[SPEAKER_02]: What's up, everybody?
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to Comic Book Club on Alex.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Justin.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we got another bonus episode for you here with two amazing guests there, the creators behind absolute green arrow, which is coming out from DC Comics, May 20th, 2026, first issue.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna be a big launch, very excited to have both here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ladies and gentlemen, Pornstack Pisha showed, and Rafael Albuquerque, welcome to the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, very excited to talk about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the absolute line has been like very concrete for a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been very tightly put together.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're getting two books at the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're getting absolute green arrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're also getting absolute catwoman is coming out in many series.
[SPEAKER_02]: So obviously there'd be very careful with this and putting a lot of passion and a lot of thought into, okay, what is this next?
[SPEAKER_02]: Could it be?
[SPEAKER_02]: from your perspective, at least, why was absolute green arrow the right next step for the line?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I don't know if it was the right, I don't know if I'm the one to answer why was the right next step to the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's more like the bigger like above my pay grade.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was more, um, I was just really grateful it was available.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, to me, it was, uh,
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to take a modern take of any of the characters doing sort of like a modern day Robin Hood considering a modern day Robin Hood that like isn't the characters known from pulling from social issues and and all that given what all of its themes are and giving what this particular moment is this felt like a very salient character to tackle a bunch of things
[SPEAKER_00]: I am very interested in, and I think a lot of us are really interested in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, to me, it was just like, oh, if you're going to do a modern take of any character, the most potentially explosive, the most potentially controversial,
[SPEAKER_00]: would be, or, you know, the biggest live wire would be green arrow just considering all the themes of the characters and how they resonate so deeply with where we're at right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, it was just like, I was just glad it was available and that was glad they let me do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I've said this publicly before, I can't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really didn't think there was going to let us do what we're doing and it's kind of amazing to me that they're letting us run with barely little restraint.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted to ask Raphael before we get like more into the meat of the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now if I remember correctly you were supposed to do absolute superman and then dealt with a couple of real-life catastrophes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thankfully, hopefully you're doing okay and things are going better now.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now you're finally on this title.
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that feel good to finally be joining the absolute line?
[SPEAKER_02]: And are you doing okay more importantly?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, first of all, yeah, we are okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, we had this real bad flaws in my hometown back in 2004.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I was working on absolute superman for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were doing what we call pre-production.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were working on the designs and all the concepts everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, definitely broke my heart having to to live the project because I wasn't sure if I would be able to to make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Since, although my house was in my hair blaze and I was somehow saved from floods, we were struggling with the lack of power and water and all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, give me this sense of,
[SPEAKER_01]: be unsure if I would have the ways to do the work.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the end of the day, I just showed my editor Chris Corroy that would probably put a mask for the best of the book to call someone else to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rafa's on the ball, who took my, my, who took the art, that he's, he's doing such a phenomenal work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's, it's nice to see a little bit of what we did back before that, that they kept a little bit of what he did on the book now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm proud to be part of two books now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, when you approach a book like this in the absolute line, would you approach sort of the absoluteness of it first?
[SPEAKER_03]: This is for both of you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it approaching the character first from a design and story perspective?
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I think for me, it was the character first, um, I, I actually, so much of this stuff kind of like synced up serendip, physically, that, and a little bit as part of my process too, that I actually don't remember what came first, it's the chicken of the egg.
[SPEAKER_00]: But so much for me was, how do you take a modern, for all intents and purposes, a modern they robbing one, uh, take sort of that, that DNA of the character and how do you
[SPEAKER_00]: And then once I did that, I kind of found that it aligned with so much stuff that the absolute universe was already doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very easy to sink it in so much so that I have a bad recollection of did I know that going in or like did I know some of the stuff that was happening going in that affected it or but I'm pretty sure it came very lot like I don't really know when that information came in all I know is that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it did influence me, it did not influence me that changed where my instinct went.
[SPEAKER_00]: It aligns so easily that I actually can't recollect where what started, you know, what came first to chicken or the egg, because so much of it came so very naturally.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that by the time we did integrate with it, and I think this is why
[SPEAKER_00]: it made so much sense to introduce Oliver Queen and Absolute Evil so much of what we're doing integrated so easily with the plans of the absolute universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I actually don't have a very good recollection of oh did they mention this to me first and then I did that or did I mention that first and then they did that it's just it all just synced up and I think it's because we're all kind of how many creatively from the same place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Raphael, what about you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you start from a place you're like okay how can I take this character and make a much beefier and much
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know, I think it's also about thinking about the character more than actually the line.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what I really love about the Green Arrow, the new take of Green Arrow, that Bournemouth I brought in, was first of all, it was a horror book, and that by itself it's nice for me because I feel very comfortable drawing horror things.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also how feasible that character would be in the real world and this using this approach, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it fell right for nowadays having a green arrow like that, and also it matches what the absolute universe is.
[SPEAKER_01]: is about, it's definitely a green-year version of this character, it's definitely an updated version of this character's four-year generation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think considering the word we're leaving now, which is somehow very crazy, it makes sense to have a
[SPEAKER_01]: click it for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it just makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bought the idea right when Katy covered our editor emailed me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like super into it right on.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'm struck by you talking about how it's a horror book.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's set in the absolute universe, which is a universe crackling with evil energy, for darker, and yet the villains of this book are ripped from our world headlines, essentially.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you talk about that?
[SPEAKER_03]: You didn't feel like you needed to heighten those because having read it without spoiling like it is very horrifying Just on the page and then doubly so when you sit back and realize I remember when that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember when that happened Yeah, yeah, I mean a lot of it too was a lot of it
[SPEAKER_00]: was just modernizing the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the green arrow as a character and, you know, and so much of this takes inspiration.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so much of the book takes.
[SPEAKER_00]: inspiration but also like close little bits of like lower here and there from all like my favorite sort of green arrow stories and green arrow runs and all that kind of stuff and but so much of it is the guiding star behind what Danielle Neil Adams did and again I was on a live during those times but if you read that but it feels like they just did a laundry list of like all the social the pertinent social topics that might
[SPEAKER_00]: have been going on that time, like in all those newspapers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was the, that, you know, that was baked into the DNA of the character already.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just to service that, again, the idea of taking that and making a modern day version of that, then it's also, you know, like, okay, so how do we do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then on top of that, it, you know, so, so much of,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny because I feel like the big take, you know, the big thing that's on the grabby is the idea that he's a serial killer.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, and to me, that was how do you do a modern take?
[SPEAKER_00]: If
[SPEAKER_00]: You can, if you can stretch your imagination to believe in a world where billion they seem to be able to do whatever they want, and there's no legal consequence for it, you know, and yeah, I'm listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah, I'm listening, yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, if you could believe a world like this exists, how scary is the possibility of legal ramification?
[SPEAKER_00]: So then what could this character do that could actually be effective?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that sort of when the serial killer sort of aspects reach goes into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then when you look back, and again, so much of this book is me realizing how bad my memory is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I will like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I read all that grow stuff, but then working this like went back and it's like, oh god, he killed Like it's 80 issues of the grow run and he killed through those 80 issues and it makes me wonder It was like what the hell was going on back then that they were so cool with him like just killing back in the back in the 80s because he does it I thought I I again my bad memory.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought he like he did it once and he was like, I'm not doing it again
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for like 80 issues of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty regularly in that run.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it there at aspect though of the character?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is something that I'm sure comes up a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's an aspect of the character.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, well, he uses a bow and arrow to fight evil, but he does it very safely in respect.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is a weird conversation that you have.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, he's super with the bow and arrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, oh, no, no, but you don't get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bow and arrow is just as deadly as a gun.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, oh, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: He kills like, no, he doesn't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are we doing with the thing then?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's mostly boxing gloves.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I probably just mentioned here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've kind of touched on this, but just in case anybody doesn't actually know what the book is about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Slate spoilers for the absolute evil special.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oliver Queen is gearing up to take on these fellow billionaires, he dies.
[SPEAKER_02]: He dies that issue is killed by this evil cabal of the people who are running the absolute universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this picks up after that with following the serial killer that we're talking about who is taking down the billionaires, the people who potentially may have caused Oliver Queen's death or have been related to it,
[SPEAKER_02]: And meanwhile, on the other end, let's have been mentioned in Solicits, I believe, but we have Dynalance, also known as the Black Caderey, who is looking into it, trying to figure out what's going on, who killed Oliver Queen and she becomes a nation in this mystery.
[SPEAKER_02]: So flipping that to the other side, then, I mean, I think I know the answer for the main universe, but from the absolute universe, why was it important to make Dynah our window character here?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think one of the reasons why, you can't do a book
[SPEAKER_00]: Something that I actually learned from James Tainin is that if it's if you're going to do a horror book, it's not a horror book unless you're you're coming from the perspective of the scared and and so if you would do a book like this from the killer's perspective it's just a different book it's a crime book it's a vigilante book it's whatever the case may be but if you do it from someone on the outside looking in it is then suddenly it's a horror book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also gave us a very classic framework to work off of, which is Jalos, which is Slash or Slash or Horror.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that became a very easy framework.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, as for Waidina is, I just love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that it's like one of the most underrated, under, like, explore.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's been so much done with her and so much great stuff done with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think there's still so much more to do with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so getting a chance to write Dina Lands was just a treat for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it made so much sense with the characters, the idea that, you know, the idea that, you know, there was a second where I went back and forth of just being like, should we call this like absolute, green-out or burst black canary?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just love the idea of burst black canary, but then it does not roll off the tongue at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it does be opposite of rolling off the tongue.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's like, yeah, don't, don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yeah, she's a big part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a tongue twister in and of itself that that title, but yeah, I just I love blackeneres a character.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was always someone to that needed to fit that place and
[SPEAKER_00]: and she was a character I love.
[SPEAKER_00]: She fit the place very organically, and also her themes are ends up being so much of what the book, it's actually amazing how much her themes as a character relate with his themes as a character in a way that I don't know has ever really been explored and I'm really kind of jazzed and it's fun that we get to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, it really helps, I think like the absoluteness of the book, the downbad nature of both Oliver being dead, and Dinahs what's happened to her, I think really puts them in the same basket, and the fact that they are on opposite sides of life actually really helps bring them together in a way that you don't get when it's about the romance and the love story, it feels much, much stronger, I feel like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, they really are like, opposite perspectives of sort of the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're really the way I look at the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is kind of this question of like, yeah, when there's this world of like all this wrongdoing and you want to affect change, is there a right version in a wrong way to do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're both, it's kind of like a conversation between, you know, these different perspectives.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the language of that conversation is a lot of dead bodies and violence.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Raphael from that particular sort of the train of thought, what's your take on a horror through art?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I will say, there's a bloody gross stuff that happens in this book for sure, but do you show, do you not show what is scarier from your perspective?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you get horror through in terms of what you are depicting?
[SPEAKER_01]: This something, me and Boris, I would discuss during the making of the book, is I really, although we have, we show a lot of horror bodies and stuff, violence, I think what I think it's more, it's probably the most effective way to, to show terror is to suspense through expectation,
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's how, and even since the American vampire had tried to build my sequence these way, I tried to build tension through the pages and not necessarily show a gohar thing, but try to make the reader foresee that in a way that's very impressive for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did that a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: was very smart on the writing of it and I think we were able to do a lot of really cool sequence where tension shows built and and the readers are very important part of you know the storytelling and this book much more than just showing that body is all over you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let me say it's very effective, the, the, the Goran stuff is great, but the stuff that was more horrifying for me is seeing the transformation of the character the villains, I guess you could call them.
[SPEAKER_03]: over the course of the first issue you see people transform over time and then in a couple quick moments where one villain character goes from being like pretty regular to being an absolute monster and that was the sort of breathtaking moments for me that were super horror and that dual horror where you're like
[SPEAKER_03]: It's up here and it's sort of in the gut.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, this book is getting dark.
[SPEAKER_03]: It feels, I'm on a path to what darkness is feels.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to say too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Rafa's horror and things are so assured and sort of confident.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I remember when we first started, I was like, will we be able to show everything?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think in my very, very early picture, I'd like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a red band but like how do we show all this?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean Rafa was like very confident very early on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like we'll be able to do like don't worry about it We'll be able to do everything you want to do and we'll be able to get it through standards and practices like you know like I know how to handle this and and he was 100% right
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, on the other edge of the spectrum on the writing, and though, and you touched on this a little bit earlier, but can you make an anti-establishment comic book for a company this part of one of the largest entertainment companies in the world?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will tell you my personal philosophy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Keep all your single issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never know where I am, my Disney has so funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm keeping my coms, you know, 10 years from now, and all of a sudden, like, oh, creative differences and a trade can exist anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm keeping all my physical, like, I'm glad this is not a digital.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad we're not streaming.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a physical media thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, we will find out the answer to your question.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, that's the most horrifying answer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we just said.
[SPEAKER_03]: You really are backing the book all the way.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, another thing, another big aspect of the book is who is this serial killer, obviously or probably obviously it's not Oliver Queen because we see his dead body at absolute evil as well as in this issue, but without, I'm not like plugging for like what number do you reveal it so much as how do you pace out a who is in the mask, mystery, so it doesn't test the audience's patience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is a really good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer is, well, the answer is, how do you face it?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you face it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I won't know the answer to that until we get to issue six, and we'll see what everyone thinks.
[SPEAKER_00]: But hopefully along the way, and I think this is true for any kind of murder mystery, it's a friend's we meet along the way, it's the things we meet along the way, it's the suspects that, you know, that we meet, that hopefully are interesting enough,
[SPEAKER_00]: that we are never felt like frustrated by the fact that, oh, we're going here, we're going there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and for this particular book, the suspects are, you know, for all, for all intents and purposes, the the myriad archers of the DC universe who have been found their way into the absolute orbit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and hopefully you will find them as interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so much of this book
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because you don't see Oliver Queen's face on every page doesn't mean his book isn't about the effect of Oliver Queen and the effect of this billionaire who wants to do good and and the ramifications and the ripple effects he has he has life has and his death at and so hopefully even if you don't know any of these characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: What you'll find interesting is how the life at work death of Oliver Queen affected them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you do know these characters, it's hopefully even more fun to see characters that you recognize from the DC universe to be interpreted in a new way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, part of the green-anter arrow, like mythos, is yes, although the political action, the billionaire, the sort of Batman Bruce Wayne style origin,
[SPEAKER_03]: And it feels like my, I feel like that's an important part of the character.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I feel like we see that a little bit in the flashback where he is a bit of a goof if I may say, is that something you're going to continue through the, is that a thread that continues through?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think part of, you know, part of what the book is about, and part of I think what the absolute line is about is when you take these tenons and these principles of idealism and heroism, how do they survive in sort of the starker world?
[SPEAKER_00]: And in absolutely narrow, that is a
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, in a way, almost as an existential question, it's, you know, how do these characters go on in this world that they live in, knowing what they know of the world that they live in, knowing what they see in the news every day?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's one of the central, it's definitely one of the central tensions as I'm writing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's one of the reasons why
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know if I wanted to write it for that reason, I knew I wanted to explore it, but I'm definitely grateful to have written it for that reason, because so much of the central, you know, this is something me and Rafa talk about a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's why what we bond it over when we start the book is a lot of the questions of the heart of the book, serial killer aside, is stuff that I think I'm wrestling with on sort of like a day-to-day, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so much of this book is me sort of working out on the page how me looking for a way to kind of get through it and I'm super I didn't know this going in but I'm super grateful for the book that again I can't say this for everyone but for me it helped me find a light at the or something it to help me find something to just latch on to a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now you're out there killing billionaires, I believe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, this is the latest of all possible spoilers, but just to kind of touched up before we do get to see Oliver Queen a little bit in flashback.
[SPEAKER_02]: Roughly, I wanted to ask you about one sequence in particular where we see him at three different ages with different hairstyles at different time periods.
[SPEAKER_02]: having no artistic tells at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I found that very impressive to progress somebody through time in such a concrete space on the page.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you tackle something like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad he's working out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's all about trying to figure out a way to keep the core, the visual core of the character
[SPEAKER_01]: what I do is trying to play with with the time they were living at.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that the early days of growing arrow on the,
[SPEAKER_01]: on the, I forgot how many of the company, but anyway, the green air, what's green air?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's green air?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's green air.
[SPEAKER_01]: into that to make it possible, but also recognizable, so that was it, I mean.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, another art aspect that I thought was very interesting is not a lot of the book, but some of the book, at least, is told through phones, through news footage, things like that, as an artist again, how do you make sure that that's visually dynamic?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not just like six panels of a face on a phone, and that's all you're getting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not so, it was probably more instinctive than something I gave a thought on, but why we were trying to do is recreating classic screams from our daily basis internet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're trying to recreate tick-tock and
[SPEAKER_01]: and you to know how to try to mimic their screens and, you know, even when trying to figure out a composition that will work it out in a page, but that will work it out in a more instinctive way than actually planning things.
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing that I actually really appreciated about that porn cycle throughout to you is normally if you kind of annoying to be frank when you see modern social media in a comic book because it was created.
[SPEAKER_02]: a year ago to a year ago it doesn't feel of the times but this actually felt very current at least part of that was I think unless it was just my copy leaving out the logos so there wasn't we weren't looking like cook-clop and whatever but when you're writing something like that no it's going to be a while until the comic book came comes out I imagine a little bit of his luck but how do you make sure that it still does feel like of the time?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think a lot of what you just said is part of it is just like logos, the fake logos definitely I feel like always throw people out or at least always throw me out when I'm looking at it, but for me it was less about like how do I make this current and more just sort of like, and I did this with ever with my first book in 2018 on the info is how do you just acknowledge like what media is now and like because for me it was just like,
[SPEAKER_00]: you know we're I find that in comics so much of it is like oh I was walking by a TV and I'm like when was the last time any of us walk by a TV like you know that yeah like you know like or even when we're something as simple as watching news right like you don't the scene where you happen to turn on the television and
[SPEAKER_00]: and a new story is playing, that doesn't really happen anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like news is so intentional now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to be, you have to look for that story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now the only place is where news comes to you is through something like social media where I just want to cat video and all of a sudden I hear about the war in blah, blah, blah, blah or something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for me, it wasn't like, how do I make that news technology current?
[SPEAKER_00]: It was more just like, how do I,
[SPEAKER_00]: have what is in me a more reflective of what we're actually sort of seeing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this sort of new way that we consume news.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for then, I think a little bit of pressure that you're talking about was off.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just more like, how have we been consuming it lately?
[SPEAKER_00]: And better or worse, this is how we're consuming it, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it reminds me of
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, no, no, we're near in the same league, but it felt like the first time I saw the news in a comic book was in Dark Knight Returns, where you had political commentators talking about it, and there was that integration of like, oh, superheroes in the real world, like, yeah, political pundits would talk about Batman and all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was more, not that we're doing anything on the level of Dark Knight Returns, but it was just a little bit of that spirit of, yeah, how do you just make this a little bit more?
[SPEAKER_00]: In a weird way, media in comics, I felt not certainly not across the board, but a little bit feels like it's still a little stuck in the shadow of Dark Knight Returns, where everyone's just like tuning on the TV.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we'd be a better world if we all watch more like TV news, but we don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not how the world is anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a
[SPEAKER_00]: part of what the job of the absolute universe was to make everything more modern.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was also how do we just modernize it to our current consumption of news?
[SPEAKER_03]: Raphael, a pornist egg was mentioning that you knew that you wouldn't cross the standards and practices line when you were doing this.
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you know that?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you know that fine line?
[SPEAKER_03]: And did you pull back at all, as you were doing this, did you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there a spot you were like, I can't quite go there?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, we were talking about getting the book, not going too far with any violence or anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wouldn't be okay, just by the standards and practices or the, no, I think it's much more about the efficiency of telling the story than, you know, being the scared of chalking people or anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I'd only mind about showing blood or anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: But by my experience, especially from American Vampire and other horror things, is that creating expectation through the page stands to be more efficient, to impact the reader than actually showing stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: That works for pretty much everything, but especially in horror books.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my theory is that if you don't show anything,
[SPEAKER_01]: If you just suggest what's going to happen, whatever the reader imagine is going to be scared.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I eventually suggest something in a page, if I eventually draw something in a page, I might be under, under, I might be not as good as what they might expect, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: My chance to disappoint is bigger if I draw whatever they mind that if I just suggest and let them to think whatever they find scary so that's my trick let's just say.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've had a couple of logistical questions for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: PornSack you mentioned six issues and we'll see this is an ongoing series and I know nothing is sure in the industry but how far reaching is the plan at this point or how far you hope it go as far as they'll take you basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, so I mean, I'm much like criminals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a cowardly superstition.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a lot of cowardly superstitious.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have ideas and ambitions, but right now, it's about these six issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I think too far ahead, I'm worried I'm gonna jinx myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have a lot of ideas, but,
[SPEAKER_00]: I had made a point to not bring any of those ideas into each other's orbit into anything that looks like a story because that feels like chasing things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right now we have a six-ish story we're going to tell and we're going to see how it goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we were to get more, I'd definitely have ton of ideas that I have.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of the way the book was designed.
[SPEAKER_00]: was it was kind of setting up this little little, I don't know, mini universe within a universe kind of thing and say hey guys we're done if you want to play with any of these toys that we've set up feel free we set up a lot of toys for you to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have some ideas of how I play with those toys.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I get the opportunity to play with those toys, but the job is really to set up all these toys for you guys if you want to play with them at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's kind of, you know, I have ideas, we introduce a lot of toys by the end of the six issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have ideas on how to play with all of them, and then it's just a question if I get to be the one so lucky as to play with those toys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let me ask you a question that I don't know if you can answer about where those toys might go next.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know that Jason Aaron is writing the absolute universe event that's coming up in the fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it too early to include these characters or will we possibly see absolute great arrow dina as somebody like that pop up there?
[SPEAKER_00]: You you can't see it, but there are a ton of like reds night for not all sort of Cross over Jason, I was just like, oh no, they're dots everywhere now anywhere I go I will get right Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the sake of my life
[SPEAKER_00]: I unfortunately cannot mention anything about the crossover because I don't have it because I am not the one Jason is the one writing in and I'm not the one writing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, that's that's my answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know they have this whole like writers room thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and have you been able to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're great over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a collab.
[SPEAKER_00]: I
[SPEAKER_00]: I am so impressed and in all of what's got and you see editor to sort of set up because it is a universe we all talk to each other and yet again like you would think because of that there would be a lot of oh you've got to do this and issue to set up that and then there's not it like me and I'm making the book we want to make.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it runs in sync with this universe and occasionally we can throw a ball over the wall or the ball over the net and it comes back at us.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, it's like the absolute evil piece of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: people automatically assume because they read absolutely number one that it was that D.C. and the I think after the universe came to us and like we killed Oliver Queen, what do you you want to do anything with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that was an organic outgrowth of what B.M.
[SPEAKER_00]: Roth was working on and they decided to fold it into absolute evil and it worked so well you just assumed it was a directive we were given.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the way the absolute universe works is so organic in that way, it really just allows us to kind of create, but at the same time in an additive way where, you know, oh, a toy we have here can be used there and a toy they have here can be used here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really is a fantastic, you know, working environment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, and I think it sounds like from everything that we've heard from people and talked to people about this is probably the not so secret sauce that is making DC really work right now that it feels like it's led by creative decisions and writer and artist decisions first rather, obviously there's business decisions to come into it, but as a reader that's what I want to see.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to see you guys fly until the story you're going to tell.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's a fascinating sort of cycle when you're looking at the history of corporate storytelling where it's always the same thing that leads to the renaissance, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always hey, let creators do what they want to do, give them freedom, things go really well, they get to a point where corporate is just kind of like, all right, now we need to control this because if we give the power or if we give this, if we have our profit and losses connected to
[SPEAKER_00]: technically is it on our payroll?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it on our like W2 then like this is bad?
[SPEAKER_00]: So then we need to find a way to control it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The popular in sales always go down and then within a couple of years they make the same discoveries like maybe we should let creative people.
[SPEAKER_00]: have work control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take a chance and see what's happened even though that is literally the cycle of like this corporate entertainment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always like, you know, corporate people just suddenly discover like, here's a crazy idea guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's let creators create and just see what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just as suggested, but if you haven't problem with the executives bow and arrow, you could take it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, it's really pushing for a serial killer to come out of that series.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's your ideas.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's pitching them back to you for exact.
[SPEAKER_02]: just to sort of wrap it up here with the book and get on mentioned that it's coming out May 20th from DC.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody should pick it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anything you want to tease.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know we talked about some aspects of the book, but anything particularly you want to mention either about the first issue or the first arc to tease people, let them know why they should pick this up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh God, let's see, comes out May 20th.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't, if you haven't, if you don't know it by now or if you haven't picked it up along the way, it is about a, you know, it is about a circular slaughtering cropped billionaires and the only clue to there's identity are the green arrows he leaves in the bodies of his victims, a clue, a message to his very rich, very powerful enemies that you can't get away with all of her queen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, I know what you did last summer for billionaires and it follows Dina Lance.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I lose data lands, Blackberry as she has been tasked to uncover the identity of this killer, all our suspects DC fans will recognize as archers from the DC universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, and it is a, it is, you know, it is a,
[SPEAKER_00]: violent horror, slasher book, but also I think too.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a book about, I don't know, it's a book about Inger and what to do with that anger and and yeah and hopefully it will it will be cathartic in some ways, but hopefully it will
[SPEAKER_00]: also be, well, hopefully a bit cathartic in two different ways, um, um, in one, to at least some of that, sort of energy that I think people are responding to, but also as a conversation of just about like what to do with the energy that we have, um, this concept energy that we have, and that's certainly how I'm looking at it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And by the single issues before the corporate hand come here, you slice it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: The number no, you will never know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I love, that's why that's a great takeaway
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... port sacrafael thank you so much for coming on again absolute pleasure no pun intended i'm looking for you reading the rest of the book i said it accidentally so i had to put that in the pocket that's it thank you very much thank you guys thanks guys bye
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to be, don't know, don't mind We'll take time, it's in sales And it's 10 now already It's 10 now, it's 10 now, it's 10 now I don't want to be
[SPEAKER_04]: They sit on crappy couches and they let us see the moon And he's just nothing, they're like fast, they're so fast To wrap your brain paleo, don't be late, or it'll fail