INTERVIEW: John Kissee

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Hey, this is John Kissi, writer and artist of Dr.

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Rigby, and you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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Welcome to the Oblivion Bar Podcast with your host Chris Hatton and Aaron Knowles.

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Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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It's just me today, Aaron Knowles, and joining us, well, joining me is a man who describes himself as an artist, designer, and a visual storyteller at heart, as well as the writer and illustrator of Dr.

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Rigby.

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Let's welcome John Kissi to the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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I'm absolutely, I'm ecstatic that you could be here.

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I'm so excited to talk about Dr.

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Rigby.

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Thank you.

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It's a pleasure to be here and honor.

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Thanks for this great, great company.

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And we miss Chris, but yeah, it's great to talk to you and yeah.

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Yeah, for sure.

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yeah, Chris sends his love.

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He wasn't feeling well today, but he said, you know what, Aaron, I trust you.

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You're way better than me.

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You're also better looking.

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You're also funnier.

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And he said, I know you can handle it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Well, before we get into Dr.

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Rigby, uh I have a, you know, I have a ton of questions about the book.

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This is by the way, this is Dr.

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Rigby, Tales from the Deep, which is already out.

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It's from now, if I'm saying this right, it's Marcosia.

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Marcosia, think it's a British publisher.

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Okay.

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uh Well, yeah, we got we got we will be discussing this because I am like in depth.

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have questions, um but let's get to know you.

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You're you're you know, quote unquote origin story.

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Now you've been creating comics since you were six years old, correct?

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Yeah.

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So tell me about your early love of comics and uh your maybe slight obsession with.

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yeah, well, like you mentioned, technically my first origin story, my first comic was an adaptation of King Kong that I made for my parents.

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I was probably sick about six years old and I still have a crude scan of it somewhere.

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But yeah, it was just like four pieces of paper and then I hit all the big plot points.

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escapes, Kong gets Fei-Rae and I actually wrote out Fei-Rae like I somehow knew the...

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knew the actress's name, you know.

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But yeah, that was, guess, King Kong was one of the first movies that activated the nerd gene in me.

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you know, like a lot of us, it's like, and I, that was the first obsession I had with putting pen to paper and like, well, I got to draw this and I got to like make my own adaptation of it.

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So I like gave it to my parents.

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was like, here's, here's my comic of King Kong.

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And uh yeah, I've loved King Kong ever since along with a lot of other.

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nerdy stuff, but.

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Do they do they still have it?

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They actually gave it to me in a big box full of like other stuff that was like, I actually had mothballs in it.

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So all this old, cool stuff actually smelled like mothballs for years, but I aired it out in the attic.

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I do have it somewhere, but it's very deteriorated.

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Definitely a cool collector's item, I'm sure.

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I will forgive you.

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I don't know if you can see my shirt.

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I'm a huge...

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Well, to me it's like Marvel and DC.

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can't, I love them both.

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Even if they fight each other.

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Agree.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Or if they team up like they they have been right.

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Yeah, even better.

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You fight, then you team up.

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uh I don't know for some reason that that scene um in King of the Monsters is it like let them fight that lives rent free in my head.

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Yeah.

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Anytime I see anybody like remotely getting into an altercation.

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just think I pops in my head.

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He's like, let them fight.

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But you describe yourself uh as as weird and I want to know why.

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And, you know, saying that isn't it strange how being weird when we were kids became the cool thing once we all grew up.

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It is.

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Yeah.

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It's kind of like a vindication in a way.

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I think, yeah, you're referring to my bio, you know, like on my website and the stuff.

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was like, I was a happy, imaginative, weird little kid, but, you know, I was, you wasn't, you know, nerd and stuff, but I was, I was happy.

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had a good time.

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I, know, I think having an imagination does make you a little weird.

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Like I was sort of one of those kids, like we can probably all relate.

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That's kind of more fixated on a fantasy and escapism and just, you know, kind of let me create my own stories in my head.

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So yeah, I've come to realize weird uh is cool, definitely.

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I think everyone needs a little bit of weirdness, I know.

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Yeah, I know I grew up, I was the weird kid for sure.

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was because I had, you know, everybody I know now would describe me with probably one word, which is uh whimsical.

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uh But I that's just a nice.

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Yes.

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Yeah, that's just a nice way of saying weird.

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uh polite way of saying it.

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Yes, yes, because I was the same way.

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Like I grew up, had, you I was so imaginative.

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And I think that we like, I don't know, I think that that it's such a, uh I don't know, a valuable thing to hold on to because there's so many people that just lose that imagination and lose that creativity.

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And it's so nice to have like the comic community, the community, the creative community to kind of keep that, keep that alive and cultivate that.

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yeah, yeah, for sure.

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It's a great way, I think, to just look at the world with kind of that whimsical, you could say, eye or weird eye.

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I feel a little sorry for people that don't have some sense of that, the kind of appreciating the strangeness, the weirdness and absurdity of just your surroundings.

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It's definitely an asset, I think.

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Now, speaking of uh the weird eye, I want to talk about that.

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Because one thing that kind of stands out to me when I was reading Dr.

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Rigby, because I do want to talk about Dr.

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Rigby.

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You know what?

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I am getting ahead of myself.

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OK.

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So once you grew up, and I say that in quotations, because none of us really did.

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We're all just a bunch of comic nerds that are still kids.

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So you went on to becoming a graphic designer, brand design, and a basically other adult jobs that focused on your love of illustration.

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So it's nice to see that you kind of kept that going.

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was comics kind of always in like the background?

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there like a little like, you know, Dr.

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Rigby in the background, just like, like, like the monsters like Rigby, know?

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Sure, yeah.

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And it was definitely something I loved as a kid and then I wanted to pursue it and I did a little bit of comics work when I was younger, that lucrative enough to make a living off of.

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uh But I did, you know, it always was my first love and I just think it's one of the most powerful media because it, you know, you can literally create your own world.

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You're really, it's a great medium for control freaks, know.

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you're the director, you're the creative builder of the world and everything.

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And um yeah, I've always had a love for it.

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But I think that fed into when I realized I could get more, you know, have more job opportunities and like illustration.

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And then from that, I got into graphic design and, know, regular, like you say, adult, like I've been a graphic designer.

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That's been my career for the last like 20 years or so.

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So, and I love it.

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I, I absolutely adore like typography and everything about.

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graphic design.

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So, you know, that became my quote unquote real job.

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But I really think comics helped my graphic design ability and vice versa, because it is all about storytelling.

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You know, it's about framing and rhythm and hierarchy of what you want to focus on.

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So, yeah, it's always been in the background.

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And yeah, I think the two disciplines really helped each other.

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Besides the obvious of like, I would say like graphic design has a lot to do with like spacing and kind of like filling up, using the right colors and schemes and uh then brand design, branding has its own kind of area subset in there.

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Are there any parallels to those kind of industries along with writing and illustrating a comic?

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Absolutely.

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think like my experience in design and branding really helped me with Dr.

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Rigby because I, apart from, know, obviously the story, the construction of the comic, I thought of it as a brand presence.

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Like even if you notice his logo, particularly on the back cover where he has this silhouette logo, I wanted just his silhouette to show exactly the reader who he is as sort of this anomalous.

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strange character that's got a guy in a suit, but he's got a sword and a ray gun.

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So to me, that was like, well, I'm creating his logo.

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I want everything about the character to be kind of clear at a glance.

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So, yeah, so branding, mean, all of that experience really helped me a lot when I went back to revisit doing comics.

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I had learned a lot about, like I say, typography, lettering, composition, designing a book.

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So yeah, yeah, there was tremendous kind of cross pollination of the two disciplines of comics.

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It's so interesting because I, you know, I constantly make this joke about, whenever we're interviewing people, I'm always like, I'm the newest one in the room who's just learning about comics.

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And that's it still rings true because in certain cases like.

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when I first started learning all the things that went into a comic, like when I thought about a comic book when I was, you know, years ago, I never thought about the fact that there needed to be a writer, a letterer, an anchor, a, you know, like a colorist.

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Like I never realized how many people put hands on a comic before, you know, it gets seen by the public.

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And then you have creators like you, which there are very few of who are just...

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Like most of the time when we talk to them, they're gluttons for gluttons for punishment because it is a lot of work to create an entire book or just a comic itself like by yourself.

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Like that is that is a brave thing.

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And this is your first.

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I first like create like I don't want to say your first because your first was King Kong.

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I'll leave it at that.

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But this is like, you know, this is a big undertaking.

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Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

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And it was like, you know, I had done penciling and inking before, but this was my first time really trying to do it all with my first stab at real writing, writing dialogue, creating a character.

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Yeah, and it's true.

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is kind of a, it's very time consuming, but it is kind of a labor of love.

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You know, like I was saying before, it really is such a powerful thing when you're able to control.

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It's like you're the director, you're the lighting person, you're the actor, you're creating the words.

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So it's very cool.

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It is a lot of work, but it's very gratifying.

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One of my favorite creators is Daniel Klaus, who does 8 Ball, in, I forget if it was his famous comic in the 90s, but he famously has painstakingly writes, he designs every aspect of the book and...

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I've seen him in interviews where he's very particular about it and almost obsessive to the point of being mentally ill, that's part of the fun of it.

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You got to really dig in and kind of take control.

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So yeah, it took a long time, but I feel like it was worth it.

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Absolutely.

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No, I am in awe, especially like, again, we've talked to several credit like Michael D'Alina us who did saw what it's again.

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I'm just he talked about when we interviewed him.

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We talked about the process of of learning.

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how to, because he went to the people that he knew.

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He went to the subject matter experts and he talked to them about, what's the, what is your advice on inking, on lettering?

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And I was just like, it was so, I don't even know the word right now, but it was just, was impressive.

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It's, don't know.

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I think it's, I think it's kind of a beautiful thing, you know, to be able to kind of reach into the community that you are somewhat competitive against, but at the same time really does like.

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kind of support each other and create these like beautiful things.

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So yeah.

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I found that the comics community, from professionals to all aspects, you guys, know, like people that report on it and like, it's very generous, I think.

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it's true that you don't really know what, you really have to start it and get into it because you can think about it a lot and think about technique and it really, you just don't know until you start it.

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And it often becomes something different, certainly than what you intended and probably for the better, but.

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Yeah, you just gotta get it and start it.

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Well, let's get in and get started and talk about Dr.

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Rigby because man, uh wow.

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the summation or I guess the summary is impeccably dressed and wielding strange weapons.

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Dr.

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Rigby is a mysterious soldier in an ancient secret war of magic, monsters and cosmic madness.

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And my God, is that a perfect summation of Dr.

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Rigby.

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But at the same time, it does not touch.

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on all that he, it, they are.

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So uh the gentleman, the warrior, the quote unquote man, talk to me about where he came from, about who or what he is.

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Of course without spoilers, but let's get into who and where Dr.

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Rigby came from and is.

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Yeah, well, so the characters, he started out purely visual.

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uh You know, like I say, I had done comics years ago and wanted to revisit it.

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And so I kind of gave myself this exercise, along with a couple of friends of mine and I that were in the same boat.

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We loved comics and we were like, you know, let's just do our own comics and proceed as if we've been given the green light to do whatever we want.

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You know, no constraints, no thought of a deadline, no worry about a publisher, you thinking maybe we'd put it on comixology, but that wasn't part of, know, we were just like, let's start and make our own thing, you know, like, and in my case, and it ended up being this strange mashup of like Lovecraft style cosmic horror and kind of retro sixties era James Bond, which I've always loved that kind of sixties spy adventure.

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the style, the aesthetic of that kind of look.

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And yeah, out of that emerged just this, again, purely visual at first, this guy in a really sharp suit, but then he's wielding a sword.

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And I was like, I'm gonna give him a ray gun too, like a Flash Gordon ray gun.

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So the idea was he really is this mashup of almost like James Bond meets H.P.

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Lovecraft.

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meets Conan the Barbarian or Flash Gordon.

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A touch of everything in this strange character.

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And yeah, it ended up being a kind of almost in the way that Mike Mignola does in Hellboy, who's one of my heroes, obviously a big inspiration in this, but he sort of created a character in a world where he could crowbar sort of shoe whoring in a lot of other cool things into this universe that's full of strange things.

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So it's almost like he's this protagonist that enters these very strange worlds that can vary a lot in tone from sci-fi to Lovecraft horror.

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Yeah, and that was pretty much his origin.

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uh But then the more I kind of wrote the character, he took on more of a personality and life of his own.

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Like I really thought it would be cool if he was more of a mixture of like James Bond and Mr.

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Spock.

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like arguably two of the coolest characters from the 60s.

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So on the one hand, he's got this, he's suave, handsome, know, capable Bond-like quality, but he's not witty or charming.

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He's like serious and completely aloof, strange, otherworldly weirdo.

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So I like, you know, the more I wrote him, I kind of really enjoyed toying with the strangeness of the character.

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And he's It's in the 60s, but he's much older than he looks.

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So he speaks in this almost like stilted New England, Gothic way, which is another wrinkle in the story.

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uh yeah, it just became, the more I wrote it, the more effort and thought I put behind it, the more it sort of took on a weird life of its own.

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Yeah.

00:18:25.902 --> 00:18:30.105
No, I like, I love that description of the James Bond, Conan.

00:18:30.164 --> 00:18:38.220
He, you know, he also reminds me of, and, and, he reminds me of the guy that hosted not the outer limits.

00:18:38.220 --> 00:18:39.240
What was it?

00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:40.000
The Twilight Zone.

00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:43.021
He reminds me of the host of the Twilight Zone.

00:18:43.021 --> 00:18:51.938
just like, I, and every time I see him on the screen and it's so cool because he does, he has this, this it's so, okay.

00:18:51.938 --> 00:18:52.748
Again.

00:18:52.854 --> 00:19:08.097
I'm going to gush a little bit because I love the fact that I am every time I talk to a new creator, every time I read a new comic book, I feel like I'm discovering the these these powers that the art of comic comic, I guess, comic, comic, I don't know what you call it.

00:19:08.097 --> 00:19:15.640
But the art of comics has they have this power and like I can I can just feel like this almost power from him.

00:19:15.640 --> 00:19:17.121
And he just has this presence.

00:19:17.121 --> 00:19:21.463
And it's so incredible because he's just very serious.

00:19:21.463 --> 00:19:27.959
But at the same time, you know, he has almost uh Indiana Jones, like quality where he's like investigating.

00:19:27.959 --> 00:19:33.863
And, you know, again, I like that the his his dialogue because it's it's old and then people make fun of it.

00:19:33.863 --> 00:19:36.644
And it's it's it's great.

00:19:36.744 --> 00:19:38.415
Yeah, it's interactive.

00:19:38.415 --> 00:19:44.000
But at same time, it's like you're so curious as to who and what and where this guy came from.

00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.853
And, you know, again, I'm going to ask more stuff later on about, you know, his past.

00:19:48.853 --> 00:19:50.644
em And I again.

00:19:50.829 --> 00:19:54.848
Feel free not to answer and feel free to answer whatever you want to answer about it.

00:19:54.848 --> 00:19:55.430
you are.

00:19:55.430 --> 00:19:56.730
I love it.

00:19:56.730 --> 00:19:59.809
is so fitting, especially like you mentioned the art.

00:19:59.809 --> 00:20:06.089
Like the art to me reminds me of, you know, I'm a huge fan of Lost in Space.

00:20:06.089 --> 00:20:14.990
So the old Lost in Space comics, it has that pulpy, it has that visual, like visceral, but at the same time, they're like exactly described it.

00:20:14.990 --> 00:20:18.769
It has the horror elements, it has the fantasy elements and the locations.

00:20:18.769 --> 00:20:20.490
Like it's amazing.

00:20:20.710 --> 00:20:21.250
cool, man.

00:20:21.250 --> 00:20:24.993
I'm so glad you it's exactly what I wanted people to get out of it.

00:20:24.993 --> 00:20:27.326
So I'm I'm really pleased that you did.

00:20:27.326 --> 00:20:30.219
But yeah, like, yeah, that's what I was going for.

00:20:30.219 --> 00:20:39.066
They kind of like kind of a fun vibe of the 60s, that adventure, but also with some pretty horrific twists in it.

00:20:39.066 --> 00:20:48.354
You know, like I was inspired by old certainly old Twilight Zone episodes and like Hitchcock films where I wanted to have that kind of classy kind of.

00:20:48.905 --> 00:20:59.534
look where everyone kind of looked cool and you know, the dialogue was very sharp and so yeah, that's totally what I was aiming for.

00:20:59.692 --> 00:21:09.692
The one thing that I really enjoyed that I wanted to compliment you on also is it reminds me also of when Doctor Who was still good.

00:21:09.933 --> 00:21:10.375
Thank you.

00:21:10.375 --> 00:21:12.285
That's high prints.

00:21:12.653 --> 00:21:14.086
There is no problem.

00:21:14.086 --> 00:21:22.805
There's this, there's this, it's the, the, issue where he's stuck in the van with the, the, the, are they, Vorvon?

00:21:22.829 --> 00:21:25.875
ah What did I call them?

00:21:25.875 --> 00:21:28.778
It was based on the old uh Buck Rogers...

00:21:28.778 --> 00:21:32.494
uh Yeah, the...

00:21:32.494 --> 00:21:36.330
Yeah, which is a nod to the space vampire Buck Rogers.

00:21:36.330 --> 00:21:37.853
It's full of history.

00:21:38.582 --> 00:21:41.704
yeah, that's let's talk about that later too.

00:21:41.704 --> 00:21:43.445
But yeah, the.

00:21:44.607 --> 00:21:57.339
Yeah, the one thing I loved about that is in the way that you again, the way that you wrote it is the fact, you know, and again, no spoilers, but he's not like he's not just the the the the spotlight is not just on Dr.

00:21:57.339 --> 00:21:57.701
Rigby.

00:21:57.701 --> 00:22:03.430
Yeah, you know, like their their characters have their own again, presence, their own.

00:22:03.430 --> 00:22:06.203
ideas, their own methods of solving things.

00:22:06.203 --> 00:22:17.884
And I find that to be like such an endearing quality in like, and I call them companions because again, it reminds me of like, Right, the story sort of becomes a little bit more about them.

00:22:17.884 --> 00:22:31.497
And yeah, man, thanks for noticing that because that is particularly with that story, that vampire story, wanted, you know, it's always easy to just have the hero do something, slay the monster, whatever, you know.

00:22:31.798 --> 00:22:41.266
But I wanted in those stories to have Rigby maybe bring out something in another character that is a surprising.

00:22:41.781 --> 00:22:44.064
that gives them the power of the protagonist.

00:22:44.064 --> 00:22:52.810
Particularly in this story, this character that I'm really fond of, this woman Enid, who's trapped in the van with Rigby and this other character.

00:22:53.811 --> 00:22:56.894
She begins the story as comic relief.

00:22:56.894 --> 00:23:00.497
In fact, I based her on the old Mrs.

00:23:00.497 --> 00:23:05.020
Kravitz from Bewitched, kind of this silly, nosy, spiritual neighbor.

00:23:05.020 --> 00:23:11.296
And you know, she's just comic relief at the beginning, but then she becomes the unlikely sort of hero of the story.

00:23:11.329 --> 00:23:21.275
And I want there to be kind of this bait and switch that I like in a lot of stories where you're set up to think it's going to be in your face horror or kind of funny.

00:23:21.275 --> 00:23:24.296
And then you're hit with like a real emotional gut punch.

00:23:24.296 --> 00:23:26.596
And I really want to do that in this story.

00:23:26.596 --> 00:23:29.357
So yeah, thanks for noticing.

00:23:29.769 --> 00:23:36.571
Now, I, so I'll just brief, brief break in the fourth wall and talking to the audience real quick.

00:23:36.571 --> 00:23:41.772
You guys, if you like, again, this is like very anthology feeling.

00:23:41.772 --> 00:23:48.875
It's very, it is, it has the twists that you don't expect, but it has the twists that you want.

00:23:48.875 --> 00:23:58.923
And it has the, the, the, I'm going to say the almost the, the, the faux background that alludes you to, it brings you into the story.

00:23:58.923 --> 00:24:06.540
and you think you're going to be like brought into this deep well of information and you want more, but it's like the wrap, the story gets wrapped up really nicely.

00:24:06.540 --> 00:24:08.173
And it's like, but I need more.

00:24:08.173 --> 00:24:11.746
So you guys got to pick this book up, but let's keep talking about, about that.

00:24:11.746 --> 00:24:18.853
Cause one thing I wanted to ask about, and I don't know if you can reveal anything about it, but can you, can you give us any information in Dr.

00:24:18.853 --> 00:24:19.594
Rigby?

00:24:19.594 --> 00:24:23.917
There is uh this weird war that keeps being alluded to.

00:24:23.917 --> 00:24:27.313
ah Are we going to get any insight or can you give us any insight?

00:24:27.313 --> 00:24:35.473
Will we eventually get more insight on what this dimensional clashing world colliding gods with an H event is?

00:24:35.943 --> 00:24:36.463
Yes.

00:24:36.463 --> 00:24:41.896
And the only problem is, like you mentioned before, is time and my ability to complete it.

00:24:41.896 --> 00:24:47.028
I have many stories in the pipeline and there is a very specific origin for Dr.

00:24:47.028 --> 00:24:54.281
Rigby and an expansion and an ultimate conclusion of what's called the weird war.

00:24:54.442 --> 00:24:57.603
yeah, it's all sort of hinted in there.

00:24:57.803 --> 00:25:04.268
And I did, in a way, it's sort of a cheat, a plot device where I knew I didn't have a lot of pages.

00:25:04.268 --> 00:25:06.740
and a lot of time to tell the story.

00:25:06.740 --> 00:25:20.181
I did this gimmick of like bringing the reader in as though they're in the middle of a very long story where this character is sort of bringing you up to speed quickly when really it's just the first story with this character.

00:25:20.181 --> 00:25:30.818
So in that way, it's kind of a fun cheat where you're like implying this much, much deeper world than you're able to actually depict.

00:25:30.819 --> 00:25:38.525
But you can just show a little, like you say, glimpses of it that that are intriguing enough for you to be like, well, what's, you know, wait, what's going on there?

00:25:38.525 --> 00:25:51.731
And then another big inspiration for me was X-Files because they had a very fun monster of the week kind of format, which could vary differently in tone from episode to episode.

00:25:51.731 --> 00:25:58.796
But then through that was this kind of long, you know, slow burn mystery about the entire.

00:25:58.796 --> 00:26:00.237
And in this case, Dr.

00:26:00.237 --> 00:26:01.616
Rigby, it's like, who is he?

00:26:01.616 --> 00:26:03.266
Like, who is he really?

00:26:03.266 --> 00:26:08.086
And I want to give the reader the impression that he's not really being completely honest with the reader.

00:26:08.086 --> 00:26:10.440
He's like, he's an unreliable narrator.

00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:15.460
So there's more to him than even he's revealing, you know, in his narration.

00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:23.432
reminds he reminds me a little bit and I forget his name, but there's like the the the dad to the Umbrella Academy.

00:26:23.612 --> 00:26:24.432
yeah.

00:26:25.573 --> 00:26:26.032
Yeah.

00:26:26.032 --> 00:26:26.833
Reginald, I think.

00:26:26.833 --> 00:26:29.104
Reginald Hargreaves.

00:26:29.104 --> 00:26:29.374
Yeah.

00:26:29.374 --> 00:26:30.183
Yeah.

00:26:30.183 --> 00:26:31.354
See, that was teamwork.

00:26:31.354 --> 00:26:33.674
uh He reminds me of that.

00:26:33.674 --> 00:26:41.227
And then also like you mentioned earlier, like Hellboy and the way that, you know, Mike McEnroe and, you know, tells those stories.

00:26:41.227 --> 00:26:44.978
And again, like you have created something here.

00:26:45.228 --> 00:26:52.359
that to me like is is comparative to that because I would like again, it's the same thing.

00:26:52.359 --> 00:26:59.781
Like I love the fact that Hellboy has these like origins has these monsters, these dimensions, these troll markets.

00:26:59.781 --> 00:27:01.271
But I also love the fact that Dr.

00:27:01.271 --> 00:27:04.363
Rigby has like you don't know where he's going to pop up next.

00:27:04.363 --> 00:27:11.085
It's almost like, you know, you're watching Supernatural and the brothers are driving into Ohio this week and they're driving into to New York this week.

00:27:11.085 --> 00:27:12.384
And it's like, I want to know where Dr.

00:27:12.384 --> 00:27:13.885
Rigby is going to be at next week.

00:27:13.885 --> 00:27:14.978
Yeah.

00:27:14.978 --> 00:27:23.963
And then you also have, you you have the element of he's got this ray gun that he helped create with Nicola Nicola's or Nicola Tess Nicola's Tesla Nicola.

00:27:24.845 --> 00:27:25.964
Tesla.

00:27:26.685 --> 00:27:27.977
Yeah, yeah, he was friends with him.

00:27:27.977 --> 00:27:34.580
And that reminds me of Warehouse 13, which was an amazing show, another anthology, such episodic thing.

00:27:34.580 --> 00:27:37.512
But again, I could gush all day about about Dr.

00:27:37.512 --> 00:27:43.336
Rigby, but people need to go pick this this book up, find it online everywhere.

00:27:43.336 --> 00:27:44.238
It is amazing.

00:27:44.238 --> 00:27:46.309
But I still have more questions.

00:27:46.309 --> 00:27:52.269
One more is I wanted to ask you about this is actually posted a while back on your Instagram.

00:27:52.509 --> 00:27:55.809
There was a short story guess you were working on called Seeing Things.

00:27:55.809 --> 00:27:56.470
Yeah.

00:27:57.390 --> 00:27:58.910
Where can I find this?

00:27:58.910 --> 00:27:59.690
I did.

00:28:00.496 --> 00:28:01.207
yeah.

00:28:01.207 --> 00:28:07.150
No, it's a story that I started as a pitch for an anthology and never finished.

00:28:07.471 --> 00:28:08.605
I just did.

00:28:08.605 --> 00:28:12.134
I just had those pages and really loved them.

00:28:12.134 --> 00:28:21.230
And I actually was considering em sort of shoehorning them into like a back in that story, into a backup story of Rigby.

00:28:21.230 --> 00:28:29.076
If I do some more, like maybe he has his main story and then there's some other kind of like easy kind of different, different.

00:28:29.076 --> 00:28:30.788
one-off stories.

00:28:30.788 --> 00:28:35.801
yeah, hopefully that story just has a few more pages to be complete, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.

00:28:35.801 --> 00:28:38.403
Cause it's actually a very personal story to me.

00:28:38.403 --> 00:28:48.993
It's sort of about imagination and this sort of uh the metaphor of just growing old and kind of, yeah, it's uh yeah.

00:28:48.993 --> 00:28:51.965
Thanks for, for picking up on that.

00:28:51.965 --> 00:28:56.500
Cause it is, it's one of those things I do intend to finish, but.

00:28:57.294 --> 00:29:07.558
I was going to say the story kind of reminds me of, of, and I was going to say the, don't want to say the Marcy Davenport, you know, like it could be almost a prequel for Marcy Davenport.

00:29:07.558 --> 00:29:07.989
Yeah.

00:29:07.989 --> 00:29:11.590
Who is a, who is one of the main characters in one of the stories in Dr.

00:29:11.590 --> 00:29:11.921
Rigby.

00:29:11.921 --> 00:29:17.663
So again, people go check it out, but, that's kind of it for what I have for the questions for right now.

00:29:17.663 --> 00:29:20.384
I want to thank you so much, John, for being here today.

00:29:21.794 --> 00:29:25.757
Before we go though, ah I want to hand over the mic to you.

00:29:25.757 --> 00:29:30.471
like, there's anything that you wanted to, that we missed that you guys, you wanted to highlight anything you got coming up.

00:29:30.902 --> 00:29:32.942
Yeah, nothing really coming up.

00:29:32.942 --> 00:29:35.663
Just please check out the book.

00:29:35.663 --> 00:29:46.808
have, like I say, I'm really chomping at the bit with more stories in the works with this character and this world, which I think will be surprising in many ways.

00:29:46.808 --> 00:29:50.349
oh And yeah, just that's it.

00:29:50.349 --> 00:29:52.000
I just hope people enjoy the book.

00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:58.433
It's definitely, it's quirky, uh but it's definitely uh something that I put a lot of love in.

00:29:58.433 --> 00:29:59.256
passions.

00:29:59.256 --> 00:30:04.385
It's a lot of nostalgia, a lot of adventure, hopefully something for everybody.

00:30:04.440 --> 00:30:05.621
So absolutely.

00:30:05.621 --> 00:30:11.338
think people, people, once they get there, once they get their hands on this thing, they're going to fall in love with it they're going to be dying for more.

00:30:11.338 --> 00:30:16.125
um But yeah, again, that's sorry.

00:30:16.125 --> 00:30:17.445
I'm drawing a blank.

00:30:17.987 --> 00:30:18.597
One thing I like.

00:30:18.597 --> 00:30:19.588
OK, sorry.

00:30:19.588 --> 00:30:20.750
Yeah.

00:30:20.983 --> 00:30:21.483
Yep.

00:30:21.483 --> 00:30:22.220
And sing.

00:30:22.220 --> 00:30:28.932
thing we like to ask all of our visitors are visiting creators before they leave the show is uh what are you currently loving on?

00:30:28.932 --> 00:30:33.809
And it could be a movie, a comic, a show, a game, a frickin musical.

00:30:33.809 --> 00:30:36.693
If that's what you love, what is your current obsession?

00:30:36.951 --> 00:30:49.997
So, I mean, I hate to be cliche, but it just ended and or I really am like kind of reeling from how cool and complex and watchable it was.

00:30:49.997 --> 00:30:59.161
Like we were talking earlier about my nerdy friends and I just can sit for a couple hours with a couple of drinks and talk about, yeah, this scene or that scene.

00:30:59.161 --> 00:31:05.753
But yeah, I mean, that and I love Love Death and Robots is always a great show.

00:31:06.432 --> 00:31:14.042
any uh yeah gosh yeah i don't know Surprising that you like anthologies, you know.

00:31:15.347 --> 00:31:19.388
You know, there's that's why it's like gives you a lot of narrative freedom.

00:31:19.388 --> 00:31:21.422
You can jump from one story to another.

00:31:21.422 --> 00:31:23.162
Yeah, I like I do.

00:31:23.162 --> 00:31:25.142
love love death and robots.

00:31:25.142 --> 00:31:27.221
Black Mirror is one of my one of my favorites.

00:31:27.221 --> 00:31:27.842
It's on there.

00:31:27.842 --> 00:31:35.842
Yeah, I have not watched and or yet I need to because I actually really loved, you know, Rebel One.

00:31:35.842 --> 00:31:39.701
Yeah, that was that was probably one of my favorite Star Wars movies ever.

00:31:39.701 --> 00:31:41.241
So I definitely need to get started on that.

00:31:41.241 --> 00:31:44.601
And also I have a huge crush on Rosario Dawson as.

00:31:44.601 --> 00:31:44.912
so...

00:31:44.912 --> 00:31:47.106
Oh, she's pretty pissed.

00:31:47.106 --> 00:31:49.198
Yeah, that's a cool show too.

00:31:49.198 --> 00:31:52.201
ah But yeah, I appreciate it again.

00:31:52.201 --> 00:31:52.892
Thank you for being here.

00:31:52.892 --> 00:31:56.615
Before we let you go, one last thing is how can listeners follow your career?

00:31:56.615 --> 00:31:58.157
Where can they find you?

00:31:58.157 --> 00:32:01.009
And then where do you recommend they go pick up Dr.

00:32:01.009 --> 00:32:02.089
Rigby from?

00:32:02.316 --> 00:32:03.968
Yeah, well you can get Dr.

00:32:03.968 --> 00:32:07.082
Rigby at uh many different places.

00:32:07.082 --> 00:32:08.453
You can get it on Amazon.

00:32:08.453 --> 00:32:10.185
You can get it at Barnes & Noble.

00:32:10.185 --> 00:32:12.398
You can get it through the publisher, Marcosia.

00:32:12.398 --> 00:32:16.844
uh If you just do a Google search on it.

00:32:16.845 --> 00:32:21.316
I wish I had handy my link, but I guess we can post those later through the...

00:32:21.316 --> 00:32:27.288
yeah, it's in our transcripts and we'll be sharing it on our socials as well.

00:32:27.489 --> 00:32:30.109
So have no fear listeners.

00:32:30.109 --> 00:32:39.534
We will have those links not only in our show notes, but in the actual notes that when you're clicking play on the episode, you'll find it there.

00:32:39.854 --> 00:32:40.535
Yeah, great.

00:32:40.535 --> 00:32:51.403
Well, and I don't have much of a social media presence, but you can find me on Blue Sky at mynamejohnkissy, John underscore kissy, and the same thing on Instagram.

00:32:51.423 --> 00:32:53.664
So I'm on those two platforms.

00:32:53.664 --> 00:32:55.175
You can see more of my work there.

00:32:55.175 --> 00:33:01.382
And well, I do have a portfolio website, which is mynamejohnkissy.com.

00:33:01.382 --> 00:33:08.696
You can see, you know, all or most of my comics work and oh some of my other graphic design work that I've done.

00:33:09.432 --> 00:33:10.473
That's where I am.

00:33:10.473 --> 00:33:11.134
So.

00:33:11.134 --> 00:33:11.713
Awesome.

00:33:11.713 --> 00:33:14.035
Well, thank you again so much for being here.

00:33:14.075 --> 00:33:15.315
Appreciate your time.

00:33:15.315 --> 00:33:21.757
And again, we're going to shout from the rooftops, the mountaintops and from the heavens, like people go pick up Dr.

00:33:21.757 --> 00:33:22.278
Rigby.

00:33:22.278 --> 00:33:24.117
is an amazing ride.

00:33:24.117 --> 00:33:26.286
And yeah, thank you again so much for being here.

00:33:26.286 --> 00:33:26.624
Thank you.

00:33:26.624 --> 00:33:29.188
Aaron, man, I really appreciate it and best to Chris.

00:33:29.188 --> 00:33:30.519
You guys are great.

00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:31.800
Pleasure to be here.