[SPEAKER_05]: What is up everybody, welcome to Comic Book Club, I'm Alex.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Pete, and we are coming to you live with a couple of places on the internet where live on Facebook linked in, of course, for all your job needs, YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, we're not live on Kick Today, which is very important, unfortunate for these spammers who are trying to get us sign up for stuff.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sorry, Spambers, we'll be back with you next week, but Justin is not here because and this is not a joke.
[SPEAKER_05]: He is Understanding at the Metropolitan Opera tonight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jay T says, oh, that L. I just said, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a fancy dude.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's not a L. Just and it's New York just.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's still, he's a big deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a big deal.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's a big deal.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, we don't know if he's going to go on.
[SPEAKER_05]: He hasn't let us know yet, but it is opening night at the opera.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he is there.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, for the opera.
[SPEAKER_05]: But that's okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have some awesome awesome guests for you this evening.
[SPEAKER_05]: So why don't we bring in our first set of guests there too.
[SPEAKER_05]: behind the hit webtune and web series, me, the family pet.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ladies, gentlemen, G. Joe Sleeper and Monica.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, welcome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi.
[SPEAKER_05]: So excited.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi.
[SPEAKER_05]: So excited to have you guys here.
[SPEAKER_05]: So excited to talk about this series.
[SPEAKER_05]: So as I mentioned, it has been running on webtune for a while with billions of views.
[SPEAKER_05]: you made it into a animated series that is rolling out on YouTube and TikTok also again million views totally crushing it but take back to the concept and sort of like the initial fruition of this idea.
[SPEAKER_05]: Both of you I believe have like a background in animation so this feels like a natural fit but why what led to this in particular?
[SPEAKER_05]: What led to this idea and this collaboration?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I can start.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'm just a broom, the creator of the series and actually it's kind of a funny story as to how this idea came to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came up with this idea when I was nine years old and it was the product of a really unfair detention assignment.
[SPEAKER_00]: My teacher sent me on Erin to the office and I'm pretty sure she had it in for me because while she, while I was away, she gave the class an assignment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I got back, I asked if the assignment was because I didn't know she gave me detention.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I totally set up exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I thought about doing what I was nine, and it didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, the detention assignment was to write a story about aliens.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I went home to play into my mom because I wanted her to help school fight on my behalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, you know what, why don't you just follow them away with a really awesome story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so.
[SPEAKER_00]: yeah exactly mom mom to get the higher road yeah exactly yeah so i said okay so i sat down and i should still have the two books here i filled up two books oh wow and i created Sally the family pet to a family of aliens and uh you know i held on to her really long time i did show it to my teacher she pretty much went and said it through you know towards the trash i managed to save it but yeah not but not the most inspiring teacher but
[SPEAKER_00]: But the good news is I held on to the story idea and years later, many years later, for how many, but when I age myself, but many years later, I blew the dust off it, because I thought I would make a fun kind of Garfield-esque comic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I started storyboarding with comics about Sally, the tech human, in a very kind of Garfield style, kind of like what a tech human was, you know, kind of causing trouble and mischief and an alien family have full.
[SPEAKER_00]: started getting really popular on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when I think I met Monica and Monica, you can kind of stick it from there, you're like, yeah, I fell in love with the same story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: G'day when I were both tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe trouble causing little ladies.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I really love this.
[SPEAKER_01]: We very much.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I loved the web comic and then once we started talking about what it might become as a series, we stuck it out there on YouTube and TikTok and a couple a hundred million views later here in
[SPEAKER_05]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's pretty crazy.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm actually curious to take a step back and say why why webtune and why approach it in this way.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, we've had a bunch of webtune creators on this show and everybody always has a very different answer as to how they tackle the format.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you said, you've got a little bit more of a Garfield sense.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a multiple panel for anybody's listening to the audio podcast later and not looking at it right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: You got a multi panel strip going on
[SPEAKER_05]: and multiple chapters there.
[SPEAKER_05]: But why was this the right place to start?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as I said, it could have taken a lot of different forms, but because it started off as a Garfield inspired idea, I wanted something that was comic kind of related.
[SPEAKER_00]: And WebTune is really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think for getting comics about there, I always thought, how do I get to talk to people?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I work in an industry as my day job,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's tough right now for new creators to get their ideas in front of people and so I was trying Instagram, but Instagram is great, but it's not great for like linear storytelling because, you know, it's hard to scroll all the way back and get to the beginning of the story and what's wonderful about web team is it's really set up for linear based storytelling, you can start the beginning and you can just kind of click through all the comics and so it seemed like the definitely the best, you know, home for the series so that's why I brought it to web team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I usually direct people to web team as well as the best way to catch up on a whole story, because there are three hundred, you know, very common, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot for Instagram, but that's why that's why I think web team was against it for it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, the other part of it is you have a pretty active fan base, at least, that I could see on WebTube, commentate constantly on every single strip, and that's a big part of it as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, I think people look at WebTube for the outside, it's like, oh, yeah, they're putting up comics, but it's almost a social platform in a certain way.
[SPEAKER_05]: So how do you embrace that?
[SPEAKER_05]: How do you use that?
[SPEAKER_05]: And does that direct your storytelling at all, or are you just sort of like, take the
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great question.
[SPEAKER_00]: And 100% it absolutely does direct my storytelling.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I already know where this is going to go, you know, Monica and I was pushed Bible outlining Sally's story and you know, I don't want to give too much away but there's a lot of twists and turns on her journey as she goes from being like a pet human to actually saving the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I do kind of look to my audience sometimes in terms of like what characters are most popular.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, perfect example is I introduced a couple of characters recently that I was just like, oh, they're going to be a one off, you know, but they were so popular.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll tell you, like, uh, they're basically a nerd.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a nerd named Pandia in this series.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's kind of a geek.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the joke is that her pet human is like this, uh, he's like this golf middlehead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're a complete opposite, but at the same time, they both love metal music.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she's the geek scientist, which she listens to metal.
[SPEAKER_00]: She rocks out, watched experiments with her human.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just introduced them to kind of move the story along, but they became so popular that I was like, okay, I need to weave them into the story more permanently because people were, you know, drawing fan art of them, and it was like, all right, I got a, so to answer your question, yes, I absolutely pay attention to what they ought to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if they really like this character, I think we'll have to weave this character in more to make sure that I'm supporting one of that, and because it is a community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to make sure that we're building this community together.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go ahead Pete.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted to say like first off congratulations.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is so awesome I love the vibe of this just like reading it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It really kind of brings me back to when I was a kid reading Garfield and like the Sunday comics and all that kind of like magical feeling.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like you guys do such a great job of capturing that It's also awesome to see you on like TikTok
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it kind of crazy to have something that lived in your head like the voice of a character kind of lives in your head and then here Somebody kind of doing the voice was that kind of like Fonda weird or any of the above to kind of have that happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was amazing I mean, I'm so lucky Monica was really amazing at helping me up with the talent You know, because I didn't really know would start I wanted to start helping for do things I didn't really want to wait around for a studio to pick it up because you know
[SPEAKER_00]: struggling right now and we had to figure out how can we just start getting this out there because I do think that's the most important part of a creating content is to just get something out there and so Monica was great she was you know here's where you can go to find animators here's where you can go to find voice actors and I'm so blessed you know we have an amazing voice talent to now amazing animators my husband does a couple of voices which is really fun
[SPEAKER_00]: yeah and so um and it was great because it was just such a fun way to breathe life into the comics and really show like this is what I was envisioning in my have when I storyboard of the comics and now here it is you know living on YouTube and TikTok and you get to kind of speed the gags play out and the and the beat and the timing and it's fun it's really fun to to direct as little mini episodes.
[SPEAKER_05]: it's so interesting to hear you say that because I was going to ask about translating it from the webcomic style to the animated style.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it sounds like for what you're saying, you already had it living in your head as the animation, and this is definitely the wrong word, but you almost like you reduced it down to those panels to those still storyboarding it.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the animation is kind of like the final form in a certain way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 100%, you know, I work in animation, and so I've sort of been very familiar with the story-winning process, and when I create my comics, I did it intentionally with, you know, six panels, always ending on either a joke, or some kind of story, uh-oh, you know, especially as the series gets a little darker, you know, the six panels will often end on something like a reveal or something dramatic.
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's in very intentional in doing all of that, achieving all of that in six paddles, because right now the idea is to produce these little mini shorts, and that's how people are consuming the content.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, eventually the goal is to bring it to a broader format, maybe a series format, and then the style would obviously change very much in order to fit that format.
[SPEAKER_00]: But right now, this is the way that we feel people are kind of consuming the content.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the comics are very deliberately style
[SPEAKER_05]: And one other thing, I believe you made a deal, you were saying with you two's, which people don't know, those are figurines, they're not fun co-pops, they have very different eyeballs, it's a totally different thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do your thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ooh, fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get the toy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's so good.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_05]: My son is obsessed with YouTube.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's on the website like almost every single day.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'll have to point him in the direction of these.
[SPEAKER_05]: But how did that deal came about?
[SPEAKER_05]: Because you don't normally, like YouTube is at least the way that I'm familiar with it through the expert.
[SPEAKER_05]: My son is like, you know, you have a stranger things.
[SPEAKER_05]: You have X-Men 97, whatever.
[SPEAKER_05]: So how did you end up getting hooked up with this deal?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, YouTube is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they really keep their finger on the poles for what people are consuming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they reach that to me, I guess they really must power the internet, I assume, to see what people are watching what they're consuming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I guess they seem the numbers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they reached out asking if I was interested in licensing content.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were just so great to work with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it just really responsive and excited.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, they have this down to a science in terms of how they
[SPEAKER_00]: create the prototypes and get the creators and put and just really awesome to work with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I don't know how much I can stay on here because I know they have their marketing strategy and I don't want to like, you know, get to step on any toes with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But once they have a whole, you know, drop coming up in January where these dogs will be available.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, depending on how they sell, we might do some others as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's been a really great partnership and I feel really grateful that they reached out because
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's not everything you're saying it definitely seems like of course the animation is the goal that's what you're looking to do but just to get back to the comics for a second do you see them getting collected anyway I mean I know when we're talking about like Sunday boarding strips the things that I always loved was re-sitting down with my collections of calphids and hobs or far side or anything like that and just obsessing and pouring over them so is there any thought towards that or is it is the goal the animation at this point?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, it's both honestly, like I would love to do a series, I mean, that's kind of how I'm creating it is to be a series, however, I would love to do a book, you know, right now we're in talks with some publishers, nothing's nothing's come to fruition yet, but absolutely I've been writing these as volumes, so there's like a kind of a big twist at the end of each volume.
[SPEAKER_00]: with the kind of anticipation that each volume could also become a season, you know, so it's sort of a line that way in terms of the story-time, but, you know, we're looking for the right partner there.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of publishers are looking for graphic novels now, and even though I completely understand that that's all the rage, and I get it, you know, right now, I do think they're still in appetite for their Sunday funnies, as you were saying, their Sunday comics, the Calvin
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's still the way that I've been forwarding these so I'm hoping that, you know, we do find the right partner and that we can get a couple of books out because the audience and they're all asking for it, is that we're.
[SPEAKER_01]: We remind of some of your thoughts on that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we really want somebody to share our vision.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know where the story is going.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have all the seasons laid out.
[SPEAKER_01]: The plot is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The narrative is very linear.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as Tito said, we're looking for a partner that's very special and wants to take the story where we want it to go alongside the community, not take it from its community, which is key.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is all great, and the book is great.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, great to have up here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Obviously the thing to check out is be the family pet, but just to give you another chance, is there anything else people should check out for me?
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything else you want to plug?
[SPEAKER_05]: Monica, anything you want to plug there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's a great question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I didn't come prepared with that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll be on that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's all right.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's just where some people check you out socially.
[SPEAKER_01]: People, yeah, people can find me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very active on LinkedIn, randomly enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do have my own studio, Monica Violetoa Productions.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do a host of all different things and projects.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find me there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have several books and series myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But right now, let's stick to me the family pet.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we're here.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_05]: And G.J.O.
[SPEAKER_05]: Same for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you're looking to get more into the series, I recommend starting on WebTune, as you guys said, that's a really good way to catch a wonderful story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the animations are following the comic, but there are a few years behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can watch all the animations.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am playing on eventually streaming some of them together, so that they'll be more linear.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I invite you to check out my TikTok, my YouTube, and my Instagram, and of course the WebTune.
[SPEAKER_00]: just look for me, the family pet, and everything should come up.
[SPEAKER_05]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you both so much for the congratulations on everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're not looking forward to making, having my son force me to buy a bunch of YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for having us, you guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, there we go.
[SPEAKER_05]: Once again, it's called me the family pet as they mentioned.
[SPEAKER_05]: Check it out on web tune.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also on YouTube TikTok and presumably a couple of the players.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's that stuff down.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll look like it was like just pulled the right from the animation.
[SPEAKER_02]: It looked really awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: We should get YouTube's made of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: We probably sell zero of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'll buy yours get'll be fun.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like I have a hanging right right here We'll get a note from you to you.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's gonna be like that's weird.
[SPEAKER_05]: We sold a negative Units and it's never happened before.
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, we have two more great guests for you Yeah, I think very excited to talk to these guys They are two of our favorite writers working right now and there are two writers who work as one
[SPEAKER_05]: as a hive mind, ladies and gentlemen, Colin Kelly and Jackson Lanson.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, welcome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're really, really pleased to meet you here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Very excited to have you guys on to anybody listening.
[SPEAKER_05]: I do want to mention you guys are in the same room.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's hilarious.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god
[SPEAKER_08]: left.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm one hand.
[SPEAKER_08]: He's the other one.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not far off though.
[SPEAKER_06]: We do actually work in person.
[SPEAKER_06]: We work in person together since we were like 21 years old.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So last year.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, just last year.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, but yeah, nothing better than we normally stare at each other from across a table on which is great because then you can be.
[SPEAKER_08]: I found it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good angle for you, yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, oh, yes, hello, sir.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then we can have that conversation before going back down into our fighting holes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, there's a lot of stuff I want to talk about, and of course you are here to talk about from IDW, one of my favorite series running right now, Star Trek the Last Starship.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I want to ask you a question you probably have been asked one billion times, but we haven't asked you yet.
[SPEAKER_05]: What works about the partnership?
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, obviously, you guys are very joined at the hip.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you're saying, you met in college, clearly it worked there.
[SPEAKER_05]: But,
[SPEAKER_05]: Partnerships usually have a limited shelf life, and you guys have been working together for a really long time now.
[SPEAKER_05]: So what is it about this that works so well?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you not murder each other?
[SPEAKER_02]: We're asking for a problem, but he hasn't taken it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Nobody in particular.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's actually, you actually just said something interesting because you're like, well, in college, obviously, it's where the magic started.
[SPEAKER_08]: No contrariser.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I do think that this might be one of the reasons that we do function so well is when we first met,
[SPEAKER_06]: We were oil and water when we met.
[SPEAKER_06]: Colin Colin wrote me as the villain in one of his like student pilots.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'd left on to go study abroad.
[SPEAKER_08]: And when I came back, my roommate, who was my best friend, had found a new roommate.
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_08]: So obviously, it was my enemy for life.
[SPEAKER_08]: But then we started reading each other's works and becoming really excited about what the other person was and just as a person, but as a creative, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: And there's something about it's really hard to be mad at someone when their work is so damn good.
[SPEAKER_08]: Um, so we found that kind of mutual connection of work, which also I think in a lot of ways helped us get over the concept of, uh, personality, because we were so similar.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think it was really important.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think when you're, when you're that age, you need somebody and you're like, especially at like a small, competitive film school where you're like, oh, like, this guy's stealing my brand.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, this guy's taking my whole, like, they're Jack and my whole style, like, what am I going to do?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think a big part of our relationship was learning that we had unique styles, but
[SPEAKER_06]: they were they were something that only we understood and that we're other people see us and go oh they're so similar we're like we're really not but we are but we're not and I think like figuring out that chemistry and learning what that was it grew it like a friendship um in terms of like why I think it's special I think it basically comes down to that I think Colin has a skill set that I don't have I have a skill set that Colin doesn't have
[SPEAKER_06]: We teach each other every day.
[SPEAKER_06]: I learned stuff from him.
[SPEAKER_06]: I figure out stuff.
[SPEAKER_06]: I recognize my own, maybe shortcomings of the storyteller or the places where I don't feel it's comfortable.
[SPEAKER_06]: And vice versa, and we can kind of,
[SPEAKER_06]: keep each other honest and keep each other growing and keep each other on a path that is very hard to walk.
[SPEAKER_06]: The sort of like long-standing, you know, career as a fiction writer of any kind really can be a really taxing endeavor especially if you have a family or you have other responsibilities or you like to enjoy your life in any way shaped before.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's narrowing over a computer all day, and I think the two of us really help each other live the lives that we want to live while also telling the stories that we love to tell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Beautiful.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's absolutely beautiful.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's why it works.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then why it's lasted longer than anybody else.
[SPEAKER_06]: I would go to, I asked this question of a Kiva Shaper from
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, no, because we were like hanging out.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was like, at a Q&A, but I asked, I was like, I was like, you know what you, I know.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I want to say it could have, like, we have friends that come up like that never, never know that you can get.
[SPEAKER_06]: But uh, I asked him, um, you worked with your high school best friends.
[SPEAKER_06]: well into your adulthood.
[SPEAKER_06]: How do you keep it from blowing up?
[SPEAKER_06]: How do you keep that from being a limited partnership or something like that?
[SPEAKER_06]: And he was like, honestly, he was like, did you see in Popstar?
[SPEAKER_06]: I was like, yeah, it's basically that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just don't just always be friends first.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, honestly and artistly first, know that you approach each other with respect at all times.
[SPEAKER_06]: So even when you're digging with the,
[SPEAKER_06]: when we're in the middle of the story, and Colin has an idea.
[SPEAKER_06]: I absolutely hate.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not demonstrating that by being like, you're a terrible writer.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's not.
[SPEAKER_06]: You approach by being like, he knows he's my favorite writer.
[SPEAKER_06]: So my goal is to be like, here's what I don't get about the story.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can I understand it?
[SPEAKER_08]: Now let's aren't you because you, you're, no, let's argue.
[SPEAKER_08]: because the idea isn't right.
[SPEAKER_08]: If you don't get it, then the idea isn't right, or I'm not expressing it correctly.
[SPEAKER_08]: So this isn't a personal thing.
[SPEAKER_08]: He wants to understand what awesome thing is in my head.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then if I am able to articulate it in such a my beautiful way, and he's like, oh, I see it.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's still sucks.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm a little gay.
[SPEAKER_06]: But so that's the truth, but.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, and just to follow up on something you said, I don't know how much you could actually encapsulate this, but in terms of your different skill sets, does it break down to like one of you use the dialogue guy, one of you's the action guy, or is it really just more granular than that?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it used to, I think when we were like 21, 22, I think I could point at the broader concepts and be like, and we used to, like in meetings when people would be like, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_06]: You be like, oh, well, Collins, the big explosion set piece guy, and I'm the little black box character guy.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is no longer the case.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now it is, I would argue, I'm as inventive in action as Colin is of had to be.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've been doing this for so long.
[SPEAKER_06]: If I hadn't been, we would have failed out a long time ago.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, I was down to, I mean, circling it to last our ship, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: I know that we are not, we are released issue two, but not issue three.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: When we get to issue four, fans are going to find something a little bit unexpected.
[SPEAKER_08]: No spoilers, but it is a much quieter, much more dramatic and personal issue.
[SPEAKER_08]: I think it's one of the best issues of anything we've ever written.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm really proud of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: But at the same time, writing my half, I'm like, there's no
[SPEAKER_08]: big sexy explosions.
[SPEAKER_08]: There's no car chasing.
[SPEAKER_08]: I love that shit.
[SPEAKER_08]: So what I do when I sit down it's like I have three people in a room and they're about to have really intense feelings.
[SPEAKER_08]: I want to write a scene that Jack will be like, Oh, shit.
[SPEAKER_08]: This is, I couldn't do any better, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: And then like, that's the target, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: So it's like, I think at this point, you kind of say, I'm always like, I always want to do a crazy action thing that Colin goes, what?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, that's what we're always going to do.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's probably being each other's biggest fans, but also by now it's like, we each have a little ghost of the other guy, like always there being like, I know exactly what he'd be thinking right now.
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh, and my little ghost jack is always like, call it your perfect.
[SPEAKER_06]: Everything is, you've never done anything wrong.
[SPEAKER_06]: What a nice guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, wow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, but yeah, that is really, uh, I think a big, a big part of it as well is, is that we are by the nature of knowing each other's strengths and weaknesses to a, to a really intense degree now that we really couldn't unpack on this podcast to be tried.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's very instinctual.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think what we are now able to do is step into any scenario and not be like, what would he do?
[SPEAKER_06]: That's on the point.
[SPEAKER_06]: The point is like, what would I do in the space that we created together?
[SPEAKER_06]: And every, and so every book is like an ecosystem that the two of us create together.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we create it pretty intensely.
[SPEAKER_06]: Every scene, every page is laid out.
[SPEAKER_06]: We know what the thing's gonna be, but then how it's actually executed, how the beat to beat of that scene works.
[SPEAKER_06]: that happens in an individual way, and then we get that great experience of getting to sit down and read the other guy's stuff.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so, oh, man, I love that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I didn't think I would never.
[SPEAKER_06]: I read Star Trek, what last Starship 8 today.
[SPEAKER_06]: We turned in an issue 8 today.
[SPEAKER_06]: And there's a bit, it was my first time reading Collins pages on that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he did a thing that I, we hadn't, had talked about.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was like a formal thing that I didn't expect.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it was really great.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was like, oh, shit, this is awesome.
[SPEAKER_06]: I love this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm glad he's this year.
[SPEAKER_08]: We call it going rogue, but he puts on wind chance.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, let's talk about last our starship, specifically for anybody who doesn't know I'm going to give a spoiler warning here because wild things just happened even in the first issue of this book and as you noted, issue three is coming out on December 17th, a plenty of time to catch up, but
[SPEAKER_05]: the concepts that are going on here.
[SPEAKER_05]: First of all, you've got the burn, which is a period that was hinted at in like kind of very quickly shown in Star Trek discovery, but not really touched on at all, where all the dilapidate with the universe are most of the dilapidate with the universe explodes.
[SPEAKER_05]: It hobbles Starfleet, it hobbles everybody.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, uncharted territory there, you have this Starship goes out,
[SPEAKER_05]: with a couple of very surprising characters from other places in the continuity, and then not only that, they decide to resurrect Prime in his prime captain Kirk to be on the ship.
[SPEAKER_05]: So there's a lot going on, just like in the setup of this book, plus you've got Clingons, plus you've got new characters, you've got to set up, plus you've got to kill them off, and bring back all those things.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm so glad you two, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, maybe I'm kind of like hitting the same drum over and over here.
[SPEAKER_05]: But given you've got all of these different big ideas junkying, how do you make sure that's balanced and engaging in a first issue in particular?
[SPEAKER_06]: First issue, I would actually argue is easier than seconds.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think you, this is a thing I've really learned over time is that a perfect issue one, I think we've done it a few times.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm really happy with some issue ones.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think you only trust on a good issue one, we can do a great job.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think issue two is one of those things where it's like an endless horizon and figuring out what of your things to pay off next, what thing to really focus on, how slow to take something out or how fast to accelerate it.
[SPEAKER_06]: That can really make a break a series and especially in comics where issue two is really I think in a lot of ways the test people get it on issue one and they're like, okay, I'm in and then that they read issue two and it just engages them they're gone And so I you know, it's so early.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I think part of what we try to do is always make sure that we're I guess a big part of it is leave good room for issue two the thing I always I keep saying about that issue one of last our ship is all table setting all we're doing in last our ship at one is introducing you piece by piece
[SPEAKER_06]: to a whole bunch of different things that you, if you're not a Star Trek fan, don't know anything about.
[SPEAKER_06]: So let's pretend you don't know anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's hope you don't know anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want people who don't restartra comics or don't want Star Trek to read this and watch this book.
[SPEAKER_06]: So let's imagine you don't know anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're gonna read about
[SPEAKER_06]: Starfleet it's height.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're going to meet Captain Sato.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're going to encounter the burn.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're going to encounter what the Federation is and what Starfleet is in the aftermath of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's going to bring you to encountering his commanding officer and also the board.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then as you encounter the board through Agnes Drawdy, who again, you don't need to know Agnes Drawdy is.
[SPEAKER_06]: People who know Picard Season 2 will see Agnes and Go.
[SPEAKER_06]: What?
[SPEAKER_06]: But a new leader is just a board queen who calls herself sadness, which in and of itself should be weird enough, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: I had a friend to text me being like, who is this derotty board queen you can?
[SPEAKER_06]: Right exactly.
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then you're we're not overburdening you with like, here's all this Star Trek knowledge you need.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're just telling you the story in order.
[SPEAKER_06]: bringing you up to speed with characters and showing you the coolest, most interesting, most badass versions of those characters, with a sort of a star-track definition of badass.
[SPEAKER_06]: And get you to a phase where I can show you the ship.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then once we've got the ship, now we just need to set up a threat.
[SPEAKER_06]: We get the cooling bonds in there on the last page.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's all table setting.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you want to blast our ship, it's like,
[SPEAKER_06]: Checking off all the things we need so that you can understand the story we're about to tell and then I guess Kirk right, but and then and then leaving a billion questions.
[SPEAKER_06]: that we can answer over the course of the entire series.
[SPEAKER_06]: Obviously, the biggest of which is, why is Kirk back, what is the plan there, and who is this new Kirk and how does he feel and what is he, which is really what we decided to pick up on has our issue 2 plot, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: That's where you're like, that deserves time, that's a thing a reader can read, that's a thing that hopefully hooks them in for the rest of the book because if they don't like this, then they certainly won't like the rest of the series.
[SPEAKER_06]: So this will be a great way to like, date them in.
[SPEAKER_08]: But I do think something that we learned was Last Starship, and it really did, um,
[SPEAKER_08]: In fact, in us, like we learned this and we are going to be utilizing it going forward in a very big way, is what we do hit all the points for you to understand the story.
[SPEAKER_08]: We don't belabor any of them, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: Like, at no point, do we really sit you down and talk about how to pop out a pop out a pop out a pop out?
[SPEAKER_08]: We're assuming that you either configured out or don't need to know and not knowing is really exciting.
[SPEAKER_08]: We're not against it.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think as younger writers or with certain other editors, that mystery can be kind of look as a look like a flaw.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right?
[SPEAKER_08]: What if we lose the, what if the audience doesn't understand what's going on?
[SPEAKER_08]: It's like given fucking strap-in, maybe.
[SPEAKER_08]: But that's not really an answer that you can give at a lot of publishers.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right.
[SPEAKER_08]: Luckily, I do W and Paramount understands that like, well, part of Star Trek is mystery.
[SPEAKER_08]: And yeah, we can slow-world this.
[SPEAKER_08]: So our first issue, the thing that I'm so proud of the first issue of Last Starship is how quiet it is.
[SPEAKER_08]: Even though we destroyed the world, we are still able to slow things down to have like almost entire pages of just emotion ravaging a character And that to me is so much more impactful.
[SPEAKER_08]: I can't believe I'm the one saying this, but he's so much more impactful than a giant sexy explosion And I think that's been the
[SPEAKER_06]: It's been a lovely thing about the ongoing work with Star Trek.
[SPEAKER_06]: If I think they've learned to trust us on that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then we aren't sitting there constantly going, oh, well, we need to explain this.
[SPEAKER_06]: We need to explain this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think one of the beautiful things about working with Heather Antis, especially is that Heather is very extremely knowledgeable about Star Trek, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: But she doesn't come to it like a fan does necessarily.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like there are things that she is a fan of, for sure, but never really crush her.
[SPEAKER_06]: places where she's like, make me care about this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, why am I reading this?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is the point of this?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is that dynamic?
[SPEAKER_06]: And on the last starship, that's so important.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because we're asking her to put herself into the head of a person who doesn't care about this at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: And who has to understand why they care about it from an actual content of the book.
[SPEAKER_05]: I do want to break up a comment here on YouTube because I believe you're an artist, Adrian Bonilla, and Adrian Bonilla.
[SPEAKER_05]: And Adrian Bonilla, a comic says, it's great for me too.
[SPEAKER_05]: I get to invent lots of new things for the track universe and the art of this book is fantastic as well.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, it's Adrian's year.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think this book works without the art by a fair margin.
[SPEAKER_06]: Adrian Bonilla is, I've never had to say this in front of him, or genuinely I think I'm really like a next level artist.
[SPEAKER_06]: discovered he was free for the book.
[SPEAKER_06]: We were shocked.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not because he's been like, you know, doing a million books and how can we possibly get him.
[SPEAKER_06]: But just like, we were going to shock that we weren't already the biggest fans in the world of this guy.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, in order to those ones, we worked really hard to cast the book correctly to find the kind of new or tone that still loves Star Trek that also could really do like this is a pretty hard sweet spot
[SPEAKER_08]: it's like it's like you himself just kind of created a perfect artist and by a boom we've got Adrian and yes his work has been consistently absolutely incredible how he brings this stuff to life in a way that we have once again never really seen for Star Trek comics.
[SPEAKER_06]: one of the things that we love about Adrian, just to keep, I know you didn't even ask about it, but I'm just going to keep praying.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, why not?
[SPEAKER_06]: One of the things I think is really valuable about it is on occasion you get to work with artists who are storytellers.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, all artists are storytellers in the
[SPEAKER_06]: You get to meet once we want to dig into the beat-by-beat story telling.
[SPEAKER_06]: They aren't trying to translate your script, they're trying to translate your story, and they're operating your script as a guide.
[SPEAKER_06]: Kevin Walker is like this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Kevin Walker is a kind of artist who will give you notes on every page of your book, like we got handwritten notes, but here's all the things I changed about your layouts.
[SPEAKER_06]: Here's all the ways I changed this scene to make, I thought this would make more sense.
[SPEAKER_06]: I, so I, the cool thing my Adrian is not about change, but Adrian's interpretation of scenes leads to him oftentimes adding panels to scenes, which we're always really cognizant about not giving too many panels to an artist, that he really overburden them, especially after our time at Marvel, where the rule is like four to five max.
[SPEAKER_06]: we were like, you know, which is impossible.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're on a lot of that.
[SPEAKER_08]: On activist volume two, we gave a mark as a 36 panel.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, so I'll look at the problem.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, where it's just like, we like panels.
[SPEAKER_06]: What can we do?
[SPEAKER_06]: But the cool thing about Adrian is he also likes panels.
[SPEAKER_06]: So you can see there's this great, there's a few beats, especially in two and three, where he adds like,
[SPEAKER_06]: two or three panels into a sequence to give it a different kind of rhythm and have it feel a certain way and have the looks operate in a certain way and to understand what's going on in the character's head that weren't written in the script and then allows us to actually take dialogue out of the book because visuals are doing the storytelling which is you know just such a treat for us as writers who are trying to take words out of this book.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's got um he's
[SPEAKER_08]: It's got mignola energy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_08]: We all go on hellboy like one of the most beautiful thing stories is like pancakes where it's him looking at pancakes and it's just these little panels of pancakes and butter like that's a four panel comic, but it's a bunch because it lets you feel the tone of the space or like just a cut-in on a flower like those kind of small moments that you need to let us read tweet tweet tweet.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have
[SPEAKER_06]: We burn man it's it's the maniola special.
[SPEAKER_06]: I bet we we put a tweet we burn in Giant size X men Jens has dark Phoenix saga.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a tweet.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're bad.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's our hat tip to my anyway Gosh, you're about Adrian for a long time, but it's actually it's just very cool to kind of be in the same room as him
[SPEAKER_05]: We got another question for the comments here on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is actually from our co-hosts to is a big fan of your guys and unfortunately couldn't be here because he is I believe I said the certainly about a joke Under study at the bet tonight But he says so many of your stories are big blog sponsors and I believe he's on stage at the met right now So probably shouldn't be doing So so many of your stories are big blog busters.
[SPEAKER_05]: How do you know when a story is big enough?
[SPEAKER_05]: Ready what's the smallest most contained story you've done together?
[SPEAKER_08]: These are, that's a fun, too harder.
[SPEAKER_08]: Man, that first question is a doozy, yeah, because sometimes we don't.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, true, true.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's the stories I would point out for the ones I'm not as big a fan of are the ones where we don't know when to stop.
[SPEAKER_08]: Sometimes, you know, anime has a problem with power scaling, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: And like what we have a problem with is getting so I love we love each other's works so much.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is so core to our process to yes and sometimes you can yes and yourself into absolutely wild situations to get out you do need to get out of.
[SPEAKER_06]: The flip side of that is so for power man timeless, we looked that directly in the eyes and we were like fuck it yeah challenge accepted it needs to be the biggest possible story so we're going to make it absurdly large And it would have been even larger had we had that last issue right the last issue kind of got truncated so.
[SPEAKER_06]: as a result, like we have to do really, really big stuff in really, really small packages.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that's generally when you know a story is too big or is big enough, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: How do I know when a story is ready?
[SPEAKER_06]: Has nothing to do with the scale in the story?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we know that a story is ready because we can describe the entire story without any of the set pieces.
[SPEAKER_06]: on the web theater.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the test we do.
[SPEAKER_06]: We say could these characters do this story without any of the props, set pieces, science fiction, nonsense.
[SPEAKER_06]: Last Starship at its heart is the story of a group of survivors of a traumatic event, making their way through the aftermath of that traumatic event, trying to piece the world back together, but learning to need to piece themselves back together.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's last Starship.
[SPEAKER_06]: I can tell once I can tell you that story,
[SPEAKER_06]: it's ready to go and everything else will come out in the wash.
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, we will get to issue seven or issue eight or issue nine of last hardship and we'll look at it and go this needs to turn up or this feels too low in stakes or this feels too high and like we'll do those adjustments on the fly but the thing we will absolutely know before we go into any large scale story is where it is going and how it is going there.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's one of the reasons why superhero comics can be kind of
[SPEAKER_06]: or it's harder for the arc.
[SPEAKER_06]: Or frankly, just readers don't want them to arc.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a lot of characters, you kind of want them to just be like icons.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we're pretty bad at static icons.
[SPEAKER_06]: We don't really, it's, I maybe it's because we come from Hollywood, where that's sort of for Bowton or maybe it's because we just are, you know, Aristotle Pild, I don't know, like the theme.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
[SPEAKER_06]: I think we really like change over time.
[SPEAKER_06]: We like all the characters.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's why my proudest work, I think, and the most intimate thing we did in comics was Bucky Barnes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Over the cool, revolution saga is a pretty intimate look in a guy dealing with trauma and guilt.
[SPEAKER_06]: Primarily guilt and recognizing what his guilt and legacy mean in terms of those frameworks.
[SPEAKER_06]: We'll take it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Most agree.
[SPEAKER_08]: I got a cheat.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, where's our,
[SPEAKER_08]: Back woman, it was that an inventory.
[SPEAKER_06]: The bad woman in the jewelry that never came out.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: We wrote a bad woman in the jewelry show that it's a place in one room that was her like trapped in Bruce's holographic trading simulator.
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh, I think that would be a one room drama.
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I guess that was recent.
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh, we wrote a grace and issue that eventually took place entirely with him falling from the sky.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, but while the sky is changing, it is pretty contained, like the immediate vicinity of his body as he hurdles towards death.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know that it's contained in the way that we're talking about physically, but the most emotionally and like storytelling contains story.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think we've ever done in comics is a one-bedded clay face.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, one of the things is concerned with one thing and one thing only, which is play face to state of mind, which, you know, how battles are going to get through this day and how it's going to destroy him and all the people around him.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, it doesn't get much bigger than that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Batman doesn't show up until page 38 or something, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: that is a, and I think that's why it's one of our proudest works, like we really love containing.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's something we're doing in last hardship, too.
[SPEAKER_06]: Last hardship is not contained, but I think emotionally it's contained.
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh, why were just kind of six as soon as we're done with this interview.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm going over to our to my shelf of all of our books, which is right over there.
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh, and I'm just going to, I'm going to mine's eye my way through everything we've ever written and find was look story as the smallest geographical footprint.
[SPEAKER_06]: Physically, I almost guarantee it's the thing we just wrote that we that isn't in college.
[SPEAKER_06]: We just wrote a new pilot that is actually fully contained.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, but it's not a
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, why were talking about all your works?
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to take a moment and just say, uh, from the fans.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you because when you see your guys's name on a comic, there's this kind of nerdy excitement that you get as a reader and I just wanted to kind of take a moment and just say like, I don't know how hard it's been for you guys from the beginning, but to where you are now, but just as a reader, it's exciting to see your name on a comic and to open up a book and not.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, we're going to get but no, you're going to love the shit out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_06]: Wow, thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: That means a lot to us honestly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it means a lot to us too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just thanks so much, man.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, we met because we had to get into our friends car and go to the local comic shop together.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I didn't have cars or buddy David is the one from the story earlier.
[SPEAKER_06]: The roommate, the roommate, who's house, I was literally applying to do against last night.
[SPEAKER_06]: He, uh, Marvel comic invasion buddy, Dave had the car.
[SPEAKER_06]: So he would drive us to the local comic shop.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we would, that way we became friends, and not just like guys who liked each other's work, was by reading comics together and eating pizza and talking about exactly that feeling of like, oh, what are the books that I show up at this store and I know I wanna read these ones first, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: I have those writers, I mean, Bendus is, I think the one that we, like Bendus and Morrison were the ones that I think we could all agree on, then he'd dave a little bit less on Bendus, and more of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: But like, I think that we've generally been able to agree on who the people are who are like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So for us, I think that's always been people like Matt for action and I think they, those, that the minute that we got to work with any of the big two, our goal was always like,
[SPEAKER_06]: pay tribute to this the way that they did make it feel like something that felt like it came from us that came from a true knowledge of these characters and a love of these characters and a lifelong kind of like dedication to it while at the same time really trying to push the character really trying to make sure that it felt new and fresh and modern and and and and anchor on the character itself so if we've been able to give that feeling to other people awesome that makes me very very happy
[SPEAKER_05]: Good.
[SPEAKER_05]: I didn't want to return to something you said earlier about the trouble you have writing super heroes because their arcs are mostly static.
[SPEAKER_05]: So what about Star Trek?
[SPEAKER_05]: Which has generally, we had Heather on the show a couple of months back and she was talking about how
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the nice things about last Starship is that it is this uncharted period so certainly you could kind of like go out there and go off the rails if you want to But you wrote a fantastic run on the main Star Trek book and that was very much between the rails you had the start point right before it you had the end point right after it
[SPEAKER_05]: So, what works about that for you that doesn't necessarily work about superhero colleagues.
[SPEAKER_08]: Most of the time, we are blessed to have been writing our stories between Rangerops and not between Rangerops of the shows, but Rangerops between milestones.
[SPEAKER_08]: right, like last Star Trek year five is between the animated series and the motion picture.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right, and there is a massive sea change for Kirk between the end of the show and coming home to be an admiral and facing the burden of the chair.
[SPEAKER_08]: So that has an arc inherent to it.
[SPEAKER_08]: So we were able to actually tell that story, which otherwise hadn't been essayed, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: We knew that Benjamin Cisco was gonna come back and we knew he was gonna have to be gone again, but what he got to go through in that process was completely up to us to execute.
[SPEAKER_08]: And similar with like Beverly Crusher or a lot of the next gen folks, we saw where they ended up, we saw where they were and then we know what they were gonna end up in Nemesis, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: And then for Beverly, especially, then we know that she was gonna leave for 20 years.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, she's going to forge all of her friendships and disappear, assassinate and place to take care of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: So while the shows did have the characters in relatively static positions, the movies actually did let them grow.
[SPEAKER_08]: And because we kind of got to fit in that box, we had the privilege to be able to have it.
[SPEAKER_08]: We knew what the art needed to be, but it's rarely about the journey with these characters, it's about a rather than not the destination, but the journey that you get to go on.
[SPEAKER_08]: the journey with superhero characters can't be emotional.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right, they can go on that emotional journey, but it is much harder because you need to put them back exactly where you found them.
[SPEAKER_08]: So it'd be much more like writing between episodes of television rather than a kind of sea change from TV to film.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a really good point.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it's, it's occasionally you can do sea changes, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: I like to think that we did one with Bucky, but I think inevitably, that character, we got 25 issues to almost make you want to take Bucky from, I'm not sure about myself to, I'm pretty sure about myself.
[SPEAKER_06]: I like we were able to take him along a journey.
[SPEAKER_06]: I feel like that journey had had
[SPEAKER_06]: a nice chunk of change in it.
[SPEAKER_06]: We were able to get him there.
[SPEAKER_06]: But at the end of the day, that character goes back to the box, it goes next to Sam Humphrey's, who's gonna write that character in a way that's informed by all the things Sam loves about the character.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, what we love about the character, and that's okay, that's right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, that's the right.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sam's also close friend, so it was very nice to meet him at the end.
[SPEAKER_06]: It felt very safe for us.
[SPEAKER_06]: But Michael, I think a lot of what we're trying to do,
[SPEAKER_06]: whenever we get on a superhero is find a slight change that feels like a sea-change.
[SPEAKER_06]: Or in the case of Guardians, Guardians was kind of the flip of that, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Our Guardians run, starts by us saying, okay, what did we start the characters at a place that is fully removed from what people understand about these characters?
[SPEAKER_06]: What did the beginning of this book,
[SPEAKER_06]: They have, these characters have lost hope.
[SPEAKER_06]: They have lost themselves.
[SPEAKER_06]: Gamora is drinking, Nebula is acting like a robot.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, Peter is putting on a cowboy affectation.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, he doesn't have to deal with the heartlessness of, like, how he has to act.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, everybody, the rocket has just gone a lot of high now and a robot leg.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, we're going to break these characters fundamentally.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then that gives us an arc.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that over the course of that series from group follow the group rise, which is itself an arc.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going to take you on the journey of these characters recognizing and reappropriating their their their heroism and their hope and reuniting with all of the guardians that they lost all the people who were so they were so mad at us for killing.
[SPEAKER_06]: Who were who were just there at the end.
[SPEAKER_06]: waiting for the arc to be done right yeah because you I'm never gonna and I think we can't kill all the Guardians of the Galaxy for that never no matter what we do we can kill all of them a hundred times they would never die and I think that's not what that's not the point this this lens isn't actually and maybe a bit more specific in how we should be phrasing this because to their immense credit Marvel was like oh yeah yeah this is ruined the Guardian's lives make a miserable we are never criticizing Marvel on this stuff that is not what this is it's a different form and like what's expected
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, yes, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Love all of our parents equally.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm love, I'm wrong, right.
[SPEAKER_08]: But what guardians, what sucked about guardians, is the love you all, I'm sure not none of you on the internet, especially you strayed bullet.
[SPEAKER_08]: Ha ha ha, very farty and Ron, we appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_08]: We appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_08]: But everyone agreed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we got a lot of things for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_08]: I thank you.
[SPEAKER_08]: A lot of folks want the thing that they want and when you give them something else, they don't like that, especially when you say obviously and we couldn't say this, but tour we to be able to say, hey guys, just wait 10 issues and then we're going to get your toys back in the box, just like you like them.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's not something that works.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think it's not that we don't like, it's not that we don't enjoy writing superhero comics.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, I mean, love that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Very much to it's a blast.
[SPEAKER_08]: Superhero comic fans make the process can make the experience less savory.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, what about I'm just curious to keep pressing on this a little bit what about something like outsiders like I love that run, but you've got two characters that I think aren't used as much like that woman and Luke Fox are in there, which was the original breath.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can you give us something with Luke Fox and that woman?
[SPEAKER_06]: That was the, that was the entire intention of that was, let's, let's take these two characters that they can't figure out how to, I mean, they're very open.
[SPEAKER_06]: They couldn't really figure out how to make them sell.
[SPEAKER_06]: They wanted them on different teams that wanted to do different things.
[SPEAKER_06]: They came to us, they gave us almost six months to think about like what we wanted to do with them and how them up and pitched a lot of different versions, it just between the two of us.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it wasn't until we hit upon
[SPEAKER_06]: the planetary framework, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Spoiler alert for anybody who didn't read outsiders, but the book's been out now, so to late.
[SPEAKER_06]: Surprise, it's a stealth sequel to planetary, and it's a planetary about planetary.
[SPEAKER_06]: The
[SPEAKER_06]: thing we loved about like that book meant a lot to us.
[SPEAKER_06]: I deeply love planetary.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is one of the greatest pieces of comics fiction.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is one of our true shared Bible.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have a book forever.
[SPEAKER_06]: I love it deeply.
[SPEAKER_06]: So do not pay tribute to it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Would have been silly.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think to pay tribute to it was of course hubris.
[SPEAKER_06]: But that's why we're here in comics.
[SPEAKER_06]: You aren't brave.
[SPEAKER_06]: What are you doing here?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like break the toys have fun.
[SPEAKER_06]: These things are so much more
[SPEAKER_06]: I think the cool thing about outsiders with the fanbase for me was that
[SPEAKER_06]: At the time, I had a lot of Luke Fox fans coming to me and saying, I'm so happy to see Luke getting respect in a book and getting to do something.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I had a lot of batwoman fans.
[SPEAKER_06]: They were batwoman fans who hated what we did.
[SPEAKER_06]: But there was some batwoman fans who came to me and said, game said, look, they're getting a spotlight to actually do stuff like in the Batman mind palace issue.
[SPEAKER_06]: We get into a whole thing about like what batwoman means inside of that mythos, like we're really given this character some props and we're trying to move her towards an interesting space.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then you would be like, yeah, have you read planetary?
[SPEAKER_06]: And they'd be like, what is that?
[SPEAKER_06]: And then, and we sold more issues of planetary.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we get an outsider, and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get a outsider and we get a outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and we get an outsider and
[SPEAKER_06]: Come and go.
[SPEAKER_06]: I can't believe you did this.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is so cool.
[SPEAKER_06]: How did you get them to let you do this?
[SPEAKER_06]: How did this happen?
[SPEAKER_06]: This feels like a miracle and like that kind of thing feels great.
[SPEAKER_06]: So like I maybe might my counter argument to I understand what Colin saying about like Working inside of any fandom the fandom can make that tough because if you listen to the voices that are drawn negative at you and Certain fan bases like the Xman fan base for instance
[SPEAKER_06]: plug their negativity pretty high, so it's hard not to hear it.
[SPEAKER_06]: That can be weathering on people who
[SPEAKER_06]: don't have as thick skin as maybe others.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, he's like, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, just to bring it back to Star Trek then for a second, you may be aware, there's some not great people in the Star Trek that you've never tried.
[SPEAKER_05]: Everyone, which is all this like antipetical to what Star Trek is most of most of me about, what has your experience been like on this?
[SPEAKER_06]: That one is, I think, very easy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Honestly, that you can just tune that out.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't, I always say like, if you don't, if you don't get Star Trek and your Star Trek family, then cool, like, I don't, I don't owe you anything because at its fundamental core, unlike almost anything else, Star Trek is about.
[SPEAKER_06]: some stuff.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like Star Trek is not like just a character drama.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not a fun escape as the thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is a social fiction about how we live together, how human society works, how we evolve, what we become mandatory, how mandatory empathy is, and like that stuff that we just cannot sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're not making Star Trek political Star Trek is inherently political.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so one of the things that we do is rather than trying to come in and go, we're going to make Star Trek political.
[SPEAKER_06]: We just write Star Trek.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if a fan comes out of school, how should I write that make that political?
[SPEAKER_06]: I can point to 50, 60 now years of Star Trek.
[SPEAKER_06]: And be like,
[SPEAKER_08]: every enjoy and I don't I don't feel like I need to get to those arguments on guardians I I did I think we felt a kind of there's a one two three here that I think is really interesting because the thing about like a Guardians fan or an X-Men fan is they're gonna have a radically different vision of what the story should be than you do
[SPEAKER_08]: which is totally fine, which then they might love what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_08]: But what's in their head that they want isn't any less valid than what's in your head.
[SPEAKER_08]: And that can really fuck with you if someone's like, I love this and you've done me dirty and it's like, well fuck, I love that you love this so I do want to I wish we could have found a middle ground.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I get very sad when like a
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like a, if like a Star Lord fan, red issue four of our issue three of our Guardians of the Galaxy, which is where the Star Lord issue.
[SPEAKER_06]: If they read that issue and they walked away and said, I didn't like that, I'd be sad.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I think that issue is a great piece of pure welcome to it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we like, that's a beautiful story we work hard on.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you want somebody to like that, of course you do.
[SPEAKER_08]: But without outsiders, if people are like, I don't really get it.
[SPEAKER_08]: You're like, okay, bye Felicia.
[SPEAKER_08]: Planetary you're like your real head, man.
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm not need 10,000.
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't need the numbers.
[SPEAKER_08]: This book is not for everyone.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is an incredible 12-issue experiments for a very it turns out.
[SPEAKER_08]: I bought it with everybody.
[SPEAKER_08]: I love finishes.
[SPEAKER_08]: I thought it would be.
[SPEAKER_08]: I thought everyone loved Planetary, but it turns out that that is a relatively narrow slice of the Gamma fine population.
[SPEAKER_08]: And we were shocked.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's for you.
[SPEAKER_08]: Here are the guys.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then in Star Trek, it's really easy because you would have gathered or you don't.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right?
[SPEAKER_08]: And it's like, I think people who get Star Trek love what we do because they understand that we get Star Trek.
[SPEAKER_08]: We are them and we are just trying to tell these incredible stories.
[SPEAKER_08]: If you're like, if you're going to finger-wag at Star Trek because like how we get political or what I don't even know, I don't even know the kind of logical whoops you need to jump through to kind of defend that stance.
[SPEAKER_08]: To me, it's kind of like, oh, we're kind of in whack-a-do-down.
[SPEAKER_08]: And I wish you luck in your tin foil hat.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think Star Trek has been a wonderful place for us to play.
[SPEAKER_06]: And now as we've been able to step back from superhero comics for a minute, which is very sort of like intentional move by us to be like, we want to do like one book, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to get to that stage.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we said, we're going to step back.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're just going to do last Starship.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going to take everything we've learned in Superhero Comics, everything we've learned on Star Trek, everything we've learned elsewhere, and we've been a story leads on a video game for the last four years.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have a lot of like learnings.
[SPEAKER_06]: We wanted to bring that all to something that was as close as something we created as we've done in a long time.
[SPEAKER_06]: And last scholarship was the effort to say what if we built something that was just for us and then people will show up or they won't.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it was a big gamble.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that's the big thing is that for us all these other things and YX as much as it seems like a gamble, people will pick it up it's an X-Men book.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, it was only lasted 10 issues at Marvel, but it was in the top 10 sellers every week came out.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not like it's not a, you know, that you aren't doing a successful book.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's just that the metric for success at Marvel and DC is extremely high.
[SPEAKER_06]: When Star Trek, we know what these books sell, we manage that, we know what we think that sort of cap is.
[SPEAKER_06]: Great, let's try to blow that open.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's see if we can invite new fans in.
[SPEAKER_06]: This isn't about getting Star Trek fans on board.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is about getting every person that we've met at Marvel and DC who came to us and said, you know, I'm just on a Star Trek person.
[SPEAKER_06]: which you hear all the time.
[SPEAKER_06]: All the time you hear them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anybody who reads, you know, loves outsiders who loves this or loves that.
[SPEAKER_06]: You say, well, if you read Star Trek, that's the one that's got like the Eisner know.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they'll be like, I'm not a Star Trek guy.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was like, I want to make a book for them.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going to make a book that's targeted right at them and tells them, you can be a Star Trek person.
[SPEAKER_06]: Here's all the cool things about Star Trek all packed into one book.
[SPEAKER_08]: you're going to find something to love in here the same way that we did without making without making without being without lying about what Star Trek is.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_08]: This isn't for not giving you a gunshlinging action adventure and calling it Star Trek, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: Which I think is just one of the things that I'm so proud of us for, pattern.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Like we're giving you always and carpets, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: We are carpeted hallways, baby.
[SPEAKER_08]: It is.
[SPEAKER_08]: Ripping, if I can once again pat ourselves on the fabric, I appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_08]: That's what Star Trek really needs to be, is like, can this be, can it be done in a black box?
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Right, can it be done in a carpet in a hallway?
[SPEAKER_08]: And if it is, if it can, then you got your Star Trek.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the fact that people have shown up for it, that fans have been reading it, that the reviews have been, what they have been, what they have been, the fact that we're at second printing for issue one, all of these things are like, to me, or we're really great.
[SPEAKER_06]: Renewal of that love of fandom right across those some of our marble fans at some of our DC fans at some of our Star Trek fans The new fans who have no idea who we are who are picking it up because they read about it somewhere They saw this interview people who are coming in on this book are making their own little like last our ship community And that to me is extremely like special that's something we haven't really had before And it's it's been a joy to get to be involved in that and and sort of see that start to build
[SPEAKER_05]: I just want to ask you about something that is off from comics, but you have a movie that you wrote called Synthetic that I believe is in post-production, given that you started the journey at film school, and now you have this film potentially coming out at some point soon.
[SPEAKER_05]: How does that feel?
[SPEAKER_05]: Good.
[SPEAKER_05]: I imagine.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: It feels good, my friend.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, without being able to say too much or like, you know, we're going to save this for the DVD commentary.
[SPEAKER_08]: But the long journey, right?
[SPEAKER_08]: Nothing in this town gets made easy and the longer the process takes, the harder it actually is going to become to actually make something.
[SPEAKER_08]: This town...
[SPEAKER_08]: loves talking about making things and then actually making nothing.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, um, are the director and kind of producer on the project Oliver Ridge fought to the nail every step of the way for years.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, we wrote this movie almost six years ago.
[SPEAKER_08]: And he isn't that who is, you know, one of his specific superpowers is finding money.
[SPEAKER_08]: So when he like,
[SPEAKER_08]: the no money.
[SPEAKER_08]: You know things are bad.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, and he never even kept pushing, kept pushing this project.
[SPEAKER_08]: Once Charlie Cox got involved, things really started hitting the road.
[SPEAKER_06]: And Charlie was like kind of our like number one for this role.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was wild that we got him.
[SPEAKER_06]: We effectively wrote the part for him.
[SPEAKER_06]: We got very lucky.
[SPEAKER_06]: He told me a whole story about like why he did the thing
[SPEAKER_06]: for being so gun-ho about jumping into a project that was a little movie, but that he really believed in and he loved the script.
[SPEAKER_06]: Colin, I have had a lot of experience on a big studio film that had never been made.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, we've been working writers for a long time, but it's a real slog.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've written on a couple of shows that
[SPEAKER_06]: then got canceled before they got made like we're really in that stage where the hardest working writers in Hollywood you've never heard.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's been really tough and so synthetic kind of coming out of a blue like that was and is a real blessing.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're very thankful for all the preparedness in on it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I can't wait to see how the movie turned out.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was on set.
[SPEAKER_06]: It looked
[SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, they're editing it right now.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I can't wait to see, uh, we're going to, I was just texting all yesterday.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm, I'm sure we'll see a cut soon.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you guys going to do the comic book adaptation of the movie as well?
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, no, it's a movie.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's one of the things that we don't turn your movies into comics.
[SPEAKER_06]: So maybe you don't turn your comics into movies.
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe you don't turn your comics into movies.
[SPEAKER_06]: Maybe you don't have to be great comics and have them be great movies as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you going to have camels at least or something?
[SPEAKER_06]: One of our books, one of our books has a camera.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we have a book that we have, we have the license for that book made it into the into the movie.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_06]: Along with a few other people, I think a couple of Frank Barbieri's books are in there.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think there are a few of, all he has a lot of, he's a comic book nerd.
[SPEAKER_06]: All he's like, he loves comics he collects or whatever.
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a very sexy, very tall, very blonde British gentleman, posh British gentleman.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Also a big comics book nerd.
[SPEAKER_06]: How dare you yeah, you can't be both.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're not allowed But yes, and yes, and yeah Well, that's awesome Again, yes Adrian and you'll draw it.
[SPEAKER_06]: We'll do it all together.
[SPEAKER_06]: Honestly an Adrian us don't do a Daredevil run together someday I will be mad So Good for it like we're out there gonna do Batman or Daredevil one of the two Let's work it out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you can do both.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're doing crossovers again down.
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess
[SPEAKER_05]: Like we were talking about, my Starship is absolutely amazing.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm loving it.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are two moments in Issue 3 that made me gasp out loud.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're just great.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't wait for people to read it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Before I let you go, though, obviously this is the thing, this is the thing that you're working on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you said, you're really focusing on this, but is there anything else you want to plug?
[SPEAKER_05]: Anything else people should be checking out or looking forward to.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I mean, we just got done talking about it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Which is great.
[SPEAKER_06]: We can't tell you when that'll come out or how, but it will at some point.
[SPEAKER_06]: Call an I are the heart.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm going to be going to the book show.
[SPEAKER_06]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_06]: All I are the
[SPEAKER_06]: are two of three writers.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm the head writer.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have Colin and then Jodie Houser on a video game project called March of Giants.
[SPEAKER_06]: March is a sort of League of Legends competitor that'll be launching later.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not out yet.
[SPEAKER_06]: We just are a little doubtful.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I can't really plug that anymore.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it's a original IP, like a story universe that we all created together.
[SPEAKER_06]: Alongside this incredible team at Montreal games.
[SPEAKER_06]: I can't wait for me to see what this thing is gonna be It's I think gonna be really special And it's been a joy.
[SPEAKER_06]: So even I out for March of Giants when you put it on your steam wish list That's like probably the best thing you do.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's free to play so you're not even spending money
[SPEAKER_06]: All right, that one's an easy, easy move for me.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, we just signed a contract for another incredible project.
[SPEAKER_08]: It could not be more different than Star Trek that we're insanely excited about.
[SPEAKER_08]: We have a creator-owned that's currently in the oven, but has not yet no-one could even smell it to baking yet.
[SPEAKER_08]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_08]: And in the meanwhile, people think when you're out at the shop picking up last Starship, number one, because you're like, oh my god, this sounds so cool.
[SPEAKER_08]: You should also take the time to pick up power man timeless.
[SPEAKER_08]: The trade is out now, it has the original time-lish issue plus the four issues, four issues of power-man timeless Bernard Chang draws the shit out of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just killer.
[SPEAKER_08]: Talk about power-scaling, like we destroy, we destroy Mercury itself, we put the entire threat to Earth, like this book does not get bigger.
[SPEAKER_06]: Raise a raccoe.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it's crazy book.
[SPEAKER_08]: We kill apocalypse.
[SPEAKER_06]: We do a lot of things in four issues in Carman timeless that most books would take 20 years to go time.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have no time.
[SPEAKER_06]: We did it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time list, next time list.
[SPEAKER_06]: All the Dragon Ball Z in like 90 pages.
[SPEAKER_08]: Guys, so deeply essaying trauma and what it means to what it means to give into your darkest impulses even though you're supposed to be the best version of yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so check it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Time list.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot going on in that book.
[SPEAKER_06]: That one really, that one really, um,
[SPEAKER_06]: It's flu under the radar, pretty hard for a lot of reasons.
[SPEAKER_06]: We'd really recommend you guys check that one out and trade.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it's a good idea.
[SPEAKER_06]: I would go and try to make it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Bernard's work as an artist is next level.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, strip all the power man out of it.
[SPEAKER_08]: And you end up with just loop cage and a black box.
[SPEAKER_08]: Once again, that's the story that works.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then we put all of the incredible goof on it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Guys, thank you so much for coming on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Congratulations on seeing I can't wait for everybody to read at last Starship, play the game, see the movie, everything that's coming out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Congrats on everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, thanks guys.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, beat.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you all.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, there we go.
[SPEAKER_05]: Once again, Star Trek, the last Starship, number three is coming out December 17th from IDW.
[SPEAKER_05]: Definitely check it out.
[SPEAKER_05]: It is Biz Nongers, that's what I've heard and everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: I could up the two issues are on stands now and like they said, for real, I know it's hard for me to distance myself as a hardcore Star Trek fan, but it's very engaging and it takes these wild ideas that form a lot of other places in the Star Trek universe.
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe you shouldn't work, but they absolutely do with this book.
[SPEAKER_05]: So highly recommend it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: And folks, we're going to move on with our next section, which is my favorite section, because you all make it up.
[SPEAKER_05]: It is your audience question.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, Proudy, it's questions.
[SPEAKER_05]: All you've got to do is drop a question in the comments.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll get to it.
[SPEAKER_05]: It could be about absolutely anything.
[SPEAKER_05]: And Pete, what you drink at tonight?
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I don't have a garage, but I got the beer.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_05]: Excellent, uh, glad to hear it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I've drinking water just to help there.
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, oh, and we've got a special guest.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, my god.
[SPEAKER_05]: Coming in live from Matt.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, for the bed.
[SPEAKER_05]: I can hear the music just in Tyler.
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome.
[SPEAKER_05]: You say it is a whole people.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you're kind of, you're kind of breaking up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is that the
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we can barely hear you, because the opera is so loud.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you, um, microphone sounds like it's underneath your whispering or maybe you don't round it through it at the bottom of the system sound system and see, oh, there we go.
[SPEAKER_05]: Now works.
[SPEAKER_07]: Hey, Lee out here, usually this room is full of other people, but I, they're not here.
[SPEAKER_07]: So I don't know what's happening, but I get to talk to you guys great.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hey, how's it going?
[SPEAKER_05]: How's the show going?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, good ones.
[SPEAKER_07]: They started a little late.
[SPEAKER_07]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_07]: I only go on if the other guy doesn't show up.
[SPEAKER_07]: So that's okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: So he's here.
[SPEAKER_07]: He's out there.
[SPEAKER_07]: I just have to wait until.
[SPEAKER_07]: And does that man can we get a quick area?
[SPEAKER_07]: I do not sing.
[SPEAKER_07]: I play a detective who is not nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see it, oh yeah, I mean, I would cast you as that, but you know, that's the thing about acting, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, if you got a couple of questions here, if you got time before you got to go on and sing your ARIA, I believe it's what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that's what it's called.
[SPEAKER_05]: Derek Meenart says, Kelly Lansing talked about realizing when they clicked as a creative duo, was there a similar moment for CBC?
[SPEAKER_07]: We're hoping to have that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we're very close.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you guys remember, like, do Wendy, if you like, it, I have a weird moment where we were, we had many meetings in New York City where we kind of pitched us two shows and two companies.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, it clicked when they were like, what's your guys' deal?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we just, me and Justin got into an argument on the spot and then Zalbin had to try
[SPEAKER_02]: like it commenced down and that was a fun um for me I was like yeah we've got it down to a science like we can kind of go into bits and kind of go into uh so for me that was when I was like oh yeah we can turn this on and off
[SPEAKER_05]: leave it for you to say that it was an argument that got us on the same thing yeah I don't know I feel like we had that first meeting and started getting into the show I think it was like probably when we've said this a million times but we had three shows that we did before the holidays went away and they were like fine attendance they were not sparsely attended but like totally fine for Tuesday night
[SPEAKER_05]: then we came back after the holidays completely packed to the gills and it was comic book fans because I think by that point it'd been written up to the New York Times or something like that and I think that we were able to transition from we're just doing a show on a regular Tuesday night at the pit to something a little bigger than that that certainly felt to me like okay we can we can do this we can keep doing this we will never stop doing this we'll do this
[SPEAKER_05]: shortler says what are your coho skillsets that you don't have well peat knows how to use the nunchucks and i i just do not so that's one new chopters self-turning try to take peat spot um... i don't know uh... the city of opportunity to big up each other uh... just to ask to go and he's got to go on to the next one i guess i can't tell about you guys i have to get out of here
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I don't want to do this, I believe me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_05]: I will say that I think Justin, I tend to prep a lot for interviews.
[SPEAKER_05]: And Justin is better at being conversational in them.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he usually is better at that part of the interview, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the improv background, I think is what helps some kind of be a him- sketch background.
[SPEAKER_05]: I got to write it out a bit.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you got to write it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always say, Alex is the smart one and then, uh, me and J.T.
[SPEAKER_02]: just kind of have fun during the show.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, uh, well, also, I couldn't possibly do trivia, Pete.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, well, you would probably do real trivia.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, no, no, buddy, you wouldn't make me do trivia.
[SPEAKER_05]: I could not.
[SPEAKER_05]: I couldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've done it in my absence.
[SPEAKER_05]: So don't, yeah, Eric, if you guys say as question, do you sip or suck?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Eric, thanks for trying it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for your answers.
[SPEAKER_05]: What are you guys thankful for?
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess I'm thankful I don't remember the soup sack.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's too bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was during the stack.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know, I'm thankful that we can still do the show and we still have fun doing the show and yeah, you know, that's a good one.
[SPEAKER_05]: Straight bullet says if you could steal one thing from your co-host nerd wall, what would you take?
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know, I would definitely take the Punisher Slipper so I could wash them because they have not been washed since they came for the pit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll dare you, I'll dare you, they have been professionally washed.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got some fun stuff in your background that would mine ceiling.
[SPEAKER_02]: I definitely wouldn't touch those lost VHS tapes you got back there, but 30.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe some lack of, oh, they look pretty wide.
[SPEAKER_02]: They look pretty wide.
[SPEAKER_02]: They look like you know, VHS tapes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, great question here.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is from Derek Maynard.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ask what's better.
[SPEAKER_03]: Remember this bit soup or cheese.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm sucking on a cheese station.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish you wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then here's a nice one to end on Stanley says, what is your favorite weather and season?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like being hot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would rather be cold.
[SPEAKER_05]: False perfect.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, 525 degrees 55 degrees.
[SPEAKER_05]: You can wear a jacket.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's not too cold.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need a hoodie Nice There we go.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great way of wrapping up audience questions.
[SPEAKER_05]: Why do we move to our next section?
[SPEAKER_05]: Which is trivia and for that we're going to turn it to a peak?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, this is a part we give back to you the lovely audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an opportunity to win $25 free dollars to midtown comics online because it'd be a 25 bucks You'd probably want some comics.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we need as a volunteer a brave volunteer to win $25 free dollars to midtown comics online $25 dollars totally free no strings attached Come on Come on come on
[SPEAKER_05]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tell you what, if nobody does it, I will do it for a charity.
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got, we got David's in.
[SPEAKER_02]: David Quinley.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, wait, no, we have the greater good came in first.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, man.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this was exactly what I was gonna do it for.
[SPEAKER_05]: The greater good 42 says I'll do it, donate to hero initiative.
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: It is giving Tuesday, so we gotta do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I believe Amber mentioned that earlier.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, shut up, send her love on.
[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, they trivia.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you lose, we will not donate $25 to the international.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't have to give course rule.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, good.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, take away on the heat.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, today's trivia is about the comic.
[SPEAKER_02]: The terminators and the clauses come into town.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a small nod to the legend, Michael Delano, RIP.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please listen to all three options before making your selection.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who draws this amazing comic the Terminator Santa Claus is coming to town?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it a candle good?
[SPEAKER_02]: B, can I get you a soft drink?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, look what I'm talking to, see Ron Soda.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you think he feels weird about that?
[SPEAKER_05]: Ron Soda, like when he orders a soda.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's got to be a point of pride, you know what I mean, unless he was picked on as a kid and like kids used to beat him with soldicans, that would've sucked, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Pete him?
[SPEAKER_05]: What's up?
[SPEAKER_05]: What, uh, uh, they're choosing D, I feel like that's wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, unfortunately this, uh, even though, we only do fun D options when Alex is in here but guys he's still here, I know Justin is gone, but come on, I mean, we got to do
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go a fun fact call backs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was we did fun facts Yeah, you weren't here, but it was good time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, yeah, A is correct Okay, let's get the next one question number two spoilers, but this amazing comic is hilarious Who does terminator dress up as is it a Santa?
[SPEAKER_02]: B, reverse it and add an S, and you are the smartest stretchiest man ever, bro.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, Richard Reed.
[SPEAKER_05]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_05]: Half a D, Alex Challenge.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_05]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's also a call back to when you were in a round.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do I need to come up with a fun fact?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that if you want to, people love a fun fact.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, I'll try to think about one for the next one.
[SPEAKER_05]: I wasn't prepared this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was uh, what was the Justin's fun fact?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he wanted a ward for his pilot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, a fun fact about yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I see A Satan or Santa, but close and we'll give it to you
[SPEAKER_02]: You can see how those get confused.
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe that's a Jack Mac, black movie reference there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Last one, question number three.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is fun one liners in this fantastic comic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which line is from the comic?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it a, have you holidays, bitch?
[SPEAKER_02]: B, if this is your real name, what's your poor name?
[SPEAKER_02]: C, dick steel.
[SPEAKER_04]: stick steel.
[SPEAKER_04]: Where do you find these guys?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you know, it's right there in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they, uh, I'm DB notes, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_05]: You got to see if it's wonderful toys.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ha ha ha.
[SPEAKER_05]: I got asked for impressions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, Derek Maynard, please can we just go one show or we don't see that stupid picture please which stupid picture come on man don't let me cover my uh this one
[SPEAKER_02]: So dumb.
[SPEAKER_05]: The real picture of me with my real ass.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope I hope someday KJ Aposes you on the street and beats your ass Man, here's the thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: KJ Apah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know him personally, but he would love this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he would.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think say You know, that man earned those abs and you're trying to take credit for them.
[SPEAKER_05]: First of all, he'd be like that's so weird You those are your real abs.
[SPEAKER_05]: No exactly like mine
[SPEAKER_05]: No, he wouldn't say that because that's his apps.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_05]: KJ Opera is created this whole other personality called Mr. Fantasy, who is a musical artist.
[SPEAKER_05]: He performed in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're just, you've got to read these things.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're on an audio podcast, but you're just cycles of content.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it's better if you check out the video, you know?
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure he said a at some point congratulations, shoot us an e-bell.
[SPEAKER_05]: We will donate in your name to the hero initiative.
[SPEAKER_05]: Or I'll just do that after we end up recording here in the meantime.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, what was your secret movie?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, of course we're talking about the 2001 hit Oceans 11.
[SPEAKER_05]: As we all know, there are more than 11 comic books coming out tomorrow, but he's looking forward to that's going to be in stores.
[SPEAKER_02]: I cannot wait for one say to talk about some amazing comics.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, of course you haven't read these, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just excited for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: The specific one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Something is killing the children number 45.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this story has been solid.
[SPEAKER_02]: I cannot wait for this new issue.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the art.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the whole tone.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been really badass and fantastic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Speaking of badass birds of prey number 28, I mean, we've had like giant gargle barra.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just been, it's been amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The art is a maze balls.
[SPEAKER_02]: I look forward to every issue when I hear it's coming out.
[SPEAKER_02]: This has just been hitting above its way class.
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all but you think I was going to say, but of course I'm going to say the term data or Santa Claus is coming to town, what doesn't sound fun about this comic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even you're looking forward to it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I have a real grinch, if you will.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm looking forward to giant size criminal number one is coming out from image comics.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a new story from Edgar Baker and Sean Phillips.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that is always a good time.
[SPEAKER_05]: The bird.
[SPEAKER_05]: Also look forward to the return of inferno girl red that was from the first title.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's coming back tomorrow with volume two, number one.
[SPEAKER_05]: And Hulk smash everything number one for Marvel.
[SPEAKER_05]: Ryan North doing as far as I've heard, a bunch of ridiculous mashups, smash them up, excuse me, with the Hulk on the first issue, I believe it takes on dinosaurs, later on, he's going to be taking out a black hole to give you an idea of that sort of thing and at least sort of does.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's going to win, dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's going to win.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well,
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, but I can't wait for all of those and all of those are going to be in our stack podcast comes out Wednesday 9 a.m. both of the stack feed and folks, that is it for this week.
[SPEAKER_05]: Show a couple of people want to thank me want to thank Monica Joy and G. Joe sleeper for coming on to talk about me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you can check that out on Webtoon, TikTok or YouTube Colin Kelly and Jackson Lansing for talking about legend W's.
[SPEAKER_05]: Star Trek, the last Starship issue number three is coming out December 17th from IDW.
[SPEAKER_05]: Definitely check it out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Great series as well as everything else that they've been doing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Next week on the show Kenny Porter and Mike Becker are going to be here.
[SPEAKER_05]: Talk about the new space age from Mad Cave Studios.
[SPEAKER_05]: And Rodney Barnes will be here to talk about Brownsville.
[SPEAKER_05]: back on the show so that should be exciting comic book club news are daily news show check it out every day the week Monday through Friday patreon dot com slash comic book club sport the show and get ad free versions of all of our podcast don't forget to subscribe on apple ad droids by the fight or the app of your choice
[SPEAKER_05]: comic book club on blue sky comic book club live on instagram tiktok and threads comic book club live dot com for this podcast buddy more until next time we'll see you at the comic book club Thank you take care yourself out there