accepting any history that anybody adds on to him because were I to explain who he is or where he came from… I have no idea. I don’t think that I ever want to know where he came from, or how old he is. So that is something fun. Even though I want to tell these 12 issues, and I have an ending in mind, his story is already sort of beyond me. And that’s what is so exciting about this, that anybody could take him and do something with him. And I will accept it (within reason) as part of his history.

NG: You have a Gutt Ghost comic in Heavy Metal. Can you tell me how that came about?

EG: Yeah, that was actually really weird. Basically, as I had said, all of this started in May of last year. I did Heroes Con 2016, and decided that I wanted to do conventions to try and get this book out there. In September, I was actually here in Denver for Riotfest and I was having a pretty bad experience. I was just having a pretty bad day. So I got this message from somebody at Heavy Metal. When I read the message, I did not even know who it was. But it said they really liked the character and asked if there was anything they could see for the magazine. I looked into it and it was from one of the CEO’s from Heavy Metal, Jeff Krelitz. I freaked out for a minute, but I had a 6-page mini-comic. So I sent it in. Then, I didn’t hear anything for a month. So I thought, I should have sent something better. (laughs) This is Heavy Metal, what was I thinking? But a month later he messaged me and asked for my phone number. we talked and he said, “Gutt Ghost is good, people really like it. Do you want to be in Heavy Metal?” And I said of course! After it released, he asked me if I would want to come back for a second issue, a love issue. So the new Heavy Metal (issue #285) has a 10-page Gutt Ghost story in it.

Gutt Ghost merch from Enzo Garza at DINK 2017.

NG: You have a couple of Gutt Ghost plush toys for sale here on your table, can you tell me how you got those made up?

EG: One of the things that I really love about making comics and the world of graphic art is that some of these creators don’t just rely on their comics. They will do other stuff. The first thing that came to mind for me was Michael Allred and the stuff he did with Madman. I remember all of the zany things he would try, like paper airplanes, and his mom made a doll. I love that stuff. I love seeing things outside of just the comic. Another example is Archer Prewitt (he did Sof’ Boy), he did so many things. He had a cloth doll, he had balloons, and calendars and weird stuff. I just love that stuff, so that’s where the idea for the plush toys. I definitely want to go down those avenues of outside-the-box comics. First, we had a cloth doll made by a small sewing shop in Longwood, Florida called Goose Bumps. I had just taken the design in to her and asked if she could sew it, because I don’t know how to sew. I have the prototype Gutt Ghost doll, and it looks atrocious. Our second attempt was the plush and it was made by a company called Jellykoe. They are a 2-partner team, they do a lot of stuff at conventions.

NG: If people wanted to see more from you, or more of Gutt Ghost in general, where could they look online?

EG: On social media I am just Enzo Garza. Twitter, Instagram, and then at EnzoGarza.com. That is a website that I try to update. Basically, though, if you search “Enzo Garza” I pop right up.

November 19, 2017

An Interview With Daniel Crosier of Misassembly Productions (DINK 2017)

November 19, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Daniel Crosier of Misassembly Productions about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/14/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

At this year’s Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo (DINK!), I was introduced to the work of Colorado local artist Daniel Crosier. As an artist, Daniel creates most of his pieces by drawing directly onto slabs of wood. We talked about the difficulties of translating a comic from a wooden slab to the page, his work with famous circus performer The Enigma, and how he recently made a film based on one of his comics.

*As an added bonus Daniel has also provided us with links to download the film and the comic it was based on!*

Neil Greenaway: It looks like most of your art here today is ink on wood. Can you tell me how you got started using those mediums?

Daniel Crosier: Sure! My background is in fine arts, academically, sculpture. I graduated from the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design with a BFA in sculpting. What I was doing was big, wooden, assemblage pieces and I would incorporate illustrated pieces into them. With that, back when MySpace was a thing (good ‘ol MySpace), I would post some images online. Small, mostly horror, publishers started contacting me to do cover art for their books. That sort of segued into doing sequentials and writing my own stuff. And it has all been done predominantly on wood. I do traditional stuff on wood, like graphite, pencils, inks. I do hand wood burning. When I learned that laser engraving was a thing, I figured out how to make a laser engraved comic book. Now I’m doing really line saturated artwork, mostly ink directly onto the wood.

Comics from Daniel Crosier at DINK 2017.

NG: When you made the switch to drawing in ink, why did you keep wood as your canvas?

DC: Because it’s hard! (laughs) No, it was just something I felt comfortable with. I love the texture and the grain. I do illustrate on paper, but if I do that it’s because I know that the final product is going to be laser engraved. Its a lot cleaner just to do it straight on the paper, get the digital scan file, and send it to the engraver. The one time I illustrated directly on the wood and sent that to be laser engraved we figured out that the computer can’t read the gradations between the wood grain and the black ink. It just looks like mud.

NG: You have several traditional comic books that you’ve illustrated. Is that all done on wood as well?

DC: Yeah, a lot of that stuff was done on wood. Like Caustic Soda, which I did with writer Shane Roeschlein, that was illustrated entirely on wood. Basically, in my house, I’ve got a stack up to my waist of the original art for four issues of Caustic Soda. Which has all been collected in our graphic novel. Also, I have here original pages from the Dark Reaches anthology that Rus Wooten (from The Walking Dead) put out. Luckily that does not stack up so high, I only did a 4-page story and the cover. So that’s a little lighter!

Show Devils #1 from Mother Mind Studios.

NG: Your main comic series, Show Devils, stars Enigma. Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with him and you guys started working together?

DC: I think that it was around 2010, a buddy of mine named Jeremy Atkins, he produced a Dark Arts Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. He was nice enough to fly me out for the show, and the headliner was “The Enigma” who at that time was on Show Devils with his partner Serana Rose. I had vaguely known of Enigma before that. I couldn’t tell you where I saw him, but that seems to be the case with a lot of people. It was a three day show, and we ended up hanging out every night with the coked up servers at the local IHOP. We would talk about comics and I would tell Enigma, “You’re basically a walking comic book action figure. You’re like Hellboy without any supernatural aspect.” So, with that idea, I developed a storyline where they would go out and do this gig for an eccentric millionaire artist. Turns out, he likes to skin people and turn them into displays. And who better to skin than Enigma? He is a walking canvas. From there, it just sort of continued. We are working on the fourth issue right now, the last issue of the Show Devils series. We are working on a new issue for a feature film project which we just pitched to Project Greenlight. This time, we actually have Enigma’s friend Clive Barker along as a mentor. We’ll have to see if that project has any legs. But Enigma and I just keep having this good working relationship, and we keep trying to develop new things. We also have a T.V. show that we’re trying to put together.

Caustic Soda by Shane Roeschlein & Daniel Crosier.

NG: Would that also have to do with the Show Devils?

DC: No, that would just be Enigma. Show Devils was a stage show, but Enigma and Serana have gone on to do their own separate things. But I still try to work with both of them whenever I can.

NG: Do you have any other comic projects that you are working on right now?

DC: Right now I am working on my laser engraved comic series, which is Mr. Skinsman’s Lime Green Yogurt Mythology. In it, Mr. Skinsman is basically my Superman. He’s my hero who could do anything. But he is also a ridiculous introvert, to the point that he is almost suicidal over having to interact with people. Since he can do anything, I thought, how does someone who has these powers but also some serious personal hang-ups actually function? The answer is that he really doesn’t. He sits there and negotiates peace treaties between the grass and the concrete in the yard, so that the grass won’t grow into the concrete and crack it. He is really just manipulating molecules, but in his head there are whole conversations. People walking by don’t know what’s going on. His only real emotional outlet, the only way he self medicates, is by doing lone spoken word pieces in a night club. Like Marc Maron, only much worse.

Ghost Rider original art (Ink on wood) by Daniel Crosier.

Mr. Skinsman’s Lime Green Yogurt Mythology #1 by Daniel Crosier.

A page from Mr. Skinsman’s Lime Green Yogurt Mythology #1 by Daniel Crosier.

NG: Mr. Skinsman’s Lime Green Yogurt Mythology is currently only available as a wood-cut piece. Do you ever see yourself translating it to a traditional comic?

DC: I really like it as a wood-cut. I’m not above it being printed, but if it ever was, it would be from the wood-cuts. We have been working on a prototype of issue #2, we didn’t get to finish it before the DINK show, but it’s an easy read. The poor guy is a klutz, and he’s tripping (literally) around the universe, over planets and then crashing into the next planet.

NG: Having spoken a bit about your other comics, can you tell me something about Isolation Man and The Vanishteer?

DC: All right. Isolation Man is a mockumentary film. It’s based on and is a continuation of my Exquisite Vanishteer comic book. I did that book about 10 years ago, and the immigration talk was being re-introduced, and a lot of people were being vilified. Needlessly. And I wanted to do a reflection on that, because it wasn’t just one side. It wasn’t just conservatives. I had liberal friends saying that they felt our culture was being assimilated into a Latino culture. And I was like, “You’re an idiot.” We live in a mass of pop culture, and it is influenced by ALL the other cultures. Who cares? The more, the merrier. So the Vanishteer is a reflection of those attitudes. He is short minded, un-empathetic, not very clever or smart. But he does have amazing powers. He has the power to make anything vanish. So in the comic book, he has a very bad day and accidentally makes the entire human population of the western hemisphere vanish. But he can’t bring them back. He doesn’t have that power. Once its gone, its gone baby! And the film picks up where the comic left off. The eastern hemisphere wants to know what happened, so they send journalists and documentarians to try and figure it out. They come across this sad sack POS of a human being, and its the Vanishteer. As far as they know, he’s the lone survivor in all this. But it turns out he was actually the cause! They have this whole exploration trying to find out, does he understand empathy? Atonement? All these large concepts. But he is just SO shallow. He really can’t relate to anyone outside of the 4-square feet that he occupies. It becomes this fantastically feudal thing to explore. It is absolutely hilarious. We made it with a group of friends, so anybody who could do an eastern hemisphere accents. European, African, Asian, anything, and of course they are all bad. So we had a lot of fun. We were poking fun at something that we can see that sort of trivializes the American experience. It’s fun, but trashy. So trashy. It is my little nod to John Waters and really abstract humor like Monty Python.

The Exquisite Vanishteer (2nd print) by Daniel Crosier.

Isolation Man flyer from Misassembly Productions.

NG: You guys are planning on having a showing of the film on Sunday night here at DINK. Are there any plans for distribution after that?

DC: Ah, I am glad you asked, my good man! This week we are rolling it out on Vimeo for free. For free digital download. Everyone who reads this will be able to download it, watch it, roll your eyes, and share it with your friends.

*You can download the film here, and the comic it was based on here*

NG: Thank you for that! If people wanted to see more from you in terms of your art or your comics, where would they look?

DC: They can go to DanielCrosier.daportfolio.com, that is my online portfolio. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. My production company is at Misassembly.com. Right now we are working to develop our next wave of comic books and film projects.

November 19, 2017

An Interview With Phil Buck of Those Shadow People (DINK 2017)

November 19, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Phil Buck of Those Shadow People about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/13/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

This year at the Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo (DINK!) there was a table with just as many vinyl records as comic books on display. As I spoke to Phil Buck (the charismatic man behind the table), I heard the story of a record label that wanted me to read comics and a comic book that wanted to share its music.

Neil Greenaway: What can you tell me about Those Shadow People?

Phil Buck: Well, first, Those Shadow People is a comic book series and also a band. Of sorts.

NG: Is your company publishing the book?

PB: Yes, but technically we don’t have a publishing company. What we have is more of a record label. It’s called Nematode Records. We started back in 2010 when we Kickstarted a 45 – a little 7? record just to get things going. The next idea we had was a record with a comic book, and that is where all this has blossomed from.

Those Shadow People comics at DINK 2017.

NG: What can you tell us about the story?

PB: The story is akin to an Alice In Wonderland type tale. Our main character (Sarah Saber) falls into some inter-dimensional adventures because her father is doing research on dark matter and ends up cracking the breach between worlds. Our cast of characters, Those Shadow People, are kind of like the people that Alice met on her adventure. But at the same time, those characters are also based on the musicians that were part of the musical process. They all helped to dream up the shadow-versions of themselves. We wanted to represent those people on the page and hopefully have a story that connects it all together as well.

NG: I do see a lot of vinyl records at your table today. I also see that every comic comes with a digital music download. What can you tell me about that?

PB: Just to give you a brief history of why we would do something like that – we started a record label, and we were really into making vinyl because that was sort of coming back. And we thought, well, how cool would it be to get a record that comes with a comic book? So that is where we started. But that was not totally accessible, not everybody has a record player, so we’ve moved more into the digital realm. We just want to give people a package that offers a comic book and music together. They are the same experience, just in two different ways. The same narrative with different ways of consuming it.

So Many Things vinyl from Fresh Hats Tight Beats.

NG: And how many issues have you guys put together so far?

PB: We are up to our fourth issue now. We have the first three with us here today at DINK, with the fourth one online because it runs as a webcomic as well.

NG: You said that you were involved with the production of the music. Do you actually play in the band?

PB: Yeah, definitely! I definitely played a lot of the music. We also have a rotating cast of musicians who come in to play different instruments depending on who is available. But myself, my friend Tim Santos, and my friend Nick are kind of the core musicians. I have also taken on the role of writing the comics.

Those Shadow People #1 from Nematode Records.

NG: Do you write the music as well?

PB: Yeah, but I wouldn’t say that I write it alone. I have to give credit where credit is due. Tim and Nick are heavily involved in the writing as well. The three of us together are pretty much the main songwriters.

NG: As a series, do you consider Those Shadow People to be ongoing, or is there a planned arc with a set end point?

PB: I don’t think that we have a specific end point in mind, so I would call it ongoing. As a musician or as a band, you never really want to stop making music. So we want to keep recording as long as we feel that it is an enjoyable project, and we will keep making comics to go along with that. At some point, it might be nice to say that a story arc has completed, and collect that as a trade paperback and then maybe take a small break. For now, though, we just keep going until it’s no longer sustainable I suppose.

Interior pages from Those Shadow People #1 from Nematode Records.

NG: When it comes to experiencing the story, is the music meant to be played while you read?

PB: I would say so, yeah. It is not so explicit that you need to turn the page at the chorus or anything. But it sets the mood, for sure.

NG: Do you feel that the music adds emotional layers to the work?

PB: Yeah, I do. Music is so abstract that it often gets to touch on ideas that are specific to certain characters that may just be auxiliary in the book. But you can explore somebody’s interpersonal drama in a song. We have songs that talk about our main character Sarah and her relationship with her father. They’ve been estranged, and you can hear some of that regret, some of that struggle that they have gone through. So there are pieces of the music that if you wanted to dig into the story more, you could find it there.

NG: Do you think that Nematode would ever consider publishing other comic books?

PB: I think in the long term, yes. I think that I have learned so much about making comics through this process. I was not a comic creator when I got into all this. I had to learn a whole lot. Like how to write, and how to write for comics, and how to make comics. That all threw me down my own little rabbit hole and has obsessed me. Having all of that new knowledge, I think that I would like to try something that is not anchored to making music and comics together. At the same time, we have already created some spin-offs where Those Shadow People might be akin to our team book, but there are stories concerning the individual characters that are worth telling too. So the musicians can take their characters and do little solo projects. Maybe that is too ambitious but it is something that we have dabbled in already.

NG: Concerning either music or comic books, does Nematode accept submissions?

PB: I guess that to be entirely fair, we are pretty focused on our own projects. But I don’t think that would really prohibit us. Those Shadow People is a very collaborative project. So if anybody was interested in submitting their music to do something like this, I would be very interested in getting to know what they want to do. At the very least, maybe I can show them how to set out on that path. Or in the best case scenario, maybe we could make something together. I am very open to submissions, I just don’t think that I’ve ever had that on my plate before.

Those Shadow People banner at DINK 2017.

NG: Where can people who want to see more from you look? You had mentioned a webcomic.

PB: If you primarily want to read the comics, I would suggest going to ThoseShadowPeople.com. If you are more interested in the musical side of things, you can go to NematodeRecords.com. If you buy an album, you always get a comic and there are download codes for music in every issue. We always have that little bit of crossover no matter which site you are going to, but if you primarily want one or the other we do have 2 sites. We are also on all the major social media sites, just search for Those Shadow People.

NG: What’s next for Nematode? What comes after DINK?

PB: Specifically, I really hope to put together a trade paperback of what we have done so far. And then maybe put together a full length record instead of these little 7" guys. That is probably our short term agenda. I would like to see that happen in the next year or so. Beyond that, we just hope to keep making music and to keep making comics. And to keep getting better at both.

November 19, 2017

An Interview With Karl Christian Krumpholz of 30 Miles of Crazy (DINK 2017)

November 19, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At DINK 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Karl Christian Krumpholz of 30 Miles of Crazy and An Introduction To Alcohol about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 4/13/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Karl Christian Krumpholz at DINK 2017. (1)

On April 8th 2017, at the second annual Denver Independent Comic and Art Expo (DINK!), I had the opportunity to interview Karl Christian Krumpholz about his comics, his love of histories both grand and small, and his favorite Denver bars. Just a few hours after we spoke, Mr. Krumpholz’s newest book, An Introduction To Alcohol, won the DINKy Award for Best In Show!

Neil Greenaway: Let’s start today talking about 30 Miles Of Crazy. How did that series come about?

Karl Christian Krumpholz: Basically what happened was that a few years ago me, my friends, and my (now) wife were all drinking in a bar. And with your bar family, you trade stories. About the city, about the bar, things that have happened. Stories like, “Hey, did you hear about when the bar back passed out in the rafters, and he fell through the ceiling into the bar?” Stories like that. And the one story we started with was the idea of Colfax (a famous street here in Denver), and who was the king of the city? Since it’s Colfax, it must be some sort of Hobo-King. And that spun out to me wanting to do a comic about this Hobo-King of the city. And that morphed into the idea of illustrating the stories that we had been trading in bars. And just stories of the city that happen to people. A lot of them are really interesting stories, funny stories. Some are really filled with pathos. There are melancholic stories. And I have been doing a new comic every week for about 4 years now.

Comics from Karl Christian Krumpholz at DINK 2017.

NG: I know you have been collecting the stories into trade paperbacks, and you have the first two volumes here today. Is it safe to say that there will be a volume 3?

KCK: Yes and no. There will be a volume 3, but since I have done these big trades for volumes 1 & 2, I am now more interested in doing some smaller books. I might just start doing floppies. Single issues that would collect the most recent stuff. Just because the price point would be lower, it would be much easier for someone new to dive in. If someone has never heard of you before, it is easier to convince them to spend $5 on a single issue than it would be to get $15 for the book. So I may start doing the floppies and then collect those into a trade for volume 3.

NG: You put 30 Miles of Crazy out every week yourself, but you also have a weekly comic in the local culture/events paper The Westword. What can you tell me about that?

KCK: 30 Miles is something that I usually publish through my social media. So on my website, or twitter, or instagram. I will put up a new page every week. For the Westword, I draw the Denver Bootleg. I’ve been doing that for about a year and a half now. And these are stories that are truly Colorado-centric. These are stories of the various bars and venues, but the real history of the place. So when we do a bar, we tell the real story of the building. And then the smaller stories are in 30 Miles, which is about the people. I like the idea that there are two kinds of history. A grand history and then a small history, and I get to tell both. So the grand history is the Denver Bootleg saying, “This bar has been here for 60 years and these people drank at it.” And then 30 Miles Of Crazy are more the Tom Waits stories or the Bukowski stories. The weird things that happen late at night.

30 Miles of Crazy by Karl Christian Krumpholz.

30 Miles of Crazy: A Quick Shot Limited Edition by Karl Christian Krumpholz.

NG: Do you ever see yourself in that position, as the Tom Waits of comics? Or at least a Tom Waits in comics?

KCK: I would love to think of myself as a Tom Waits in comics, but I would never claim that title. Because I adore him. He is one of my favorite musicians. I would love to be thought of like that, but I would never claim it myself.

NG: You had said that the Denver Bootleg was Colorado-centric. Does 30 Miles Of Crazy cover different places?

KCK: Yeah! If I get a good story! Originally, it started with just Denver stories because I live in Denver and most of the people I deal with are in Denver. But as the comic became known, people started reaching out from San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, Philadelphia. Boston and Philly were easy because I used to live in both cities. So I knew people, and they would tell me stories. If it’s a good story I will illustrate it. Also, I just did one two or three weeks ago that was set in Oakland. There was an artist friend of mine who told me a story, so I illustrated it.

30 Miles of Crazy #144: There's Always A Cover

NG: Are these stories entirely anecdotal? Are they all “you had to be there” stories?

KCK: Yeah! A lot of these stories either happened to me or my wife, or they were related to me. So, I’m going with what the person tells me. Is it true or not? That’s why I call them true-ish.

NG: So you never do any verification?

KCK: No! That would take the fun out of it. That would take all the fun out of stories like these. And they are not all bar stories. I just did one about a woman talking about gentrification in her neighborhood in Denver (story #194). Denver is getting so wicked expensive to live in, people are getting chased out just because they can’t afford it. That page was published just a few days ago. Since this week was the lead-up to DINK, I published three stories.

More comics from Karl Christian Krumpholz at DINK 2017.

NG: With both 30 Miles and the Denver Bootleg running weekly, are there any other projects that you are currently working on?

KCK: I have been trying to get a World War I story off the ground for almost 2 years, but I have been so busy with these other stories that I have not been able to get to it. What’s kicking my ass right now is the fact that we are at the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entering WWI, so I need to get this done. Right now, most of my time is taken up with these comics and other freelance work that I take on.

I’ve also just done An Introduction To Alcohol – which started out as 30 Miles Of Crazy stories – but this was more about my relationship with my father while growing up, and about my introduction to alcohol. My father was a heavy drinker and this is about how I dealt with that. That was how I was introduced to drinking. And it also deals with our relationship which was not always great. It has been nominated for 2 DINKy awards, though, so I’m pretty happy about that.

NG: In looking at the continuation of your comic, do you do a lot of bar hopping?

KCK: (laughs) I have been known to go to quite a few bars. There are quite a few bartenders who know my wife and I. There are probably 5 places that we frequent, and then maybe another half-dozen that we go to less often.

An Introduction To Alcohol by Karl Christian Krumpholz.

Booze Banter prints by Karl Christian Krumpholz.

NG: Do you have any kind of reputation in the bar scene?

KCK: We are known as a classy couple! Because of the book though? It depends on the bar. All of the bars that really know us are very supportive of the comic. The bartenders are the ones telling me the stories. Stories # 171 & #172 were told to me by a bartender at the Lion’s Lair, for example.

NG: Has anyone ever been offended by their inclusion in one of your comics?

KCK: Oh God no. At least I don’t know anyone. It’s actually the exact opposite of that. I find that people are usually just glad to see their story told. It has been a very positive reaction from the people telling the stories.

An Introduction To Alcohol by Karl Christian Krumpholz won Best In Show at DINK 2017.

NG: Do the people that tell you their stories ever see the comic?

KCK: 9 times out of 10, I would say yes. A lot of the times after a comic is written but before I post it, I will send it to the person and ask “Is this ok?” And then when I post it I will say “Thank you very much to…” whoever told me the story.

NG: Looking forward, how far could you see this going?

KCK: Until I run out of stories or get bored. I am approaching 200 comics right now. This week was, I think, #195. I have up to #201 drawn. I could see me going until at least #300. At least two more years. It all depends on what happens. Because telling this history is what interests me.

NG: Before I leave you today, I have two more questions. First: If people wanted to see more of your work, where would they look online?

KCK: The easiest way to find me online is to go to my website, which is KarlChristianKrumpholz.com. I am also on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. It’s all under my own name.

NG: And my last question for you today: What would you say is the BEST bar in Denver?

KCK: (laughs) That is a loaded question! That is a totally loaded question! It depends on what you want. For high-end cocktails, it’s Williams & Graham. If you want a dive bar, it is the Lion’s Lair. If you’re looking for just a good neighborhood bar, that’s Tooey’s Off Colfax.

The Lion's Lair at 2022 E Colfax Ave, Denver, CO 80206.

November 18, 2017

An Interview With Scotlynd “Xing Xin” Bedford of Ximphonic Versus (September 2016)

November 18, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At a quiet spot in Denver, I had the chance to sit down and talk with Scotlynd “Xing Xin” Bedford of Ximphonic Versus about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 9/29/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

“In a contemporary and Gothic world ruled by Victorian Dynasties, Modern City Kingdom’s, Magical Beings and Mystical Swords Of Power, a prince seeks to reclaim his throne as he must make a choice between two evil’s and the woman he loves.”

That is the premise of both the new television show Ximphonic Versus: Fabula Cristallum Thronus (due out in 2017 from the Global Genesis Group) and the comic book on which it was based. I recently had the chance to sit and talk with the creator of the Ximphonic Versus universe about the future of his book and how he became a writer and Executive Producer on this new show.

Neil Greenaway: Today we are speaking with Scotlynd “Xing Xin” Bedford about his series, or multiple series at this point, because you have announced extra comic series. Is that correct?

Scotlynd Bedford: There’s quite a few more, but there are a few that I am trying to bring out a little sooner than others. So Ximphonic Versus is the first. That is the one that will come out first. Then there’s 9 Ryu, SIFU, and a few others. I should have some artwork that I can show for those in a couple months. But for right now the main one is just Ximphonic Versus book wise. And then there is also the TV series that’s in development for that one.

NG: And do those all tie into the same universe?

SB: They do. They all exist in the same world. The planet is called Levisominos Vie and that means “to be under the influence of sleep”. It’s like something has almost put a spell on you, and you have fallen into this deep sleep and drifted into this dream world. Levisominos Vie is Latin and that’s really what it is making reference to. The connection between Ximphonic Versus, SIFU, 9 Ryu, and the rest is that they all exist in this same world but at different time periods. Some things are connected by genealogy; some characters are related by blood that spans decades, or hundreds, or thousands of years by the generational gaps. Then there are other books that I’ll do that have a deeper connection to each of the series. That will come out in these various stories.

Promotional art from Ximphonic Versus (1).

NG: Now are you actually doing the writing on each of these series?

SB: Yep.

NG: But you do have different artists working on a few of them, do you not?

SB: I create, write, draw, ink and do all the flats. And I’m the second digital colorist. Then my two main colorists are Endro Gatotkaca and Kevin Combs. Endro is from Indonesia and Kevin is from Chicago.

NG: How did you get hooked up with those guys?

SB: I remember I was looking for people to work with. And I went looking because I knew if I was going to try and do all this grand scale stuff, you can’t do it by yourself. It gets to this point where you reach this plateau. You say, “I can do A, but if I’m going to do B, C, D and all these other things, it’s going to take so much longer.” I need to be able to work with people who have talent and abilities that match this project. So I ran across Endro, and his talents are nothing short of spectacular. That’s really the best way to put it. Kevin in Chicago has, again, talents that are unbelievable. Things in his own personal projects that I’ve seen are amazing. So I was like, ok, let’s bring our forces together so that we can build upon something very unique and very vast. It really is, when you look at it, much like how you look at video game design or a movie. You have to have the director, you have the writer, and the producers. But then there are all these other people involved. They all help to bring that one vision to life, and it’s kind of the same fashion.

NG: To jump back just briefly, how long have you been working on this? Because I know that as a series it’s gone through a couple different names, it’s gone through a couple different incarnations. How long has the core concept been in motion?

SB: Since the end of 1995 into ’96. It literally has been 20 years. It’s funny; originally, years ago, Ximphonic Versus was called Destiny. Then, after that, it was called Endless Fantasy Versus. But because of how the story is set up, there are many plays on words with musical aspects. A lot of the references made are to things in an orchestra or symphony setting. So I realized I wanted the title to be a representation of the emotional elements that were going on. So then it became Ximphonia. But I had always liked when it was Endless Fantasy Versus, and I thought, “Well let’s combine them and make it Ximphonic Versus”. When that one came out, it just had this ring to it, and I knew that’s what I needed it to be. But the core story has remained the same this whole time. Very few changes story wise. Originally the main character was Frost, and it was about her and her twin brother. But then that changed and it took this different perspective. Now, Addonnis is the main character. Addonnis’ role has always been the same in the story, he plays the villain. He is actually the bad guy, because the story is about a man who has to make these choices between two evils. When you think about it, how can you do what’s right when your only choices are both wrong? He has to pick between one of those wrongs and find a way to make it right using only the same evil choices that began everything in the first place. I don’t want to call him the antihero. As a perfect example, look at Avatar: The Last Airbender. We have Zuko, who was definitely evil. But Iroh, his character changed after his son got killed. He began to realize that the way we are doing things is probably not how things should be done. I just use that to illustrate how it’s the same kind of thing with Addonnis. He was just brought up in this environment where, you’re nobility, you’re a prince, you come from this divine linage, you can do whatever you want and there are no repercussions. And that’s the disposition that he has. That’s how he really is, and as the story goes on, elements about him change. So he is not the MAIN villain, there is a greater evil, someone very bad, very terrible, that he is fighting against. But he is a villain.

NG: And then I know you’ve hinted several times that the weapons are important, that the weapons play a big role. Is there anything you can speak to about that?

SB: Yeah, the series, really it’s about these crystal swords of power. These swords came from the celestial dragons. The dragons forged all these swords by pouring their essence into them and it created these spectacular weapons that are actually alive. They are not just sitting there, they actually have life inside of them. So most of the swords are gone, most of them have been destroyed. Either because people destroyed them in conflict or the wielder was unable to control the power of the sword and they were destroyed by it. So now we are down to the last two. Well, in the story there is a legend about a crystal throne that could be claimed by the last true king. In order to do that, he would need to have possession of both the swords. But the swords have been gone now, they have been asleep for millennia. No one has seen them, no one has found out where they are. When the story starts, the swords have begun to re-awaken. And what happens is all these kingdoms and these various powers are aware that now this power is returning to the world so we need to claim it, we need to gain access to it. Everyone is trying to gain access to these swords, because with them you can have power to dominate. I wish there is more I can say about what goes on, but I don’t want to spoil it. I don’t want to take that away from people. But in the back of that, despite a war and everything else that is going on – the story comes down to Addonnis and Lunafryst and that’s really what it’s about, the very human things that go on but they are all parts of the story.

Crowned Prince Addonnis Neos Latrunculus.

NG: So the story is also about Prince Addonnis and Lady Lunafryst. Are they related?

SB: She and Addonnis are not related but their relationship is like love, betrayal, mistrust, these kinds of things that make it work. It is inspired by and reminiscent in ways of Hamlet. Addonnis is very somber, very brooding. His disposition, he wears black all the time. There are just these very unique roles that each of them have in these divine charges that they are trying to fulfill. She is aware of hers. Addonnis, he really doesn’t like to talk about his power (the ability to see celestial light) because he feels when you are already different, the more different you are it just makes things. But when they meet, Lunafryst is very different. Her personality is very open where Addonnis is very emotionally closed off. So it’s a very interesting balance that they meet for each other.

NG: I know that you’ve had a couple publishers take a shot at this, so there are a couple comic book versions if the first issue floating around out there. As owner of a couple of these, I know the stories were different. Has the story changed at all? Or all they all in canon?

SB: Nothing changed, actually. The 2012 version was told from a later event of things that were happening. The Onyx Overture (which was just like another preview book), that is closer to the beginning of the story. So it’s not that the story is different, I have just showed two sneak peeks at two very different elements in the timeline. So when I did the Onyx Overture I decided to start a little closer to the beginning and kind of just reveal this introduction to Addonnis. I thought it was important to introduce him in the way he should have been introduced, so that’s why one book shows a certain element and then the self-published Onyx Overture shows other things.

NG: So if readers felt like finding those books, they are still considered by you to be in canon?

SB: Yes, it’s all still the same. The first book that came out in 2012, the events that you’re seeing are closer to episode 4 than anything else in the series. The Onyx Overture which came out last year – that is in episode 1, so it’s showing where things are starting. Then there are all these other parts that have never ever been shown the light of day, but once it does come out, I will show people everything in order the way it’s supposed to go.

NG: Also, back in 2012, there was a soundtrack with the book which you touched on just briefly. I know the soundtrack has also changed. Is the book supposed to be enjoyed with music? Do they go hand in hand?

SB: They do. The first composer that we had, he was a talented guy. He was very nice and we worked together on it. I didn’t want to put it out as soon as he did. But once it was all ready, he put it up on his website, and I was like ok, it’s already out, so let’s include it in the box set. On that soundtrack, he understood what I was trying to do, but not 100%. I knew that was something had to be revisited and had to be redone. So I met the famed composer Michael Roberts. And Michael Roberts is incredible. He has worked on award winning films. He did arrangements on Castlevania: Mirror of Fate for Nintendo 3DS, I mean he is incredible. So I had messaged him and said “I’ve got this project and I’m working on it, this is what I’m going for.” So we talked, and he saw Ximphonic Versus and I think he saw it and he could appreciate what I was trying to do. He was like, I want to help you do this. So he agreed to it and the soundtrack now is as it should be. It’s beautiful, it’s dark, it has that feeling of mystery and intrigue and suffering all of these things that play into this story. Ximphonic Versus really is just this story of victimized people victimizing each other, it’ really the simplest way to put it.

NG: Let’s move on to your TV show, having talked a little about the comic. How did the Ximphonic Versus show come to be? Did you have to go to them to shop it around or did someone see it and come to you?

SB: It’s funny, I had never known how to really get in touch with some of these big guys except for the open channels that they have. Like you go to Cartoon Network, or Nickelodeon or these various animation studios and they have things where you submit and you pitch it. I thought, hey, it’s a shot in the dark. Then Charles Morris, who is the Vice President for the Genesis Group, him and Rick Romano run it. I saw Charles online and I messaged him, we weren’t even friends yet on Facebook and I messaged him and said, “look I was just wondering, I see that you work with film and television, is there a way I could show you something that I’m working on, that I am trying to really show people something I don’t think they have seen in this medium, so can I just show you?” And I didn’t know what he was going to say, here was this Hollywood guy making movies, so I had no idea. But he messaged me back and he said sure. So I sent him a picture of Addonnis holding is swords and his phantom powers activated so you could see it around him. Charles saw it, and he liked it and he said, “I’ll tell you what, I’m going to give you our corporate number and you call us at 3 o’clock.” Mind you, at this point I’m freaking out, I’m like this cannot be happening. So I called and he says, “Tell me about your series.” And we talked for maybe a 12, 15 minute conversation and at the end of the conversation they said “Ok, we like it, we’re going to send you a contract for it.” And here we are with this TV deal. And the funny thing is, they said yes to something, and there’s all this stuff that is involved in it. We’re talking worldwide television and they said yes when so many people said no, because they didn’t like or they didn’t get it. And I thought the thing about comics creativity was to be unique, and to be different. But I have had all these huge publishers look at it, and nothing ever panned out the way I would have liked it to. That was unfortunate, but now we’re going to do this and it’s so much bigger. Charles looked at it and he saw enough of a value in something that we could talk some more. It was a very nice kind of like reassurance, like you’re not crazy. Because I spent a lot of time thinking maybe, did I do something wrong? Is there something wrong with the story? It’s been a really exciting experience and I’m looking forward to have things to show people. It just all kind of happened that way and we’re in active development and we’re moving forward.

NG: Having seen the book, it’s very lush, but not only is it lush there are a lot of fantastical elements to it. In bringing that to the screen, are you looking at live action that would be heavily CG’d or are you looking at animation?

SB: We’re going to do; it’s going to be like an anime. I am not opposed to live action, I would love to get live action as well. I would love to do that as well as the series, but we are starting with animation. I look at Kingsglaive, just phenomenal, that was very, very good. If we could do that kind of CG, I would love to at some point. But I know that where we are at right now is animation. So that is what we are looking at. It would be much closer to an anime where it would have that kind of aesthetic feel and what I am hoping to gear it towards production wise like the Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. That movie is phenomenal. That movie is one of the best animes I have ever seen. So that is like the kind of quality that I want people to see when they see Ximphonic Versus. To be able to have people see what I see in my head moving around the screen, that’s really what I’m looking forward to.

NG: Then going back just a little to the comics again, you had said that once the TV show gets on course you would like to revisit publishing it as a comic book, perhaps under your own publishing house. Would the comics that came out be telling the story covered by the show? Or would you be doing a divergent path, telling a tangential story?

SB: The way the story is written right now, the TV episodes and the comic episodes are the same. I want to be able to publish it with my own company. But let’s say a professional publisher came along and said they wanted to do it before the show, I would still put it out and the show would still follow those same beats. There are always little things that change between books and TV, it always happens, but for the most part it would stay very consistent.

NG: Another question looking into the future. You have said the universe is so big and there are so many stories, and you already know what the stories are, would you ever consider moving into a 3rd medium and perhaps trying to do a prose novel?

SB: I have thought about novelization for Ximphonic Versus and some of the other stories. Those are things that have come across the table and if that was something that was done, I would like to partner with an author who knows what they are doing and they are well versed in certainly something closer to that type of fantasy. That I think would be the best way to pursue that. But those are things that I certainly would like to be able to experience and do.

NG: You are obviously very heavily influenced by Asian style not only in the name, but right down to the art, even the writing style has a cadence to it that seems a little more eastern. Have you spent any time there, or how did you come by that as an influence?

SB: Part of my family is Asian and as far as I can remember I have enjoyed that culture. I have really come to appreciate it over the years more and more and not because of the anime or the manga, but because my day job deals a lot with Japanese history and philosophy and culture. They are amazing people, they really are, it’s just absolutely mind blowing how their culture has survived for so long. That’s where I drew it form, that’s where it comes from, all these different elements. With Ximphonic Versus I tried to perfectly meld European and Asian reference very carefully together.

NG: Really just one more kind of wrap up question. If folks who are reading this wanted to find you online, want to see more, want to know what’s going on, where would they look?

SB: So Ximphonic Versus has its official Facebook page which is the Fabula Cristallum Thronus, there is also a Broken Heart Productions Facebook page – that is my company that I own and is the studio that produces the book. The Global Genesis Group is the Hollywood company that has optioned the book and the show is also on IMDB, it’s up there. They have a synopsis and artwork so when I saw that it blew my mind. So that’s where everything is at. You can always contact us from one of the Facebook pages. I always make sure that myself or one of the admins replies to the messages that come in, so we always try to make ourselves available to anyone who is wanting to talk or curious about things.

NG: Good stuff. Thank you for your time.

November 18, 2017

An Interview With Ron Fortier of Airship 27 (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

November 18, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Fort Collins Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Ron Fortier of Airship 27 Productions about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 9/04/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Ron Fortier at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

Ron Fortier is an American author, primarily known for his Green Hornet and The Terminator comic books (from NOW comics) and his revival of several pulp heroes. He is currently writing a Black Bat comic series for Moonstone Publishing as well as a series of novels based around his own pulp creation, Brother Bones – The Undead Avenger.

Neil Greenaway: Today I am sitting at the Fort Collins Comic Con speaking with Ron Fortier. First off, I see several Black Bat comics here today. Can you tell us what you are doing with the current Black Bat series?

Ron Fortier: Yeah, ok. Basically I am working with Moonstone books (out of Chicago), and Moonstone for the last 5-6 years has been doing a lot of prose anthologies and novels featuring classic pulp characters form the 1930’s. Amongst these is the Black Bat, arguably one of the more popular grade B pulp heroes of the 30’s and 40’s. So they’ve done several anthologies with him I’ve had the privilege of writing 1 or 2 fictional stories for him. But then again, knowing my own background in comics, it was just a 1-2 step to say let’s do some Black Bat comics and see if there’s an audience for that. So over the last year I have actually written 2 Black Bat comic projects for Moonstone. One is a three issue mini-series called Guns of the Black Bat, which is available right now in comic shops. The second is a four issue mini-series called The Black Bat / Domino Lady: Danger Coast to Coast that hopefully will be out in November-December of this year.

Black Bat comics from Ron Fortier at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: And are you writing other pulps for Moonstone?

RF: Yes, well I basically manage and run my own publishing house called Airship 27 Productions. We’ve been in business going on 11 years now and we’re primarily in business to do just that, to publish new novels and anthologies featuring classic pulp characters from 1930’s and 40’s. This movement has a tag, it’s basically called the “new pulp movement” and me, Moonstone and maybe half a dozen other publishers across the country are now doing this. Going back to the early pulps and finding a lot of the B characters, who are very much public domain, obviously. You can’t touch the Shadow, you can’t touch Doc Savage, they have always stayed in license. But the heyday of the pulps, if we talk about 1935-1945, literally hundreds of great characters appeared in those magazines. They were the inspiration for the comics that would later come. So you have such great characters as the Domino Lady, Secret Agent X, The Moon Man, The Purple Scar, I mean the plethora just runs wild. Moonstone is doing a whole series of anthologies and people like me who love this stuff have been invited to contribute short stories. To date I’ve done several Spider stories, I have a few Avenger stories. They have even gone as far as to take Lee Falk’s classic pulp comic character The Phantom and done prose anthologies with the Phantom. And I have done several of those stories. The new pulp movement is catching on and it is teaching a lot of the comic fans today a lot of that pre-history of where comics came from, i.e. the pulps.

Pulps and comics from Ron Fortier at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: And are you getting a pretty positive response to these stories?

RF: Very much so. Only because, there has always been a pulp fan base, let’s put it like that. There has always been a pulp fandom that has been around, but pulps are now 70-80 years old and that fandom was pretty much dying out. Unlike comic con, which has sprouted up all over the world in the past 10 years, when you look at the Pulp conventions, there were only one maybe two left in this country. And the attendance was dwindling every year because your average fan is in his 70’s or 80’s. Well that is why people like me, Moonstone and other people who love this kind of fiction and are aware of it began to realize there is a need to infuse pulp fandom with younger writers. This whole movement of saving these characters from obscurity and oblivion was to create new pulp stories with them. I am happy to report that in the last 10 years, because of the new pulp movement, the attendance at the two major pulp conventions in the country, the first being Windy City Paper and Pulp in Chicago every spring in May has almost tripled. And ten years ago Pulp Con disappeared and was replaced by a thing called Pulp Fest in Columbus Ohio which is run at the end of summer, and it as well is seeing a resurgence in attendance. We’re getting a lot of college kids coming in who are finding out through the media marketing that the books we publish are fascinating. Many of them are comic collectors all their lives, have had one of two bits of information about what pulps were and now they want to see for themselves and we are providing the material and the product for them to do that.

Mr. Jigsaw Special #1 from Redbud Studio.

NG: And what about some of your comics? What can you tell me about the Mr. Jigsaw books?

RF: Mr. Jigsaw is a comedy superhero done for laughs. He operates out of Maine; Portland, Maine is his hometown because he is not quite ready yet for New York or Boston. He’s a naïve young gentleman, but his unique power is that he can break apart like a jigsaw puzzle, every part of his body. And he can still control them with his mind and reassemble them as need be. Now, he thinks that this is the greatest superpower in the world because he has been brought up by a loving set of parents who have encouraged him all his life. And he grew up reading comic books, so he wants to help people with this thing that he does. Even though it often times gets him into hot water and comedic problems he is such a loveable person and character that over the course of the adventures that we’ve written he’s gathered a group of loyal friends that are always there, always support him and basically are just there for him. It’s a fun strip. We created it almost 30 years ago, myself and artist Gary Kato. It’s always been a little short story backup feature for different magazines over the years. People like the late Don Thompson, who was the editor of the Buyers Guide, the one time newspaper for comic fandom; people like Tony Isabella, the comic historian, are all huge Mr. Jigsaw fans. We have a loyal following. So a few years ago when myself and my artist partner Rob Davis got into self-publishing our own comics and our own creations, Rob was the one who brought up that we had done close to 20 different Mr. Jigsaw shorts over the last 30 years. We set about collecting them, thank God Gary kept Xerox copies of everything he draws! So we began publishing an actual series, Mr. Jigsaw: Man of a Thousand Parts, and we filled the first three issues with those reprints. I started writing number 4, then number 5 and as of now we just released issue number 14. It’s still going great, people absolutely love the series.

More comics from Ron Fortier at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: That is awesome. It is wonderful that it is getting that type of response after all these years.

RF: Well I was recently at a convention with Tony Isabella. For people who aren’t familiar with Tony, he had a great career at Marvel and DC both. Tony is the gentleman who created arguably one of the first black superheroes in this country, that being Black Lightning. Tony is a dear friend and every time we get together at conventions I have to bring him the newest Mr. Jigsaw because he wont let me leave, he will haunt me. It drives Tony crazy, in his own columns online, his own blog; he is forever saying this is the best comic book series you’ve never heard of. He says this should have a lot more popularity. And of course my wife and I tease all the time, that Jiggy (as we call him) would be perfect on a Saturday morning cartoon show or to be on the Cartoon Network. Who knows? Maybe someday. With the current favor comics have in culture today and Hollywood and television looking for more and more products, it’s maybe just a matter of time before somebody trips over a few issues of Mr. Jigsaw and we find ourselves there.

NG: That would be very interesting to see.

RF: It sure would, it would be a lot of fun.

NG: What can you tell me about the Paradise Falls series that I see here?

RF: Paradise Falls is again an independent black and white comic. It’s a science fiction murder mystery and it came about because thanks to the internet today and thanks to social media, all of us can reach out and meet other creators on a daily basis from around the world. I mean, I have instigated project artists in South America and Australia over the years, so God bless the internet for that. So years ago, again online, I saw the artwork for a stylish artist named John Williams. And his work is very cartoonish. It almost falls off the pages. He doesn’t do straight panels. He does twisted panels, it looks like you woke up with a hangover after a big binge and that’s a John Williams page. What the heck is going on in this page? But it’s all professionally done. He knows how to draw, he just chooses to use this unique story telling style. Now having seen a lot of his work, the challenge to me as a writer (and the one I love the most) is what would I write for an artist who draws like this? Well again, the immediate sense is to scoff it off as too cartoonish. That is all it is and you could never do anything serious with that. My take is, that’s the perfect foil. I can write a serious adult murder mystery using John’s style. I contacted him, I introduced myself to him, we got to know each other. We communicated back and forth until ultimately I suggested my idea for Paradise Falls, which is a futuristic city like Metropolis in the old Fritz Lang science fiction classic.

Paradise Falls comics from Ron Fortier and John Williams.

NG: That is a classic. I love that movie!

RF: So do I. It’s part of the fun of this book. Paradise Falls is this mega-futuristic city, they have robots; they have humanoids, flying cars, and everything. And in the midst of that city they have their own masked avenger, a character called the Red Mask, who goes after corrupt officials, police, government types, whatever. Ultimately though, he meets this young woman and falls in love with her and shortly after they are married in secrecy. Then, he is betrayed by certain people and murdered. His wife is so grieved by his loss; she basically vows vengeance against the people who murdered her husband, the Red Mask. The kicker is nobody knows she’s his widow. She sets about to solve the mystery of who murdered her husband and ultimately to get revenge and bring them to justice. That’s the core of Paradise Falls, the subtext being sex, science and murder. We’ve done 2 issues and the people who have had the courage to pick it up and take it home have been blown away by it. It’s like nothing else you have ever seen. The art sells it, and it really does, because you don’t expect that adult a story in something that looks so cartoonish. John is a real, real genius talent to work with. Whenever I send him a new script, it boggles my mind how he interprets it and how he does his layouts. So we’ve done 2 issues, and to be honest it’s a free flowing story in my mind. So it could wrap at issue 3, but it may not. It may go to issue 4.

NG: I have heard you speak briefly about one of your books, Brother Bones, being made into a movie. Could you give us the premise of that book?

RF: Okey doke. Being involved in this new pulp movement, I had this urge to create my own avenger if you will. A vigilante with a mysterious past and whatnot. And being inspired by classic pulps of the Shadow and Spider, that’s what I wanted to go after, but with a little supernatural twist. So I created a character called Brother Bones – the Undead Avenger. And he operates out of a fictional city in the Northwest called Cape Noir.

Brother Bones: The Undead Avenger by Ron Fortier.

Brother Bones: Tapestry of Blood by Ron Fortier.

The origin is there are brothers, 2 identical twin brothers called the Bonello brothers, Jack and Tommy who live in Cape Noir. They work for the local crime boss named Topper Wyld. Basically what happens is they do a hit for him. They literally are told to go to this bordello and kill everybody in the bordello. The girls, the customers, everybody, because Wyld wants to start a gang war and take over Cape Noir and his two twin boys are the most deadly gunmen he has. So they go to the bordello in the opening story and they do it, there’s carnage everywhere, they kill all these people. As they are leaving the house, Tommy hears something. He goes over and one of the dying girls looks up at him and whispers something to him. Curious, he leans over to hear her better and what she whispers is "thank you". Well they leave the house and Jack looks over at his brother and asks what was that and Tommy says, “She thanked me”. And it starts to eat away at him, what kind of a life did she have that she was grateful to be slain, to be murdered. He can’t get the words out of his head. In the seceding weeks, no matter what he is doing, he keeps hearing the words, he keeps hearing “thank you”. Well, he confides to Jack, and Jack starts to get a little worried because up until this point they have been soulless murderers. They have been monsters. Could he be developing a conscience? And if that is the case, that is totally a detriment to what they do. He knows that if this goes any further Wyld is going to find out and Tommy’s going to be in trouble. But Tommy can’t forget, the words echo and echo driving him crazy. He can’t sleep. Until finally one night driving around town, thinking he’s probably just going to take a gun and kill himself, he actually ends up in a Catholic church.

Desperate, he goes up to the church and an old pastor opens the door and Tommy has a confession. He unburdens his soul and lets the priest know he is going crazy. The priest lets him know, you have developed a conscience for whatever reason. And Tommy thinks, well what do I do? I can’t live like this. So the priest, knowing the danger he would be in sends Tommy to a monastery outside of town for monks. They live in a secluded area, they farm and have a quiet life of contemplation and prayer, and he sends Tommy there. Tommy now becomes a monk and begins to change his life. In the meantime he has disappeared from Cape Noir. Jack, his twin brother, is going crazy. It is assumed he has been gunned down by a rival mob.

So months later somebody sees Tommy at a store near the monastery, goes back to the city and tells Jack. He’s alive, he’s at this monastery. Jack is beside himself, he’s angry. He gets a mob together and they go up to the monastery.

Brother Bones: Six Days of the Dragon by Roman Leary.

Brother Bones: Bullets of Jade by Ron Fortier & John Polacek.

Now, Tommy had been talking to a monk who came from Louisiana, and he had been working in the art shop. He made a skull mask, like the beautiful white porcelain skull masks for Mardi Gras. Here comes the car with all these gunman. Jack gets out and Tommy realizes who he is and runs down the road. He basically tells his brother “don’t do it Jack, please, take it out on me, I’m the one who fouled up, go ahead and shoot me, but leave these men alone, they are innocent”. No way was Jack going to do that. He shoots his own brother and kills him, then proceeds to go in and kill everybody in the monastery and burn it to the ground. Tommy should be going to Hell, but he doesn’t. He gets stopped in this other world between Heaven and Hell. There he sees the spirit of the young girl who he killed in the bordello. She has been chosen to be his spirit guide and she tells him he has to go back to Earth and make atonement for his life of sin. Now he is going to become the avatar, the avenger, the defender of the innocent in Cape Noir.

Weeks later, Jack is about to shoot and kill this young boy, an innocent card dealer for the boss, when all of a sudden out of nowhere comes Tommy’s ghost in midair. Jack laughs, he doesn’t believe it. He thinks, you can’t hurt me, you’re ethereal. Tommy literally invades Jack's body and takes it over. Jack dies, his body dies. So now you have an animated body with another man’s spirit controlling it. So he is the Undead Avenger. The young card dealer he saved now becomes his aide because Tommy saved his life. He sets out to start this mission in Cape Noir. He has the young man drive him back to the ruins of the monastery, and in the middle of the night with the moon hanging over the clouds, the animated zombie-avenger walks around until he sees the white bone mask. He puts it over his face an becomes Brother Bones.

Now, I created that 10 years ago. We have done 2 collections of short stories and another writer who became an avid fan actually wrote a full length Brother Bones novel called Six Days of the Dragon. He came to me after reading Brother Bones and said, “Please, please, I have this novel idea”. So I read his plot, criticized a few things, said we needed to change that, that and that. He adhered to everything I said, so we actually have 3 Brother Bones books on sale right now on Amazon, in Kindle and audio. Amongst all the fans of the series is a young man named Erik Franklin who, with partner Daniel Husser, runs his own film company out of Seattle, Washington. About a month ago I got a letter from them saying they would like to make Brother Bones into a feature length motion picture. And that is where we are at. We have worked out a story plot with them. Erik has written a shooting script. They are in the process now of scouting locations and getting funding. They will probably go to something like GoFundMe to fund the special effects they are going to need for it. And hopefully, by the end of the year they will get into actual casting and start principle photography.

Ron Fortier and his wife at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: Wow that is pretty exciting stuff.

RF: Yeah it is very much so. When I told my family the news what was going on, one of my grandsons turned around and said “Are you going to be like Stan Lee in this? With the cameo bit?” So in talking to Erik in one of our conference calls I mentioned that and Erik goes “Oh God, Ron, you gotta do that! Please, I will let you know when principle photography starts and you can fly up to Seattle and we’ll get you in a scene”. So you never know where this career is going to take you. I just have so much fun doing it. Its a love of storytelling more than anything else and I continue to do it, like I said it never ever grows tiring. I’ll be telling stories to the bitter end.

NG: That is amazing. I think that about wraps it up for us, I would like to thank you, this has been a wonderful interview.

RF: Thank you I appreciate doing it.

November 18, 2017

An Interview With Mike Baron of The Badger & Nexus (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

November 18, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Fort Collins Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Mike Baron of Nexus & The Badger about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 9/03/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Mike Baron at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016. (1)

Mike Baron broke into comics in 1981 with Nexus, his groundbreaking science fiction title co-created with illustrator Steve Rude; the series garnered numerous honors, including Eisners for both creators. A prolific creator, Mike is responsible for The Badger, Ginger Fox, Spyke, Feud, and many other comic book titles. Baron has also written numerous mainstream characters, most notably DC’s The Flash, Marvel’s The Punisher, and several Star Wars adaptations for Dark Horse.

Neil Greenaway: We are sitting at Fort Collins Comic Con speaking with Mike Baron, creator of the Badger, and today we are going to discuss his new series through Devils Due/First. So let’s start out with, just briefly, what’s the backstory on the Badger? How did you come up with this character?

Mike Baron: We had just sold Nexus to Capital Comics and so I said, “Listen guys, I would like to get something else going”, and I had been working with Jeff Butler. So I said, “What do you want to draw?” And he said "I want to draw Druids". So we did this 10 page story about this nasty Druid wizard in the 6th century who was so obnoxious that the other druids took up a collection to pay some Vikings to drop him off the edge of the world. I took that and I said “Boys, I got this druid comic,” and Milt (Griepp) said, “We don’t want a druid, give us costumed crime fighter”. And I thought, why would anybody put on a costume and fight crime, they would have to be crazy. I had been reading The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keys (he also wrote Flowers for Algernon). The Minds of Billy Milligan was one of the first serious studies of multiple personalities, so I decided to use that as a hook to hang the character on. And I named him the Badger because in Madison, Wisconsin (where we come from) it’s badger this, badger that, badger liquors, badger pub. So I went to Jeff and said, “Jeff, they want to do a costumed crime fighter” and Jeff said “Well I’m not going to waste these 10 pages that I drew about this druid”, and I said “Fine, we’ll shoehorn him into this book”. So that is how Badger number one started, with the 10 pages that include the origin of Ham, and then we bring him up to speed where he meets Badger in the mental hospital, and we were off and running.

The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

NG: I know that Badger was at First in the original incarnation of First Comics. How does it feel to be working with them again?

MB: I just want to say my editor Alex Wald, who was my editor decades ago, is a great guy and I am very happy to be working with him again.

NG: So you are still working with the same editor? That is very cool, that you already have that relationship. Can you tell us a little about the most recent Badger series that came out?

MB: I had an opportunity to reboot the character, because the Badger has not been around for about 20 years. I did do a series through Image and those copies are very hard to find. They’re spotty, I did a lot of learning after I did those Image comics and I’m not the same person I was - hopefully I’m better and my writing is better. So when they asked me to reboot the Badger I gave him a new origin, bringing him up to the 21st century. The first issue tells a story never told before about how he enlists in the Army and goes to Afghanistan. It’s grim, but it’s absolutely gripping and it’s a terrific introduction to anyone who hasn’t read the Badger before. It ends with him meeting Ham in the mental institution again. And the subsequent 4 issues involve a struggle among four wizards who rule the Earth, one of whom is Vladimir Putin. Vlad is the bad guy, in case you didn’t know that, and he and Badger eventually come to blows. But it’s crazy stuff. It mixes real world politics with demons. Yak and Yeti and back; Doctor Buick Riviera is back; Mavis and Daisy are back of course and as we continue I’m going to bring back other characters from the Badger universe.

The Badger #1 from Devil's Due/1First Comics.

NG: What artist did you work with on that series?

MB: Well Jim Fern did the first issue and it will knock you out, it’s one of the most beautiful comics ever drawn. Tony Akins did the second issue and another brilliant job. But these guys were only available for one issue, so issues 3-5 are drawn by Val Mayerik (the legendary co-creator of Howard the Duck), who has done so much for Marvel in the past and we are hoping that Val will tackle the new series that I am working on now.

NG: Ok, and can you tell me a bit about that new series that will be coming out?

MB: Ham buys an island in the Caribbean, ostensibly to promote eco-tourism. But his real goal is to exploit it for oil and the very rare Zig-Zag nut, which has unexplored medicinal properties and is only found on this one island. He runs into all sorts of interference and friction from factors that don’t want him to succeed, from ecological groups like Humans Off Planet and Greenslice to a mysterious cabal of fugitive financiers headed by Beef Chekov. Eventually he finds himself battling not only Beef Chekov and his minions, but the Venezuelan army, a bunch of angry monkeys, and some rogue whalers.

Badger comics from Mike Baron at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: And when can we expect that to be coming out in comic shops?

MB: Oh geez, I don’t know. I just finished the first script and I have to revise it as First sees fit. Hopefully we are going to get somebody working on it soon and ideally it will be out next summer. You know, it takes so long to get anything through First, that I can’t really make any predictions. But I know they want this out there so hopefully next year, 2017.

NG: Then to switch gears a little bit, I know that recently there was a crowdfunded Nexus newspaper, did you have anything to do with that?

MB: Oh yeah, of course. I wrote 66 pages which The Dude (Steve Rude) is working on, I think the 7th paper just came out. If you want to get this you have to go to steverude.com, all the details are there. It’s an amazing product and it’s enormous, it’s 17” x 22” because Dude wanted to resurrect the form and feel of the old Sunday newspaper supplements, so that’s what he’s done. But it’s printed on real high quality paper and a stunning printing job, because he’s a perfectionist. You have to see it to believe it but it’s hard to see because the size means that they can’t rack it in comic stores, but if you go to steverude.com you’ll be able to find it, you’ll be able to see samples and so forth.

Novels from Mike Baron at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: Then if we could speak a little bit about them, I see you have some novels here on the table, what are you doing in novelization these days?

MB: I sat out to write novels 40 years ago. I sat down and wrote millions of words of crap, and it wasn’t until 7 or 8 years ago that I finally understood how to create a novel. When I get it, I get it, but I’m a slow learner. I get it now. Now I am like a kid in a candy store. I feel like my career is just beginning. I publish a lot through Wordfire Press, which is Kevin J. Anderson’s outfit. He has published 4 of my novels so far and they are horror novels, much to my surprise, but I’ve always loved horror and always wanted to write it. It just took me a long time to find my voice and find my themes. I didn’t want to retread what everyone else is doing. I can say with some confidence that my stories are absolutely unique. They are not werewolves, they are not vampires. They are stuff you have never thought about, but once you think about it’s going to keep you up all night. Helmet Head is about biker-Nazi-zombies; Scorpio is about a ghost who only appears under a blazing sun; Banshees is about a satanic rock band that comes back from the dead. I have another horror novel up my sleeve that Kevin will be publishing next year. In the meantime I am publishing my Biker novels with Liberty Island Press. This is a hardboiled detective series. My protagonist, Josh Pratt, is a reformed motorcycle hoodlum turned detective who get involved in harrowing cases. The first one (Biker) is grim, but I like grim, I gravitate towards grim entertainment. But of course everything I write is leavened with humor; there’s humor in every story if you look for it. I have 5 Biker novels finished and I’m about to start the sixth.

The novel Biker by Mike Baron. — The novel **Biker** by Mike Baron.

NG: I also see your comic Dogs here at the table, could you tell us a bit about that?

MB: I had a bunch of dog stories that I’ve been dragging with me through the years and there was no home for them, so I said I’ll just publish these myself. I put together a little book, there are 4 stories; 3 of them are by me and 1 is by Fabian Nicieza. The art for the first two is by Cesar Madarro who is a Spanish artist. He draws only in pencils, they’re just exquisite, and when you look at the pencils you can understand why he doesn’t want to ink them. They could be inked but it would probably detract from the beauty of his pencils. Then there is a two pager by Jay Kennedy and then in the end there is a 10 pager by Neil Hansen who used to draw under the name of Spider. Neil Hansen is one of the greatest artists I have ever worked with. He lives in Canada and I’ve been trying to get him to draw for me again. He did a few covers for the Image run of Badger but he hasn’t drawn in years. When you look at that story it’s going to knock you out. It’s like a punch between the eyes, the art and the story. It’s grim story as well, it’s the only grim story in there, but the art is just unbelievable.

A page from Dogs drawn by Cesar Madarro. — A page from **Dogs** drawn by Cesar Madarro.

NG: That sounds really awesome. Jumping back a bit, you have this most recent series of the Badger, and you have the one you are working on now. Is it safe to say that the badger is going to be carrying on for a while then? Have you got more stories in you for him?

MB: You have no idea. I have so many Badger stories that I’ve written and some of them are really good. The problem is that they are stand-alone stories and right now the thinking at First, and every other comic company under the sun, is that they have to have a 5 or 6 issue story arc that they can package as a trade paperback. So that is what I’m doing. But if I get the opportunity I would love nothing more than to have a monthly ongoing Badger series, I wouldn’t have to write stories for a year I have so many great stories backed up that are already written.

NG: It would be very cool to see a monthly title that could allow for stand-alone stories. Are there any projects outside of the Badger that you’re working on that you that you could tell us about?

MB: I have a number of series in development with some terrific artists and I’m waiting to hear form the publishers now, but it would be premature to announce them. Of course, if nobody crosses our palms with silver, it’s not going to happen.

Mike Baron with Neil Greenaway at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

November 12, 2017

An Interview With Ulises Farinas of Buño Press (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

November 12, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Fort Collins Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Ulises Farinas of Buño Press about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 9/03/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Ulises Farinas at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016 (1).

Ulises Farinas is a cartoonist and writer who meticulously blends genres, styles, and universes. Breaking down the walls between imagination and reality, he depicts super-saturated, hyper-detailed worlds where heroes and monsters are as fantastic as the landscapes they inhabit. Currently writing IDW’s Judge Dredd with Erick Freitas, drawn by Dan McDaid. Also with Erick Freitas, he is the co-writer of Amazing Forest, available on Comixology and in print from IDW. He is also the artist and co-writer of GAMMA, a one-shot comic previously serialized in Dark Horse Presents.

Neil Greenaway: I am sitting at Fort Collins Comic Con speaking with Ulises Farinas. Just to get us started, what books are you working on right now?

Ulises Farinas: Right now I’m finishing up Judge Dredd for IDW and we just finished Amazing Forest there as well. The trade paperback just came out this past Wednesday. I’m also working on a book called Cloudia & Rex for my own publisher BUÑO, and right now just preparing for the next year, coming up with new pitches and stuff.

Judge Dredd & Amazing Forest comics from Ulises Farinas at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: Can you tell me a little about your work on the Transformers: Heart Of Darkness? How did you get that job, how did you first get to working with IDW?

UF: With IDW that was actually kind of a funny story. I had looked up a cached version of their website where their submissions policy was still open, because the current website at the time had closed submissions. You couldn’t submit anymore. So I found an older website and I emailed them from that email address, and it actually still worked! So I got through to Bobby with IDW and they asked me to work on a Transformers book.

NG: Wow! I have to assume that they fixed that little glitch after that. Let’s talk about Judge Dredd for a minute, how did you get that job?

UF: Well I worked on Judge Dredd: Megacity 2. I was the artist on that and I really liked working on that with Douglas Wolk and we kind of got to put our own stamp on Megacity 2. Then afterwards I was still talking to the editors, I wanted to pitch them some ideas I had and they asked me to pitch for the Judge Dredd series, so we got it.

Judge Dredd comics from Ulises Farinas at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: Ok. That seems pretty straightforward. So, The Amazing Forest, can you tell us a little bit about that one?

UF: Amazing Forest is an anthology series. Each issue has 4 stories. It’s written by me and Eric Freitas and I started writing it about 2012 or 2013. So a while ago. And it’s great to finally see it on shelves. And there are all different amazing artists on each issue. So each story is like the Twilight Zone, or Outer Limits type of dark, weird science fiction type stories. That’s pretty much what it’s about.

NG: And then can you tell us a little bit about Cloudia & Rex?

UF: Cloudia & Rex is about two little girls who are imbued with the powers of almost all the gods from all the different world cultures. So Cloudia herself is not really possessed, but within her is the god Thanatos from Greek mythology (who is the god of death). But he is almost using her as a raft to basically shepherd all these gods who are being killed in their god realm. So it’s kind of her coming to terms with this power and also fixing her relationship with her mother after their father passed away.

Amazing Forest #2 wraparound cover by Ulises Farinas.

NG: And then yesterday at your panel, you had spoken a bit about why you started BUÑO and how it was kind of a cry for diversity, could I get you to talk a little about that?

UF: I’m not sure it’s a cry for diversity; I think it’s making sure that diversity isn’t just a marketing tactic. That you actually hire people of color, that you actually hire different people from different walks of life and it’s not just “I just made this character a person of color”, that you actually care about the comics community itself and making sure there’s diversity and that there’s value to that beyond just a marketing tactic.

NG: As a publisher, are you looking at other artists and authors submissions, or is it mostly to publish your own stuff?

UF: I am definitely looking at other people’s stories. Our first book is Light by Rob Cham who is Filipino artist. I think it’s a 100 page graphic novel. So it’s not just a clearing house for my ideas, hopefully we’ll grow to support many different artists.

NG: All right. What other ideas have you got for your BUÑO publishing aside from Cloudia & Rex, what else is in the future there?

UF: We are also kind of looking into not just publishing peoples work but also maybe distributing much smaller indie publishers, indie artists. A lot of people making books with like Kickstarter and stuff are now trying to figure out how to mail their books and get them to shops and I think personally as an artist that’s something that you just don’t want to put any time into. It’s so draining to be doing all the logistics. So I think its great opportunity right now to possibly step into that and help these artists get their books out into shops and stuff.

NG: It does seem like a lot of Kickstarters have had a rough time with delivery. They go well, they get their funding, people seem interested, but it’s the delivery that seems to kick people in the butt.

UF: Yeah, I think Diamond is kind of silly because they are not looking at this potential customer base as anything worthwhile, but so much of the comics economy is being made through Kickstarters. I think there should be someone who almost centralizes that. And if you have a great book, maybe there could be someone who could team up with you to get that out there so you’re not stuck with the logistics of moving all this inventory.

NG: Now I remember a few years back there was actually a company called FM that would work with the indie publishers, that would work with the indie guys, and try and get them out there when Diamond wouldn’t, and Diamond put them down pretty cold. Yet they are pretty adamant that they are not a monopoly. Would you argue that, do you think Diamond has a monopoly on the distribution?

UF: I think it’s obvious. It’s like calling the sky green. Everyone knows that Diamond’s a monopoly, there’s no other way of saying it. Who else is delivering the comics to shops? If Diamond is going to say it’s not a monopoly, sure tell me who your largest competitors are. It’s a real simple question.

Buño Press logo.

NG: If you had the chance, would you like to grow as a distributor and become that competition? Or would you prefer the company to grow as a publisher?

UF: I would rather grow as a publisher. Distribution isn’t a major focus so much as something I know can help with. When it comes to indie creators, when it comes to people of color, when it comes to queer creators, you know there is already so many obstacles in the way that challenge you in trying to get your comics out there. So anything that can help different types of creators get their works out there, I am interested in. Whether I’m publishing it or they are publishing it themselves, I want to create a network that can help them. I think comic book artists work together all the time, they are so much into collaboration. But they do not talk about, they do not think about how they collaborate to help their own interests economically. When it comes to diversity, how do you collaborate – how do you organize so that you help yourself in this market, so you’re not just at the whims of these larger companies? Whether it’s a distributor like Diamond or it’s a larger publisher like say Marvel or DC. I think anything that we can do to work together and to help each other; I think that’s what’s going to be the change. So we don’t have these sad stories of creators begging Hero Initiative to pay for their medical bills. And that’s the sad thing, we pay such deference to the creators that have gone by, we call Jack Kirby the King, but we don’t actually respect what that means. Because if you really felt they were the king, why do they have to beg you for money? Why do they have to beg just to not die poor, sick, starving? We shouldn’t have to go to conventions and see 80 year old, 90 year old cartoonists who should be retired still having to hawk their wares just to break even. I think it’s really a disappointment that as creators we don’t work together more to prevent that. You know BUÑO is just part of what I think is the solution, creating publishers, creating a mindset. Changing the culture so that we work together and don’t have the same problems in 50 years that we have right now, which are the same problems that we’ve had now for the last 50 years.

Transformers: Heart Of Darkness #1 from IDW.

NG: A lot of people would argue that it’s getting better, but you mentioned yesterday it seems like it’s almost getting better because of sensationalism. It’s getting better because you can get a headline saying “I hired a black woman”, instead of because she was the most qualified. It looks like they are grabbing the headline and not the author. Do you think that the big companies actually care or are they just trying to court public favor?

UF: I think the question is a little weird. When they are hiring a black woman to write say a Black Panther backup I don’t think they are doing it just because she is a black woman. We have to be careful to not diminish a person’s talents, a person’s hard work. Even if they are getting jobs which I find often times to feel like its pandering. Just because it’s pandering doesn’t mean the quality of the work is bad. A lot of times a difficult question I get is, when I talk about these things, when I criticize these systems, people often misinterpret that I’m criticizing the creator. If I disagree with Brian Michael Bendis creating say Riri for the Iron Man series, it’s not because I care about the quality of the work. It might be an amazing book, he might write an amazing Iron Man story. It is the politics behind it that are in question. When he’s saying that “I want to make a character that my daughter can look up to”, how can you not ask the question: don’t you want someone working at the company that they can look up to? Isn’t that more important? So I think that’s something to keep in mind. When it comes to pandering, we have to be careful that we are criticizing the practices; we are criticizing the institutions and not necessarily demonizing the people within these institutions. A lot of times we don’t have as much control over whether a corporation is made out of people or the corporation is something separate from the people within the company; it can be impossible to differentiate. So I always try to make sure everyone knows I am talking about the institutions and not the people.

Judge Dredd comics from Ulises Farinas at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016 (2).

NG: If this philosophy appealed to people reading this, does BUÑO have a submission policy?

UF: Well, my submissions policy, and I said this in another interview before, is the same submissions policy that every company has. If you know someone at the company, you can submit. That’s how it always is, and I think it’s silly when you see a company making a big hoopla like “our submissions policy is open now”. I just think, “I’m pretty sure I submitted a comic last year and it got approved”, no one told me like “oh buddy, don’t talk to me about that submission, it’s closed right now”. No one has ever done that. So I think we should just get rid of that façade that there are these submission policies in the industry. Why put it down or put it up? Just put an email address down there and when you feel like looking for new stuff, open the emails and there will be stuff in there. So my submission policy is, send me anything you want if you know me. Send it to the email address on the website if you want, it’s just going to be me looking at it anyway. It’s just me and Storm Smith. And I’ll tell you we don’t have any money and we can’t make it, you know? But when we do have more money, our submission policy will “be open”. With air quotes around that.

Ulises Farinas at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016 (2).

NG: Ok. I guess just a fairly basic question, with all that philosophy in mind, a lot of people in the industry are working to get to the big 2, does that even interest you?

UF: Yeah, I’ll definitely work for the big 2; I’ll work for anyone who will pay me. If a company pays you fairly and respects you as a creator, why wouldn’t I work for them? I have philosophical disagreements with the entire comic industry, not just Marvel, not just DC, but also Image, Top Shelf, with FirstSecond, with Fantagraphics, it doesn’t matter, and I’m just naming publishers that don’t even matter, with Oni, any of them. I’m doing books with Oni; I’m doing books with IDW. I’ve done books with almost every major publisher. I have philosophical disagreements with them, but if my relationship with an editor or with a publisher is fair and they treat me with respect, then I will work with them. I will still voice my disagreements with their practices. I think that the industry shouldn’t act so afraid of their creators voicing their grievances. If you say you know comics are for everyone, and comics are great and everyone should be reading them, then we should be listening to the people making the comics. They might have a good idea on how to make comics better.

You can see more from Ulises at ulisesfarinas.com or bunobooks.com.

November 12, 2017

An Interview With Felipe Echevarria of Death From Above (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

November 12, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Fort Collins Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Felipe Echevarria of Death From Above about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 8/31/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Felipe Echevarria at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

Felipe Echevarria is an American artist working in the dual arenas of fine art and comics & graphic novels. He is best known for the watercolor comics adaptation of the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho though he has also worked on a collection of underground Sandman: Death paintings entitled Ankh, as well as several other books. We talked about past works, his upcoming projects, and also his incorporation of spirituality and metaphysics in both his fine art and comic art works.

Neil Greenaway: To start us out, what books are you working on right now?

Felipe Echevarria: I’ve got several in motion. I’ve got Death From Above, which is a graphic novel. It’s a revelation stream of life, death, and true happiness. It’s kind of like a meditation. I’ve been working on that for 24 years, believe it or not.

NG: Wow!

FE: I even had to start over, because my skills had taken a huge leap. I am going to be doing a Kickstarter for that one in the spring. And the first half will be published through that.

Death From Above flyer from Felipe Echevarria.

NG: Who is writing that with you?

FE: I wrote and drew this one. It is all me. I painted it and everything. It is going to be completely different than anything out there. I am also doing a book called Kloon, which is a take on the French word for clown. I didn’t write this book, I’m just illustrating it. That has been in the works for two or three years. Hopefully it will be out this Christmas, or maybe next spring sometime. I have been working on the second issue of Stakes, with Todd Jones, but I haven’t put a whole lot into that one yet. Let’s see, what else? I have a Spirit Women coffee table book. Spirit Women are these white-Caucasian women with the red paint on their faces. There will be a Kickstarter for that one next year. That’s about it for current projects.

NG: Moving back just a minute to the Kloon book, who’s putting that out?

FE: It’s a company called Merchants of Wow and he’s got a publishing company now started, a little boutique company. It’s going to a big, very strong company because this guy is an ex-Hollywood marketing guy and he knows what he’s doing. So it a very small company and they have 2 or 3 other books that are queued up to come out with Kloon. Kloon is going to be the main book. I did like 25 color illustrations for it and the same amount of black and white. It’s a really fantastic story and there is even talk of it becoming a movie, but that remains to be seen.

Death From Above cover image from Felipe Echevarria.

NG: That would obviously be after the book was released and had seen some return.

FE: Yeah.

NG: What is this Fantasy Illustration slipcase that I see on your table?

FE: That is just a book that I contributed to, and for payment, I was given several copies of the book. So I need to sell the books. (laughs) It’s like I’m working to get my own money back. They produced this really lavish book, but it’s difficult to sell. So artists are offered either royalties way off in the future, or you can just take the books. It’s a beautiful book.

The Fantasy Illustration Library Volume 2.

NG: It looks very well put together. What did you contribute for that?

FE: I did the Hindu goddess Durga, and then the Egyptian god Geb.

NG: I see several of your past projects here at your table. Could we talk a little about those? Like the Ankh book…

FE: I love painting the Death character (from Sandman) and I had drawn her several times. And a lot of people convinced me to put all the paintings into a sketchbook, so I finally got around to it and here it is.

Ankh: Painted Death Sketches by Felipe Echevarria.

NG: What about the Troubled Youth book, what can you tell me about that?

FE: That was a character I came up with in school. Just this young troubled guy and this is way back in 1986 I came up with it and then I did a strip in the CSU (Colorado State University) newspaper for a semester with the character and then I finally got it published in Japan in a few book, so Comic Morning in Japan published it. They have about a million copies a week of this thing going out. I never heard what the Japanese readers thought about it because it was all in Japanese and I can’t even read it. I can’t even know if they translated it properly. But I just put out a little sketchbook with it, you know it doesn’t do much, I just did it for fun.

NG: Also, I see the Psycho books from Innovation on the table. I had collected those years ago when they were coming out, and they always had beautiful covers. How did you get into that? How did you get the Psycho book?

FE: That’s kind of interesting. In 1990 after I got out of the Kubert school, which is a comic art school in New Jersey, I was able put my portfolio on the table for about 22 companies in San Diego. Which you can’t even do nowadays, nobody will even look at your portfolio hardly. But I got work for 3 companies and Innovation was one of them. They loved my retro style and wanted me to do something for them. They offered me an Anne Rice book but the deadline was so tight I had to turn it down. Psycho came up, they were negotiating with Universal Studios and so they gave me that one. What was really bad about that book is that they found out about halfway through the project that Anthony Perkins hadn’t granted his rights to be used in the comic book. So I had to go back and repaint all the faces and it delayed the book and killed the sales for the 2nd and 3rd issues. But the book was well received and most people said it was well done and I can still buy stuff on eBay and resell them.

Psycho #1 from Innovation featuring art by Felipe Echevarria.

NG: Now jumping around a little, your Death From Above graphic novel, you said you were going to Kickstart that. Was that going to go through a publisher? Or are you going to be the publisher?

FE: I’m going to be the publisher. Maybe somebody will pick it up later on. I do have a company that is a marketing firm that’s going to run it for me.

NG: Are there any other projects that you’re working on?

FE: I’ve got a lot. I have a book called Soul Oil: Oil for the Soul. It’s a bunch of spiritual stories (not religious) designed to empower women, men, young people, anybody actually. I just want to get some really fabulous stories out there that when people read them, they get chills up and down their spine. And they get energized, not necessarily entertained, but energized in another way. Because I think nowadays there is a huge gap of books that are designed to make you think, it’s more like sensationalism. It’s hitting you over the head with a zombie story or coming up with the next big thing. People like my work because it has something a little bit more to offer on a deeper level I think. But that is what I want to do with my career.

Comics and art books from Felipe Echevarria at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016.

NG: As a theme, from Death From Above to Soul Oil, even to the paintings behind us, I have heard you mention spirituality several times. Is that something that is important to you in your work now?

FE: You know, I really don’t want to do it. But if I don’t do it, I get this tremendous psychic and even physical pain. It’s like the universe is forcing me to do it. I would rather be in my studio painting 10ft abstract paintings, having 2 or 3 nude models running around at one time and driving a cool car, you know? But I have been told in one way or another to do this, and I have to do it.

NG: That’s cool. Very few people in the comics industry follow the pull or their soul as it were. I agree it seems like a lot of sensationalism these days. Perhaps something a bit more spiritual is needed. If we could talk for just a moment about your series Stakes a little bit, Todd Jones has spoken so highly of you on that. He just loves what you did on issue one. What do you guys have in mind for issue two?

FE: I’m going to change the style a little bit. It was so labor intensive before. It’s going to look the same but I’m going to go a little heavier with the black ink and not rely on outline as much. And he’s got a long, long arc for this thing, like issues and issues. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get to it. But he’s such a wonderful guy and I want to get him going in the business. He’s already getting going in the business now. But I’m not sure exactly where the story is going. What I like about his story is that it’s focused on characters; he’s developing the whole thing from the bottom up, so it’s got something to offer that people will enjoy. They get a nice jolt from the story. It’s a little different twist on Vampirism, I think, and it’s an adventure and its fun is the number one thing about it. So I look forward to being with him on the ride, I just hope I can stay on long enough.

Felipe Echevarria at Fort Collins Comic Con 2016. (2)

NG: It does seem like an interesting take on the genre.

FE: There is one more thing I could mention that is coming up, I’m going to be doing a Fine Art Gallery show in Denver in the Rhino district at Helikon Gallery next May. George Pratt, who is a big name in the business, and I are going to do the show together. That will be May 3rd 2017.

NG: That sounds amazing. I can’t wait to see it.

You can see more of Felipe’s work at www.felipeechevarria.com.

November 12, 2017

An Interview With Todd Jones of Wicked Awesome Comics (Denver Comic Con 2016)

November 12, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Todd Jones of Wicked Awesome Comics about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/25/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Todd Jones is a mainstay on the Colorado convention circuit. This guy is everywhere. But despite the number of times that I have seen him around, I never really took the time to talk to him until this past weekend at Denver Comic Con 2016. We talked about the new trade paperback collection of his anthology series, Wicked Awesome Tales, and I found out a little bit more about the upcoming Fort Collins Comic Con.

Neil Greenaway: Today we are talking to Todd Jones at Denver Comic Con 2016. I understand that your series Wicked Awesome Tales has a new trade paperback collection. Let’s start out with a brief synopsis. What is Wicked Awesome Tales about?

Todd Jones: Wicked Awesome Tales, I like to say, is a cross between Twilight Zone meets Amazing Stories and a throwback to the anthology comics from the 60’s. So each issue has different writers and artists that contribute stories to make it up. We try to have a nice mix of horror, sci-fi, fantasy with a little bit of humor. That is probably it in a nutshell.

NG: And what prompted the new trade paperback collection?

TJ: After we put 4 out we thought it would probably be a lot easier to just put a trade together so people can just buy them and then I wouldn’t have to carry as much to the shows. I could just grab the trade and have other new stuff next to it. Because it gets kind of tiresome to carry all these comics with you all the time, plus you have to reprint them and every time you reprint them you want to say this is the third printing or fourth printing.

Wicked Awesome comics and prints at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: You just had issue 5 come out, what can you tell us about the stories in issues 5?

TJ: They’re as weird and wacky as ever. We revisit two characters that were in issue 1, Captain Jane Marley, who is a character that was created by Ron Fortier - who you might recognize as a writer for Terminator: Burning Earth. He was actually the first writer to work with Alex Ross when Alex first started into comics. Also I knew him as a kid because he was the writer of the Green Hornet for Now Comics, which was the first comic I picked up as kid that wasn’t a Marvel or DC comic. So I was really excited when he and I became friends. He has kind of been my mentor. He actually got me into doing anthology comics. It was at his urging that we started this up and he contributes to just about every issue, in fact I don’t think there are any issues that don’t have at least one story from Ron there. What was the question, I’m sorry.

NG: I was just asking you about issue 5.

TJ: Oh so that character that Ron created, Capitan Jane Marley, she hasn’t been seen since issue 1. We had started a fan mail page and due to the emails we were getting, we realized that was a popular character with people. So Ron created another story with that character. The same for Clinton Slade, the paranormal consultant. He was also in issue 1, he makes another appearance in this issue as well and this time he’s dealing with a possession of a little boy, so it’s kind of creepy.

Wicked Awesome Tales #3 cover print featuring art by Patrick Joel de Leon.

NG: I have heard several people come up and ask you about your series Stakes. What’s a little bit of the story on that one?

TJ: I call it a horror family comedy. The basic premise is that this artist, Jack Cartwright, he hasn’t seen his grandfather in years. 15 years to be exact. He hasn’t seen him since his father’s funeral. So his grandfather shows up at his apartment to tell him his dad (who he thinks has been dead all this time) is actually undead. And that he comes from a family of vampire hunters. He thinks that his grandfather has lost his mind until his dad shows up and nearly kills both of them. So obviously the first issue is the only one out, I am not sure when the next issues is going to be in the pipe. I think we are going to do a Kickstarter for it. But over the course of the series Jack teams up with his Grandfather and his grandfather’s partner, this girl that Jack knew when they were kids, but she’s a total badass vampire hunter now. But he teams up with both of them to try to recapture his dad because he wants to break this cure. That’s the whole reason he’s still alive and his grandfather hasn’t killed him, is because they have been keeping him in a storm cellar in the middle of field on his grandfather’s farm. Unfortunately he’s escaped and there’s a reason why he’s escaped. There are other forces at play. I probably shouldn’t go too much into that. Anyway, it’s just a fun story.

NG: And there is a grander story to be told there when Felipe Echevarria (the artist for the series) has the time?

TJ: Yeah, yeah. Felipe has been working his Kickstarter for a book called Kloon. It’s a children’s book and he’s been working on that for the last couple of years and there have been some issues. I could explain more about it but I probably shouldn’t. There have been some issues with it so it has prevented him from being able to complete that project and move on to getting back to working on Stakes as well. Plus the man has several commissions and his own projects. Also I have been working on other project in the interim. So we do plan to get back to it. If you bought issue 1 and you’re ticked that issue 2 hasn’t come out, I am so sorry! But I promise you we will at some point get back to that, I just can’t tell you when exactly that second issue is coming out.

Wicked Awesome Tales #4 cover print featuring art by Jeff Herndon.

NG: Fair enough. Are there any other books that you are working on at the moment that you would like to talk about.

TJ: Not that I can talk about. Joe Arnold and I are working on a project together which is pretty big. At least to us it’s pretty big and we plan to pitch it to publishers later this year so hopefully we can get picked up. We want to have it all done and ready to go before we say anything about it.

NG: Understandably. Moving away from comics then, you are now involved in the Fort Collins Comic Con, can you tell me a little about that?

TJ: It’s a great con. It was started last year by some individuals working in coordination with the Poudre River Library District. Basically all the sales and money from it, it’s a nonprofit, pretty much like Denver Comic Con, but the proceeds go to benefit the library and the library is the primary backer of the con. But it’s a great con. It’s not to this magnitude, we don’t have a space like this up there in Fort Collins, but it’s held at the Aztlan Center in downtown Fort Collins. Like I said, last year was the first year and they had a great turnout. I think this year is going to be even bigger. They have some larger guests coming in from out of state. Including Ulises Farinas who has worked on Judge Dredd, Amazing Forest, Godzilla Goes To Hell and one of the Transformers books, I think it was Transformers: Heart of Darkness. Oh and of course just at the end of this last year he put out a children’s book called Where’s the Wookie? It’s a Star Wars children’s book. He’s a very busy guy, he’s a good friend. I’m excited for him to come out to the show. This will be his first Colorado con, at least that is what he has told me. So it will be nice to have him there. Richard Hatch will be there. He played Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica. Gigi Edgely will be there.

Wicked Awesome Tales #5 from Wicked Awesome Comics.

NG: Do you know the dates for the Fort Collins Comic Con?

TJ: Yes it’s August 26th, 27th and 28th at the Aztlan Center in Fort Collins. Mike Baron is also one of the guests there, creator of Nexus and the Badger. He probably wrote one of the best arcs on Punisher.

NG: If people wanted to see more of your work online, where would they go to find it?

TJ: You can find Wicked Awesome Tales 1-4 on Comixology if you want to purchase the digital copies it’s available there. Soon issue 5 should be up there since we just got it from the printer, we haven’t had a chance to upload it to Comixology but it will be up there soon. They can also find 1-4 on www.indyplanet.com if they want to buy a physical issue. If they would rather just have the trade paperback which I recommend, because the trade not only has the first 4 issues but it also has some bonus stories in there from Ron Fortier and also Robert Elrod. There is also concept art and some other fun stuff. I recommend it and they can find that on Amazon.com. Just type in Wicked Awesome Tales and it will bring it up. Honestly if you are going to buy that you are probably better off buying it at a convention from one of us because it’s a little cheaper than purchasing it on the website.

The Wicked Awesome Tales TPB from Wicked Awesome Comics.

NG: Speaking of that, what’s the next convention people can find you at?

TJ: My next convention is actually the Fort Collins Comic Con. I will be there, so not only am I an Event Coordinator, I’m also an exhibitor.

NG: And we end on a Hair Club For Men joke. Awesome. Thank you for your time Todd.

Todd Jones drawing at Denver Comic Con 2016.

November 12, 2017

An Interview With David Espy & Alex Delia of Puncture Press (Denver Comic Con 2016)

November 12, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with David Espy & Alex Delia of Puncture Press about their take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/25/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Alex Delia & David Espy at Denver Comic Con 2016.

There are very few comics that take place in Denver. There are even fewer that choose to show Denver as a gritty, crime-ridden city. Or whose “hero” is a serial killer. Alex Delia and David Espy are writing just such a book, and I took some time to talk with them about their latest issue and the future of their series, Eyesis: The Untouchable.

Neil Greenaway: We are here at Denver Comic Con 2016 talking to the guys behind Eyesis: The Untouchable. First, just for anyone who has not heard of the book, those that don’t know, what is Eyesis about?

Alex Delia: So Eyesis: the Untouchable is about a woman in Denver named Eyesis Rodriguez-

NG; May I just break in and say how awesome I think it is that his book takes place in Denver.

AD: Yeah that is one of our selling points. We want to keep it in Denver, keep Denver as weird as possible. But it’s about a woman named Eyesis Rodriguez who has an abusive husband. And she sees motivation from people outside beating each other up. It makes her want to try and murder her husband. So she does successfully, and she decides she wants to see how long she can keep this high, murdering people around town. So she builds this whole identity as a slasher/murderer, killing random people in alleyways. Where we are at in the comic right now is, we learn that she is not the only one doing this, and that people have been watching her the whole time. As we get further in we will find out who that is and what their motivations are.

Eyesis: The Untouchable comics at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: And what issue are you on? What issue was just released?

AD: We just printed issue 4, but issue 5 (our double issue – which is like the arc finale of this first part) is a 48 pager and will be out in 2 weeks.

NG: Ok and once this arc wraps, is there a plan for another arc?

AD: There is a plan for 3 other arcs at least. Each one about 5 to 6 issues.

David Espy: I think that is one of the best parts, just hearing Alex kind of craft the story. We’ve known that it’s going to be extensive and the way that he talks about it, you know, we talk about it like you would a television series. This is season one. The next season kind of handles these larger broad strokes and he’ll tease me with and of course I want to know. I’m an avid fan of binge watching my favorite shows, so I want to know everything. And he wants to tell me everything, but I tell him not to. And he doesn’t, so it keeps that element of surprise. Just those little nuggets. I know the scope of the mythology and I know what’s being supplanted little by little and it is just super special.

AD: David is pretty privy to the next arc and a half I would say. I am still kind of wrapping up the third arc and moving into the fourth, which I still have kind of vague ideas what it’s about, but it’s not completely written. I have the whole arc planned out. But then as I write scripts, I write them as each issue is done. So that I let my mind evolve and get to the right spot while still kind of keeping that template that we have going on. We’re thinking it’s going to be like 20 or 24 issues at least.

Eyesis: The Untouchable #2 from Alex Delia & David Espy.

NG: Is there a definitive end then?

DE: I don’t know, that is definitely a question for Alex.

AD: I mean - I do have an ending scene in my head. It’s just, we don’t know when we’re substantially built up to that point where it can be satisfying. But yeah, there is an end. Part of me wants to be like "we will do it in 24 issues" and part of me wants to be like Cerebus and do it for 300 issues. And who knows what’s going to happen. But we don’t do this as a full time job so we want to tell the story as best as we can, as complete as we can.

DE: While working on it I feel the story has come naturally in its evolution to where the things that have been said or explained are coming out organically and they are always reaching a point where – say for instance, if the second arc – if that’s the last one, it would fit perfectly. There would be no need for the other ideas that he has had that makes it possibly 24 issues. So in that sense, the end is definitive. He has said how it is going to end in his mind, but as it’s grown it could just naturally turn into some Kaiju beast.

Eyesis: The Untouchable interior panel by David Espy.

NG: Ok. How did you guys hook up as a team?

DE: Well we both went to film school together at UC Denver. And then we had a screenwriting class together and then we had a production and editing class. The phone call happened when I was on the way to Vegas, going to a rave and a party. Alex gave me a call and said, “I’ve always liked the way you have drawn in our classes and the work that you have done”. And he has helped me out on projects and vice versa so we have kind of seen where our sensibilities lie in terms of what we like in genres and how we work. He was like, “I have this project that I always wanted to make that we can’t make in film right now, we don’t have the money. And with the content, probably no one would give us the money to make this ultra-violent thing. So I’ve seen your doodles, I’ve seen the way you draw and everything, would you like to do this?” I was on my way to get high and loaded and I was like, “Hell yeah, let’s get rockin' on this.” Then from there, being friends from school it naturally became more concrete.

Eyesis: The Untouchable interior panel by David Espy. (2)

NG: Now if this whole idea started in film school, is there ever a thought of transferring it to a different media?

AD: I started writing it as a screenplay in 2008 and I would say that most of the first 5 issues comprise what that movie would have been. But since we reprised, since we started doing it as a comic and really started to explore what a comic can be and how it’s better than a movie in many ways, and how your imagination is your budget. So then we started throwing out all the stops. These next coming arcs are only stuff you could do in a comic book. If we had the opportunity to make it into a movie that would be great, but where we are at right now we would need millions of dollars to do.

NG: It’s getting to be far too big budget a movie?

AD: Totally. And I mean, we are at a point right now where film is equivalent to paper in what you can create with it. It’s just you can do it for the price of a piece of paper with a comic book. Whereas a film, we could fulfill this, just not with our current resources. So it’s better to lay this groundwork right now as a comic book and see what happens. I think it would work really well – because it’s like a hard NC-17 – to be like an HBO show or a Netflix show if they ever went that hard, you know? But we’ll see. Media is interesting now with the way that TV shows are getting movie-ified and the movies are getting TV-ified at the same time. Media is kind of becoming this whole thing. Comics, movies, TV, video games, music – they are all kind of becoming this big soup and everything can kind of pick apart and throw into that different community. John Carpenter is making music now and touring with it. Who would have ever thought that would happen? I have been wanting it my whole life but now it’s an official thing because we live in this trans-media world

DE: Yeah that’s my ultimate dream for this is as the artist, to see it in the video format as he had originally envisioned it. I think it’s going to get to that point, we are even thinking about ways we can get more of the mythology out. Trading cards or making little viral snippets, vignettes of that world and putting it into a VHS tape and just like dropping it off throughout the city. And having someone stumble upon it like the ring video tape, like OMG. If we were able to make any trailer, or any sort of video we make for it since we are making it on our own time, has to have that purpose of excelling, pushing it towards the next plateau where we can share this with people or push the story in a way. Yeah, we’re going to get it sometime on VHS or some form of visual media aside from print and get it to Westword (a local Denver paper), get it to everyone. I also think that there are some panels that I can only think of cinematically when I’m creating it. So I will always think about how this would look as a film more so than a comic book, and maybe that’s a bad approach as a comic book artist. But that’s always when I’m thumbnailing something or I’m editing it and during pencils and inks, I’m always trying to figure out how, or envisioning it on the final stage of being a film or being a television show.

Alex Delia & David Espy at Denver Comic Con 2016. (2)

NG: Is this you guys’ first book or have you (individually or together) ever worked on another comic?

DE: First comic together.

AD: First comic together, first one I have published. I used to write comics as a kid but I never actually produced them or anything because I was a kid. But you know, I knew David could draw because he would do storyboards for other people when we would make short films. I was like, “If you really spent a lot of time on this you could be a very good sequential artist”. So in storyboards for film is good practice for that. Comics are such a different language than film. It allows us to do things that benefit from people looking at it for a long time. Like the Watchmen. They talked about how it could only be a comic, they made a movie and it was pretty good, I kind of liked Watchmen. But it’s not as good as the comic because the comic has the benefit of unlimited time to examine something. To examine every panel, to see how they interact with each other.

NG: To read the newspapers and novel excerpts.

AD: Yeah. But the overall idea for this is sort of came from a tribute to all those really grizzly 1970’s exploitation horror slasher movies. Even going into the 80’s like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Miss .45, the Able Ferrara movies. And so we kind of wanted to start with that template and that whole art style. All our covers look kind of like VHS covers but still kind of make it a modern sensibility, set it in Denver. Denver is a weird town. It’s really peaceful and I love it because I’m a really peaceful person but it’s cool to kind of flip it on its side and make it this kind of violent, vile place where there is always something sinister going on in the shadows and alleyways.

NG: It’s a very peaceful and quiet place now, but if you’re homaging the 70’s violence I think there is something to be said about 5 Points in downtown. It’s nicer now, but it used to be pretty gritty. Ok, so, you said that issue 5 was coming out in 2 weeks. As that is the end of an arc, are you guys planning any gap before starting on the next arc, or are you going to dive right into issue 6?

AD: Probably a little bit of both. I am writing issue 6 and 7 at the same time and David is probably going to draw them at the same time and then we will stagger the release. But in the meantime we want to do a Kickstarter for a trade paperback of the first 5 issues. We have been developing that and we want to get some guest artists that inspired us and see if we can have them do an interpretation of our work, that we are interpreting from them. It’s interesting because it’s like the covers are like VHS slasher movies and stuff, but when you look at the art, it’s like manga doing an attempt at a superhero comic and all kind of grounded within this horror slasher movie. So it’s just this huge hodge-podge of influence that wraps around itself. And so we want to get some really cool guest artists that inspired us to do different panels and inspired me to write things for David to draw. We just want to make something really cool with it and we also might shoot a few scenes from it as if it were a movie for the Kickstarter video.

DE: I don’t think there will be much of a break really. While trying to finish issue 5 we were trying to have it for Comic Con here and we were close. But in my haste I was trying to convince myself that it was fine, but Alex picked up numerous times that I was very stressed over it and the work was probably lacking or hurting because of it. So we decided to push it two weeks, and I am so glad we did because even though I have had room to breathe and have the Con be its own thing, the work isn’t going to stop. So I’m going to be getting right back into it, and then doing wallpapers and other kind of open illustrative arts to supplement everything. So while there maybe that break for a month or a couple months until we get issue six out, there’s going to be the world of Eyesis popping up in wallpaper art and stuff like that.

AD: Yeah I told David just to focus on the covers so we could sell preorders because I think David makes the best covers in indie comics for what we’re going for I just love this stuff. Either way we have something to show and that’s what we are happy about. Issue 4 is a really good issue too so we are really happy about that.

NG: One last question. If people wanted to see more of you guys or find more of the world of Eyesis where online would we go look?

AD: You can go to www.eyesistheuntouchable.com or you can go to the publisher’s site which is www.puncturepress.com and then I’m on Twitter and Instagram @alexdelia

DE: I’m on Twitter as @despyonage and then on Instagram as Espylicious. Most of what I put on those sites is usually ideas and sketches all with a purpose in the world of Eyesis and surrounding it and other personal work as well.

Alex Delia & David Espy at Denver Comic Con 2016. (3)

November 12, 2017

An Interview With Carl Buchanan of Silent Hero Studio (Denver Comic Con 2016)

November 12, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Carl Buchanan of Silent Hero Studio about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/25/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Neil Greenaway: Today, I am here at Denver Comic Con 2016 with Carl Buchanan talking about his new series American Oni. Now, can you start by giving us just a brief synopsis of what the book is about?

Carl Buchanan: So basically American Oni is about when Japan was westernized by the Americans. The ancient demons there, they saw the Americans and they were like, man these guys are boastful, they are proud, they’re greedy, they’re dishonest. They know how to make money and they are awesome, let’s go hang out with these guys instead. So the Oni went over to America at that point and worked their way into politics and operations and kind of took control subvertly. But our comic book takes place in 2010, and now they are a little less secretive about it. They are not telling everybody, but when you find out they are like, “yeah we’re in control and we don’t really care”. So they are trying to get people to join their legions by basically keeping them in poverty, making sure they don’t have good healthcare or food or anything, because they are really just trying to keep these people in anguish. That’s how you create more demons, by people giving into more hate and more hate and then their legion grows. So we follow Matteus (our main character) who kind of gets mixed up in all this because he is attempting to assassinate a guy. This guy is a weapon manufacturer who his father worked for, which you find out later on in the comic. But he quickly finds out that assassinating a demon isn’t as easy as pulling the trigger. And then into the world of American Oni we go.

American Oni #1 from Silent Hero Studio.

NG: All right. How many issues do you have so far?

CB: This is our first one. I’ve been writing for a super long time and I have been working with comic books here and there as a creative consultant but I finally just decided to do my own thing. I worked as a quality assurance engineer and saved up a ton of money and got onto deviant art and said “I want someone, and I want to pay you exactly what you think you’re worth, and I want to make sure you are completely paid for the first issue. None of this exposure nonsense.” And people all just jumped at the bit, yes, yes, let me do it. So I got a great team put together and then we put together a Kickstarter and were successful last year. We took our time on the first one, since we didn’t have a deadline and did the best we could with issue number one and it just released last week.

American Oni comics and prints from Carl Buchanan at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: How far forward in the future have you planned the story?

CB: So far to issue 15. We want to do a trade for the first story arc and issue 15 is where the story arc ends. So we have that planned out. But in terms of the story itself, not specifically written down verbatim in stone, we’ve got all the way to the end of it. But kind of the idea we had was to – after every trade release we want to ask the audience ok, which character would you like to follow now? And then do like a Street Fighter style select a character. And then the one that gets the most votes, we will do the next story arc from that person’s perspective.

The back cover for Eyesis: The Untouchable #4 from Puncture Press featuring art by Carl Buchanan.

NG: Nice. I know that you recently did the back cover art for Eyesis: the Untouchable #4. That is a pretty wicked illustration, how did you get in on that project?

CB: So I met these guys when I was down in Denver through a friend who I played in a band with (just a bunch of mutual friends), and had no idea they did comic books at all. I have no idea how it never came up, because we are both in the same vein. Then one day someone mentioned it, and I was like, oh cool. So I told them, “Yeah, I do comic books too” and they asked if I would want to do a cover for them. I said “Yes, what would you want to do?” They were looking for ultra-violence, super gore, "I want someone’s head getting chopped in half with a chainsaw." And I was like, I am totally, totally in on that one.

NG: Awesome. Are there any other projects you are currently working on?

CB: There are many that we have in the works. My first project is called the Forgotten Forest, and it was my senior project. I did a 95 page thesis script. So it’s a feature length animation film. We have a bunch of things done for it. Already have the storyboard for the trailer. I hired an artist out of California named Luigi Lucarelli and he does like amazing Pixar/Disney-ish style art, I mean I’m surprised he’s working for me because he should probably be working for a huge studio. But because feature length animated films are so expensive, my ambitions were a little too big for my britches, if you will, so that’s why I reigned it in and started working on American Oni. Now this is our flagship, basically, but there are a couple more in the works that you can all see at my studio website which is www.silentherostudio.com.

NG: I think that about wraps it up for us, but aside from your website, is there anywhere else online people could go to see more of your work?

CB: Yes, www.americanoni.com. That is full of all American Oni and that’s basically the hub for American Oni itself and then on Facebook that’s where I release a lot of my personal work too. And I’m doing a series of Rick and Morty (not selling them, just for fun!) basically getting caught in all these anime worlds. Our first one was One Piece and the next one is going to be Attack on Titan with Mr. Meseeks as the giant. So that’s going to be a lot of fun. That is probably the best place to catch up and there’s also where I connect to my own personal stuff to so if anyone wants to see that, like my covers and stuff like that , they can see it there.

November 12, 2017

An Interview With Ben Truman of Black Mesa (Denver Comic Con 2016)

November 12, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Benjamin Truman of Black Mesa about his take on programming and publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/25/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Ben Truman behind his table at Denver Comic Con 2016.

I had the chance to talk to Ben Truman (son of Tim Truman) on Father’s Day at Denver Comic Con 2016 about his Trumanthology, his work for the ominous sounding Black Mesa remaking Half-Life, and working to bring back one of his dad’s creations with Scout: Marauder.

Neil Greenaway: It is Father’s Day at Denver Comic Con 2016 and we are talking to Ben Truman. So for those that might not know, what have you been working on lately?

Ben Truman: The thing that I have been doing most recently is Scout: Marauder. The next chapter in the Scout series that my dad came up with. And we’ve been working on this, we have been rolling with this idea for the last year or two and trying to get it off the ground. In terms of comic work, we just finished a Kickstarter project, New Nebula. And I just did a Kickstarter of my own stuff, a collection of my independently published short stories that I’m calling Trumanthology. I made my goal right at the beginning of June or the end of May so that will be coming out pretty soon as well.

NG: Is the Trumanthology Kickstarter still going?

BT: No that ended right at the beginning of June 2016 I believe.

NG: How did you get involved with the New Nebula book?

BT: My friend, well a friend of my wife’s at the time, they all met at the illustration program at the University of Arizona. So this is just a book put together by a bunch of graduates from the school as kind of a way to keep in touch, and to get some published credits under their belt. I just helped edit that, put it together, did some of the lettering on one of the stories, wrote one of them, and just tried to learn the whole process of how to put a book together. I have been part of anthologies before but I never have had the experience of making a book, so I wanted to do that before I got into my own Kickstarter, Trumanthology.

NG: Going back to the Scout: Marauder for a moment, is that going to be in comic book or graphic novel form?

BT: We’re not sure how to do it yet, because we are really intrigued by all these new avenues of publishing. Like making a Patreon or a Kickstarter, but we’re still also interested in trying to possibly shop it around to some of the other companies that specialize in independent work. So maybe like Dark Horse or Image or something like that, trying to keep our options open on that one. We have to make it first though (laughs).

NG: How far into that are you guys?

BT: We have the first arc all plotted out; we know what we want to do with it, we are just trying to find the time to get everything together. I am very distracted, there’s so much going on.

NG: How has the convention been treating you? Saturday was slammed.

BT: Yes! This has been great. I have had a lot of fun and I got to do a lot of panels and I got to talk a lot about my video game work, which I was really happy to have here. In my life outside of comic books I am a teacher at a charter school in Tucson, AZ called City High School where I teach a video game design program and an after school program based on game design. Then my other job is just working as a story lead/narrative director on the game Black Mesa, which is a re-make of Half Life. Also just kind of doing all the things you need to do in a very small video game company, so I do community stuff and handle our translations and getting more into the game design aspects of that. I wear a lot of hats over there as well.

The Black Mesa sign at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: All right. My wife actually walked by earlier and saw your sign and said that can’t be THE Black Mesa can it?

BT: (Laughs) It is in fact.

NG: Very awesome. Is that an official remake or is this more of a fan project?

BT: It is a fan project with the blessing of Valve. We put it out and got a lot of attention for it when we first put it out there 10 years ago. It was a fan remake officially. And Valve, they reached out and told us the only thing they wanted us to do was to remove the source from the Black Mesa title, but they told us that we could keep going because they didn’t want any licensing problems with that. Then when we eventually finished the product and we released it for free as a mod, they contacted us and said “We like what you did and we would like to offer you the chance to sell it on STEAM”. So it isn’t like an official Valve product but it does have their blessing.

NG: And is that available on STEAM now?

BT: Yes it’s been available since May I believe.

Ben Truman's comics at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: All right. Wow, it sounds like you are working on a lot of different projects. Are there any other irons in the fire right now? Is there anything else that you are working on?

BT: Yeah, I am just trying to write. I am trying to further my game design career, still trying to learn a lot of new ways to make games and just try to get a handle on all the new software that is out there. But really just trying to get out some of my own books like that Trumanthology, trying to make a name for myself and not always working with my dad on projects. Trying to branch out and do some major projects on my own and just keep it moving forward, keep the ball going and seeing where it goes.

NG: Now just to touch on him briefly since you are tabling here with your dad, is it interesting going around the country working with him?

BT: Oh yeah. We haven’t done that many cons together just because I am in Arizona and he is in Pennsylvania, but they flew him out to Tucson a few years ago and I went out to the east coast and did the Baltimore Con. This is the first one we have done where we both had to fly to a location to get together. It’s been so awesome, and the fact that it’s Father’s Day weekend makes it just even cooler that I had this opportunity.

NG: Are you guys going to do San Diego this year?

BT: No, I don’t think so. I don’t know. San Diego just doesn’t seem like my scene personally, it just doesn’t seem like it’s about the actual paper comic medium, so personally, I don’t feel like I have any business being there at this point.

Ben Truman at Denver Comic Con 2016 (1).

NG: I am hearing that a lot these days. It seems to be more if a Hollywood affair.

BT: Yeah you know, and it’s got video games and stuff like that but it’s just not my area of focus.

NG: There was a time when it was nerd Mecca but I would have to say with all of the local cons springing up, especially with ones of this size here in Denver and Phoenix has a fine Comic Con, I think it probably removes some of the relevance of San Diego.

BT: Right. That was the major one and now every city has their own Comic Con going, so you don’t have to make the big hike down to San Diego to meet people who make comics any more.

NG: All right, I think that about wraps it up for us but as a closing question, if people wanted to see more of your work or if they wanted to find you online, where would they go?

BT: Go to www.bentruman.com or you can find me on Twitter @BenjaminTurman.

Ben Truman at Denver Comic Con 2016 (2).

November 12, 2017

An Interview With Bob Parks & Colton Muheim of Red Team Go Colorado (Denver Comic Con 2016)

November 12, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Bob Parks and Colton Muheim of Red Team Go Colorado about their take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/24/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Red Team Go Colorado banner at Denver Comic Con 2016.

Walking around Denver Comic Con 2016, something caught my eye. Several of the artists in Artists Alley had a small cardboard standee on their tables that said RTG. Others wore RTG shirts, or had RTG stickers to give away. And there were comics for sale with the RTG logo proudly displayed. Curiosity got the better of me, and I ended up at the Red Team Go Colorado table talking to some of the team. They told me about a group of artists who got together to share ideas and ended up publishing their own books.

Neil Greenaway: I am sitting here at Denver Comic Con 2016 with Bob Parks and Colton Muheim discussing Red Team Go Colorado. I understand that you guys are debuting two new issues at this show; Dinopocalypse #3 and Cryptids & Cogs #1. What can you tell me about these series?

Bob Parks: Ok, Dinopocalypse takes place in a Colorado that is the epicenter of prehistoric chaos, where a mad scientist has brought back the dinosaurs! It’s up to an intrepid group of motorcycle riding nerds to save the day!

And then Cryptids & Cogs is a collection of short stories featuring curious creatures, unique characters and the innovative spirit of the 19th century! Each issue will contain short steampunk/monster hunter stories by different creators.

Cryptids & Cogs #1 from Red Team Go Colorado.

NG: That sounds pretty cool. How did the idea for Red Team Go come about?

Colton Muheim: That’s you Bob. You were the starter.

BP: Well RTG kind of transformed into its own thing. I had a couple people up north who were looking to get together – we were artists and we liked hanging out, we liked going downtown to drink and draw or drink and commiserate and everything like that – but it turned into more of a social thing. And I know that I wasn’t doing any work at all during those times. So I was always going up to this restaurant up north where I had the back room to myself and I could sit and I could get all my work done. And it was quiet and it was nice. So flash forward a couple months, I haven’t been going to drink and draw that much and my buddy was like “Hey, I’m thinking about starting an art group up north. What do you think about that?” I was like, sure. So Roberto Martinez and some other friends and I, we all went up to Old Chicago. We were all thinking we were going to get a couple of beers, we’re going to drink, we’re going to draw, and it will be like Leela. (Leela European Café in Denver hosts Drink and Draws for local artists weekly.) But it wasn’t. The wait staff was like, “This is a restaurant, you eat and then you pay for your food and then you leave”. So we knew we would have to find something. I’m like, “Ok guys; I’ll let you in on my little secret up here. There’s a place that I go to, it’s like really back alley kind of stuff. It’s a nice place I just don’t want a lot of people showing up because this is where I get my work done”. So there’s like 5 people there and I’m really happy that I can hang out with my friends and draw and get some work done. And then all of a sudden it’s like 15 people the next week and I’m freaking out. Everyone is like, “We’re going to do this. We’re going to make this a community thing, we’ll be drawing and it will be awesome”. And I said “Ok, you guys really sold me on this, I’m really happy about this too”. So we started getting together. The name Red Team Go came out and it’s more like RTG is a big umbrella just to identify who we all are. We were getting ready for Comic Con and we were thinking we should put some stuff together, maybe some promotional material, since we were going to have a community table and everything. Maybe we should start doing some stuff. Colton and all of us just started getting into, “Well you had a comic book, didn’t you?” We had started a comic for fun, let’s really push that out.

CM: So we gathered the material and within like a month or two got one book out and now we finished that whole series.

Dinopocalypse #3 from Red Team Go Colorado.

NG: What was that series?

CM: Dinopocalypse.

NG: And so it was the final issue of that which premiered here, is that correct?

CM: Yeah our first issue debuted here last year. Then we did the second one at the beginning of the year. Then the third volume and the final volume of that premiered this year at Denver Comic Con again and we all premiered our new series Cryptids and Cogs.

BP: Which is like a steampunk/monster hunter/cryptids going after unicorns action - and everything like that. Lots of fun.

CM: Foreshadowing (laughs). It’s a really fun series. My issue doesn’t come out until next year. But we have so many people in our group now. It started out with 5 people in a back alley and now we have about 30-40 people in our group that just come and hang out.

BP: And we keep that open because there’s lots of people that just come in because they have a question about “How do I do this?”. Or we have a guy that knows really good Photoshop stuff. Then there’s a guy that does really good marker stuff. There’s a guy that does watercolor stuff. And we all kind of pool our resources to kind of come together and help everyone out and everything like that. We love doing free events, free shows. We love taking donations, but everything we print as an entity as RTG is all for free, except for the comics. So you will find us doing the free sketches for kids, free prints, free programming we will do throughout the year, but especially at Denver Comic Con. Because it’s a way we can show each other off. We can promote each other. And while people still have their own, separate tables to show off their art, we can kind of come together and educate people on those resources that are out there. For kids and for adults, all ages, that want to get out there, they want to draw and they don’t want to just sit there and stare at YouTube videos all day.

Bob Parks & Jessica Rubin at the Ded Hed Studio make-up table.

NG: I notice here at the booth that you guys have, we also have kids drawing, yesterday there were musical instruments, there’s a makeup-up artist, there’s an airbrush over here – is all of that tied in?

BP: Being a part of the community means we share space. This whole Pop Culture Classroom thing allows us – with the help of the coordinator, Becky Franks-Cassidy, she puts us in-

CM: She is fantastic by the way.

BP: Becky is the greatest. She’s had us come in ever since they started the Pop Culture Classroom with Ded Hed Studios – which is my make-up thing that I run with my partner Jessica. We have been doing this since the beginning. The second year I wanted a community table for RTG we coordinated with the folks at DCC and they gave us a community table. This is the first year where RTG and Ded Hed are together as a part of it. We’re sharing the community space with everybody and we get to obviously show off the RTG stuff but we are doing a whole bunch of free stuff for kids. And it just bleeds itself into all the programming in and around the Pop Culture Classroom and we’re very thankful for that.

Colton Muheim with the RTG banner at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: Going to the books that you guys have put out, are they being published by RTG? Is that the publishing house for these books?

CM: Yes. The Dinopocalypse ones no, those were still under our old publisher Legacy Action Comics which was Andrew Mark, who is in our group. Now that we started making our own books we are actually now our own publisher. We are our own LLC, we are doing all that ourselves. So yeah we are doing Crypids and Cogs, and everything after this is all RTG.

NG: Moving forward which direction would you like to see this go? Would you like to move more in the publishing house direction? Would you prefer it to be more of a community group direction?

BP: That’s the funniest thing about this. I’m not speaking on your behalf-

CM: Oh no you are great; we are actually on the same page with this.

BP: Our core group of members wants to start pushing things. We learned a lot from Dinopocalypse. We’re using the things that we learned from Dinopocalypse to push Cryptids and Cogs out. We’re learning things as we go with Cryptids and Cogs to push forward to do more stuff, to start publishing more and having things that we can drop at certain cons. All obviously locally, but some of our other members want to be able to go out and to do other cons across the state to get the Red Team Go name out there. I still want – and there are still other people out there – that just want to show up on a Thursday. They just want to show up and have a good time and we want to leave it open for those people to do that. We’re not splitting, that’s the best reason why Colton and I are up here now having this talk. Because Colton is huge in capitalism, pushing the thing and doing all this stuff and promoting, promoting, promoting. Which is awesome, I love it. And I’m like; I just want a place to draw on a Thursday. But we’re working together as a core group to make sure that both sides get taken care of and that one side does not feel left out or unappreciated of the time and effort that we put into that kind of stuff.

CM: Exactly.

Colton Muheim & Cayen Sim of Red Team Go doing free sketches at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: Moving forward with the books that you guys do, do you see them being more anthology style books or are you guys looking at all at running titles?

CM: I see our anthologies as the teaser for the story that is going to be coming. So that’s how I see them coming. But until we get a few more out I don’t know if it’s going to stay that way or if we’re going to stay on the anthology route. I would love to run an actual run of books. I would love to do an actual full story with just those characters and just continue doing stuff like that but the future can only tell me what I am going to do.

BP: Yeah if it ends up being super popular or if there’s a demand for the characters to come back obviously we’re not going to be like “Uh it’s a limited run, we’re going to snuff out blah blah blah,”. We’ll definitely bring it back and a lot of that is going to have to deal with getting it out to people and seeing if they like it in the first place.

Bob Parks & Jessica Rubin at the Ded Hed Studio make-up table. (2)

NG: Ok. And what’s the future holding just at the moment? Are there any projects in store we can talk about?

CM: Which ones? We got a lot. The whole Cryptids and Cogs run which is going to be running pretty much every main con in Denver, we’re going to be premiering a new comic at each one. The end of this year the Rocky Mountain Con which is going to be in November is going to be our next book. Then after that we don’t have anything until next year. We’re just running every con and hopefully premiering a new book at each one.

BP: We’re hoping to have a really big push on that. We’re also doing Halloween books. We’re doing a Halloween book that we hope that we can do yearly at some point; we are just kind of putting that together. There’s coloring books that we’ve been doing. There’s storytelling books where – so not all of us at RTG are just artists, we’re not all just comic book guys. We’ve got lots of writers there, poets, we’ve got people that-

CM: Oh yeah, I forgot that we had poets.

BP: Yeah, we find out that we have people that do photography and we encourage people who have those passions to come in if they want to be part of that project as well, by all means. We’ll do spot illustrations or longer stories or stories with more prose or narrative than just a script. You know we want to kind of let those guys highlight. And if we have to change the format for it too to like a magazine or to a book or to a ‘zine, we want to be able to accommodate that for all our members.

CM: Yeah. Let them all have their own opportunity to shine and where it’s not just comic books. We’re at Comic Con, of course everyone here loves comic books but they all like comic books for their own reasons. And that’s what we’re trying to help out with everyone else is show off what they love about it. They want to be a writer, show off your writing. That’s what we’re working for.

BP: That’s why a show like this is so good for a group like us, because it is all pop culture. I mean we have guys that do cosplay shoots and stuff like that, that kind of go out into the community as well. If we can help kind of bridge those gaps and put those people in touch with other artisans and put that kind of stuff together, we feel like we helped out and all the better for it.

Bob Parks & Jessica Rubin at the Ded Hed Studio make-up table. (3)

NG: So right now you guys are doing comics but if the opportunity ever arose or the demand ever arose for say a cosplay photo book or a prose novel you would also be open to publishing those?

CM: I don’t see why not. I’m an opportunist, if I see an opportunity and I think it would be fun just to go and try and see if it’s actually worth something, yeah, sure.

BP: And if there’s a call for it.

CM: If there’s a demand for it I’m probably going to do it just because from a business standpoint because I do have a business mind, if you don’t try it, you’re never going to find out if you’ll succeed. That’s the same thing with making a comic book or being an artist for a comic book. If you don’t try you’re never going to go anywhere.

BP: There is no bottom line for us. We are not doing it because it costs money or because it will get us money we’re doing it because we have a strong enough group and we have a strong enough following to put something like that out. If we can help put something like that together, I mean that is kind of our mantra is just helping each other out getting all that stuff together into one spot into one community that we can branch out into all the other various communities out there as well.

CM: Just making it like a big nerd culture.

The Red Team Go Colorado scavenger hunt at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: Awesome. I think that about wraps it up for me, but one last question, if people wanted to see more of you guys or learn more about Red Team Go where online would they go to find you?

CM: Look up Red Team Go Colorado and you will find all of our social networks. The biggest one you’re going to find for us is www.redteamgocolorado.com.

BP: #RTGCO is a big one if you want to find us on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook and all that stuff.

CM: Facebook is the fastest way ever to get a hold of me.

NG: Sounds good. Thank you both for your time.

Walking around the floor, I was able to put together a small photo gallery of just some of the members that were present at DCC this year.

Red Team Go Colorado member Cachet Whitman.

Red Team Go Colorado member Chad Beninati.

Red Team Go Colorado member Garuda Illo.

Red Team Go Colorado member Kat Jackson.

Red Team Go Colorado member J. James McFarland.

Red Team Go Colorado member Michael Webber.

Red Team Go Colorado member Shana Moura.

Red Team Go Colorado member Roberto Martinez.

Red Team Go Colorado member Michael Howe.

November 11, 2017

An Interview With Jesse Dubin, Mister V, & Dan Conner about Uncanny Adventures: Duo (Denver Comic Con 2016)

November 11, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written By Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Dan Conner, Mister V, and Jesse Dubin of 8th Wonder Press about their take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/24/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Uncanny Adventures: Duo #3 from 8th Wonder Press.

According to its back cover, Uncanny Adventures: Duo is “a collection of astonishing tales, told entirely in two pages each”. Published by 8th Wonder Press, Uncanny Adventures has served as a window into the Colorado indie comic scene for years. There have already been two graphic novels, and DCC 2016 saw the release of the third and final issue of the Duo mini-series. I had the chance to talk with the publisher of 8th Wonder, Jesse Dubin, as well as Dan Conner and Mister V, some of the contributors to Uncanny Adventures: Duo #3.

Neil Greenaway: We are standing here at Denver Comic Con 2016 speaking with Jesse Dubin, Mister V, and Dan Conner about 8th Wonder Press and the Uncanny Adventures series. Now I understand that you, Dan and Mister V, have been a part of the series since the beginning. Can you tell me how you got brought into it?

Mister V: Well yeah we go to the same comic shop and Jesse was picking up my books that were being sold there, so that is how we met. I actually did the flyer for your first anthology calling for artists.

Jesse Dubin: That’s right, you did.

MV: Yeah and I like to draw comics and Jesse always has really good themes for his collections. So it’s challenging to think of stories that go within those themes. I like a challenge so it’s always been really fun to work with him on this stuff.

Dan Conner: I was at an art show at Wazee Union Art Gallery and Jesse and Andrew Middleton came by and I was talking and I think I drew a penguin for them. I think it was like a gangster penguin. One who’s pretty street. He had a backwards hat and everything. That way you knew that he was street. And I wrote Bad Boy Penguin on it. So then I got an email from Jesse, and he said that they were going to do an anthology, so I was in volume one with a story about my grandpa. It was called Little Dale, because my grandpa’s name is Dale. It was about when he was a kid and he killed a rooster. So go get volume one. The first Uncanny Adventures trade. Then the second trade was Mad Science so I did a really fun, I mean I love it – it’s one of my favorite stories I’ve done, a mad scientist story versus My Gal the Zombie. And I called her the Mad Scientess, because she’s a lady but she chose that title herself. So it’s not like I’m saying put an –ess on it, she chose it, the character chose it.

Jesse Dubin & Mister V at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: All right. Can you guys tell us a little bit about the stories that you have in the newest issue, Uncanny Adventures: Duo #3?

MV: I can. It’s all two page stories and I thought that was really fun. There is something to be said for minimalism and just trying to contain a story in such a short amount of time. So I had one that was an experience my wife had when she was with daycare and kids who put things in their mouths that don’t belong there. And another one that is also in there was kind of a defense for Jenny McCarthy who I grew up just cherishing. In the late 90’s Jenny McCarthy was our goddess and she’s gone crazy with her vaccines. So I wanted to tell a story to kind of make it ok for me that she went crazy with her anti-vaccine stuff, so that was the other story.

JD: I didn’t realize the Ash Eater story was a true story. That’s spectacular.

MV: Yeah it is. It’s unfortunate.

DC: Allen Bellman, who’s amazing, he called me on Christmas day one year and said “Hey, Merry Christmas, I have this idea, you need to do a niece and nephew for Chelsea”. So I formatted it for the comic and then submitted that one. So Jesse picked that up for the comedy issue, the third one. Also, it’s the first comic that I drew that was specifically influenced by Justine McKinney’s portrayal of the My Gal the Zombie character that she does on our horror host show – My Gal the Zombie: Treasures and Travesty. For the cover he got another artist, from England I believe, who did a great job on the cover itself. So I’m just thrilled to be a part of it. I love working with Jesse, he’s the best. I really think that he’s putting out the best indie books on the market today, the most accessible. I love when publishers aren’t like, “Oh what do you have published?”, they’re just equal opportunity for submissions. But he’s also really organized, he wants to see the scripts, he wants to see the layouts during the process and most people don’t do that. So the care he puts into that shows me that it’s that much more valuable, it’s not just someone looking to fill pages.

NG: And then outside of 8th Wonder you both do your own books as well. Could you tell us a bit about those?

DC: Definitely. I have My Gal the Zombie. So, college girl is turned into a zombie, she doesn’t want to let that ruin her afterlife, ha-ha. But just because you are a zombie you don’t have to break up with your boyfriend or quit your job or stop playing in a band or anything. So she tries to navigate life along those means. Her niece and nephew independently also were turned into zombies, so that’s why, who else are you going to get as a babysitter? They aren’t like zombie related, they weren’t born zombies I guess. So yeah, www.mygalthezombie.com will get you there mgtz.co is a shortcut and then www.mgtz.tv.com can take to our video stuff.

MV: Where do I start? Well my current series that I am working on is a web comic on my website arborcides.blogspot.com/ . It’s Mile High: Adventures in Colorado Medical Marijuana. I am retelling all the horrific things that I got to live through as the marijuana industry in Colorado gradually matured. It’s anecdotes about sketchy doctors and horrific dispensaries. Good stuff too. Like the best kind of buds that I have been able to find.

Dan Conner with his books at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: I have to break in to say that, because they legalized marijuana in Denver and because we have a strong indie presence, I was able to smoke with Denis Kitchen for Bleeding Cool.

MV: Nice Dude. Very cool.

NG: What other books have you got out there?

MV: I’ve got tons. I’ve got my series about healthcare in Colorado called DNR. It’s 800 pages, so hit that up. I’ve got my first collection of my historical series which is published in the Grand Gazette in Kremmling, Colorado and it’s rediscovering that county’s pioneer past with the shootouts and the distilleries during prohibition and true crime stuff. I have all my ‘zines over there too. I have 30 ‘zines. I have Tumblr, it’s fistcitycomix and I have Twitter, @therealmisterv and I throw all my stuff online. I want everyone to be able to read my stuff for free, so it’s all for free on the website as well at arborcides.blogspot.com.

Mister V with his books at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: Then if I can move over to Jesse just a little bit. How you are picking up your artists? Is it just random encounters or do people submit? How are you finding the people you work with?

JD: It’s a little bit of both actually. I was really excited when I decided to make a go of this. I wasn’t sure that people would latch onto this or would be interested in the idea. The first thing I did was I knew Dan and I knew Mister V a little bit from hanging out in comic shops and the local scene, so I reached out to them to see if they would be interested. They both said yes immediately, no hesitation. I was amazed. That was the first moment I thought, we could make a go of this. So we do have an open submission period where we are trying to find people for the anthologies. We post things online on our website, on Twitter and Facebook and all of that. So we wind up with international representation in our book, people from Japan, England, Canada all over the US, clearly a bunch of people from Denver. It’s real exciting to have that kind of diversity and representation in our books.

8th Wonder Press banner at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: It is always cool when an idea can come to fruition. And if people wanted to see more from 8th Wonder where would they go online to do that?

JD: We are at www.8thwonderpress.com also Facebook and Twitter @8thwonderpress and all of our books are available at Amazon.com

8th Wonder Press table at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: Also, if any aspiring artists were reading this, could they find a submission outlet there?

JD: We tend to take submission towards the end of the year but anyone who follows us will see those announcements, we make them pretty frequently. We generally have one submission period a year and it usually lasts for a month or two just to make sure that we catch as many eyeballs as we can possibly catch. You know, nobody has to turn in complete stories at the time. We are generally pretty good about working with people, because we realize that often people will have an idea but it hasn’t been fleshed out yet. So we are pretty good about deadlines and things like that so we can work with artists on timeframes they are comfortable with. Partially because a lot of us have day jobs and we are making art in our spare time, so it takes time to do that when it’s not your main income.

NG: Did you do anything in the latest issue?

JD: Since the third issue is our humor issue, we had so many great entries that it filled up without needing me to pad it with my own work.

NG: That is a fine answer. Then just as a wrap, what have we got coming up in the future?

JD: We’re really excited that we are going to be at SPX (Small Press Expo) in September. We haven’t been to the east coast yet and SPX is a spectacular show. So we are looking to meet some new people out there. That will probably be around the time that we have submissions for the next book so we’re going to hopefully meet some new people and get some cool creators working out there.

Mister V with his story Wild Kingdom at Denver Comic Con 2016.

November 11, 2017

An Interview With Joe Becker and Joe Oliver about Titties and Fangs (Denver Comic Con 2016)

November 11, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2016 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Joe Becker & Joe Oliver of Titties and Fangs about their take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/21/2016, and you can read their version of it here.

Joe Becker (left) & Joe Oliver (right) at Denver Comic Con 2016.

There was a new pin-up/horror art book released at Denver Comic Con this year, called Titties and Fangs. The 18 page, magazine sized book holds full color pin-ups from some of the best and brightest talent on the Colorado indie-comics market. Several tables had the book prominently displayed, so I decided to sit down with the masterminds behind the project and see how it came about.

Neil Greenaway: So, we are here at Denver Comic Con 2016 talking to Joe Becker and Joe Oliver about their new book Titties and Fangs. I understand that you guys are both a part of Red Team Go Colorado. Is this book a part of Red Team Go or is this book a separate thing for you guys?

Joe Becker: This is a separate book. It does involve some Red Team Go members, but essentially RTGC is very family oriented, and this book is very NSFW, so we didn’t want to confuse their mission with what the content of this book had.

Joe Oliver: We do believe in both. We do drawings for kids and we do kid sponsored events. But yeah, this book is the brainchild of us because we like that stuff also, our R rated, horror themed pin-ups.

Titties and Fangs #1 - A Joe Becker and Joe Oliver Production.

NG: How did this book come into being?

JO: It actually started as a joke, we were joking back and forth about T&A and doing horror related pin-up stuff, it turned into T&F (for fangs). I was extremely busy for this first book, so Joe B. made it happen. He worked his ass off. He contacted a lot of our friends, a lot of people in the community and artists that we know about doing pin-ups and brought it together in the last 2 and half months?

JB: Yeah. I think our conversation started in mid-February and then it really didn’t start to pick up until April. We put it together and obviously you just gave a lot of props to me, and Joe O. had a lot of input and everything, but a lot of it too was the artists that contributed to the book. They all worked hard on it. As artists ourselves we understand what goes into doing a piece like that and I can’t express my love for them enough. They all did hard work and helped me and Joe O. put together a great book.

Joe Oliver behind his table at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: Did you have any trouble getting artists into this book or were they pretty eager the get a piece included?

JB: Both. The hardest part that we ran into a lot is scheduling. You know many artists are very booked up, and they have a lot of commissions and they’re doing their own books. So to say yeah, I’ll map out 8 to 14 hours or whatever it takes for your book, it’s kind of hard to get in there. And again, that’s why I thank so many of them that did. And the ones that committed to it and didn’t do it, I hold no ill will. Because I totally understand that. Then there were a lot of artists that were like yes! I want in, or I can’t do it now, what about the second book, can I be in that one? And the answer always is yes. We love art, both of us.

JO: We had such a good time putting this one together, we’re coming out with a second one this year as well.

Joe Becker beside his banner at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: So is the plan then to have this be a series? Will this run on beyond #2?

JB: I think so.

JO: Yeah.

JB: The difference between this and a typical comic is that ours isn’t story based at all, so there is no ‘story arc is over, we’re done.’ This is all pin-up art, horror pin-ups. And that mindset people are going to have forever. So I do, I’m hoping this will happen, maybe 3 a year or more if it really starts to pick up. We will see how the 2nd one does. We’re already working on it. Started working on it a couple weeks ago with a handful of nationally known artists, nationally recognized comic book artists are going to be doing it, or have committed anyway. So it’s already rolling for the next one. We’re working on more incentives for the artists with a Kickstarter that will be happening. As artists ourselves, we don’t want to tell them, “Hey this will be good exposure for you”. Because I know how that sounds. Joe O. and I are trying to come up with more incentives and things for them so it’s not just, “Hey you can be in a book”. It might not be money right off the bat, but there will be something.

JO: And starting off we made sure to keep that strong also. We made sure that they are compensated, like a couple issues of the book.

JB: If they want to buy more books we give them those at our cost, after their comp issues, so that they can also make money from it. I’m all about helping artists because I know a lot of people helped me.

Titties and Fangs table display at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: I have seen it on several tables around here today, so that’s pretty cool. Switching gears a little bit, did you both work on the new issue of Dinopocalypse?

JO: I did the last 3 pages. Roberto Martinez wrote those.

JB: I was not in that book.

NG: So you were not in the book, have you worked in the Dinopocalypse series?

JB: My contribution to the Dinopocalypse series is I designed the logo, I did the cover layout, not necessarily the art on the cover, but the general layout, the logo, things like that were my contribution. I did the second series that Red Team Go has put out. I did a coloring of one of Andrew Mark's pieces in there. But for Dinopocalypse I was more of the design aspect.

NG: Ok then, if I can ask, are there any other books that you are working on that you would like to let the world know about?

JO: RTG’s Cryptids and Cogs, which is like a full color anthology book. That one is going to be a lot of fun. We came out with the first issue for DCC, and I think the second one is either going to be fall or spring, but coming out pretty quick. Personally, Laser Party is going strong, I have a new sketchbook and I’m working on my own personal comic which will be a collection of short horror stories.

JB: Myself, I have a whole world I am writing essentially. I have a novel I am writing. It’s a series of short stories; the first arc is six of them. I have about 3 stories done. So I am going to try to have them written before I start releasing things. Then I started working on a comic that is in the same world but is set both before and after the world. It is a steampunk zombie story, the difference is this is not just zombies that are fighting steampunk creatures or steampunk people. When you get infected you turn into a steampunk creature. So, your bones start to turn to metal. You get furnaces that start to grow and boil your blood. Fun stuff like that, really fun. It’s a fun story to write and everyone that’s read the first three parts has absolutely loved it. I actually just came up and started mapping out the 4th part, which actually takes place about 200 years in the future from where we are now. I don’t know, I don’t even want to get into it. I could talk about it for hours.

Joe Becker with his wife at Denver Comic Con 2016.

NG: It’s huge.

JB: It is.

JO: I’ve read the roughs and they’re awesome.

NG: All right. If someone wanted to see more of your work online, where would they go?

JB: Definitely Facebook is the easiest way to find me. You can also search online Joe Becker Big Blue Head that will show you a lot of my deviant art and my personal store envy shop which is where Titties and Fangs will end up for online purchases if we have any left after this show. But yeah you can easily find me just search my name or Big Blue Head and there I am.

NG: And for you sir?

JO: I’ve got a Joe Oliver Arts Facebook page, Instagram is all under joeoliverarts. And then I have a blog jolimint.blogspot.com.

Creator Conversations

An Interview With Kitty Curran & Larissa Zageris of Taylor Swift: Girl Detective (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Charlie LaGreca, Founder of Denver Comic Con and Denver Independent Comic & Art Expo (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Mister V of Death By Dive Bar (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Enzo Garza of Gutt Ghost (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Daniel Crosier of Misassembly Productions (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Phil Buck of Those Shadow People (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Karl Christian Krumpholz of 30 Miles of Crazy (DINK 2017)

An Interview With Scotlynd “Xing Xin” Bedford of Ximphonic Versus (September 2016)

An Interview With Ron Fortier of Airship 27 (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Mike Baron of The Badger & Nexus (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Ulises Farinas of Buño Press (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Felipe Echevarria of Death From Above (Fort Collins Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Todd Jones of Wicked Awesome Comics (Denver Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With David Espy & Alex Delia of Puncture Press (Denver Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Carl Buchanan of Silent Hero Studio (Denver Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Ben Truman of Black Mesa (Denver Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Bob Parks & Colton Muheim of Red Team Go Colorado (Denver Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Jesse Dubin, Mister V, & Dan Conner about Uncanny Adventures: Duo (Denver Comic Con 2016)

An Interview With Joe Becker and Joe Oliver about Titties and Fangs (Denver Comic Con 2016)

Nerd Team 30