December 05, 2017

An Interview With Chris Gore of Film Threat and Gemr.com (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

December 05, 2017/ SaraJean Greenaway

Written by SaraJean Greenaway

This interview took place on June 4, 2017 at Phoenix Comic Con.

Chris Gore at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)

I was lucky enough to catch up with Chris Gore this year at Phoenix Comic Con 2017 for a follow up to last year’s interview. This man stays just as busy at a convention as he does in his everyday life! By the time I caught up with him on Sunday he had already been a part of 3 panels, one of those being the Film Threat Podcast - which I was able to attend this year. Chris had an all-star panel joining him that night featuring Jon Schnepp (Collider Heroes), T.J. Chambers (Cosplay Melee), Tommy Bechtold (The Middle), and comedian Paul Goebel (Beat the Geeks). Current events in the film industry were discussed and Chris Gore did a ‘rapid fire DVDuesday’ in honor of the five year anniversary of Attack of the Show going off the air. Then the guys discussed terrible movies as Chris handed out DVD’s of bad movies to random audience participants. Later, each panel member recommended a ‘must see movie that nobody’s ever seen.’ Click the link to listen to any of the free Film Threat Podcasts, including the one I saw (episode 18). The next day I was able to sit down and catch up with Chris to see how the past year has treated him.

SaraJean Greenaway: So I wanted to follow up with you and see how things are going. I can see from your table you have a new website or app that you are here promoting.

Chris Gore: Well there are two things: first of all, Film Threat re-launched since we last spoke, and second I was hired recently as the Chief Evangelist for a company called gemr.com. It's a website for collectors and it allows you to document your collection of things, share them with other people, discuss them with other people, and if you want to buy and sell stuff you can buy and sell stuff too. It's kind of like Facebook meets eBay.

Gemr.com flyers at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

SJG: How did gemr.com get in contact with you?

CG: The CEO of the company is a guy named Tom Bennett. He had created this documentary and wanted to get my advice on it. I'll get all kinds of people and filmmakers who want to ask me questions about that. But his day job is the CEO of Gemr. So he says, ‘Hey, do you think you would be interested in doing some consulting work for us or maybe giving us advice?’ and I said ‘Advice? I want to work for you! I want this to be my job. I want to work on a website where we're talking about toys all day and collecting Funko Pops and Star Trek and vintage cameras. And do you mean I get to hang out with nerdy people, and talk about nerdy things all day, and tell other people how cool it is?’ That's the job I wanted. Film Threat is my passion because I love telling people about weird movies you would never know about unless you spoke to me. Film Threat’s purpose is to suck the air out of the blowhards in Hollywood and bring them down to size while simultaneously letting you know about cool films and filmmakers you would never know about if you didn't read Film Threat. It’s about helping smaller independent filmmakers while throwing darts at targets in Hollywood. And I love doing that, but Film Threat is not the breadth of my whole interest. I also love coming to Comic Cons. I like coming to Comic Cons more than I like going to film festivals. I think there's definitely just a more creative vibe in terms of just sharing resources and whatnot and I love it. So Gemr sort of fulfills the nerd part of me that's into collecting and Film Threat is sort of the pop-culture and film aspect of me. So I am very fortunate to have a day job that is also a passion

A table full of gemr.com flyers at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

SJG: That all sounds very cool! And you can actually sell your things on gemr.com too?

CG: You can sell things too. You can put stuff up from your collection and offer it for sale. I am someone who used to love eBay but it has since become so complicated that it's more for the professional seller. I am not a professional seller. Every once in a while I want to get rid of some things but I don't want to professionally sell things, I'm not a pro. So for me it's become overly complicated and too difficult to deal with. So this is really a collector community where you would be dealing with people who are also collectors.

SJG: What kind of collections can be tracked there?

CG: Absolutely anything. Vintage cameras, antiques, Star Trek collectibles, vintage Star Wars toys; you name it. If you collect it, you can find the club of other people who also collect it at gemr.com. So this is really a collector community we are dealing with, people who are all also collectors.

SJG: What do you collect?

CG: I've been a long-time collector, the first thing I started collecting when I was a kid was movie ticket stubs. I mean I collected comics right? Everyone bought comics and collected them, but after I saw the original Star Wars in 1977 I saved my ticket stub from going to see it. Since then I have saved every ticket stub for every movie I have seen, every concert I have ever been to, every event I have ever gone to that has a badge. Whether it's a film festival, or a comic con or E3, the Consumer Electronics Show; all of my badges from those events get put in the binders. Well, some of them are in binders and some of them are in bags. But it's interesting because you can see the history of the tickets, right? First there were these little cheesy ticket stubs; then they were the heat-sensitive tickets and now they are the ones that we print out as PDF's. But if I have the option to have physical tickets I will always pick that. I never get the PDF that you can print out because that doesn't create a memory. So one of the things I want to eventually do with my stubs is there's a coffee table you can get at Ikea with a glass top and I want to put my ticket stubs in there so you can see them. When I am at a convention like this, I always say I'm looking for the one thing that I must have but I don't need. Gemr.com is for that kind of collector. So Gemr.com is a great way to find people who are into the same things as you, this is a way to connect with those people. I'm lucky because I am a collector and I'm into collecting, so it's the perfect job for me.

Celebrities Poop and Film Threat stuff from Chris Gore at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Chris Gore at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)

SJG: Well it must have been a pretty cool job working at Attack Of the Show as well.

CG: That was a fun job too. But that type of job (TV hosting) has kind of gone away. It's more migrated to YouTube, which I think is really interesting. On YouTube now a lot of the people seem to be inspired by Attack of the Show. Because on AOTS, we were all people who were experts in our own thing. Now you have a lot of people talking about movies on YouTube; we have a lot of people talking about video games and gaming on YouTube. I think AOTS showed people that they don't need to be a professional TV host, you just need to be passionate about your thing. So there's a bunch of people I watch on YouTube who talk about movies. A couple of my favorites are Alachia Queen is amazing, when it comes to comic books comicbookgirl19, and then also my friend Jon Schnepp who does Collider Heroes. John is not like a traditional TV host, he's just really passionate about things that are nerdy. I think Attack of the Show just showed people what they could do. When the show started in 2005, YouTube wasn't particularly sophisticated and was just about funny cat videos. Now it's all shows produced just for YouTube, and on a model that allows for people to make a living. You should checkout comicbookgirl19, Jon Schnepp, Alachia Queen, Jenny Nicholson and RedLetterMedia. I think Attack of the Show just showed people that we can get together with a camera, and talk about the stuff that we're passionate about. We don't really need Attack Of the Show anymore because YouTube replaced it in when AOTS went away in 2012. This is the 5 year anniversary of that, and I keep getting approached by fans of the show asking if there is going to be a five-year reunion. I don't think there will be. The only person who could put it together is maybe Kevin Pereira but I think there are certain people who wouldn't want to participate

Paul Goebel, T.J. Chambers, Tommy Bechtold, Jon Schnepp, and Chris Gore in the Film Threat panel at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1) — **Paul Goebel, T.J. Chambers, Tommy Bechtold, Jon Schnepp, and Chris Gore in the Film Threat panel at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)**

SJG: We can at least hope he tries (Chris laughs). Anyway gemr.com is now your day job but how are the Film Threat movie and website doing these days?

CG: So the website (filmthreat.com) finally relaunched. We fulfilled the Kickstarter rewards, which is way more difficult than one would think. The thing is, and everyone always makes this mistake, never underestimate the cost of postage. Postage is way more expensive than you would think. But I feel really good that the site is up and running. There are still some random Kickstarter rewards that are not fulfilled yet but it's things like people who paid to appear as a guest on the podcast, or other stuff like that, so that will happen throughout the year. We're still working on the app; we're trying to get the mobile version going. There's all sorts of little improvements to the site being made, it's updated daily and the Film Threat podcast is out every week. It was on Thursday, but we're switching it to Friday's. We did the live version here in Phoenix last night.

Now, the Film Threat documentary is going to take a couple years to get out for a number of reasons. First, we keep uncovering more footage from the time. Second, we need to have some kind of budget - because it's a 90s period piece, so we want to have music from the 90s in the film. When I say music from the 90s - if you recall - early 90s music with shit. It was boy bands and sugar pop garbage that I hated. We want more like Nirvana and the indie rock that all of us with the Film Threat staff were into, so we need money for that. Also, we're trying to coordinate the documentary and two books coming out all in the same year. It's looking like 2019 or 2020 is when all three will be out.

Chris Gore poses at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (3)

Film Threat t-shirts and stickers at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

SJG: There are two new books coming out as well?

CG: Yes. There's a book that I'm writing, which is called Film Threat Sucks. It’s a first-person account of doing Film Threat from my point of view. Then there will be a second book written by Robert St. Mary, an author from Detroit. He is doing a book called The Worst of Film Threat. The Worst of Film Threat will be a coffee table book that is going to have reprints of some articles and all the art from Film Threat. It will also have unpublished articles, material, and photos from behind the scenes. It will have interviews from anyone and everyone who had something to do with film threat history. It will be a whole telling of the history from multiple points of view, and it will be mostly photo based. So you will have your coffee table book, my book and then the documentary. For the documentary - it's too early to say anything - but we have some big filmmakers that want to be a part of it. I think in a month or two I will be able to announce who. For now, with the money that we got from the Kickstarter we did, we got our first round of interviews with people. We interviewed most of the people from the old days of Film Threat, like the early days. Then we talked to Todd Phillips, the director of The Hangover films. He started the New York Underground Film Festival and we (Film Threat) distributed The Best Of the New York Underground Film Festival on VHS back in the day. We distributed a bunch of Todd Phillips' old films that he made early on, before his Road Trip/Hangover days, so he's a part of Film Threat’s history. We really wanted this to be encyclopedic and I guess that's why it's taking so long, but the status of the doc is that it's in production thanks to the people on Kickstarter. So, thank you all.

SJG: That all sounds pretty fascinating. I will admit I'm kind of intrigued by the coffee table book. I love looking through stuff like that.

CG: Robert did a similar book before. He did a book called The Orbit Anthology. Orbit was this underground zine. It was one of those free giveaways in Detroit. In LA it's the LA weekly, in Denver its the Westword. I'm sure Phoenix has one too. It's a free weekly that's underground, that has like sex ads in the back of it and ads for local businesses. They’re always very local based. But this magazine from Detroit was created by a guy named Jerry Vile. We worked together, that was like my first professional job writing for a magazine called Fun. Then from that he spun off Orbit. So I am in this book, this coffee table book about Orbit. Quentin Tarantino liked it and wore a t-shirt of the Orbit character in Pulp Fiction. There's all this weird history and Robert created this book around that history. When I saw it I said ‘Oh my God, I wish Film Threat had something like that, a coffee table book like this,’ and Robert said ‘Okay, let me write it’. I don't want to say it was as simple as that, but it was kind of as simple as that.

SJG: So it sounds like you've been keeping yourself very busy with all of this.

CG: Oh yeah. I like my day job and I don't mean ‘day job’ derisively like people say ‘my ex-wife’ or ‘my day job’. It's not like that at all. The stuff I'm doing with gemr.com is awesome. It's very creative. I'm doing a whole bunch of marketing initiatives that are fun.

Paul Goebel, T.J. Chambers, Tommy Bechtold, Jon Schnepp, and Chris Gore in the Film Threat panel at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2) — **Paul Goebel, T.J. Chambers, Tommy Bechtold, Jon Schnepp, and Chris Gore in the Film Threat panel at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)**

Paul Goebel, T.J. Chambers, Tommy Bechtold, Jon Schnepp, and Chris Gore in the Film Threat panel at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (3) — **Paul Goebel, T.J. Chambers, Tommy Bechtold, Jon Schnepp, and Chris Gore in the Film Threat panel at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (3)**

SJG: Where can people reach out to you or where can people find you online?

CG: Just Google me (Chris Gore) or ThatChrisGore and you'll find me on everything. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. That's also a cool thing about gemr.com, though. You can actually follow people on gemr. So if you follow me on gemr.com - I am ThatChrisGore on gemr - and if you follow me on gemr you can see my collections of stuff so you'll see my vintage camera collection, my collection of Star Wars stuff, Batman stuff and the cosplay stuff. I make cosplay stuff and then also just weird DIY projects.

SJG: I will be interested to see what stuff you have. I can't believe you have any time to upload anything at all to gemr with all this other stuff you were working on.

CG: I like to make it seem like a lot but really I am just consistent. I work on stuff a little bit at a time every day and eventually I'll finish a thing. I tell people who ask me ‘How do you write a book?’, I don't know, just write a thousand words a day for about 2 or 3 months and then you'll have a book. The average book is 60,000 words. Books - like those digital books on Amazon - some of those are only twenty or thirty thousand words, so they're not that long. But it's all about being consistent. I create a really long and detailed outline. My outlines are generally 15 to 30 pages and sometimes more. Then I will just say, this sentence represents 500 hundred words - and I'll write that. Then the next day I will write the next one. So really it's just consistency. There's this really good app, it's called Grammarly and it's a desktop application that you install. It will keep track of how many words you write on a weekly basis. I was finding out that just with Facebook posts, emails, chat and articles I had written I was writing 50 to 70,000 words on my computer on a weekly basis. So it's just about being consistent and persistent. Do it and you will achieve your dreams.

Encouraged by Chris, we created an account on Gemr.com and entered some of our private collection. You can see what we've got and follow us at norrinradd on gemr.

Chris Gore at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (4)

Chris Gore at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. ()

December 01, 2017

An Interview With Phil Buck of Buy Indie Comics Day (BICD 2017)

December 01, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At my home in Denver I had the chance to sit down and talk with Phil Buck of Nematode Records about starting a movement with Buy Indie Comic Day. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 7/30/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

August 5th, 2017 will be the 3rd annual Buy Indie Comics Day — a day set aside to celebrate everything independent that comic books have to offer. I personally love all of the variety in style and flavor that can be had from indie comics, but I had never heard of BICD before. I recently had the chance to sit down and talk with Phil Buck, one of the creators behind the Buy Indie Comics Day movement. We discussed the origins of the day, the changing perception of comic books in the public eye, and what interested comic shops and creators can do to get involved.

Neil Greenaway: How did the idea for Buy Indie Comic Day come about? What started it for you?

Phil Buck: For me — because there are two other guys that are involved, and they came to it in two different ways — but for me it started with Free Comic Book Day 2014. There’s always a lot of hype for that. After it was over in 2014 I thought, how cool would it be if we could have some sort of initiative for indie comics? All of that energy and money, frankly, that ends up going into Free Comic Book Day — what if we could siphon a little bit more of that in the direction of indie comic creators? It was the same weekend as FCBD 2014, and I just took the logo — kind of as a joke — I took the logo and I put an indie spin on it. Free Comic Book Day turned into Buy Indie Comic Day.

I posted it for my own comic book (Those Shadow People) Facebook page, and it just went super viral. Beyond anything that I would ever have expected. I mean hundreds of shares. I would check on it every now and again there would be several hundred more shares again. It was clear to me that tons of indie creators love this idea. Lots of people talked about “When should we do it? What day should it be?” At that point I had put it out there, but I didn’t know what to do with it. Actually, that’s how I came back into this.

An artist named Manuel Carmona found the logo the next year, and he made a BICD Facebook page, put up the logo, and decided on the first Saturday in August. Then he started promoting it, and when I saw the page being spread around again I said, “Oh, this is my logo. This is my idea, let me get back in on this with you.” So he and I and a third person named Carmelo Chimera, all of us came together to kind of give an initiative to indie comic creators. To see people come together on this day and see what we can do.

NG: At this point, you are really looking for more comic shops or creators who would be willing to participate in Buy Indie Comics Day and help get the word out, right?

PB: Yes. I would definitely call it an awareness campaign. There is no major infrastructure behind this yet. We have created graphics that everyone can use and we are trying to be a hub for information about BICD, but yeah, at this point it’s mainly about trying to get the idea out there. In particular to the local comic shops that would want to do events, but also for any creators that would want to do something on this date. We just need to get the idea out there further.

NG: Do you feel that there is an inequity between the coverage given to the Big Two versus what is given to indie comics? (or the big four, or big seven, however many count as big these days) Do you feel the need to have this push to have a day just for indie comics?

PB: That is a really good question, and I was thinking about this the other day. And I thought about how people try to consider comics a competition between the Big Two and everybody else, but really it’s just entertainment. Everybody is just trying to come up with an idea that will hook you enough to give them a dollar. We’re all doing the same thing, so I do think that you should do what you can to help your creation stand out.

In this superhero/comic book fatigued era that we’re reaching — with comic book movies being so huge — I think it’s worth it for the folks that are making new and interesting independent comics to try to get themselves out there. They should differentiate themselves a little bit because the Big Two aren’t going anywhere. But there are a ton of smaller press publishers that are trying to break out, and there is a lot to be gained by supporting those. I think if we all band together and just say, “This is a day for the indie books,” we can make it into the mainstream consciousness. That is something that I think FCBD has had huge success with.

I have noticed that even people who don’t collect comic books regularly still know about Free Comic Book Day. Folks that I know that don’t collect comic books will turn to me (because they know I’m a comic book fan) and ask if I know about the free books. How cool would it be if we could break through to the part of the world that doesn’t pay attention day in and day out like we do? We look at indie comics all day everyday, but there’s a ton of people that don’t. If you could just get them to see for one day a year that all these people are making their own comics. That it runs the gamut as far as genres and art styles. If we could draw a little more attention to that, I think we would all gain a lot.

NG: You touched briefly on how comic book based movies have become the big thing. It seems these days that — largely because of the movies — even people who have never read a comic have at least a base understanding of the Marvel and DC Heroes. Do you think that with comics breaking into the general zeitgeist that the time is right for more indie creators to be discovered? Do you think the public is ready to move beyond the Big Two and see some of the deeper things that are there?

PB: I’ll just say “I hope so.” That is some of my thinking behind this whole initiative in the first place. Yes, the public is really primed to pay attention. But it’s hard because there are so many indie books out there. I think most people gravitate toward the superheroes, but there’s so much sci-fi and fantasy and just everything in comics. People are now primed in so many ways to give that stuff a chance in their realm of entertainment. Indies now have a better chance than ever to showcase what they offer. Now you have this chance to not only be seen, but maybe actually gain some real fans in people that are tired of what has become so popular. I know so many people that are saying, “I’m so over you know superheroes,” or “So over this particular type of sci-fi.” We want to see something that’s new and interesting. That’s where indie comics are right now. They’re taking unique and not-played-out ideas every day of the week and they’re putting them into comics.

NG: This year after FCBD, I remember thinking how cool it was to hear two non-comic collectors discussing the World’s Greatest Cartoonists book from Fantagraphics. Only a few years ago, a book like that might have even escaped the notice of people who frequent their local comic shops.

PB: That’s a good sign to me because I know so many people are coming around. Free Comic Book Day is really not about free comics when you get down to it. The idea is to get people to rally to their comic book shops. Just like Record Store Day is about support of your local record store. Its the brilliant idea of people banding together to give the public a reason to support their art. FCBD is not necessarily just about getting free comics, its also about getting people to spend money at the comic shop as well. I want there to be a day where you can say, “I know that my buddy makes a comic, I’ve never read it. This weekend is the day for indie comics.” And then you go spend five or ten bucks on his Kickstarter or something. That’s how my thinking started for all this.

NG: It is a sad story that gets told a lot in the comics industry — that friends and family can be counted on for a lot of support, but usually do not actually buy the books. It would be great if you could get the people who are already aware of creators to buy the books that you know are there, even if it didn’t mean going to a comic shop. Everyone knows someone who is selling their book on Facebook, or Instagram, or somebody who’s got a Kickstarter or a Patreon.

PB: Totally! That was my thinking when I originally came up with this. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to commit to anything bigger than “this is a great idea, let’s see where it goes.” I thought that if it got out there it’s easy enough for anybody — even other creators. We put so much time and work into our own books, but it helps so much as a creator to turn to your other buddy that’s a creator and just support them. Buy a $5 comic book or put in a $10 pledge to their Kickstarter. It would be cool if we could turn this into a day that prompts you into action on something you always would have done — if somebody had just given you the right push.

I know so many people that went into a comic shop for the free comics and found a $30 trade that they like. You can spend half of that on any indie creator and make their whole week. As much as I would love to see more Buy Indie Comics Day events in stores, because events are so essential to spreading the word, this is about supporting the creators. You don’t even have to get out of your pajamas to go online and show support.

NG: If there were retailers or creators reading this who wanted to be a part of Buy Indie Comics Day, how would they contact you? How do people get involved?

PB: We use pretty much every social media outlet, but I’d say we’re most active on Facebook. We’re also on Twitter, and we have a website. It is a little bit barren at this point, so I would encourage most people to go through Facebook if they want to talk to us. If they need help with any resources, myself Manuel and Carmelo are all pretty active in different shifts. We just volunteer, so we get back to you as fast as we can. If there is any information that people need, we want to provide it. If you are reading this as an indie creator, please use one of the graphics we provide for free and put it out there with your project. If you are a retailer, it may be too late to plan an event for this year (and it may not be, depending) but at least consider adding a sign on a table highlighting some of the local independent work being done.

December 01, 2017

An Interview With Robin & Cory Childs of LeyLines and Wavemen (Denver Comic Con 2017)

December 01, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Robin & Cory Childs of LeyLines about their take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 7/04/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Robin and Cory Childs at Denver Comic Con 2017. (1)

Robin and Cory Childs have been fixtures on the Colorado convention circuit for years. Watching their web comic LeyLines transform into a series of graphic novels has not been a long ride at all. I saw the pair at Denver Comic Con 2017 with the recently released fourth volume of LeyLines and the first volume of a new series, called Wavemen. The time seemed right, so I sat down to talk with them about where the story came from, where it’s going, and how the couple work so well together.

Neil Greenaway: I am standing here with Robin and Cory Childs talking about their series LeyLines. Can you start by bringing our readers up to speed on what the series is about?

Robin Childs: Absolutely! LeyLines is the story of three siblings who are on the run from a conspiracy that claimed their mother’s life. In the process of fleeing their assassins and the machinations of those that would harm them, they wind up stumbling onto the schemes of the Gods themselves. Ultimately they will be forced to choose between their future and their family. There is a lot of mystery and mysticism and magic, but ultimately it is about who you are and who you choose to become.

NG: How many books into the series are you now?

Robin: We are four books in now. We just released volume four this year. The story also continues online, so there is always a portion of it that is ahead of what’s printed. But the books come with all sorts of little extras for those world-building people who love that nitty-gritty stuff.

NG: So you put this out as a graphic novel, and you’ve said that it was released as a web comic as well. Have you ever considered printing some traditional single issues?

Robin: Actually we have a new series (called Wavemen) that we are approaching from the single-issue perspective. Where LeyLines is content online first and then in book format, Wavemen will be done in sort of the reverse of that — with single issue individual episodes. We’re building it like a TV series, where there is a continuing story, but you can enjoy each individual piece on its own as a stand-alone story.

NG: Does Wavemen tie into the LeyLines story at all, or is it in a separate universe?

Robin: They are each in their own separate universe. I will actually let Cory tell you a little more about that, because he is definitely the head honcho on that project.

Cory Childs: Wavemen is a project I’ve been working on for quite a while now. I think I had the original idea back in 2008. My folks originally came from Hawaii, so I grew up with a lot of eastern fairy tales, mainly Japanese. I was on the trip back home visiting my grandparents. We were taking a drive in the countryside, and I was remembering all of those stories that I grew up with. I thought, what if all of these legends that I grew up with were on a team and they fought supernatural crime? That was where this story was born, but it has been through a million iterations. Then two years ago at this show, Denver Comic Con 2015, we met a man named Jonas Goonface who ended up being our first artist on the project. From there it really took off, and it has come into its own since then.

Robin: Jonas is actually working on a new project right now for Boom! Studios called Godshaper, and I highly recommend that everyone go check that out.

LeyLines books at Denver Comic COn 2017.

NG: You have said that you both work on LeyLines. What is the division of work on that?

Robin: Cory is my editor. I am the writer and the illustrator, but occasionally I will write myself into a corner. I go to him saying “Help,” and he figures out what to do. Also I am a very verbose writer, and getting a page down to the minimum amount of dialogue needed is a specialty of Cory’s. So I will ask him to take the “red pen of death” to my scripts.

Cory: Yeah, I do a lot of content editing, rather than things like punctuation. My specialty is really just focusing the story. It’s really easy to let a tale get away from somebody and sometimes complexity is confused for a compelling story. It’s my job to re-focus and make sure that the big thing we want to communicate in the story is the thing that comes across. So that is primarily my function in LeyLines. We joke around that I’m the editor so if anything is wrong it is clearly my fault. That is kind of how we let people know what we do on the project. But Robin is the driving force behind it. It’s her brainchild. It’s something she has always taken point on both in terms of the art direction as well as the storytelling and writing.

NG: Cory has given me a little background on where Wavemen comes from; where did the story of LeyLines come from?

Robin: Oh man. There are so many different influences for it. I view LeyLines as the project where I finally admitted to myself that comics were something that was a passion of mine. I had been doing comics before that starting when I was 15. I worked on a project for eight years and finished it after 800 pages, but I came from a family where my dad was an engineer, therefore I was supposed to be one too. I really repressed any sense of passion, any sense of what I care about. So if you had asked me “Is this something you want to do?”, I would say “Oh no, this is just a hobby.” Well, I finished that “just a hobby” project and said, OK, now I can get to my real life and get a real job. About two weeks later I felt like I was just drowning. I realized at that point that this wasn’t just a hobby. This was something I always cared about, was always passionate about, and I was going to be doing comics for the rest of my life. That is when I started LeyLines; that’s when I started my own company with Cory.

LeyLines at its core is “could you choose between your future and your family?” There’s a reason that’s the core of that story, because I had to make that choice, and it’s not an easy choice. It’s a complicated one. How you define family and how you define your own future varies drastically from person to person. That is my way with every character — exploring different ways to view what it means. Can you balance that question, is there a way to have both or is it truly a binary? That is the personal background for it.

Inspiration wise, I love mythology and history and I’m just always consuming more. All of that stuff just sneaks in there and people will ask “Is this based on Mayan, is this based on Japanese?” I say, “I studied that at some point, so I am sure that it’s in there somewhere. Whereas with Wavemen I do a ton of research to make it period accurate. We don’t use myths that don’t have their origins around that time or before or it can’t justifiably be said to possibly have existed at that time period. We are incorporating real historical figures into the story. If you have studied history, there are spoilers, but we chose an era that is not explored that often. So I think that will help people discover all this amazing history we have learned as we work on this project.

Cory: Yeah. Wavemen is something we have set in Japan. The year the first episode takes place in is 884. Most people are very familiar with the warring state periods, where there were a lot of Samurai fighting each other. This takes place about 800 years before that. This era is really defined by its peace, by its cultural growth, and as a result a lot of the mythology that we are delving into got its origin in this period. For us its really cool to have these historical figures and these mythological figures living side by side, affecting each other. The supernatural world having an impact on real history and history having an impact on the supernatural world. That is one of the big things we wanted to explore with this series.

Wavemen comics and prints at Denver Comic Con 2017.

NG: If you are writing that one, Cory, do you have any part in that Robin? Are you the artist?

Robin: I am not the artist, I am the co-writer. It took us five years. The only thing we ever fight about in our marriage is writing, because we have such drastically different styles that we would butt heads constantly. But after five years of trying, we finally figured out how to work together as a team. I think we make some of our best work as a result because where I’m strong he’s weak, and where he is strong I am weak so we have learned to just hand it over to the other one and say this is your thing, go make magic and then we will workshop it afterwards.

I also kind of take on the role of director because the artist will send me back their thumbnails, and I will take that and say “OK, like this, don’t like that, change that, flip that, try this angle.” I’ve built so many 3D models in Google SketchUp! It’s funny because half the time I don’t know that I (as an artist) could do what I am asking them to do and I might have to scale it back. Then there is always silence for a day and then they come back and they have made something that is just jaw dropping and gorgeous.

Cory: That has really been the theme of this project: challenge. It’s something that we have really pressed for in ourselves in the writing and definitely something that we were asking our artists to step up to the plate for and they have delivered.

Robin: Jonas Goonface has always been amazing. He was the first one to sign on to the project. Jackarais of Bicycle Boy, too. The detail he puts into every page is just stunning.

NG: Will he be the artist on the second story?

Robin: One of the things we want to do is actually work with different teams. I would love to work with him again, but I think for our next project we might try to see if we can get another set of artists. When we started this project our favorite comic of all time was Lucifer from Vertigo and Lucifer had a different set of artists for different arcs and it felt like they always paired just the right artist for that particular piece. We kind of thought that was a really neat idea and we wanted to bring that energy to it. That’s part of why the first issue has both the artists working on it.

Joel Mercer is the third one because we wanted people to get used to seeing different art, so that it wasn’t shocking. People get really set, when it comes to artists on books. But if you introduce that concept early it sort of says “This is what’s normal, so chill.” We are always going to make sure the quality and the skill level is high. I’m always going to challenge artists to do well and their best work but we want them to bring their own spirit, their own voice to the project.

I think part of the fun is we have an idea in ours heads of what it should look like and then you get back something that is totally different. Or the artist will think that pacing wise we might benefit from and extra page here or a little chunk here. We will actually edit and change the script based on their notes and suggestions. Or there will be little details. I know this is really small, but there is a sandal that one the characters wears. They are grabbed and flung across the room and a sandal comes off in one of the images and Jackarais kept that sandal consistent as it appears over and over. It’s just a tiny little detail, but it’s the consistency like that that just really makes it feel so real. It sounds so silly to say out loud, but I love that sandal.

LeyLines: Touched By The Gods, a short story collection.

NG: Now you had said that LeyLines was released as a web comic, is there a date yet for releasing Wavemen as a web comic?

Cory: We originally released LeyLines as a web comic and it is still continuing as a web comic. You can find that at LeyLinescomic.com. As for Wavemen we are still a little bit in limbo. It was originally decided to be a web comic, but right now we are seeing where the project will go and what it wants to be before we release it. I think it will probably still be a web comic, but I would like to get a leg up on episode two before we really pin down an initial offering for it.

When we originally designed this project, I wanted a full episode out online ready to go before we even started with a second episode so you have a story, you have an arc ready to go. You can enjoy that fully before you come to the end of the archive. So now we’ve got episode one done. Episode two is written, we just have to line up that art and work with the people who will bring the best tone to the project. As soon as we do that, we will decide where it’s going to go.

NG: With LeyLines, how often do you guys come out with a new book?

Cory: We try to do one once every year. The first one was 120 pages of full color and the second book is about 20 pages longer.

Robin: I am actually thinking about making bigger more omnibus style books because one of the things we are running into is this series could easily be 10 books long. That’s a lot of books to haul around to shows. So if I made thicker books people could get more satisfying chunks, which might be a direction I move. It’s one of those things where you are constantly learning, constantly changing and trying new things and you just learn as you go. Hindsight is 20/20.

The Wavemen table at Denver Comic Con 2017.

NG: I think that wraps up my questions except for this last one. We know about LeyLinescomics.com where else can people find your work online? Where can they see what’s going on?

Robin: So if you’re on social media you can follow me on Twitter @robinoflaylines. I love Twitter — it’s probably the place I am most active because I love to talk and it forces me to get it done in 140 characters, so it’s a great writing exercise for me. I’m on Facebook, I’m on YouTube, I actually do weekly vlogs on Patreon. Then we also have mokopress.com; it is kind of our central hub. We have a link to the story there and a link to my other services too, because I do commission work, I do editing. I think that is everything.

December 01, 2017

An Interview With Jake Roth of Art and Home Life (Denver Comic Con 2017)

December 01, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Jake Roth of Art And Home Life about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 7/04/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Jake Roth does not write a superhero comic, nor do his books rely on the gritty pulse of a big city street. Instead, his comics tend to center around the small town of Bakerstown and feature the trials and tribulations of the people who live there. Citing old Dick Tracy comics as an inspiration, his characters have names like Reed Porter (the journalist), Lou Chadore (the retired wrestler), and Phil M. Griffey (the photographer). His charming art style lends itself easily to the small town aesthetic that he aims for. That art style, combined with a shared cast of characters through all of his books, make Bakerstown feel like a place we have all visited before.

Neil Greenaway: You have a new book out for DCC 2017: the second issue of Art And Home Life. Can you tell our readers a little bit about the series?

Jake Roth: Well, number two is the Christmas issue. I end up doing just as many Christmas comics as anything else. I’m trying to switch the balance away from that but we’ll get there. This particular series is about a photographer and his family. I have done it in like a daily diary comic style. I am just trying to show the balance between trying to be an artist, trying to work, and trying to be home for your family and stuff, too.

NG: And you said that parts of it were inspired by your own use of a Polaroid camera, right?

JR: Yeah. My parents did not know what to get me for my birthday last year. I wanted a Polaroid camera and they said “You’re not going to use that,” but I finally talked them into it. It was that or nothing. Now I just walk around my neighborhood taking pictures of fire hydrants, or that mailbox might look interesting. Right now I’m doing a lot of street signs, like if I find something where it’s “Speed Limit 12”. I’m trying to collect all the numbers.

NG: Are you able to still find Polaroid film?

JR: It’s expensive. Oh, man. The one I have is actually like an off-brand because it’s cheaper, it’s a smaller picture. But the actual Polaroid film, at the low end you are talking $4 a shot now. The film I use is like $1 a shot so I can be experimental with it, but I’m still kind of careful, too.

NG: Tell me about your other book here, the Good Reception Coloring Book.

JR: When I draw I’m very fond of old radios shows for background noise. I listen to a lot of old westerns and mystery shows. It started out I just wanted to draw a couple people recording an old western. Then it turned into a coloring book about all aspects of the radio, whether it was like the morning traffic report or people just dancing in the twilight to whatever is on.

Coloring books were pretty popular last year when I started on the book. When Denver Comic Con 2016 came around, I thought “This is my ticket to stardom! Finally I am riding a trend. I have never been in time before.” [Laughs] And it wasn’t my ticket to stardom, I’m still here. But it was the ticket to meeting people at the shows. When they see it, they tell me really interesting things about radio stations where they are from. Or radio memories they have from growing up. That has been worth it. It’s just interesting.

I was talking to this guy at Zine Fest recently. He told me that he grew up in Olympia, Washington and they had this station called “WBRD The Bird”, and there was this parrot that would be on in the booth with the DJ. So he’d be playing some old jazz record and if the parrot started making too much noise, like squawking, that meant it didn’t like the record. They would cut it and switch to the next one, and that’s gonna ruin payola for sure. But hearing things like that has been super interesting. That has been the payoff for that project. I’m proud of it. It’s the biggest book in size that I have done. Because it was a coloring book I tried to do a lot of different textures and different angles to make it interesting. So it was a challenge, too.

Lou Chadore in The Old Stompin' Grounds by Jake Roth.

The Turbo Collins Interview by Jake Roth.

NG: Have you seen any of the colored results?

JR: A little bit. There was one page in there, I had an example book out at Comic Con last year and I had a box of colored pencils and a sign that said “Try me”. People would stop by and pick a picture and color for a while. There is one character that I do plan to make a book about. I haven’t done it yet. Her name is Madison and she’s just some indie rock chick, she will have an album out and that’s her thing. But these people started coloring her, and they were doing it wrong! She’s not supposed to be blonde, they made her blonde. Her shirt is supposed to be red, but they made it pink. They didn’t know. Why would they? But for about 10 seconds, that was really bugging me. This is something I need to learn to let go of. As soon as I thought about that, I did let it go — and yeah, it looked good.

There was also this other probably 12- or 13-year-old girl that I remember. It was opened to a blank page that hadn’t been colored in, and she was just staring at it for a while. I said “It’s OK, you can color it if you want to,” and she just grabbed a pencil and she just looked at me with hate in her eyes. I don’t know if you watch wrestling, but they often show this little girl who reacted when the Miz won the belt. She has this evil eye, and it was that face! Every time I see the Miz clip I think of this girl. But she just took a pencil like you would take a shiv and in this grand violent sweeping motion she stabbed at the book, but she didn’t actually mark the page. I wish she would have. It would help the story, or provide evidence, I guess [laughs]. She just sort of swept at it, then threw the pencil down and walked off. It was weird.

Enamel pins from Jake Roth at Denver Comic Con 2017.

NG: Also you have a new enamel pin out, and I understand that it may turn into a line of pins. Can you tell me about that?

JR: That’s me riding trends again. One of my favorite things to draw in comics is city scenes. I like to do a lot of buildings where I show a lot of houses and a lot of trees. I always go for this medium-small town vibe and architecture is a great way to do that. I really like to show things in the windows. Lava lamps are a favorite of mine. I also like to put cats in windows, so the first enamel pin I made is of the window with a cat in it. I figured that had more appeal than a lava lamp. Maybe not as much as the Grateful Dead poster I was also thinking about.

If they work and it goes well, I’d like to do a couple more. I have plans for doing other windows to kind of represent my comics more fully. Do the lava lamp, do the air conditioner, bookstore window, café window, and things that sort of speak to my art. And if they really really take off and I get a few of them going, and they are moving well — I’d like to do a sweatshirt that has the city printed on it with kind of a space for each of the windows; like cat goes here, bookstore goes here. That’s a small dream, I admit, but it is a dream.

Books from Jake Roth at Denver Comic Con 2017.

NG: One last question for you: if people want to see more of you or your books online, where would they go?

JR: Instagram is the best place. That’s the one I update most frequently. It’s @bakerstowncomics, and I have a Big Cartel webstore set up, which is linked to me on Instagram also: Bakerstowncomics.

December 01, 2017

An Interview With Dan Conner of Crazy Good Comics (Denver Comic Con 2017)

December 01, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Denver Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Dan Conner of My Gal the Zombie about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 7/04/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Dan Conner at Denver Comic Con 2017. (1)

My Gal The Zombie is the story of Chelsea, an ordinary teenage girl with ordinary problems – who also happens to be a zombie. But she’s not going to let being a zombie ruin her afterlife! The creator of the series, Dan Conner, has been working professionally in the comic book field since 2002. Working primarily as a colorist (though his credits also include writing, illustrating, and editing), he has done projects for Antarctic Press, Lamp Post Inc., American Mythology Productions and Scholastic/Graphix. I had the chance to talk with Dan at Denver Comic Con 2017. We discussed his zombie comics, his work as a colorist, his line of hot sauce, and how he came to work on an Archie Meets The Ramones cover.

Neil Greenaway: Can you start us out by letting the readers know what My Gal the Zombie is about?

Dan Conner: Definitely. I started by doing a zombie version of a character named Chelsea (from the Heaven Forbid series that I did), I did a story about her and it’s kind of ballooned from there. It’s about a young lady – around 19 years old – who became a zombie, but didn’t want to have to give up on her friends and they were willing to stick with her. Sometimes they’re facing another monster that she can kind of stand up and defend them from, and other times they are trying to figure out what to do on Valentine’s Day.

NG: Do you release the stories as single issues or as graphic novels?

DC: The first book we did, I made mini-comics that I just printed and made at home. Then I did a graphic novel. And just over a year ago I started doing more black and white mini-comics. We did those about once a month. We are still doing them, but I think we got through about 9 issues in just under a year. Then, my friend Bob Conway (of Avanti Printing and Bubble Gum Comics) had some really good prices for printing color. I really like to do coloring so we did some stapled floppy comics in full size & in color. This is the first time I’m doing full size color floppy comics on my own and it’s going good. I like it. Then I have the new graphic novel and that’s black and white and the main reason is just economics. It’s so much cheaper.

My Gal the Zombie: The Delusional Life from Crazy Good Comics.

My Gal the Zombie: Color Catastrophy #1 from Crazy Good Comics.

NG: Can you tell me a little bit about the My Gal the Zombie show?

DC: After I started doing the comics I really wanted to do horror hosting. I had been trying to think of different ways to go about for years. So Justine McKinney reached out to me – she had backed our Kickstarter back in 2013 or so. She sent me a photo of herself in character and it was perfect. There was someone else I had been talking with, but that didn’t pan out so the timing with Justine was perfect. So we started filming. We did a holiday special for Christmas that year, 2014. Then shortly after that we heard from The Bone Jangler who does horror hosting in the Chicago area of Illinois. He said that if we did non-holiday stuff he would get it on the air. We were going to do a season or so and then try to get air time, but he offered that to us first. So we did the first season and that went pretty good. We just learned as we went. First we did some Bella Lugosi movies, then we did Frankenstein’s Daughter, Night of the Living Dead, and K. Gordon Murray’s Santa (the one where he’s fighting Satan). We hosted those movies. Then we did a Kickstarter for the 2nd season and a lot of it is filmed but we are still editing. We’ve also been on TV as well all throughout Illinois; we are on sometimes in Milwaukee right now. We’ve been on in the Denver area – that also reached Nebraska and Wyoming. Also we are on some ROKU channels and then some internet channels. A lot people have come to us and I don’t want to say that we are in demand, but the horror hosting community is really tight knit online and it’s a ton of fun. There are some channels like The Vortex or The Creepy Castle and we’ll be on those and we get rotated with other stuff. That community is really supportive. I thought we were really going to have to chase after that but people just really dig the medium.

NG: I also see that My Gal the Zombie also has a line of hot sauces, tell me how that came about.

DC: Yes we do. This is when I was going to Discover the Earth church. I was going there in Denver and I met with the pastor one morning for breakfast and he said “Hey, that guy Danny Cash who goes to the church, his store is just down the block and he does hot sauce and it’s just amazing”. So one of my first questions for him was how do you get your labels? They said they have their own graphic designers but that people could private label, a lot of restaurants do that. What I did was got him art that week so that I had some ready for Denver Comic Con 2013. I have had a Zippin’ Zombie that I have had every year. We did a Sriracha one. Then I did a habanero one after that which I called Zombanero - that was like a Cajun habanero. Then we did a pumpkin spice habanero. The Cajun and the pumpkin spice habanero are sold out. Now I just started a red habanero and that one is just called Zombanero Red. I just got those today but they are great fun and I figured at a comic convention there are some people who aren’t here for comics you know? A lot people dig them and they taste good.

Comics from Dan Conner at Denver Comic Con 2017.

More comics from Dan Conner at Denver Comic Con 2017.

Close up on some of the comics from Dan Conner at Denver Comic Con 2017.

NG: I know that you have been doing a lot of work for other publishers lately. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve been doing?

DC: So Adrian Ropp has been a pal of mine for a few years. I love the guy, he’s great. Last year – after Denver Comic Con – we were talking. He and a couple of my friends who do a lot of Archie stuff had started working on Pink Panther for American Mythology. Then I learned that they were also working on The Three Stooges. I was able to show some of my coloring stuff to them and I started on a Three Stooges election special last year. It was called Red White and Stooge. I think that I have done at least a story or colored some pages in every Three Stooges issue since that one. After I did that then I got some Pink Panther stuff and I’ve been on pretty much every Pink Panther issue since then. I did write and draw an Inspector [Clouseau] story that was in the Cartoon Hour Special and I’ve done some inking for Bill Galvan on Pink Panther. I’ve also done some inking and coloring on Underdog, I was in the FCBD issue of that. That was a ton of fun. I’ve colored one piece for Casper and that new Casper book should be coming out soon. I have done some stuff for Equilibrium and a little bit for Stargate. I have been doing a lot for them and really enjoying it. I have been trying to work for Archie for years, and you know they have a lot of great stuff they are putting out. So when this opportunity came up for Archie Meets The Ramones, I did all I could to get in on it.

NG: That’s a really cool project.

DC: Yeah it’s the best one. I was talking to everybody like, “Hey, what do you need? What can I do?” And everybody said, “Oh, it’s taken care of.” Meanwhile, shortly before it was supposed to come out, a pal of mine (Batton Lash) mentioned that he knew John Holmstrom – who founded Punk Magazine and did some early Ramones record covers among other stuff. So I friended John on Facebook and we started talking. Then a couple months later he posted that he was drawing a cover and I asked who was coloring it? Then I reached out to the store that was doing that exclusive. It’s one of the lowest prints of an Archie book ever, one of the rarest exclusive variants. It was for Main Street Comics in New York. But I got to color it and work with John Holmstrom. Working on Archie Meet the Ramones was so much fun because I love the Ramones, they are my favorite group and I really got to have fun with it.

Dan Conner at Denver Comic Con 2017. (2)

My Gal the Zombie DVDs at Denver Comic Con 2017.

NG: Moving forward, where do you see My Gal the Zombie going?

DC: I’m not sure. We are now doing these color issues. I really like color. I figure that we will keep doing those. I would love to have it out through Diamond [Distribution] and I’m always talking with different folks. The first book out was with Antarctic Press through Diamond. I would I like to see the book more widely distributed to folks but I’m happy with what it’s doing now. It has just about tapped the resources that me and Justine and Patricia can offer. So the plan is just more of the same, refining and learning what’s best. I was doing a lot of merchandise before, we had eye shadow and lip balm and hair clips. Those are all great fun but I’m just streamlining it with comics, DVDs and hot sauce.

NG: You told me a little bit about Justine, what can you tell me about the other member of your team Patricia Krmpotich?

DC: So she came on to help with the show at least two years ago. So she was helping us with production and stuff like that. Then she mentioned writing, and she was coming up with stuff while we were filming. She wrote some parts and they were really good, I thought it was as good as anything I was writing. Then she wanted to write some comics. So she has pretty much taken over writing the comic series and it’s good for me because she has a lot more ideas than I do. I wrote a lot of what I wanted to, and now I’m just letting her take the reins. Sometimes she will get someone else to draw and I will color it and then sometimes I will draw it as well, but it’s really easy when you just need to color something. I’m finding that I really like the coloring because I can let other people draw it.

My Gal the Zombie hot sauce at Denver Comic Con 2017.

Dan Conner at Denver Comic Con 2017. (3)

NG: Are you available for other coloring projects if people reach out to you?

DC: Yeah, definitely! I also do flat colors for Cleopatra in Space with Mike Maihack and Scholastic. I love that. So if anybody is interested, I pride myself in being fast, economical, and good. At the end of the day I want to be glad to have a page at my table and I want to be proud of what my name is on. Sometimes that means just spending some more time on it and I would rather do that. So please contact me at Dan@crazygoodcomics.com.

NG: Are there other places online that people might find your work if they wanted to see more?

DC: Yeah, mygalthezombie.com , Facebook, Instagram (Justine’s account) has almost 30,000 followers. She does a lot of other makeup tutorials and all sorts of things. That is also her handle on Twitter @mygalthezombiefx. I am @crazygoodconner on Instagram and Twitter. Patricia is @thexzoomxcat on Instagram and Twitter. We have a channel on YouTube. Oh and crazygoodcomics.com also.

December 01, 2017

An Interview With Daniel & Dawna Davis of Steam Crow/Monster Scouts (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

December 01, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Daniel & Dawna Davis of Steam Crow/Monster Scouts about their take on creating a new scouting organization. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/08/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Dawna Davis in the Monster Scouts Info Center at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Daniel & Dawna Davis believe in monsters. They have been creating monster themed art and apparel for the last 11 years. Over the past several years, they have also revealed (bit by bit) their world of Obscuria – the veil separating our world from the world of the monsters (Monstru). As the lore behind their world grew, so did their following. The people who wanted to know more about the hidden world of monsters transformed into the Monster Scouts. The scouts led to rallies, the rallies led to campouts, and the campouts changed the direction of Steam Crow as a company. This year, at Phoenix Comic Con 2017, I was able to sit down and talk to both Daniel and Dawna. We talked about their origins, their current projects, and what the future might hold. We also discussed their push to start a nationwide Monster Scouts initiative and how people could join the Shindigs that are already planned. At the end of this interview, I have included a photo gallery showcasing the scout parade and panel.

Neil Greenaway: To start us off, can I just get a brief history of how Steam Crow came to be? And how did it evolve into the Monster Scouts?

Daniel Davis: We attended the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con as fans

Dawna Davis: It was my very first con ever.

Daniel: I was 35. I was an artist with a really boring day job. I was a graphic designer for credit unions, so I designed websites for them. Dawna was a full-time art teacher. But it afforded us enough money to take a vacation, and we went to SDCC. Now, in my brain it was too late. I was never going to get to be an artist like I wanted, but it was still so exciting to get to go to the con and to see all the big spectacles. But better for us was getting to see all the creators, the guys who worked at Pixar and DreamWorks and Disney – because the artists that were there were concept artists, mostly. We were like “Wow, you work at Pixar?”, and they would say “Yeah, but that’s just a job. What I’m passionate about is this book I made.” That was eye-opening for us, that was really amazing that we got to meet these guys. So then Dawna says “You should do a book, you could do a haiku monster book,” and I was like “What? Really?” That’s how I remember it anyway. It was like a gift that she gave me – when she told me that – my eyes opened and I said “Yeah, let’s come back to San Diego Comic-Con next year with a table and a book!” Which is kind of audacious to say, but at Royal Thai down there in the Gaslight I started drawing some of the monsters for that book.

Dawna: We started writing, but the thing is he already had a CafePress store filled with shirts with monsters on them that all had backstories. So everything he creates always has this little backstory, to create content so people can search for and find things.

Daniel Monster Davis at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Monster Scouts poster at Phoenix Comic COn 2017.

Daniel: In reality I’m like a dungeon master, right? So everything is around this dungeon master mentality of building this world.

Dawna: He already had this world. This is how I remember it – he said to me that he wanted to be an exhibitor at San Diego the next year, and I said “Write the book.” And he said, “I don’t want to make it too long,” so I suggested a haiku book. Haiku is so concise and has such nice rules to follow. We started writing at Royal Thai. He finished it in about two months. We had a two year old at the time, so I said “You go work and I’ll take care of all of this stuff and let’s get this done.” He got it done, sent the proofs in, and it got us into WonderCon and into San Diego 2006. That started it all.

Daniel: We got into Phoenix that year as well. We got in, and WonderCon in San Francisco was our first show. The amazing point for me was that I got the most attention and praise for what I had been creating I had ever had in my whole life. In just one day of the show. It was amazing for my ego, and not in a terrible way. I just thought, wow! There’s so much energy and its exciting. Then somebody at the end of the show said this was his favorite stuff there, and it blew my mind that that would even be possible! I didn’t think anyone would ever tell me that! When I realized that, I thought, “Man, we could do this!” With that person there’s one, but there could be many. So we started being road warriors, making our own content, illustrating these worlds, and making Steam Crow.

Dawna: And we kind of fumbled through things. That first show, we did it completely wrong. It was awful but we learned quick, thankfully. We are really good at modifying and adjusting and you have to do that. Otherwise it’s just not going to work for you. We’ve been really fortunate that we have been able to innovate within ourselves and keep one step ahead. The Monster Scouts came out of that, it was really a happy accident.

Daniel: Yeah, our brand was in search of a focus.

The Monster Scouts from Steam Crow at Phoenix Comic COn 2017.

NG: How did the monster Scouts come about? I suppose it naturally lends itself to the cryptozoological aspect of your storytelling, but how did the actual meeting of people at a campsite come about?

Daniel: So sometimes you’ve got to put on the artist hat to be really creative and sometimes you have to put your business hat on, right? You kind of have to switch those back and forth. At first, it was simply to solve a business problem. After we saw the stats for people coming to our booth, we were seeing that the return rate was really low. So we had to fix this problem, but I don’t know what our brand focus is. Steam Crow is a little too vague, it’s vaguely monsters, it’s vaguely steampunk, but it isn’t really steampunk. It was a problem. So I thought, “Well, what if we made badges?” What if we made badges for people and they came to our booth? They could join our little fan club, and we called them Steam Crow Scouts. Then we had the badges, why don’t we make a bag for them? So we made a bag that they could put their badges on, hoping that if you were a Steam Crow person and you met another one at a bus stop you would go – "hey, Steam Crow" and shake hands. That was all it was going to be, this rewards program with some story behind it. But then I put on the artist hat again and I really started to cook up some fiction around it to make it interesting and cool. What happened next was people said, “That’s great. I’ll see you at the next show in my uniform.” That was not expected. What uniform? And they’re like, “My Scout uniform, dummy.” So I asked what it looked like. It was a boy scout shirt with a blue bandana. So I said, “I can’t wait to see it.” But then someone else told me the same thing, and they were doing something different. Then someone else told me. So I told everyone making a scouts uniform to stop and I made some uniform guidelines and, being a dungeon master, I made all the different kinds of Scouts. There are Monster Medics, Scare Force, Forest Rangers, all these crazy things that can never be Scouts. And 26 people showed up in uniform. What happened next was one of those Scouts said “We need to do a rally at Phoenix Comic-Con!” And I’m thinking, I don’t have time to do a rally. Why would we do a rally? But they talked us into it. That room filled with 100 people that were scouts, and we made it exciting for them. Then we made missions to go with the badges and uniforms. Then someone said, “Let’s go on camps!” And I said, "No. No, no way. We don’t camp." In the close to 20 years we’ve been together, Dawna has never said “Let’s go camping”. So I said “No, that’s a bad idea.” But it kept coming up, and we realized we had to do it. Now, if we’re going to do something we need to make it meaningful and interesting. The first one, we weren’t even quite sure what it was going to be. We made some secret opening ceremonies. We summoned Marrow Thatch, a pumpkin golem that came out of the darkness around the fire. He hands out sweet potatoes to some favored Scouts. We just made it an experience that was interesting, weird, and cool. We played board games and made lots of food.

Dawna: Yeah, it was just relaxing and fun.

Daniel: Once we did that first one, we realized that this was way cooler than anything we could do at a convention and that changed our whole vision of what this is. Steam Crow has been eclipsed by the Monster Scouts. Monster Scouts tells you a lot more than Steam Crow does. So now that’s what we’re all about.

Monster Scout badges at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: So do you see yourself as a company moving away from prints and t-shirts and more towards camping and badges and that sort of stuff?

Dawna: They all really work together.

Daniel: It’s all related. I’ve never thought of myself as a print artist. At our very first con, we had resin cast toys that we made. The whole thing is a huge multimedia experience and experiment. Designing a badge is not too different than designing a shirt – and we’ll do both – but you’ll see that the prints that we make are mostly Monster Scouts now. The shirts crossover to camping or Scouts, so we are slowly focusing in. The more we focus the more people are interested in it.

NG: You guys recently finished a Kickstarter that was wildly successful, earning you 271% of what you had asked. What were your thoughts on that? Did you expect it to do so well?

Daniel: No. Not at all. Our Kickstarter’s have all been successful so far. We’ve done six of them but they’ve all been pretty modest.

Dawna: Our biggest one up until this time was $7,000 and that was our first Scout Kickstarter.

Daniel: I always think of the Kickstarter’s as another test. Like, is the Scouts a great idea or not? But it went well. Generally, we’re making our goal in a day, that is our goal for every Kickstarter. If we can get that to happen in a day, we are happy. But this one just kept going.

Dawna: We were pleasantly surprised! It was great! We knew we could fund it, but they went above and beyond. Our Scouts spoil us rotten, they treat us really well.

Daniel: Yeah they do. So we’re taking all those proceeds to just invest more into scout gear and stuff like badges for the next year. That was kind of the point of doing this. When we make a badge order for all these embroidered badges, it costs thousands of dollars. So this is a great way to do that.

Dawna: It’s also allowing us to focus the Scouts more. We have 12 distinct branches and now each one will have a core patch. Then we’ll have other things like bandanas and everything that go with that. When you join the Monster Scouts it’s not just the generic Scouts. We have Psychic Scouts, Deep Sea Scouts, the Conjure Guard, and they all need their little identifications.

The Monster Scout claw salute at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: How many states do you currently have camps in?

Daniel: 5 States right now. Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Washington, and California.

NG: Obviously, it’s you guys doing the camps right now. Do you ever see a time when the Monster Scouts might exceed your reach? At a point when you might need to have other scoutmasters?

Dawna: Yes, and it’s happening fast!

Daniel: Our goal is to do a national tour of campsites. But we can only see so many before we’re going to be exhausted. With that giant tour, the hope is that we can come up with a model that allows us to identify these great personalities and people in these different cities. We would like to set people up as scout leaders in their state so that they could run events. Maybe we’ll even make them a special patch they can sell so it’s like a little mini business.

Dawna: So it’s either going to be a franchise or like the Avon method.

Daniel: It’s a great thing, but if you’re going to be calling yourself Monster Scouts it creates a challenge – people expect that it’s an ongoing thing in their community, and I agree. But it can’t always be me and her doing it.

NG: What is the age range that you guys generally get in your Scouts?

Dawna: We have from 3 year olds to mid-60s. It’s family-friendly. Most of the time the parents are the scouts and the kids come along, and then the kids are scouts. It happens that way. Very few times has it been kids that are the scouts first and then the parents join.

Daniel: For us, we wanted to be open to everybody. Mostly its adults, but sometimes cool adults come with cool kids.

Dawna: We have a son, so what are we going to do? He has to come with us, he’s 14 so it has to be family friendly.

T-shirts from Steam Crow at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Steam Crow Maker Aprons at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: Does your son enjoy the Monster Scout events?

Dawna: Yes, but he’s the typical teenager. For the longest time he was like, “I’m going to be an artist too”. Now he’s like, “no I’m going to be an engineer.”

Daniel: He likes the campout stuff because it’s like a weekend of play for him, so yeah, he digs it.

NG: You guys have said that you plan to camp the whole month of August. Is that one consistent camp or will you go to different places?

Dawna: This will be the start of our campground tour. So we’ll start in Colorado and do a campout that first weekend, then we go to Idaho, and then Washington, and then California, and then we’ll come back home. We camp in between stops because we’re already set up for camping.

Daniel: Right now, we can’t really string together a tour of conventions. There is no way for us to really go to New York Comic Con without really risking everything or just doing a really small table. That doesn’t make sense for us, as our brand is big in its own little way. We have a lot that we want to bring and there’s no way to do it unless we have the legs to get us along the way. This camping tour will help us get those legs. And next year we’ll make that tour bigger.

Original art and potion bottles from Steam Crow at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: You had mentioned hiring extra personnel across the nation and scaling your own operations back to just Arizona. What would your timeline on that be? For reference, you’ve said you’d been doing Steam Crow already for 11 seasons. How much longer do you see yourselves living the road warrior life?

Daniel: I don’t know. We have a couple years of just seriously being road warriors on tour to build this.

Dawna: That’s where we have to put back on our business hats, too. It’s easy to be the artist, it’s easy for us to take it with us and go, and do it ourselves. But now we have to look at that business side, the legal side. So that’s a whole different ball of wax. We will need time to finalize that and learn about that.

Daniel: And we have to show up in these other places that want us, like New York and New Jersey and Philadelphia. There are people there waiting for us to go. There are not going to be Scouts until we show up there and make them Scout somehow. When it comes down to it we need those other core people who believe in the monster Scouts movement.

Dawna: The thing is, if we don’t do that then this whole business collapses.

NG: Switching tacks just a little bit: Dawna had mentioned that you guys liked to play tabletop games at the campouts; and Daniel, you have been showing a gaming table on social media that you made. With this love of gaming apparent, have you ever thought of making a Monster Scouts tabletop game?

Daniel: I am working on it right now! My game of choice is called Fate Core. Its open source, so I can get a free license. I am building our game right on the back of Fate Core, so it’s a gaming system I’ve been playing for a long time. I am writing it right now which is really great because as we expand this universe, we’re adding four new branches. Well, somebody has to write about what they are! When I write for the RPG, it’s doing all that work. I think our goal is to run some games and either record or video them so people can hear the Monster Scout story, what it’s about. I think that through the game would be a fun way to do it.

Daniel Monster Davis displays his Monster Scout badges at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

The Monster Scout badges worn by Daniel Monster Davis (detail).

NG: You have created so many different monsters and backstories for them. Have you ever considered making a cryptozoological encyclopedia, or something to keep track of all of the monsters?

Daniel: We grew up with monster manuals, right? So, yeah of course eventually. With our Kickstarter we’re going to put out a little mini handbook every year. The one for this Kickstarter is just a simple rundown of the core of what Monster Scouts is. The next one could be focused on something else. Just on Monster Medics or just on a monster encyclopedia kind of thing. It gives us the ability to do that. Right now I’m building all of that on our monsterscouts.com website. When I make up the monsters, they go over there and it is an encyclopedia (kind of) right now.

NG: So there is a backstory for every monster that is out right now on the website?

Daniel: Right now we’ve got a good start. We’re just beginning this thing, so there’s years of writing to do, but yeah we’re getting there.

NG: And now we’ve talked a little bit about your campouts, you’ve also got the Monster Scouts rally here this weekend. What takes place at one of those?

Dawna: That depends…

Daniel: Basically, we get the greatest group of people together that we’ve ever known. Dawna and I both come from bands. In 16 years of me playing in bands, there were two shows that were amazing and the people were really on our side. Every time we do a rally, every time we do a campout, it’s that high again. Generally what we’ve been doing at the rally is we form three teams, and we’re going to give them a challenge they have to work on while we are doing the panel. They will be working on translating Montalk (the monster code) and it tells them to do things and they’re going to build something and it’s going to be ridiculous. While we’re in the middle of doing our panel that will happen, hopefully. We don’t know how it will happen because it’s all really organic. Then, the reincarnated body of Klein Redback (a musician from 1967, wink wink) – whose album was found and played for the Monster Scouts – he is going to perform at the rally as well.

Dawna: And we’re going to tell a little bit of our story, because we always have new scouts and new people who come in. They don’t quite understand that the Monster Scouts is not a cartoon, it’s not a corporate brand or anything, it’s just the two of us.

Daniel: And it all comes from us. I think some of the new people think this was an organic thing that just somehow happened. So we’re trying to teach them that we’re the people writing this stuff.

Monster Scouts Assemble at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: Showing up at so many different comic conventions, do you guys ever get requests for a sequential art book, just a regular comic or graphic novel?

Daniel: We do have a couple. We did a webcomic called Monster Commute but it got inundated with spam and the site got destroyed. We did do two volumes of that in print. It’s about the monster world. It’s the world on the other side of our own, so it’s still the foundation of the Monster Scouts. Its just the monster world, where sometimes they leak through to ours.

Dawna: It does tie in. Actually, it’s funny because everything we’ve created – from the very beginning – ties in. The first book that we wrote was about Duke Davis. He captures monsters, puts them in this castle, and writes haikus about them. Well, Baron Davis created the Monster Scouts. His brother Duke Davis is a Monsterologist, so he’s the evil to our good. The other thing that we’re working on letting people choose: you could be a Monster Scout or you could be a Monsterologist…

Daniel: They’re the monster hunters, so they’re at odds with us. We (the Scouts) are the newcomers who are trying to save monsters, and the Monsterologists think that they protect Humanity. They go to academies and learn about monsters, and then kill them to protect Humanity. That’s our major conflict, which is perfect for the RPG too.

NG: That all sounds really, really cool. If people wanted to find out more about Steam Crow and the Monster Scouts, where would they look online?

Daniel: Monsterscouts.com is the core site and then we have a Monster Scouts Facebook group. It’s real easy to find. Those are the core places, and then, of course, steamcrow.com is the people who make the Monster Scouts.

Dawna: And that’s where you can buy your stuff, the gear and all of that. So steamcrow.com is the store and Monsterscouts.com is all the info on the Scouts.

If you would like to experience a Monster Scouts campout for yourself, you can see the events that they have available here.

Daniel Davis talks to some Monster Scouts at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Monster Scouts Assemble! At Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Dawna Davis leads the Monster Scouts meeting at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Monster Scouts meeting at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)

Monster Scouts meeting at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)

Dawna Davis answers Monster Scouts questions at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Marrow Thatch appears at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Monster Scouts on parade at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (3)

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (4)

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (5)

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (6)

Some Monster Scouts trying to solve a puzzle at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Daniel Davis inspects the work of some Monster Scouts at the rally.

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (7)

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (8)

The Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (9)

Daniel & Dawna Davis at the Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)

Daniel & Dawna Davis at the Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)

Daniel & Dawna Davis at the Monster Scouts Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (3)

Monster Scouts take the stage during the rally.

Monster Scouts building a crown for Marrow Thatch.

The performance of Klein Redback. (1)

The performance of Klein Redback. (2)

The performance of Klein Redback. (3)

Monster Scouts working together at the rally.

The performance of Klein Redback. (4)

The performance of Klein Redback. (5)

Marrow Thatch wears his crown.

The performance of Klein Redback. (6)

The puzzle solving portion of the rally comes to a close.

Prizes are awarded at the Monster Scout Rally at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Marrow Thatch and Monster Scouts at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

The Monster Scouts give the Claw Salute at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

November 30, 2017

An Interview With the Fillbach Brothers of 1First Comics (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

November 30, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Matthew & Shawn Fillbach of Illuminati Transport about their take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/05/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

The Fillbach Brothers (Matthew & Shawn) at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (They share a brain)

I had first heard about the Fillbach Brothers through their collaborations with Joseph Michael Linsner on some of his Dawn comics in the ’90s. They followed that up with comics of their own from Sirius and then Dark Horse. They spent almost a decade working on the Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures series. They now have an exclusive contract with 1First Comics, and they are busy pumping out a whole line of new graphic novels and follow-ups to stories that were never finished.

When I found out that Matthew and Shawn would both be at Phoenix Comic Con 2017, I knew that I had to take the opportunity to meet them. My reward was a conversation with two of the most genuine and warm individuals you could hope for.

Neil Greenaway: You guys have several new books on your table right now and I thought maybe we could talk about that for a bit.

Matthew Fillbach: We have a plethora. Though we are known for doing Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures for LucasFilm, and we have none of that here with us.

Shawn Fillbach: Clone Wars Adventures was our big thing, our big seller.

NG: You guys actually did that for several years, right?

Shawn: Yeah, we did.

Matt: About eight years.

Shawn: We did 15 volumes. And basically we thought, why are we giving all the money to George Lucas? We got to make some of that scratch.

Matt: So that is why we did a digest book called Tales of the S.S. Junky Star Vol. 1 with 1First Comics, and Vol. 2 is coming out next month.

Books from the Fillbach Brothers at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Top Secret binders full of unfinished stories from the Filbach Brothers.

More comics from the Fillbach Brothers at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: Why don’t you tell us about the story on that one?

Matt: It is essentially a story like Guardians of the Galaxy.

Shawn: Guardians of the Galaxy ripped us off big-time [laughs]. We even have a plant character called Cricket that is going to grow as the series progresses. It is across six volumes. We have it all mapped out.

Matt: We have a color edition coming out next month and Vol. 2 is also coming out next month. They are going to be in hardback for the libraries. We go to the ALA, the America Library Association, next month. We got involved thanks to our mother.

Shawn: And for libraries, hands down, their biggest market is graphic novels. It has been growing exponentially. Anyway, we have got the volumes of Junky Star coming out.

The next book we could talk about would be Captain Freebird. He is our outlaw superhero.

Matt: He is insane. We realized that basically all superheroes are insane.

Shawn: You have to be insane to be a superhero.

NG: To jump in front of a bullet, you have to have a screw loose.

Shawn: That’s it exactly. Well our guy has the soul of a shaman living in his heart. A Native American shaman who gives him crap all the time. He’s mojo rising. He’s a buffalo half the time, but then sometimes he will be his full shaman self.

Matt: Then it’s like everyone has a spirit animal, right? Well, his is a frog. So it’s Freebird Frog. We originally did this series in 1997/98. But it has a trade now.

Shawn: So we’re getting old.

Matthew Fillbach at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Shawn Fillbach at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: Now would that come out as a trade paperback or single issues first?

Shawn: Nope, we don’t do floppies anymore. We did that for so many years; now we just want to tell a single story.

Matt: The direction of the industry is moving towards doing graphic novels.

Shawn: And it’s so much easier for us to do it that way. We see things as a movie.

Matt: Long-form — for us — is where we wanted to go. I see everything at once.

Shawn: So basically we want to put it down on the page.

Matt: It’s a film on the page.

Shawn: We couldn’t afford to go to film school because we were poor and–

Matt: A little short of supplies, and our “edumacation” was not that good [both laugh]. We achieved in shop class and gym. We got A++++.

Shawn: So we thought we could draw a little bit and we would tell our movies on the page. Oftentimes we’ll do like 50 or 60 pages of just visual storytelling. We find that, for us, it just works out perfectly, and we like watching people’s reaction when they are reading.

Matt: Years ago we just looked at each other over a cup of coffee in the morning and went, “From now on it’s just visuals and dialogue. No narrative, no ‘it was a dark and stormy night’ or ‘meanwhile, back at the ranch’.”

Shawn: Elmore Leonard said it perfectly. He said “Cut out all the stuff that people don’t want to read.”

Matt: He also said “If it sounds like it was written, re-write it.” Because we catch ourselves once in a while going like “OK, that’s crap.” Then we have a punch-out and it’s like, “You’re right, that was crap. OK, we’re moving on.”

Shawn: For Captain Freebird, we are planning two more volumes.

NG: Is that also completely planned out?

Both: Yes.

Matt: The first volume is American Prayer. The second volume is called Outlaw Invincible. The third volume is post-apocalyptic.

Shawn: The Apocalyptic Opera, which we wrote. Something like Logan.

Matt: But ours is going to be better. Ours is always better.

Shawn: Of course.

Matt: And then we have Cadaver Dogs of Winter, which is a vengeance tale.

Shawn: It’s a cowboy story.

Matt: A small-town Montana doctor’s daughter is found dead. And then it gets into bikers. The story involves meth and everything that goes with that. Then it gets into his vengeance trail. So he becomes a wraith of vengeance going after the people at the top. The ending is like pretty amazing and we were going to leave it there. Then one morning (over coffee again), “Holy crap, we have Cadaver Dogs of Summer.”

Shawn: Yeah, Cadaver Dogs of Winter and Cadaver Dogs of Summer.

Matt: We can’t say much about the story.

Shawn: But we can say Doc Cooper comes back, and he has gone straight crazy.

Matt: He’s still on his vengeance trail. I don’t want to give anything away.

Shawn: OK, I’m following your lead here. So we’ve got that, and then we’ve got the Dog Soldiers coming out as well.

Matt: Dog Soldiers is coming out in the next couple months. It deals with PTSD and service dogs and how service dogs help military vets.

**Illuminati Transport by the Fillbach Brothers (from Devil's Due/1First Comics).**

An interior page from Illuminati Transport by the Fillbach Brothers. (1) — An interior page from **Illuminati Transport by the Fillbach Brothers. (1)**

An interior page from Illuminati Transport by the Fillbach Brothers. (2) — An interior page from **Illuminati Transport by the Fillbach Brothers. (2)**

NG: I don’t know that I have ever seen that tackled in a comic or graphic novel before.

Matt: There was one day — it was Memorial Day or maybe Veterans Day — but we were out barbecuing.

Shawn: And Matthew saw this show about these veterans coming on with their service dogs.

Matt: They were talking about how these dogs saved them from suicide. Our book deals heavily with veteran suicide, as well. And it’s like our only book that doesn’t have someone die a violent horrible death. It’s a love story, too.

Shawn: There’s absolutely no violence in it. We’ve gotten to know so many veterans through the years at all of the shows, and we tapped them for this.

Matt: For questions, because we didn’t want to do some crap that was all Hallmark channel and weepy. One of our best friends is Scott “Big Sarge” Garrett; he’s the one we first sent it to. He’s the one we would talk to a lot when we were doing our research. We had an ulterior motive when we sent it to him. Before we told him our motive, we just wanted to see, “What do you think? Did we get it right?”

Shawn: And he said, “I don’t know how you did your research, but you got it spot on.”

Matt: Our ulterior motive was for him to do the introduction because he is in the Austin Texas 1919 chapter of the Military Purple Hearts. He is their president. He has become a really good friend and it would be an honor to have him write our introduction.

NG: Wow. That sounds like a book that could have a lasting impact for a lot of people. moving on to something a bit more light hearted, can we talk a little bit about Illuminati Transport?

Shawn: Oh yes, that is the newest book that just came out.

Matt: There is a first volume to this story. The first book was called Roadkill, done in about 2008 by Dark Horse Comics. It was a graphic novel. So we’ve wanted to do the continuation for years, but we ended up doing like 5000 pages of other books first [laughs]. Then we ended up at 1First Comics with Ken Levine. When we met him, it was just one of those moments where everything just came together perfectly. And we were drawing a bunch of different stuff for him; in fact, we were drawing The Badger for Mike Baron. Then we just decided to take a couple of months and just started doing our own thing.

Shawn: Kowalski [character in Illuminati Transport] was also in Roadkill with Dark Horse earlier and we just came up with this weird story to follow up on that.

Matt: Basically, it’s like when you have a team like Hellboy and the BPRD — what happens after the chaos? Who cleans up after that? People have to sift through stuff and take stuff. So he’s a trucker, he transports. Hence, Illuminati Transport.

Shawn: So Kowalski, he’s the pickup, trucker guy. So imagine like Jack Burton as the hero, but he’s not a hero. He’s just kind of like meh. Mike Mignola is so awesome, and we loved the Hellboy movies. So we created this character that we thought Ron Perlman could play. So we basically drew Ron Perlman–

Matt: As a giant douchebag. And his name is Branson Missouri.

Shawn: And Kowalski says things like, “We’ve worked together for 25 years and he doesn’t even know my name.” He goes over to get forms signed and Branson says, “Oh no, we don’t do autographs here. Oh, you’re the trucker guy. You must be new I haven’t met you before.” And Kowalski’s like, “We’ve been working for 25 years..TOGETHER!” So it’s fun like that.

Matt: And he has a talking dog named Geech and a Crystal Skull of Doom, which is their GPS. In this story he gets bro–

Shawn: No, you’ve got to read the story.

Lives graphic novel from 1First Comics. (front cover)

The Fillbach Brothers at Phoenix Comic Con 2017 (2)

Lives graphic novel from 1First Comics. (back cover)

NG: OK then, no spoilers. I think Lives is the only book we haven’t discussed. I know that it takes place in New York on 9/11, and deals with five people’s lives and how they intersect on that day. What else can you tell me about that one?

Matt: Glenn Farrington (the author) is an ex-cop from New York City. He is also a writer, and he works for Disney. He talked to us about this story and we said OK, let’s do this.

Shawn: It’s very visual. (There are only four pages with text in the whole book)

Matt: So Glenn asked us what we thought. And we were like, “We know how to do this because it is about the minutia of life, the little things that you never think about that happen every day. And then the culmination of five people’s lives. Some days matter more than others.

Then we also have Shotgun to Sugarland, which is coming soon. It is 300 pages.

NG: Is that all one volume?

Shawn: Yes, we only do long-form.

Matt: We did Maxwell Strangewell and that was 400 pages from Dark Horse, out of print. If you find it, you should pick it up and bring it over and we’ll sign it (both laugh).

But Shotgun to Sugarland — it’s another kind of epic story. It’s about the importance of women in the world. It’s about two women. One is just known as “The Girl”, and she’s a serial killer. And one is a detective–

Shawn: Hunting her down and figuring out the pieces. We were actually inspired by our good friends the Soska Sisters, whose first film was Dead Hooker in a Trunk. They did the amazing American Mary. We met them and were like, “We’re going to draw this for you.”

Matt: So we actually dedicated the book to them, too. They are our best friends.

Shawn: They’re our girls. That’s what we say.

Matt: Hallelujah is another book we’re working on right now. So we’re like, 150 pages in, I think it will be about 300 pages.

Shawn: We’re about halfway done with that one. Hallelujah is just — again, our hero is female — you know the old True Grit? She’s like the female Rooster Cogburn.

Matt: She’s got an eyepatch on the opposite side that he did.

Shawn: She ends up in this purgatory land and it’s a lot of– It’s very cowboy.

Matt: Very cowboy?

Shawn: Very cowboy.

Matt: Thank God. (laughs) Everything we do is so cowboy.

The Cycle of Life comic that the Brothers drew on their table during the convention.

NG: And that will be coming out from 1First, as well?

Matt: Yeah, we are exclusive with 1First Comics. All of the books we have talked about can be had from them.

NG: That’s awesome. Having an exclusive contract is very cool. Looking through these books has got me wondering something. When you sit down to do a book together, what is the division of art and writing? Do you both do both? Does one of you sit down and rough out a story while the other works on some art? What is the collaborative process there?

Matt: Well, we share a brain. So if we get more than a quarter mile from the other we just fall down and then have to tell people to bring us together. It’s hard to explain. Everyone says, “Oh I want to be there when you are working on stuff.” And it’s like, “No.” Because we can’t when people are around. It’s like I said several times, over coffee in the morning, we go out back and get to talking and then we start getting some ideas together. Then at night we’ll barbecue and have a couple beers–

Shawn: We actually make an entire story ourselves, and we’ll see everything ourselves in like a movie so we can act it all out, we know it.

Matt: We listen to music a lot. We just sit there and listen to the music, zoned out in the way that you do when you are barbecuing and having beer. And then it’s like [epiphany face] and it happens like that.

Shawn: Exactly, but the technicalities happen just back and forth. That’s always the boring part.

Matt: As soon as we get the fast roughs done — it’s like what Alfred Hitchcock said, “When the story board is done, the film is done.”

Shawn: And then we still have to go and actually make it. That is how Matt and I always feel. We are the happiest when it’s just the two of us.

NG: If people wanted to see more of you guys or if they wanted to check out your work, where would they find you online?

Matt: Well Facebook is probably the best place. Usually we go through Matthew Fillbach on Facebook and you can follow us there. Or 1Firstcomics.com or look up Devils Due or 1First Comics, and that’s where you will be able to get all of our stuff.

Matthew, Neil, and Shawn. Looking stoic at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Matthew steals a kiss from author Mark Gardner while Shawn stands by at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

November 30, 2017

An Interview With Ash Maczko and Ashley Witter of the Squarriors TCG (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

November 30, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Ash Maczko & Ashley Witter of Squarriors about their take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/05/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Ash Maczko & Ashley Witter at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Ash Maczko & Ashley Witter (creators of the Squarriors series from Devils Due Publishing) are busy people. Not only do they write and draw (respectively) the Squarriors comic, they are the driving force behind the Count-i-Con pop culture convention, they make appearances all through the year at other comic conventions, and (as of this year) they also have their own gaming company. At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had a chance to sit down and talk to the duo about their new Squarriors Trading Card Game, the first game to be released by Cold War Inc.

Neil Greenaway: Today I would like to talk to you guys a little bit about the new trading card game that you are starting.

Ash Maczko: Squarriors the Card Game, right. So I’m Ash Maczko, creator of Squarriors the comic series and lead developer and designer of the card game and we are with Ashley-

Ashley Witter: Hi, I’m Ashley Witter and I do the artwork for Squarriors.

NG: To get us started, just for folks who might not be aware, could we get just a brief synopsis on the story of Squarriors?

AM: For Squarriors – in 1986, mankind dies off. And the same thing that kills man off, gives all the little woodland creature’s intelligence. Now it’s their turn to run the planet in this post human world. So they are creating tribes, religions and going to war with each other. That kind of stuff. That is the quick pitch I guess.

NG: And off of that quick pitch, how did you decide to turn that into a card game?

AW: Honestly I think that was planned from the beginning. I think originally it was a card game before we made it a comic in concept.

AM: As we developed the comic series, right from the start I wanted to do something that I could branch off and have some kind of universe where I could have a video game, have a board game, have a card game, and have all kinds of other things. So literally day 1 of Squarriors, we were already planning the card game. We have been actually working on mechanics and things alongside the comic series. So that was planned from the beginning.

A card from the Squarriors Trading Card Game from Cold War, Inc. (1) Art by Ashley Witter.

Squarriors: The Card Game KickStarter banner.

NG: Is it going to be built on the rule set of any existing game – because I know that a lot of them have base rule sets that you can then build on – or is this an entirely new concept that you guys have come up with?

AM: This is top to bottom totally new. We were developing it for a little over 3 years now. This is actually like the 4th iteration of the game. That is how many times we completely made the game. We tested it and broke it down, kept what worked, got rid of what didn’t work, built it up into a game again, broke it all down again. And once we got to the 4th version, that is where we really got a stable format where we were ready for it to be the actual game. That was about 8 or 9 months ago and that is where we have been focusing since.

NG: I assume that like most card games, this will release with a base set that then has expansion series?

AM: Yeah. The core set that we did on Kickstarter is 250 cards. Effectively it is for one person, it is the complete set and then you can build any tribes you want out of that, though other players could build out of the same set as well. And yeah, we have already worked on the expansion. In the rules that come with the set we actually have an ad in there that is going to announce the first expansion to the game. So people will see that in a couple months.

NG: Now going to Ashley for just a moment, about the art on these cards. He said there were 250 cards in the base set. Are you doing all original art or are you reusing art that was drawn for the comics?

AW: I wish I had the time to do all original art for the card game, but we are reusing a lot of the art from the comic. I already spent so much time illustrating the comics, so we will just be repurposing some of it. Some of them will be getting a little bit of enhancement to the existing art though.

AM: She did do all of the frames for the cards though. We have a different type of frame for every different card type, and she drew all that stuff. She drew all of the background imagery and the boarders so that is all new artwork. The individual pictures are all repurposed from the comic series, which was again the plan from the beginning.

Squarriors comics at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Ashley Witter at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: When I had spoken to you guys last year, you had said that Ashley was the artist for the Squarriors comic, period. Is that the same approach going into the game?

AM: That is actually an awesome question. We obviously do have lots of artist friends, lots of buddies who would love to work on some Squarriors stuff. I think the plan is – going forward with some expansions and things – we are probably going to try and work with some of buddies and get some exclusive artwork. We have variant versions of cards, full art cards, frameless cards, those kinds of specialty cards. So yeah I have talked to a few of our friends and we are planning on having some guest artists.

AW: I am actually very excited because these are friends of mine too, and I just love their artwork. I would be very happy to see them doing some Squarriors art.

NG: That would probably be interesting for you guys, to see other people’s interpretations of your creations.

AW: That is what I am excited about.

AM: We kind of did that with Squarriors #1, we did a gallery in the back where we had a couple of artists do some Squarriors pieces. We are open to that, and would love to see more of that. You just aren’t going to see it in the actual Squarriors comic, that is going to be Ashley forever. So there won’t be any guest covers

NG: I see that you have the Squarriors blank sketch cover made up. Have you guys seen any other artists takes on a Squarriors sketch cover?

AM: Yeah we have seen a couple Squarriors sketch covers. We have seen some fan art online. We just recently saw some 3D animation using one of the covers for Squarriors to make some sort of 3D animated squirrel.

NG: We spoke briefly about an expansion pack. Do you have any kind of timeline planned out for that?

AM: The expansion? Kind of, sort of. We don’t have anything really set, but we are hoping towards the end of next quarter.

NG: Would that be something you would look at another Kickstarter for?

AM: Not for the expansions. We are going to do those just as regular releases. It will probably just be 40 or 50 cards in a little pack. That will be sold directly to wholesalers and be for sale on Amazon and our website. We are also moving on to our next game with Cold War Inc., and there is an ad for that in the manual as well. That will probably be on Kickstarter the beginning of next year.

NG: So will that be an entirely different game from Squarriors?

AM: This is a whole different game. I can’t say a whole lot about it. It’s a whole new game; it’s from the same company, Cold War, which is our gaming company. It will be announced once the first game ships. We are going to let people discover it as they get the game. Then probably a few weeks after that we will post the announcement up online as well.

Sample cards from Squarriors: The Card Game from Cold War, Inc. Art by Ashley Witter. — Sample cards from Squarriors: The Card Game from Cold War, Inc. Art by Ashley Witter.

What comes in the Squarriors: The Card Game box?

Different creature types in Squarriors: The Card Game from Cold War, Inc.

NG: Moving back to the Squarriors TCG, what will the story be like in the game? When we had spoken last year, you had talked about expanding the story out of the forest the current arc takes place in. Does the card game allow you to do that?

AM: Our intention right now is that the card game just follows the comic series. So everything that happens in Spring is effectively the first core set of cards and there will be couple of expansions. It will be just from the first volume. As we finish up the second volume (which will be finished this year) for Squarriors, then next year we will be kicking off the core set that will follow the second series. Everything directly goes along with the series, so you are playing the story as it develops. I would say that you probably won’t see any cards set outside of the story until we have some other books come out.

NG: Then in that vein, how is the comic doing?

AM: The comic is doing awesome. We have issues 1 and 2 of Summer out. Issue 3 of Summer should be out next month with issue 4 following that up. Then at the end of the year we will have another trade hopefully out around Christmas time. That is the plan. How is it coming, Ashley?

AW: I would be working on it right now but I am at the convention. I feel kind of guilty that I’m not at home working on it. But I am also working here. We have to survive.

AM: Exactly. We have to make sure there is an audience to sell the book to once it is done.

NG: You guys have Spring, you have Summer, ostensibly Autumn and Winter will follow. Is Winter the end of the current arc? Is the end of Winter the point at which you would move on to a different story?

AM: The end of Winter-

AW: NO SPOILERS!

AM: I can spoil a little bit. The end of Winter is the end of what I consider the pre-story for Squarriors. So this whole thing is a very long intro to when the actual series is going to kick in, as just a long-running regular numbered series. That will be after these 16 issues. First we have the four seasons, and after that it will just go into a straight series. So again, this is sort of an intro to all that – if that makes sense.

Different tactics in Squarriors: The Card Game from Cold War, Inc.

Different domains in Squarriors: The Card Game from Cold War, Inc.

Recruits in Squarriors: The Card Game from Cold War, Inc.

NG: People love the Squarriors comic, with fans clamoring for more. When it comes to the new game, what has the fan reaction been for you guys? Are people enjoying it?

AM: Naw, everyone hates it. We’re going to make it anyway though (laughs). No, it’s been great. Again, I’ve said from the beginning that we were working on a card game for this series. I think that a lot of core fans already knew that was coming and were excited that it wasn’t just pillow talk and it’s actually, really going to happen. It’s been good. We have a lot of stores that are really interested, saying they have a lot fans that will be really excited to have a game like this. The game plays very differently than most TCG type games. There is no deck you pull from. There is no shuffling of cards. You just put together your tribe, you lay them down, and you fight each other. It’s more like a strategy battle game. That has really turned on a lot of players, even people who weren’t familiar with Squarriors. They just really like the concept. Build your army, sit down with your buddies, and fight each other. That is really what we have going. Testing has been good. We have been working with Gamer’s World up in Chicago. They have about 12 or 15 stores and we have been able to go and do little events there and get a lot of feedback so it’s all looking really good.

NG: You said you have been speaking to stores. Are a lot of stores excited to see the game?

AM: Yeah. Obviously some stores are waiting until it’s actually at a distributor, which we haven’t done yet because we don’t have a physical game. Most distributers won’t pick anything up until they actually see the game. On Kickstarter, we had several stores order retailer bundles and things like that. We have a couple direct accounts with stores that we are close with that already carry a lot of Squarriors things. So that has been good. The lifeblood of launching the game is making sure that you have got some stores that will cover you and push the game for you when it’s out. We do have that and it’s been great.

NG: The Kickstarter ended very recently, have you guys started production? Have you seen any cards yet?

AM: Backerkit is still going right now, that is how soon it’s been. When Backerkit ends, then we have about 2 weeks of polishing up some things before it goes to production but we’re right there. The game is done, the cards are done, the rules are done. It is just a matter of working with some templates and getting everything to get produced and then it’s all in their hands, maybe 30 or 40 days to get the game back and it goes straight to shipping after that.

NG: I can’t wait to see the final product! Before we go, if people want to see more of your comics, your game or just more of your smiling faces, where would we look online to find that?

AW: Squarriors.com.

AM: Squarriors.com; squarriorstcg.com has stuff; coldwar.us is our company site which brings you to everything; ashleywitter.com. We have a lot of things, but if you go to any one of those it all links to everything else. So if you go to squarriors.com it leads to all of our stuff.

November 30, 2017

An Interview With Rich Vincent of the DrawerBox Storage System (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

November 30, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Rich Vincent of Drawerboxes Storage Systems about his take on making a better comic box. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/05/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

DrawerBox Storage System signs at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)

I have used the DrawerBox Storage System for years. When I first found them, I fell in love with how easy they made it to sort through and file my comics. Through the past few years, I have slowly replaced all of my traditional long whites with the stronger drawer-style boxes, and it has revolutionized my collection. This year at Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I was able to sit down and talk with Rich Vincent, the creator of the amazing collectable storage system.

Neil Greenaway: You are the creator of the Drawer Box Comic Storage System. So first off, if I could get just a little bit of history, how did you come up with this box?

Rich Vincent: Oh it was definitely out of need. I had a huge collection of comics, over 20,000 books that I had stuck in long boxes in the closet. These are comics that I bought when I was a kid. I have been collecting all my life. So one of my favorite comics is Magnus, Robot Fighter - the Gold Key comics from the 60’s. And there is one issue I really wanted to read, and I spent 2 hours pulling boxes out of the closet to find it. So I realize then that this is it, I have too many comics. I have to get rid of half my collection. But since I had bought them when I was younger there were a lot of memories attached. I had to find a better idea.

NG: And you produce all the boxes yourself, is that true?

RV: That is correct.

NG: How did you go about getting that set up? How does an average guy go about getting production lines put in place?

RV: The inspiration was, when I was younger in high school some of my friend’s parents worked for Frontier Airlines and they used to use the banker boxes (that worked like drawers) for archive storage. When Frontier would clean out the files every once in a while, they would bring them home and I used to put my comics in those. I remembered that idea and so I went to a company, a box manufacturing company. People don’t realize this but there are actually people with college degrees in package design, and so I worked with a package designer to actually work out the specifics of the box.

NG: When did you start producing these? When were they first available?

RV: I’ve been doing it for 12 years. And interestingly enough, I had done an earlier run maybe 18 years ago but I ran out of space. I needed some more. I thought well, if I make some, I should make a big run of them – like maybe 1,000. So I thought I could try selling them. I passed out fliers to a bunch of stores in Denver. I went to the San Diego Comic Con and passed out fliers at the San Diego Comic Con. I only got one back. So I thought, nobody cares, I’m not going to do it. For 3 years the idea gnawed at me. So I decided that I really needed some more boxes. If nothing else I’m going to do some and take the loss. The rest is history.

A DrawerBox Storage System table display at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

A DrawerBox Storage System poster at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

A DrawerBox Storage System floor display at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: Do you find that you sell more to stores or to individual collectors?

RV: Really to individual collectors. It is a really interesting thing – psychology I guess – in the retail part of the industry, where the stores don’t tend to want to try new things unless the customers are asking for it. So I found I am in 125 maybe 150 stores in the country. Out of all those stores maybe 5 or 6 are stores that I approached and they started carrying the product. Every other store is because customers are going in and demanding it.

NG: Well that is really great to be that in demand from your customers.

RV: It is, it really is. God love ‘em.

NG: Do you find that once a store starts carrying your boxes, selling to the public, and getting reactions back, do the stores start using them for their own product?

RV: Yeah, that is actually happening more and more. When I first started selling them, I thought that as a promotional thing I would give some to the stores to use. What I found was I really didn’t have to do that. There are a lot of stores out there that are operating on a shoestring budget and they need to get their back stock out and available to the customers. And of course it’s hugely expensive to build custom cabinets and stuff like that so we became an alternative.

NG: I myself have a huge collection of comics that for years was basically inaccessible for casual viewing until I found your boxes at my local comic shop. I will confess to the interview audience that I have more than 100 of these boxes holding my own collection.

RV: God bless you for that.

Pricing structure for the DrawerBox Storage System.

Wall O' Comics drawer front labels for the DrawerBox Storage System. (1)

DrawerBox Storage System signs at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)

NG: What appealed to me right away was the $15 price point. I find that a regular long white with a lid still tends to cost between $8-$10. The price of your boxes is higher, but the quality is there to justify it.

RV: Well I’m not quite that comparable. I’ve surveyed stores across the country. I would say the average price of a top loading long white, what I call the old fashioned long boxes, probably runs around $7 maybe $8. Ours obviously sell for more than that. One of the things that drives our price point is shipping. And people don’t realize this, they go onto our website to order and they say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to pay for shipping, I’m going to buy them in the store.’ The reality of the situation is the stores have to ship them in and they are paying for that shipping so they have to roll it into their price. So where it looks like people are paying extra for shipping when they order direct, the reality is they are paying for shipping either way. It’s just built into the price.

NG: Well even at that I would still say the longevity of the box is probably worth the increased price.

RV: Oh absolutely. I know I’m kind of prejudice, but I think there’s a couple of reasons. I know our prices have to be higher just because there is twice as much material to ours as there is in an average long box. Our drawer alone is the equivalent of a long box. Then the long box only comes with lid, which is a very small amount of cardboard, and ours comes with the support sleeve and a shell. It is easily more than double the material, which means our manufacturing cost is going to be more than double. Plus the fact that we are using upgraded materials. A lot of long boxes use fairly cheap materials. You see a lot of boxes out there that they advertise as Heavy Duty 200lb cardboard. First of all, 200lb is not the correct measure for the strength of a box, 200lbs means it takes 200lbs to puncture the box. Secondly it’s very low grade, pizza boxes are 175lb cardboard. Our shell alone is 300lb test and our support sleeve is well above that. The correct measure for the stacking strength of cardboard is called the ECT rating, and our boxes ECT rating is closer to 44lbs per inch. Our sleeves are now rated over 80lbs per inch because we use custom manufactured corrugated cardboard.

NG: For those of you who haven’t seen these drawer boxes, you have an exterior shell that the long white itself slides into but the piece that you can’t see (hiding inside the exterior shell) is an interior shell that provides support. Was it always the three piece system or was that something that evolved?

RV: It was always three pieces. We knew that one sheet by itself would never be adequate.

NG: Your boxes are stackable. I’ve heard a lot of people concerned about the boxes on the bottom. Because of the weight involved, people are afraid to have books in the box on the bottom for fear that the boxes on top must be squishing it. What has been your experience with that?

RV: Well that is understandable thinking because people are used to having a bunch of long boxes. Long boxes were never designed to be stacked at all, which is to say if you go two or three high they are going to start collapsing on you. We were designed to be stackable. So probably the most critical component was that support sleeve that goes inside the box. That’s why we are moving toward a triple wall construction. We have always used a triple wall in the magazine size, a double wall for the support sleeve plus the outer shell. We are now offering the same triple wall construction in our long size. We are going to do the triple wall construction in the short size this summer because it’s all about that support sleeve. Funny story about that, I have a certain number of calls from people time to time that say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a problem. My husband ordered some of your boxes and I thought I would be helpful and put them together. I thought this sheet of cardboard that came with it was just scrap, just packing material, so I threw it away. What do I do now?’

Wall O' Comics drawer front labels for the DrawerBox Storage System. (2)

Box Lox box anchors for the DrawerBox Storage System.

NG: Buy more?

RV: Well, we take care of our customers. That is an understandable problem and we help our customers out that way. It’s because people are not used to seeing that support sleeve and just take it for granted that it’s just a piece of cardboard. But it’s not, it’s the most important part!

NG: It is nice to have a company policy that can be forgiving of a customers inexperience with the product. Your boxes can also be locked together using small plastic clips. Could you tell us a little bit about those connectors?

RV: Oh yeah, the Box-Lox connectors. People use what I call the knee technique to open a drawer full of comics. In other words, they pull a drawer open and rest it on their knee or they lift their knee up to kind of prop it open. With our boxes it shouldn’t be necessary to begin with because we designed our boxes to work like drawers, and part of any file cabinet or grocery drawer is you can pull it all the way out and it’s going to hang open on its own. So we designed the boxes to be able to do that. The problem we had was with the top row tipping up, because normally the lower rows are counterbalanced by the box on top of them. But if there is nothing on top of the top row it is going to tip up when it’s pulled out. So we knew we had to find a solution for that, and it took a lot of thought because we had a very narrow space that whatever locking mechanism we used has to fit in. You have the exterior of the shell on one side and then the drawer on the inside. So there’s a very narrow space in between to work with. We just had to develop a product that fit in that narrow space that locked everything securely.

NG: And did you guys design and produce those yourself or is that something that you found?

RV: We kind of found it. The material we use, I found it because it was used for corrugated cardboard tents in the Middle East. It was used to connect the sheets. So we decided that since it was flat headed we could use that kind of material for the inside of the shells. We had some inspiration in that way.

NG: Also, you had shown me today that you are creating a new line of self-adhesive box front labels. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

RV: Yes, this is going to be a lot of fun. There’s a trend out there right now to have decorated boxes, decorated long boxes. They are printed, well most of them aren’t printed, there are 5 sheets that go on the exterior of the box all the way around. I contemplated that for a while but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense because of all the costs involved. Those boxes are really quite expensive. Just to have the decoration costs as much as our plain boxes. So I thought, it’s senseless because ours are designed to work in an array, with boxes on the side, boxes on top and bottom which means you never see the tops and the sides so it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of money decorating those. In ours, all you see is the front of the boxes. So what we’re developing now is a series of labels that can be applied to the front of the box and it decorates the front of the box. We are going to have a whole variety of things; once we cut the dies we can print a whole variety of fashions off the same die. Our first one is what I’m calling the Wall Of Comics. When you go to any comic book store it’s an endless source of fascination to see all those old comics behind the counter. We are going to try a recreate that effect with classic covers. Our first run will be famous artists. These will be artists like Frazetta, Reed Crandall and Al Williamson, covers from old historic comics. You can have a different label for each drawer. That should be coming out in another month or two. We are working on the final measurements and the dies right now. We are also working on licensing some classic covers that I can’t really announce yet because the licenses aren’t finalized. Then our long term plan is we are going to follow that up with what I call the Drawer Box Window Panes. We are going to create the effect of looking out the window with your array of boxes and seeing a scene. Any kind of scene you want. Maybe it’s various characters flying across the skyline of the city or something like that. It would be modular enough that if someone has an arrangement that’s 5 across and 4 high, and someone else has an arrangement that is 4 across and 4 high, or 6 across, they will be versatile enough that they can adapt to whatever the arrangement is. What we’ll be able to do is create a mural on the boxes which will be very dramatic. Maybe eventually we will even do some with very large images of some characters. Of course, all of that depends on the licensing but that is the long term vision.

Some of the DrawerBoxes from my private collection. (1)

NG: I know that you are based out of Colorado, but I know that you also ship nationwide. What are the options for people who wanted to buy from another state?

RV: First your local store is always an option, and as I said earlier, stores seem to be driven by customer requests. So let your store hear you loud and clear that yes, they can order boxes from us. We always love to talk to stores. Option number 2 is to go online to our website which is collectiondrawer.com and they can go in and see the website. So either way works.

NG: One more question, if people wanted to interact with this on Facebook, what is your Facebook page?

RV: We do have a Facebook page, it’s called DrawerBox Storage System because first of all we are not just a box. We are a mechanical device. We have to have load strength, we have moving parts and things like that. When we designed the box it had to be designed like a mechanical device. Secondly, we no longer think of ourselves as a box or a unit, something to put your comics in. We have multiple sizes for different types of collectables. They are all interchangeable in terms of the mail order. You can match then side by side for your collection so you can take your magazines and put them beside your comics or have your records and put them beside your comics, whatever you want.

NG: It is worth noting that the magazine size boxes are perfect for holding a record collection as well, or slabbed comics.

RV: And of course we have the upright divider system to organize the collectables inside the drawer. So we are no longer just a container. We are a comprehensive system. So we changed our name to the DrawerBox Storage System, and that is our Facebook address.

NG: If people reading this wanted to interact with the community and see what other people thought, I think that would be a great place to start.

RV: Yeah I love to hear people’s ideas and how they are using the DrawerBoxes on the Facebook page.

November 30, 2017

An Interview With Reset Survivor of Ecos De Xochitl (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

November 30, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Reset Survivor (Will Hines) of Ecos De Xochitl about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/05/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Reset Survivor at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)

You can not look very far into the indie comics scene in Phoenix without hearing about Reset Survivor. I have had his books recommended to me by people like Denny “Dennmann” Riccelli, Eric Mengel, and Adam Yeater – all of whom have been creating their own original-character driven comics in the area for years. Still, even with all the recommendations I had received for his computer-based art style, I had never managed to meet Mr. Hines – the Reset Survivor. I made up for that at this year’s Phoenix Comic Con, and I’m glad I did.

Neil Greenaway: Today I am speaking with Will Hines, otherwise known as Reset Survivor. First off, for people who might not be familiar with your work, what kind of comics do you make?

Reset Survivor: I do a book called Ecos De Xochitl, which is kind of a webcomic. I started it and then I gave up on it for about a year. I gave up on it when times got hard. I said “I ain’t got time for this shit”. So I set it aside I recently picked it back up. There were other books that I wanted to do and this was just in the way. So it had to go, I had other stuff to do that was better. Not that my webcomic is bad, just that there were other things I really wanted to do

NG: What is the story in the Ecos De Xochitl?

RS: I was watching this Superman movie a while back, and he passed out like every 5 minutes. I don’t know if that’s how it happened but that’s how it seemed to me. But it gave me this idea. What if there was this person that passed out and woke up in another body? And what if it kept alternating? When the new person passed out they woke up in the other person’s body again? And you wouldn’t know which was real and which was the dream. I was really into that idea. And the webcomic just kind of ran with that.

Ecos De Xochitl Disk 1 from Reset Survivor.

An interior page from Ecos De Xochitl Disk 1 by Reset Survivor.

Ecos De Xochitl Disk 2 from Reset Survivor.

NG: Do you intend on returning to that?

RS: Oh yeah! I’m finishing it right now. I am about halfway through the story right now. I have it all written out. That was the weird thing. I had it all planned out before I quit, but then I just stopped.

I draw this all on the computer, it uses a weird art style. It’s called ANSI art. It is a lot like ASTI art, but more like a cousin to that. A lot of people think it’s 8-bit or pixel art and I’m totally fine with that. I always just say “Yeah, that’s what it is”.

NG: Is that the same art style you used on the Cockroaches you have here on the table?

RS: It is.

NG: You have several cockroach stickers available here. What inspired those?

RS: Just living with bugs I suppose. When I was living in Mesa, I lived on the bottom floor of a building. And every summer, man, they would come out. You walk into the kitchen and they scurry, and you think “Well, that’s disgusting”. You can tell the apartment complex, but nobody cares. I tried bug bombs, but they didn’t work. If those things want inside they get there. For a while I sort of developed a relationship with them. They just don’t want to be on fire, and that’s the same reason I’m in there. I understand.

Cockroach stickers from Reset Survivor at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Reset Survivor at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)

NG: That is very compassionate of you. I see that you have a Kaiju book here on your table. What can you tell me about that?

RS: The Kaiju book came about because I am friends with Brad Dwyer and Damon Begay and we are all into tokusatsu, stuff like Power Rangers and Kamen Rider. We are really into that stuff! So we decided to create our own characters and put them in this pseudo-world, that would be our own version of that stuff. Brad does a character called Zodiac Man, where he uses the different zodiac signs as power moves. Damon has a character called Phoenix Night, who is a girl with the soul of a reincarnated hero. My strip is about a Japanese girl group, a singing group, that transforms into a giant robot, Ultraman-type character. I really just wanted to do a story about a Japanese girl group that turned into robots.

NG: You also have your sketchbook here, Beer and Ramen. What can you tell me about that? I am drawn to the name right off the bat.

RS: Well it was my life for at least a couple of months. Every night it was just beer and ramen until my guts gave up. My insides were saying “you cannot have anymore or you will die”. Anyway, its just a sketchbook basically filled with alcohol-fueled doodles. This was me just drinking and drawing. The good thing to come out of this book is that I recently decided to buy plane ticket and visit Japan. And now I am saving money to really enjoy that trip.

Reset Survivor and his banner at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Comics from Reset Survivor at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: Your table includes several original Mini Comics, some cockroach stickers, and some original art, all of it your original creations. Do you find that you do well at conventions selling only your own IP?

RS: It is a hard sell because I’m not selling Deadpool prints…

NG: And bless you for that, sir!

RS: I am trying to do my own original stuff and it is a harder sell, but honestly when people walk by they almost always snap their neck looking at it. They’ve never seen anything like this before.

NG: If I could go back just a little bit to Ecos De Xochitl, is that still coming out as a webcomic or is it only in print?

RS: I only just finished the third print issue in the last month or so, but I haven’t posted them to the webcomic. I do plan on overhauling the webcomic website after this event. I have been planning for Phoenix Comic Con for a while and after this I can take a deep breath and get back to work.

Ecos De Xochitl Disk 3 from Reset Survivor. (back cover)

Ecos De Xochitl Disk 3 from Reset Survivor. (front cover)

NG: And then the webcomic comes back?

RS: Yeah, I really do plan on overhauling the whole site though. I just don’t like the way it is. I want it to be way more simple, it’s far too complex. When I say that people will go look, and there are maybe four buttons on the site (laughs). But it could be simplified even further.

NG: I think that about wraps up my questions for you today. If people wanted to see more of you or your webcomic where could they look online?

RS: The best place to find me is on Instagram, I am @ResetSurvivor. And I guess you could look for me on resetsurvivor.com. This will give me the push I need to actually get that site finished!

November 29, 2017

An Interview With Mark Gardner and John J. Rust of War Of The Worlds: Retaliation (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

November 29, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with novelists Mark Gardner & John J Rust about their take on publishing new novels. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/05/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

War of the Worlds: Retaliation by John J. Rust & Mark Gardner.

I had the chance to sit down and speak with novelists Mark Gardner and John J. Rust at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. I was eager to hear about the books they had each authored individually, and equally excited to hear that they had recently co-written a sequel to the classic H.G. Wells novel War Of The Worlds. Our conversation ranged from cryptid hunters to space disasters and from superheroes to sea-raptors. Of course we also discussed Martians, and why the humans had to take the fight to Mars.

Neil Greenaway: Let’s go ahead and start with Mark. I know that you and John have a novel that you have co-written, but to start, why don’t you tell me about some of your earlier books?

Mark Gardner: Well, I mostly write sci-fi, dystopian. I’m a big fan of historical fiction. I recently collaborated on a space disaster with two great authors, Greg Dragon and David Kristoph. They both have successful space opera series. I had read some of their work and I was impressed. With today’s technology and instant communication, I emailed them both. I said, “Hey, would you guys want to collaborate on a space disaster with me?” I figured we could do it on my blog.

The catch was that each of us would write a particular perspective. For instance, I write the engineers, Greg writes the bridge crew, and David writes the miners. And so we could all write our own point of view while maintaining a style for that faction. Also, we did not know who the bad guy was. We all assumed that we were responsible for this space disaster. And then in week 18, the fans got to vote on who the villain was.

The fun part of that was whichever two teams turned out not to be the villains now had to resolve all the red herrings. It’s interesting when you don’t know how the story is going to end, because it forces you to stay on your toes. You don’t want the other guys to have to pick up your slack.

NG: Now when you describe this, did this all play out in a written format or was this a podcast?

MG: This all took place on my blog, article94.com. And every week we would write a new chapter. We would go in the order of David first, then Greg, then myself. And we never knew what was going to happen. We had a vague outline, obviously, but whatever happened in the chapter was up to that author.

It was a lot of fun because we have very different styles, but the styles meshed because they were consistent to a viewpoint. We will be releasing this as a novel called Days Until Home. It should be out this fall. I actually brought a bunch of early copies to con to sell to fans. This early edition is just an unedited blog compilation; the edited version is what will be released in the fall.

NG: Who will that be putting that out for you?

MG: I’m actually going to self-publish this one. A lot of publishers don’t know how to deal with multi-author books, unless all of the authors are really big names. We just decided it would be easier to self-publish it. The blog itself was a super mega hit, and so we are also expecting the novel to be a super mega hit. (laughs)

Mark Gardner at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (1)

NG: When you say you were looking to self-publish it, does that mean crowdfunding?

MG: We might do a little bit of crowdfunding for the hardcover. We are going to need an ISBN. But it would be a small amount of money; really, a couple hundred bucks is all we would need for that. It is written and we have paid for all the editing out of our pockets, so it is done.

NG: I understand you also have some superhero novels. What can you tell me about those?

MG: I do have a superhero novel. It’s called Sixteen Sunsets. I have a funny behind-the-scenes story on that one. When I finished writing it two years ago, I was short on my word count. Well, I have a great friend over in Bulgaria named Cindy Vaskova. I called her up and told her I was short on my word count but I was burned out, and I asked if she could give me a subplot. So Cindy, in like a week, breaks out a 10,000 word subplot.

I got her draft, read it, and it blew me away. I loved the character. So when it came time to write a sequel, I asked her if she would like to co-write it with me. We just finished that sequel about a month ago. We came up 25,000 words over our projection. Joel Cotejar did the art for the first book and he is back for the second one. He is a former Valiant Comics artist.

NG: Can you give me a brief synopsis of the story in that series?

MG: Sure. Sixteen Sunsets is about a guy, just a regular guy, who gets a diagnosis of cancer. And this is semi-autobiographical because I have leukemia, and this allowed me to put some of my thoughts and feelings on that into the novel. Anyway, after my character gets this diagnosis, he also finds out he has superpowers. He finds out other people have superpowers. And superheroes have been around for much longer than people thought. Every time something strange has happened, it was probably because of some super-powered person. So it is the story of him coming to accept that he has superpowers, and cancer at the same time.

It shows how having these god-like powers can really change the way someone thinks. I have my bachelor’s degree in applied human behavior from Northern Arizona University, so I used my training from that to make the behavior of my characters as real as possible.

Now in the sequel, Moonrise, we have kicked up the superheroes a notch. We have a character who wants to create a super-powered army, to basically wipe out all humans. They see the humans as defective because they don’t have superpowers. Of course, there are returning characters, as well, from book one. Then in 2018, we will probably start writing the third volume, which will be called Starfall.

Books from Mark Gardner at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: If you already have a third novel planned, do you have an endpoint for this universe? Do you know how the story ends?

MG: Each novel really is self-contained. I am not a big fan of the cliffhanger ending, or of the gratuitous cliffhanger ending. If you can end your story, but then say, “Oh, look what was happening over here,” that to me is an acceptable cliffhanger ending. So each of my stories can be read by itself, but of course it’s more enjoyable as part of an overarching sequence.

NG: You have said that this is a superhero story, and you are even working with a comic artist. Have you considered turning this story into a graphic novel?

MG: I have done some research on that. And as I’m sure you know, writing a graphic novel is extremely different from writing a novel. If I found the right team to do it, because I would need an editor who knows how the graphic format works. Then you need to consolidate a 300-page novel into a 40-page graphic novel or a series of floppies. If I ever did it, I would want the Fillbach Brothers for the sequential art.

NG: I think that brings us to your War of the Worlds sequel, War of the Worlds: Retaliation. How did that come about?

MG: My co-author for that one, John J. Rust, is a big fan fiction writer. He has, I think, over two million words written [of] Harry Potter fan fiction. One of the other pieces of fan fiction he had was a sequel to War of the Worlds. It was probably novella-length. I read it and thought that it would make a really great novel, and the worldwide copyright on War of the Worlds was expiring. We did a little research and found out that the copyright did indeed expire on December 31st, 2016. So we teamed up and rewrote his fan fiction into a novel. We are both big Harry Turtledove fans, so we strove for realism and accuracy.

The premise is that when the Martians died in 1898, they left all their stuff behind. Tripods, communicators, everything. And the humans are a wily bunch, so they reverse-engineer all that stuff. Now that we have the technology, we don’t want to be attacked again. So we take the fight to Mars. The fight will feature Patton, Rommel, all these historic figures. It will be a classic alien invasion, except the humans are the aliens.

More books from Mark Gardner at Phoenix Comic con 2017.

NG: Interesting. How did you and John come to collaborate on this?

MG: We actually work together in radio broadcasting, and we’re both authors, and friends. So it came about that way. We pitched it to a few publishers, and we actually found out there was another author working on a different sequel [to] War of the Worlds. But it has been great, and we were able to sell our story to Severed Press, out of Tasmania.

NG: All right, I think with that we can ask your partner, John J. Rust, to step in and answer some questions. We can start with John where we left off with Mark, with War of the Worlds: Retaliation. Can you tell us how you came to be a part of this collaboration?

John J. Rust: As Mark said, this started as a fan fiction piece. One day I just got to thinking about War of the Worlds. I was thinking about when the Martians died, their tripods were left behind, mostly intact. A few tripods we’re taking out by the British army, but most of them would have been fine. The ships that brought them to Earth were still intact. If all this stuff was left lying around, still intact, I think it makes sense that humans would try to figure it out.

In my story, the humans are able to successfully reverse engineer the tech. And by 1924, humans have spaceships, tripods, jet fighters. I figured a 25-year gap would be enough for them to have reverse-engineered some of this stuff and also done an element of rebuilding in the cities.

NG: What makes you think that humanity would go after Mars?

JJR: Considering how devastating the invasion was — mind you, we only see it from the British perspective, but this was happening all over the world — millions must have died, cities must lie in ruin. I think that humanity would be so terrified of this happening again that their focus would be on going to Mars and stopping the Martians once and for all. We need to ensure that this tragedy never happens again. And of course, the attack changed history. Because this happened, there will be no first World War. Earth joins in an alliance to defeat Mars.

Mark Gardner at Phoenix Comic Con 2017. (2)

NG: With this role reversal, where the humans become the invaders, do we get a taste at all for Martian home life?

JJR: That is of course one of the things that we never see in the H.G. Wells novel, because everything is told from the point-of-view of the nameless narrator. And the answer is yes, we do. I wanted to see what would the Martians be thinking, what would their reaction be to their Cleansing Force having been killed off by bacteria?

Without giving too much away, in our novel the Martians are now afraid of humanity. We pose a threat, and not even through a weapon. Just by breathing, we pose a threat to them. So we find that in this 25-year gap, the Martians have become almost an isolationist race. They want nothing to do with Earth. They have a military leader (called the Supreme Guardian) who sees the threat that Earth poses, but his leaders won’t listen to him.

NG: Proving that politics is universal. I think that about covers War of the Worlds: Retaliation for us. What can you tell me about your other novels?

JJR: A lot of what I do is sci-fi or action adventure. Mark had mentioned Severed Press, they also published my novel Sea Raptor.

NG: Sea Raptor? What is that one about?

JJR: That one is about a group of Cryptid Hunters. The main characters are an ex-Army Ranger named Jack and a wildlife photographer named Karen. Jack has been out of the army for over a year, and this is a guy whose whole life was about becoming an Army Ranger. He achieves that goal, but during his service something happens (I won’t tell you what) and the Army has to let him go. So he gets hooked up with a group of Cryptid Hunters and they start investigating a new sea creature that has been killing people up and down the Jersey Shore. That investigation leads to the team learning about a whole new conspiracy. And we actually have a sequel to that one, called Reptilian, coming out in maybe another month or so.

Books from John J. Rust at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

Hardcovers from Mark Gardner & John J. Rust at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: As we get close to wrapping up, do you think you and Mark would collaborate again? Do you have more to say in the Martian saga?

JJR: It is funny that you mention that, because probably in the next month or so we are going to be beginning a sequel to Retaliation. It is tentatively titled War of the Worlds: Firestorm. And that should pick up about 20 years after the events in Retaliation.

NG: As a final question, if people wanted to see more of your work, or find out more about your books, where would they look online?

MG: The best place to find out about everything Mark Gardner is article94.com. And my Twitter handle is article_94.

JJR: My Amazon page on amazon.com, and you can find me on Facebook as John J. Rust, author. I am also on Twitter @JohnJRust.

November 28, 2017

An Interview With Keith Foster of Kodoja (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

November 28, 2017/ Neil Greenaway

Written by Neil Greenaway

At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I had the chance to sit down and talk with Keith Foster of Kodoja about his take on publishing indie comics. This interview originally ran on Bleeding Cool on 6/05/2017, and you can read their version of it here.

Kaiju have been around for a long time, and they have amassed a huge following over the years. There are thousands of movies, games, novels and comics dedicated to the stories of these monsters’ destructive powers. At Phoenix Comic Con 2017 I met a man named Keith Foster who felt he had something new to add to the world of giant monsters. When he said that Cthulhu and the Elder Gods were involved, he really had my attention.

Neil Greenaway: Can you start by giving us just a little bit of backstory, what is going on in this series?

Keith Foster: Sure. So the series Kodoja is really two stories that kind of join. On one hand you have this giant-monster-on-the-loose side of the story, which is Kodoja itself, a 200 ft. tall super weapon gone wrong. The story starts with you finding out that there are some people remaining from a certain military division, they are the people who are left to deal with Kodoja. As luck would have it they are also the estranged creators, designers, and architects of the monster. Now they have to figure out how to shut down this thing that has been designed to be unstoppable. That is one part of it; the other part is that you have this Elder God’s factor – these creepy monsters that have possibly been here for a very long time all of a sudden rising up from the earth to do something presumably pretty bad. As that happens, Kodoja then starts tracking one of the giant monsters that comes up out of the ground and that leads to a big confrontation at the end of the first arc. And that is the narrative arc of it; you have a monster on the loose side that seemingly continues to outwit its creators and develops new techniques and tactics that shouldn’t have happened, it’s kind of thinking for itself. Then you also have this growing concern of other worldly evil that is going on as well.

NG: And that is where we come into Volume 2?

KF: Yes.

NG: You have the first 3 issues of the 2nd series, what is the length of that arc?

KF: Each arc is going to be 5 issues. The 2nd volume has 3 of the 5 issues out.

NG: Was the 1st series released as individual issues or was that just a graphic novel?

KF: Yes, it was issues. The very short version of Kodoja is that we self published it for a while. Then after about a year and a half, when the five issues had been done, we were approached by 215 Ink (the publisher) and ended up kind of taking our stuff down and re-launching it with issue 1 through 215 Ink. So it’s been single issues actually twice, a self published run and a 215 Ink run.

NG: When did you start this project?

KF: June 2012 was when the first issue came out, so maybe a year before that we actually started working on it. All 3 of us (the creative team) – myself who writes it, Rory Smith who does the interiors and Lance Pilgrim who does the graphic design and editing – we all have day jobs, so we put it out as often as we can. But life can get in the way and stuff happens. We are basically about to celebrate 5 years, and we did have that 1+ year of a holding pattern with the first 5 issues kind of re-launching.

Kodoja banner at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: What can you tell me about the rest of the creative team working on it?

KF: Rory Smith (our artist) has – over the time that we have done Kodoja – switched jobs. He now has a day job in animation, so he now works for an animation studio. I love his style. Lance Pilgrim (our graphic design/editor), he does graphic design for his day job and he also does all the great treatments and creates the look of Kodoja. We keep the colors down and it kind of has the look of a propaganda poster feel, but updated as well, so like some bright colors that really pop.

It started with Lance and I. The whole thing started with a music project originally intended to be this lost Godzilla soundtrack that we were going to release. Then we had this music in our hands and we thought, what if we created our own story that kind of goes with this music? And so we did that and that was where Kodoja was born. What really drew Lance and I to Rory was that in his original art he used perspective incredibly well. He could just move the camera around in so many creative ways. He had never really done a lot of giant monster stuff before, but he was just a natural for it in his ability to just create these huge things.

NG: Speaking of the music, I see that you have several CD’s here. Is this meant to be accompanying music to the story?

KF: Yes it is. There are 3 CD’s. The first one is called Terror Mountain Showdown and it is the companion music for the first story-arc, also called Terror Mountain Showdown. Valley of the Giants, we just had that come out with the release of the 3rd issue, so that is the accompaniment to the 2nd arc. Then Sentient is a story all in itself with its own soundtrack, so it’s an audio drama. We harken back to the old school radio serials. It’s like 20-27 minutes, something like that, just a quick story that brings you to the doorstep of the first issue of Kodoja.

A kaiju poster at Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

NG: Is it you guys playing the music in that, or do you have another band that you use?

KF: I write the comic and I am the guitarist in the band Big Pimp Jones. We do the music to this. So that is the connection. There are couple guys in Big Pimp Jones and a couple guys that do the Kodoja stuff and I am the link between them.

NG: Nice. It must be great to have that bridge between your two loves. You had said earlier that this story was planned as a series of mini-series, how far forward does your plan go?

KF: We have concrete ideas for basically the first 5 mini-series. Which would be the first 25 issues. That 5th story will be the narrative arc that all the other narrative arcs kind of build to. Then we will take it from there. It could end or we could do something else with it. We will see what happens.

NG: It has to be asked: Are you building to any Island Of the Monsters type grand showdown of the beasts?

KF: I will answer your question like this – We definitely have a design on each arc to up-the-ante on monsters. So the further it goes along, the more monsters we are going to throw out there.

NG: Before we leave you today, is there anything else you think people should definitely know about the series?

KF: Giant monsters are awesome. Go out there and get some. Whether it is Kodoja or something else, I think that Kaiju have an untapped element of story telling.

NG: If people wanted to find out more about you guys or about Kodoja, where would we go to see that online?

KF: You could go to our website which is kodoja.com.

NG: Do you have any social media presence?

KF: I personally keep bigpimpjones on social media. Then we also have a Facebook page for Kodoja, the Kodoja website, @kodoja on Twitter and there might have been some social media thing that got invented in the last 4 hours and we are probably Kodoja on that as well.

Kaiju posters at the Kodoja table in Phoenix Comic Con 2017.

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.

Creator Conversations

An Interview With Chris Gore of Film Threat and Gemr.com (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Phil Buck of Buy Indie Comics Day (BICD 2017)

An Interview With Robin & Cory Childs of LeyLines and Wavemen (Denver Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Jake Roth of Art and Home Life (Denver Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Dan Conner of Crazy Good Comics (Denver Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Daniel & Dawna Davis of Steam Crow/Monster Scouts (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With the Fillbach Brothers of 1First Comics (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Ash Maczko and Ashley Witter of the Squarriors TCG (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Rich Vincent of the DrawerBox Storage System (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Reset Survivor of Ecos De Xochitl (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Mark Gardner and John J. Rust of War Of The Worlds: Retaliation (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

An Interview With Keith Foster of Kodoja (Phoenix Comic Con 2017)

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)

Nerd Team 30