INTERVIEW: Chip Kidd

WEBVTT

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Hey, this is Chip Kidd, graphic designer and writer of The Avengers in the Veracity Trap with Michael Cho, and you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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

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you Joining me today is the legendary book designer and writer behind projects like Batman Death by Design with Dave Taylor, Mythology and Marvelosity with Alex Ross, Batman Animated and Dark Knight, a true Batman story with Paul Dini, and most recently, The Avengers, The Verrocity Trap with artist Michael Cho over at Abrams Books.

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It is my absolute honor to welcome Chip Kidd onto the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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Well, thank you very much.

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I appreciate that.

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Glad to be here.

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Absolutely, Chip.

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What an honor.

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As I said there in the intro, so great to have you here.

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And actually I would love to start this conversation by talking about sort of this large idea that I hope you've, I'm sure you've probably noodled on quite a bit throughout your career, but you know, as a society, it feels like our relationship to art and the way that we sort of ingest it is changing very rapidly.

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And how, like you, I assume, I believe, you know, books in their many form can and should act as art objects.

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And you once said, I think it was maybe possibly in a Ted talk or maybe it was a podcast interview.

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can't remember exactly where it was, but you said that eBooks lack thingness, sort of like in quotation thingness.

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that books you've worked on throughout your career, they all feel like candidates that you could just sort of take off the shelf and study for a bit.

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my question for you, first question here Chip is with the convenience of digital here in 2025, do you also fear that we are beyond the point of return when it comes to our relationship to physical media?

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as our objects?

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um I don't really, because I see it the perspective of a publisher.

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We're publishing as many books as we ever have and people are buying them.

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E-books still only account for something like 7 % of our sales.

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I don't know how else to answer that.

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Like I try to make the reading experience a physical thing for the reader.

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for them to hold it in their hands and smell the ink and pace it their own way.

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So the latest book is the Veracity Trap.

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Well, it's not like Abrams said, you know what, this is gonna be ebook only.

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They never say that.

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And we at Pantheon never say that.

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In fact, most of our graphic novels are not available as ebooks because the artists don't want that.

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I don't know if that answers your question.

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Absolutely.

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does.

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think it sort of just like reaffirms what I've been thinking as well I'm a huge physical media collector both with film and with books and as you said there's this sort of magic that goes to just holding it in your hands and I also think of like this idea of like I fear that we're getting to this point now where we just sort of read watch whatever's in front of us whatever the streaming services want to put on their service or whatever is sort of popular among like book talk.

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don't even know if you know what that is, but like TikTok has like their own little fan club of like books and comics.

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And usually it's like whatever the influences are reading, that's what, you know, the youth are reading.

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And I'm saying youth as a 30 year old, I shouldn't be saying youth.

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I'm not that much older than them.

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But point being is that I'm just sort of worried that like the day and age of, you know, having a collection and, and, I know you and I are sort of, of this mind of like, that's a, that's something that we just do inherently, but I'm, sort of nervous that like, our attachment to physical media is sort of waning.

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And I just want to sort of get your thoughts on that.

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And sort of if you were, I guess I want you to reassure me, I guess is what I want to chip.

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All right, well, let me reassure you.

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As somebody who's literally more than twice your age, like I said, I work in the physical book business, both as part of my day job as an editor at large for graphic novels for Pantheon and also as a freelancer.

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The Avengers and the Veracity Trap is a freelance job.

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Like I said, we're publishing as many, if not more books than we ever have.

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You're basically telling me to stop being so pessimistic and I should, totally agree.

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I am.

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But I'll also tell you, like, at the risk of of sounding like the ostrich with his head in the sand that I am, I'm not on TikTok.

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Sure.

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I don't have it on my phone.

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And yet I find out all about it, like even whether I want to or not.

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uh And I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, but, the quote influencers are not influencing me about anything.

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But of course I'm not, I'm probably not their audience.

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So there you go.

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So I should get off TikTok, is what you're saying.

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That's what I do.

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do what you want.

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uh you know, comic book stores still exist.

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I was just at one in Austin, Texas a couple of weeks ago signing the Veracity Trap book and it's still a thing.

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I mean, especially what's going on now in this country.

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There's only so much that we have control over.

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And I think you have to, we're getting very deep now, too deep, but I want to bring it on, bring it on.

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Yeah.

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You have to be mindful of the things that you can control.

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You can control what you do.

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You can control your immediate environment.

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And it may extend beyond that.

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You can control what you create, what you want to read.

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You just have to be mindful of that.

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Like I have control over this thing.

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I don't have control over that thing.

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I can voice my opinion about that other thing.

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But This is what I have control over and that is where my attention should be focused.

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And now, of course, I'm a single middle-aged gay man who's never had a family.

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So that's a whole other experience that I will not have.

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But for those of you who do have that experience, you have that responsibility to them.

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Yeah, sorry.

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thought we were gonna talk about the book.

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No, no, we are.

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are.

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just wanted to set this up because I feel like I can't have you on the show without at least picking your brain at least a little bit about, you know, as we said, you know, influence and sort of like where we're at currently in terms of physical media, because I'm a firm believer that a lot of things, the success that we've seen within publishing over the last three decades has been, I think you play a large sort of important role in that, I think.

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And I have a question about that later on, but I do want to sort of one more thing before we get into the brass.

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I want to talk a little bit about your Ted talks that you've had here recently.

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Well, not really actually not recently.

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They were 2012 and then 2015.

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That's right.

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Still look great, by the way, even back then.

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I mean, you look like you've actually it's like a little gray, but I have a little gray in mind, too.

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But also you look just as good, if not better, honestly.

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Are you seeing anyone?

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I am unfortunately hetero, uh fortunate about that, I was making a joke.

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That's my cross to bear, unfortunately, Chip.

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But so the first TED Talk, yeah, was March of 2012.

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And you have to keep in mind, which I cannot watch, by the way, I think it's kind of dreadful.

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But you have to keep in mind that at the end, I'm basically pissing all over the Kindle as a piece of crap.

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And I know that Jeff Bezos is in the audience.

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Oh, wow.

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You're the voice for all of us.

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Hey.

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I mean, but yeah, I mean, that's that's that just seems like a whole lifetime ago.

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Well, can I, can I quote you from that from, from, think it was maybe the 2015 one.

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This will lead me into a question I have about sort of this idea we're sort of circling right now.

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You say here in one of these Ted talks, the book designer's responsibility is threefold to the reader, to the publisher, and most of all to the author.

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I am not responsible for the content of the book.

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That's the author's job.

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But at the same time, I am responsible for what the content looks like.

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And I found that really fascinating.

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When you're both the writer, and the designer of a book similar as you are to the Avengers and the Veracity Trap.

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Do you still approach those responsibilities separately and sort of how you're speaking there in that Ted Talk?

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Hmm.

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mean, that's a good question because now we're talking about authorship, which I was not in that talk.

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I was talking about the presentation of the authorship.

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So it's a different, I want to say problem to solve, or it's more about, what kind of story do I want to tell?

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What do I want the takeaway to be for the audience?

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And can I make it worth their money so that they buy the book?

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They're similar, but different things.

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Because when I'm responsible for the content, as well as what it looks like, that's a bigger responsibility.

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And you've got to juggle all that or thread the needle if you want to use another cliche and try to do the best you can at all of it.

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Sure.

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It really pops, I think, on the shelf.

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As soon as you see Verasity Trap on the shelf.

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is uh that sort of orange and of course Michael Cho's are all that together.

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And of course the font.

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I love it.

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I think that you guys do with the dust jacket as well.

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Okay.

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Great job with that.

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Good.

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So, all right.

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So you got that.

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Like that was really, really important to me.

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And I owe this book to my editor and best friend, Charlie Kochman at Abrams Comic Arts, who is just a hero all around.

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And he, you know, acts as like the go-between uh between like me and Mike and the Marvel editor.

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And, you know, we all have to ultimately be in agreement about about what we're doing.

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But sort of at the 11th hour, I said to Charlie, can we print on the other side of the jacket?

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Can we print on the reverse?

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And he said, well, let me look into that because it's more money.

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It's like four color process on both sides of it.

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And he got back to me and he said, yes, we can.

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And I was filled with girlish glee because I knew exactly what I wanted to do and which is what you see.

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And you can reverse it, but when it's on your shelf, the spine still works.

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It still says what it is, and you can find it.

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I wanted to make it a much more epic feeling presentation.

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And I understood why we had to do the jacket that we did on the other side, but I wanted to give the reader the option to change it up a bit.

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Yeah.

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And honestly, I like both sides.

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don't know.

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I actually don't know which side I like best because, know, of course on the front you have sort of the normal trade dress.

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It does a really good job of teasing what you're about to walk into.

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And then on the other side, of course, it's just, I mean, if you're a Michael Cho fan, which I think a lot of us are listening to this and both of you and I together, of course, it's the one of the greatest showcases of his work on any book.

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let's just get, I say, well, let's just go right into Veracity Trap here again, as we spoke about here thus far.

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And actually it's already out.

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If folks who listen to this conversation now came out on August 6th.

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It's actually my birthday chip.

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thank you for putting out.

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birthday.

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Thank you.

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Yeah.

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Thank you for putting this out on my birthday.

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And this is part of the Marvel arts imprint within Abrams as you, as you spoke about there.

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And I'll do sort of a brief synopsis here just to sort of, you know, prime the listener here.

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So it all starts with an epic battle in Asgard as Loki, the God of Mischief comes into possession of a weapon of unimaginable power and assembles an army of other worldly monsters in an effort to carry out his evil plans.

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Cue the Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man.

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Thor, Hulk, Giant Man, and the Wasp, who meets his horrifyingly throg of beasts heading on as a thrilling knockdown drag out fight ensues.

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But when the smoke clears, what appears as a typical Raukus comic book takedown is revealed to be something very, very different and very, terrifying.

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And this discovery threatens to destroy the Avengers in a way that Loki or any other foe had never thought before, because this time the enemy is the truth.

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So before we get into the actual story here, Chip, I want to talk to you about Michael.

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Well, you've talked much about how much you respect and love Michael as a person.

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And I want to get in that as well.

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But you you've worked with some incredible illustrators throughout your career, as I mentioned there in the intro, Alex Ross, of course, the late Dave Taylor, and then of course now Michael.

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So it's just sort of a simple question here.

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What's unique about the way that Michael Cho approaches storytelling?

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What he's doing is so clear, but so beautiful with an economy of line and he gives you just enough that you understand it, but you also have an emotional connection to it, which is very important for any of these artists who you're describing.

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I was first approached by Charlie Kochman who gave me an open brief and said, do you want to write one of these things?

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And I wasn't going to say no, but it's, what do you do?

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Like, yeah, you can pick any Marvel character you want.

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That's how it was presented was you kind of get like a sort of a fresh slate to tell any Marvel story you want to tell.

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Which is.

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bad.

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Because like in the graphic design business and the book cover graphic design business, there is an axiom that when you give the client too much to choose from, they won't choose anything because they can't focus it.

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They can't boil it down.

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Give them three things.

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So what had to happen was I had to decide for myself, okay, let's make it The Avengers.

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Let's make it The Avengers in 1964.

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Let's see if we can get Michael Cho on the line and talk about it.

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He and I have a really great, long, productive history together.

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The first time we worked together was on a Batman and Robin and Superman short story in Batman Black and White.

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And that went really, really well.

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And then...

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I published his original graphic novel called Shoplifter here at Pantheon, which is still in print and which is excellent.

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And I highly, highly recommend it.

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What brought me to him with this, with the Avengers and the Veracity Trap was I already had the concept, but then who do I want to try to get to be the artist?

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And a big...

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Now you were talking about like the evils of TikTok, but his posts on Instagram of his convention drawings, I mean, the Batman one, they're all great.

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But the Marvel ones really got me thinking.

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he did one of Iron Man with the V baseplate.

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And I'm like, my God, that's right.

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I love that.

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I love that so much.

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And I think that was like all of two issues.

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So I thought, well, let's just shoot for my first choice.

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And I called him and he picked up the phone and we had a nice long talk, which eventually led to what you see.

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And once he did agree to do this, fully understanding that it would be at least three years of his working life.

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What I wanted to bring to it was like, okay, I've got the concept, but now how can the writing serve Mike's art the best way?

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haven't actually, I haven't written much comic book material, but in each case, I knew who the artist was.

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Tony Millionaire, Michael Cho, Alex Ross, and you write to what they can do and what they do really well.

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And what I'm thrilled about with this is, yes, Mike has done dozens of brilliant, gorgeous covers for Marvel Comics, but I want to see him do a story.

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And I want to see him do a long-form story.

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And I want his abilities to shine.

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That's what the whole opening sequence is about.

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It's just a big, old-fashioned knockdown, drag-out fight.

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But I want to see sequentially how he handles that.

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And by the way, all of those monsters are Kirby monsters from the early 1960s.

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Like somebody said, oh, Feng Feng Fung is in there.

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Yes, he is.

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But all the rest of them, those are also Kirby monsters that previously existed.

00:18:43.854 --> 00:18:53.448
And once I got fixated on that, that was very important to me because those comics appeared before Fantastic Four number one.

00:18:53.448 --> 00:19:06.226
There's just this outrageous sense of fun and weirdness and and you know, look at this big damn thing that's going to like crush us all and how do we defeat it?

00:19:06.226 --> 00:19:13.057
And uh I just thought I want to put a gang of those together and see what happens.

00:19:13.057 --> 00:19:14.086
And we did.

00:19:14.086 --> 00:19:16.460
And but then there's the whole.

00:19:16.460 --> 00:19:20.226
So the basic concept is for this book.

00:19:20.226 --> 00:19:21.747
There are two realms.

00:19:21.747 --> 00:19:24.288
There is our realm, which is reality.

00:19:24.288 --> 00:19:27.891
But then on the page, there is the Marvel realm.

00:19:27.891 --> 00:19:36.557
In the Marvel realm, the two dimensional comics page, those characters think that what's happening to them is real.

00:19:36.557 --> 00:19:39.219
And they think that they have free will.

00:19:39.219 --> 00:19:47.104
And they think that they can control what they're saying, what they're doing, how they're going to try and defeat the enemy.

00:19:47.164 --> 00:19:49.326
It's just what would happen.

00:19:49.789 --> 00:20:07.342
if, okay, in this case, Loki creates this portal so that if they go through it, if he can trick them into going through it, when they come out on the other side, they'll understand what they are, as in their drawings.

00:20:07.342 --> 00:20:19.089
And then there's this whole three-page soliloquy by Thor who's trying to explain to the rest of them, to the rest of the team, what he has discovered.

00:20:19.193 --> 00:20:34.498
and both hilarious, but also in its own way kind of profound to the point where he says, even these words I'm speaking to you were written by somebody else.

00:20:35.038 --> 00:20:49.391
And it's not the first time that anybody's ever done this by a stretch, but I think what we were able to do with it, I'm hoping, is in its own way unique.

00:20:49.391 --> 00:21:13.537
And there was this takeaway that I finally figured out that I wanted the reader to have, which is, know, spoiler alert, towards the end, the Wasp, who has some of the best lines, by the way, says to me, well, okay, but how would you like to know that you're just somebody else's idea?

00:21:13.537 --> 00:21:16.837
To which I respond, but Jan.

00:21:16.993 --> 00:21:26.916
The only thing that everybody has in common, everybody in the whole world, is that we are all somebody else's idea.

00:21:27.297 --> 00:21:41.299
We didn't create ourselves like somebody else had to do it, which I completely stole from Rick and Morty when the one episode at the end he says to Summer, nobody asks to be born.

00:21:41.300 --> 00:21:42.961
Let's watch TV.

00:21:43.921 --> 00:21:47.021
And yeah, I completely stole that.

00:21:47.021 --> 00:21:47.496
Yeah.

00:21:47.496 --> 00:21:54.490
I'm sure that the writers of Rick and Morty stole it from somebody else and that's okay.

00:21:54.771 --> 00:21:58.694
yeah, I mean, I really wanted this to...

00:21:58.694 --> 00:22:16.190
It's a delivery system for Mike's art and how good he is and attention must be paid because I really think that he is of the very, very best working in the comic book industry now.

00:22:16.190 --> 00:22:17.106
But like...

00:22:17.106 --> 00:22:20.065
nobody given him the chance to do a whole story.

00:22:20.065 --> 00:22:24.125
And that's what I that's what we were able to do.

00:22:24.289 --> 00:22:25.390
Yeah, and thank you for that.

00:22:25.390 --> 00:22:35.272
think a lot of us that are long time Michael Cho fans will tell you that I think a lot of us have been sort of begging for some sequentials, know, some panels from this guy, because obviously his covers are incredible.

00:22:35.272 --> 00:22:36.972
And like you said, I'll echo it.

00:22:36.972 --> 00:22:37.854
He's one of the best.

00:22:37.854 --> 00:22:45.006
And it was sort of funny to me, though, I think with the Verossi trap that, you know, as you said, it is sort of fashioned as this Silver Age tale.

00:22:45.006 --> 00:22:54.349
And, know, for a long time, too, even in the Silver Age going into like modern, it felt like comic creators had mostly they had to like sort of subtly.

00:22:54.349 --> 00:23:02.990
put themselves into their work, because to be honest, and I think you would probably agree with this, comics for a long time, it was disposable trash for kids.

00:23:02.990 --> 00:23:05.690
That's sort of the way they even saw it, I think, to a certain extent.

00:23:05.690 --> 00:23:14.549
But then you fast forward to 2025 with this work with you and Michael, and you guys in the most meta way possible have put yourselves into this story.

00:23:14.549 --> 00:23:29.288
So I'm sort of curious, was it difficult for you both or for you when you sort of came up with this idea in striking that balance between playfully inserting yourself into this story and also at the same time staying true to the story that you and Michael wanted to tell.

00:23:29.420 --> 00:23:42.839
Well, so backing up a bit, Alex Ross is an executive editor on this series of Marvel Arts for Abrams Comic Arts, and he's very involved.

00:23:43.461 --> 00:23:53.528
And I remember early on, we had a Zoom meeting of Alex, Charlie Kochman, me, and Mike Cho.

00:23:53.609 --> 00:24:03.971
Alex, as he is wont to do, pulled up every instance of me writing a comic book story that also has me in it.

00:24:03.973 --> 00:24:09.617
And I'm like, yes, I'm a textbook narcissist.

00:24:09.708 --> 00:24:10.689
You're all of us though.

00:24:10.689 --> 00:24:11.705
We would all do it.

00:24:11.705 --> 00:24:14.836
As a fan, I want to meet these characters.

00:24:14.836 --> 00:24:19.288
And I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's a way to do that.

00:24:19.288 --> 00:24:30.784
And I know that the Avengers book gets a bit speechy at the end, like that, like that was our chance to do that, which, was to say thank you to everyone.

00:24:30.784 --> 00:24:36.855
And, and I mean, who we're really saying thank you to is of course, Stanley and Jack Kirby.

00:24:37.056 --> 00:24:52.359
But in the book, we're, saying thank you to the characters because We want them to feel that they are real and that once we go back through this portal at the end, we will destroy it and they won't remember any of it.

00:24:52.359 --> 00:24:55.902
So, yeah, so I just spoiled the whole thing, but.

00:24:55.902 --> 00:25:02.201
uh Well, I don't think like as this story is warm, it feels like a hug kind of like I love reading it.

00:25:02.201 --> 00:25:05.403
But I will say and I think you may agree with me.

00:25:05.403 --> 00:25:08.915
I think this is a book that you sort of have to experience and you have to hold in your hand.

00:25:08.915 --> 00:25:13.107
Like we said before, like this is a book that you could totally know every story beat.

00:25:13.107 --> 00:25:21.869
But I think the true enjoyment to be found with it is actually experiencing it and seeing Michael's sequentials and sort of seeing this loose storyline that we're laying out here.

00:25:21.869 --> 00:25:37.609
I I wanted to make it into something that the reader would feel they would want to read again and again, because there are certain revelations in it where you think, well, wait a minute, that doesn't hold up.

00:25:37.609 --> 00:25:44.289
But then hopefully if you go back and read it again from the beginning, you'd be like, oh, OK.

00:25:44.289 --> 00:25:48.354
And I should mention here that Michael also colored it.

00:25:48.354 --> 00:25:56.279
which was a huge thing and it was a huge undertaking and he wasn't gonna do it originally because he didn't think that he would have the time.

00:25:56.420 --> 00:25:59.182
He has a family, he has to support them.

00:25:59.182 --> 00:26:05.929
We got paid for doing this book but it's like not, you know, it's not like a yearly salary where you can do that.

00:26:05.929 --> 00:26:11.874
Meaning he had to keep up his freelance illustration work.

00:26:11.874 --> 00:26:20.154
As in, I'm not gonna have time to color this because to do this properly, is gonna be very intensive work.

00:26:20.154 --> 00:26:27.977
Well, once he had drawn everything, he decided, I can't hand this over to somebody else to color it.

00:26:27.977 --> 00:26:29.876
I have to do it myself.

00:26:30.137 --> 00:26:45.142
And he did a spectacular job because there's this effect in it when characters are going from the one realm to the other that has to be handled very specifically like a drawing that's being undrawn.

00:26:45.567 --> 00:26:50.625
and then is being drawn again, if that makes any sense.

00:26:50.625 --> 00:26:54.748
Yeah, it's like sort of colored with the inks and everything on the outsides.

00:26:54.748 --> 00:26:59.191
As you get closer to the middle, it sort of turns into the sequentials, just pencils.

00:26:59.191 --> 00:27:09.527
And as we get closer, even it sort of turns like almost like radio, the color, like the three color process starts to sort of maneuver around and in the middle, it's sort of like this whiteness, right?

00:27:09.527 --> 00:27:11.317
It's just the panel you're talking about.

00:27:11.317 --> 00:27:11.738
Yeah.

00:27:11.738 --> 00:27:12.018
Yeah.

00:27:12.018 --> 00:27:12.919
And it's incredible.

00:27:12.919 --> 00:27:18.701
And I'm just curious really quickly, what was your response whenever, cause when Michael said that he needed to color it.

00:27:18.701 --> 00:27:29.862
From my understanding, and when we talked to a lot of creators here on the show, I think most artists who have the ability generally want to color their own work because it's like they're fully realized, you know, work.

00:27:29.862 --> 00:27:30.201
There it is.

00:27:30.201 --> 00:27:32.582
Like I did all of this, you know?

00:27:32.842 --> 00:27:35.501
And as you said, and for a lot of folks, that's hard, right?

00:27:35.501 --> 00:27:39.021
That's tough to do all of that in like a deadline space.

00:27:39.061 --> 00:27:42.501
What was your response whenever Michael said that he was going to color it?

00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:45.691
Well, I mean, I was thrilled to hear it.

00:27:46.872 --> 00:27:48.933
You know, I don't know how else to say it.

00:27:48.933 --> 00:27:56.938
But again, like in my quote day job at Pantheon, everybody I publish colors their own work.

00:27:56.938 --> 00:28:11.286
So Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, Charles Burns, David Matsukeli, Maurice Vela-Koop, and the latest one, Anders Nielsen, Tongues by Anders Nielsen.

00:28:11.663 --> 00:28:12.324
I have that.

00:28:12.324 --> 00:28:13.806
I'm excited to read that.

00:28:14.508 --> 00:28:17.900
That is one of the best design books too, I should say as well.

00:28:17.900 --> 00:28:18.842
And that's all him.

00:28:18.842 --> 00:28:19.772
Yeah.

00:28:19.772 --> 00:28:25.663
And that's like with Chris Ware, like he's as great as a designer as he is an artist.

00:28:25.663 --> 00:28:27.685
Tongues just blows me away.

00:28:27.685 --> 00:28:28.847
It's shocking.

00:28:28.847 --> 00:28:30.740
And it's only volume one.

00:28:31.086 --> 00:28:34.579
That was a sight unseen by right off the rack at my local comic shop.

00:28:34.579 --> 00:28:37.773
It's one of those ones as we were speaking about with Verocity Trap as well.

00:28:37.773 --> 00:28:40.758
You see it on the shelf and it really pops, right?

00:28:40.758 --> 00:28:42.660
But not in the same way.

00:28:42.660 --> 00:28:46.263
Verocity Trap is very colorful and it's very, boom, there it is.

00:28:46.263 --> 00:28:47.986
You see the Kirby crackles and all that.

00:28:47.986 --> 00:28:51.269
But with tongues, yeah, we don't have to make this into a tongues conversation, but.

00:28:51.374 --> 00:28:53.375
Hey, I am fine with that.

00:28:53.375 --> 00:28:55.336
I am fine with that.

00:28:55.537 --> 00:28:56.607
I love that book.

00:28:56.607 --> 00:29:02.145
I'm so proud to publish it and I'm so proud of him and he's a great guy too, Anders Nielsen.

00:29:02.145 --> 00:29:02.506
Yeah.

00:29:02.506 --> 00:29:12.925
Well, let me get back to basically this, there's this panel here in the book where you and Michael sort of had, or at least I'll say Michael has like some doubts about the story's direction.

00:29:12.925 --> 00:29:13.094
Right.

00:29:13.094 --> 00:29:13.433
Yes.

00:29:13.433 --> 00:29:16.006
um And you, you sort of reassure him in that moment.

00:29:16.006 --> 00:29:18.416
And then obviously a lot of the Avengers stuff starts happening around that time.

00:29:18.416 --> 00:29:23.141
So I was just curious, was that scene based on a real life back and forth that you and Michael had together?

00:29:23.141 --> 00:29:28.791
uh Um, of course it was.

00:29:29.230 --> 00:29:32.152
This was a setup for you to go into that.

00:29:32.152 --> 00:29:33.583
Dare you ask?

00:29:33.583 --> 00:29:40.666
It was an attempt to head all of this stuff off at the pass, if that makes any sense.

00:29:40.666 --> 00:29:45.691
Like, okay, so let's immediately address what the reader just saw.

00:29:45.691 --> 00:29:49.913
So, but I mean, it wasn't a conversation that we actually had.

00:29:49.913 --> 00:29:57.442
It was me writing a script as if we had that conversation so that...

00:29:57.442 --> 00:30:00.064
You know, I don't know if this meta thing is working.

00:30:00.064 --> 00:30:01.835
People have done this before.

00:30:01.835 --> 00:30:04.297
And I'm like, no, no, no, you're knocking it out of the park.

00:30:04.297 --> 00:30:06.847
Wait, until you see where this is going.

00:30:06.981 --> 00:30:08.900
And, yeah, but why the monsters?

00:30:08.900 --> 00:30:10.171
Well, this is why.

00:30:10.171 --> 00:30:15.894
And, you know, in the middle of that conversation, it's like, oh wait, did you hear that?

00:30:16.513 --> 00:30:17.582
Boom.

00:30:18.175 --> 00:30:23.430
It's like, hey, we can kind of do whatever we want and this is what we're gonna do.

00:30:23.430 --> 00:30:34.277
But I did want to, I wanted to answer to all that and our editor at Marvel was guy named Tom Brevoort who was just amazing.

00:30:35.066 --> 00:30:38.500
Yeah, no, was fantastic.

00:30:38.500 --> 00:30:47.025
But I would get notes from him where he's like, okay, you need to explain what the veracity vortex is for.

00:30:47.798 --> 00:31:21.019
why he creates it because when you're writing anything like whether it's a novel or I imagine a script for for a tv show or a film or in this case like well of course I know what what it's for what kind of question is that it's like well yeah you know but but you've got to you've got to inform the reader like like in this case spell it out like Thor's asking Loki like why did you create this and what is it what does it do And he was right, and Tom was right.

00:31:21.019 --> 00:31:23.359
And that's what an editor is for.

00:31:23.359 --> 00:31:36.306
It's because the writer gets so myopic about it, they're familiar with why they're writing what they're writing, but sometimes then it's unclear to the reader.

00:31:36.306 --> 00:31:41.587
And in this case, we just had to cover all the bases.

00:31:41.708 --> 00:31:45.849
Like, oh, that's why he would do this.

00:31:46.038 --> 00:31:50.340
I think that that sort of plays into another reason why I love this book.

00:31:50.340 --> 00:31:54.982
I think you could easily hand Verasity Trap to a four-year-old.

00:31:54.982 --> 00:31:55.279
Yes.

00:31:55.279 --> 00:31:56.663
And they'll love it, right?

00:31:56.663 --> 00:31:59.395
And then of course, I'm 30, I love it.

00:31:59.395 --> 00:32:12.153
And I think we could maybe love it, we'll love it for some similar reasons, but I think we'll also love it for very different reasons based on like what you and Michael are going through in this story as characters within it, right?

00:32:12.153 --> 00:32:14.221
Not only as characters within it, but also...

00:32:14.221 --> 00:32:22.001
as the creators of it, it is sort of this fun sort of vortex of ideals and themes and all these things.

00:32:22.201 --> 00:32:31.541
actually honestly, it's just one of those things that as I was reading, as I said a moment ago, and I apologize if I'm buttering you up too much, but it was just sort of a warm, it was like a warm hug.

00:32:31.541 --> 00:32:31.761
you know what mean?

00:32:31.761 --> 00:32:33.221
Like it did all the right things.

00:32:33.221 --> 00:32:34.902
It was playing all the right notes for me.

00:32:34.902 --> 00:32:36.682
It was like, it was the perfect amount.

00:32:36.682 --> 00:32:43.301
And I'm sure that Tom had something to do with this, but I'm sure a lot of the credit can go to both you and Michael, but it was like that perfect.

00:32:43.470 --> 00:32:49.890
mixture of like Silver Age ham, but like a little bit of modern seriousness that we can all sort of take from.

00:32:51.849 --> 00:32:54.769
Well, Chip, one final question for you here before I get you out of here.

00:32:54.769 --> 00:32:57.829
you know, again, it's been such an honor to have you here on the podcast.

00:32:57.829 --> 00:33:03.630
I want to refer to a quote or at least a passage as I was reading your book here.

00:33:03.630 --> 00:33:04.650
Well, not your book.

00:33:04.650 --> 00:33:07.890
It's actually, and I hope I'm saying this and I hope I'm saying this correctly.

00:33:08.009 --> 00:33:09.829
It's a Veroke Vinay.

00:33:09.829 --> 00:33:16.164
that how you say And that book is probably older than you are.

00:33:16.894 --> 00:33:17.294
91.

00:33:17.294 --> 00:33:18.153
I didn't even know.

00:33:18.153 --> 00:33:21.513
I didn't see what year this came out, but it was fascinating.

00:33:21.513 --> 00:33:23.013
I really love getting through it.

00:33:23.013 --> 00:33:29.753
And honestly, it was really cool to go through and just sort of see the complete catalog of a lot of your earlier work.

00:33:29.953 --> 00:33:35.213
But in this, she interviews a peer of yours, Milton Glasser, he describes you.

00:33:35.213 --> 00:33:35.814
I'm sorry.

00:33:35.814 --> 00:33:36.874
I apologize.

00:33:37.281 --> 00:33:41.244
And you know he designed the DC logo with the stars in it.

00:33:42.326 --> 00:33:43.366
Sorry.

00:33:44.701 --> 00:33:45.673
Yeah.

00:33:45.673 --> 00:33:46.493
have it right here.

00:33:46.493 --> 00:33:47.605
This one right here.

00:33:47.605 --> 00:33:50.476
Milton Glaser designed that in the 70s.

00:33:50.857 --> 00:33:51.419
my gosh.

00:33:51.419 --> 00:33:51.769
Okay.

00:33:51.769 --> 00:33:52.882
Well, Mr.

00:33:52.882 --> 00:33:54.894
Glazer, he described you as this, okay?

00:33:54.894 --> 00:34:02.359
And I tend to agree here, a design demigod, an inky, colossus, and the closest thing to a rock star.

00:34:02.359 --> 00:34:03.630
So ridiculous.

00:34:03.990 --> 00:34:06.412
That was very sweet of him.

00:34:06.412 --> 00:34:09.670
He was a great, great hero of mine.

00:34:09.670 --> 00:34:24.969
He also, in case you don't know, I mean, he did a lot of things, so many wonderful, brilliant things, but he sketched on a napkin for the New York travel board in the late 70s, I heart and why.

00:34:24.969 --> 00:34:27.800
He said, here, I'm giving this to you.

00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:29.442
You make this.

00:34:29.900 --> 00:34:33.317
the campaign that gets people to come back to New York.

00:34:33.840 --> 00:34:38.579
So anytime you see I Heart Anything, that's him.

00:34:38.778 --> 00:34:43.157
I mean, I feel like I maybe should have known that because that is okay.

00:34:43.157 --> 00:34:44.516
oh no, it's okay.

00:34:44.516 --> 00:34:45.367
It's okay.

00:34:45.367 --> 00:34:49.492
But it was a privilege to know him.

00:34:49.853 --> 00:34:57.079
if you make things that people love and they don't even know you made them, it's okay.

00:34:57.320 --> 00:34:59.731
It's okay because it means something to them.

00:34:59.789 --> 00:35:00.289
Yeah.

00:35:00.289 --> 00:35:07.170
And you know, honestly, I feel like all of this that we're talking about here, had me thinking about this idea that I wanted to pick your brain on to sort of end this conversation.

00:35:07.170 --> 00:35:12.349
And you know, as we've talked about, you've already cemented yourself as an icon, as a designer.

00:35:12.349 --> 00:35:18.389
think three decades ago, you were already, I think, considered by many as one of the greatest in your field.

00:35:18.389 --> 00:35:27.269
But I'm curious in 2025, and you can tie this into veracity trap as well, but what motivational force still pushes you to create in 2025?

00:35:27.269 --> 00:35:28.351
Is there something?

00:35:28.351 --> 00:35:29.456
Is it accomplishment?

00:35:29.456 --> 00:35:32.197
Is it an itch in your brain?

00:35:32.197 --> 00:35:34.664
What still motivates you here in 2025?

00:35:36.077 --> 00:35:37.559
I mean, it's all of that stuff.

00:35:37.559 --> 00:35:39.980
And yeah, I don't want to tear up here.

00:35:39.980 --> 00:35:55.326
But like, when I was a kid, when I was in college, studying graphic design, and I would read, going back to Milton Glaser, I would read these interviews with him, where somebody would say, well, when do you think you're going to retire?

00:35:56.126 --> 00:36:00.708
And every time he said, I never want to retire.

00:36:00.827 --> 00:36:04.269
I want to be doing this for the rest of my life.

00:36:04.269 --> 00:36:05.969
I never want to stop.

00:36:06.018 --> 00:36:10.480
That had a tremendous effect on me as I'm sure it did a lot of people.

00:36:10.501 --> 00:36:16.423
Can you imagine being in a job that you never ever want to retire from?

00:36:16.423 --> 00:36:17.465
That's my goal.

00:36:17.465 --> 00:36:20.967
So I don't want to stop.

00:36:20.967 --> 00:36:23.847
um And I get these opportunities.

00:36:24.668 --> 00:36:32.813
again, like part of my day job is like, I can't stop unless I retire next month on October 6th.

00:36:32.813 --> 00:36:37.409
I will have been here at Penguin Random House for 39 years.

00:36:37.409 --> 00:36:38.967
Wow, congratulations.

00:36:38.967 --> 00:36:39.599
Thank you.

00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:47.945
And yeah, I'm very proud of that and I'm very grateful for it because nobody has to hand you anything.

00:36:48.065 --> 00:36:49.606
You have to work for it.

00:36:49.606 --> 00:36:55.050
And I've been able to, just to even get the opportunity to do it is amazing.

00:36:55.050 --> 00:37:01.115
Today I got a new manuscript from uh the writer, Haruki Murakami.

00:37:01.577 --> 00:37:08.032
it's like, okay, that's gonna be one of the next things to work on.

00:37:08.653 --> 00:37:17.646
And next month, book that's a celebration of the 75th anniversary of peanuts is going to come out.

00:37:17.646 --> 00:37:20.836
And that also was from Charlie and Abrams.

00:37:21.217 --> 00:37:23.358
And I got to work on that.

00:37:23.358 --> 00:37:26.199
that's, you know, it's amazing.

00:37:26.239 --> 00:37:26.918
It's amazing.

00:37:26.918 --> 00:37:29.119
I'm incredibly grateful.

00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:33.320
I don't want to, you know, I don't I don't want to stop.

00:37:33.380 --> 00:37:38.202
And Mike and I are we're like, OK, let's try and do something.

00:37:38.367 --> 00:37:39.268
next.

00:37:39.268 --> 00:37:40.990
So we're gonna try.

00:37:41.038 --> 00:37:50.380
I will say it's just so refreshing to hear someone again, and I'm sure it's probably weird to hear someone, anyone say that like, my God, you're one of the best of all time or you're the best, you know, all of that.

00:37:50.380 --> 00:37:52.061
Like all of us, we all have influences.

00:37:52.061 --> 00:38:00.092
We all have people that we look up to in some way or another, but it's refreshing to hear you say that you're still so chronically motivated to continue to create, right?

00:38:00.092 --> 00:38:06.385
Because I think again, my point in that question, I think was more so to just be like, have nothing to prove, I don't think.

00:38:06.385 --> 00:38:10.027
You have nothing left to prove and you've done such incredible work throughout.

00:38:10.027 --> 00:38:14.351
your entire career and to see you and Michael doing it with Verossi Trap again.

00:38:14.351 --> 00:38:17.824
And everyone that I've heard talk about this book, they've loved it.

00:38:17.824 --> 00:38:22.257
And I think, again, it has something to do with Michael and finally getting to see some sequentials from him.

00:38:22.257 --> 00:38:30.074
I'm sure it has something to do with you and sort of this idea, this illusion of change and what the story sort of centers around and how we all think that we're in charge.

00:38:30.074 --> 00:38:39.981
are we, you all of this, I think it's just really resonating with people in 2025, especially as you said earlier, sort of the climate we're in currently, it all feels sort of like we're powerless.

00:38:40.295 --> 00:38:47.884
And I truly think something like this is the sort of medicine that we need, you know.

00:38:47.981 --> 00:38:50.125
I mean, I'm grateful to hear that.

00:38:50.125 --> 00:38:56.563
One of my mantras is never stop learning and never stop wanting to learn.

00:38:56.563 --> 00:38:59.557
That's what I try to do.

00:38:59.661 --> 00:39:02.831
And one day you also too may be an inky colossus.

00:39:02.831 --> 00:39:05.318
You could get there if you really want to.

00:39:06.253 --> 00:39:06.699
Colossus.

00:39:06.699 --> 00:39:07.730
That's too funny.

00:39:07.730 --> 00:39:08.353
mean...

00:39:08.353 --> 00:39:09.588
Did he ever tell you that in person?

00:39:09.588 --> 00:39:11.342
Did he ever like say that to your face?

00:39:11.342 --> 00:39:16.824
No! I need- We had some great conversations.

00:39:16.824 --> 00:39:32.489
There was a magazine called the believer I don't know if you ever came across that and they they asked me to interview him and I did that and I interviewed him on stage at the Cooper Hewitt Museum But now like an inky colossus.

00:39:32.489 --> 00:39:37.713
It's very strong Well, Chip, like I said, such an honor to have you here on the show.

00:39:37.713 --> 00:39:39.253
Truly congratulations.

00:39:39.253 --> 00:39:39.793
Thank you.

00:39:39.793 --> 00:39:42.114
you and Michael for what you've done here with Velocity Trap.

00:39:42.114 --> 00:39:46.134
I'm very excited that this is out and that people can go out and grab their copy.

00:39:46.134 --> 00:39:47.634
Again, it came out on August 6th for everybody.

00:39:47.634 --> 00:39:49.853
I will have links for everything in the show notes.

00:39:49.853 --> 00:39:52.833
So you can either buy it from the Abrams official store.

00:39:52.833 --> 00:39:57.914
I also have links to all of Chip's things, all the places you can find him and some of his other work.

00:39:57.914 --> 00:40:03.019
And Chip, I didn't want to like spend this entire conversation chatting about all the different stuff that I have from you.

00:40:03.019 --> 00:40:08.472
So I'll wait till we're done recording so I can speed run through all the things that I've collected from you over the years.

00:40:08.472 --> 00:40:14.335
you know, it's been truly uh a core memory here on the Oblivion Bar chatting with you here today.

00:40:14.335 --> 00:40:18.168
And I will say before I let you go, I'm pass it off to you one more time.

00:40:18.168 --> 00:40:25.900
Is there anything you wanna sort of plug, any proper way you think people should follow your career going forward or anything else before I let you go?

00:40:29.036 --> 00:40:30.907
I don't know how to answer that.

00:40:30.907 --> 00:40:33.949
have just semi-subject change.

00:40:33.949 --> 00:40:38.304
The Jurassic Trap, it is an all ages book and you touched on that.

00:40:38.304 --> 00:40:49.726
And I've already, I've heard like, oh, I read through this with my eight year old son and he loved it and he loved when the wasp flew through the nose of the monster.

00:40:49.726 --> 00:40:58.309
If this can be a gateway for another generation to enjoy and learn about these characters, that would be great.

00:40:58.360 --> 00:41:10.074
But there also is like, it's like a, you know, the Looney Tunes um cartoon, Duckamuck, which is also very, that was a big inspiration on this.

00:41:10.074 --> 00:41:12.516
When you're a kid, you view that a certain way.

00:41:12.516 --> 00:41:14.476
And Peanuts is the same way.

00:41:15.277 --> 00:41:25.360
You view it a certain way when you're a kid, but then when you grow into an adult and you read it again, you're like, okay, yeah.

00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:28.139
No, I sort of didn't understand that.

00:41:28.139 --> 00:41:31.753
when I was a child and now I do.

00:41:32.114 --> 00:41:40.896
And I mean that in a good profound way, but often it can be, know, like I remember as a kid, and I'm sorry, I know you wanna go, but.

00:41:40.896 --> 00:41:41.949
No, no, I don't want to go.

00:41:41.949 --> 00:41:43.764
I was just trying to be courteous to your time.

00:41:43.764 --> 00:41:45.121
So please keep going.

00:41:45.121 --> 00:41:53.963
You know, as a kid, watch in a peanut strip, like Snoopy watching a leaf fall from the tree onto the ground.

00:41:54.063 --> 00:41:54.905
And that's it.

00:41:54.905 --> 00:41:59.266
And I'm like, you know, the eight year old me is like, what is that?

00:41:59.266 --> 00:42:04.186
But then you eventually understand what that is.

00:42:04.327 --> 00:42:17.675
And yeah, like, don't, you know, I don't know if this book is going to be that profound, but we, we, you know, we wanted to put everything we had into it and make it into as great an experience for the reader as we could.

00:42:17.675 --> 00:42:20.987
And I think that this is an incredible gateway into that world.

00:42:20.987 --> 00:42:25.907
think, know, comics as a medium is a great gateway into, think, art and reading.

00:42:25.907 --> 00:42:26.806
It was for me.

00:42:26.806 --> 00:42:34.030
I don't think I would be an appreciator of all types of different art, not just comics and reading, but like my appreciation for art started with comics.

00:42:34.291 --> 00:42:34.990
Yeah.

00:42:34.990 --> 00:42:40.731
mean, Velocity Trap, I think could be an easy poster child for, like this is why comics are really cool.

00:42:40.731 --> 00:42:46.690
You hand it to someone who's never read a comic or you, hand it to your, younger niece or brother or sister, whomever.

00:42:46.690 --> 00:42:48.771
And you go, Hey, like this is why I love comics right here.

00:42:48.771 --> 00:42:49.592
Bam.

00:42:49.592 --> 00:42:52.594
And they can sort of appreciate it in the same way, hopefully that you can.

00:42:52.594 --> 00:42:54.275
So totally agree there.

00:42:54.275 --> 00:43:05.204
And I think, you know, I guess if I'm reassuring you here now, I will 100%, I will undeniably put this in the hands of someone who I think should get into comics because that's the kind of power it has.

00:43:05.204 --> 00:43:09.637
And I'll tell you what, next time that you and Michael have something going on, I'll reach out to your team.

00:43:09.637 --> 00:43:10.940
We'll get you back on here and talk about it.

00:43:10.940 --> 00:43:12.000
Cause I need more time with you.

00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:18.065
want to talk more about not just whatever that project ends up becoming, but also you and your Well, thank you.

00:43:18.065 --> 00:43:19.228
appreciate that.

00:43:19.228 --> 00:43:21.913
And thank you for taking the time.