NYCC ‘25 INTERVIEW-A-THON: Jason Fabok

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This October, Oni Press and Spectrevision are proud to present High Strangeness, a startling new five-part experiment in comic book storytelling.

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Inspired by first-hand accounts of real paranormal encounters within the dimly lit borderlands of human experience, each 40-page prestige format chapter of High Strangest will interrogate overlapping phenomena like UFOs, hauntings, cryptid sightings, and inexplicable synchronicities that together seem to indicate a higher unseen order of reality.

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Teaming Spectrevision co-founder and real-life experiencer Daniel Noah with an otherworldly cast of comic talents, including Christopher Cantwell, Cecil Castellucci, good friend to the show Christian Ward, and more, High Strangest Book One arrives on October 8th to investigate a 1967 encounter with the strange beings known as the Men in Black, with superstar writer Chris Condon, Ringo Award-winning artist Dave Chisholm, and cover artist Jock.

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Look for High Strangest Book 1 on shelves October 8th at a local comic shop near you.

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Only from Oni Press.

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Hi everyone, this is Jason Fabach, co-founder of Ghost Machine and artist on Rook Exodus, 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 Eisner Award winning artist and co-founder of the creator, own comic publisher slash media company, Ghost Machine.

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He's here today to talk about his dystopian sci-fi series, Rook Exodus with writer, Jeff Johns, which returns on October 7th with a brand new arc.

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It is my pleasure to welcome Jason Fabbach onto the Oblivion Bar podcast.

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It's going well, Jason.

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Thank you so much for being here.

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It's been one of these sort of, I feel like we're going full circle here.

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I was telling Aaron a little bit before we hopped on this conversation that There is this very particular moment in my history with comics, right around the time where I first started becoming a Wednesday Warrior, like a dedicated Wednesday Warrior, I'll say.

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And this is probably around the earlier 2010s.

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Sometimes they call it the aughts, right?

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uh It sort of feels like you and your career and your cover art, especially there at DC, sort of it popped on the scene and then it felt like seemingly out of nowhere with I think possibly Batman Eternal, you immediately became, I think, sort of a household name with.

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fans like myself and others.

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I'm just curious.

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I know you'll probably argue that that probably wasn't exactly how it went.

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There's probably a lot more work that went into it and it wasn't just like overnight success.

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But I'm wondering if you could take us back to that time and sort of speak on those early days of starting out at DC.

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It is kind of fun.

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I've thought about that too.

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And I, I generally did have success pretty quickly.

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And I, and I think that is kind of weird.

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It's not normal for the industry.

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My, my story through comics kind of, it starts with David Finch who, um, lives in my area and, I was out of college and I was, uh, I really wanted to get into comic books.

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had.

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created a little portfolio.

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So I sent it to him, just seeing if he could uh critique my work.

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And he invited me over to his house and he critiqued my work.

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uh, but, he, uh, he kept inviting me back over to his place and he, and he would show me kind of, you know, he was teach me how to draw buildings and teach me how to draw cars and, figures and hands and heads and eyes and everything else.

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And, and, did that for a good six months.

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And then, He had made the transition over to DC for Marvel in 2010 and he wasn't doing any interior stuff.

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I think he was training.

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was training me to be like his pencil assist to help him out.

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Sure.

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Background and things like that, because he had kind of done that with some of the other books he did at Marvel.

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And so he was like, well, I'm only doing covers right now.

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I won't have any work for you.

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So let's just send your portfolio in and see if you can get some work.

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And he did.

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And my first ever professional work was doing to fill in issues of Superman Batman.

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This would have been pre new 52.

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After I did those two books, didn't, I felt I didn't really do good of a job.

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It was, it was very tough to go from no experience to all of a sudden having to pump out a page a day.

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And so was a big rush job.

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And actually for, for a comic book fans, a lot of those issues, Dave Finch helped me to, to lay them out.

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And you can even tell there's some pages he pretty much just drew for me because we were just scrambling to get stuff done.

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So uh He's uncredited, but there was a few pages there that he did draw.

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I didn't really, I wasn't really getting much work from DC.

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So he took me to C2E2 and got my portfolio in the hands of uh Aspen Comics.

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He knew some of the guys over there and Aspen was a place that, you know, they said to me like, look, you know, you can learn kind of at your own pace.

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You can learn to figure out how to do this job, but also to get your quality with your speed and kind of like figure it out.

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So I spent, I think a good eight, nine months there.

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And then I came back to DC to fill in on two issues of Batman the Dark Knight that Dave was writing at that time.

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And the new 52 was kind of kicking off.

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So he went to work on Batman the Dark Knight, the new 52.

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And so he's like, do you want these two issues?

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you know, it's, again, it was just experience.

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ah I did those two issues and then right away I got offered Detective Comics.

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So it was like it was kind of it's odd.

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I looking back on it.

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I mean all the doors just kept kind of like opening and blowing wide open and I was I was very inexperienced.

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But I have to say I had Dave who was there helping me and I could go to him for I could ask him lot of questions and he would he would help me out and he would tell me OK this is how you should approach this.

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page or that page.

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But I also had really good editors.

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had Mike Marks at DC.

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He was an excellent editor.

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I had Katie Kuber.

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Same thing.

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I could ask them for critiques and they would truthfully critique my work, tell me what I needed to do to get better.

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And I really credit a lot of that like to helping me kind of find my place.

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And yeah, they gave me cover assignments right away.

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Like they didn't have to.

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They could have had somebody else do covers on those detective comics issues that I did, but they didn't.

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They let me do the covers and uh I fumbled through some of them and I changed some of them.

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But in the end, people really responded to that.

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And uh yeah, then Batman the Dark Knight.

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then that was kind of from there on, I was there and I was in DC and I was there for 10 years, 12 years, you know.

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But yeah, my journey is an odd.

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different journey.

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A lot of guys have to fight it out in the trenches for a long time.

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And, uh, you know, my dream was always to work on Batman and my first professional work was a issue of Superman Batman where I got to draw that.

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And it's like, it's, one of those things where it's like, you know, a lot of the things I, a lot of my goals kind of happened quickly.

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And then I had to kind of create new goals for myself and what I wanted to do.

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Um, but I'm grateful for that time and just learning and being able to kind of figure my way through it and just had really good people around me who were willing to take a chance on me, but also to help me.

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And I think my willingness to, my, you know, trying to be humble and know that I don't know everything and I need to learn.

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I think that the editors liked that about me and they were willing to help me and guide me.

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And even to this day, Brian Cunningham, uh he's now working at Ghost Machine, but he was my editor on Justice League and stuff.

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He had a big influence on me to telling me different things I should try to do with my artwork to help it.

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And I could always go to him and I could trust him.

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If I say something's not working on this page or this cover, what is it?

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And then he'll just say, well, it's this, you know, and you should try to do this maybe instead.

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having those kinds of people and being being vulnerable enough to to, know, lot of guys might feel that's like showing weakness or something, but I just want the best product possible.

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So I'm going to ask people who If really struggling on something, I'm going to ask people who have uh knowledge and can point me in the right direction so I can do the best work possible.

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yeah, that was kind of my start.

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Yeah, it sounds like you had a really great support system and I think a lot of creators would agree.

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There's sort of this thought that you can be the most talented person in comics, but it's almost like having some folks in your corner plus the talent plus some luck almost to sort of get you there, right?

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Like that's sort of the magic cocktail that you have to have in order to end up in a great situation.

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And you said something a moment ago that I was sort of wanting us to noodle on for a moment.

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And you said like your goals changed, right?

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Like you came into DC and you're drawing Batman and Superman immediately.

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Can you talk a little bit about if you're able to reveal this, like what were some of those goals that you sort of moved on from once you were able to like do some of those initial goals?

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Yeah, like the initial goal was I wanted to work for a company like DC or Marvel and work on all those characters that I loved, you know, growing up.

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I was actually more of a Marvel guy growing up, Batman was my favorite overall comic book character.

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And the fact that David Finch went to work at DC, that was my door into DC Comics.

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And it was actually quite an exciting time because the new 52 was starting up at that time.

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And there was a lot of excitement about that even within the comic book world.

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$2.99 an issue, can't beat it, that's incredible.

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Yeah.

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And people look back on it with different kind of like feelings and whatnot.

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But for me, it was very exciting to be there and to go to conventions and being part of conversations about these books and what they were doing with them.

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yeah, my goals were really, I wanted to work on the biggest characters I could at DC.

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wanted to have a long, I wanted to cement some sort of legacy with Batman.

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That was kind of one of my goals.

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ah I wanted to do something with the Joker at some point.

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ah wanted to do, really my goal was kind like, I wanted to be the guy that DC would look for or look at for big events and big books that they really needed, right?

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I'm checking off all these things that you've done really well.

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I'm holding up fingers now for everybody who can't see the video.

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Like Jason, your name all of all these things.

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You're like, yeah, I think you accomplished all that.

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Yeah.

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check.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And also, another one was I wanted to find a writer, a writer that I really clicked with, that I could build a partnership with because I looked at all of, you know, I've seen like Tim Sale and Jeff Loeb had great runs on characters and things.

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Grant Morrison and Frank Whiteley, same kind of deal.

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And you start to see these little like these, these partnerships that pop up.

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And you had even when I was, you had Jeff Johns, Gary Frank, had done a lot of stuff.

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And it's like, I wanted to find that and I was able to find that with Jeff and and kind of build that relationship as a working relationship with him and build it into kind of what we're doing now.

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Those were the ones with DC.

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And I found that as I went through all of those different things and hit certain marks, that's when my goal started to shift and change and I started looking at everything.

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was like, I've accomplished so much.

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Where can I really go from here?

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What can I really do?

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Yeah, I could maybe I could do another Batman story or I could do another Justice League thing, but that wasn't really getting me excited.

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And, you know, I could go do Marvel stuff like Spider-Man would be cool.

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X-Men would be cool.

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But that felt like, again, the same kind of thing.

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And it was actually a conversation that I had with Rob Liefeld at a comic convention.

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that really started to get the gears going in my head about doing something independent.

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we had talked at a con and he said, he kind of just said, look, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your career.

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But he had said something to the point of done everything you can do at DC.

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He said, go over and do one year at Marvel and then go do a creator own thing and just build a creator owned book and cement cement a legacy in a create a character that you own.

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He said, if you do that, you know, you will be set, you know, and I never really thought about that before.

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And so he kind of put this bug in my ear.

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And I started looking at creators like Mike Mignola and Todd McFarlane and Robert Kirkman.

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And I started seeing that and that became the new goal.

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It was like there was almost a bit of a conviction there, too.

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I, you know, you're working on all these famous characters and it's awesome to work on Swamp Thing.

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It's awesome to work on Batman.

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It's like an honor to do that.

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Superman.

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These are characters I've loved and I still love since I was a little kid.

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But they're characters that have been around 80, 90 years.

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And I was kind of felt like a conviction, like I wanted to create something new.

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I really liked Hellboy, Mike Mignola.

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I love that comic.

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And I was really, I just loved his, freedom that he had to tell the stories that he wanted to do through that book.

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And I just kept on and like walking dead and what Kirkman was doing with invincible.

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And that became really attractive to me.

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And that became kind of the new goal that I wanted to accomplish.

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And Jeff had just kind of done that with Geiger through image.

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And that's when that whole That's when kind of ghost machine started to have a, it was like a tiny conversation at the time, but really it was let's go do a creator own book.

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And so that became my goal and that was kind of my shift in where I wanted to go.

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And yeah, so that's where I am now.

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But yeah, I remember Finch kind of telling me like, shoot for big goals.

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Like don't, don't limit yourself, like set ridiculous goals and then go after them.

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Like Don't be afraid to say, I want to be the guy that they look at for a big Justice League event or Batman.

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Set that goal for yourself and chase after it.

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And, you know, and I did and I was able to accomplish some of that stuff.

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you know, and I'm I'm happy.

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I'm proud about it.

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And it's it's uh it was a lot of a lot of hard work, but it was fun, It's incredible to, to, to kind of witness this cause I don't, you know, just to give a little bit of background, Chris and I were both working and we were there at New York Comic-Con when the announcement was made and Ghost Machine was kind of revealed to the world.

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And I think it was, yeah.

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And so I just remember this buzz as soon as it happened, all the creators that were associated with Ghost Machine, it just felt like this like electricity was kind of like flowing through this.

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very small part of the artists alley and you know, all you guys were kind of like in your own section.

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And I just, was just such an exciting time, especially from the fan perspective.

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And I'll just say like we had, so we had Jeff and Gary on back in 2023 talking about junkyard Joe Geiger really from their viewpoint and how the formation of ghost machine really began.

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And Jeff said on that show, on that episode, he said, it all came from wanting control.

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owning the characters, deciding when the book ships, even down to the paper quality.

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We wanted to create without anyone telling us no.

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The spirit and passion of the creators run everything, not some faceless executives, which I've, you know, part of my language, I fucking love all of that.

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I'd love to hear from you about how the idea was presented to you.

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And, you know, was it difficult leaving the position you had at DC where you were really one of those flagship creators?

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Yeah, when we did Three Jokers, there was a lot of change up that kind of happened at DC at that time.

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And I've talked about this before, but we wanted to actually do a sequel and we had a really good idea.

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I think our Three Jokers sequel would have actually been bigger than our Batman Three Jokers.

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It was a really, really cool Batman story.

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And we could not get that thing greenlit.

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And that mostly was because there was lot of shake-up and there wasn't really anybody in charge at the time and I kind of felt a little hurt you know it's like come on guys like we just we just gave you your biggest hit of the year I think you can just trust us like we have a great something really cool here Jason, if I can, if you don't mind, I just want to interject really quickly.

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I want to just bring this home really, really heavy.

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What DC did to Jeff and you and Jeff and Gary as well with Doomsday Clock.

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think, don't know, as a fan, I will never forgive them for that particular moment in their publication history because what you guys, I agree with you, were building was something very, very interesting and awesome.

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And I just want to add that sort of contextualization from a fan's perspective, but please go on.

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I'm just, you Yeah.

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I, I, it's funny because I, I really, it bummed me out, but I, I don't really have any ill will towards DC.

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Like I still, I still love the company and I, and I root for them.

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Like I'm happy.

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I'm happy that like absolute Batman's doing great.

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Like I've been, it's like probably the only DC book I'm reading and I'm enjoying it.

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You know, I, I don't have it because I get it.

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And it was a weird time.

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Like again, there was the leadership had kind of been stripped.

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A lot of our editors and people have lost their jobs.

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Like it was a really weird, DC went from this place that I was really excited and I really loved working for to I don't know anybody here anymore, you know, except for like Jim at the top.

00:18:40.828 --> 00:18:50.123
And, and, um, you know, it was, it was, it was a, uh of a weird, like I felt kind of in limbo as a creator and I wasn't really sure what to do.

00:18:50.123 --> 00:18:53.253
And that's when Jeff and I were talking about, what do we want to do?

00:18:53.253 --> 00:18:57.269
What, what do we really, what would really make us excited?

00:18:57.269 --> 00:19:10.255
And like there's the three jokers sequel idea, we again, like I said, we waited months and months and months and just couldn't get, and I didn't, we didn't want to start it because what if we start it and they tell us, no, then I've wasted my time.

00:19:10.255 --> 00:19:13.747
But that's when the rumblings of rook started.

00:19:13.747 --> 00:19:19.509
I had all these drawings and these, some character designs and like a very, very rudimentary idea.

00:19:19.509 --> 00:19:23.789
I started pitching it to Jeff and at first he wasn't like, I don't know.

00:19:23.789 --> 00:19:27.051
You've got to find something here that makes it really exciting.

00:19:27.372 --> 00:19:30.763
And then all of sudden that clicked and the idea came together.

00:19:30.763 --> 00:19:33.765
And at that point we knew I knew like, okay, let's do this.

00:19:33.765 --> 00:19:35.486
Like, let's take the chance.

00:19:35.486 --> 00:19:37.646
Let's do something for ourselves.

00:19:37.646 --> 00:19:52.054
And Ghost Machine itself as an idea didn't it kind of started to come about, but we were Rook was already kind of in starting and it would have just been an image book uh that the two of us would have done.

00:19:52.384 --> 00:20:12.269
as creators, we started just to talk about this idea of this company and and and what could we do to kind of change our fates and the fate of other comic book creators and maybe even inspire other comic book creators to do something like we're doing to take back that control.

00:20:12.269 --> 00:20:17.064
And we were inspired by guys like Todd McFarlane and Robert Kirkman.

00:20:17.064 --> 00:20:26.673
I remember reading like sending Jeff like quotes from Todd McFarlane interviews where he was talking about having his control and what he could do creatively and not having to answer to anybody.

00:20:26.673 --> 00:20:31.999
And that to me became very, ah it just became very attractive.

00:20:31.999 --> 00:20:43.409
uh You know, even during our time on doing Three Jokers, we found that, you know, things we were working on, ideas were showing up in other books.

00:20:43.409 --> 00:20:45.089
And it's like, well, are people leaking?

00:20:45.089 --> 00:20:47.231
Like, are editors leaking some of our ideas?

00:20:47.231 --> 00:20:49.198
And we would have to, we ended up.

00:20:49.198 --> 00:20:53.817
It actually was the for the better because we went back and changed some stuff and made the book better.

00:20:53.978 --> 00:20:55.738
you know, you can't use this.

00:20:55.738 --> 00:20:56.678
You can't do that.

00:20:56.678 --> 00:21:01.077
You can't do, you know, and I, understood like we don't own these characters.

00:21:01.077 --> 00:21:04.317
So we can't, we can't really argue with DC.

00:21:04.478 --> 00:21:11.357
I think we always had a pretty good head on our shoulders about what we could do and what, you know, we knew that we didn't own these characters.

00:21:11.357 --> 00:21:13.817
So you kind of have to follow what the company wants.

00:21:13.817 --> 00:21:16.218
And I don't fault DC for that or anything like that.

00:21:16.218 --> 00:21:33.614
Again, like I said, I really loved working for them, but The attractiveness of owning your thing and doing your own thing that really started to burn within me that was like a fire it was like a fire was lit and You know, we we all kind of talked about it's like we this is something we just have to do.

00:21:33.614 --> 00:21:49.538
It's a big chance We're taking a chance here, but we all left the companies We were working for DC Marvel on good terms like, you know, it's not like we burn bridges We all we all enjoyed working there and we still know some people who there and whatnot.

00:21:49.818 --> 00:21:58.923
the whole idea of us owning a company for me was kind of think I was a little scared at first because it's like, well, I thought we just doing a comic.

00:21:58.923 --> 00:22:03.163
We went from like, we're just going to do a comic book to now we're going to create a company.

00:22:03.163 --> 00:22:14.118
But but it was all for the betterment and for the good of us as creators and keeping creative control, control of the business aspect side of things.

00:22:14.118 --> 00:22:27.576
And on all of this and, you know, having Gary and Brian Hitch and myself and Pete Tomasi and Francis and you know, all of these kind of creators who were in it, it made it that much more.

00:22:27.809 --> 00:22:29.038
It made it less risky.

00:22:29.038 --> 00:22:41.867
You're going in with people who know what they're kind of doing and having Jeff there as the as head and his experience that he knows from from both DC, the Hollywood side of things, being a producer with Dick Donner and all this kind of stuff.

00:22:41.867 --> 00:22:51.287
So it's like there was so we brought in a a dream team of people who know what they were doing and, and, and, know, the creative energy and wanting to create something new.

00:22:51.287 --> 00:22:53.075
Like that stuff gets you, gets you going.

00:22:53.075 --> 00:22:55.959
It gets you fired up and it's been a great adventure so far.

00:22:55.959 --> 00:22:57.509
I've been really enjoying it.

00:22:57.602 --> 00:23:02.762
you're just going to have to start paying somebody to like come up with like new goals, like every couple of days.

00:23:02.763 --> 00:23:07.065
like you just like keep smashing these goals that you put in front of yourself.

00:23:07.065 --> 00:23:22.740
And you know, I, I know, I know there's so much more that goes on behind the scenes, but it almost like from the, from the fan perspective, you got to admit it almost looks like you're doing all this without even breaking a sweat, which is absolutely incredible because you're doing some like you've done.

00:23:22.740 --> 00:23:32.314
again, pardon me if my language is offensive to the listener, to you, Jason, you're just crushing it and you're just like kicking the shit out of every single one of these goals.

00:23:32.314 --> 00:23:38.749
And it's inspiring to people to know, because just like you said earlier, like you achieved so many goals really quickly.

00:23:38.749 --> 00:23:47.507
And again, that's not the story that everybody can expect for themselves, but the fact that it's a possibility, you're setting a standard that a ton of people are gonna want to follow.

00:23:47.507 --> 00:23:50.988
And that right there is a great legacy to have.

00:23:50.988 --> 00:23:54.827
And I just think that that's, you know, that's something that I think everybody wants to leave behind.

00:23:54.827 --> 00:24:01.232
Yeah, I really hope that through Ghost Machine we can inspire others to do this kind of thing.

00:24:01.232 --> 00:24:02.743
It's not easy.

00:24:03.285 --> 00:24:11.761
It look easy, but there's a lot of sacrifice that goes on behind the scenes to get this thing going, especially in initial early phases of your company.

00:24:11.761 --> 00:24:17.416
There's ups and there's downs and there's things that people don't see and there's good days and there's bad days.

00:24:17.416 --> 00:24:20.028
Working on Rook is not the easy option.

00:24:20.028 --> 00:24:21.759
This is the hardest option.

00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:24.044
This is the hardest thing I've ever drawn in my life.

00:24:24.044 --> 00:24:26.836
The easy thing would be to go back and draw Batman again.

00:24:26.836 --> 00:24:27.997
I could do that.

00:24:27.997 --> 00:24:32.920
And I could, I could even just put in like 50 % and I could probably do okay.

00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:35.541
But with Rook, you can't, you can't afford to do that.

00:24:35.541 --> 00:24:40.045
Like when you're doing your own creator, own thing, you have to win the reader each and every issue.

00:24:40.045 --> 00:24:44.107
And so there's a lot of nights, uh, my, my, my wife was here.

00:24:44.107 --> 00:24:52.973
She would testify that, uh, you know, there's a lot of nights I come up those stairs and I feel like from my office at the end of the day, and I just am broken.

00:24:52.991 --> 00:25:01.368
and I feel low confidence or I've been struggling with trying to get a page to look the way I want or covers.

00:25:01.368 --> 00:25:06.853
I'm really thinking deeply about this stuff and I'm trying to find that feeling out of the work.

00:25:06.853 --> 00:25:11.997
And uh it's a lot more personal than just drawing another Batman story.

00:25:11.998 --> 00:25:16.851
But nothing great is going to come easy.

00:25:16.851 --> 00:25:17.902
It's not easy.

00:25:17.902 --> 00:25:22.710
It takes a lot of sacrifice and sweat and hard work to get to those spots.

00:25:22.710 --> 00:25:24.201
And it takes some failure.

00:25:24.201 --> 00:25:27.692
takes some learning as you're going along.

00:25:27.932 --> 00:25:30.423
but that's that's kind of the fun part.

00:25:30.423 --> 00:25:33.215
You do something and you go, I don't know if that worked.

00:25:33.215 --> 00:25:34.006
Let's try this.

00:25:34.006 --> 00:25:48.084
How about we try this instead or let's try this business thing or those little those little bits and pieces of things help you build up ah just knowledge and wisdom and what to do and experience.

00:25:48.084 --> 00:25:49.305
I don't have much.

00:25:49.305 --> 00:25:51.726
I'm learning the whole business side of things.

00:25:51.726 --> 00:25:54.127
Like I didn't I didn't ever really get that.

00:25:54.127 --> 00:25:57.790
I learned some of it because of talking with Jeff while working on these books.

00:25:57.790 --> 00:26:06.858
I would learn some of the behind the scenes stuff that was going on at DC and good things to do and bad things to do and what you should, you know, but now I'm learning it firsthand.

00:26:06.858 --> 00:26:13.064
We're discussing these things as a team and we're talking about what should we what strategy should we do?

00:26:13.064 --> 00:26:13.855
That's kind of stuff.

00:26:13.855 --> 00:26:16.707
You just don't you're not learning while you're just on the job.

00:26:16.707 --> 00:26:20.490
Like I'm there's other things I'm thinking about all the time.

00:26:20.766 --> 00:26:23.886
that aren't just the drawings.

00:26:23.886 --> 00:26:27.068
how to get the company in a good position to be successful.

00:26:27.068 --> 00:26:29.167
And I want it to be successful.

00:26:29.246 --> 00:26:34.481
I have other goals now set in my head for what I want to do.

00:26:34.481 --> 00:26:37.051
we'll see how long it takes to get there.

00:26:37.232 --> 00:26:39.713
the one thing I've always...

00:26:40.153 --> 00:26:41.815
Goal setting is something that I just...

00:26:41.815 --> 00:26:43.134
I do it in my day-to-day life.

00:26:43.134 --> 00:26:50.231
It's like I get up in the morning and I say to myself, okay, today I'm going to finish page 10 and I'm going to get to start on page 11.

00:26:50.231 --> 00:26:51.281
That's my goal.

00:26:51.281 --> 00:26:52.712
Sometimes I don't make that goal.

00:26:52.712 --> 00:27:13.571
Sometimes I'm still stuck on page 10, but I set a goal and I know, okay, I got to go take the kids to hockey practice after, you know, I have my schedule laid out and I run through it and each day it's a little, every time you accomplish one of those little goals, it fires you up to set the next one and go after that.

00:27:13.571 --> 00:27:19.993
And after a while, you just, when you're goal oriented like that, you can start to almost manifest things.

00:27:20.157 --> 00:27:39.695
and ah your dreams and the thing that you dream about and these bigger goals, they don't seem so far-fetched and ridiculous after a while because you just kind of you set a goal for it and you say, okay, you know, it might take years to get there, but I'm going to slowly just keep working at this thing.

00:27:39.695 --> 00:27:44.740
Like a big goal for me is I would love to see Rook become something more bigger than the comic.

00:27:44.740 --> 00:27:51.123
I would love to see it become a movie or a video game or an animated show or a TV series.

00:27:51.123 --> 00:27:55.684
And it's like, that's kind of a, that's kind of wild to even think of that.

00:27:55.684 --> 00:28:00.885
Like that it could possibly do that, but I'm almost convinced it's going to happen.

00:28:00.885 --> 00:28:05.166
Like I'm convinced in my mind because I can visualize it I can see it already.

00:28:05.166 --> 00:28:07.067
And it may not happen in my lifetime.

00:28:07.067 --> 00:28:10.868
Maybe it'll happen in my kid's lifetime, but I know what's going to happen.

00:28:10.989 --> 00:28:23.875
And you just kind of, you manifest that and kind of put it out there and you just chase after that and you wait for the opportunity to rise and you've got to be ready for when that opportunity comes to say yes and attack it and go for it.

00:28:23.875 --> 00:28:35.019
uh so yeah, I mean, it's I'm a big proponent of doing that kind of thing, setting goals for yourself and chasing after them and fulfilling them, even just little ones each and every day.

00:28:35.019 --> 00:28:35.875
Love the passion.

00:28:35.875 --> 00:28:37.165
I love the passion.

00:28:37.165 --> 00:28:37.826
Love it.

00:28:37.826 --> 00:28:38.226
Absolutely.

00:28:38.226 --> 00:28:47.266
And since you sort of already set us up, Jason, let's go and get into Rook, which is kind of the reason why you're here today, which is, again, talking about yours and Jeff's corner of the Ghost Machine universe.

00:28:47.266 --> 00:28:48.306
Rook Exodus.

00:28:48.306 --> 00:28:55.405
Now, I'm to give a brief synopsis just for the layman, just in case someone here for some reason is listening and hasn't either read Rook or hasn't heard of it yet.

00:28:55.405 --> 00:29:03.359
But in the year 2173, a once simple farmer named Rook fled a crumbling earth for a new life on planet Exodus.

00:29:03.359 --> 00:29:10.252
a terraformed planet where all of nature, including its imported animal population, was completely controlled by humans called Hordens.

00:29:10.252 --> 00:29:17.656
When the Exodus world engine failed, the Hordens' power fell through the wrong hands, creating chaos and mass evacuation for those who could afford it.

00:29:17.656 --> 00:29:24.119
The rest must scavenge through the escape vessel as the war for control of what's left of Exodus begins.

00:29:24.119 --> 00:29:28.013
Now, you guys again are returning on October 1st with issue seven.

00:29:28.013 --> 00:29:29.554
This is a brand new story arc.

00:29:29.554 --> 00:29:31.653
actually, we had a chance to read issue seven early.

00:29:31.653 --> 00:29:32.374
It's awesome.

00:29:32.374 --> 00:29:36.773
Everybody, if you liked those first six issues, it's a lot of the same, a lot of good stuff there.

00:29:36.773 --> 00:29:42.794
But before we get into that story, Jason, I have to say again, we've been a lot of buttering up here for you.

00:29:42.794 --> 00:29:52.513
Aaron and I have been doing the show here for about five years and we've sort of slowly learned that when creators come on the show to talk about the stuff, they don't necessarily love us just sitting here buttering them up the entire time.

00:29:52.513 --> 00:29:58.193
But we have to tell you what you and Brad Anderson do together with your pencils and his coloring.

00:29:58.253 --> 00:30:02.272
It's just like, it's honestly, and I'm not just saying this because you're in front of me here.

00:30:02.272 --> 00:30:03.594
I think it's one of the best in medium.

00:30:03.594 --> 00:30:06.894
I think you guys are one of the best tandem in terms of pencil and color.

00:30:06.894 --> 00:30:16.390
So if you could just speak a little bit about that shorthand that you and Brad have and what does it take for you guys to consistently make this magic that you guys do together?

00:30:17.298 --> 00:30:31.061
Yeah, Brad and I, the way I've described it before, anybody who's a musician and has played in bands and stuff, it's like when you play with musicians that you really like click with, you almost, it's like you're telepathically connecting.

00:30:31.061 --> 00:30:34.333
Like, you know, like, okay, we're going to go, like, we're going to go to this key change.

00:30:34.333 --> 00:30:35.103
We're going to do this.

00:30:35.103 --> 00:30:39.005
We're going to like, and you're just jamming and things are just flowing.

00:30:39.005 --> 00:30:42.546
That's like Brad and I, it's like, he just knows what I want.

00:30:42.546 --> 00:30:44.140
Like he gets it.

00:30:44.140 --> 00:30:47.611
You know, I've been working with him since Batman, eternal number one.

00:30:47.611 --> 00:30:48.661
wanted to work with him.

00:30:48.661 --> 00:30:55.613
Uh, he, he's one of the few colorists to understand two point lighting.

00:30:55.613 --> 00:31:03.234
This is such a weird kind of thing, but I start, started kind of learning this whole first, this two point lighting kind of deal.

00:31:03.295 --> 00:31:13.099
I stole it actually from Gary Frank, cause he used it a lot, but, uh, it's essentially you have your, your main light source coming from one.

00:31:13.099 --> 00:31:15.371
way which cast all your shadows.

00:31:15.371 --> 00:31:23.022
But then you have a secondary light source that is coming from behind that lights up just the rim.

00:31:23.022 --> 00:31:31.694
It's called a rim light, just the rim of a character in the shadow so that the shadow doesn't go all the way to the edge of a character.

00:31:31.694 --> 00:31:34.996
There's a bit of a light bleed over from the side.

00:31:34.996 --> 00:31:38.106
It's a classic film technique when they're lighting stuff.

00:31:38.106 --> 00:31:39.998
It's rim lighting, back lighting.

00:31:39.998 --> 00:31:46.340
uh I started doing a lot of it and colorists just weren't giving me that effect that I wanted.

00:31:46.340 --> 00:31:49.762
And Gary Frank uses, used it a lot and uses it a lot.

00:31:49.762 --> 00:31:52.577
And Brad being his color, he was his colorist.

00:31:52.577 --> 00:31:55.285
I just noticed like, wow, he does it.

00:31:55.285 --> 00:32:01.788
He actually like hits that rim light with a different color light and it makes your characters look so much more three-dimensional.

00:32:01.788 --> 00:32:05.931
And so I wanted Brad got to finally work with him.

00:32:06.010 --> 00:32:11.511
And I mean, I was, again, I was kind of rough and new and Brad had been around for a bit.

00:32:11.511 --> 00:32:17.646
but he had patience with me and we worked together and we talk about color theory and stuff like that.

00:32:17.646 --> 00:32:22.020
I'll give them, I am kind of a bit of a, a little bit of a control freak.

00:32:22.020 --> 00:32:27.935
So I will say like, sometimes I'll draw a cover and I'll just throw like a, like I have a specific color in mind.

00:32:27.935 --> 00:32:32.200
Like, well, I want this to be, well, especially with the rooks up, there's a lot of yellow at first.

00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:35.823
And then the second arc, it's like blues and greens.

00:32:35.823 --> 00:32:40.205
And we even have a color with like, or a cover with a really bright pink kind of to it.

00:32:40.205 --> 00:32:44.499
And like, I'll throw that out there, but I'm always like, Brad, you just do what you want to do.

00:32:44.499 --> 00:32:50.553
Like if you feel like something should be a different color vibe, you just do it.

00:32:50.553 --> 00:32:56.257
But he always, every time I get the colors back, it's like, yeah, that's exactly how I thought of it in my head.

00:32:56.257 --> 00:32:57.551
He just understands it.

00:32:57.551 --> 00:33:05.363
He understands that the color theory that I want to go with or what I'm thinking from Batman all the way to Rook, he just understands it.

00:33:05.363 --> 00:33:14.265
And when you find somebody like that and that you're jamming again, It becomes a collaboration and it's like, it's our art as a team.

00:33:14.265 --> 00:33:21.752
It's his, he's just as important to the, the look and the feel of the book and the artwork as I am.

00:33:21.752 --> 00:33:24.015
Like I'm, delivering the line work.

00:33:24.015 --> 00:33:27.337
He brings it to life and it's excellent.

00:33:27.337 --> 00:33:34.094
And, uh, I put him through a lot of, think long nights, figuring out all this detail and stuff.

00:33:34.094 --> 00:33:39.086
And I layer things for him so that he He can easily separate things out.

00:33:39.086 --> 00:33:46.945
I try to make it a little easier on him, but, uh, I mean, he was, sent me a couple of pages today and he, just apologized to him.

00:33:46.945 --> 00:33:54.326
I'm like, sorry, dude, sorry for making you a color, like a million spiders and stuff like that, but it looks great.

00:33:54.425 --> 00:33:54.486
Yeah.

00:33:54.486 --> 00:33:57.286
But yeah, he's, he's excellent.

00:33:57.286 --> 00:34:01.846
And I'm so, uh, thankful to be able to work with somebody like that.

00:34:01.846 --> 00:34:03.006
And he's a good guy too.

00:34:03.006 --> 00:34:04.266
He's a hockey fan.

00:34:04.266 --> 00:34:41.963
we get and he's Canadian so we get along really well with that and uh you know yeah he's he's in it he's just he's just the i think he's i believe brad is the best colorist in comics like i i he doesn't get the accolades that he deserves like he should he should have won at least a few eisner awards by now for his colors but you know again whatever that's that's the politics of comics but i he's worth his weight in gold and i think he's the best colorist out there bar none I guess from that same vantage point then, if I can continue to have you brag about your friends here, talk us through that chemistry that you and Jeff have together too.

00:34:41.963 --> 00:34:47.938
mean, not only just planning out this series, but also just sort of like the larger ghost machine brand in total.

00:34:47.938 --> 00:34:53.222
And I guess in that same breath, if I can sort of make this a two parter here, and I apologize, big question alert here.

00:34:53.222 --> 00:34:55.985
What makes Jeff such a powerful storyteller?

00:34:56.034 --> 00:35:04.840
Yeah, Jeff and I have had that that collaboration thing going on ever since we worked on Justice League together.

00:35:04.922 --> 00:35:06.682
Jeff is a collaborator at heart.

00:35:06.682 --> 00:35:07.965
That's what he wants.

00:35:07.965 --> 00:35:10.387
He seeks out creators that want to collaborate.

00:35:10.387 --> 00:35:22.847
he even he'll admit like he's worked with different creators in the past where they just didn't click and they couldn't find that place where you're jamming and things are just flowing between uh between each other.

00:35:22.847 --> 00:35:31.840
And I think That's why with Gary, myself, Brian Hitch, it's like those are the guys that he connected with when he was writing for them.

00:35:31.840 --> 00:35:48.226
As an artist, a lot of the times when you're working with a writer professionally, the writers gives you your script and you just draw it and you don't have much of a say in, you know, hey, I have.

00:35:48.226 --> 00:35:49.327
What about this idea?

00:35:49.327 --> 00:35:49.887
What about that?

00:35:49.887 --> 00:35:55.972
No, it's just you get your script and it's up to you to just draw it and that that works and that's fine.

00:35:55.972 --> 00:36:08.010
uh But with Jeff, he he's the kind of person who will call you two, three times a day to talk about an idea and he wants to hear what your ideas are.

00:36:08.010 --> 00:36:14.735
So he wants to know like what are some things that you're interested in or you know, and every person is a little different.

00:36:14.735 --> 00:36:22.045
So they may have different desires or likes or things that they're passionate about.

00:36:22.425 --> 00:36:28.166
And you can kind of, he will listen to you and guide the story with you to that place.

00:36:28.166 --> 00:36:31.706
Or if you say, I got this cool idea for this kind of a scene.

00:36:31.706 --> 00:36:36.846
And you might not see it in the next issue, but like two or three issues down the line, all of sudden it's there and you're like, cool.

00:36:36.846 --> 00:36:38.425
know, like that's great.

00:36:38.525 --> 00:36:41.565
But as a creator, as an artist, it makes you feel respected.

00:36:41.565 --> 00:36:45.126
makes you feel, it connects you more with the work.

00:36:45.126 --> 00:36:48.362
So You're not just you don't just feel like a cog in the wheel.

00:36:48.362 --> 00:36:52.724
You feel like you're an actual integral part of the creation.

00:36:52.724 --> 00:36:55.005
I mean, you are you're drawing the comic book.

00:36:55.005 --> 00:36:59.867
You're actually spending more time on it working hours than the writer does.

00:36:59.987 --> 00:37:00.527
Really?

00:37:00.527 --> 00:37:04.840
You're spending a month, two months of your life drawing this thing and living it.

00:37:04.840 --> 00:37:05.730
And he's working.

00:37:05.730 --> 00:37:08.871
He can he can work on many different things at once.

00:37:08.871 --> 00:37:17.007
But when when your ideas are appearing in there, when you're having a say in the outcome of the story, You emotionally are now connected.

00:37:17.007 --> 00:37:19.248
And so you want to do your best work.

00:37:19.248 --> 00:37:31.112
You want to put forward your best work that you've done and you want to make your writer, you want to make Jeff proud of the story and you want to be able to be happy with the thing that you got at the end.

00:37:31.112 --> 00:37:33.693
And that would be my big tip for writers out there.

00:37:33.693 --> 00:37:39.155
If any writers are listening, you got to connect with your artist and you got to talk to them.

00:37:39.155 --> 00:37:39.846
And I get it.

00:37:39.846 --> 00:37:58.228
There's some language barriers, people from all over the world working together, but Connecting with your artists, giving them a call, talking through a storyline, listening to if they have any cool ideas, ah giving them license to kind of just play even visually with things.

00:37:58.349 --> 00:38:06.713
Those things go a long way to build a team because really comic books are a team game and you're building this thing together.

00:38:06.994 --> 00:38:08.934
And Jeff is excellent at that.

00:38:08.934 --> 00:38:17.983
The storytelling part of it is for me, it's amazing because he doesn't I think differently from him when it comes to story.

00:38:17.983 --> 00:38:24.978
He's not just thinking about the plot, but he's thinking about for him, the most important thing is the characters.

00:38:24.978 --> 00:38:30.820
This character is here at the beginning of the journey and we want to go here with them.

00:38:30.862 --> 00:38:42.730
What kind of trials does this character go through to get them over here to the end to whatever like a theme or whatever we want this emotion?

00:38:43.438 --> 00:38:50.242
How can we develop this character to make them more more relatable to the audience and to the people who are reading this?

00:38:50.242 --> 00:38:54.003
The way I think as an artist is way more visually.

00:38:54.003 --> 00:39:00.827
It's just, I want to draw a cool action scene of car chased through a desert with machine guns, you know?

00:39:00.827 --> 00:39:08.005
And so we kind of balance each other there because sometimes I'll get, we'll talk about a story and he's telling me all this great emotion stuff.

00:39:08.005 --> 00:39:10.072
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that sounds great.

00:39:10.072 --> 00:39:12.054
But do I get to draw a rook?

00:39:12.054 --> 00:39:15.836
machine guns, you know, a giant turtle or something, you know what I mean?

00:39:15.836 --> 00:39:18.139
Like, like, that's what gets me fired up.

00:39:18.139 --> 00:39:20.561
But the character stuff is what gets Jeff fired up.

00:39:20.561 --> 00:39:25.063
And so the two of us kind of come together and I'm always kind of pushing them a little more action.

00:39:25.063 --> 00:39:26.144
Give me that action.

00:39:26.144 --> 00:39:27.735
Yeah, push that emotion.

00:39:27.735 --> 00:39:28.947
I'm great with that.

00:39:28.947 --> 00:39:31.358
But give me a little give me an action scene here.

00:39:31.358 --> 00:39:38.637
And then something usually, once I get those the script back, and I realize I have to draw these like all these characters fighting.

00:39:38.637 --> 00:39:42.757
tons of animals and stuff and I go, my gosh, why did I ask for that?

00:39:42.757 --> 00:39:45.838
It's easier to do a bunch of talking sequences.

00:39:46.398 --> 00:39:50.418
that balance and that collaboration is something that's great.

00:39:50.418 --> 00:39:54.757
And Jeff is able to tap into that because he's always thinking about character first.

00:39:54.757 --> 00:40:01.577
that, again, that's kind of like one of the slogans of our company is creators that you'll know, characters that you'll love.

00:40:01.717 --> 00:40:04.693
even the books themselves.

00:40:04.693 --> 00:40:17.137
we just, this was something, a strategy we discussed as we saw all these, all these books coming out of the independent sphere, but they were all named weird kind of things that you didn't know what was going on.

00:40:17.137 --> 00:40:21.679
Like, you know, what's, what's the theme here or who's the hero of this thing?

00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:28.481
And then we look back at the classic comic books all throughout time and they just named the comic after the character.

00:40:28.481 --> 00:40:34.268
It's Batman, it's Superman, it's the Justice League, it's Spawn, it's Hellboy.

00:40:34.268 --> 00:40:40.659
And so it's like, let's just name the books after the characters and then you know who the book is about.

00:40:40.860 --> 00:40:48.663
again, it's like everything points back character focused, Geiger, Redcoat, Rook, you know, the rocket fellers.

00:40:48.663 --> 00:40:56.304
And it's always just driven back to that character first thing and uh theme.

00:40:56.304 --> 00:40:59.818
again, the reader connects with that.

00:40:59.818 --> 00:41:08.376
And you left the action and the adventure, but you got to have those, those character and those emotional moments in there to really connect with your audience and with the reader.

00:41:08.376 --> 00:41:11.661
And Jeff's, he's a master at doing that.

00:41:12.213 --> 00:41:22.121
It's so funny that you say that, because one thing that Chris and I constantly talk about when we're criticizing some, you know, again, like the MCU and some of the things that are coming out when there's just so much of it.

00:41:22.121 --> 00:41:27.644
That's the thing that is lacking in a lot of these properties is there's no connection with the character.

00:41:27.644 --> 00:41:31.728
There's no desire to see the outcome of their story.

00:41:31.728 --> 00:41:40.489
And that's one thing that I loved, especially, you know, Rook and Swine and Direwolf and these characters that are all engrossed in this world and this story.

00:41:40.489 --> 00:41:46.224
And not only the just that to take it a step further, their design, their designs are so unique.

00:41:46.224 --> 00:41:47.784
They're so detailed, heavy.

00:41:47.784 --> 00:42:06.688
And that's kind of what I want to ask you about next is like, if you have this specific love of costumes, you know, or character design, because, know, again, like it's clear that Rook is a design heavy series from the masks to the weapons, to the vehicles, the city layouts, the jungles, the forests.

00:42:06.829 --> 00:42:09.820
How do you even approach that level of detail.

00:42:09.820 --> 00:42:11.402
it a background in character design?

00:42:11.402 --> 00:42:13.061
Is it a background in costume?

00:42:13.061 --> 00:42:15.657
Like tell us about that level of detail.

00:42:15.788 --> 00:42:22.250
Yeah, actually the thing that comes to mind as you bring that up, because I was as you're asking that question, I was really thinking about that.

00:42:22.250 --> 00:42:24.018
Like, yeah, where does that come from?

00:42:24.018 --> 00:42:32.983
I think that for me comes from the uh making of DVDs of the Lord of the Rings, the extended editions.

00:42:33.023 --> 00:42:40.385
When I was a teenager, late teens, when those movies came out, that was my life.

00:42:40.385 --> 00:42:42.054
Like I loved Lord of the Rings.

00:42:42.054 --> 00:42:43.726
I was reading all the books.

00:42:43.726 --> 00:42:45.536
Then the movies came out.

00:42:45.661 --> 00:42:51.983
And I remember those extended edition DVDs came out and they had hours and hours of making of stuff.

00:42:51.983 --> 00:43:01.336
And really one of the, my first kind of dreams kind of coming through high school was like comic book artists actually wasn't the first thing.

00:43:01.336 --> 00:43:08.789
My first thing was I wanted to work in film and I wanted to maybe be like a film director or a concept artists.

00:43:08.818 --> 00:43:12.545
and I like looking at those guys at what a workshop.

00:43:12.545 --> 00:43:23.425
drawing these character designs and the thought that they put into all of the little details on like the elves costumes or like putting these themes in these.

00:43:23.425 --> 00:43:26.934
Like they were really thinking about it like this is something these are real.

00:43:26.934 --> 00:43:30.266
This is a real world and these are real civilizations.

00:43:30.266 --> 00:43:36.081
We got to think about it like it's for unearthing history and not just creating some fantasy thing.

00:43:36.081 --> 00:43:38.081
We're unearthing a lost history.

00:43:38.081 --> 00:43:39.266
I remember It's archeology.

00:43:39.266 --> 00:43:40.501
It's not lore.

00:43:40.596 --> 00:43:41.255
Exactly.

00:43:41.255 --> 00:43:48.710
And I remember the head of WETA, think his name is Richard Taylor talking about that in those DVDs.

00:43:48.710 --> 00:43:51.682
so that's I think that's where a lot of that comes from.

00:43:51.682 --> 00:43:56.505
And I just with Rook, I really wanted to do something that nobody else could really do.

00:43:56.505 --> 00:43:58.827
Like nobody else could come along and draw the book.

00:43:58.827 --> 00:44:00.378
Maybe that's not really a good plan.

00:44:00.378 --> 00:44:07.507
But oh I wanted to do, you know, I wanted to do something that was me and that I could only I could do.

00:44:07.507 --> 00:44:16.034
And a lot of work went into designing the helmets and my brother's a 3D artist, a modeler at he works in video games.

00:44:16.034 --> 00:44:18.505
And so I would give him sketches.

00:44:18.505 --> 00:44:28.672
This was even like as we were kind of still ramping up and figuring out ideas, I would give him helmet sketches and he would do really rough 3D sculptures.

00:44:28.672 --> 00:44:35.237
And we could look at these helmets from 360 and like, I want to, I want to change that because I don't like the silhouette when it's in this view.

00:44:35.237 --> 00:44:47.402
uh And we worked at this stuff to try and find something that we really thought was unique and appealing, still looked like the animal, but wasn't so, wasn't crazy spot on.

00:44:47.402 --> 00:44:53.592
it kind of, and we really, like we were really trying to hone a lot of these things.

00:44:54.092 --> 00:44:55.563
I love that aspect of it.

00:44:55.563 --> 00:44:57.161
It takes a long time though.

00:44:57.161 --> 00:44:58.635
It takes a long time.

00:44:58.635 --> 00:45:02.838
And working on, like I had mentioned, this is the hardest thing I've ever worked on.

00:45:02.838 --> 00:45:12.972
And it's because It's because you have to literally create everything like like Jeff can write, you know, I always talk about there's a splash page in issue three.

00:45:12.972 --> 00:45:19.733
I think it is where they come into the swamp and there's like the city built on a giant waterfall and there's boats and stuff.

00:45:19.733 --> 00:45:22.302
And that's literally like a hat, like a one sentence.

00:45:22.302 --> 00:45:29.737
It's like, you know, but I have to sit there and think like, well, what does this civil like what are their houses look like?

00:45:29.737 --> 00:45:32.998
Is it built upon a previous city that was there?

00:45:33.003 --> 00:45:34.925
you know, who are the people living here?

00:45:34.925 --> 00:45:41.269
Is there a thematic kind of thing that I should do with the way that the buildings look for that one?

00:45:41.269 --> 00:45:43.050
Because it was the turtle warden lives there.

00:45:43.050 --> 00:45:45.052
All the buildings have a round top.

00:45:45.052 --> 00:45:47.204
So it's like almost like a turtle shell.

00:45:47.204 --> 00:45:51.085
Like you're thinking about all of these kinds of things.

00:45:51.126 --> 00:45:53.474
And it takes a long time.

00:45:53.474 --> 00:45:54.498
It takes a long time.

00:45:54.498 --> 00:46:02.637
Does not like Jeff wrote in the first arc that the villain has a big uh thing called the Ark.

00:46:02.637 --> 00:46:06.637
And it's essentially a boat on wheels.

00:46:07.137 --> 00:46:10.697
I'm kind of, yeah, here's, here's like a splash page.

00:46:11.213 --> 00:46:11.333
Yeah.

00:46:11.333 --> 00:46:22.844
I wonder if like, if for people that aren't seeing this on YouTube, I'll say it's, it's think of like a sort of a clay, much more mechanized, Chris Nolan's dark night Batmobile looking type.

00:46:22.967 --> 00:46:32.969
saw this for you, Chris, just think of the, the thunder cats, their, their vehicle, but like on an excessive amount of steroids to where it's like the size of a city.

00:46:32.969 --> 00:46:35.911
And it's like, is just bulldozing.

00:46:35.911 --> 00:46:42.139
Like we're talking like avatar sized, like they're, they're destroying the jungle on Pandora here.

00:46:42.139 --> 00:46:45.161
Like this thing is, is mean it's sick and it's bad.

00:46:45.161 --> 00:46:51.969
oh Yeah, you know, that's one little sentence in the script, but it took me like two weeks to design that thing.

00:46:51.969 --> 00:46:58.775
Like I and I did like tons of different designs until I found the look and the shape that I kind of wanted.

00:46:58.775 --> 00:47:07.059
But those are things you have to think about when you're when when you're working on Batman and Jeff says Gotham Aquarium or, you know, whatever, or the theater.

00:47:07.059 --> 00:47:08.911
It's like a monarch theater.

00:47:08.911 --> 00:47:11.445
like, well, there's lots of history I can draw from.

00:47:11.445 --> 00:47:12.844
I just go find some reference.

00:47:12.844 --> 00:47:13.864
I pull from that.

00:47:13.864 --> 00:47:18.155
I kind of know what everybody kind of knows what Gotham City should look like.

00:47:18.155 --> 00:47:21.177
And so it's not too too hard to kind of figure it out.

00:47:21.177 --> 00:47:25.378
Takes you maybe a day to kind of figure that stuff out and just start drawing it.

00:47:25.378 --> 00:47:29.001
But with this, everything, everything has to be thought out.

00:47:29.001 --> 00:47:31.112
And I'm thinking, trying to think deeper about it.

00:47:31.112 --> 00:47:34.623
Like I said, like creating a civilization, creating a design.

00:47:34.623 --> 00:47:44.389
If you look at the helmets, there's a bit of a design, like you'll see little bits and pieces of the helmets kind of repeated in other characters, because I thought these helmets would be designed by the same people.

00:47:44.389 --> 00:47:50.769
So like if their dog helmets of different species, should kind of look similar, you know?

00:47:50.769 --> 00:47:56.369
And so you're thinking about these things constantly, but it adds that much more time to it.

00:47:56.369 --> 00:48:02.070
But when it's all done and you draw it and people respond to it, it's worth it.

00:48:02.489 --> 00:48:11.746
And, you know, I was thinking the other day, like in the first arc, I don't know, there's like, we introduced like 12 or 14, like 14 new characters.

00:48:11.746 --> 00:48:20.010
that we introduced and it's like those 14 characters didn't exist prior to us doing the book and now they exist in some way.

00:48:20.010 --> 00:48:26.041
And who knows where those characters will go in the future and the reach that they might have.

00:48:26.041 --> 00:48:28.842
They might not have any reach, but they may have reached.

00:48:28.842 --> 00:48:30.983
And it's like, that's a cool thought.

00:48:31.222 --> 00:48:33.563
Yeah, I actually, have like the list here.

00:48:33.563 --> 00:48:41.204
If you want me to name them off really quickly here, we're getting towards the end of our conversation, but I want to just, just for the listener here, you have bloodhound wild hogs warden.

00:48:41.204 --> 00:48:46.126
have Reynard who's the Fox warden Arachnid, who was actually saw in issue seven.

00:48:46.126 --> 00:48:47.684
I guess, well, I'll cut that part out.

00:48:47.684 --> 00:48:49.206
Not supposed to spoil that yet.

00:48:50.568 --> 00:48:51.268
Okay.

00:48:51.268 --> 00:48:52.869
Arachnid spider warden.

00:48:54.108 --> 00:48:57.289
So, yeah, yeah, we see him and we see him, I think in issue three or four.

00:48:57.465 --> 00:49:26.253
We have a hard head Rams Ram warden stag deer warden Matterhorn goat warden locust locust warden to taco I want to say I hope I'm saying that correctly Buffalo warden jack rabbit hair warden glacier polar bear warden vermin rat warden cockrell rooster warden and then kind of the mountain lion war So yeah, like you said that brief sort of overview of what's possibly to come characters we can meet down the road, I think is really interesting.

00:49:26.253 --> 00:49:34.987
I love, again, as you said earlier, sort of one of Jeff's superpowers is that he has this ability to sort of peek into the future and know that like, we're not just telling you this for no reason.

00:49:34.987 --> 00:49:38.009
At some point, hopefully we're gonna meet a lot of these characters.

00:49:38.009 --> 00:49:41.250
If not, again, as you said, Arachnid will meet, you know, relatively soon.

00:49:41.250 --> 00:49:43.740
So, uh Jason, we've got one more question for you here.

00:49:43.740 --> 00:49:47.293
You've been so generous with your time and it's been such a pleasure talking to you here today.

00:49:47.293 --> 00:49:51.085
And I wanted to sort of end on this sort of larger idea of Ghost Machine.

00:49:51.085 --> 00:49:59.451
You and the entire Ghost Machine crew have been abundantly clear that these titles and this overarching unnamed universe is here to stay.

00:49:59.451 --> 00:50:07.014
while, you know, Aaron and I, totally agree, and I think a lot of people listen to this right now, totally agree that you draw one of the best Batman's of all time.

00:50:07.014 --> 00:50:16.130
But it's exciting that you and Jeff and Brian and just like the entire crew at Ghost Machine are building your own foundation again, as you've talked about a lot throughout this conversation.

00:50:16.130 --> 00:50:19.452
So crushing goals and just making new ones.

00:50:19.452 --> 00:50:19.822
Right.

00:50:19.822 --> 00:50:30.112
So Final question for you here, five years from now, what areas of growth do you want to see not just with Ghost Machine, but also Rook's Corner of that universe?

00:50:30.347 --> 00:50:39.523
This is something I've thought about a lot because of the fact that Rook takes a long time to draw and it takes me a lot like takes me a long time to do these issues.

00:50:39.523 --> 00:50:43.387
My goal is to put out six issues of Rook a year.

00:50:43.387 --> 00:50:56.396
For me, I see Rook as it's a long term investment and it's something that I want to slowly build up this library of these books and these stories and these characters.

00:50:56.396 --> 00:51:00.217
In five years, I'd love to have, you know, four or five.

00:51:00.378 --> 00:51:04.481
trades out developing these characters and these stories.

00:51:04.481 --> 00:51:07.333
The cool thing about Rook is we kind of know where it's going to go.

00:51:07.333 --> 00:51:09.525
We kind of know what the ending is.

00:51:09.626 --> 00:51:13.108
I know what the grand ending of the whole thing is.

00:51:13.188 --> 00:51:25.077
And we also have these kind of like these mini sort of goals of where we want to get to with the story and big huge event kind of things that we're going to that we want to do.

00:51:25.119 --> 00:51:27.711
Will I ever get there and get to draw those things?

00:51:27.711 --> 00:51:28.402
I don't know.

00:51:28.402 --> 00:51:40.181
At some point, you know, I, I would love to, I would love to be able to work on this book for the rest of my career and build something, build a legacy, build out this, these books and these characters.

00:51:40.181 --> 00:51:43.644
And, and as long as people are, want to read them.

00:51:43.644 --> 00:51:49.130
And again, thank you for the fans, for having patience.

00:51:49.130 --> 00:51:51.731
Rook is never meant to be a monthly book.

00:51:51.731 --> 00:51:56.150
It's going to come out when it comes out and I got a young family.

00:51:56.150 --> 00:52:11.010
I really wrestle with balancing, you know, the hours that I do need to put into the work, but also making sure I'm there for my wife and for my kids and being a dad and coaching hockey and doing like I want to do all of those things.

00:52:11.010 --> 00:52:32.347
That's why Ghost Machine for me, too, was a way to step out of the grind of monthly comics and do something where I had that control over when the books come out and If it takes me three months to draw an issue, then it takes me three months, but you know I'm going to put my heart and my soul into it and it's going to be cool.

00:52:33.148 --> 00:52:44.456
my goal for myself is in five years, I want to just build, I would love to have four or five trades out and hoping and hope that people are still interested in reading.

00:52:44.456 --> 00:52:52.012
We do have larger goals for the company and where we want to go, but uh film, TV, all that kind of stuff.

00:52:52.210 --> 00:52:56.971
But that stuff takes time and you need to build up the comics first.

00:52:56.971 --> 00:53:03.333
And I've also always said, if Rook never becomes anything outside of comics, I'd be totally fine with that.

00:53:03.333 --> 00:53:06.284
Because really, my love is the comic books.

00:53:06.284 --> 00:53:08.733
I just want to create good comic books.

00:53:08.855 --> 00:53:12.976
And I want to create books that are accessible to a large audience.

00:53:12.976 --> 00:53:21.038
ah I wanted to create a book that I could give to my younger son and say, hey, you can read this.

00:53:21.038 --> 00:53:22.572
It's fairly clean.

00:53:22.572 --> 00:53:32.429
There's a little bit of violence in it, but the language is clean and you can read this and but you can also hand it to a 40 year old guy and say you can read this too and you'll love it.

00:53:32.429 --> 00:53:44.847
know, and and I wanted I've been passionate about that and I want to create things that are more everybody it's for anybody can pick it up and read it and I think enjoy it again talking about goals.

00:53:44.847 --> 00:53:59.436
You want to be humble about your goals, but you also want to set some really crazy goals that may seem almost impossible to get to, but you find that when you set those crazy goals, they a lot of times again come true.

00:53:59.436 --> 00:54:14.349
But it's slow and it's a lot of determination, consistency, hard work, sacrifice is a huge one, work ethic, and just uh continuing on through the good times and the low times.

00:54:14.349 --> 00:54:17.342
But yeah, that's my goal for a rook.

00:54:17.342 --> 00:54:39.358
I just want to create something that I want to want to read that what I want to draw and that I can just build my vision, my artistic vision and something that I can be proud of and something that I can pass on hopefully maybe to the next generation of artists one day to take it over and lead it into wherever it goes from there.

00:54:39.358 --> 00:54:40.818
That would be really cool too.

00:54:40.818 --> 00:54:43.760
But yeah, I don't know.

00:54:43.800 --> 00:54:44.681
It's exciting.

00:54:44.681 --> 00:54:45.701
It really is.

00:54:45.701 --> 00:54:48.289
And we're so thankful for everybody who picks up.

00:54:48.289 --> 00:54:52.753
copies of our books and reads them and the passion that fans have for them.

00:54:52.753 --> 00:55:01.027
We got the numbers back for Rook issue seven and they were excellent books not even out yet where it looks like it's going to sell out.

00:55:01.027 --> 00:55:17.996
So it's like it's like great like this is cool that it shows me that you can be off the stands for a year and as long as you're doing good work people are going to still respond to it and they want to read it and that to me is It builds my confidence and it shows me that yeah, people do care and they want to read this stuff.

00:55:17.996 --> 00:55:25.826
And I want to give them the best of me and my best work and give them a story that they're going to enjoy and want to continue reading.

00:55:25.826 --> 00:55:26.445
Yeah.

00:55:26.445 --> 00:55:30.679
You know, I don't know what's in the water up there in Canada, but you know, not to name drop really quickly.

00:55:30.679 --> 00:55:43.817
Aaron and I talked to Tom McFarlane last night, sort of about, know, not just King Spawn 50 and sort of again, this long running create our own story that he's building over there along with the other 17 long running titles he's running over there with Spawn.

00:55:43.817 --> 00:55:45.657
But and Aaron, you can back me up on this.

00:55:45.657 --> 00:55:55.166
It sort of seems like, you know, Jason, I don't know if you're like a child of the McFarlane tree or whatever, but You know, he is saying almost exactly the same thing, right?

00:55:55.166 --> 00:55:57.059
Aaron is like, it's the determination.

00:55:57.059 --> 00:55:58.791
It's the put your head down and work.

00:55:58.791 --> 00:56:05.291
And then like, you will find the rewards not only with the work, but also with the readership, you know.

00:56:05.291 --> 00:56:16.445
that I took from the conversation yesterday, and I feel like you definitely emphasize this as well, Jason, was the fact that, you know, we asked him about capturing kind of like a moment in time with what you create.

00:56:16.445 --> 00:56:28.628
And I think that, you know, his answer, his response was very focused on the like, you know, create what you're going to create and then like put in as much effort as you think it needs and then take a step back from it and let it be.

00:56:28.628 --> 00:56:36.409
Because if you're really just, if you're hyper focusing on that one moment in your comic that you think is going to impact somebody.

00:56:36.409 --> 00:56:38.829
Like you're going to put too much effort and you're going to overthink it.

00:56:38.829 --> 00:56:42.552
And like, I think that that's something that you do obviously very well.

00:56:42.552 --> 00:56:48.905
And again, with these splash pages with, with Rook in general, uh, again, Chris talked about, Chris and I talked about this at Nazium.

00:56:48.905 --> 00:56:55.061
There's just these, these moments in this first arc that are just incredible and the characters are credible.

00:56:55.061 --> 00:56:56.413
The designs are incredible.

00:56:56.413 --> 00:57:01.581
And, and again, I know I can speak for myself and Chris that we're just excited for, for more of this.

00:57:01.581 --> 00:57:08.503
And I'll say this before we wrap up this conversation is there's one only, like there's one thing that I want and that's more Rook merchandise.

00:57:08.503 --> 00:57:13.289
oh Well, again, that's another thing that's like a slow burn.

00:57:13.289 --> 00:57:17.262
It's something where you got to earn it, right?

00:57:17.262 --> 00:57:26.878
You have to earn the right for people to like by creating something good that people want that companies can then come in and say, hey, let's do a toy.

00:57:26.878 --> 00:57:33.550
Let's do a, you know, whatever, a TV show or T-shirts or whatever, but you got to earn that.

00:57:33.550 --> 00:57:48.621
like, again, going back to where I see myself in four years, it's like, I almost think that Rook Rook is gonna have its day in the sun, but it may take four or five years until people are like, holy smoke, this is an epic stinking comic book and it's still going.

00:57:48.621 --> 00:57:51.681
And you guys are still building this universe.

00:57:51.681 --> 00:57:57.282
And like, it may take some time to get there, but like that's kind of where I see it going.

00:57:57.963 --> 00:58:03.465
again, it's just, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication and time to it and dreaming big.

00:58:03.465 --> 00:58:05.155
I believe there will be action figures.

00:58:05.155 --> 00:58:05.905
I believe it.

00:58:05.905 --> 00:58:06.766
I know it.

00:58:06.766 --> 00:58:08.246
I can already see it.

00:58:08.257 --> 00:58:11.909
And I believe there's going to be all kinds of cool stuff, but we got it.

00:58:11.909 --> 00:58:12.739
We got to earn it.

00:58:12.739 --> 00:58:16.440
You got to earn that stuff and you got to earn it by just being consistent.

00:58:16.440 --> 00:58:18.891
Put out your book, you know, do your best work.

00:58:18.891 --> 00:58:21.541
Don't, you know, don't give, give your 110%.

00:58:21.541 --> 00:58:28.893
Keep going, you know, do your next thing and just, you know, uh we're already kind of figure out the next story arc.

00:58:28.893 --> 00:58:33.085
And this one's this one, the issue seven to 12 story arc is really cool.

00:58:33.085 --> 00:58:40.782
It's more of a horror vibe, uh but it's got some again, just crazy character designs that I'm cursing myself every day.

00:58:40.782 --> 00:58:44.096
Why did I design a character looking like this?

00:58:44.217 --> 00:58:46.681
But it looks really cool.

00:58:47.061 --> 00:58:49.126
that's all that really matters in the end.

00:58:49.126 --> 00:58:52.130
know, delivering a cool book that people want to read.

00:58:52.130 --> 00:58:52.809
Yeah.

00:58:52.809 --> 00:58:55.490
Well, you Jason, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here on the show.

00:58:55.490 --> 00:58:57.172
It's honestly been so great having you here.

00:58:57.172 --> 00:58:59.882
Not again, not just to talk about Ghost Machine, but Rook as a whole.

00:58:59.882 --> 00:59:06.202
And I, I'm just going to remind everybody once again, as Jason just said, new arc issue seven starts on October 1st.

00:59:06.202 --> 00:59:09.277
Make sure you call your local home bookshop, get that put on your pool.

00:59:09.277 --> 00:59:15.139
And then along with that, the deluxe hardcover, the fighter flight story arc that we've been talking about today comes out on October 29th.

00:59:15.139 --> 00:59:16.880
So again, put that on your pool.

00:59:16.880 --> 00:59:20.416
I want to say FOC is the week that we put this Conversation out for the hardcover.

00:59:20.416 --> 00:59:29.175
So make sure you guys call your local comic shop get that ordered again, Jason We've taken too much of your time really quickly before you let you go Is there anything that you want to sort of plug?

00:59:29.175 --> 00:59:32.690
How can people follow your career all the good things before we get you out of here?

00:59:32.822 --> 00:59:35.402
Yeah, I'm most active on Instagram.

00:59:35.402 --> 00:59:36.494
You can find me on there.

00:59:36.494 --> 00:59:38.476
Jkfadoc, I think it is.

00:59:38.476 --> 00:59:40.608
Just type in my name, you'll find me.

00:59:40.608 --> 00:59:43.442
ah Yeah, the hardcover is really cool.

00:59:43.442 --> 00:59:49.114
There's a ton of kind of like behind the scenes stuff, all the designs that some of them go back to 2013.

00:59:49.114 --> 00:59:53.838
From Rook stuff that's been there forever and talking.

00:59:53.838 --> 00:59:57.532
There's a whole commentary on the back about the designs and all this stuff.

00:59:57.532 --> 00:59:58.005
So.

00:59:58.005 --> 01:00:00.768
It's something that a lot of the fans have been asking for.

01:00:00.768 --> 01:00:03.050
want that out of like a Rook hardcover.

01:00:03.050 --> 01:00:06.452
So I really feel like it's going to deliver on that.

01:00:06.634 --> 01:00:08.005
It's a beautiful looking book.

01:00:08.005 --> 01:00:15.244
And so that comes out, pick that one up and then you can jump right into issue seven and join us for that adventure.

01:00:15.244 --> 01:00:18.487
Yeah, you guys do an incredible job of sort of catching folks up with issue seven.

01:00:18.487 --> 01:00:20.759
Like you could honestly just pick up issue seven if you want.

01:00:20.759 --> 01:00:25.483
I would highly recommend, think Aaron and would both recommend and Jason as well, that you pick up issues one through six.

01:00:25.483 --> 01:00:31.208
But if you just so happen to want to jump in on issue seven, you guys have a pretty good sort of like mini explainer there at the beginning.

01:00:31.208 --> 01:00:37.233
So yeah, sort of, sort of an homage to the old days of comics where they sort of told you what happened in the previous, uh previous arc.

01:00:37.233 --> 01:00:37.708
So.

01:00:37.708 --> 01:00:39.461
time on Rook Exodus.

01:00:39.461 --> 01:00:40.123
Yeah.

01:00:40.123 --> 01:00:41.822
Jason, again, thank you so much.

01:00:41.822 --> 01:00:43.677
I hope to have you back on the show at some point down the road.

01:00:43.677 --> 01:00:47.552
Maybe we can get Jeff on here with you guys together, maybe at the end of the second arc there.

01:00:47.552 --> 01:00:50.036
And, you know, just thank you for coming on.

01:00:50.036 --> 01:00:55.726
Congratulations on all the success with both Rook and Ghost Machine and hope to talk to you soon.

01:00:55.726 --> 01:00:58.286
Awesome, thanks guys, I had a blast, was great.