[SPEAKER_02]: What's up everybody welcome to comic book club on Alex on P we got another bonus episode for you here with a great guest What if our favorite guys to talk to and the genius behind the do vampire rates That's coming out July 8 from boom studios so coming out very soon to pedigled when you're listening to this Ladies and women welcome back to the podcast Fred Van Lenty friend
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see who I'm telling you.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Excited to talk about this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really only have one question, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Vampirates, which, of course, is Vampire Pirates.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is it not Pyra Pirates?
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you just answered you don't question with that?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It kind of rolls off the tongue, Pyramid Pyramid Pyramids.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happened was, Luke, it's sorry, my co-creator, we, we were done a book called Weapon X for Marvel.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had all your stabby mutants.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it like in your Saber Toots and Wolverines and so forth.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, good ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can't stab, I don't want to be born with any power.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we found out we lived pretty close to each other at the time in Brooklyn.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we were like, hey, let's talk about projects together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And neither of us, the things we were pitching each other, like, we're really going anywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: But all of a sudden, Luca just looks at me and goes, I just have this title.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vampirants and just like the light bulbs to explode like it didn't even go off of my edge to explode it out of my head Bone and brain everywhere and I was like That's the one Lucas is because he's not, you know, he's as you might be able to tell him his name he's Italian He's lived in England in the US quite a lot, so But he's not a native English speaker, so he just like liked the two words and started like together as a portmento, so
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess we'll see I'm releasing a book called Pyrepires.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see how the two of us are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's obviously, it's a great test.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, more seriously, it definitely feels like the sort of thing that starts with the title, but once you have that, once you have the head exploding moment, then you actually have to set down a story, and have it read it without getting it to spoilers.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a very fun story, but how did you go from title to actual execution of the plot of the book?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun, like the most fun thing to do in fantasy in world building is take just this very tiny kernel of logic and just kind of spin it out to all its possible permutations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the first institution I made was that this wasn't gonna be our world.
[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't gonna insert vampires into like the age of piracy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I was younger, that's probably like the first thing I would have gone to, just don't such a huge history nut.
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
[SPEAKER_01]: I decided instead we would take a world populated by vampires ruled by vampires under a thousand year clips and then stick pirates into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that makes all the difference and makes for just a completely interesting and different scenario, you know, our vampires ruled the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they run the religion, they run the government so they don't, they're not intimidated by religious symbols, they don't have to hide.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, particularly because it's dark all the time, so they're not really armed by some like, so you take away all their many of the weaknesses and they just end up being these sort of apex predators.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now I'm like, I think the expert would be in our world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really buy, you know, I'm not saying McNeida was right, but I feel like we're mutants, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: they wouldn't be hiding, they'd be in the holes of power.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, so the interesting thing about then making vampires, the apex predators, how much do you worry about, I don't know, I was just at a conversation about vampire rules literally earlier this weekend, like how much do you worry then about, oh, we got to twist the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got to change the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got to figure out, well, how do humans survive if there's more vampires?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're ruling, how important is that to the process?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, the answer to how that human survival is very straightforward, they're bread, you know, they're a few, they're a food source, you know, you don't get rid of your food stores.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, humans have number of vampires in the night aisles by about four to one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but their second class citizens and their, you know, they're there,
[SPEAKER_01]: their societal function is tightly controlled and there, you know, some humans are treated really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some humans who just get to move around and then there's some humans that are not treated very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like in the actual like tall ships, like the pirate ships, you know, a lot of those tall ships, like a spaceship, much of what was going on the technology in that time was to keep you the cruel life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when your crew is functionally immortal, like ours, all you really need to worry about is how much blood do we keep on board?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we need live blood?
[SPEAKER_01]: The old age of saleships had these things called Mangerers, which were places where they kept cows and chickens and goats and things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it smelled great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And but on the pirate on the vampire pyrochips they have human beings in the ventures, which gets kind of nasty and you'll see that soon enough in the series.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's it and then they can miss like I didn't like I don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our vampires they they have very few weaknesses and they can't turn animals but they can miss because that makes for cool ass sword fights.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have sword fighting vampire of course, because it's a pirate book, so we thought the missing was really cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: I might not be up on my vampire lore missing just means a turn into misting kind of for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was your impression of Pete that they have like a little bit of a mystery?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like they carry their friends around and spray bottles, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or they, you know, they get really sweaty so they've got to like always misting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is out there at least in the initial press release, so cut me off immediately if I'm wrong, but like the basic idea of the book once you have the world set up is that we have our main vampire queen who is thrust into different circumstances that knock her down a bit and she's forced to team up with a pirate crew.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there what else do you want to fill in there?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a coup with some people who don't think she's nasty enough to the humans, so they're only there's sort of a political sociological home of there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, she winds up through means, I won't spoil here.
[SPEAKER_01]: She basically accidentally
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... stores away in a pirate ship and so she starts from and that's sort of the other was really appealing to be was this idea that you have someone who's at the very top of the society who basically becomes a cabin girl and as to work her way up from the very very bottom uh... and she's stuck with someone as it turns out again if you read the first issue the reasons are obvious doesn't like her or the vampirium very much so uh... i like seeing characters under pressure and this is definitely a pressure
[SPEAKER_02]: well let's talk about that character a little bit then i mean you touched on this just before but what was important in building her character like what tell us a little bit more about her
[SPEAKER_01]: Nira DeWinter is the, she's her editor-in-eroylty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Her father vanished many decades ago, sort of allowing her to ascend the throne.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's been a rebellion that's been going on for a couple decades, one of the biggest island of the night Isles Black Ash's welding.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the other one, so there's this big naval battle, this big naval war, which is recently ended
[SPEAKER_01]: they're making her marry the count of black ash.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like the godfather, the empyrids opens with a wedding, which takes place much of the issue, but it maybe doesn't go the way the bride wanted it to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just, you know, I just like the idea of a character
[SPEAKER_01]: of a royal character who just has no interest in governing, and would just rather have spent time with her boyfriend and his fence, and just, you know, which of course is not really contribute to her getting over, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she's in kind of a rough position when she gets overthrown.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just like the idea of this kind of spoiled brat, you know, being dumped into this, into the pirate situation, which is such a fun trope in like if you've read like Captain's courageous or any of those old kind of classic.
[SPEAKER_03]: set.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: I definitely reading this first issue.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fond is the word I would use it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a blast.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of nonstop, which is great.
[SPEAKER_03]: It does seem like you're writing it with the friend, because there's so much kind of fun packed in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you do kind of take on a project like that is it hard to kind of stay focused and and get the job done because you know You guys are just having so much fun or is it you're your professional at this point So maybe you know it wouldn't be that thing But I would think if I I would love to work with my friend, but then it'd be worried nothing would get done What are you saying Pete about us?
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me what are you saying about Alex
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, well, you know, it's, it's just because we have different roles, maybe different if we were like literally co-writing, but I came up with the storyline within a few days, actually, and Luca was like pretty impressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but you know, I had a bunch of other stuff rattling around in my head that I just was able to grab and graft onto the Vampirex concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's why I
[SPEAKER_01]: I got so excited by it because I love history.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love World Building and this was sort of a great combination to merge the two in a way I think people will find really enjoyable.
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, I think it just it just helps you focus, you know, cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luca just had a baby as wife did.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's he needs a lot of focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have, we have this endless text chain part of the fun is like like there's like so this world is like sure there's vampires, but there's also ghost typhoons and vampire sharks and their giant spiders and there's a bar with a giant like a dead giant spider and it is named after the giant spider and Lucas like what's the name of the giant spider what was the deal with the giant spider who killed the giant spider I'm like okay great well we're going to have a one shot with the giant spider.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this ties into something again.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, I think, going back to the original press release the Boom Studio sent out of our member.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there seem to be an animation that they're, as you're talking about, is a lot more to the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like, obviously it's very focused on the story of this one vampire, but talk to me about that a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, or do we have vampires?
[SPEAKER_02]: The video game being played to the background, the role playing, what's going on there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I would love to I love we'd love to do a van Pirates role playing game a lot of these ideas came from both Luke and I love video games and one video game to the particular.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a big influence on this one is dishonored I if you guys are for a play.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, just a fantastic still game where they teleport through his or replace teleporting with misting Misting yeah, there we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: There it is, but Yeah, it's a huge world and you know
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's, it's, it's going to be super fun to explore, um, part of the fun is the discovery.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't want to get two into details, but there's political intrigue.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a vampire disease running around.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's quite nasty called the rot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, guys, peeled for that, um, uh, you know, there's buried treasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, there's mutinies.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's,
[SPEAKER_01]: Ghost typhoons.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's pirate funders.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's alchemy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I could just, it's just, it's a ghost typhoon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Not as bad as a real typhoon or worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's much worse.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, my god.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just, is it all ghost in kind of a, oh, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not trying to fool people here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you say ghost typhoon and I'm be like, oh, it's not real.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a ghost typhoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I really appreciate that you interpret all my horror stuff in just the most benign way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, or thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... this get back to the x-better at all i may be on way off base here but i got a little bit of the shiair in this book like we got a little bit of leandra and her sister i guess just a coincidence right oh yeah yeah why me yeah yeah your as a shitty relationship with her cousin
[SPEAKER_01]: uh who's called sister Duchess.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a Duchess and a nun.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why they call her sister Duchess.
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't really like that thing name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but uh, yes, she's head of the church while near is head of the vampirium, the government.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It did not occur to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: given all of this world building how far it advanced you have this plaid now I don't remember whether it was sold as a bit of series on going what what are we in for potential.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well we're definitely doing five issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are in a world where X-Men feels like it gets rebooted every year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we definitely want to do more sales of installments.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully that'll be a big guess.
[SPEAKER_02]: And not that I'm asking you to slag off your employer, but definitely some big changes going on at Boom Studios recently.
[SPEAKER_02]: What has it been like working with them under the new ownership or just that not affect you at all?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been great.
[SPEAKER_01]: There have been some more, most of the growing pains have been in the sort of,
[SPEAKER_01]: Business side of things like, uh, with like a counting of legal and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if that, if the creative, it's been fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sebastian Garner and my bull and Jerry will create it or Sebastian, we actually pitched vampires to Sebastian, when he was over at TKO.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he remembered us for when he moved to room.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he actually reached out to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, okay, his vampire, it's still available.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm like, it is because, look at move.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did we have another character together?
[SPEAKER_01]: But shit is now very much together.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's just tuggin' along.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this book is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very, very busy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So before we let you go, anything else you want to plug, anything else folks should be checking out other than Vampire Rates.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's definitely the future is my ongoing cyberpunk comic.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's all new Harbinger is still chuggin' along as it's a big storm.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Disney book I'm doing with my buddy Greg Pock.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm super fun the fun villains book and I will say for Don't necessarily know when the episode's coming up, but if you are in New York City on July 8 Which is vampire.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's number one comes out Please come out to forbidden planet on Broadway.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be signing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just something awesome cool Fred always a pleasure chatting with you Absolutely thank you for all the great work Where it's going and everybody watch out for those ghost typhoons You don't know what they are when they're coming
[SPEAKER_00]: They're everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh man.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one week, there's no going to mind We'll stay calm, it's in sales And it's been now, it's been now, it's been now, it's been now, it's been now, it's been now
[SPEAKER_00]: They sit on crappy couches and they let the sick and the lick And he's just a monkey, they'll let fast, special guests speak So grab your ring, hammer, don't relay, or it goes better