INTERVIEW: Tony McMillen

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Hey, this is Tony McMillan, combo creator behind titles like Destroying Angel Lumen, Serious Creatures, and Attaboy, 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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Joining us today is the writer artist of titles like Destroying Angel Lumen, Serious Creatures, and an indie darling from last year, Attaboy.

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It is my pleasure to welcome Tony McMillan onto the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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Hey Chris, pleasure's all mine.

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Thanks for having me.

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Appreciate it.

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So great to have you here, Tony.

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We first connected on social media and I've been a fan of yours for quite a while.

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And I'm so glad that we could finally get you here on the show to discuss your career thus far.

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As I mentioned, guess sort of loosely there is that first becoming aware of your work, it was actually from Attaboy.

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And if I remember correctly, it was from, I want to say it was the Beats Top 50 Comics of 2024, to which I immediately found Attaboy, consumed it and absolutely loved it like most folks.

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That was an awesome surprise, I was on the list, but also the list was alphabetical, so was like absolute Batman atta boy.

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I was like, I'm like number two, and I was like, wait, okay, well, that's cool.

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At least I'm listed too.

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Right.

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Well, you know, I think the main reason why I loved it so much outside of honestly how you masterfully play with comic paneling and video game tropes and that sort of escapism allegory that you've talked about while talking about the series is how much time one can spend on any one of those pages there from Attaboy and also throughout your career.

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And because I'm not an artist, I find it sort of difficult to properly explain, you know, your artistic voice style.

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But I also think that I know that I'm a fan of of yours and Attaboy.

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So I guess my first question for you, Tony, is in your own words, how would you describe your style as an illustrator?

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The joke answer is uh from the movie Airheads where they go, it's power slop.

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was like, power slop does seem about right.

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But no, I think it's definitely, it's very loose.

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um It's very uh almost expressionistic, but it's a very kinetic style.

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I use a pilot parallel pen, which is a chisel tip pen.

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So it has a big flat edge.

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And so I can kind of scrape that across a page.

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And so I think it's very...

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um It's kind of a gnarly style, but at same time, the colors I use are kind of, most of them are digital, but they're digital watercolor, and I'm trying to sort of balance out how kind of aggro my art can be, and the color kind of makes it little more light and kind of poppy.

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so, honestly, I'll use probably a million musical metaphors.

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I do play music, I play guitar and sing and stuff, but I think it's like, one of reasons why Nirvana was popular is like, well, yes, this is kind of a very heavy, gritty sounding band, but the songs are pop songs.

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They are pop hooks.

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They are pop smarts.

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This is a catchy chorus.

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So think it's catchy gnarliness, you know, and I'm a kid of the nineties.

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I grew up in all those image guys still love them all, especially Eric Larson.

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And he's in there a lot.

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And, the biggest influence is probably Frank Miller, Frank Miller and Lynn Varley coloring Frank Miller.

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And I think that even though I think I've looked at a million things since then, that's the deepest in me that still comes out.

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At least I see that the most.

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Sure, I can definitely see that.

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I'm kind of curious, were you sort of, were you classically trained or did you go to school for art?

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How did that go for you?

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no, I wasn't trained at all.

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I was like a million other people.

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was a kid who drew a lot in class and I loved drawing.

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it's funny, I occasionally talk to other artists and they have been trained and they have a better vocabulary and language to explain things.

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I'm like, oh, that's a great way of putting that.

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That's the way it's put.

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That's the term.

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I was like, oh, I thought it was your own thing.

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No, no, no, that's what we call that.

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So that's one thing that's kind of, guess, missing.

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But I'm also pretty happy being my own little mutation.

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And I think that's kind of fun in its own way.

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And I like artists like that too.

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And also it's kind of fun to play that game because some artists I'll go, he must have gone to Cupid School or something.

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And it's like, no, he never did or vice versa.

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It's really hard to kind of figure it out.

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Yeah, I tend to agree with you there too.

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Again, as someone who's not artistic and has no ability in that particular arena, I will say that like when I see a style like yours, and I think there's only one Tony McMillan in comics, but like, you know, when I see something like yours that is like so off of the house style, and we'll talk more about this later.

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I actually have a question about this, but when I see that, I immediately think, wow, the industry, we are in better company when folks like you are making art because while I love you know, Jim Lee, a Daniel St.

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Pierre, a Dan Mora, you know, like these guys all draw the best Batman and Superman in comics.

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But like, when I see your work, it proves to me that like, the more voices, the better.

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You know what I mean?

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Yeah, I very much agree.

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And I wouldn't want it oh one way or the other.

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I want a diverse range of styles and approaches.

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But I do tend to like uh very distinct artists.

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And I like people who are kind of unmistakable.

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I think that's really fun.

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And even those people um who are unmistakable, they have evolved through their career.

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And you go like, whoa, I really like this 15-year period here.

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I still like the other stuff.

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That's cool, too.

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It's like Bob Dylan.

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There's different phases.

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And that's really fun to watch, too.

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um Most of my favorite artists are people...

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You can just go like, yeah, there's no getting around it.

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And even, I love Jay Lee.

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And Jay Lee, he definitely, especially early on, go, he's really into Simon Bisley, he's into Tex, he's got a few other guys in there, but they're still Jay Lee.

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And now, it's like, no, Jay Lee's now become this refined, this is the Jay Lee style.

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And I am still a sucker for it.

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He did some covers recently for the Absolute Batman stuff.

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was like...

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God damn it, Jaylee, you still got it, man.

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I don't know if you do any interiors anymore, but any image you do, I'm really just god smacked by it.

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Sure.

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And there's a ton of great artist examples with that in terms of like with comics.

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But also, and I know listeners may know this, if this is your first time listening to the Oblivion Bar, you're hearing this for the first time along with Tony.

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But I am a huge Daft Punk fan.

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I actually have Daft Punk right here on my inner, I don't know if you can see that, Tony, but on my inner right arm, a full Daft Punk sort of mural.

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And they're a great example of what you're sort of speaking on where like depending on which era you're in and depending on which album you're listening to, it's sort of a different band.

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You know, like Daft Punk.

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Homework from 97 is night and day compared to Random Access Memories from 2011.

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You know what mean?

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Like they're wildly different bands.

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And I agree with you.

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I love the progression.

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And I think, again, if I'm going to use the Daft Punk analogy here, when I first heard Random Access Memories as a young person, I was 20 when that album came out.

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It's a more adult, I would say, more adult sounding album.

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It's a lot of jazz, a lot of synthesizers, a lot of guitar.

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And I always knew Daft Punk is sort of like this like...

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EDM sort of house music type of music, right?

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Or pop even when you think of like Discovery, very like you can sing along and bop your head to it.

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But when I heard Random Access Memories the first time, I remember like very vividly not loving it at first.

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But if you ask 33 year old, well now 34 as of yesterday, my birthday was on August 6th.

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But thank you, I've made it.

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uh If I listen to Random Access Memories now as a 34 year old, it's easily my favorite, right?

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Right.

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Taste changes.

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Yeah, and think that's really fun though to know that yeah, something you might not enjoy now, who knows, 10 years down the road might be your favorite thing and things swap out and also love when artists can kind of uh grow with their audience.

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Like I feel like, know, obviously I was, I'm too young for the Beatles to be like, I wasn't there when that happened, but like the Beastie Boys, I was kind of around there for that.

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So when they had new albums dropped, they changed their sound, they changed their philosophy, I was kind of growing up too and it sort of kind of went in tandem.

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And if you can achieve that with an audience, it's, I mean, it's perfect.

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Great.

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Absolutely.

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So, you know, I didn't mention your rock and roll horror, the augmented fourth in the intro, but I do want to sort of noodle on this for a moment because you are also a published prose novelist, know, so sort of a flip side to that previous question that I asked you about, like sort of your view on your artwork.

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I want to sort of ask the same question, but from your writing standpoint, you know, how do you sort of see yourself as a storyteller on the writing side?

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Is there like a particular North Star that you often search for in your work?

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Or do you sort of just let the story dictate how you write that particular story?

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um I think both of that's possible.

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think the North Star was always, um is this story that I'm thinking of, is it special enough to be something I don't think will come from anyone else?

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And do I have a special way to tell it?

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And then that also leads to me doing that second book of mine, my prose novel, An Augment at Fourth, which is uh essentially, it's like if uh John Carpenter's The Thing starred Black Sabbath, that's...

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That's the basic elevator pitch.

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But basically that was the novel.

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That was when I figured out, oh, because before that I had written a novel and I've written some screenplays and I had dabbled in some comics, but I realized, well, you should really make a story that works best for whatever medium you're going to make it in.

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And if you can make that organically, make that choice.

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And I realized, Augmented Fourth would be great as a novel because I have this character.

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can do a first person.

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um POV from and I was like, oh, that narrative will be really interesting and prose would be the best way to do it.

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And after doing that, soon after Lumen, the first original Lumen was the comic book I was gonna do.

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I realized, oh, this will work as a comic book.

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This story will work best as a comic book.

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And I was like, oh, that's what I was missing.

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Because before that, I've written a novel called Nefarious Twit, which one of the things I really wish I would have figured out is like that was, I think it really wanted to be a screenplay.

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you pushed into a novel and I can kind of still see like, oh, yeah, you didn't really figure that out yet.

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But you know, I had to learn, I had to learn it, I guess, through doing it.

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That's the part of the growth of finding your artistic voice, right?

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I mean, I think there's that type of story with a lot of creative folks is like, they'll start off liking maybe one medium, maybe they really love music, and that sort of evolves into something else.

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I know that was sort of comics for me as a young person, and I'm not comparing myself to you or any other person that's done, you know, things in comics.

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But like, when I think of where my love of, and I'm going to say this in like big quotations, art, right?

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Like, or like the sort of the appreciation of art, it started with comics, you know, as a young person reading The Dark Knight Returns.

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And unfortunately, I was one of those kids that started with Watchmen.

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I don't know who let me have Watchmen as a 14 year old, but there it was.

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And then I moved on to music and prose novels and all the other things.

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Yeah, I mean, I was, think, 11.

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read Dark Knight Returns.

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There you go.

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Maybe like nine.

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was bad.

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But I loved it.

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It changed my life.

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it was definitely...

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I'm actually...

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One of the things I'm to work on next is a comic book, is autobiographical, called Two Kids in a Trench Coat.

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It's about watching R-rated movies, listening to explicit music, and underground comics at a far too young age.

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So that'll be kind of fun.

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And there will be a Dark Knight chapter.

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It'll definitely be a big part of it.

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Can I follow you down this path really quickly?

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I want to ask you a little bit about that because as a young person, we're sort of, think from the same generation, you know, the nineties and such and how you had to sort of seek out or at least be around a really cool relative or adult to let you get those things or, or you had to watch HBO and the static, you know, at 2 a.m.

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or whatever.

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So I'm just curious in a world that we live in today in 2025 and I don't, are you a parent?

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Yeah.

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So I'm just curious, like, what is your philosophy if you're a comfortable sharing in terms of how you approach and I'll say explicit again in broad terms here.

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How do you approach showing your young one explicit material?

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Because I have a philosophy, but also I don't have kids.

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So like maybe this will change once I have one, but like I had this really interesting philosophy, I think that I'd love to share with you, but I want to hear yours first.

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Sure, I will say your philosophy might be right, but I've learned everything has been, everything I thought I knew was like, no, it's not really, in action it's very different.

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But I will say my kid's only, she's just turned six.

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Oh, sure.

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And so there's definitely some things where there's a lot of parameters where I'm like, not yet.

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But for instance, she is very interested in things already which are above her pay grade.

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so, like, uh I think we got into the car once and there's a podcast I was listening to talking about the exorcist.

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And I turned it off and she's like, what's the exorcist?

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It's a scary movie.

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What's it about?

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And I'm like, well, and so I told her a kind of uh a sort of a reader's digest version.

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There's this kid who has a really bad imaginary friend, turns out to be a demon.

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it's like, some bad stuff happens.

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And then these priests come and they kind of help her out.

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And she's like, Give her a big old hug and she's cured.

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Exactly.

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so it's stuff like that.

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But the thing is, think my philosophy is this, is that each kid's an individual.

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got to gauge them and they will change too.

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maybe your kid at seven is totally fine watching Predator.

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Maybe they're not going to be ready for Predator until they're 15.

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And that you might change your mind when they hit nine and go, you know what?

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No, actually, think something's changed.

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And so I think about like, uh My kid is fascinated by monsters and scary stuff, but they've also had nightmares and they're not ready for, like, that's funny, the thing that actually freaks them out the most is you watch a kid's movie and in most of these story arcs, there's a part where the friends break up and they're mad at each other and it's right before they figured out things that had to come back together.

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That anxiety makes my kid go nuts.

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She can't handle it.

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She wants to walk out of theater.

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Like when the rabbit and the fox aren't friends, and it's before they they bear the hatchet she's she hates that like that weird social like my god they're being so mean to each other and that's actually i think worse than any scary movie so far sweet, sensitive little person.

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That's amazing.

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I love that.

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So what's your philosophy here?

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do you got?

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Well, again, this is coming from a spectrum of just absolute ignorance.

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again, growing up in the 90s and and sort of my mom was relatively loose when it came to showing horror films or listening to music like I'm watching Leprechaun, you know, that evening.

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And then like the next day to school, we're listening to Bone Thugs and Harmony.

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You know what mean?

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So like my mom, she like sort of let me I think in like a very loose way, indulge this kind of stuff.

00:15:47.028 --> 00:15:56.994
And I've always said that if I had kids, I would want to be the one to sort of showcase these things to them and talk them through it if it's maybe too scary or they don't understand what's going on.

00:15:56.994 --> 00:16:07.673
And what really freaks me out and it's part of reason why I'm, you know, kidless at 34 is they have all of knowledge and anger right here.

00:16:07.673 --> 00:16:09.014
And I'm holding up a cell phone for everybody.

00:16:09.014 --> 00:16:10.073
That's not telling your eye.

00:16:10.073 --> 00:16:17.153
So like, I'm just nervous that like they'll get their hands on, you know, a piece of electronics or their friends will tell them a thing.

00:16:17.259 --> 00:16:19.850
And then like that sort of morphs their view of a thing.

00:16:19.850 --> 00:16:20.354
I don't know.

00:16:20.354 --> 00:16:22.970
And again, that's like being maybe a helicopter parent, but.

00:16:22.970 --> 00:16:26.570
no, I think that's totally valid and that's kind how I feel in lot of ways.

00:16:26.590 --> 00:16:30.610
I just think that this will kind of come into action in a couple years.

00:16:30.610 --> 00:16:35.490
Six for me is like, there's still plenty of stuff like that and I can watch Poltergeist yet.

00:16:35.850 --> 00:16:41.929
But I have made a list of like the training wheels to scary and kind of explicit stuff.

00:16:41.929 --> 00:16:45.090
But yeah, my mom was super permissive when it came to stuff.

00:16:45.889 --> 00:16:49.730
It was when I think I was nine, my ninth birthday.

00:16:49.974 --> 00:16:54.427
She got me Friday the 13th, one through eight, video VHS.

00:16:54.427 --> 00:16:54.927
So here you go.

00:16:54.927 --> 00:16:56.426
And she's like, fast forward past the titties.

00:16:56.426 --> 00:16:59.259
I'm like, sure, mom, it's not gonna happen.

00:16:59.259 --> 00:17:02.140
But uh that was that, you know?

00:17:02.301 --> 00:17:05.303
And especially with music, was like, who cares, whatever.

00:17:05.303 --> 00:17:09.325
They would complain about how it sounded, but didn't really care what they were saying.

00:17:09.325 --> 00:17:11.814
um So we'll see.

00:17:11.814 --> 00:17:18.221
And it's funny, I definitely knew kids, I'll talk about it in the book too, kids whose parents were not that way.

00:17:18.221 --> 00:17:28.162
And they were fun because they were like sheltered, but they also they would seek out the weirdest stuff on purpose because they they had to get that out of their system and they had no tools to deal with it.

00:17:28.162 --> 00:17:32.261
Like I a kid watching like Nightmare on Elm Street and like said, well, Freddie, visit me in my dreams.

00:17:32.261 --> 00:17:34.041
I was like, you're 12, right?

00:17:34.041 --> 00:17:34.682
We're 12.

00:17:34.682 --> 00:17:35.682
You know, no.

00:17:35.682 --> 00:17:36.554
We're like in middle school.

00:17:36.554 --> 00:17:38.348
You understand that Freddie is not real, right?

00:17:38.348 --> 00:17:39.094
You get that.

00:17:39.094 --> 00:17:41.998
I like, I'm actually, I think I made a mistake talking to you.

00:17:41.998 --> 00:17:43.544
Like, what's happening here?

00:17:44.933 --> 00:17:46.756
So that happened, you know?

00:17:46.756 --> 00:17:47.596
Yeah.

00:17:47.596 --> 00:17:48.656
Well, it's interesting.

00:17:48.656 --> 00:17:54.380
I think and I think horror and I think we're sort of cut from the same cloth in terms of our likes uh in media and such.

00:17:54.380 --> 00:18:01.368
I think horror specifically and I mentioned before the recording here and this will this episode will come out before our conversation.

00:18:01.368 --> 00:18:02.884
We're going to be talking about weapons.

00:18:02.884 --> 00:18:05.826
The new Zach Craigert movie that's coming out in August.

00:18:05.826 --> 00:18:13.067
And as a young person and I think that like my love of horror comes from a place of nostalgia because I was young.

00:18:13.067 --> 00:18:18.721
And it felt sort of wrong watching AMC during Halloween or watching sci-fi late at night.

00:18:18.721 --> 00:18:21.723
And like you had all these very explicit evil dead two is showing.

00:18:21.723 --> 00:18:22.144
Right.

00:18:22.144 --> 00:18:23.875
You're like, I shouldn't be watching this.

00:18:23.875 --> 00:18:25.307
You know, immediately you shouldn't.

00:18:25.307 --> 00:18:31.191
And I think it's sort of morphed my preferences in today's world and my brain can handle it.

00:18:31.191 --> 00:18:31.601
Right.

00:18:31.601 --> 00:18:38.205
It's just it's scary to think of an undeveloped young person's brain watching not to the demon too.

00:18:38.205 --> 00:18:40.676
And being like, holy, what is happening?

00:18:40.676 --> 00:18:44.433
You know, It's funny, a lot of those films are comfort food.

00:18:44.614 --> 00:18:52.301
I'm watching Dismemberment and some really gnarly stuff, it makes me think about the old days and things are simpler.

00:18:52.301 --> 00:18:52.862
Right.

00:18:52.862 --> 00:18:56.821
Well, you know, speaking of the old days, I think you set me up perfectly for my next question, which is more attaboy.

00:18:56.821 --> 00:18:59.382
I want to discuss where you were at in that moment.

00:18:59.382 --> 00:19:05.781
And, know, as I mentioned, that first question, attaboy garnered a ton of positive noise for you last year.

00:19:05.781 --> 00:19:11.402
And I don't really have like necessarily a like interesting thought provoking question about attaboy.

00:19:11.402 --> 00:19:16.642
I just kind of want to know, like, what was that moment like for you and how did you sort of did you capture that?

00:19:16.642 --> 00:19:23.213
Did you put that in a bottle for yourself internally or did you sort of let that wave over you and then you sort of wiped it away and just kept on moving.

00:19:23.213 --> 00:19:24.535
Well, it's weird.

00:19:24.535 --> 00:19:30.537
It's sort of like a lot of things I feel like that happen are not as dramatic as I think they're gonna be.

00:19:31.136 --> 00:19:35.130
And so, uh you it got a lot of really nice reviews.

00:19:35.130 --> 00:19:42.502
And the funny, so the book, Attaboy, initially, I guess four years ago, I self-published it through a Kickstarter initially.

00:19:42.502 --> 00:19:46.605
And actually the first edition was like this Marvel treasury gigantic version of it.

00:19:46.605 --> 00:19:47.383
by 17, right?

00:19:47.383 --> 00:19:48.683
Yeah, it's incredible.

00:19:48.683 --> 00:19:49.273
It's nuts.

00:19:49.273 --> 00:19:49.733
love it.

00:19:49.733 --> 00:19:54.957
But it was also like, you know, I didn't like lose money on it, but I barely made money on it and shipping it.

00:19:54.957 --> 00:19:57.218
It's a lot of problems.

00:19:57.218 --> 00:20:01.019
I then once I sold out, I made a normal size edition and kept on going.

00:20:01.019 --> 00:20:06.172
So I knew people, people really liked the book and it meant something to them, which was great.

00:20:06.172 --> 00:20:10.394
And when I was making the book, I used to tell people about, I'm going to make this book.

00:20:10.394 --> 00:20:16.109
And I kind of give them like the pitch and people were excited and no one had been excited about anything I've done.

00:20:16.109 --> 00:20:22.309
And I actually felt like the weirdest like smallest like, oh no, like this is what pressure is like, you know, it was like, it's like six people.

00:20:22.309 --> 00:20:28.130
But I was like, oh no, now I can see like why rock stars OD and they freak out when like their album, you know, I'm like, oh God.

00:20:28.130 --> 00:20:31.650
But it delivered I think and I was really proud of myself.

00:20:31.890 --> 00:20:40.049
then when the book came out through Mad Cave, like a lot of good things were said and nice things and insightful things.

00:20:40.490 --> 00:20:42.470
And so that stuff was great.

00:20:42.829 --> 00:20:44.942
And but what's funny is like the...

00:20:44.942 --> 00:20:47.083
probably even more like impactful.

00:20:47.083 --> 00:20:48.084
And it's kind of strange.

00:20:48.084 --> 00:21:01.990
It's like, not every con, but I do a few cons and um every other con at least, somebody will talk to me about the book and they will like, they will trauma dump on me and that's fine.

00:21:01.990 --> 00:21:07.354
But we get really intimate and they're a stranger and it's incredibly moving.

00:21:07.354 --> 00:21:10.205
It's sort of like, my joke is like, it's uncomfortable.

00:21:10.205 --> 00:21:14.438
And it is a little bit, but it's also really, it's incredible.

00:21:14.653 --> 00:21:16.505
and they'll tell me what the book means to them.

00:21:16.505 --> 00:21:25.944
They'll tell me about their parents' divorce and we'll have this like really serious talk and it's great, but it's it's insane.

00:21:26.164 --> 00:21:36.536
They'll walk away from you, like, I know something about this person and I don't know anything else about this person, but I know something really um that's formative about them and maybe they know that about me.

00:21:36.536 --> 00:21:39.468
that's, I knew the book was personal.

00:21:39.566 --> 00:21:43.730
um But it's a little strange when it goes out in the world and you get that back.

00:21:43.730 --> 00:21:46.692
It's strange, it almost feels like a responsibility in some ways.

00:21:46.892 --> 00:21:50.194
I don't know, I just wanna be there for them.

00:21:50.194 --> 00:21:53.718
Because people tell me some things and it's like, man, that's heavy.

00:21:53.718 --> 00:21:57.861
And I hug strangers, I'm like, all right man, let's hug it out, let's do this.

00:21:58.594 --> 00:21:59.214
You did this.

00:21:59.214 --> 00:21:59.644
Let's hug.

00:21:59.644 --> 00:22:00.065
Let's go.

00:22:00.065 --> 00:22:01.993
Come on.

00:22:02.317 --> 00:22:07.540
Well, you know, you're sort of keying on something that I've always found extremely interesting about.

00:22:07.821 --> 00:22:11.714
I'll say con going, but I think sort of the relationship between artists and reader.

00:22:11.714 --> 00:22:17.750
And I'm thinking specifically of comics in this particular instance, but I think you could attribute it to a lot of different mediums.

00:22:17.750 --> 00:22:20.092
And I go to at least three cons a year.

00:22:20.092 --> 00:22:21.313
Tony, I'm on the road.

00:22:21.313 --> 00:22:26.776
I feel like every spring, every fall and once other time, one other time throughout the year.

00:22:27.196 --> 00:22:28.428
And I go to these cons.

00:22:28.428 --> 00:22:29.969
And you see exactly what you're explaining here.

00:22:29.969 --> 00:22:47.290
And I'm not meaning to like downplay your experience with Attaboy because I think a lot of creators get this sort of similar experience where these readers, these folks that I'll say again, sort of broadly, don't generally have a ton of social interaction about the thing they love as much as they do when it comes to comics.

00:22:47.290 --> 00:22:48.781
Like I love comics.

00:22:48.781 --> 00:22:51.054
You can see behind me, Tony, and I know that listeners know this.

00:22:51.054 --> 00:22:57.127
I've got a ton of comics, but in like my normal day today, like in normal Chris and here in Indiana.

00:22:57.226 --> 00:23:00.885
No one, I think, really knows that I love this stuff as much as I do.

00:23:00.885 --> 00:23:12.152
So these people who really attach themselves to Attaboy, this interaction that you're having where like they feel like they know so much about you based on Attaboy and you know nothing, literally nothing about them.

00:23:12.152 --> 00:23:21.536
I'm so perversely interested in that dynamic because it's special and odd and amazing and weird.

00:23:21.536 --> 00:23:26.827
like, it's just a really cool clashing of two truths.

00:23:26.827 --> 00:23:27.881
that shouldn't exist.

00:23:27.881 --> 00:23:33.916
Like they think they know you so well because of Attaboy and you know nothing and yet they expose their underbelly immediately.

00:23:33.916 --> 00:23:34.766
It's awesome.

00:23:34.766 --> 00:23:35.665
It is.

00:23:35.665 --> 00:23:43.786
It's one of those crazy things where like, I think initially when I started writing books and making comics, I put some pretty personal stuff out there.

00:23:43.786 --> 00:23:50.605
I was a little worried that someone from my family would read it and maybe take it the wrong way or whatever, but then I realized they're never gonna read it.

00:23:51.365 --> 00:23:54.226
I know cares at all.

00:23:54.226 --> 00:23:56.365
I'm like, oh, I'm gonna put out even more stuff.

00:23:56.365 --> 00:24:00.942
now I have this, now instead of that, I have this bond with these strangers and...

00:24:00.942 --> 00:24:04.442
It's very real, it's very sincere.

00:24:04.642 --> 00:24:09.781
But you said everything you said also is Comic-Cons in general, like you said, and it's crazy.

00:24:10.221 --> 00:24:14.301
There's a million people there who is like, we care about this stuff so much.

00:24:14.301 --> 00:24:17.000
And we go there and we gotta get out of our system.

00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:24.182
And everyone's a little anxious, everyone's a little off, everyone's telling jokes a little too fast, and I've been there too.

00:24:24.182 --> 00:24:30.701
But it's beautiful in its own way, because it's this raw human celebration of something.

00:24:31.509 --> 00:24:32.530
Yeah, it's funny.

00:24:32.530 --> 00:24:45.862
also, it's funny every time I talk to other creators and also people who go to shows, we will maybe talk a little crap about other comic book nerds, but we all know we have done every single thing we are criticizing.

00:24:45.862 --> 00:24:46.642
Yeah.

00:24:46.750 --> 00:24:53.346
It's one of those things where like you cannot say something bad about these people, but I can, it's like your little brother, little sister, you know.

00:24:53.346 --> 00:24:54.086
exactly.

00:24:54.086 --> 00:24:55.165
It's one of those things I've seen.

00:24:55.165 --> 00:24:57.145
like, oh, I did that like a few years ago.

00:24:57.145 --> 00:24:58.105
Thank God I chilled out.

00:24:58.105 --> 00:24:58.945
like, have I chilled out?

00:24:58.945 --> 00:24:59.546
Oh my God.

00:24:59.546 --> 00:25:00.786
Maybe I'm just...

00:25:00.866 --> 00:25:02.998
we're just living in circles of embarrassment constantly.

00:25:02.998 --> 00:25:05.240
It's just things that we've done that other people are doing now.

00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:07.000
You know, like every nerd's done that.

00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:14.115
But I want to sort of sidebar on I have a second question here on Attaboy, whereas the design work in the book is phenomenal.

00:25:14.115 --> 00:25:17.509
ah And I couldn't find who the designer was.

00:25:17.509 --> 00:25:21.892
I can only find the handle at the beginning of the book, which was at Anne Ray Zaya.

00:25:21.892 --> 00:25:25.746
Are they able like are you allowed to tell who that is?

00:25:25.746 --> 00:25:26.637
Or do you know?

00:25:26.637 --> 00:25:27.419
don't know.

00:25:27.419 --> 00:25:34.423
basically, like, okay, so they design like, um like the end papers, I think, and some of the spine stuff.

00:25:34.423 --> 00:25:36.253
And it's a mix like they did some stuff.

00:25:36.253 --> 00:25:39.665
And some of it's kind of the same from the original version, which I designed.

00:25:39.665 --> 00:25:40.705
Sure.

00:25:40.705 --> 00:25:49.817
But they designed definitely the end matter stuff, the back matter stuff with like the little like oh essay from me and some of that stuff.

00:25:49.817 --> 00:25:54.298
But yeah, it's funny, Mad Cave delivered a PDF to me and I was like, oh, this is cool.

00:25:54.298 --> 00:25:55.498
I was like, who's this?

00:25:55.498 --> 00:25:56.877
And they didn't answer the question either.

00:25:56.877 --> 00:25:58.857
was like, all right, well, is it Alan Smithy?

00:25:58.857 --> 00:26:00.538
Is there a person?

00:26:00.837 --> 00:26:02.518
So congrats to them.

00:26:03.258 --> 00:26:08.097
My experience at Mad Cave, I have one editor I really worked with pretty closely.

00:26:08.097 --> 00:26:10.817
And it was still, honestly, it was great time, but it was very minimal.

00:26:10.817 --> 00:26:14.637
was like, we were gonna add some commas, maybe we move the balloon around.

00:26:14.637 --> 00:26:16.718
they asked a few things, I was like, no, I don't want to change that.

00:26:16.718 --> 00:26:18.298
they're like, all right, your book, you still own it.

00:26:18.298 --> 00:26:19.518
So I was like, cool.

00:26:19.518 --> 00:26:22.317
And it was super easy.

00:26:23.077 --> 00:26:25.077
so yeah, I agree with you.

00:26:25.077 --> 00:26:26.657
I don't know who it is.

00:26:27.832 --> 00:26:31.227
Yeah, know internet presence whatsoever.

00:26:31.227 --> 00:26:33.518
Could not find them in preparation for this conversation.

00:26:33.518 --> 00:26:37.339
think I looked too briefly and I was like, all right, I guess they're just gonna be like mysterious and stuff.

00:26:37.339 --> 00:26:39.465
Cause it's one of those things that I'd done everything else myself.

00:26:39.465 --> 00:26:41.138
So was kind of like, yeah, there's somebody else on this.

00:26:41.138 --> 00:26:43.652
And like, this is impressive stuff.

00:26:43.652 --> 00:26:44.173
Right.

00:26:44.173 --> 00:26:45.133
No idea.

00:26:45.730 --> 00:26:54.816
Well, you also give a special thanks to Taylor Hendel, I hope I'm saying that name correctly, and a good friend who we're actually gonna have on the show next week, or excuse me, not next week, next month, Jesse Lonergan.

00:26:54.816 --> 00:26:57.549
So curious, what was their involvement with Attaboy?

00:26:57.549 --> 00:26:59.529
Yeah, so Taylor is my wife.

00:26:59.769 --> 00:26:59.990
Oh, you go.

00:26:59.990 --> 00:27:03.089
Yeah, So she's just, she's there.

00:27:03.089 --> 00:27:04.049
She's my partner.

00:27:04.049 --> 00:27:05.029
She's always there.

00:27:05.029 --> 00:27:07.809
listens to my stuff and she reads my stuff.

00:27:08.730 --> 00:27:12.349
just living the life of anybody is inspiration.

00:27:13.170 --> 00:27:14.690
then Jesse, Jesse's my buddy.

00:27:14.690 --> 00:27:15.730
Jesse's my friend.

00:27:15.730 --> 00:27:17.789
It's funny, Jesse's a guy who...

00:27:18.038 --> 00:27:24.509
I initially saw his art online and I realized we both lived in Massachusetts and I think I reached out and was like, hey man, I got this cool idea for a book.

00:27:24.509 --> 00:27:26.380
He's like, I'm kind of doing my own thing.

00:27:26.380 --> 00:27:27.513
I was like, all right, cool.

00:27:27.513 --> 00:27:35.772
And then I was working for a newspaper and I interviewed him and we met and we just, think we got like a sandwich, then we got couple beers or something.

00:27:35.772 --> 00:27:39.230
And then we eventually saw some movies together and then we were weirdest friends.

00:27:39.230 --> 00:27:44.814
The weirdest thing though is that he's one of the best comic book artists working.

00:27:44.910 --> 00:27:52.814
Yeah, you and I know this and I think a lot of comic book fans know this but not enough people know this that Jesse Lange is one of the best in the medium.

00:27:52.814 --> 00:27:54.285
I think that's gonna change.

00:27:54.285 --> 00:27:57.325
it's funny, back in the day, me and my wife Taylor, we both loved this stuff.

00:27:57.325 --> 00:27:58.867
My wife Taylor loves comics as well.

00:27:58.867 --> 00:28:00.338
And we loved this art.

00:28:00.338 --> 00:28:02.441
And he actually did the wedding invitations for us.

00:28:02.441 --> 00:28:03.852
He drew a picture of us dancing.

00:28:03.852 --> 00:28:07.523
used to sort of lament, like, he's so good.

00:28:07.523 --> 00:28:09.526
If he can't make it, then what's the point?

00:28:09.526 --> 00:28:11.807
And then he made it.

00:28:11.967 --> 00:28:13.290
And he's continuing to make it.

00:28:13.290 --> 00:28:14.189
And it's great.

00:28:14.189 --> 00:28:20.492
like, so he's, the weirdest thing is that he's my friend, but he's also an inspiration.

00:28:20.573 --> 00:28:28.905
And he's just someone I'm like, constantly like knocked out by his work, know, and like his new book, Drome is gonna be, I've read the whole thing.

00:28:28.905 --> 00:28:30.046
I think it's his best work.

00:28:30.046 --> 00:28:31.066
I really do.

00:28:31.066 --> 00:28:32.286
Also, I helped name it.

00:28:32.286 --> 00:28:36.405
But also besides that, even without that, I think it's his best work.

00:28:36.405 --> 00:28:36.846
It really is.

00:28:36.846 --> 00:28:38.026
It's incredible.

00:28:38.026 --> 00:28:42.266
And so I'm really happy that's finally gonna come out to like everyone.

00:28:42.266 --> 00:28:45.165
He deserves like even more eyes on him.

00:28:45.205 --> 00:28:50.766
In Attaboy, there's actually a two page spread where it shows all the villains and bad guys.

00:28:51.150 --> 00:28:55.549
directly lifted the layout from his book, Ahedra.

00:28:55.549 --> 00:28:58.750
Yeah, so I stole that from him and he definitely clocked it.

00:28:58.750 --> 00:28:59.549
He's like, oh, that's nice.

00:28:59.549 --> 00:29:00.930
I was like, yeah, it's pretty good, right?

00:29:00.930 --> 00:29:02.569
Nice layout, right?

00:29:03.269 --> 00:29:04.789
But he's great, man.

00:29:04.789 --> 00:29:09.509
He's just one of those guys, his works, and he's still growing and changing.

00:29:09.509 --> 00:29:18.342
And I'll say this too, like everyone, you the first thing you probably notice he suggests his work is his mastery of layouts and how playful and inventive he is, but he's also really good at.

00:29:18.369 --> 00:29:24.900
just drawing cool characters in action and storytelling and he's kind of got the whole thing down, like locked down.

00:29:24.900 --> 00:29:29.240
um I can't say enough good things, he's a good guy.

00:29:29.240 --> 00:29:31.192
Yeah, I will echo all of that.

00:29:31.192 --> 00:29:34.755
And I'm very, very excited to finally chat with him next month about drone.

00:29:34.755 --> 00:29:40.719
So it's been one of those things where very similar to you that we've been social media mutuals.

00:29:40.719 --> 00:29:45.123
It was mostly because I was a huge fan, followed both of you on social media.

00:29:45.123 --> 00:29:47.634
And then like we were lucky enough to get a follow back.

00:29:47.634 --> 00:29:51.147
And then you sort of saw what craziness we were doing on the oblivion bar.

00:29:51.147 --> 00:29:52.719
And Jesse has been nice enough.

00:29:52.719 --> 00:29:56.422
We've messaged back and forth and has agreed to come on to talk finally about drone.

00:29:56.422 --> 00:29:58.894
So I totally agree with everything you said.

00:29:59.057 --> 00:30:02.671
But we're not here to siphon off any credit to Jesse Lahr again.

00:30:02.671 --> 00:30:05.323
We'll save that for next month for September.

00:30:06.045 --> 00:30:14.491
But I want to go back to you here because I found out through sort of the research for this conversation that you're also a podcaster.

00:30:14.491 --> 00:30:17.474
And from what I could find, you have actually, is it two shows?

00:30:17.474 --> 00:30:20.817
You have Two Young for this shit and Five Star Autopsy.

00:30:20.817 --> 00:30:21.491
Is that correct?

00:30:21.491 --> 00:30:22.722
Exactly, yeah.

00:30:22.722 --> 00:30:25.894
And I think I had one before that was like a radio show, but that's years ago.

00:30:25.894 --> 00:30:27.503
yeah.

00:30:27.805 --> 00:30:30.365
Five Star Autopsy, I should do another season of that.

00:30:30.365 --> 00:30:31.006
That was really fun.

00:30:31.006 --> 00:30:36.929
And basically, I look at different creators through movies, music, comics, novels, whatever.

00:30:36.929 --> 00:30:43.352
And I kind of go over their career and go, well, they had a really great run of uninterrupted greatness.

00:30:43.352 --> 00:30:45.373
And then what stopped that?

00:30:45.373 --> 00:30:48.854
What killed their five star run?

00:30:49.021 --> 00:30:57.836
And so I'll go through like Frank Miller, I'll go through, you know, the Beatles, I'll go through the Venture Brothers TV show, whatever I really think has a great run.

00:30:57.836 --> 00:30:58.998
And so that was kind of fun.

00:30:58.998 --> 00:31:00.608
That's a one man show.

00:31:00.608 --> 00:31:10.894
And part of that was because doing the other show, had a co-host who lives in Arizona, and we had like one or two guests every episode who, and I was like, Wrangling this, I'm sure you understand this.

00:31:10.894 --> 00:31:14.576
Time zones and getting people, that's half the job.

00:31:14.576 --> 00:31:17.021
So I was like, I'm gonna do a one man podcast.

00:31:17.021 --> 00:31:17.958
so...

00:31:18.150 --> 00:31:20.352
I might return to both of those things.

00:31:20.352 --> 00:31:25.194
The other podcast, Too Young for This Shit, is about growing up on action movies.

00:31:25.276 --> 00:31:25.942
And that's really fun.

00:31:25.942 --> 00:31:34.544
And actually that was kind of, that led me to my book I'm gonna work on eventually called Two Kids in a Trench Coat about R-rated movies and stuff like that.

00:31:34.544 --> 00:31:41.929
like, I love the idea of kids watching things maybe are experiencing art that maybe they're too young for.

00:31:42.509 --> 00:31:45.553
Because I think a lot of times they're actually not too young for it.

00:31:45.553 --> 00:31:53.412
I think some of this work is actually, um especially a lot of these action movies that I grew up on in the 90s, they're basically this kids movies of a little more violence.

00:31:53.412 --> 00:32:00.338
They're very simple and that's not a knock on them, but yeah, you can get, they're almost basically all ages movies.

00:32:00.338 --> 00:32:02.019
There's something there for everyone.

00:32:02.019 --> 00:32:06.365
um But yeah, those podcasts are a lot of fun.

00:32:06.365 --> 00:32:09.337
I enjoy doing them, but I gotta find the time.

00:32:09.337 --> 00:32:12.077
It's like drawing stuff, it's just so much time.

00:32:12.077 --> 00:32:17.682
Yeah, I don't know how you, that was actually sort of my central question for this was like, how do you even have the time to do what you do with art?

00:32:17.682 --> 00:32:27.307
And then, you know, with the pod, cause I, I have one podcast, a one, one, like I would say, and I'm getting, I'm being very generous here, mildly like successful podcast.

00:32:27.307 --> 00:32:29.282
And that takes up so much of my time.

00:32:29.282 --> 00:32:31.150
I can't imagine trying to do two either.

00:32:31.150 --> 00:32:39.269
It's funny, she was starting the second season of Five Star Autopsy and I recorded half an episode and I had to do something and that was nine months ago.

00:32:39.289 --> 00:32:41.630
so luckily I didn't tell anybody the season's coming out.

00:32:41.630 --> 00:32:44.622
So was like, oh, should finish that episode at least.

00:32:44.622 --> 00:33:16.904
Yeah, well, I'll tell you if you ever need pointers for podcasting don't ask us go ask So no, I'm kidding you I feel like I've gathered like a couple tips and tricks But I'd be always happy to help in any way I can but and and this sort of ties into this larger sort of idea and I sort of hinted at a moment ago that I don't know if the listener knows this I'm just now finding out about this but you are Like so into a lot of things, you know, and I mean that as someone who's also into maybe too many things myself And I know you love film, you love music, which we've already talked about.

00:33:16.904 --> 00:33:20.656
I've heard you mentioned, you know, the doors and the Queens of the Stone Age.

00:33:20.656 --> 00:33:21.817
You love Tarantino films.

00:33:21.817 --> 00:33:23.321
You love John Carpenter.

00:33:23.321 --> 00:33:31.997
And then there's one thing that you specifically talked about, I think in an interview that you loved, which was Boogie Nights, which, yeah, that's an old timer for me.

00:33:31.997 --> 00:33:34.979
ah It's a top three film and it might be number one.

00:33:34.979 --> 00:33:40.903
It's generally like a litmus test for people or for me to see if like we have the same taste in film.

00:33:40.903 --> 00:33:49.373
ah And I was going to ask you sort of I want to tie this into serious creatures, which you sort of have an analogy for as well with Boogie Nights.

00:33:49.373 --> 00:33:54.434
But do find that you carry your influences from other mediums and let those bleed into your work?

00:33:54.434 --> 00:34:00.817
Or do you purposely avoid those things that you love and sort of take that road less traveled from a creativity standpoint?

00:34:01.112 --> 00:34:11.659
feel it's funny they kind of work together because I feel like um certain things I do like maybe the way I draw or the way I just kind of make a comic page are pretty unique on themselves.

00:34:11.659 --> 00:34:20.896
So that makes me feel it's okay to wear certain influences on my sleeve, because it's gonna come out, it's gonna come out through the machine that is me and it'll look totally different.

00:34:20.896 --> 00:34:21.626
Sure.

00:34:21.626 --> 00:34:25.860
So I used to, I've said this on other podcasts, but I think it's really true.

00:34:25.860 --> 00:34:28.240
um I used to, I love The Simpsons, right?

00:34:28.240 --> 00:34:37.306
And on the commentary, Hank Azaria, who does a bunch of voices, he goes, they're showing Mo, he's like, see Mo's voice is just me doing a really bad Al Pacino.

00:34:37.306 --> 00:34:40.298
And he goes like, Lou the cop is me doing a bad Stallone.

00:34:40.429 --> 00:34:42.619
And he's like, I'm a really bad impressionist.

00:34:42.619 --> 00:34:45.630
And I was like, oh, that's what I am artistically.

00:34:46.152 --> 00:34:48.902
I'm trying to do somebody like John Romita Jr.

00:34:48.902 --> 00:34:51.594
or Frank Miller, and it's coming out really wonky.

00:34:51.594 --> 00:34:54.856
And that's great, because actually that's what I am.

00:34:54.856 --> 00:35:01.239
And so I feel like, no, it's OK to do, like, Attaboy can be like, that's based on Mega Man?

00:35:01.239 --> 00:35:02.920
Yeah, there's a lot of Mega Man in there.

00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:05.050
It's not going to look like the Mega Man game.

00:35:05.050 --> 00:35:07.574
And so that will kind of balance out.

00:35:07.574 --> 00:35:09.358
you know, is it just pastiche?

00:35:09.358 --> 00:35:12.969
No, it's got it's definitely influenced by something, but it's weird enough.

00:35:12.969 --> 00:35:14.293
It's going to be its own thing.

00:35:14.293 --> 00:35:15.054
Sure.

00:35:15.054 --> 00:35:20.373
I've ever heard of, I think it's a literary sort of study called New Historicism.

00:35:20.373 --> 00:35:21.554
You familiar with that?

00:35:22.333 --> 00:35:37.733
So it's basically this thought, it's a sort of a philosophy and creativity where we all subconsciously without even purposely doing it, let our influences, things we love, things we hate, all the things bleed into our creations.

00:35:37.733 --> 00:35:42.153
And I have an example for this, if you're okay giving me sort of a long-winded explanation to this.

00:35:42.153 --> 00:35:46.083
When I was in college, I wrote a Punisher short story as like a project.

00:35:46.103 --> 00:35:48.884
And I gave it to a friend of mine who worked at a comic shop.

00:35:48.884 --> 00:35:50.144
I was working at a comic shop in St.

00:35:50.144 --> 00:35:52.025
Louis while I was there and I gave it him to read.

00:35:52.025 --> 00:35:57.128
goes, I really like this, but kind of reminds me of Garth Ennis' run on the Punisher, Punisher Max.

00:35:57.188 --> 00:36:01.010
And it was funny because I had never read Punisher Max.

00:36:01.010 --> 00:36:21.322
The reason why it felt like Punisher Max is because through again, this theory of new historicism, if you believe it, all the Punisher I've read, which is I think at that time quite a bit, all of that before and maybe some of it even well definitely after but maybe even some of it before either influenced Garth Ennis or was influenced by Garth Ennis and his and Steve Dillon's run.

00:36:21.322 --> 00:36:41.864
So through all that I sort of found my particular version of Punisher because of my love of the character which I think was largely influenced by his iconic run point being is that like we do this subconsciously and I'm always just curious if creators do this on purpose or do they sort of just let their mind run and what comes out comes out.

00:36:42.239 --> 00:36:44.951
Yeah, I think that's actually a really interesting theory.

00:36:44.951 --> 00:36:51.081
It reminds me of, it's like a good explanation for parallel thinking, because I think there definitely are things I've thought of.

00:36:51.081 --> 00:36:57.313
I'm like, man, if no one's done it yet, I should do it soon, because I think someone will come to that same conclusion.

00:36:57.733 --> 00:37:04.925
And what's funny though is I'll have that thought, but I go, when I do it, it'll be this weird thing, my version of it.

00:37:04.925 --> 00:37:09.958
So maybe the other version is a more commercial version or not, who knows, but I can only do what I can do.

00:37:09.958 --> 00:37:11.038
But I think...

00:37:11.949 --> 00:37:51.146
Like I did I do a podcast like, you know five star autopsy where I talk about people's you know runs and I've learned especially in like Movies or people are just trying to get whatever they can get done made, you know I've learned that I had like I had this imaginary Career in my mind like book one is this book two is this and then book three is this and I've learned well You can kind of plan that but the truth is I think it's more likely just the next book will be whatever is ready I think it's like a of a stove and things are cooking and some things are getting there but they're not ready yet and something else is like, it's boiling, it's time to cook it, it's time to serve it.

00:37:51.146 --> 00:38:00.846
And so I've learned that I only have so much power to curate my own body of work and I'm trying to make it as good as I can.

00:38:00.846 --> 00:38:11.137
And a lot of times things, if I finish one project, let's say I finished Serious Creatures, which was a very literary kind of book, a lot of conversation, a lot of stuff like that.

00:38:11.137 --> 00:38:14.559
the next thing I wanted to do was something full of action and less dialogue.

00:38:14.559 --> 00:38:17.262
And then after I that, I I want something a little more nuanced.

00:38:17.262 --> 00:38:19.012
These things always kind of bounce off each other.

00:38:19.012 --> 00:38:20.525
I think that that happens to lot of artists.

00:38:20.525 --> 00:38:33.313
I do most of my stuff uh self-published and there's some stuff that's been published, I have the self-publishing, I have the, I guess, the liberty of doing what I want to do.

00:38:33.313 --> 00:38:39.317
I'm sure there's people who like, no, I did Miracle Man next because that was the next thing I could do.

00:38:39.416 --> 00:38:40.494
And then I did...

00:38:40.494 --> 00:38:42.373
swamp thing I did Punisher.

00:38:42.454 --> 00:38:43.514
I thought they don't like those books.

00:38:43.514 --> 00:38:45.014
They're like, no, just that was the next job.

00:38:45.014 --> 00:38:46.606
So I took it.

00:38:46.606 --> 00:38:46.965
Sure.

00:38:46.965 --> 00:38:47.706
Yeah.

00:38:47.706 --> 00:38:47.956
Yeah.

00:38:47.956 --> 00:38:48.686
It's interesting.

00:38:48.686 --> 00:38:56.650
Um, when you're creating something, you have to sort of go where that, where the opportunity is, I guess is the best way to put it, right?

00:38:56.650 --> 00:39:04.293
Like, like you said, you can't plan book one, book two, you can't plan out like 50 issues of a book that's not even created yet because you're going to let yourself down.

00:39:04.293 --> 00:39:08.875
It's not going to happen because of either the market doesn't want an editor, doesn't want to hear your pitch.

00:39:08.965 --> 00:39:11.076
readers aren't interested in it at the time.

00:39:11.076 --> 00:39:18.166
Like there's so many factors or maybe it's maybe like people just are Not wanting it in that exact moment, right?

00:39:18.166 --> 00:39:32.199
And I think also, I don't know about other creators, but I find what I like to do is I do some planning and there is some scaffolding, but at any moment I could change my mind and there's room to to veer off.

00:39:32.199 --> 00:39:34.320
And that's, I need it to be alive.

00:39:34.320 --> 00:39:39.612
Cause if it's totally dead and it's like, though you just, you had to, it's like a Lego instructional booklet.

00:39:39.612 --> 00:39:43.233
There's no fun, there's no life, there's no joy and it won't get made.

00:39:43.233 --> 00:39:49.646
And so I, and I think some of my best, choices in storytelling have been when I changed my mind.

00:39:49.646 --> 00:39:54.318
I was like, no, no, no, the characters are telling me it just feels more like they should go this way.

00:39:54.318 --> 00:39:56.865
It's almost like the store is directing you in a way.

00:39:56.865 --> 00:40:00.585
that's the best feeling because I feel the most comfortable.

00:40:00.585 --> 00:40:02.365
like, this feels right.

00:40:02.365 --> 00:40:04.226
I don't care how much I plan the other thing.

00:40:04.226 --> 00:40:06.726
No, no, that doesn't, I'm done with that.

00:40:06.726 --> 00:40:07.585
And that's great.

00:40:07.585 --> 00:40:14.626
And so I think over planning stuff, think most people are gonna wasting their time, especially their careers.

00:40:14.626 --> 00:40:18.646
Careers, think, are these wild, weird things.

00:40:18.646 --> 00:40:23.181
And I love hearing later on when you go like, oh, that's why he did the sequel to that?

00:40:23.181 --> 00:40:25.382
And it's, oh, weird.

00:40:25.561 --> 00:40:28.561
Especially, it doesn't have to be like some, you know, like, he's needing money.

00:40:28.561 --> 00:40:29.922
That's fine too, but it's funny.

00:40:29.922 --> 00:40:31.902
It's like, no, he actually went on a vacation to Paris.

00:40:31.902 --> 00:40:34.902
He saw this pink umbrella and the umbrella reminded him, oh yeah.

00:40:34.902 --> 00:40:37.021
And it's just, who knows why?

00:40:37.021 --> 00:40:38.380
I love that kind of stuff.

00:40:38.380 --> 00:40:39.630
Yeah, absolutely.

00:40:39.630 --> 00:40:54.682
Now I wanted to tie in sort of our Boogie Nights conversation to Serious Creatures because again, during our email thread, when we first started getting together to plan out this conversation, you sort of compared it to your series Serious Creatures to Boogie Nights without the sex, right?

00:40:54.682 --> 00:41:04.677
Or you said it was like Goodfellas, but instead of the mobsters, it's three decades in the trenches with special special effects grunts, crazy directors, stuntmen, scream queens.

00:41:04.677 --> 00:41:07.927
So tell the listener a little bit about Serious Creatures.

00:41:07.927 --> 00:41:12.244
And then also what compelled you to want to tell the story about a 14 year old special effects prodigy.

00:41:12.353 --> 00:41:15.675
Yeah, so Serious Creatures, it's completely finished.

00:41:15.675 --> 00:41:19.516
It's 12 issues, there's two collections, two trades.

00:41:19.516 --> 00:41:21.436
um It's the story of Bobby Feckle.

00:41:21.436 --> 00:41:29.278
He's a 14-year-old kid in the 1970s, and he wanders onto the set of a movie about a shark which is terrorizing a New England town.

00:41:29.278 --> 00:41:35.911
And so in our world, the movie's called Finn, and that sets Bobby on this different course in his life.

00:41:35.911 --> 00:41:39.744
He's gonna become a special effects guy, and he's gonna become it as a teenager.

00:41:39.744 --> 00:41:45.757
and he gets a front row seat to the blockbuster film revolution that is Jaws and Star Wars and all these films.

00:41:45.836 --> 00:41:54.501
And he rides that all way to the end when CGI comes in and kind of, you know, takes away all the practical effects, you know, the glory of that.

00:41:54.501 --> 00:42:02.143
And so the reason this all came to be is a long, long time ago, I wrote a prose short story called The Malfunctioning Werewolf.

00:42:02.324 --> 00:42:04.244
And this is all based on a real guy.

00:42:04.244 --> 00:42:05.996
His name is Rob Boteen.

00:42:06.094 --> 00:42:10.673
Rob Boteen was, he was 14 working on the set of Star Wars.

00:42:10.673 --> 00:42:16.534
They did a pickup shoot with the Moes Isley Cantina scene of all these monster masks and all these creature stuff.

00:42:16.534 --> 00:42:17.713
He was part of that crew.

00:42:17.713 --> 00:42:22.994
so Rob Boteen tells the story on camera and some interview, it's on YouTube, I think.

00:42:23.253 --> 00:42:25.474
He's like, it's my first day in Hollywood on set.

00:42:25.474 --> 00:42:26.614
And so I'm helping things.

00:42:26.614 --> 00:42:28.733
He's like, I'm pretty tall for a 14 year old kid.

00:42:28.733 --> 00:42:30.286
So I'm actually one of the...

00:42:30.286 --> 00:42:33.606
He's one of the players in the band, the white aliens with the big eyes.

00:42:35.166 --> 00:42:36.565
He's one of those dudes.

00:42:36.565 --> 00:42:41.726
So anyways, in between takes, he's hanging out and some guy walks up to him goes, hey man, you're kind of young.

00:42:41.726 --> 00:42:43.686
He's like, what do you think of this?

00:42:43.686 --> 00:42:44.826
You think this is gonna work?

00:42:44.826 --> 00:42:46.706
think teens will think this is cool?

00:42:46.706 --> 00:42:49.766
And Robbo Teen was like, I think it's kind of stupid, man.

00:42:49.766 --> 00:42:51.346
I'm sorry, I think it's kind of silly.

00:42:51.346 --> 00:42:54.045
All these aliens together at the bar, it's kind of goofy.

00:42:54.045 --> 00:42:56.045
And the guy was like, okay, that's cool.

00:42:56.045 --> 00:42:56.626
That's your opinion.

00:42:56.626 --> 00:42:58.253
He walked away and then...

00:42:58.253 --> 00:43:01.094
Rob's boss, Rick Baker is like, hey, what did George want?

00:43:01.094 --> 00:43:03.213
And Rob Boutin was like, who's George?

00:43:03.773 --> 00:43:05.094
And Rob tells the story just like that.

00:43:05.094 --> 00:43:06.494
And he's like, that was my first day in Hollywood.

00:43:06.494 --> 00:43:08.253
And he's like, George didn't get mad at me.

00:43:08.253 --> 00:43:09.954
That was just the way it was.

00:43:10.014 --> 00:43:11.353
And I heard that story.

00:43:11.353 --> 00:43:12.793
like, this is amazing.

00:43:12.793 --> 00:43:17.653
And Rob Boutin also did the effects for my, one of my favorite films is The Thing.

00:43:17.653 --> 00:43:21.333
And Rob Boutin did those effects, think he was 21 or 22 when he finished.

00:43:21.813 --> 00:43:28.090
And the capra to all this was that Rob Boutin, After CGI comes in, he hangs around Hollywood for a little bit.

00:43:28.090 --> 00:43:29.130
He does the movie Seven.

00:43:29.130 --> 00:43:30.891
He does Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

00:43:30.891 --> 00:43:32.231
Then he disappears.

00:43:32.231 --> 00:43:33.012
And I disappeared.

00:43:33.012 --> 00:43:34.333
No one has seen him.

00:43:34.333 --> 00:43:37.833
No one in Hollywood has seen There's rumors he's selling real estate in Florida.

00:43:37.833 --> 00:43:39.594
There's no one knows.

00:43:39.954 --> 00:43:42.074
And I was like, that's amazing.

00:43:42.994 --> 00:43:43.954
I want to know what happened.

00:43:43.954 --> 00:43:46.135
And so I wrote the whole story myself.

00:43:46.135 --> 00:43:49.237
And my version of things is influenced by his career.

00:43:49.237 --> 00:43:53.297
But all the personal stuff is either made up or it's from my own life.

00:43:53.847 --> 00:43:55.358
come through a really weird lens.

00:43:55.358 --> 00:44:04.224
So serious creatures like boogie nights is like, one of my favorite parts about boogie nights is that all the people work in the porn industry, they're sort of a circus troupe.

00:44:04.224 --> 00:44:05.269
There's this.

00:44:05.269 --> 00:44:07.476
all walks of life, all different roles.

00:44:07.476 --> 00:44:14.530
Yeah, and they have this thing where in some way they're sort of glamorized, but they're also the dregs of society.

00:44:14.711 --> 00:44:19.195
And it's a really weird mixture of highs and lows.

00:44:19.195 --> 00:44:24.786
And I was like, these special effects guys and all the guys behind the scene in film, I think it's very similar.

00:44:24.786 --> 00:44:28.762
I always loved, as a kid, I used to love reading Fangoria magazine.

00:44:28.762 --> 00:44:37.106
And when they show the guys who were making the effects, they're always the same, like guys in like Pantera, Iron Maiden shirts, like long hair and like...

00:44:37.106 --> 00:44:38.094
it their mouth.

00:44:38.130 --> 00:44:41.021
And I was like, who are these scummy kings?

00:44:41.021 --> 00:44:42.570
I love these guys.

00:44:42.650 --> 00:44:45.152
And it all kind of fed together.

00:44:45.152 --> 00:44:47.873
um I love making that book.

00:44:47.932 --> 00:44:52.014
The first six issues I did um right before Attaboy, actually.

00:44:52.114 --> 00:44:54.161
And I learned a lot doing those issues.

00:44:54.161 --> 00:44:55.695
I was really proud of them.

00:44:55.695 --> 00:44:58.735
um when I came back, I did Attaboy and a few other things.

00:44:58.735 --> 00:45:03.077
I came back two years later, the second half of Serious Creatures.

00:45:03.077 --> 00:45:08.322
um Going back to I was like, my God, I really missed all these characters.

00:45:08.322 --> 00:45:18.177
I missed Bobby, I missed like Jack Barber, who's a mentor, and I missed all the weird director guys and the beards is what we call them and all the characters.

00:45:18.177 --> 00:45:19.398
missed them and their goings on.

00:45:19.398 --> 00:45:23.458
And so the book's, I think it's a really unique, weird book.

00:45:23.458 --> 00:45:31.277
Now, is this something that I know you have like an Etsy store that has a lot of your work that was either Kickstarter or what have you is the serious creature series on this Etsy store?

00:45:31.277 --> 00:45:32.057
Yep, 100%.

00:45:32.057 --> 00:45:40.117
Yeah, and it's one of those things I've been trying to get this, I came close to a deal six, seven months ago and it failed there at the last minute.

00:45:40.117 --> 00:45:44.737
But I'm trying to get serious creatures through another publisher and get it out into more stores and stuff like that.

00:45:44.737 --> 00:45:48.333
But at this minute, you can get the series through my shop.

00:45:48.333 --> 00:45:48.634
Sure.

00:45:48.634 --> 00:45:49.003
Yeah.

00:45:49.003 --> 00:46:00.322
And I think this sort of builds on another sort of thing I wanted to pick your brain on, which is throughout your career in comics, think majority of the work that you put out outside of Attaboy, which you said already was, was crowdfunded first.

00:46:00.322 --> 00:46:02.304
A lot of this has been crowdfunded.

00:46:02.304 --> 00:46:15.693
And I'm just curious, you know, we've talked to a ton of great creators here on the show and the ones that we've had on the show that have crowdfunded a book, kickstarted it, what have you, they have, they generally have nothing but loathing things to say about the process.

00:46:16.858 --> 00:46:18.690
Let me ask you so very similar question.

00:46:18.690 --> 00:46:21.704
How what was that process like for you with all these different books?

00:46:21.704 --> 00:46:23.827
And do you feel like after doing it a bunch?

00:46:23.827 --> 00:46:24.878
Has it gotten any easier?

00:46:24.878 --> 00:46:29.074
Have you found a method or is it still sort of this tedious mess every single time?

00:46:29.286 --> 00:46:30.967
It's funny, I don't know.

00:46:31.028 --> 00:46:33.282
Maybe I'm not trying hard enough because that's not tedious to me.

00:46:33.282 --> 00:46:34.503
It's like I get it done.

00:46:34.503 --> 00:46:35.695
It's no big deal.

00:46:35.695 --> 00:46:43.666
Like for me, yeah, it's basically I can do the simple math of going, I don't promise too much when it comes to people.

00:46:43.666 --> 00:46:45.777
think I know people will put it.

00:46:45.777 --> 00:46:45.998
on.

00:46:45.998 --> 00:46:46.898
I'm going to call you out on that.

00:46:46.898 --> 00:46:47.358
That's a lie.

00:46:47.358 --> 00:46:47.838
Everybody.

00:46:47.838 --> 00:46:50.038
I've seen what you give folks for kickstarting.

00:46:50.038 --> 00:46:54.438
You give a ton of incredible back matter and extras and like all those things.

00:46:54.438 --> 00:46:55.626
It's really good.

00:46:55.626 --> 00:46:56.286
Thank you very much.

00:46:56.286 --> 00:47:06.052
But I guess what I mean is that some people they'll throw in all these extra things like if you get the book, you know, we're sending your frisbee and we're sending this and and I think Oh, bet amazing.

00:47:06.052 --> 00:47:16.693
Maybe I should make that actually but all these things that cost money and cost money to ship and to produce and then they go man, I actually I I'm in the you know in the back for three grand I didn't make any money.

00:47:16.693 --> 00:47:19.211
It's like what you made all those extra thing.

00:47:19.211 --> 00:47:19.804
What are you doing?

00:47:19.804 --> 00:47:21.304
No, so that's a simple thing.

00:47:21.304 --> 00:47:24.094
But also You know, I doing kickstart.

00:47:24.094 --> 00:47:30.501
It's it's It is like, it's a little bit of like a pain in the ass when you have to like kind of keep reminding people.

00:47:30.501 --> 00:47:39.009
But what I like to do, and it's happened pretty much every one, which is I'm really happy about is like the first day or two it gets, it makes its funding.

00:47:39.009 --> 00:47:40.731
And then I can kind of just like chill out.

00:47:40.731 --> 00:47:49.507
Cause like, I don't need this thing to go so huge that, you know, I'm not, I'm not, you know, I'm not dying to get this thing out.

00:47:49.507 --> 00:47:50.628
There's, I'm not dying.

00:47:50.628 --> 00:47:55.211
I wanted to get it out there a big time, but I'm also okay if it doesn't like, you know, take the world by storm.

00:47:55.211 --> 00:47:56.041
at this point.

00:47:56.041 --> 00:47:58.103
This is sort of just, I wanna give that to my readers.

00:47:58.103 --> 00:48:05.746
I have a very small but really uh devoted kind of cult audience and I want them all to know about the new book and most of them are into it that's cool.

00:48:05.746 --> 00:48:08.367
um So it has become easier.

00:48:08.367 --> 00:48:14.210
I know, especially now, it's funny, I used to always fret about the videos when you make your, like, hey, it's me.

00:48:14.210 --> 00:48:17.291
No one watches the videos so you can just be really simple.

00:48:17.291 --> 00:48:19.641
I think the last one I literally was like, it cuts to me.

00:48:19.641 --> 00:48:22.652
It showed a couple of pages, you know, and it cuts me and I goes, money?

00:48:22.652 --> 00:48:24.697
And then it cuts and it's like, that's it.

00:48:25.369 --> 00:48:26.150
I saw one of them.

00:48:26.150 --> 00:48:29.012
think it might've been for, was it?

00:48:29.092 --> 00:48:29.614
gosh.

00:48:29.614 --> 00:48:30.974
I think it was serious creatures.

00:48:30.974 --> 00:48:33.387
And you're like, here's the first six issues.

00:48:33.387 --> 00:48:34.697
So why am I talking to you?

00:48:34.697 --> 00:48:39.431
And then it cuts to the logo, which I thought was really funny and really, yeah, that's a good way to go about it.

00:48:39.500 --> 00:48:57.717
Although this all being said, it's funny, I do know that in general, I wanna actually start working with a publicist to get, whether I do another work with another publisher or another self-published thing, I think that will go a long way to get me a little more exposure and stuff like that.

00:48:57.717 --> 00:49:02.210
So, I'm willing to pay someone else to do the work so I don't have to.

00:49:02.210 --> 00:49:02.652
Sure.

00:49:02.652 --> 00:49:03.425
But...

00:49:03.425 --> 00:49:06.666
What's funny about Kickstar and stuff like that is it will get picked up.

00:49:06.666 --> 00:49:10.728
You will get some more publicity and more people will see it this way.

00:49:10.949 --> 00:49:15.871
It's funny because I used to be like, I mean, I just put on my shop.

00:49:16.211 --> 00:49:18.983
Why give Kickstar some extra money?

00:49:18.983 --> 00:49:20.974
And it's like, well, they're a big bullhorn.

00:49:20.974 --> 00:49:22.190
That's really it.

00:49:22.273 --> 00:49:23.313
Yeah, absolutely.

00:49:23.313 --> 00:49:27.335
And I think the fans also enjoy that process of like helping fund.

00:49:27.335 --> 00:49:29.436
Like I know I'm a big Kickstarter person.

00:49:29.436 --> 00:49:29.737
Yeah.

00:49:29.737 --> 00:49:34.909
And I love even when it's like something crazy like, you know, Skybound does a ton of like Skybound boom.

00:49:34.909 --> 00:49:39.360
They do these like crazy art books and uh absolute editions of popular stories.

00:49:39.360 --> 00:49:42.222
And I'm like, why is a publisher doing a Kickstarter?

00:49:42.222 --> 00:49:50.530
I sort of grown to, guess I don't love it anymore, but I understand it because you're making a very specific niche prestige thing uh in that instance.

00:49:50.530 --> 00:50:01.655
But like for you, know as a small, know, as like someone who's like a fan of someone who isn't writing movies in Hollywood or whatever, there is like a certain amount of pride that goes along with supporting someone in their venture.

00:50:01.655 --> 00:50:02.461
You know what mean?

00:50:02.461 --> 00:50:03.461
I feel too, exactly.

00:50:03.461 --> 00:50:09.882
I've actually, it's funny, what's cool too is that you, certain creators that you've liked their book, you can see what they back.

00:50:09.882 --> 00:50:11.922
And that's turned me on to other books like, who's this?

00:50:11.922 --> 00:50:13.882
Like, oh, cause I love like Jeffrey Allen Love for instance.

00:50:13.882 --> 00:50:15.242
I'm a huge fan of his.

00:50:15.242 --> 00:50:17.702
And if he backs something on Kickstarter, I'll get a notification.

00:50:17.702 --> 00:50:19.342
like, what, what are they doing?

00:50:19.362 --> 00:50:19.981
Who's this?

00:50:19.981 --> 00:50:21.001
Is this too?

00:50:21.001 --> 00:50:21.822
Yeah.

00:50:22.161 --> 00:50:22.782
It's fun.

00:50:22.782 --> 00:50:24.309
It's fun to be nosy a little bit.

00:50:24.309 --> 00:50:25.110
Right.

00:50:25.110 --> 00:50:28.952
Well, you know, I feel like I'm to start to close out our conversation here.

00:50:28.952 --> 00:50:36.536
And I feel like what I want people to really understand the listeners to understand here is that, your style, it does, it truly stands alone in the medium.

00:50:36.536 --> 00:50:48.103
And I just really appreciate that there are still, again, as I said earlier, folks like yourself who are going out there and offering something different than that house style, as we mentioned in the beginning, and it's super refreshing.

00:50:48.103 --> 00:51:06.695
And, you know, I apologize if this is sort of a big ask for you as our final question, Tony, but Is there a piece of advice that you would give creators out there who maybe don't see themselves wanting to draw Batman with cross hatches and, you know, tell those tell those stories that they think people want to hear instead of the stories that they want to tell.

00:51:07.054 --> 00:51:08.673
Thank you very much for that.

00:51:08.673 --> 00:51:09.653
a great opportunity.

00:51:09.653 --> 00:51:11.793
I love thinking about this.

00:51:11.793 --> 00:51:16.833
And what I've come to is that Keith Moon, the drummer from The Who had this great thing.

00:51:16.833 --> 00:51:21.934
He's like, I might not be the world's best drummer, but I'm the world's best Keith Moon style drummer.

00:51:22.193 --> 00:51:26.213
And that, he was making a joke, but it's really, really true.

00:51:26.273 --> 00:51:33.494
And I was like, back to Jeffrey Allen Love, I fell in love with his art and I love the stories.

00:51:33.634 --> 00:51:36.485
And there was a brief, maybe three month period I was...

00:51:36.514 --> 00:51:40.655
really going hard to be in the world's second best Jeffrey Allen love.

00:51:41.436 --> 00:51:44.344
He had some tutorial videos, I was like, you do this and this and that.

00:51:44.344 --> 00:51:45.677
was like, this is really cool.

00:51:45.677 --> 00:51:46.778
And I was really into it.

00:51:46.778 --> 00:51:49.139
And it just hit me one day, was like, what am I doing?

00:51:49.159 --> 00:51:51.280
Like, what's the end goal here?

00:51:51.280 --> 00:51:56.362
Even if I somehow surpassed him and I wouldn't surpass him, he'd always be the guy who made that.

00:51:56.362 --> 00:52:00.023
So I just would be the second fiddle to that.

00:52:00.023 --> 00:52:01.324
Like, why?

00:52:01.324 --> 00:52:12.150
And ever since then, I've been leaning into like, if I'm drawing something, if I'm writing something and it seems a little weird, as long as I don't think it's really bad, I go, okay, let's explore that further.

00:52:12.150 --> 00:52:18.250
And that's kind of become like, that's the light I'll follow in the dark of trying to figure out what I'm doing.

00:52:18.250 --> 00:52:21.829
And it usually leads to like, okay, cool, this feels like me.

00:52:21.829 --> 00:52:25.070
This is, I don't know why, but this is calling to me.

00:52:25.070 --> 00:52:27.130
And I think that is me.

00:52:27.469 --> 00:52:29.815
It's super, it's really...

00:52:29.815 --> 00:52:30.775
It feels really refreshing.

00:52:30.775 --> 00:52:34.827
So if you're an artist out there, think everyone wants to find their own voice.

00:52:35.367 --> 00:52:45.530
I think you just keep pushing and uh it will, you know, you'll find your voice and then you'll have these like feelings of like doubt or whatever.

00:52:45.530 --> 00:52:48.101
when it's good, I think it's the best feeling.

00:52:48.101 --> 00:52:50.952
You're like, better or worse, this is me.

00:52:50.952 --> 00:52:52.492
This is only me.

00:52:52.612 --> 00:52:55.213
And there's nothing like, no one could take that away from you.

00:52:55.213 --> 00:52:58.693
And if you can get there, stay there as long as you can.

00:52:59.574 --> 00:53:06.306
Yeah, it's really cool to hear you say that too, because I think it's leaning into this common idea that uh we talked to.

00:53:06.306 --> 00:53:09.657
This is a shameless name drop, but we talked to Paul Pope last night.

00:53:09.657 --> 00:53:10.297
I watched it.

00:53:10.297 --> 00:53:10.818
Oh, did.

00:53:10.818 --> 00:53:10.978
OK.

00:53:10.978 --> 00:53:11.389
Yeah.

00:53:11.389 --> 00:53:11.838
It's good.

00:53:11.838 --> 00:53:13.000
Yeah.

00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:13.619
What a legend.

00:53:13.619 --> 00:53:13.789
Right.

00:53:13.789 --> 00:53:14.800
Like so it is super.

00:53:14.800 --> 00:53:15.610
He's total rock star.

00:53:15.610 --> 00:53:17.440
He's like the Mick Jagger of Congress.

00:53:18.722 --> 00:53:20.362
Baby, so good.

00:53:20.362 --> 00:53:22.322
Six buttons undone at the top.

00:53:22.322 --> 00:53:27.916
But he mentioned in that conversation that like he's talked to Mobius, you know, he's talked to Frank Miller.

00:53:27.916 --> 00:53:34.686
He's talked to Bill Sinkovich and they all say the same exact thing, which is don't do what I did.

00:53:34.686 --> 00:53:36.427
Go make your own path.

00:53:36.427 --> 00:53:44.652
And I think what he said, which is what I think you said in a very similar way, is that like artists find the most gratification when you can draw what you want to.

00:53:44.652 --> 00:53:44.963
Right.

00:53:44.963 --> 00:53:48.494
Like when you can finally picture it in your mind's eye, I'm going to do this.

00:53:48.494 --> 00:53:50.617
And then you do it like it's on the page.

00:53:50.617 --> 00:53:53.219
You see exactly what you were wanting to draw.

00:53:53.219 --> 00:53:54.938
I think that's really special.

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:58.762
And I'm glad that you didn't just, you know, try to be another Jeffrey Allen.

00:53:58.762 --> 00:54:04.630
You know love you just we were trying to do something that is totally Tony McMillan I think it's the way to go.

00:54:04.630 --> 00:54:16.181
I think everyone too, anyone out there who's drawing especially, everyone's want to remind yourself, your 12 year old self will be psyched to draw how good you draw now, even if you hate what you do.

00:54:16.541 --> 00:54:18.873
Like everyone's, well, I'm like, fuck yeah, that's cool, man.

00:54:18.873 --> 00:54:20.349
That looks good.

00:54:20.349 --> 00:54:22.817
I always wanted to draw like somewhat good.

00:54:22.817 --> 00:54:24.789
And like, feel like I'm like somewhat good.

00:54:25.503 --> 00:54:30.436
I tend to agree here and you know, Tony, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you here on the Living Bar podcast.

00:54:30.436 --> 00:54:36.271
And I highly recommend folks that are listening to this conversation, go out and check out Tony's Etsy shop as we talked about moment ago.

00:54:36.271 --> 00:54:42.295
It'll be linked in the bio because you have a ton of awesome things over there and including some original art, which is incredible.

00:54:42.295 --> 00:54:43.936
I need to get myself one of those Dr.

00:54:43.936 --> 00:54:44.277
Dooms.

00:54:44.277 --> 00:54:48.418
We talked about this on socials, but one of these days when I catch you at a con, I'm gonna need one of those Dr.

00:54:48.418 --> 00:54:49.458
Dooms, I think.

00:54:49.458 --> 00:54:50.201
They're good.

00:54:50.201 --> 00:54:50.639
They're fun.

00:54:50.639 --> 00:54:51.650
I love doing them.

00:54:51.650 --> 00:54:52.630
Heck yeah.

00:54:52.630 --> 00:54:58.630
But I also want to close out by saying, and feel like I've been buttering you a lot here at the end, but I just want to, one last buttering up here.

00:54:58.630 --> 00:55:13.061
I wish comics people, you know, people in the industry were more like you, Tony, whereas like we've, you've had the great honor of talking to folks here, a ton of like characters on the podcast, but I just wish people were willing to like try something new, right?

00:55:13.061 --> 00:55:20.025
Try something different with their art, not try to necessarily, and I'm not besmirched anybody for trying to get paid for their art.

00:55:20.025 --> 00:55:21.173
I totally get that.

00:55:21.173 --> 00:55:21.635
Right.

00:55:21.635 --> 00:55:37.608
But like when it comes to creating, I love that there are folks out there like yourself who are following that sort of creative eye and sort of letting that path go forward for them rather than, you know, looking to get on a X-Men book, you know, because they think that's what they wanted as a kid, you know.

00:55:37.608 --> 00:55:38.949
So I just want to say that.

00:55:38.949 --> 00:55:42.853
And I, you know, I hate to put you on a pedestal here at the very end, but like, I just need that.

00:55:42.853 --> 00:55:43.855
I need the listener to know this.

00:55:43.855 --> 00:55:48.152
And I want you to know that like you are seen and I absolutely love what you're doing for the medium.

00:55:48.152 --> 00:55:49.041
Thank you so much.

00:55:49.041 --> 00:55:50.545
honestly super appreciate that.

00:55:50.545 --> 00:55:54.509
And I think, you know, we're all kind of drowning in nostalgia.

00:55:54.509 --> 00:55:57.360
any kind of life raft is appreciated.

00:55:57.360 --> 00:55:58.552
So thank you.

00:55:58.552 --> 00:55:59.150
Absolutely.

00:55:59.150 --> 00:55:59.750
Yeah.

00:55:59.750 --> 00:56:02.929
So I guess before I let you go, Tony, I'm going to hand it off to you one last time.

00:56:02.929 --> 00:56:05.150
Is there anything that you want to sort of say to the listener?

00:56:05.150 --> 00:56:08.677
Is there anything you want to plug any socials, any of that cool stuff?

00:56:08.693 --> 00:56:11.554
Yeah, so the good news is my name is apparently original.

00:56:11.554 --> 00:56:18.215
So if you look up Tony McMillan, everything is me dot com, Instagram, there's no added numbers, whatever Tony McMillan.

00:56:18.416 --> 00:56:25.038
I will say I just finished the last issue of destroying Angel Lumen, which is my long awaited sequel to my original comic book Lumen.

00:56:25.077 --> 00:56:26.778
It's really, really nuts.

00:56:26.778 --> 00:56:29.159
It's really fun, really wild and colorful.

00:56:29.159 --> 00:56:30.427
That's available at my Etsy shop.

00:56:30.427 --> 00:56:33.507
It will be collected in October as one big humongous trade.

00:56:33.507 --> 00:56:35.320
It's like 220 pages.

00:56:35.320 --> 00:56:35.940
Wow.

00:56:35.940 --> 00:56:38.592
It's it's intense, but it's really fun.

00:56:38.592 --> 00:56:39.922
I'm really proud of that.

00:56:39.922 --> 00:56:43.396
and also I have a Patreon, you can see some new stuff I'm working on there.

00:56:43.396 --> 00:56:45.978
And uh just in general, thanks for listening.

00:56:45.978 --> 00:56:46.769
I really appreciate it.

00:56:46.769 --> 00:56:48.762
Thanks for all my people who buy myself already.

00:56:48.762 --> 00:56:50.273
I always appreciate it.

00:56:50.273 --> 00:56:50.764
Yeah.

00:56:50.764 --> 00:56:54.090
Which in your handle is it just like Tony McMillan on all socials?

00:56:54.090 --> 00:56:54.735
Yeah.

00:56:54.735 --> 00:56:55.677
it really is.

00:56:55.677 --> 00:56:56.588
It's so simple.

00:56:56.588 --> 00:56:58.318
You can find me real easy.

00:56:58.318 --> 00:56:58.778
Perfect.

00:56:58.778 --> 00:56:59.539
Well, cool.

00:56:59.539 --> 00:57:00.510
Tony, what a pleasure.

00:57:00.510 --> 00:57:01.150
Thank you so much.

00:57:01.150 --> 00:57:06.061
We'll have you back on at some point down the road and have a great time until the next time.

00:57:06.061 --> 00:57:06.742
Thank you very much.

00:57:06.742 --> 00:57:07.501
You too.