[SPEAKER_01]: what is up everybody welcome to comic book club on Alex and we've got another bonus episode for you here with a great guest he is the writer behind the forever home which is coming out from only press on September 9th final order cutoff is August 3rd so once you hear us talk about it you're going to want to put in those orders at your local comic book shop later gentlemen welcome back to the podcast Christian Ward Christian great to see you
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, thanks for having me, Alex.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thrilled to be back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, very excited to talk about this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: As I said, it's not coming out for a while, so I don't know how much you want to get it just spoilers, but we got a interesting teaser from Odie Press a couple of weeks back where they were just teasing something ominous is coming with the word of forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was revealed to be this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is all set around a family living in a home, some horrible things are happening outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: Charles, imagine the art is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's by Sammy Kavela, who you're working with on this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: What can you tell us about this?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think kind of like a big part of the appeal of this book is really kind of going again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not knowing too much, you know, really works on those sort of levels that it's really unpredictable.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to really surprise people and, you know, it's got a great cliffhangers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the end, and particularly by the end of the first issue, you know, there's some real curveballs in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what I will tell you is it is about the tutorial of forever home.
[SPEAKER_02]: which is a house that's been built to withstand the climate change, to withstand severe weather and everything that climate change is growing at it, but they've discovered it, it withstands something else to time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so time flows differently inside the house to outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is about a family, basically, the family of the kind of the infamous bringing our architect to build this home, and he is obsessed with keeping his family safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: only his family's safe and then I kind of watched the apocalypse happen and then the story is really what happens afterwards.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious about I have some theories but I'm curious about the inspiration behind this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where did this one come from in particular?
[SPEAKER_01]: Rather than be jumping in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I really like the news and the world around us.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I mean, it's a quite ironic, because I'm obviously, I'm talking quite a lot about it at the moment, doing a lot of compromises and interviews with, you know, good people like yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're currently in our third heat wave here in the UK.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're hitting temperatures here.
[SPEAKER_02]: that we have never hit, you know, like high thirties and like, you know, and it's a sort of like translate to kind of like, you know, that's like a hundred degrees.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep in mind, we don't have aircon in the UK.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just not thing because our climate is generally so mild.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's quite interesting that I'm kind of, you know, promoting this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's at, and I've written this book,
[SPEAKER_02]: speculating and kind of musing on the idea of climate change and what's potentially in that future and also looking at the idea of how that's going to change immigration around the world, you know, but there's as hard as it is here in the UK and there are many places in the country thinking about places in India, particularly whether he can kind of hit in high photos and it really started to become a little bit unlivable and what does that do to our world?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then in a kind of like a future where you would hope everyone opens at their doors and we all live on the same planet and it becomes about us working together as a team.
[SPEAKER_02]: What we're finding is your, you know, it's becoming more and more about nationalism and people are pulling up their draw bridges.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in particular, it's not hard to go down kind of like internet rabbit holes and discuss kind of like billionaire climate bunkers these ideas, the billionaires are kind of building,
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of bunkers themselves and you know, musk himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's wanting to leave the planet, you know, so it's very much about they're looking after themselves and they're not looking after humanity.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was really inspired by that and wanting to do a story that
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I want to hand it, it's exciting, it's thrilling, it's built, entertaining, but also there's there is some substance behind it and the substance behind it is probably even more terrifying than, you know, the book itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: really interesting here you all talk about that and all of that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is one aspect that I'm curious to hear whether it's inspired and all is COVID.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because it's people inside of a house and trapped in a house and I've been noticing this trend in our recently mostly in film we have End of Oak Street is coming out where it's a bunch of people inside of their house cared about dinosaurs.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another movie coming to Netflix that I really
[SPEAKER_01]: we can't get out of our house and then you have this thing among many other things that are all about like family trapped inside in this case, a large space was that part of it was not part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, at the idea of actually predates COVID.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: I can see the, you know, I can see it and obviously it was written after COVID, you know, I was scripting it after COVID.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I'm sure there's some of of of those anxieties and those memories that kind of have felt it in them for us as a family.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were under a second trial to like, like bang at a start of COVID, like we're kind of,
[SPEAKER_02]: She was born in May, obviously a few months after the first lockdown when everything was still so scary and so uncertain.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's definitely, you know, I'm sure I'm dealing with some residual kind of like tension and stress there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: It really isn't, it's not a book that deals with COVID or all the ideas of COVID.
[SPEAKER_02]: And really, I mean, again, it's hard for me to sort of talk about this, you know, once you get to kind of like, particularly the third and fourth issue, it really changes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, no, I mean, I can see the similarities, and I'll see you know, a family still kind of home.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I could say one thing, I think the different series choice, they are choosing to stay in the home.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a very key thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is explored within the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, like stepping around it, what your discovery is, the tension of the book comes when
[SPEAKER_02]: different characters have different choices, and they've chosen different paths, and they're conflicted that those two things create.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yes, and no, it's not inspired by COVID, there's not not a lot of that in there, but but
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not blind to it, but also, I think it will be less, it will feel less COVID-8 as the story goes on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that as a descriptor, COVID-19.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another inspiration and potential inspiration, I'd like to ask you about just because it's top of mind, but you've been doing this excellent event horizon series.
[SPEAKER_01]: You did Dr. Sant, the prequel you've got in Fernou, the sequel.
[SPEAKER_01]: set a couple of hundred years.
[SPEAKER_01]: That certainly deals with a bit of time dilation as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was there, it sounds like timeline wise, those also came after this particular idea, but how much did one feed into the other?
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, that's just a nice, interesting piece of nail.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we just discovered today.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what a good punch that was.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, back to the, to the,
[SPEAKER_02]: your question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say the two ideas don't kind of feed into each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: beyond the fact that that's just a kind of mechanic and everything that I'm quite interested with, particularly with in comics.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think comics deal with time in a way that is so unique to the medium that you don't have in film, you don't have in TV.
[SPEAKER_02]: In many ways you don't even it have in prose, you know, you look at a comic page and every panel is like a moment of time
[SPEAKER_02]: in between the panels is where time moves.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really interesting kind of mechanic when you're reading comics.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think because of that, I've often kind of looked at
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm often sort of drawn to kind of storytelling with in comics that uses time as one of its functions of the way our story moves and changes and it becomes like a third dimension within that storytelling.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think I would say it's something I'm drawn to rather than necessarily
[SPEAKER_02]: I had the idea for forever home and then some of that bed in event horizon of vice versa.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, I just had that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it really interested, especially when you're, when you're presenting an issue of a comic, I'm always making conscious that I want, so I want to be able to pick up one issue, not necessarily one, but just,
[SPEAKER_02]: a single issue and there is within that store that that one, you know, the 20 pages or whatever it is, there's an arc and it's sort of some interest that is unique to that issue alone and it's not just continuing continuing, continuing, you know, you've got like little individual things that can be enjoyed to some extent on their own.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that is why I often think about time, particularly
[SPEAKER_02]: free event horizon is lots of time loops going on in that not not not in this um so that's why unique to that that that that comic and you know the time loop really lends itself perfectly to a 20 page comic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to take a little step back for a second and just talk over all about your career and how this fits in because first we do you as an incredible artist and you've been flexing your muscles as a writer for a really long time and not a really long time but a couple of years now and have a few months.
[SPEAKER_01]: very strongly, I think, you know, with your first couple of series here, not that they played it safe, like I think you took really big chances, but doing a Batman book, doing a two-face book, doing a event horizon.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a little bit of a safety net, you know, because there's a mythology going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's it like going forward as a writer here without that safety net?
[SPEAKER_01]: With something that is this entirely original, different idea that isn't based on a pre-existing franchise.
[SPEAKER_02]: what my first boxes of idol world book wrote around and that that would have been machine gun wizards again with Sammy that I've done with this and I came out in 2019 and then and then I did the Stainty Free Patrick Reynolds at Image which for that so I think I would say to the other way around really a lot of my story telling is very much how can I shape a story to tell the story that I want to tell
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, and this is the thing, this is quite a key point, I think, and obviously, yeah, I'm known primarily as being a comfort artist, I do a lot of covers and the such.
[SPEAKER_02]: What that means is, I'm quite privileged in the, that's kind of, I'm a very, you know, practical sense that pays the mortgage, that pays my bills.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what that means is when I'm bright and kind of love on comics, that's always been the goal.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always want to write comics and I've got plenty of old plans, you know, there's going to be stuff from by me for at least the next two years.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what's really unique?
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, I use the word privilege because I really feel like I am, is that I'm able to, because I make my my my my my my need for the arts, I can really pick and choose what I do as a lighter, you know, I I don't need that the writing doesn't necessarily I don't need it to supplement my earnings.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's lovely as an additional, but it's not something that I'm like, oh my god, I have to like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to like that because I've got to, I've got to pay a mortgage, which, you know, a lot of writers will have to kind of consider.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't have that, which is really freeing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it means that any project I do, whether it be credit-owned, licensed or or do seebook,
[SPEAKER_02]: I can really decide, you know, one, do I want to do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it a character or whatever that really appeals me in the case of, you know, you've been rising up to a face of Batman?
[SPEAKER_02]: But also, can I bring some of my sensibilities to it and can I take that character or that property or that license and actually be a like I'm telling my story through using that thing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't really find it because I am quite picky and there's stuff that I have to end down.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so far to toward, I've not found it particularly challenging.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would argue that the license stuff tends to be a bit easier because you've got your parameters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we've created our own
[SPEAKER_02]: I really like, I'm in particularly with forever home and also with the Patreon which I'm doing with Ignition.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I was writing those books, it was a bow, really understanding what the character, who the characters were and what they wanted and then kind of letting them go the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's always a little bit of, you know, what's going to happen?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've got a kind of idea of what's going to happen, but not fully concrete.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's always that opportunity cast what this could happen, or this could happen, which is more exciting, which is more dramatic, which is going to work better.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and that can, that can be quite challenging because you're setting up your own guardrails, your own parameters for storing a world and everything else, where is when you're working in light and so, or you know, a superhero kind of DC or whatever, those parameters
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew I couldn't kill Harvey Dent, like that was never on the agenda, you know, there was always like, I knew I could bend it so much but not so far.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was always in that, and you know, I also knew that blood by the end of the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to to some degree returning to the status quo.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's always that, that goal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Likewise, when I wrote, event, I mean, particularly the first event horizon series.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was quite easy to write.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was more fun than it was difficult.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was challenge, but the challenge was fun because I knew I knew where it was going.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew it was going to the ball.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've all got a die, spoilers.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've all got a die, and the ship's going to get half to get lost.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I know where I'm heading without any kind of second guessing that's where it's going.
[SPEAKER_02]: It swings around about, you know, the challenge for license, these being able to kind of insert one of my sang with a story, one of my bringing in of myself to the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, obviously, the challenge of career own is just like you can do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the fun is, and the challenge is keep in that story kind of like,
[SPEAKER_02]: going to the place where you think you want to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: And really that is just really having a really clear idea of who the characters are.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think sometimes if you don't have a clear understanding of the characters or the world that you're kind of building, that's why because more difficult because so I'm all but when anything can happen, that's almost, when you have too many options, that's almost more difficult because you then you can second guess yourself, so often.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me ask you the flip side then, if writing is the goal, and I believe you express that as well, when we talk to you back during or right before two faces, well, what about the art?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that going forward fit into your career?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh God, well, I'm looking at page I'm drawing right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I haven't gone away as an artist.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if I speak very candidly, I was always very close to being burnt out at a spectrograph.
[SPEAKER_02]: to be very, very, very clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love working with James.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would work with James again in a heartbeat.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love working with Eric Harbour in the Elsa.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd work with him in a heartbeat, but there were definitely issues with that book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was primarily because it was a you know, a distillery book and we were one of the books that were the first year and it was you know, lots of pressure on it because it was James and he's such a big deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it was, I had to do that book very far quicker than I would have liked.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, we weren't late and I got out and we got out and time, but it put a tremendous amount of stress on me and my body.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was the first time you know, almost 20 years I got a sports injury from drawing it, which,
[SPEAKER_02]: which you know I got frozen shoulder and which you know lots of my friends and peers have had like kind of like work related injuries of like kind of like holding themselves and bad backs and bad posture and whatever and you know spraying risks.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know you know I've never had it and I never had anything in that that book I kind of got an injury and so I think I decided after
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't want to be in that position again where I was chasing deadlines that I would, you know, you start drawing a book, you know, you can see when it's not just when it, you know, when the deadline is, but when that the print deadline is because when you're doing like for instance, but forever home, it's done like it's completely done and Sammy has been finished on that for.
[SPEAKER_02]: finished yeah yeah it's like it's like it's not gonna be late because it's finished and and that is so lovely you know and especially for Sammy because he's he can you know he can you know really concentrate on making the book best it can be without any worry of like you know wife I get sick what if you know I have a bad week what if my you know I what if you know there's lots of things that can happen
[SPEAKER_02]: So I decided that I didn't want to do, I didn't want to be chasing deadlines and so I've basically, I've been steadily working on our projects that I've been drawing just in the background.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have one OGM and please need done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know when it's that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's out next year, but I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm working on another OGM which will follow that one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know when and this particularly in our written.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm writing and drawing and the image book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's my book.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can
[SPEAKER_02]: and the scope of these.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that will be out in March, but I'm slowly building out up in the background.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm also writing and drawing a DC book which will be out next year at some point.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm writing another DC book which will be out next year at some point.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what's really nice is I'm like nothing he's completely apart from the image book and nothing's completely
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of do it for fun and do it for the love, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, because like because a lot of my my kind of like my monthly bills are paid by my my cover work, because I do a lot of covers, it buys the same freedom I was talking about with the writing with my art, it means I can just do cool projects and just enjoy drawing them and then looking how I want them to look and
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so it's cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, and eventually like that I would say, if I look at all my career up to this point, despite having worked with so many amazing writers and loving the projects we've done, I've mentioned spectrograph, I really, you know, despite all the stresses, you know, I'm very proud of the book and I love to work with James.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I love to work and we've met faction on, I'll just say, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: But I would be lying if I didn't say that my most satisfying year as a as a creators when I did that massive madness and a big big part that was because I wrote it and drew it and there's a certain level of freedom that comes from that to be to just go yeah it can look and I can tell stories have exactly how I want to.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, working with another writer and working with an artist, there's always a collaboration, you know, to never going to be completely how you're pitching it in your mind, nor would you want it to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when I send scripts to Samy, the best thing is when I get it back and it looks completely different.
[SPEAKER_02]: To me, he's taking it on a different angle and he's done things with
[SPEAKER_02]: thought of, and that's really wonderful, and then you want that excitement.
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly, when I'm working with a writer, it's really cool when I was getting scripts from James and they were like, these are so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like the first person to read this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a real excitement and synergy when you work with somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: and although I'm focusing on just like drawing my own stuff like the door for me collaborating with another writer is absolutely not closed because like I just loved that so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you write and draw your own thing,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just something really cool about it that it can just be what you want it to be and it's completely.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't remember the same dilute it is the right word, but it's completely, you know, I mean the vision is completely undiluted and completely like, you know, straight to the point of what you intended or at least you're you're you're you're you're trying
[SPEAKER_02]: for that, you know, you never know whether you're gonna kind of get your targets, but I really love the kind of the purity of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm excited for people to see next year that book saw I've been writing and drawing and seeing people's response to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, that's a insane amount of things that you're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second of all, that's a focus on something you said at the middle, but I've always been very curious about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know there is usually a much higher page rate for covers than you're getting for the interior pages.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's interesting to see you say that you can pay your bills with that, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, if I ask without any editors, don't listen here.
[SPEAKER_01]: How long does it take you to craft a cover?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it varies from cover to cover, but not that long.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, I can do a cover in a day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not, that's not a secret.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, I'm, um, I'm, I'm not just this guy, but, you know, I will often get an email from a nurse.
[SPEAKER_02]: who's like forever reason, because things happen, like, you know, it's suddenly like a, and it's like, oh, God, we need a cover here, or we need a cover there, we've missed a spot here, or this book was supposed to have, especially in this age of so many very, very covers, you know, we needed, we needed five very covers and we've only got four, you know, aren't quite used to getting an email one week and have been to have a cover in the
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't enjoy drawing comic pages that much, and I find them quite...
[SPEAKER_02]: I really like storytelling, so that's the bit that I like.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like the storytelling that I'm achieving and...
[SPEAKER_02]: But I get to a point where I'm done with this, I just want to be done with it, especially.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like the page I'm looking at right now is about 13 panels.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think I got to panel like I sketched all our time and I did what I wanted.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to panel like eight and I just want to get this done now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Suddenly the rest of the panels are just blank.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was lost at some of the bits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm not.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have lots of peers and friends that really get getting to the new to the details and I don't have the patience for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not, I'm not what I would call like a natural drawer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't sit and, like, I would never sit and draw for fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just not something I would do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which I imagine to some people would be like, what, that's weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's just not something that I really do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I do do like fan art and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that stretches the same edge that our cover would do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a single image that's very much about Camoud and an impact design, that's why I really love, you know, I love doing covers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoy covers.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so I'm quite happy to be known
[SPEAKER_02]: primarily as a cover guy and I think kind of even now I've listed like 12 books I'm coming out between now and next year, you know, I think I would be quite happy if my, if my kind of output became covers writing a couple of books a year for other artists and then every two years I do a book for me, that's kind of the perfect that would be
[SPEAKER_02]: cooking a book on my own, and then, you know, I in the bills with the covers, and then scratch it.
[SPEAKER_02]: In, you know, really scratching your virtues and creative speeches, we've been working for our artists.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that would be the balance that I would really enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to get back to more specifics about the book, you did mention working with Sammy on the design, obviously, and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: An important part of this book is the home, the titular forever home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, a lot of that is Sammy, you know, it's, it's really important that I kind of like, you know, acknowledge that, you know, the contribution he's made to this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's also important that I say that this is a book that I've kind of wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I wanted to do with Sammy, I wrote it on him in mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say,
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a kind of idea of what the house would look like and what I did is I kind of threw a lot of kind of like just like Google image search images to sort of like to say I mean I would
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the kind of vibe and it's going to be mid-century and we talked about mid-century futurism a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's that period in America after the Second World War that was very much looking to the future and it's idea of a utopia, robots and technology in the house.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the kind of vibe we were going for, which is why Sammy
[SPEAKER_02]: was so perfect for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because he has that kind of retro vibe in his work, he just seems perfect fit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I laid out that what was in the house, I think it's going to have this, it's going to have this and a very loose idea of like, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: it's going to be based on layers as we go down and the the exterior of the house will kind of almost seem quite suburb but like this idea almost like a child's version of a house almost like a handsome and quite tall play with our house and the best for him you know he he's got much better sense of architecture than than I have as an artist I mean and the real reason why
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when your idea was starting to bubble up in me, was when we were working on machine remissants at Dark Horse, we had a place in there, which was called Curtin Room, which was like a club where all the people that I know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Machine remissants was a 1930s kind of like comic book.
[SPEAKER_02]: The idea was, it wasn't alcohol that was prohibited, it was magic.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was like gangsters and magic.
[SPEAKER_02]: and we had this place put the current room which was basically like club all the magicians and in the script I sort of said you know this is gonna be imagine if like MC Escher designed like kind of like a gangster's club that was it and then like when he sent me the page it was just like stairs and exactly how you wanted to be and just like different levels and it was impossible physics and really that was the kind of seed in some ways that led to this
[SPEAKER_02]: So I knew that I didn't need to hold his hand and all he needed to know was the function of the house, dramatically, what was important about the house and kind of like, and again, I'm trying to walk the house, and how it needed to kind of function for the family and for the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with great, there's a, you'll have seen this being the first issue.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to take the readers on a tour of the house, so we really get sent to the space.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the script, it was just, I think I wrote, we tour the house.
[SPEAKER_02]: We see this room, we see this room, we see this room.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like what Sammy Davis, this is our isometric double-page spread of the characters kind of literally no panels, just kind of like walking through the house.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you really just,
[SPEAKER_02]: the house is a character within the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that becomes really, that comes more and more as we go into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it's, you know, obviously I kind of fed things and the kind of the ideas what we were going for, but like, you know, that's all Sammy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he's, we've had any exaggeration.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really think he's a genius.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's so funny you mention that page because I do love that double page spread as well and this is something I remember as a kid I don't remember what issue but there was the backster building you got to see the cross section of that and you're like oh I can see inside it all of the floors yeah yeah what is it about that from your perspective that is so cool to see what do you think
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, I mean, again, this comes back to the love of the format and the medium.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think that's something that you can't really do in anything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not really doing in film or TV, you know, maybe you could do in animation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, I love that playing with, we've, I mean, almost crosses the lines between
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, all illustration, all illustration is about conveying information.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that information could be literally information, you know, in the idea of an infographic, but in a comic book, the information that your conveys drama is, how does personality is, what's happening?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's narrative information.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think what's really nice and what you can do with illustration in comics is sometimes you can cross those two together.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, an architectural setup, you know, what do we need to know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And in a way, it's very, very quick and very immediate, you know, you mentioned the kind of the backstablden, you know, you could look and pour over that for hours and look at all the different details, likewise for Sami spread.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you step back and look at it, you immediately understand what's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: You immediately get, it's a scientific, you know, experiments, technology, you know, you get it immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a really quick sure hand I think, but in a way that's very visually pleasing and breaks up the kind of like, you know, you never want to have like a comic that's just like pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan on pan
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, really dig their teeth into that's different.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's unique.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's refreshing.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, I know there's loads of ages and spread like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: In forever, I am as we go through.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just like really different.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it all comes from something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we wrap up here, I don't know exactly when this is going to post, but we're on the heels of San Diego Comic-Con next week, so you have a crazy busy schedule.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's that going to be late for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: You seem to be freaking out slightly, Christian.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, well, look, San Diego, I'm quite whistle about it, and I'm really excited about it because, you know, Mike Burst, Pompiper.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, no, my first comic book series came out in 2008, I think it was, and I was about called the Limpus, and previously I'd work on a book called The Time of Crow about, and just doing a short for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But my first proper book was an impressive image, and I don't really know why I decided to do it, but I think how we're just going to go, I'm going to give this go.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was working as a school teacher at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: but I decided because it kind of fit with the school holidays from teaching that I would go to Sunday A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I took myself off and it was the first time I'd ever like travelled on my own and I went to Sunday A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go, never been and never even been to a comic convention,
[SPEAKER_02]: like I have so many fun memories of that convention and I can I remember how it felt like walking again see I'd never seen a cosplay so I walked in and I was seeing people in cosplay and just like comics everywhere and I love comics and I just love making and I love them and meeting artists that I was fans or I was a panel and you know it was just
[SPEAKER_02]: It was really nourishing and just sold food and it was a taste of like, I really want to be in this industry, I really want to like make this work and come back here and you know, I've been very fortunate, you know, almost 20 years on, I've got, you know, a whole stack of titles and to make my bell, I've got loads of things like, I mean, I've got work lined up now till the end of 2020, you know, which is, you know, very, very, very, very fortunate, and I've got, I've got work lined up now till the end of 2020, you know, which is, you know, very, very, very, very fortunate, and I've got work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up with work lined up
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was, but I've never been back to San Diego just because it's, I don't like flying very much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not scared.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll just find it really uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've, I've never, I've done New York by a bit, but not San Diego.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it just felt with, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Fair of a home coming out, so I mean the EFOC is just after Sunday I go, so that felt appropriate.
[SPEAKER_02]: Me and John Pearson have the patron coming out, which is launching at Sunday I go.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got the first trade of the randomising coming out at the launch at Sunday I go.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a creep show story coming out this week, a super creep show story, and then I've got the high strainedness, hardcore culture, countries, too, that's all so well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we just felt like everything is coming together.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really where all the publishers are.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really want to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am done at pages.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was just getting people going, oh, you can send it, would you like to be involved in this, would you like to be involved in that?
[SPEAKER_02]: And honestly, like, I am a little bit, I'm more concerned that I'm gonna be late for panels, I'm gonna be late for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that, that I've started my God, you know, I've got like most cases I've got even like an hour between or 45 minutes, but a few of I've got like half an hour, so I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna be able to hang it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna have to like,
[SPEAKER_02]: finish signing in my by-am-off, but I love panels, like how you'd love them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love signings, you know, it's like my favorite thing is meeting fans and signing their books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's so cool, you know, that people have bought this book that you've worked on, whether it be an artist or a writer, and then they come and talk to you about what they think about it and what it, you know, that's
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all that I've ever wanted so it's I did like myself but perhaps that this is why I'm here
[SPEAKER_02]: I've come for this, like so, I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat my film, you know, and I really am.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was really funny, you know, obviously I've posted my public schedule of my public events, but like between everyone, like everyone, but like there's a meeting with this person, a meeting with that person, a meeting with this person here, like I've got like six meetings,
[SPEAKER_02]: And the worst thing is, obviously we've got two small children and some of my wife caffeine's hold down the fort here and I'll get home and she'll probably be shattered for looking after the kids for weeks and on the school holidays and there'll be no, there'll be no lack of care, I'll have a couple of days of recuperating, it'll be straight back into the
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, you know, my father used to work in a factory growing up, you know, proper work as family and he worked 12 hour shifts.
[SPEAKER_02]: It worked four days through the night and then, and then, and then he that four days up and we'd see him and he'd do another 12 hour shifts, like four days or 12 hour shifts and like he did that for our entire childhood and that was hard graft all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do comics, I sit in my studio, I write stories that I've always wanted to write, I draw stories that I've always wanted to write, what a privilege life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, it's just, I'm just, I can't bring myself to a place where I can complain about that, I'll feel anything, but enthusiasm and gratitude.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to be, you know, Sunday, I go for me as busy as I'm going to, as it will be.
[SPEAKER_02]: it will just be, I'll be soaking it all up, I'll be kind of storing it all up in my cell batteries and then being feeling and figuring it to come home and like really put that energy and passion straight back into comics and make the next batch.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I've ever looked forward to a convention more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I do hope you make all of your appointments and paddles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything got time.
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a mention for everybody out there again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we said it a couple of times.
[SPEAKER_01]: But September 9th forever, number one comes out from early press.
[SPEAKER_01]: Final order cutoff is August 3rd.
[SPEAKER_01]: So get those orders in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christian, thank you so much for your time.
[SPEAKER_01]: The comic is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait to read the rest.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's just turn back to number one The reason they make it again I want the people that don't mind We think of it as it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it
[SPEAKER_00]: They sit on crappy couches and they let us see what we can And he's just nothing, they let us special guests speak So grab your ring, hammer, don't be late for it, don't be fair