INTERVIEW: Aubrey Sitterson

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Oblivionauts, Aubrey Sitterson here, writer of Free Planet, No One Left to Fight, the comic book story of professional wrestling, and much, much more.

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And you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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you Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles.

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Hello everyone and welcome to episode 189 of the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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I am Chris Hacker, one of your co-hosts here and joining me this week is my BFF, Aaron Knowles.

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I'm on the grid right now.

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I'm too busy watching the Tron Ares trailer over and over.

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my gosh, Aaron, you just opened up a whole nugget of things I wanted to say about the grid and Tron Aries.

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Everyone, we got a trailer for Tron Aries, but we can't talk about it here today.

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For episode one eighty nine of the Oblivion Bar podcast, we were talking to Aubrey Sisserson, the comic book writer of the upcoming Image Comics Free Planet.

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He also wrote Savage Hearts.

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No one left to fight the comic book story of professional wrestling.

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So many things we get into in this conversation.

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And Aaron, will say sort of the.

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So great, right?

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But the hallmark, I think, of this conversation that you'll see almost immediately as we go into this interview with Aubrey is we didn't have enough time.

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I got this could have easily have been like a two to three hour conversation.

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This is like, and he is a, he is a guy who you just, you want to talk to.

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And we're so excited to release this, this interview because you guys will hear it.

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As soon as you start listening, he is so passionate about the industry.

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It really spent like 20 something minutes talking about the one thing he usually doesn't talk about.

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And then we go into the actual comic.

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We opened up with the one question he's been asked more than anything.

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that, know, Aaron, you're so right to when you say in this conversation that we go into, we put a lot of effort into asking questions that a lot of times these creators aren't being asked.

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That's something that we truly pride ourselves in here on the oblivion bar.

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And I found it interesting because he doesn't promote anywhere.

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He says in the conversation here in just a moment that he doesn't promote that he was once an editor over at Marvel and then eventually at Skybound eventually.

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But I found that interesting and I wanted to ask him about it.

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And then the first thing he says, when we get in this conversation is like, I used to never want to talk about this.

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But it does provide a pretty interesting and funny response.

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So, He was, he is just a genuine down to earth.

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He's the person in the comic industry that you hope that every creator is.

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Right.

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We need more of this.

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We need more Aubrey's in the comic space who are willing to just open up and like it's so refreshing.

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Like this is okay.

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I hate to say this, but there are some conversations where you just like exhausted.

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Is that now?

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No.

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Okay.

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feel so like energized because it was so refreshing to talk to him.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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And I totally agree with you, but also I love the fact that he's someone that not only knows a ton about the medium of comics and loves it dearly, as you can tell, but he also is willing to like take risks.

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Like this is his career.

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And a lot of people are nervous.

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Like I can tell you from someone, you know, both Aaron and I talked to many creators here on the show and we don't fault them at all for this, of course, but like some people kind of play it a little safe because they want to be successful and they will, they'll do.

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All of these titles, they'll do spinoffs, they'll do IP, they'll do all these things to sort of get their footprint in comics.

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That way people know that they can do comics.

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And then they sort of get trapped in that and that's all they can do anymore.

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Or they get jaded by the industry and sort of leave it for a bit.

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Aubrey, can tell almost immediately that he just wants to go immediately, like he says Gonzo many times in this conversation.

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And I think it's a great sort of, I think apt way to describe his approach to comics.

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I don't think it's and not to knock anybody for going the safe route, the IP route or whatever.

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There are some people like that's where you thrive.

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That's where you are good at.

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You have the passion.

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Like, you know, I'm not saying any like, like not to name names, but like David Peppos, like he is killing it.

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He's killing it with with Captain Planet, with Speed Racer, with all the yeah, Space Ghost, all these guys.

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And like, that's not saying that he's playing it safe because he's taking what he loves and he's going and he's just running with it.

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like, you know, thrive where you can thrive, but, it's, it's, you'll hear in this conversation, Aubrey Sitterson is a guy who thrives in his own element and it is so awesome to talk, but talk to him about Yeah.

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And as we said a moment ago, it's, there's no time to talk about this book.

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Everybody.

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Like if you've read free planet number one, I hope you have.

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By the time that we put this conversation out of many people haven't because we want to get this book out before FOC, which is April 14th.

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Everybody, if you're listening right now, before we even get into this conversation, please as a personal favor to Aaron and I, because we've read this first issue, call your local comic book shop and pre-order this first issue.

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need to, it's important for the, I don't want to make this too big, but it's important to the development of comics.

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for this book to be successful, I think.

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I have a strong feeling that this is going to be like one of those ones that people sleep on and And it and it disappears like it just off the shelf right now like in a bad way mean like it's just like you don't like like was it beneath the trees normally sees no where they don't pre-order enough of them and people.

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Like there's just not enough on the shelf.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And it's just going to go fucking nuts, you know.

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I could totally see that.

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we talk about it here.

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We discuss the, the Ashcan that he put out, he and Jed put out at comics pro a couple of weeks ago and how it's already insanely expensive because people are getting their hands on it.

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$300.

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I've seen a couple that recently they were going for like 150 wild stuff for a book that, and I say this respectfully, Aubrey, who, you know, he even says that like, this is not, they're not coming off Batman, you know, they're not coming off a Spiderman.

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They, these two are sort of a, you know, up and coming creators in the space.

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And the fact that Free Planet is getting all this incredible press immediately before the books even came out is I think a good testament and a good gauge for how excited people are for this book already.

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And it's a dense book.

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There's a lot to take in, but gosh, is it better for it?

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And that's all I'll say before we get in this conversation.

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So Aaron, before we do that, please, can you tell the folks at home how they can support the Oblivion Bar podcast?

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Absolutely.

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Absolutely.

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Go over to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod.

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You can support us by checking out the Patreon and with that support, you gain access to bonus episodes each week called the grid.

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Uh, behind the scenes look at each episode with our transcripts, patron polls, giveaways, just goodies, like care packages.

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Uh, we sent a care package all the way to New Zealand and, you know what?

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That shit was expensive.

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A shout out to Matt because we fucking love him.

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Yeah.

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You know, like this is we, we do this all extra because you know, we, we, we love what we do and it's our, our under bridge, unabashed, unafraid, naked and afraid, the grid.

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That's what it is.

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It's, it's the oblivion bar after dirt, after work, and it's just, it is so much fun and we're going to be talking about some, some shit on there coming up.

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So, pay attention to that, but also you can give it a free seven day trial.

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You can give it a shot.

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Just by going over to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod.

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Check it out.

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The link is in our show notes.

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It's it's in all the places you can find on our website oblivion bar pod dot com and just just go just go.

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Check it out.

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Aaron sort of alluded to it there, everybody.

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And I just want to do a brief teaser because I don't know why I on the front of my brain immediately.

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Thank you for reminding me, You're welcome.

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Big announcement this week.

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Big announcement, everybody as you're listening to this, which will be on April 7th.

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Don't press the issue, Chris.

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At Oblivion Barpot everybody.

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At Oblivion Barpot.

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Go follow us now because we're going to be releasing something very crucial midweek, mid to late week.

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Only once.

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It's only going to happen once.

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Only one time.

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Only one time.

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That's enough.

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Everybody, let's get into this conversation with Aubrey Sizzerson.

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And now, this week's special guest.

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Joining us today is the comic book writer of titles like Savage Hearts, No One Left to Fight, the comic book story of professional wrestling, and the upcoming Image Comics series, Free Planet, a geopolitical space opera that tells the tale of the first completely free planet in human history has won its independence and the group of heroes that defend the planet's unique energy source.

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It is our pleasure to welcome Aubrey Citerson onto the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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Hey boys, thank you for having me.

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Man, I am, I'm still just blown away that you all got John Carpenter to do that intro music for you.

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It's amazing.

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I'm so glad he was able to squeeze it into a schedule.

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You know, just like the Halloween theme, he did it in 10 seconds.

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He just got on the piano.

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He doesn't remember.

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He was high the whole time.

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I don't know how, how he got there.

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But anyway, yeah, no, it's incredible.

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We, Aaron and I, we recently redid a lot of our, you know, intro music and things.

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And we really wanted to go for that, like 80s.

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It's synthy vibe, right?

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VHS.

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You hit it.

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Yeah.

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Well, thank you.

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We appreciate it.

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And, you know, Aubrey, thank you so much for being here.

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Gosh.

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You know, we were talking a little bit before the recording.

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you mentioned that you're hitting the gauntlet and I'm curious.

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This wasn't a scripted question, but I have to know being like.

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Bar is my favorite podcast.

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There's no contest.

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Let me get right.

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I'm not going to make you ask it.

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I don't even have to ask it.

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Thank you so much for validating us.

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We appreciate it.

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No, you you've done many shows leading up to even this oblivion bar appearance.

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Any particular show sort of, can you highlight one that you've been on here recently that we can sort of halfway promote on the side here on the free promotion?

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Yeah, I actually spoke to the most recent one I did.

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This past Thursday night, I spoke to Sasha from Casually Comics on YouTube, which was great.

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She's really great about sort of digging into comics with, don't know, like it feels academic, way that she approaches comics, which I love because there's been, you know, there used to be a lot more of that when comics had a thriving blogosphere.

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It's been many years since that's been the case, but I miss that.

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I really loved the days of having an RSS reader and there's just like two dozen sites where people were just jibber jabbering about whatever comics they were digging those days.

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I never really successfully made the pivot to video in terms of my consumption habits.

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So I know it's out there, but yeah, no.

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Sasha was amazing.

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yeah, that one down, please.

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Absolutely.

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Aaron, are familiar with Casually Comics?

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not, but I love, I love his description of it.

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And the only thing is, I think that we have a very unique approach to our interviews and the way that we discuss comics here.

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And that's one thing that I love about the podcasting sphere is there's, there's all these people that want to ask the same questions where it's like, Oh, who's your favorite superhero?

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Who do you want to draw?

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Who would you, who's your favorite team up?

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And over here, we, we like to focus.

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getting into like, I did not prepare properly if we're not getting into those.

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We will ask you when the last time you cried.

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was, that's the only thing we have ready for you.

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That's really not it.

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but yeah, we, we like to approach things like almost philosophically here, almost, you know, like what's, you know, we go a little bit deeper and we liked if we, don't know, somehow it just naturally brings up these, these.

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We're idiots that ask better questions.

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That's what it comes down to.

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We're self-aware idiots that know that you don't want to be asked, who do you like more, Spider-Man or Batman?

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That's kind of our approach.

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That's a decent question.

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That's not bad question.

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could discuss that question pretty in depth, right?

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But I feel like you've been asked that maybe too much, Aubrey, I'm sure.

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It's Yeah, not that one specifically, but I mean, there are things that come up a lot on these types of shows when you're doing them.

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I've been talking a lot about my editorial background.

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People have been asking questions about it.

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It's funny, for many, many years, I would, before I did a podcast, I would straight up say, listen, I don't want to talk about editing comics.

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I don't want to answer any questions about it.

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Not because I'm embarrassed or I don't want people to know, but...

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or like it's shameful to me or anything, but so many former editors attempt to make the transition to being writers and very few of them are able to actually swing it, right?

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mean, except for historic, know, I'm not talking about Roy Thomas or whatever, right?

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Like, it's aside from putting aside historical, like once Marvel and DC got a little bit stricter about allowing editors to write while they're working there.

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it became a much rarer thing.

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And I always was wary of being perceived as someone trying to trade on past success.

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I never wanted to be one of these people who was primarily known for the job they used to have.

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So I don't mention it.

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It's not in my bios.

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I don't mention it anywhere.

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And I used to tell podcasts, I don't want to talk about it.

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I want to my focus on the work right now.

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And I thought, know, this time out, like doing the podcast gauntlet for Free Planet, I thought, you know what, it's been so long and I've done so much stuff since then.

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The very first podcast I went on, was Rosenberg, was Ideas Don't Bleed, and he just launched immediately into questions about back when I edited comics at Marvel.

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So it's fine, you know, but yeah, it is, I've since covered it in almost every podcast I've done since then, including this one now.

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I brought it up.

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I'm the one.

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we're going to go ahead and just exclude our editor question here that we had we had ready.

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We actually do.

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We have a question about.

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you do.

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It's interesting stuff, you know, and it is part of my background.

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It's part of my journey in comics.

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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I just I used to be very worried about getting nothing but questions about, know, what was it like working on Civil War?

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Can you tell us what how you felt when the Steve McNiffin pages came in?

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Which one is what do you have?

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That's a cool one.

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Yeah, sure.

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Sure.

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So and you know what, honestly, let's just go and knock it out real quick because I don't want to like take too much time out of this, especially since you've been asked this a lot, I'm sure.

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And it totally backtracks and steps on the head of our earlier assertion that we asked really interesting, amazing questions that no one else asked.

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But that's hilarious.

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I love that.

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That we went straight into the question that you've already asked a ton.

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But I do want to know a little bit about that and sort of that that time era.

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And Aaron, I love I can't remember if I had you asking this question.

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It was you.

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go ahead because I have editing adjacent.

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has nothing to do with what you've worked on.

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Well, ask me one of these things.

00:15:09.687 --> 00:15:13.158
Talking about which obliquely about which question you're gonna ask.

00:15:13.413 --> 00:15:13.644
on.

00:15:13.644 --> 00:15:14.035
Let's go.

00:15:14.035 --> 00:15:15.215
I even asked the first question.

00:15:15.215 --> 00:15:16.000
We're already getting yelled at.

00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:16.812
Okay.

00:15:18.341 --> 00:15:21.822
You were, you were an associate editor at Marvel and I think it was skybound as well.

00:15:21.822 --> 00:15:23.022
At one point, I'm just curious.

00:15:23.022 --> 00:15:23.922
pre-Skybound.

00:15:23.922 --> 00:15:24.753
I was only an assistant.

00:15:24.753 --> 00:15:25.722
So listen, I'm going to keep you honest.

00:15:25.722 --> 00:15:28.284
I was only ever an assistant editor at Marvel.

00:15:28.284 --> 00:15:37.529
was, you know, the way, I don't know how they work things now, but at the time, even if you were an assistant, you were editing as primary editor, like three or four books a month, right?

00:15:37.789 --> 00:15:41.142
So I was only ever an assistant in terms of rank, but I edited my own books.

00:15:41.142 --> 00:15:52.696
And then after I left Marvel, I edited freelance for Kirkman, like prior to like pre-Skybound on Invincible, Walking Dead and Assounding Wolfman.

00:15:52.696 --> 00:15:55.889
When I edited for Mark Miller and John Mayer Jr.

00:15:55.889 --> 00:16:00.231
as well, edited Kick Ass 2 and I did some stuff for Mark Guggenheim.

00:16:00.231 --> 00:16:02.615
He had a few image books around that time too.

00:16:02.615 --> 00:16:03.386
Sure.

00:16:03.386 --> 00:16:03.927
Okay.

00:16:03.927 --> 00:16:10.864
so what is like, obviously a lot of us know what the editor role is, but was that a rewarding role being an editor?

00:16:10.864 --> 00:16:13.046
Obviously that's not something that you always wanted to do.

00:16:13.046 --> 00:16:14.798
You always want to make that transition into writing.

00:16:14.798 --> 00:16:17.289
sounds like, but like, did you have a good time doing that?

00:16:17.289 --> 00:16:23.905
And what, you know, what, what's like an interesting, you know, memory or sort of anecdote from that time as an editor.

00:16:23.905 --> 00:16:30.398
You know, like as you alluded to, I became an editor because I wanted to learn to be a better writer, right?

00:16:30.398 --> 00:16:32.087
That was my f**king.

00:16:32.087 --> 00:16:40.780
So, you know, I enjoyed my time in editorial in so much as that I got to learn on the job for three years, right?

00:16:40.780 --> 00:16:46.633
From people who had been doing this for decades and, you know, getting a look at John Amater Jr.

00:16:46.773 --> 00:16:47.062
right?

00:16:47.062 --> 00:16:49.293
You can learn quite a bit that way, right?

00:16:49.293 --> 00:16:50.988
Like working with the top.

00:16:50.988 --> 00:16:59.701
tier creators in the industry, reading Ed Brubaker scripts and looking at colors that Dean White just turned in.

00:17:00.143 --> 00:17:04.164
I learned an immense amount and made some great connections.

00:17:04.164 --> 00:17:08.948
And my relationship with Kirkman came about because I was his editor at Marvel, for instance.

00:17:08.948 --> 00:17:09.837
Howard Chakin, too.

00:17:09.837 --> 00:17:11.098
I edited him there.

00:17:11.098 --> 00:17:13.109
And we're still very, very close.

00:17:13.250 --> 00:17:15.351
And so I got a lot out of it.

00:17:15.351 --> 00:17:19.313
But I kind of realized.

00:17:20.107 --> 00:17:28.942
while I was at Marvel that I was a bad editor and I was never going to be a good editor because I wanted too much control.

00:17:31.663 --> 00:17:38.788
when scripts would come in and they weren't how I would do it, I had a hard time separating it.

00:17:38.788 --> 00:17:41.500
well, my job isn't to make what I would want.

00:17:41.500 --> 00:17:47.512
My job is to facilitate the team that has been selected making their version of this thing.

00:17:47.512 --> 00:17:51.544
And the problem with that is oftentimes I didn't particularly like their version.

00:17:52.746 --> 00:17:55.847
I'm picky, I have very specific tastes.

00:17:56.449 --> 00:17:59.882
I was, I was very young, was my early 20s.

00:17:59.882 --> 00:18:02.934
And I was kind of a bull in the china shop.

00:18:02.934 --> 00:18:05.277
And I because I wanted things to be good.

00:18:05.277 --> 00:18:06.307
I wanted things to be great.

00:18:06.307 --> 00:18:11.102
And I wanted them to match up to my high expectations for the medium.

00:18:11.262 --> 00:18:34.159
And, you know, when you're when your work is part of a larger publishing plan for a big company that has higher level concerns, do or die, it's gotta be great no matter what, by any means necessary approach, isn't really best placed.

00:18:34.159 --> 00:18:37.211
That's not really the best way to go about doing things.

00:18:38.292 --> 00:18:45.614
So yeah, no, like I mean, I'm proud of the work I did there and I learned a lot, but I learned very early on that, the biggest impact.

00:18:46.453 --> 00:18:58.273
So, I mean, a, the moment I realized that I needed to leave, um, because I'm still having fun and I loved all the people I was working with and you know, you get to work on comics all day, you know, it's, it's a dream come true.

00:18:58.334 --> 00:19:12.307
The moment I realized I needed to leave, I'm not going to say what book it was, but I was, cause it's just too mean, but I realized that, you know, I was never going to make a good I was never going to turn a good book into a great book.

00:19:12.929 --> 00:19:14.150
A great book's a great book.

00:19:14.150 --> 00:19:23.897
And it has to do not with editorial shoving people in like towards the marginal changes that they can incentivize people to do, right?

00:19:23.897 --> 00:19:24.979
That's not where it comes from.

00:19:24.979 --> 00:19:30.952
It comes from an actual team working holistically together with a single, a single unified vision.

00:19:30.952 --> 00:19:32.305
And they make this thing.

00:19:32.305 --> 00:19:35.567
And I was never going to be able to facilitate that.

00:19:36.387 --> 00:19:41.656
Likewise, I was never going to be able to make a bad book good, right?

00:19:41.656 --> 00:19:43.518
Because it's mean, it's just bad, right?

00:19:43.518 --> 00:19:50.150
And like some, mean, that's, and that's the thing when you're working at a publisher, when you're an editor, publisher, you're going to work on bad books.

00:19:50.711 --> 00:20:01.194
like whoever you think like is like the Mount Rushmore of comic book editors, I guarantee they have edited more horrible books than you even realize, right?

00:20:01.194 --> 00:20:05.797
Just cause it's a publishing schedule and they're periodicals and they gotta keep coming out, right?

00:20:05.797 --> 00:20:09.397
And you're never going to make a bad book good.

00:20:09.740 --> 00:20:19.000
I realized, and I was working on one of these, the most impact I could ever have as an editor was to make an unreadable book passable.

00:20:19.261 --> 00:20:27.337
To make a book that is absolutely dreadful and irredeemably bad, and that's not a joke on irredeemable Ant-Man, irredeemable Ant-Man was a- joy to work on.

00:20:27.337 --> 00:20:28.942
That's not the book I'm talking about.

00:20:28.942 --> 00:20:33.842
But yeah, no, there's this random terrible book that I was working on and it was so much work.

00:20:33.842 --> 00:20:38.382
It was so much effort because every stage of it was just dreadful.

00:20:38.382 --> 00:20:41.781
Just the work being done was absolutely horrific.

00:20:41.781 --> 00:20:52.281
And it was backbreaking labor just to get everything up to snuff, to not be like visibly and self-evidently atrocious.

00:20:52.281 --> 00:20:54.821
And it still wasn't a good book.

00:20:54.821 --> 00:20:56.422
It was still a bad book.

00:20:56.422 --> 00:20:58.465
just wasn't an embarrassment.

00:20:58.465 --> 00:21:00.117
to the company, right?

00:21:00.117 --> 00:21:04.792
And that, and I realized that was the most impact that I was ever gonna have on a book.

00:21:04.792 --> 00:21:06.684
And I had to find another job.

00:21:06.684 --> 00:21:07.695
had to leave.

00:21:07.695 --> 00:21:09.596
had to get out of there.

00:21:10.089 --> 00:21:13.176
You know, comics beat, know you're listening right now confirmed.

00:21:13.176 --> 00:21:14.890
We have it here live on the oblivion bar.

00:21:14.890 --> 00:21:19.538
Aubrey Sidderson says books of doom by Ed Brubaker is horrifically bad and irredeemable.

00:21:19.538 --> 00:21:21.741
ahead and print that, put it in a quote.

00:21:21.741 --> 00:21:23.844
I love that one.

00:21:23.844 --> 00:21:26.807
Was that the Pablo Ramundi?

00:21:26.807 --> 00:21:29.298
Hell yeah, see?

00:21:29.298 --> 00:21:30.127
No, remember.

00:21:30.127 --> 00:21:30.577
it's great.

00:21:30.577 --> 00:21:30.928
It's great.

00:21:30.928 --> 00:21:32.008
right.

00:21:32.469 --> 00:21:38.162
Well, you know, and you have, mentioned recently on your sub stack, Mark Guggenheim saying don't care as much.

00:21:38.162 --> 00:21:43.315
And I love, I won't spoil anything in that post because I want people to go back and read that on your sub stack.

00:21:43.384 --> 00:21:44.455
Atlas still sunk.

00:21:44.455 --> 00:21:51.460
And I want people to read that because I think it's really incredible, especially for creatives that want to, cause Aaron, can you please just verbalize this?

00:21:51.460 --> 00:21:55.059
I also am a neurotic overthinker over care.

00:21:55.059 --> 00:21:57.619
And it can be to a detriment, correct?

00:21:57.619 --> 00:21:59.050
It absolutely is.

00:21:59.050 --> 00:22:05.869
Cause it's funny cause I constantly get these texts where he's like, fuck this, I'm not doing it anymore.

00:22:05.869 --> 00:22:08.098
And then like an hour later, there he is.

00:22:08.098 --> 00:22:13.643
He's like doing the thing all over again, but even harder, even more, even like with more detail.

00:22:13.643 --> 00:22:17.395
like Chris, it's one of those things that's ingrained in both of us.

00:22:17.395 --> 00:22:22.851
think it's a military thing, but I think it's also just a caring, there's the creative industry.

00:22:22.851 --> 00:22:26.968
There's a care that you have for the things that you put out into the world.

00:22:26.968 --> 00:22:30.136
that you just cannot let something shitty go out there.

00:22:30.136 --> 00:22:33.296
Like to you, it's gotta be, to you, it has to be the cream of the crop.

00:22:33.296 --> 00:22:33.576
yeah.

00:22:33.576 --> 00:22:35.731
You know, cream of the crop.

00:22:36.397 --> 00:22:40.599
Well, and speaking of cream of the crop, Aubrey, our real first question had to do with wrestling.

00:22:40.599 --> 00:22:40.950
Okay.

00:22:40.950 --> 00:22:42.540
Cause naturally it had to, right?

00:22:42.540 --> 00:22:49.605
Cause you, of course you, you wrote the, the, the comic book story or sorry, the comic book story of professional wrestling.

00:22:49.605 --> 00:22:56.068
And, this is something and you know, we have a mutual friend, Jim Viscardi also self-proclaimed huge wrestling fan.

00:22:56.068 --> 00:22:58.369
We talked about this during our conversation.

00:22:58.890 --> 00:23:01.311
Daniel Johnson, also a huge wrestling fan as well.

00:23:01.311 --> 00:23:02.352
We've talked to him about it.

00:23:02.352 --> 00:23:06.306
So I have to ask you, and this is like, I want this to sort of like be a reoccurring thing.

00:23:06.306 --> 00:23:14.023
And I know as a wrestling fan, you're probably gonna find this really annoying, what's your favorite or who is your favorite obscure attitude error wrestler and why?

00:23:14.903 --> 00:23:16.179
mean, like how obscure do we have to get?

00:23:16.179 --> 00:23:19.713
mean, like obscure for like wrestling fans or obscure for normal people?

00:23:19.713 --> 00:23:22.876
I would say normies, know, like Aaron and I would consider us normies.

00:23:22.876 --> 00:23:29.884
Like we liked the attitude era, like, you know, stone cold, the rock, you know, I like white Chris Jericho is my favorite wrestler from that era.

00:23:29.884 --> 00:23:31.144
that means anything.

00:23:31.384 --> 00:23:33.038
probably attitude error, by the way.

00:23:33.038 --> 00:23:37.195
So I people that might I tell so I'm answering a different question first.

00:23:37.195 --> 00:23:40.898
I tell people that my favorite rest of all time is Rick Flair.

00:23:43.461 --> 00:23:49.244
I academically do believe that he is the greatest professional wrestler of all time.

00:23:49.244 --> 00:23:49.505
Right?

00:23:49.505 --> 00:23:50.685
No contest.

00:23:50.685 --> 00:23:54.518
However, if I'm being honest, my favorite wrestler is Chris Jericho.

00:23:54.518 --> 00:23:57.359
favorite.

00:23:57.359 --> 00:23:58.730
He's a validation.

00:23:58.730 --> 00:24:00.301
Chris Jericho is not obscure.

00:24:00.301 --> 00:24:01.653
That doesn't answer your question.

00:24:01.653 --> 00:24:07.541
I think like for This is not obscure for wrestling fans, but I think for normies, this is pretty obscure.

00:24:07.662 --> 00:24:16.461
It's hard to, in 2025, it's really hard to convey to people how outrageously over valvenous was during the attitude.

00:24:17.721 --> 00:24:18.602
Monstrously over.

00:24:18.602 --> 00:24:21.902
And for people who aren't familiar, had a porn star gimmick.

00:24:22.021 --> 00:24:22.541
And that's it.

00:24:22.541 --> 00:24:23.662
He had a porn star gimmick.

00:24:23.662 --> 00:24:28.461
had long wet hair and he came out in a towel and he would take it off and he would swing it around.

00:24:28.862 --> 00:24:32.842
he was just very, everything was over sexed and ridiculous.

00:24:33.067 --> 00:24:35.779
the attitude era crowd ate it up, man.

00:24:35.779 --> 00:24:38.240
They went absolutely nutso for it.

00:24:38.240 --> 00:24:47.365
He was so over and a better, and also I think a better worker than he got credit for too, because it was kind of subsumed into the gimmick and all anybody thought about.

00:24:47.384 --> 00:24:50.880
Did he have a diva with him at one point as well during the shows?

00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:52.041
I can't remember exactly.

00:24:52.041 --> 00:24:53.083
I a few.

00:24:53.083 --> 00:24:54.042
bad.

00:24:54.263 --> 00:24:56.935
I read a whole book about professional wrestling.

00:24:56.935 --> 00:24:57.817
was like, perfect.

00:24:57.817 --> 00:24:59.788
I can forget all this stuff now.

00:24:59.848 --> 00:25:05.593
All the dates and the specifics went immediately out my ears once that book came out.

00:25:05.593 --> 00:25:06.263
Yeah, there he is.

00:25:06.263 --> 00:25:07.173
Look at him.

00:25:07.279 --> 00:25:11.471
look how yeah, just luscious and oiled up and in a towel like that.

00:25:11.471 --> 00:25:18.707
audience can't see this, but Chris has pulled up a picture of a man in knee pads and a towel wrapped around his waist.

00:25:18.707 --> 00:25:20.126
He trunks on.

00:25:20.428 --> 00:25:22.469
You just can't see them.

00:25:22.469 --> 00:25:25.191
Me personally, I just imagine they're not there.

00:25:25.672 --> 00:25:28.502
And he's just, and he's got, know, he's just like doing like hip thrusts, I'm assuming.

00:25:28.502 --> 00:25:29.413
Yeah.

00:25:29.718 --> 00:25:33.873
weird gyration in the middle of the, in the middle of the rink, right?

00:25:34.218 --> 00:25:34.578
Yes.

00:25:34.578 --> 00:25:34.799
Yeah.

00:25:34.799 --> 00:25:35.580
Yeah.

00:25:35.914 --> 00:25:46.690
I gotta always say like one of my favorites like at least probably more obscure these days because he's just faded into into you know The darkness Dustin Rhodes as gold dust.

00:25:46.690 --> 00:25:50.047
Okay And he's also multiple different versions of that too, Yes.

00:25:50.047 --> 00:25:50.586
Yes.

00:25:50.586 --> 00:26:02.798
I mean, what wrestler did not have multiple versions of either there's themselves or their character, like Mick Foley, you know, that guy is a first off, Mick Foley is a total sweetheart, sweetheart.

00:26:02.798 --> 00:26:03.470
Yeah.

00:26:03.470 --> 00:26:06.943
met him a couple of months, a couple of months ago in New Jersey.

00:26:06.943 --> 00:26:07.924
Great guy.

00:26:07.924 --> 00:26:15.276
but yeah, most wrestlers have like multiple iterations of their character, even, like the undertaker he went through, He was limp, mascara.

00:26:15.276 --> 00:26:17.951
He was badass.

00:26:17.951 --> 00:26:20.904
I remember that WrestleMania when he came out in the motorcycle.

00:26:21.708 --> 00:26:22.057
Right.

00:26:22.057 --> 00:26:23.169
That's right.

00:26:23.549 --> 00:26:40.517
Well, I don't want to digress too much, but I do want to ask one question slightly and it's not your I don't think it's your typical editing question, but like it's more mostly about as somebody who I don't have much of a desire to write comics, but I do want to edit them.

00:26:40.517 --> 00:26:46.880
So like I don't have like the usual track path in my brain where it's like I want to write comics to get to the next thing.

00:26:46.880 --> 00:26:49.901
My goal would be to edit comics.

00:26:50.840 --> 00:26:51.141
Yeah.

00:26:51.141 --> 00:26:55.650
How does how does that Like how does somebody really like work their way into that industry?

00:26:55.650 --> 00:27:02.199
Cause I mean, have a, I have a background in editing as I'm sure a lot of people, you know, obviously really care about their work, go back and edit it.

00:27:02.199 --> 00:27:05.201
But professionally, how would somebody just like kind of branch into that?

00:27:05.741 --> 00:27:07.422
You know, it's hard for me to say.

00:27:08.162 --> 00:27:11.942
The way I came into Marvel, was an intern.

00:27:11.942 --> 00:27:14.602
I was an intern, and then I got a part-time job working there.

00:27:14.602 --> 00:27:16.942
I was an editorial assistant while I was still in college.

00:27:16.942 --> 00:27:20.481
And then when I graduated, I lucked out and a spot was opening up.

00:27:20.481 --> 00:27:21.820
And I was able to slide right into it.

00:27:21.820 --> 00:27:24.701
So was really a timing thing as well.

00:27:24.701 --> 00:27:32.021
You know, it's different now because comic book editing used to be a New York-based profession.

00:27:32.142 --> 00:27:33.961
Marvel and DC were there.

00:27:34.188 --> 00:27:39.160
you and depending on what year you're looking at some other publishers bouncing around too.

00:27:39.420 --> 00:27:41.490
now it's all over the place.

00:27:41.490 --> 00:27:44.321
And a lot of it, a lot of folks work, work remotely too.

00:27:44.321 --> 00:27:50.794
You know, I'm in LA now and there's a ton of, I think there's probably more comics editorial in LA than there is in New York at this point.

00:27:50.794 --> 00:27:54.955
You've got DC and boom and some of the stuff that I'm not remembering too.

00:27:54.955 --> 00:27:59.486
But yeah, You know, of has like a comic footprint.

00:27:59.486 --> 00:28:03.569
Seattle as well kind of has a comic footprint as well, right?

00:28:04.179 --> 00:28:06.859
Yeah, maybe see in Portland has a bunch of people.

00:28:07.902 --> 00:28:09.123
Yeah.

00:28:09.123 --> 00:28:11.525
So but yeah, like folks are spread out all over the place now.

00:28:11.525 --> 00:28:16.259
So yeah, I don't know, you know, I couldn't really give any practical advice on how to break into it.

00:28:16.259 --> 00:28:24.115
You know, it's a difficult field in that it's a necessary role, but it is a underappreciated role.

00:28:24.115 --> 00:28:31.990
And margins in comics are so slim, regardless that there's not a whole lot of money in it either, you know.

00:28:31.990 --> 00:28:46.900
What I can say is from the perspective of, you know, I can't tell you how to how to get a job as a comic book editor, but I can tell you some things that I think would make you stand out as a comic book editor as a as a candidate, right?

00:28:47.059 --> 00:29:00.489
Most almost all comic book editors, right, like the vast, vast majority come to comics from a writing slash English slash liberal arts background.

00:29:00.489 --> 00:29:03.343
And there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself.

00:29:03.343 --> 00:29:05.664
That's how I came to comics too.

00:29:05.684 --> 00:29:08.446
But you're only getting part of the equation.

00:29:09.248 --> 00:29:15.833
And if you're a good comic book editor, you're capable of giving notes on everything.

00:29:15.833 --> 00:29:22.059
You're capable of casting every part of a book, not just based on who has...

00:29:22.059 --> 00:29:32.673
the most social media followers and is up in your DMs or who is like trending right now or whatever other spurious reasons people use for to make casting decisions.

00:29:32.755 --> 00:29:39.817
But you know, good comic book editors think are able to extrapolate out what the book is going to look like.

00:29:39.817 --> 00:29:42.558
You know, it's like it's like being a baseball manager or something, right?

00:29:42.558 --> 00:29:45.901
Put your team together and then you need to help them play.

00:29:45.901 --> 00:29:46.401
Right.

00:29:46.401 --> 00:29:48.461
That sports analogies.

00:29:49.346 --> 00:29:50.250
That's right.

00:29:50.250 --> 00:29:52.050
I'm impressed by myself right now.

00:29:52.050 --> 00:30:09.760
So, you know, I think that the piece that a lot of comic book editors and this included me as well, and folks I worked with and folks who I just interact with throughout the industry is they don't have that art background.

00:30:09.760 --> 00:30:19.425
They don't have a design background and anything that you can do to get your reps in and build capability.

00:30:19.670 --> 00:30:41.036
in those areas would be a massive differentiator for a person trying to break into editorial because it's just not something with, you know, and I think this is, it's born out in the types of work, broadly speaking, the type of work that gets published, you know, most comics are primarily a narrative.

00:30:41.435 --> 00:30:48.837
And that's, and that's because most editors, that's, that's the extent to which they can engage with comics.

00:30:49.038 --> 00:31:09.089
So if you're an editor who only really has writing and liberal arts and English type background, and you want to have an impact on the book, which everybody does, because we like to think that the ways we spend our day are valuable and useful, you're going to be spending time giving notes on, the...

00:31:09.153 --> 00:31:19.057
the three act structure and the character arcs and this is a static character and what about the themes here and the metaphor and like that's all fine and good and stories need that stuff too.

00:31:19.057 --> 00:31:28.159
But in my opinion, focusing solely on that and then once and then settling on that and then deciding, okay, well now who's going to draw it?

00:31:28.159 --> 00:31:29.558
That's backwards.

00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:33.140
You know, I think that this is not a controversial opinion.

00:31:33.140 --> 00:31:34.361
It's just a factual thing.

00:31:34.361 --> 00:31:44.727
Comics are a visual medium and approaching it as strictly the format through which you're going to tell a story is wrong.

00:31:44.727 --> 00:31:50.371
And it makes for it makes for bad assembly line comics is what it makes for.

00:31:50.491 --> 00:31:57.278
And yeah, I think comics desperately needs more editors with backgrounds in art.

00:31:57.278 --> 00:32:05.005
And they don't have to be accomplished artists of themselves, but they need to at least understand and how to discuss art and differentiate between different types of artists.

00:32:05.005 --> 00:32:06.826
And I think design too.

00:32:06.894 --> 00:32:09.673
editors, editors should have a good design sense.

00:32:09.673 --> 00:32:16.693
And that's going to help them be in on things like page layout and page design and lettering placements.

00:32:16.693 --> 00:32:23.854
I think editors should have rudimentary understandings of color theory, which I think is exceedingly rare.

00:32:23.913 --> 00:32:28.834
I to look at most books on the rack, most colors don't have a rudimentary.

00:32:28.834 --> 00:32:31.074
No, I mean, it's true.

00:32:31.074 --> 00:32:35.465
I mean, like, you know, a lot of colors in the environment.

00:32:35.465 --> 00:32:37.096
learned from YouTube videos.

00:32:37.096 --> 00:32:50.251
And you can tell not because there's something wrong with learning from YouTube videos, but because YouTube videos are generally geared toward teaching people how to color for things that will be on a screen, which is to say depicted with illuminated light instead of reflected light.

00:32:50.251 --> 00:32:58.134
And if you're coloring for RGB and not considering CMYK, which is how everything is printed, you end up with a muddy mess.

00:32:58.134 --> 00:32:59.256
Things don't look good.

00:32:59.256 --> 00:33:12.477
You know, and so I think these are things that like an editor should be able to get colors in and open it up in Photoshop or their equivalent and poke around in it, be able to determine whether it's going to print well or not.

00:33:12.477 --> 00:33:17.884
And I think it's a distressingly few amount of editors who can actually do that.

00:33:17.943 --> 00:33:23.284
That is the single best answer and description and definition.

00:33:23.284 --> 00:33:26.834
My is you just need to learn like eight other jobs.

00:33:26.834 --> 00:33:28.778
That was the advice I gave you, Aaron.

00:33:28.781 --> 00:33:32.173
But honestly, honestly, like that's if that's the answer, that's the answer.

00:33:32.173 --> 00:33:34.064
And honestly, it fits the bill.

00:33:34.064 --> 00:33:40.037
And I appreciate that because it's, it's candid and it makes so much sense because I think you're absolutely right.

00:33:40.037 --> 00:33:51.461
When you go into anything as, as an editor with a background in writing, whether it's editing somebody else's article or somebody else's book or something like you have to have an idea of what the bigger picture is.

00:33:51.461 --> 00:33:59.625
And if you can't use your visually like visually creative portion of your brain, to adapt that in real time to what you're editing.

00:33:59.625 --> 00:34:03.288
All you're doing is editing words and basic content.

00:34:03.288 --> 00:34:07.431
You're not creating the, the, you're not helping create this universe.

00:34:07.431 --> 00:34:13.516
And, and it's so funny when you talk about like the colors and things like that, cause I immediately think back to, no one left to fight.

00:34:13.516 --> 00:34:19.740
And I'm just thinking about how much of an amazing color scheme, all of that are all of those books were.

00:34:19.740 --> 00:34:31.708
So like, I'm just excited to continue this, this conversation into more of what you've created because it, I see where your thoughts go into your work and I appreciate your answer even more so.

00:34:31.708 --> 00:34:32.960
Thank you.

00:34:32.969 --> 00:34:33.829
I appreciate that.

00:34:33.829 --> 00:34:47.255
And I think that that's the big thing that I bring with me from my time in Marvel editorial specifically, because I think not all editorial jobs are the same.

00:34:47.255 --> 00:35:04.666
If you're working at Marvel or DC editorial, you typically have a much larger role in whatever book you're working on than if you were working as, especially if you got hired by some, like when I was working for Kirkman and Mark Miller and John Ray Jr.

00:35:04.666 --> 00:35:09.460
and Mark Guggenheim, they didn't want me giving notes on anything.

00:35:09.460 --> 00:35:16.215
They wanted me to help them get the pages in and make sure there were no problems and get things off to the publisher and all that stuff.

00:35:16.215 --> 00:35:31.744
So yeah, not every editorial job is the same degree of both these things, but every comic book job consists of both traffic cop and making sure things get in on time and quality control, making sure that's good when it gets there.

00:35:32.846 --> 00:35:41.306
If you don't, if you're not a generalist, if you're not capable of weighing in on all that stuff, think it's exceedingly difficult to do that.

00:35:41.306 --> 00:35:47.186
I do work with Archie Comics sometimes, and I love working with Archie Comics.

00:35:47.186 --> 00:35:54.005
And one of the coolest things about working with Archie Comics is that they have an editor and they have an art director on every book.

00:35:54.005 --> 00:35:54.945
Every book.

00:35:55.106 --> 00:35:56.646
they work very closely.

00:35:56.646 --> 00:36:02.246
Jamie Rotante is the editor and then Vin Lovallo is the art director on everything.

00:36:02.891 --> 00:36:20.768
they work extremely closely together, but then as an artist himself is able to give notes efficiently and with a clarity and confidence that, you know, someone who doesn't have an art background can struggle to hit, I think.

00:36:21.342 --> 00:36:29.791
Before we get into what, know, what we kind of brought you here for was, you know, discussing free planet as well as some other stuff that we're very excited to talk about.

00:36:29.791 --> 00:36:37.137
Can you please tell the listeners about your 2021 Kickstarter campaigns for both stoned master and beef bros?

00:36:37.637 --> 00:36:38.438
Yeah, man.

00:36:38.438 --> 00:36:53.436
So pandemic hit and I was already speaking with Tyrell Cannon, artist of The Shlub at Image Comics and Ares, which by time this goes live, his latest Ares campaign will be running on Kickstarter.

00:36:53.436 --> 00:36:54.056
Go find it.

00:36:54.056 --> 00:36:55.108
E-R-I-S.

00:36:55.108 --> 00:36:56.248
I've read the third issue.

00:36:56.248 --> 00:36:57.429
It's amazing.

00:36:57.429 --> 00:36:59.949
But I was already talking to him about doing Beef Bros.

00:37:00.230 --> 00:37:01.590
Beef Bros.

00:37:01.590 --> 00:37:03.411
Tyrell and I love superheroes.

00:37:03.411 --> 00:37:06.978
We love 90s image excess.

00:37:06.978 --> 00:37:16.364
We love 80s, like big muscly manga, not, Seinen, Seinen manga specifically.

00:37:16.364 --> 00:37:18.284
had to search for the term.

00:37:18.585 --> 00:37:19.425
And.

00:37:21.215 --> 00:37:39.251
we kind of stirred all those things up into the mix with the idea of making throwback superheroes, superheroes as they were originally ideated in the 1940s, which is to say populist and looking out for the little guy.

00:37:39.251 --> 00:37:42.813
you know, the result was beef bros, right?

00:37:42.813 --> 00:37:45.005
So it's drenched in neon.

00:37:45.005 --> 00:37:46.777
It is body.

00:37:46.777 --> 00:37:52.423
It's 80 late 80s, early 90s, bodybuilder pro wrestler aesthetics.

00:37:52.423 --> 00:37:54.485
They unit are unitards.

00:37:54.485 --> 00:37:58.128
They are not terribly bright young men.

00:37:58.128 --> 00:37:59.329
Ajax and Huey beef.

00:37:59.329 --> 00:38:01.070
They are brothers.

00:38:01.391 --> 00:38:03.092
And they love each other.

00:38:03.092 --> 00:38:12.001
And they live their life by a really simple but powerful idea, which is that if you can help somebody out, you do it.

00:38:12.181 --> 00:38:16.306
And also they're the strongest dudes, they are just so incredibly strong.

00:38:16.306 --> 00:38:17.990
They're just the strongest guys around.

00:38:17.990 --> 00:38:27.434
And that mindset dropped into something approaching the real world gets the trouble.

00:38:27.434 --> 00:38:30.516
And that's the story of Beef Bros, the first campaign.

00:38:30.516 --> 00:38:33.226
And it did gangbusters, man.

00:38:33.226 --> 00:38:36.898
Yeah, so we were already working on it when the pandemic hit.

00:38:36.898 --> 00:38:40.878
And when everything went pencils down, Tyrell had run Kickstarters before.

00:38:40.878 --> 00:38:45.949
I had always been scared of doing it just because it's so much to keep track of and so many different variables.

00:38:45.949 --> 00:38:51.853
And I wouldn't have been able to do it without Tyrell's experience and wisdom guiding us on it.

00:38:51.853 --> 00:38:53.744
But yeah, no, it did gangbusters.

00:38:53.744 --> 00:39:00.298
And so I followed it up with stoned master, which is a it's exactly what it sounds like.

00:39:00.298 --> 00:39:04.942
It's drunken master, but set in a Los Angeles dispensary.

00:39:04.942 --> 00:39:09.423
So it's kind of like a it's like a stoner kung fu comedy.

00:39:09.545 --> 00:39:12.396
Like, I don't think like pineapple express meets Cheech and Chong.

00:39:12.396 --> 00:39:13.226
Right.

00:39:13.947 --> 00:39:18.369
And or that's the bad pipe express meets meets drunken master.

00:39:18.369 --> 00:39:18.550
Right.

00:39:18.550 --> 00:39:19.420
That's better.

00:39:19.614 --> 00:39:21.175
But yeah, no, there it is.

00:39:21.175 --> 00:39:25.885
And that was with Chris Moreno, who I'd previously worked with on the comic book story of professional wrestling.

00:39:25.885 --> 00:39:29.967
And Chris and I are big fans of Kung Fu movies and Chi-Chin Chong movies.

00:39:29.967 --> 00:39:33.047
And so it was a really fun project for us to work on.

00:39:33.047 --> 00:39:39.659
then within like 18 months, I think I did my third Kickstarter, which was Beef Bros Behind Bars.

00:39:39.659 --> 00:39:41.699
And it was Huey and Ajax.

00:39:41.699 --> 00:39:42.539
They were back.

00:39:42.539 --> 00:39:48.972
But this time they were tossed into a massive multi-story prison.

00:39:49.159 --> 00:39:54.414
owned and operated by the world's biggest media conglomerate.

00:39:54.414 --> 00:39:57.907
So it's all branded with their iconic character, Gilby Gopher.

00:39:57.907 --> 00:40:04.922
yeah, you know, that stuff was a blast to work on and really fun to do.

00:40:06.889 --> 00:40:18.836
stuff in a little bit longer format, but also just kind of one-and-done in a way that the normal comic book shop market isn't really conducive to war just because of the way it's structured.

00:40:18.856 --> 00:40:28.742
But no, was a blast and really, really gratifying too, because know, Beef Bros and Stone Master for different reasons are books that would not work in the direct market.

00:40:28.804 --> 00:40:38.777
Beef Bros, despite the fact that superheroes are massively popular in the direct market, generally speaking outliers like invincible aside, which also has its own TV show now.

00:40:38.777 --> 00:40:45.273
If people want superheroes, they're generally going to be getting Spider-Man or Batman, right?

00:40:45.273 --> 00:40:49.206
Like they're going be getting the ones that they can see on TV and they know of already.

00:40:49.206 --> 00:40:52.528
So beef bros would be a tough sell there and stone master would have been a tough sell.

00:40:52.528 --> 00:41:04.097
You know, I live in California, so I forget that, just huge cannabis leafs on the cover of comic books are like kind of a non-starter for a big swaths of the country.

00:41:04.097 --> 00:41:08.922
I forget about that from the privileged position of Southern California that I currently sit in.

00:41:08.922 --> 00:41:14.306
So yeah, that would have been a difficult thing to really make a go of in the direct market.

00:41:14.306 --> 00:41:18.110
So being able to go directly to consumers with those was a treat.

00:41:18.478 --> 00:41:39.617
Yeah, Aubrey, one of the things I really appreciate about your work and just the things I know about your career thus far, and I'm assuming you're going to continue to sort of, you know, continue on going forward is like, you're, you're very interested in just telling your story and also sort of like, and I mean this sort you know, very respectfully as you're interested in pressing the boundaries, you want to, you want to almost like find the boundary and maybe take a toe over it.

00:41:39.617 --> 00:41:42.978
Or even in the case of free planet planet, which we'll talk about here in just a moment.

00:41:42.978 --> 00:41:53.074
just taking a full leap over that boundary and sort of traversing many different elements that are off, like these essential rules that have been put in place since like the forties.

00:41:53.454 --> 00:41:56.114
Yeah, well, you know, I think that I appreciate that.

00:41:56.114 --> 00:42:07.134
And I do take it as a compliment, man, because I think the fact of the matter is there is a lot of received wisdom in comics about how comics should work and how they need to work.

00:42:07.153 --> 00:42:10.673
a lot of that stuff, it's one of two things, right?

00:42:10.673 --> 00:42:22.469
It's either fashion, which is to say it can shift with the dot with the drop of a hat, you know, like just the style of which we we do comics and It's either fashion, right?

00:42:22.469 --> 00:42:25.760
Which is to say, you know, it's not really a rule.

00:42:25.780 --> 00:42:29.083
It's just what's been popular for the past two decades.

00:42:29.443 --> 00:42:40.311
Or it's a very limited, blinkered, I would even say, approach and view of what comics can accomplish.

00:42:40.311 --> 00:42:40.701
Right.

00:42:40.701 --> 00:42:54.132
And I think it's tied up in what I was talking about before, which is the fact that for almost the entirety of comics existence, almost the entirety of comics publishing, has been treated like an assembly line.

00:42:54.452 --> 00:43:06.481
And when you're doing books like that, when you're viewing writing and penciling and inking and coloring and lettering as all distinct tasks, right?

00:43:06.481 --> 00:43:08.793
It's just like an assembly line.

00:43:08.793 --> 00:43:15.737
When you're looking at it that way, you're really limited in the approach that you can do, especially if you want things to move smoothly and come out on time.

00:43:15.737 --> 00:43:32.119
That's why writers breakdown, like they come up with a story and then they break into five issues and then they break that into pages and then they say, okay, well, each page can have four and a half panels and you know, and they break it into that.

00:43:32.119 --> 00:43:43.005
And that is a really good way to make sure that scripts can be easily passed off to an artist and drawn to a reliable minimum level of quality.

00:43:43.005 --> 00:43:45.807
It's not how you make interesting work, I don't think.

00:43:45.847 --> 00:43:50.451
It's it's not how it's not how you push the boundaries of what comics can do.

00:43:50.451 --> 00:43:56.463
It's not how you utilize the form to its utmost is what I've always wanted to do.

00:43:56.463 --> 00:44:02.197
because I think that comics is such a special, fantastic medium.

00:44:02.197 --> 00:44:28.159
But what's most fascinating to me about it is I think we've barely scratched the surface of what comics can do because the unfortunate publishing realities like of the industry that's around comics and its requirements there and also you know, comics since it's since since the inception of film, right?

00:44:28.159 --> 00:44:41.764
Comics has been trying to keep up comics has been trying to be film for as long as film has been an issue as long as since since film supplanted comics as like the primary mass entertainment medium.

00:44:41.764 --> 00:44:53.625
And comics has been trying to catch up and trying to and has been always thought about, you know, it's things are always in terms of like, well, it's like a film with a unlimited special effects budget, it's, you know, it's like all these films that are all connected.

00:44:53.625 --> 00:44:58.007
But, you know, that's not comics true strength.

00:44:58.007 --> 00:45:03.891
Showing how comics can do things slightly better than another visual medium isn't the strength of comics.

00:45:03.891 --> 00:45:19.092
The strength of comics is page design, is layout, is thinking about all of these disciplines that we were just talking about holistically and together and not treating it just like, you know, cogs in an assembly.

00:45:19.429 --> 00:45:21.581
And I forgot what the question was.

00:45:21.581 --> 00:45:24.713
I'm just babbling about comics now.

00:45:24.713 --> 00:45:26.496
It happens.

00:45:26.496 --> 00:45:29.516
It's a salient risk of having me on your podcast.

00:45:29.516 --> 00:45:30.217
No, we love it.

00:45:30.217 --> 00:45:32.373
love a long winter response for sure.

00:45:32.373 --> 00:45:32.664
Yeah.

00:45:32.664 --> 00:45:34.085
No, I love the fact that, mean, you're right.

00:45:34.085 --> 00:45:38.876
Cause like, again, I, of everybody in this group, which is constant, the constant same thing.

00:45:38.876 --> 00:45:45.539
And Chris, we make a bit of this, is like, I'm the newest one in almost in every room, to, the two reading comics.

00:45:45.539 --> 00:45:56.134
And so I like that approach because I like the philosophy because not every comic needs to be a cog in the eventual, like storyline.

00:45:56.134 --> 00:46:00.960
It's the convergence, the, the crossover, the big story arc, like every comic.

00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:04.813
issue has an opportunity to be a swing in a storyline.

00:46:04.813 --> 00:46:10.498
It has an opportunity to be something immense and another door that opens into something greater.

00:46:10.498 --> 00:46:23.438
And I get really tired of like filler issues of comics that don't really get you anywhere just because they want to put out another, another issue or they want to fulfill a, like a 10, 10 issue story arc.

00:46:23.438 --> 00:46:24.898
Which I get tired of Aaron.

00:46:24.898 --> 00:46:27.177
I get tired of filler pages.

00:46:27.177 --> 00:46:27.717
Right.

00:46:27.717 --> 00:46:31.978
And I'm not talking about like pages where nothing happens because that's a hard thing to qualify.

00:46:31.978 --> 00:46:32.557
Like what that means.

00:46:32.557 --> 00:46:34.097
People are like, oh, nothing happened this issue.

00:46:34.097 --> 00:46:36.458
It's like, well, I mean, obviously something happened.

00:46:36.458 --> 00:46:47.938
But what I'm talking about are connective tissue pages that are unavoidable when you take the approach that, you know, I was just running down, which is to say you come up with your story.

00:46:47.938 --> 00:46:48.378
Right.

00:46:48.378 --> 00:46:52.472
And like you might have specific, you know, so you have your story, your plot.

00:46:52.472 --> 00:47:01.826
for your 20 page comic and you you've got splash pages and a spread here and then everything else, you just need to move the pieces into place.

00:47:01.826 --> 00:47:14.451
Which means that sometimes you've just got a six or seven or eight or nine panel grid just moving things around so that you can get to the spread in a page or two.

00:47:14.451 --> 00:47:17.251
That my friends is fucking boring.

00:47:17.251 --> 00:47:19.967
That sucks, Comics are expensive.

00:47:19.967 --> 00:47:21.005
$4.

00:47:21.005 --> 00:47:23.887
$4 for 20 pages, right?

00:47:24.047 --> 00:47:31.472
Every single one of those needs to have value and not just value in terms of narrative value.

00:47:31.472 --> 00:47:33.132
Again, that shit's boring.

00:47:33.132 --> 00:47:41.958
if what people want, if people want a compelling visual story, watch a movie.

00:47:41.958 --> 00:47:50.135
If people want a rich, complex plot, read a novel, right?

00:47:50.135 --> 00:47:51.936
Comics gives you something different, right?

00:47:51.936 --> 00:48:04.172
And what comics can give you that these other mediums cannot is the presentation of a page that is so magnificent that you as a reader choose to spend additional time with it, right?

00:48:04.172 --> 00:48:09.655
You're watching a movie, like unless you're a crazy person, you don't pause it every time there's a nice shot.

00:48:09.655 --> 00:48:11.016
So just stare at it.

00:48:11.016 --> 00:48:16.798
And maybe you do because you're like a cinematography person, which I clearly find very strange, maybe you do do that.

00:48:16.798 --> 00:48:19.289
But like, there's only so much you're going to get out of it.

00:48:19.289 --> 00:48:21.621
You can look at the composition and then you got it, you're there.

00:48:21.621 --> 00:48:32.306
But with comics with a well constructed spread, I mean, think about like, don't know, working on free planet, I thought a lot about the way I felt about dyna topia books when I was a kid.

00:48:32.619 --> 00:48:33.431
Yeah.

00:48:33.771 --> 00:48:34.648
still have mine.

00:48:34.648 --> 00:48:35.297
They're amazing.

00:48:35.297 --> 00:48:35.998
They're so cool.

00:48:35.998 --> 00:48:40.210
got some from the library when I was working on a free planet just because I wanted to go through them all.

00:48:40.210 --> 00:48:48.786
like Wayne Barlow does these like like guides of like this made up planet and it's just like all this like data and charts and drawings.

00:48:49.947 --> 00:48:51.266
They're really neat.

00:48:51.266 --> 00:48:57.130
But yeah, like I thought a lot about that in terms of like, why aren't more comics like that?

00:48:57.231 --> 00:48:57.871
Why?

00:48:57.871 --> 00:48:59.952
And it's, you know, it's a trend, right?

00:48:59.952 --> 00:49:03.630
Because for the past 20 years, we've leaned into teleplay pacing.

00:49:03.630 --> 00:49:03.989
Right.

00:49:03.989 --> 00:49:08.550
Everything is written like it's an episode of a streaming TV show.

00:49:08.550 --> 00:49:11.748
And we've leaned into decompression, right.

00:49:11.748 --> 00:49:18.230
Which works really great if you're reading big chunky manga volumes and you've got 200 pages of it, you can just burn through.

00:49:18.230 --> 00:49:31.590
But again, paying $4 for 20 pages of comics where the degree, like the amount of hours, especially in a book like Free Planet, the work that Jed is doing is enormous, right.

00:49:31.590 --> 00:49:33.409
With an outrageous amount of detail.

00:49:33.409 --> 00:49:45.474
You know, why aren't more comics structured in such a way that readers want to slow down and want to spend some time just taking a page in?

00:49:45.655 --> 00:49:48.496
And yeah, man, I think that that's.

00:49:49.336 --> 00:49:57.679
That was a big inspiration on how we approached free planet and how we did things differently is making sure that there are there is no connective tissue.

00:49:57.679 --> 00:49:59.831
There are no there are no filler pages.

00:49:59.831 --> 00:50:01.601
There's certainly no filler issues.

00:50:01.601 --> 00:50:02.541
It is.

00:50:02.637 --> 00:50:14.847
packed to the gills with stuff, with stuff for readers to enjoy and take their time with and reread and maybe like come back to again later if they need to brush up on something.

00:50:14.847 --> 00:50:18.550
It's a different type of book in a very real way, I think.

00:50:18.898 --> 00:50:19.648
Absolutely agree.

00:50:19.648 --> 00:50:27.139
And I think that's a wonderful transition into our next question, which is let's talk about free planet, which comes out on May 7th.

00:50:27.139 --> 00:50:28.010
When's F.O.C.

00:50:28.010 --> 00:50:28.681
for free plan?

00:50:28.681 --> 00:50:30.141
couldn't find that online.

00:50:30.141 --> 00:50:30.911
April April 14th.

00:50:30.911 --> 00:50:34.141
OK, so as everyone is listening to this conversation, this episode will already be out.

00:50:34.141 --> 00:50:37.023
So make sure you guys call your little comic shop and order that first issue.

00:50:37.023 --> 00:50:54.213
But let's talk about the book itself, which is both sort of this research driven space opera about the days following the end of a revolutionary war of the first free planet, but also more as like a reader, a pretty challenging and somewhat confrontational restructuring, I think, as we talked about earlier of the medium.

00:50:54.213 --> 00:50:58.061
So a lot of questions here I had when reading this first issue.

00:50:58.262 --> 00:51:01.266
I love having my work described as confrontational.

00:51:02.510 --> 00:51:03.692
I'm going to own that.

00:51:03.692 --> 00:51:05.284
course, I'm confrontational.

00:51:05.284 --> 00:51:06.965
Yeah, work is too.

00:51:06.965 --> 00:51:13.190
Confrontational in the way that like when someone asks you how you look before you all go out, you go, I go with the green shirt instead of the blue shirt.

00:51:13.190 --> 00:51:18.072
You know, like you're helping them in the end, but it's it's going to cause a fight eventually somewhere.

00:51:19.034 --> 00:51:19.603
Exactly.

00:51:19.603 --> 00:51:22.846
Yeah.

00:51:22.846 --> 00:51:23.956
You're asking just that, Aaron.

00:51:23.956 --> 00:51:25.777
You know, that's, what we say here.

00:51:25.804 --> 00:51:26.552
But it's what I like.

00:51:26.552 --> 00:51:27.847
It's what I like about him.

00:51:27.847 --> 00:51:30.219
Yeah, it's my second favorite thing.

00:51:30.219 --> 00:51:31.099
green.

00:51:32.362 --> 00:51:34.063
You're just going to him wonder on that.

00:51:35.284 --> 00:51:35.635
sorry.

00:51:35.635 --> 00:51:36.144
I never look.

00:51:36.144 --> 00:51:37.166
I'm always looking at your ass.

00:51:37.166 --> 00:51:41.168
Anyway, being is that a lot of questions came up when reading this first issue.

00:51:41.168 --> 00:51:48.085
know, obviously there's a lot of questions about the story, but also the process, which I kind of want to key in on in this conversation.

00:51:48.085 --> 00:51:54.110
Then maybe down the road, we can get you back on to have like a spoiler conversation about maybe the first trade, maybe even have, you know, jet on the show as well.

00:51:54.110 --> 00:51:56.822
But, know, the process, the research or design.

00:51:56.822 --> 00:51:59.483
everything that went into this project, it's on the page.

00:51:59.483 --> 00:52:01.003
We can see it evidently.

00:52:01.003 --> 00:52:04.985
So let's start with a very simple broad question.

00:52:04.985 --> 00:52:16.389
How did it feel, you know, in terms of like getting with Jed, your artist, Jed Daughtry, your artist on the series, how did it, like, why did you guys feel compelled to tell this story the way that you did?

00:52:16.389 --> 00:52:22.152
As we said earlier, again, a lot of research, lot, like a lot of design, very dense, this first issue.

00:52:22.152 --> 00:52:25.485
Why did you guys feel compelled to tell it in this particular way?

00:52:25.485 --> 00:52:32.365
You know, you mentioned earlier, I had that big year in 2020, 2021 with all the Kickstarter stuff.

00:52:32.365 --> 00:52:41.085
And then right after, or even in the midst of some of that too, I had three different Dark Horse limited series out that year.

00:52:41.085 --> 00:52:42.806
was Savage Hearts with Jed.

00:52:43.005 --> 00:52:45.166
It was the worst dudes with Tony Gregori.

00:52:45.166 --> 00:52:48.465
And it was No One Left to Fight 2 with Fico Lassio.

00:52:49.025 --> 00:52:52.266
And I had a ton of work out there.

00:52:52.706 --> 00:52:56.242
And I had big aspirations.

00:52:56.242 --> 00:52:57.561
I've been at this for a minute, man.

00:52:57.561 --> 00:53:00.601
And I had big expectations.

00:53:00.601 --> 00:53:03.101
know, it felt like everything was paying off.

00:53:03.101 --> 00:53:04.722
Everything was finally hitting, right?

00:53:04.722 --> 00:53:12.422
And I've been slogging at stuff for a really long time with some very like notable and some of them very public setbacks.

00:53:12.422 --> 00:53:22.202
And I had gotten to a point where I had this slate of books from a major publisher and I had this Kickstarter kind of enterprise that was up and running.

00:53:22.961 --> 00:53:30.731
you know, I really thought I was on my way, but nothing came of it.

00:53:30.731 --> 00:53:44.512
some of that is timing, just in terms of those books came out when every publisher was dumping books into the market because they had had that pencils down period.

00:53:46.166 --> 00:53:47.867
around COVID.

00:53:47.867 --> 00:54:07.702
you know, I, I think that there are, there's likely some, you know, my failure to get pick up kind of like institutional, larger institutional buy in, probably has something to do with stuff I was alluding to earlier, kind of my approach as an editor previously, or like perceptions of me as a former editor, or a number of other things.

00:54:07.702 --> 00:54:10.193
And like, and this is kind of the key part, man.

00:54:10.193 --> 00:54:11.992
I can't control any of that.

00:54:12.172 --> 00:54:14.233
All of that's outside of my control.

00:54:14.994 --> 00:54:21.615
But I realized that what is their mind control is the type of work that I'm doing.

00:54:21.615 --> 00:54:27.056
And I have like a real, you know, real come to Jesus meeting with myself about it, right.

00:54:27.056 --> 00:54:33.340
And the type of work I was doing and I'm proud of the work, all the work that we mentioned and all the co-curators I worked with.

00:54:33.340 --> 00:54:36.722
think it's great stuff and I adore it.

00:54:36.722 --> 00:54:39.884
And I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

00:54:39.884 --> 00:54:57.737
I'm not ashamed of it to be sure, but I was still making work with an eye toward making the type of work that the industry rewards and seems to focus on.

00:54:57.737 --> 00:54:58.438
Right.

00:54:58.438 --> 00:55:00.117
wanted to be a working comic book creator.

00:55:00.117 --> 00:55:05.260
And I thought that in order to do that, I need to make these types of books and I need to make them fast.

00:55:05.260 --> 00:55:07.820
And I needed to, and that's why I did so many of them, right.

00:55:07.820 --> 00:55:10.021
Just cause like, this you have to do, right.

00:55:10.021 --> 00:55:11.371
You have to have three or four books out.

00:55:11.371 --> 00:55:12.494
You have to write three or four books.

00:55:12.494 --> 00:55:18.873
at least more if you're trying to get your creator own stuff up and running, which you, you should if you're, you're smart, right.

00:55:19.393 --> 00:55:25.074
And I realized that, you know, I wasn't able to do my best work that way.

00:55:25.074 --> 00:55:36.034
And I don't think anybody is quite frankly, I think that you can find modes to work in that do work and people, people like, you know, people like the work I did.

00:55:36.034 --> 00:55:37.934
It's not that people hated this stuff.

00:55:37.934 --> 00:55:41.253
But I didn't think it was the best work that I could be doing.

00:55:41.253 --> 00:55:44.474
And that is something under my control.

00:55:44.474 --> 00:55:46.655
And that is something that I could change.

00:55:46.753 --> 00:55:56.019
I made a conscious effort to slow down and to rethink how I was approaching the page.

00:55:56.019 --> 00:56:00.342
quite frankly, boys, you know, I've been at this for long enough.

00:56:00.342 --> 00:56:05.844
I've worked really hard to get to the point where I can have an ongoing image series launching, right?

00:56:05.844 --> 00:56:08.755
And like, this is a big, this was always the dream for me.

00:56:08.949 --> 00:56:09.230
Right.

00:56:09.230 --> 00:56:12.612
Having an image series and hopefully a long running one knock on wood.

00:56:12.612 --> 00:56:14.072
Like that was always the goal for me.

00:56:14.072 --> 00:56:15.413
That's what I wanted to build to.

00:56:15.413 --> 00:56:20.284
But if this thing doesn't hit, I don't realistically speak, this is not being me being sad sack.

00:56:20.284 --> 00:56:21.505
This is me being realistic.

00:56:21.505 --> 00:56:23.655
I don't know how many other chances I get.

00:56:23.675 --> 00:56:24.376
Right.

00:56:24.376 --> 00:56:28.737
If this doesn't hit, I don't think Eric Stevenson is going to be like, all right, so let's give it a go.

00:56:28.849 --> 00:56:29.559
What else?

00:56:29.559 --> 00:56:30.298
What else you got?

00:56:30.298 --> 00:56:31.588
What else you got the bag over there?

00:56:31.588 --> 00:56:32.360
Right.

00:56:32.360 --> 00:56:33.829
and because it's just not how comics work.

00:56:33.829 --> 00:56:35.121
not how any business works.

00:56:35.121 --> 00:56:36.101
Right.

00:56:36.380 --> 00:56:38.661
and I wanted to make sure that.

00:56:39.061 --> 00:56:50.521
if nothing else, free planet was unadulterated fire hose blast Aubrey, right?

00:56:50.521 --> 00:56:52.612
I want it to be everything.

00:56:52.612 --> 00:56:55.054
I want it to be everything Jed and I are interested in.

00:56:55.054 --> 00:56:57.195
Jed's a co-creator on this.

00:56:57.496 --> 00:57:05.282
we talked about it extensively about doing something new, doing something more rigorous, doing something more complex.

00:57:05.282 --> 00:57:22.858
I met Jed when he was working as an assistant for Howard Chakin and that Chakinian approach to the page, you know, really centering design as the, you know, as, and the layout of the page as the foundational storytelling unit of comics, that's a chicken thing.

00:57:22.858 --> 00:57:25.858
And that's something that both Jed and I buy into.

00:57:26.398 --> 00:57:31.137
you know, aspiration was there already, right?

00:57:31.137 --> 00:57:34.918
I had, I had a conversation, you know, and this is another thing that I could control too.

00:57:34.918 --> 00:57:44.922
You know, I, During the pandemic, talked with Kirkman and he had a, he asked me, he was just talking to me about stuff I had coming out, coming up.

00:57:44.922 --> 00:57:51.141
this was prior to Savage, Savage Hearts and Worst Dudes were in some progress of completion, but they weren't out yet.

00:57:51.141 --> 00:57:53.322
And he was asking me what I had coming out and I was telling him about those.

00:57:53.322 --> 00:57:59.981
was like, well, I've got a sword and sorcery romantic comedy with a big buff lady and the weird little beast man.

00:57:59.981 --> 00:58:21.054
And then I have this very strange vulgar, Chandler esque detective story in space with like a big pink cat man, and he was like man Just do a story about a guy Who has a horse and then the horse dies and I said hmm.

00:58:21.054 --> 00:58:23.114
How many legs does the horse have?

00:58:23.329 --> 00:58:33.617
But like I made a joke but like, you know, his point was well taken, you know, my work is Trey right like it's gonzo.

00:58:33.617 --> 00:58:37.612
It's weird and like big part of that is because it's comics.

00:58:37.612 --> 00:58:39.032
And I feel like let's use that.

00:58:39.032 --> 00:58:44.496
And I want everything to be visually and like I want everything on the page to be visually compelling.

00:58:44.496 --> 00:58:44.795
Right.

00:58:44.795 --> 00:58:51.309
And it's part and parcel of that approach I was talking about earlier in terms of giving people something to chew on and incentivize them to spend time with the page.

00:58:51.309 --> 00:58:54.340
And I think one of the ways you do that is make everything interesting.

00:58:54.340 --> 00:59:03.005
And if everybody's if if the coloring is dull and monochromatic, and all the characters look the same, and they're all dressed like it's the real world.

00:59:03.297 --> 00:59:08.699
that's less interesting to me to look at on like just a very like objective level.

00:59:08.699 --> 00:59:10.251
And I've always wanted to lean into that.

00:59:10.251 --> 00:59:24.887
But the downside of that is I think that there has been a perception of me and my work that it is slight and it is, you there's a y'all like this as wrestling fans, there's a wrestling fans, funny ain't money.

00:59:26.728 --> 00:59:28.407
I think that's true in comics too.

00:59:28.407 --> 00:59:32.384
Anything things that read as self evidently funny.

00:59:32.384 --> 00:59:41.036
are written off as silly and not serious and deserving of serious engagement and consideration.

00:59:41.036 --> 00:59:53.804
And that rubbed me the wrong way because I've always thought that there's, I've always brought an intellectual rigor to my work, even when it's, know, blowjob jokes in the worst dudes, right?

00:59:53.804 --> 00:59:59.032
Like it's still structured, you know, that, that book was structured.

00:59:59.032 --> 01:00:02.753
The worst dude was structured like a Chandler-esque detective story.

01:00:02.753 --> 01:00:03.702
It's complex.

01:00:03.702 --> 01:00:07.213
It's messy and weird and difficult to keep up with.

01:00:07.213 --> 01:00:08.175
And that's part of the appeal.

01:00:08.175 --> 01:00:10.505
It's how these things work.

01:00:11.025 --> 01:00:21.407
everything I've done has had that degree of thought put into it because of the way we presented it, because of how many jokes there were, because of the outre elements.

01:00:21.407 --> 01:00:27.349
I think that people have kind of looked down their noses at it a little bit and it started to really stick in my craw.

01:00:27.349 --> 01:00:38.902
I to get real resentful about the fact that I would look around and see writers celebrated for being these like smart cerebral writers.

01:00:38.902 --> 01:00:41.134
And I wanted that.

01:00:41.134 --> 01:00:56.110
so Free Planet is, it's really a, it's an I'll show you book, If what you people want is smart, challenging.

01:00:56.110 --> 01:00:59.614
complex work that actually uses the medium.

01:00:59.614 --> 01:01:01.074
All right, let's go.

01:01:01.074 --> 01:01:02.115
Let's do it.

01:01:02.115 --> 01:01:03.367
And it's a dick ton of work.

01:01:03.367 --> 01:01:04.889
It's an outrageous amount of work.

01:01:04.889 --> 01:01:07.681
You you mentioned the research that goes into it.

01:01:07.681 --> 01:01:10.264
Stacks, I've got one right here that I'm rereading.

01:01:10.264 --> 01:01:12.327
And like, they're all this thick.

01:01:12.327 --> 01:01:13.907
They're all like this, right?

01:01:13.907 --> 01:01:15.809
This is the Spanish Civil War.

01:01:18.318 --> 01:01:20.137
It's like 1100 or 1200.

01:01:20.577 --> 01:01:24.958
you know, this, I did Trotsky's history of the Russian Revolution.

01:01:24.958 --> 01:01:27.538
read another like 1200 one about Cuba.

01:01:27.538 --> 01:01:32.818
Just I've gone through Plato's Republic a couple times.

01:01:34.617 --> 01:01:35.958
Yeah, dude, that's the thing.

01:01:35.958 --> 01:01:36.177
Yeah.

01:01:36.177 --> 01:01:48.498
Like, I mean, because I wanted all of I wanted this world to feel real and to feel lived in and you know, it's about very real.

01:01:49.835 --> 01:02:00.577
topical stuff, I think, not because of I plan it to be topical, because this stuff is always topical, right in a big, big messy interconnected world like the one we live in.

01:02:00.577 --> 01:02:28.498
And I wanted the freedom to engage with that and explore it and sit down in it and think about it without, know, if this was a, if this was historical fiction, people would come into it with their ideas already cemented in, but by abstracting it out to sci-fi, we have a lot more freedom to kind of let people discover how they feel about things, but it still needs to feel real.

01:02:28.498 --> 01:02:54.641
you know, research on my end, design work on Jed's end, extensive design work from him, just absurd stuff, just making sure that every ethnicity has their own clothing style and every planet and confederation of planets have their own types of weapons and they generate power from different places, which impacts what their ships look like, which impacts how their ships travel and what types of weapons and vehicles and such that they use.

01:02:54.641 --> 01:02:56.762
then that has impact on the story.

01:02:57.041 --> 01:03:01.882
it was working on it was very much a game of one-upsmanship with Jed and I, right?

01:03:01.882 --> 01:03:16.385
Because I, this is a story I've told other places, but When we were working on Savage Hearts, which is set in a big old jungle full of dinosaurs, Jed called me one day and said, hey, what is the flora like?

01:03:16.826 --> 01:03:17.786
I said, the flora?

01:03:17.786 --> 01:03:18.626
He said, like plants.

01:03:18.626 --> 01:03:21.425
I was like, I know what it means, but like, I don't fucking know, man.

01:03:21.425 --> 01:03:22.146
I have no idea.

01:03:22.146 --> 01:03:23.106
And he shamed me.

01:03:23.106 --> 01:03:24.365
I felt bad.

01:03:24.686 --> 01:03:27.226
I felt like I was slacking, right?

01:03:27.226 --> 01:03:30.525
Because, and to be frank, I was, right?

01:03:30.525 --> 01:03:34.246
And this is the type of stuff that writers slack on all the time, you know?

01:03:35.724 --> 01:03:38.335
We just think, the artist will figure that out.

01:03:38.335 --> 01:03:39.655
The artist will do that, right?

01:03:39.655 --> 01:03:44.108
And this is like, this is a very filmic approach, right?

01:03:44.108 --> 01:03:51.032
Because if you're writing screenplays, it doesn't fucking matter what, like, unless it's a plot point, it doesn't matter what types of plants there are in the background.

01:03:51.032 --> 01:03:54.423
Let's say, let the production design, like the set design people will figure that out.

01:03:54.423 --> 01:04:01.288
But in comics, you have the freedom to actually weigh in on this stuff and make it a substantive part of the story.

01:04:01.288 --> 01:04:03.128
And that's what we do with Free Planet, right?

01:04:03.128 --> 01:04:04.907
Like there, nothing is incidental.

01:04:04.907 --> 01:04:11.461
Nothing is random and everything has impact on everything else because it is this big filly fleshed out work.

01:04:11.831 --> 01:04:24.085
Well good because I have way more questions for you, but unfortunately we got to get to the next one because like we don't want to take too much of your time Can we make a quick pack, Aaron, before you go on to this next one that like at some point down the road, because we totally we keep you for about an hour.

01:04:24.085 --> 01:04:26.047
We want to stay somewhat true to that.

01:04:26.067 --> 01:04:32.601
We need to get you back because there's so much I feel like just in that response there, I have four or five questions that we could get to eventually.

01:04:32.601 --> 01:04:33.873
And I'll just pack those away.

01:04:33.873 --> 01:04:35.514
And let's get you and Jed on the show.

01:04:35.514 --> 01:04:35.733
yeah.

01:04:35.733 --> 01:04:36.364
On the road.

01:04:36.364 --> 01:04:39.797
Once this thing is in like a collected form and we can just dig into that.

01:04:39.797 --> 01:04:42.418
But yeah, Aaron, go ahead, because I do want to hear this next one.

01:04:42.465 --> 01:04:42.715
Yeah.

01:04:42.715 --> 01:04:55.112
So recently in an Instagram post, this book, you, you, you posted that this book is purposely designed and structured to be dense and use up as much visual space kind of as we've talked about over this conversation to be studied, examined.

01:04:55.112 --> 01:05:06.228
even mentioned that this approach was purposely hostile towards digital reading, which luckily for Chris and I, is how, and then you also wrote a newsletter.

01:05:06.228 --> 01:05:07.885
On day 7th, you're going to love it.

01:05:07.885 --> 01:05:09.134
Yeah, we're gonna love it.

01:05:09.134 --> 01:05:19.114
You recently wrote in a newsletter also creating something purely your own beholden to no one is a joyous and triumphant assertion of autonomy, which reminds me of something we had Patrick Horvath on recently.

01:05:19.114 --> 01:05:20.614
And I, he's a good friend of the show.

01:05:20.614 --> 01:05:21.134
We love him.

01:05:21.134 --> 01:05:38.030
And he said, basically he was like, you know, to, to kind of round up his quote, he was like, you know, do the weird thing, you know, do the weird thing, but, uh, we want you to tell us a little bit about your process with Jed and designer Mark Kaufman in structuring this book, the way you did and why you felt it was so important for this first issue.

01:05:38.030 --> 01:05:42.911
to be read physically, tangibly in a book in your hands.

01:05:43.480 --> 01:05:46.981
So I'll answer the part about the designer first.

01:05:46.981 --> 01:05:49.032
So Mark is brilliant.

01:05:49.032 --> 01:05:56.293
Mark designed, he did our cover treat, front and back cover treatment, the inside front cover, like the title page, and also the back matter.

01:05:56.293 --> 01:05:58.215
The book has back matter in every issue.

01:05:58.215 --> 01:06:01.375
are essays with brand new.

01:06:01.556 --> 01:06:08.347
So there are essays, but they're written by the character, Dr.

01:06:08.347 --> 01:06:17.940
Aldous Foyrushi, who writes all of the big chunky historical captions leading throughout the book, which kind of serve as the through line through all these anecdotal scenes.

01:06:17.940 --> 01:06:20.460
Mark designed the back matter as well.

01:06:20.601 --> 01:06:32.903
And we worked together with Mark to hammer out a approach for the covers before Jed had drawn anything.

01:06:32.903 --> 01:06:33.233
Right.

01:06:33.233 --> 01:06:38.376
And I think that that's another example of kind of this holistic approach that I'm talking about.

01:06:38.376 --> 01:06:38.695
Right.

01:06:38.695 --> 01:06:45.134
Another one is that Taylor, our letterer, he doesn't get going until the colors are done, which is unusual.

01:06:45.134 --> 01:06:52.653
Most of the time comics just have the color and letterer working separately and then they smash the files together and fix any problems on the back end.

01:06:52.653 --> 01:06:54.313
And that's not good enough for me, right?

01:06:54.313 --> 01:07:05.101
Cause I want what Taylor's doing to be not just adjusted after the fact to fit in with the colors, but I want him to be making conscious choices in consideration of the color.

01:07:05.101 --> 01:07:05.661
colors.

01:07:05.661 --> 01:07:08.344
And the same is true for Jed and his cover design, right.

01:07:08.344 --> 01:07:15.807
And so we really wanted something distinct, something that read that, you know, Mark is a car.

01:07:15.807 --> 01:07:16.777
He's a cartoonist.

01:07:16.777 --> 01:07:21.090
And he's he used to be the designer for the nib run by my buddy, Matt Bors.

01:07:21.090 --> 01:07:27.925
And so he's very much of comics, or he knows comics without being of comics, right?

01:07:27.925 --> 01:07:29.985
He's not he's not like a direct market comics guy.

01:07:29.985 --> 01:07:35.963
And we wanted something that looks different and distinct and serious, right?

01:07:35.963 --> 01:07:39.304
And, you know, that's what I went to him with.

01:07:39.304 --> 01:07:48.751
And he came back with that kind of big chunky planetoid design with the cutout letters and you know, kind of like, oddly spaced on three lines and all.

01:07:48.992 --> 01:07:50.092
And I adore it.

01:07:50.092 --> 01:07:58.677
And then it was off to Jed for him to do a cover that fits in the bottom around that design, right?

01:07:59.579 --> 01:08:10.465
So that was working, that was working with Mark, in terms of working Jed, the primary difference and it's impacted everything about how I write.

01:08:10.465 --> 01:08:19.429
And it's something I started doing with my Archie work, both with Jed and with Megan Hutchison on Archie judgment day.

01:08:19.847 --> 01:08:22.609
And it's doing thumbnails.

01:08:22.764 --> 01:08:24.331
You mentioned this in your sub stack.

01:08:24.331 --> 01:08:28.983
Yeah, I do thumbnails now, but crucially, don't do them.

01:08:29.122 --> 01:08:32.725
So I used to do thumbnails on kind of an ad hoc basis, right?

01:08:32.725 --> 01:08:38.600
If there's a page that I wrote and I'm like, I don't know if this is going to work or let me just make sure this is going to fit on the page the way I want it to.

01:08:38.600 --> 01:08:40.969
I would kind of sketch it out and make sure.

01:08:41.048 --> 01:08:44.390
but that's only sufficient for addressing problems.

01:08:45.350 --> 01:08:46.251
Right.

01:08:47.192 --> 01:08:51.753
it doesn't help you break out of this thing that I was talking about earlier, which was.

01:08:51.753 --> 01:08:54.195
me fall into the same trap that everybody does.

01:08:54.195 --> 01:09:03.975
had, you know, look at any of my books and there are plenty of pages where it's just four or five panels of people moving things around, of us moving the story pieces around.

01:09:03.975 --> 01:09:12.193
And sometimes there's some good dialogue and you know, they're always drawn really well because I work with really good artists, but it's not fulfilling comics.

01:09:12.193 --> 01:09:13.694
don't think it's not.

01:09:15.188 --> 01:09:20.390
I have a pretty intense fighter verse fan in the chat here that might say differently.

01:09:20.692 --> 01:09:29.546
He mentioned earlier before the show that he was like, we need to talk about the fighter verse, but based on the free planet conversation, it's hard to it in.

01:09:29.815 --> 01:09:33.077
it we, you know, that work is wonderful.

01:09:33.077 --> 01:09:33.698
And I love it.

01:09:33.698 --> 01:09:34.818
And it's a blast.

01:09:34.818 --> 01:09:40.480
But it is not approached in the same way that Free Planet is right.

01:09:40.881 --> 01:09:47.485
No One Left to Fight is primarily a grinding fight soap opera, right.

01:09:47.485 --> 01:09:53.029
So while there are while we do build to these big moments that you really want to live in.

01:09:53.814 --> 01:10:03.162
A lot of the book you move through it at a much brisker pace, there's way less dialogue, like there's, there's no caption, no one left to fight, there's zero captions.

01:10:03.282 --> 01:10:16.601
And there's not even a whole lot of dialogue, there's a lot of quiet panels, because it is something that you're meant to move through quickly until you get to that big, you know, bambalam blast or whatever, you know, like the big crazy attack that's going on.

01:10:16.601 --> 01:10:18.601
And there's nothing wrong with that.

01:10:18.601 --> 01:10:21.841
And it's not a, it's not anything I'm ashamed of.

01:10:21.841 --> 01:10:32.832
But it It just simply doesn't use utilize the comics medium to the full degree of what it what it's capable of and doing thumbnails.

01:10:32.893 --> 01:10:37.176
What I do now is I do them before I script so I know what's going to be an issue.

01:10:37.176 --> 01:10:52.006
But then I sit down and I thumbnail everything out like these and that prevents me from having filler pages and connective tissue because every time I think about a spread, I think how is this going to be visually overwhelmed?

01:10:52.210 --> 01:10:53.489
What can we do different?

01:10:53.489 --> 01:10:54.970
How can we use this space?

01:10:54.970 --> 01:11:06.913
How can we pack this in with as much content as humanly possible such that people really want to like curl up with this thing and live in it the way I did with dyna topia books as a kid.

01:11:07.713 --> 01:11:11.574
that approach doing thumbnails ahead of time, I don't send them to Jed.

01:11:11.574 --> 01:11:14.576
They are not for him to follow because he's better at this than I am.

01:11:14.576 --> 01:11:14.796
Right.

01:11:14.796 --> 01:11:36.582
And he comes up with better stuff than I do anyways, oftentimes, but it forces me to think about things primarily as a design problem, as opposed to just a plot problem, which is how a lot of writers, myself included, it's easy to fall into that trap when you're just writing a script.

01:11:37.426 --> 01:11:38.546
Yeah.

01:11:38.546 --> 01:11:39.127
Okay.

01:11:39.127 --> 01:11:46.264
Aubrey, as we said a minute ago, I just have so many things just sprouting off right now and I need to hold it in.

01:11:46.264 --> 01:11:48.655
This is an exercise in restraint here.

01:11:48.655 --> 01:11:55.561
Everyone listening right now, we are using this moment to grow and Aubrey, I'm going to ask you one last question in order to avoid that.

01:11:55.561 --> 01:12:00.826
So final question, and this is something we like to ask everybody because I feel like we have so many things.

01:12:01.686 --> 01:12:02.467
I know it's tough.

01:12:02.467 --> 01:12:05.510
I hate doing this, Aubrey, and we talked about this before the recording.

01:12:05.704 --> 01:12:07.229
I go long-winded.

01:12:07.229 --> 01:12:08.274
It's on me.

01:12:08.274 --> 01:12:11.121
I only answered like three questions.

01:12:11.561 --> 01:12:12.252
We want that.

01:12:12.252 --> 01:12:13.804
We want you to really dive into it.

01:12:13.804 --> 01:12:14.715
Honestly, that's why you're here.

01:12:14.715 --> 01:12:16.386
But it's us too.

01:12:16.386 --> 01:12:17.827
We have so many things that we want to discuss.

01:12:17.827 --> 01:12:24.152
And if anything, it just adds credence to the value of free planet and what it's doing for the medium.

01:12:24.152 --> 01:12:33.438
I cannot implore people enough to check it out because of how much it's igniting these questions and sort of thoughts on this series just in the first issue.

01:12:33.623 --> 01:12:42.341
way that you described it about going back and like re-reviewing it and like kind of going panel by panel by panel, cover to cover.

01:12:42.443 --> 01:12:47.096
I've, I've found myself doing this since, you know, since I first started reading it.

01:12:47.096 --> 01:12:49.029
Like, again, I have multiple questions.

01:12:49.029 --> 01:12:51.440
I'm going to try and hopefully get some answers out of you.

01:12:51.702 --> 01:12:53.506
once the, interview concludes.

01:12:53.506 --> 01:12:54.756
You should send them to Dr.

01:12:54.756 --> 01:12:56.407
Aldous Foyroshi, man.

01:12:56.407 --> 01:13:00.789
That's what the letters page is going to be for.

01:13:00.789 --> 01:13:06.902
There is an email for letters in the back, but it's not meant for, Aubrey, you're so great.

01:13:06.902 --> 01:13:09.333
I I appreciate that, but we're not going to run them.

01:13:09.333 --> 01:13:15.756
It's meant for specific granular questions about that world.

01:13:15.756 --> 01:13:28.546
Because I guarantee you, I have volumes of documents documentation on this thing I could answer all your questions about the world but yes set up to the book All right.

01:13:28.546 --> 01:13:33.192
So before we let you go though, we just like to ask everybody again, very, very basic question.

01:13:33.192 --> 01:13:36.885
Is there something that you've really been enjoying recently that you want to sort of showcase here at the end of the show?

01:13:36.885 --> 01:13:44.760
Something that either inspired you from free planet or just honestly, anything that you're really, really loving a movie, a comic, a podcast, an album, whatever.

01:13:44.760 --> 01:13:47.532
So can I say two things?

01:13:49.153 --> 01:13:51.375
One, how dare you?

01:13:51.375 --> 01:13:57.800
So one of them is Spectrum by Rick Quinn and Dave Chisholm.

01:13:57.800 --> 01:14:01.152
It's coming out from, is that Mad Cave?

01:14:01.152 --> 01:14:03.384
It's Mad Cave.

01:14:03.384 --> 01:14:04.984
Yeah, it's great.

01:14:06.447 --> 01:14:11.328
Honestly, I'm not even gonna talk about what it's about, because it doesn't matter what it's about.

01:14:11.328 --> 01:14:13.899
It's the execution that's so interesting.

01:14:13.899 --> 01:14:16.161
It's the execution that's so interesting about it.

01:14:16.161 --> 01:14:20.273
It's very much a fellow traveler of free play.

01:14:20.273 --> 01:14:30.307
I've talked to Dave about it actually, in terms of its use of the comics medium and its willingness to shift modes and say, nope, we're going to show you something different now.

01:14:30.307 --> 01:14:36.292
And we're just going to have this like entirely different narrative drawn and colored completely differently.

01:14:36.292 --> 01:14:40.293
And it's up to you, the reader, to figure out the thematic connection.

01:14:40.293 --> 01:14:41.764
I think is beautiful.

01:14:41.764 --> 01:14:48.865
And I think that it's a thing that all good literature does, but happens so rarely in comics.

01:14:48.865 --> 01:14:51.877
And it's really inspiring to see them do it in spectrum.

01:14:51.877 --> 01:14:54.518
Spectrum is really fantastic.

01:14:54.518 --> 01:14:58.878
And then the other thing that I'm really excited about, I just got it today.

01:14:58.878 --> 01:15:01.979
I was at the comic book shop before I came over to you.

01:15:01.979 --> 01:15:06.740
And I met I met this guy at Comics Pro.

01:15:06.740 --> 01:15:14.135
His name is Jared Sam's and he does Space Negro, The Last Negro, and there's four of them.

01:15:14.135 --> 01:15:18.002
It's it's like this, it's coming out from first comics and it's bonkers.

01:15:18.002 --> 01:15:19.886
It's absolutely bonkers.

01:15:19.886 --> 01:15:20.466
Have you read it?

01:15:20.466 --> 01:15:21.358
Have you guys seen it?

01:15:21.358 --> 01:15:22.510
I've never heard of it.

01:15:22.510 --> 01:15:24.099
That's gonna be my next one.

01:15:24.173 --> 01:15:25.994
Okay, all gotta have Jared on, you would love him.

01:15:25.994 --> 01:15:27.256
He lives out here.

01:15:27.256 --> 01:15:51.337
But yeah, no, it's like this, like, just frenetic, gonzo, Afrofuturist, sci-fi comic, and it's outrageous, and I can't wait to, I've got all four of them now, so I'm really stoked about all a question I know I know we're getting late I'm allowed to run like y'all are not allowed to run late on me Right, right, if you make it happen, that's fine.

01:15:51.337 --> 01:15:52.380
Yeah, yeah.

01:15:52.481 --> 01:15:54.739
So wait, are y'all both military?

01:15:54.912 --> 01:15:55.384
Yes.

01:15:55.384 --> 01:15:55.713
Yeah.

01:15:55.713 --> 01:15:56.846
Aaron of 20 years.

01:15:56.846 --> 01:15:57.429
did four.

01:15:57.429 --> 01:15:58.390
That's how we met.

01:15:58.390 --> 01:15:58.771
We met.

01:15:58.771 --> 01:15:59.394
Yeah.

01:15:59.394 --> 01:16:00.694
Very cool, man.

01:16:00.694 --> 01:16:02.145
that's very exciting.

01:16:02.145 --> 01:16:05.095
I'm glad that y'all like Free Planet.

01:16:05.336 --> 01:16:07.115
Yes, I'm glad that anybody likes Free Planet.

01:16:07.115 --> 01:16:12.997
I'm especially glad that military folks like Free Planet because I did an extensive amount of research.

01:16:12.997 --> 01:16:17.559
And I mentioned the history of Russian Revolution.

01:16:17.759 --> 01:16:19.659
I read this big book about Cuba.

01:16:19.659 --> 01:16:26.560
And any successful revolution of the 20th century, the military has to be involved.

01:16:26.560 --> 01:16:27.841
Of course they do.

01:16:27.841 --> 01:16:29.055
It just doesn't work.

01:16:29.055 --> 01:16:30.037
otherwise, right?

01:16:30.037 --> 01:16:32.429
You need military buy-in.

01:16:32.429 --> 01:16:45.961
one of the things that I found most interesting of both the Russian book and the Cuba book was the complex relationship between enlisted soldiers, NCOs, and officers.

01:16:46.122 --> 01:16:51.466
that is, for the Russian Revolution, as well as the Cuban Revolution, that's the crux of it.

01:16:51.466 --> 01:16:54.668
That's really, when you dig down, that was the...

01:16:55.768 --> 01:17:01.622
you know, the NCOs choosing to throw their weight behind the revolution, that's what makes it work.

01:17:01.622 --> 01:17:02.222
Right.

01:17:02.222 --> 01:17:03.694
And that was a really a fascinating thing for me.

01:17:03.694 --> 01:17:07.487
And it's something that we kind of touched on a little bit in the first issue some too.

01:17:07.487 --> 01:17:15.573
And I spoke with a lot of veterans just to get, because I, I'm not.

01:17:15.953 --> 01:17:18.005
And so it's something I wanted to make sure that I got right.

01:17:18.005 --> 01:17:19.475
Cause I found it so fascinating.

01:17:19.475 --> 01:17:21.787
So the fact that y'all love it and made my day.

01:17:21.787 --> 01:17:22.637
Thank you.

01:17:22.828 --> 01:17:23.337
Yeah.

01:17:23.337 --> 01:17:45.002
And the offer for if you ever needed it to bounce anything off of like for military wise, like any kind of, I was going to say there's, know that in Hollywood, there's a, big call always for like military advisors when it comes to certain films, at least if you're a quality production, you'll reach out to military and get an advisor because some of you guys don't and it shows, was it a law and order SVU?

01:17:45.002 --> 01:17:46.087
I'm looking at you.

01:17:46.307 --> 01:17:49.689
so yeah, if you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out.

01:17:51.130 --> 01:17:52.595
Absolutely there for you.

01:17:52.595 --> 01:18:10.863
Also, I should say, as people who were prior military, I feel like we still have a lot of self-awareness when it comes to the sort of the cog of, I'll say the American military system and sort of your role and the purpose of signing up and how we're the only sign up military in the world for reasons, right?

01:18:10.863 --> 01:18:12.475
Like without getting really into it.

01:18:12.475 --> 01:18:17.462
Cause again, we're still not, we're trying not to make this thing a two hour long episode, but they're all.

01:18:17.462 --> 01:18:18.564
military.

01:18:19.815 --> 01:18:21.702
Your thoughts on the military field.

01:18:23.127 --> 01:18:24.487
How do I start here?

01:18:24.846 --> 01:18:26.648
Yeah, it's a, it's a big one.

01:18:26.648 --> 01:18:34.001
But yes, I absolutely adore what you've done in terms of the structure of not, not beating over the head, what you're trying to say.

01:18:34.001 --> 01:18:36.631
And I think I have, I have theories on what you're trying to say here.

01:18:36.631 --> 01:18:50.438
What you and Jed are trying to say, should say, but at the same time being like there are certain characters, you have them say certain things and how characters react to what they say, where I'm like, huh, they must have either done something previously in a battle that made them.

01:18:50.560 --> 01:19:00.880
it exposed them in some very specific way, or it's foreshadowing for how they're going to react to something down the road by something that's happening in this restructuring of this brand new planet.

01:19:00.880 --> 01:19:03.301
again, I want to save Aaron, what do you got?

01:19:03.958 --> 01:19:13.346
I want to say, just want to kind of emphasize, you know, we've been using, we've been throwing around this term of like space opera quite a bit throughout this conversation.

01:19:13.346 --> 01:19:17.409
And even just from like the first page, like it feels.

01:19:18.190 --> 01:19:25.287
If there's, there are, there are like movie adaptations of books, there are books that are adaptations of, you know, productions.

01:19:25.287 --> 01:19:31.372
And like, this feels like if you were to make a, if you were to make like a space opera, like, like dune.

01:19:31.467 --> 01:19:35.298
And then adapt it into a, like a straight, like to comic book series.

01:19:35.298 --> 01:19:36.458
Like that's what this feels like.

01:19:36.458 --> 01:19:58.555
It feels, it does feel dense, but it feels dense to the point where there's just so many different leaders that you see immediately these bits and pieces of different parts of the, of this universe that are eventually going to culminate into some amazing, like cataclysmic, you know, story, you just story, story, operatic event.

01:19:58.555 --> 01:20:07.623
And I'm just, I'm Again, you can keep going back to the throughout the first issue and you're going to see that continue to build even from your own perception.

01:20:07.987 --> 01:20:09.898
Thank you.

01:20:09.898 --> 01:20:10.497
Wild.

01:20:10.497 --> 01:20:13.500
It's wild because I I keep going back to that first couple.

01:20:13.500 --> 01:20:18.493
But again, I have again, I there's so much more I'm sure to read and I'm excited for it.

01:20:18.493 --> 01:20:22.583
I love what this even first iteration.

01:20:22.583 --> 01:20:24.385
to what you're exactly what you're trying to say there.

01:20:24.385 --> 01:20:26.076
I'm just, I'm glad that it exists.

01:20:26.076 --> 01:20:43.765
I think is the key on that's the way that I want to sort of bookend this conversation is that when I, when I first looked at the first issue of this book, my first thought was before I knew you Aubrey, before I read a word, I'm like, Whoa, this is a lot of words.

01:20:43.765 --> 01:20:48.288
This feels like, like it feels like a prose novel in comic form.

01:20:48.288 --> 01:20:50.847
And you sort of alluded that that was like maybe a sideways.

01:20:50.847 --> 01:20:54.081
inspiration that you wanted to put as much information on the page.

01:20:54.081 --> 01:20:57.243
And it works, guys.

01:20:57.243 --> 01:21:01.748
I don't know how to say without spoiling anything without continuing this conversation longer than it's already been.

01:21:01.748 --> 01:21:02.578
But like it works.

01:21:02.578 --> 01:21:06.273
And I just I cannot implore people to support ventures like this.

01:21:06.273 --> 01:21:07.992
This is what comics needs, right?

01:21:07.992 --> 01:21:08.802
Thank you.

01:21:08.802 --> 01:21:09.725
I think so.

01:21:09.725 --> 01:21:11.167
I really appreciate that.

01:21:11.167 --> 01:21:14.021
And I think that it is a ton of words on the page.

01:21:14.021 --> 01:21:18.015
And that's the thing we have to dance around, because dense is a bad word in common.

01:21:18.015 --> 01:21:19.981
Yeah, sure, can be, yeah.

01:21:19.981 --> 01:21:57.970
about big captions that aren't placed appropriately on the page in pages that aren't built around them.

01:21:57.970 --> 01:22:02.949
Jed, when he does his layouts, draws, balloon placements are in there.

01:22:02.949 --> 01:22:04.149
He's thinking about it, right?

01:22:04.149 --> 01:22:10.390
And that's why the pages work, even though they're packed with visual information and text.

01:22:10.390 --> 01:22:18.210
And then the other thing, you know, I, it's back to that, I don't know, it all just comes down to my seething resentments.

01:22:18.369 --> 01:22:26.484
But, you know, where all great art comes from, I'll I'll powerful motivator bed.

01:22:26.505 --> 01:22:41.456
But I looked around at books that people kind of celebrated as being the smart, cerebral, like real literature, comics, and almost to a one they're just loaded up with text just loaded up with text.

01:22:41.456 --> 01:22:49.180
And, you know, putting aside whether it's artfully placed in or not, I identified that they typically fall in one of two camps.

01:22:49.180 --> 01:23:04.047
It's either inner monologue, the way you would find in a novel, which never really lands as well as it does in a comic, because it just feels divorced from the actual action you're seeing, or it's explanation of what you're already seeing, right?

01:23:04.047 --> 01:23:09.006
Like, it's a dark and stormy night, the clouds were gathering, but you can look at the panel, it's right there.

01:23:09.286 --> 01:23:09.976
Yeah, exactly.

01:23:09.976 --> 01:23:12.268
And so those are not sufficient to me.

01:23:12.268 --> 01:23:14.279
Like those do not pass muster.

01:23:14.279 --> 01:23:16.140
And I did not want to do that.

01:23:16.140 --> 01:23:20.725
But I knew I needed to find something to both slow people down.

01:23:20.725 --> 01:23:27.288
and also to show that I'm a smart, I got glasses now.

01:23:27.288 --> 01:23:29.168
I'm a smart writer too, man.

01:23:30.390 --> 01:23:31.930
I cut my hair.

01:23:34.692 --> 01:23:38.913
And what I landed on was the future historian, Dr.

01:23:38.913 --> 01:23:40.774
Aldous Foyoroshi.

01:23:40.774 --> 01:23:45.456
the idea is not, you mentioned earlier an idea of what we're trying to say with it.

01:23:45.456 --> 01:23:49.975
And it's less about us trying to put forth a specific idea.

01:23:49.975 --> 01:23:52.747
You know, it's not proper like beef bros is propaganda.

01:23:52.747 --> 01:23:54.057
Free plan is not propaganda.

01:23:54.057 --> 01:23:55.668
It's not even direct metaphor.

01:23:55.668 --> 01:24:01.292
You know, it's, it's an exploration and it's a rumination on this really complex stuff.

01:24:01.391 --> 01:24:10.478
the captions play a really pivotal role in that it's possible for someone to read the book, just looking at the art and reading the dialogue.

01:24:10.478 --> 01:24:11.898
And you're still gonna have a good time.

01:24:11.898 --> 01:24:13.809
You're going to get all this big military action.

01:24:13.809 --> 01:24:18.742
You're going to get all this like Claremontian interpersonal drama with people.

01:24:18.786 --> 01:24:29.412
What you're going to miss out on is the geopolitical context, inclusive of politics, war, religion, anthropology, philosophy, that gets covered in the captions.

01:24:29.412 --> 01:24:37.259
And why that's important is because it provides additional context for added understanding of the scenes that you're reading.

01:24:37.259 --> 01:24:45.293
It sometimes provides another perspective on them such that if you read the scene without the captions, maybe you'd have a different view on it.

01:24:45.293 --> 01:24:51.686
But you read the captions and all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute, the people on this planet are starving to death.

01:24:51.686 --> 01:24:55.768
That changes how I view this scene that I'm looking at.

01:24:55.768 --> 01:24:58.109
I'm talking about a specific one in the first issue.

01:24:58.109 --> 01:25:07.291
Or sometimes what's discussed in the captions actively undercuts and conflicts with what the characters are doing and saying as well.

01:25:07.291 --> 01:25:18.673
And it's all with the idea of driving complexity and ambiguity because we set out to make something that works as literature and art object.

01:25:18.676 --> 01:25:26.670
And for my money, what those two things have in common, literature and art object, is that you need to think on them.

01:25:26.670 --> 01:25:28.229
You need to ruminate, right?

01:25:28.229 --> 01:25:30.350
It's not a direct metaphor.

01:25:30.350 --> 01:25:34.811
It's not something, it's not a puzzle for you to figure out and then you get it and understand.

01:25:34.811 --> 01:25:38.975
No, it's something worth spending some time reading and rereading and thinking about.

01:25:38.975 --> 01:25:41.435
to do that, you need ambiguity.

01:25:41.435 --> 01:25:43.337
You need to live in these kind of gray spaces.

01:25:43.337 --> 01:25:44.717
So yeah, man.

01:25:44.717 --> 01:25:53.095
It's very well known that in a revolution type scenario, it's very ambiguous to who is on the right side of history.

01:25:54.207 --> 01:25:55.962
Usually the winners tell the story, right?

01:25:55.962 --> 01:25:57.235
That's sort of history.

01:25:57.235 --> 01:26:02.108
so, well, my gosh, Aubrey, what a great conversation.

01:26:02.108 --> 01:26:03.742
What a pleasure having you here on the show.

01:26:03.742 --> 01:26:06.688
And I'm gonna invite myself back if y'all don't.

01:26:07.546 --> 01:26:09.725
The third chair is yours whenever you want it, honestly.

01:26:09.725 --> 01:26:16.905
It's such a, such a great conversation about this incredible experiment, I'll say in comics that I absolutely love.

01:26:16.905 --> 01:26:19.865
And I, and I really, really, really want to succeed.

01:26:20.086 --> 01:26:28.006
And, you know, again, as I said earlier in the conversation, FOC for free planet number one comes out on April 14th and then officially releases on May 7th.

01:26:28.006 --> 01:26:34.865
So be like Aaron and I go out, call your comic book shop right now as you're listening to this conversation and go ahead and pre-order that first issue.

01:26:34.865 --> 01:26:37.198
So Excited to see how people react to this first issue.

01:26:37.198 --> 01:26:44.358
honestly, I believe that this, you know, this is not going to be like, I don't think like a commercially easily advice.

01:26:44.358 --> 01:26:46.938
Like you're going to able to advertise this book on a commercial level.

01:26:46.938 --> 01:26:57.097
I don't think, but I do believe that this is going to be a lot of people's favorite book of 2025 as some, like at the end of the year, a lot of people are going to be making their best comics of 2025 free plan will be on that list.

01:26:57.097 --> 01:26:58.765
I honestly firmly believe that.

01:26:58.765 --> 01:27:10.154
hope so, And I think that, you I feel very optimistic about it because it is, mean, so I showed it to Howard Shake, my uncle Howard, and his first response was, I love it.

01:27:10.154 --> 01:27:11.875
There's no audience for this.

01:27:11.875 --> 01:27:12.996
No one will buy this.

01:27:12.996 --> 01:27:22.020
And like, you know, he's got his own resentments and bitterness, right, from his history in comics as well.

01:27:22.021 --> 01:27:30.646
But, you know, I've been really encouraged by the conversations I've been having with not just, you know, like, Y'all are a self-selecting sample, right?

01:27:30.646 --> 01:27:35.729
People who love comics enough to be doing podcasts about them, you know, that's a very specific thing.

01:27:35.748 --> 01:27:37.038
I'm not, you're normal.

01:27:37.038 --> 01:27:38.029
Don't worry.

01:27:38.029 --> 01:27:41.930
No judge.

01:27:41.930 --> 01:27:44.051
It's a slight scale.

01:27:44.731 --> 01:27:48.033
But talking to retailers, talking to retailers.

01:27:48.033 --> 01:27:53.395
And I think that there is a appetite for something different.

01:27:53.395 --> 01:27:58.188
We've been caught up in the same kind of storytelling mode in comics.

01:27:58.188 --> 01:28:01.100
for 20, for just about 20 years, right?

01:28:01.100 --> 01:28:15.301
It's decompression, it's teleplay inspired pacing, and you know, lots of ping pong dialogue and you know, like really a primacy of the primacy of the narrative, right?

01:28:15.301 --> 01:28:21.326
And plot and character and all that stuff's important, but I think there's a lot more to comics and I think people are ready for something different.

01:28:21.326 --> 01:28:23.898
I think folks are ready for something that...

01:28:24.952 --> 01:28:26.613
they can chew on a little bit more.

01:28:26.613 --> 01:28:30.247
This isn't a book that you read in five or 10 minutes and then file away.

01:28:30.247 --> 01:28:38.484
This is something I keep talking to people and they say, I started reading it and I realized I wasn't gonna have time to finish it.

01:28:38.484 --> 01:28:45.529
Or like I read three pages each night over the course of a week or whatever, which is bonkers.

01:28:45.529 --> 01:28:51.164
That's like a bonkers thing to say in the context of comics as we see them now, but it doesn't have to be.

01:28:51.164 --> 01:28:57.403
And I think that like, I know myself as a fan, love something that I get my money's worth.

01:28:57.403 --> 01:28:58.635
I'm paying $4 for this thing.

01:28:58.635 --> 01:29:01.368
Let's spend some time with it and let me think on it.

01:29:01.368 --> 01:29:03.329
So I'm feeling optimistic.

01:29:03.329 --> 01:29:07.335
think, you know, and I'll tell you what else is inspiring optimism for me.

01:29:07.335 --> 01:29:11.018
The fact that we did, we did, where are they?

01:29:11.278 --> 01:29:14.877
Oh, you're going talk about the ash cans because I wanted to bring it up.

01:29:14.877 --> 01:29:17.582
But yeah, my God, please tell the people about these ash cans.

01:29:17.582 --> 01:29:20.265
So did ask, so because of what we're talking about, right?

01:29:20.265 --> 01:29:24.668
Like it's a book that you have to read in print because it's big spreads.

01:29:24.668 --> 01:29:27.190
It is, they aren't going to read digitally very well.

01:29:27.190 --> 01:29:28.893
It's lots of detail.

01:29:28.893 --> 01:29:39.082
It's graphs and charts and maps and diagrams and just absurd all worked in as interstitials, but like worked into the comic page itself.

01:29:39.082 --> 01:29:42.685
And I knew that to understand what I mean.

01:29:42.797 --> 01:29:48.177
you all read the PDF and so you're very generous but I your understandings of this thing.

01:29:48.177 --> 01:29:51.778
I knew like showing this to retailers, they need to see it.

01:29:51.778 --> 01:29:59.578
Before retailers ordered this thing, they needed to actually see what they were ordering because just reading a PDF was not going to be sufficient.

01:29:59.578 --> 01:30:02.018
We printed up 407 of them.

01:30:02.018 --> 01:30:07.497
And I gave them out at comics Pro and I've been sending them to retailers that I talked to on the phone.

01:30:07.497 --> 01:30:11.118
And they're going for like 150 bucks on eBay.

01:30:11.148 --> 01:30:12.042
Wild.

01:30:12.141 --> 01:30:21.101
It's absurd, a guy who, know, Jen and I do not have, you know, I edited it Marvel a lifetime ago, but like, we're not, we're not coming off a big Batman run, right?

01:30:21.101 --> 01:30:22.862
We didn't, we haven't done X-Men books.

01:30:22.862 --> 01:30:29.601
Like we don't have the pedigree of stuff that gets that kind of response.

01:30:29.601 --> 01:30:32.542
And yet people are, people are snatching it up.

01:30:32.542 --> 01:30:35.841
So no, I'm very encouraged by it, honestly.

01:30:35.841 --> 01:30:37.023
That's cool to hear.

01:30:37.024 --> 01:30:41.493
I saw that while doing research for this conversation that they were going for wild numbers on eBay.

01:30:41.493 --> 01:30:45.622
I was like, that is very, you know, I believe that people were excited because of that.

01:30:45.622 --> 01:30:46.635
That's really cool.

01:30:46.635 --> 01:30:46.926
So.

01:30:46.926 --> 01:31:05.185
It means something, know, like, I don't know, people, people get really down on the speculator market, but it is a, first of all, it's part of comics and it's always been part of comics and anybody, anybody act in like the current system would still function without speculator plays is fooling themselves.

01:31:05.405 --> 01:31:07.046
The math just does not check out.

01:31:07.046 --> 01:31:08.746
It's part of it, right?

01:31:08.746 --> 01:31:20.261
Is one and two, I think it's a bellwether, you know, like the fact, the fact that people are that excited about right now, think says something about how they're going to be feeling about it in just about a month from now.

01:31:20.421 --> 01:31:24.805
It shouldn't be the ultimate determiner for like excitement, but I think it's a decent gauge, right?

01:31:24.805 --> 01:31:28.728
At least shows that people are excited about it for one reason or another, whatever that reason might be.

01:31:29.569 --> 01:31:30.229
Right.

01:31:30.229 --> 01:31:31.990
Well, Aubrey, again, thank you so much.

01:31:31.990 --> 01:31:36.003
Before we let you go quickly, can I ask you just like, how can people follow your career?

01:31:36.003 --> 01:31:38.815
What's the best way to sort of follow everything going forward?

01:31:38.815 --> 01:31:41.573
And if there's anything else you want to sort of list here at the end, of course.

01:31:41.573 --> 01:31:46.626
You know, I'm on most of the social media and it's just my name, Aubrey Sidderson.

01:31:46.626 --> 01:31:47.118
It's really easy.

01:31:47.118 --> 01:31:48.310
I'm really easy to Google.

01:31:48.310 --> 01:31:49.421
There's only one of me.

01:31:49.421 --> 01:31:53.083
I think if you're going to do one thing, I would subscribe to my newsletter.

01:31:53.083 --> 01:32:01.449
It's Atlantis, like the sunken city, Atlantis still sunk.com Atlantis still sunk.com.

01:32:01.449 --> 01:32:02.850
It goes out every week.

01:32:03.452 --> 01:32:11.189
And I've been doing, I've been doing deep dives into free planets, bibliography, all the books I've read this week.

01:32:11.189 --> 01:32:20.585
So when this goes live, there will be one up talking about process on a very specific spread from issue one that has not been shown anywhere yet.

01:32:20.585 --> 01:32:24.390
And we're just going to go, it goes step by step talking about how it came together.

01:32:24.493 --> 01:32:24.914
Sure.

01:32:24.914 --> 01:32:25.324
Okay.

01:32:25.324 --> 01:32:25.626
Awesome.

01:32:25.626 --> 01:32:29.551
Well, Aubrey, again, as we've said many times here, I do need to get you back on at some point.

01:32:29.551 --> 01:32:37.011
So whenever that might be, whether it be for the beginning of hopefully the second arc or maybe just the collection of the trade, that would be, I think a great time.

01:32:37.011 --> 01:32:39.373
And maybe we can even convince Jed to get on here as well.

01:32:39.373 --> 01:32:40.014
Love it.

01:32:40.014 --> 01:32:41.957
I'm on board, Thank you for having me.

01:32:42.387 --> 01:32:43.057
All right, everybody.

01:32:43.057 --> 01:32:44.639
There's that conversation with Aubrey Sisserson.

01:32:44.639 --> 01:32:48.180
Again, thank you, Aubrey, so much for joining us here on the Oblivion Bar podcast.

01:32:48.180 --> 01:32:55.345
I genuinely hope that everyone listening to that conversation or that that had just listened to that conversation sees the importance of this book.

01:32:55.345 --> 01:33:03.310
We said at the beginning of the intro, we needed more time and we will get him and Jed on the show at some point to discuss this book.

01:33:03.537 --> 01:33:08.831
frustrating ending to a conversation because we had so much to talk about.

01:33:08.831 --> 01:33:13.302
It's like we, we, only get so much time with these creators.

01:33:13.512 --> 01:33:16.284
luckily enough, like I said, he, he is such a cool.

01:33:17.085 --> 01:33:17.515
Yeah.

01:33:17.515 --> 01:33:19.645
He's such a cool down to earth dude.

01:33:19.787 --> 01:33:22.377
he's going to try and get Jed Doherty on here as well.

01:33:22.377 --> 01:33:33.355
like, let's yeah, like do your best people go out there, preorder this book and that way, you know, we can bring him back and, and, and we can get down deep and dirty into free planet.

01:33:33.355 --> 01:33:33.865
Yeah.

01:33:33.865 --> 01:33:40.211
Again, I'll say, I've said it multiple times during the episode, but FLC April 14th comes out on May 7th.

01:33:40.211 --> 01:33:41.692
So go support this book.

01:33:41.692 --> 01:33:43.654
This is the book to support everybody.

01:33:43.654 --> 01:33:51.032
And again, thank you, Aubrey for coming on, but also we should promote that next week on the show, Aaron, for episode 190 of the Oblivion Bar podcast.

01:33:51.032 --> 01:33:52.180
Do know what we're doing?

01:33:52.260 --> 01:33:52.820
No.

01:33:52.820 --> 01:33:55.072
You have no idea what's going on?

01:33:55.319 --> 01:33:56.807
Definitely not Minecraft.

01:33:58.637 --> 01:34:01.318
Battle Royale time, Oh, yeah.

01:34:01.318 --> 01:34:02.520
six of Battle Royale.

01:34:02.520 --> 01:34:07.394
Yeah Ruh! yes.

01:34:07.394 --> 01:34:09.250
Da el batallarín.

01:34:09.250 --> 01:34:09.930
That's right.

01:34:09.930 --> 01:34:13.113
Five fighters from both Aaron and I five random scenarios.

01:34:13.113 --> 01:34:15.835
It's one of our favorite segments here on the Oblivion Bar podcast.

01:34:15.835 --> 01:34:21.457
We put them up against each other and we discuss who will win and Aaron, if I'm not mistaken, I'm currently winning three to two.

01:34:22.710 --> 01:34:26.154
I love to throw that in your face and this is your time.

01:34:26.154 --> 01:34:27.868
It's always the fucking audience man.

01:34:27.868 --> 01:34:32.976
Well, I fuck me Sorry guys, but you do I love you, but goddamn you.

01:34:32.976 --> 01:34:33.655
All right.

01:34:33.655 --> 01:34:39.115
of you So make sure you guys check that out next week.

01:34:39.115 --> 01:34:40.557
Battle Royale number six.

01:34:40.557 --> 01:34:42.622
Cannot wait to record that with you, Aaron.

01:34:42.622 --> 01:34:44.106
But that'll do it for episode 189.

01:34:44.106 --> 01:34:45.735
Please take us out of here.

01:34:46.271 --> 01:34:46.872
All right.

01:34:46.872 --> 01:34:50.189
Make sure you go and place your bets on that battle Royale on.

01:34:50.189 --> 01:34:54.109
We got a free promo code over at a and a fan duel.

01:34:54.109 --> 01:34:56.141
the over the over under all that.

01:34:56.141 --> 01:34:59.630
OVP Ball Sack gets you 25 % free credits.

01:34:59.630 --> 01:35:01.189
Come on guys, like vote for me.

01:35:01.189 --> 01:35:02.600
It's not that hard.

01:35:02.600 --> 01:35:04.590
are no collusion.

01:35:04.590 --> 01:35:05.090
Okay, sorry.

01:35:05.090 --> 01:35:06.029
on.

01:35:07.770 --> 01:35:09.110
Hang on.

01:35:09.110 --> 01:35:12.341
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01:35:54.689 --> 01:35:56.159
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01:35:56.159 --> 01:35:59.542
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01:35:59.542 --> 01:35:59.881
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01:35:59.881 --> 01:36:01.953
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01:36:01.953 --> 01:36:02.807
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01:36:02.807 --> 01:36:04.881
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01:36:04.881 --> 01:36:06.863
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01:36:06.863 --> 01:36:08.615
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01:36:08.615 --> 01:36:15.243
And last but not least, don't forget to keep your bartenders 20 % or more or Chris will lose the next battle.

01:36:16.413 --> 01:36:18.086
And we need that to not happen, everybody.

01:36:18.086 --> 01:36:20.979
I need to win for my own ego and for my own personal record.

01:36:20.979 --> 01:36:26.484
So, well, you know, Aaron, that's the thing about ego is that I always feel like mine's more important.

01:36:29.386 --> 01:36:29.797
all right.

01:36:29.797 --> 01:36:32.470
Well, everybody, thank you so much for joining us here on the Abiliemore podcast.

01:36:32.470 --> 01:36:35.293
We will see you next week for episode one.