Issue #11: Vito Delsante

for guys in a comic grab your sidekick under is welcome to super team Red Rusty tap in nobody get ready for some Empire City action and welcome special guest Bido del Sante. Welcome everyone to four guys in a comic. You guys know how much we love indie comics whether it's image you know any of the publishers out there but we also love supporting people who are starting kick starters or just you know publishing books that aren't published by a usual comic publisher and today we've got a very special guest welcome Vito del Sante to our podcast or little show. Hey what's up Vito.

Hi. Now what do you want to do sometimes I'd like to give back. Hey. Hey.

Hey. I guarantee everyone listening said it back. Yes. Two snaps.

So now Vito why don't you let the good people out there know what you're working on what you've done stuff like that. What I've done I've been a writer for about ten years. I work usually like the bulk of my career was in backups for villain issues or you know anthologies. So I did a lot of Scooby-Doo.

There was a recent IDW put out a recent Cartoon Network All-Stars which was actually published by DC way back. And there's a Johnny Bravo story there that I did. I wrote a Scooby-Doo musical that appeared in a Scooby-Doo issue. I worked on the first thing I ever did was Batman Adventures during the Dan slot title to run which everyone seemed to love it.

It kind of got Dan on the map. You know like after that he did a Batman Arkham Asylum book or I forget what it's called Arkham Asylum Living Hell or something like that. And so before that though he did Batman Adventures and I ended up doing a backup with Dean Hasfield and that. And that's kind of the first thing I ever wrote was Batman which is insane.

That's a cool way to start. Yeah yeah. So yeah from there I've flaunted in obscurity and you know like you did a bunch of anthologies here and they're the pop gun volume four bunch of things. The biggest thing I've done to date was Superman 676 which was an issue that took place between Kurt Busex Run and James Robinson's Run.

So I mean or right there you know like two of the greats you know some Italian dude from Staten Island, New York about in between them. I was going to say you've been across every board. I mean you did I think you did X-Men and Marvel and you've done Superman. You've done Batman.

I mean and then you've done I guess Savage Dragon 2. So you hit like every publisher along with your well ventured man. Ritzom, you know I did for dynamite and Savage Tails. The only thing I haven't the only company I haven't worked for right now is Dark Wars.

Not working on it. But yeah the majors I've covered the majors. That's a short. The thing that I'm probably most well known for right now is stray which I get started in 2014 and then we published in 2015.

Yeah in 2015 we published it through action live entertainment for issues which was pretty well received by a lot of people and then we just finished doing what we just finished in it. But earlier this year we had April, no May. May and June of this year we published the first ever creator-owned shared universe. It's a big title.

Your first ever creator-owned shared universe weekly miniseries. Superhero miniseries. Superhero miniseries called Actionverse which I was the editor of and one of the creators behind was Stray Molly Danger by Jamal Eigen, Midnight Tiger by Randy Heit, virtue from Fracture by Chachacony and Sean Gabbron and the first hero from Anthony Wep So that was a lot of fun. Sounds like fun.

It had its own headaches but it had nothing to do with anybody I work with. It was a lot of learning on the job. It was the first editing position I've ever had. The first kind of project coordinating kind of thing I've ever done in comics.

It was a lot of learning. It was the first editing position I've ever had. It was the first editing position I've ever had. The first kind of project coordinating kind of thing I've ever done in comics.

It was a lot of learning. And then right now you recently just read it a Kickstarter for I guess you could say Volume 2 of Stray, correct? Yeah, I just started it yesterday. You're already at $3,200.

Yeah, that's you. Congratulations. Thank you. The goal is 5,000.

So we're at actually I think the last time I took 36 something. Oh, it's just up. Wow. We have 102 backers which is great.

So we've got pretty good puzzles from them. We're obviously going to fund it. It's just how much are we going to over fund. And I shouldn't say obviously because there's never any absoluteness.

There's nothing guaranteed. But the momentum looks good. And the weekend is going to be tough. You know, we'll see how many people around this weekend, how many people got paid this Friday.

I can't even take them out until the end of the month. You never know. No, you saw that. And I was like, that's really impressive.

You know, because you have a month basically to come up with the money and you've already well over half. I mean, you're 75% of the way there in less than two days. So congratulations. That's huge.

Also, you let us review the full trade paperback of the first volume of the month. And we said that to us yesterday. I didn't have a chance to read it all, but I'm about three-fourths of the way through. I've read like three of the four issues.

And I really, really enjoy it. I wasn't sure what to think about it or what it was about. And so I just kind of went into it with a blind eye. It's fantastic.

The art is amazing. I love the art in it. I was going to say that's something that pulled me in right away when I started looking at the art. And this is really tight.

The art's done by Sean Isaacs, who's based out of South Africa. I met him on DeviantArt of all places. And we just bonded over a love of Aquaman and Megwing. So we were planning on doing a mini-series called Aquarian 7, which was basically a justice league.

Imagine a justice league where it's made up of nothing but Aquaman. So it's like seven people with aquatic based hours. So we were developing that. And then I was developing an obviously side.

He was a fan of it. I didn't realize. He had said many years later that he was always trying to figure out how to get his love of dogs into a comic book. And here I was with a concept already.

So he just, you know, when we had to kind of move on from the first artist that we had and Sean really just took it by the, took the bull by the horns and just ran with it, redesigned every character. You know, he's, he changed the story too. Like the story was supposed to take place in like 89, but now it takes place in like, you know, the present. You know, like yesterday, it could be tomorrow.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Simon Gough and Cross Camel, who colored the book. They really made it like a stunning looking book. You know, and that's probably no means, you know, just Sean's, you know, Sean's doing it's both them coloring the book and making it look like a professional book. I guess, you know, like, you know, it doesn't look like a book, it started book, you know, in that sense?

Like it looks like it looks like something that Marvel DC image. Something that the pros put out. And, you know, that's the way we're closed. Like, that's the point of doing it, you know, is just to make sure that people know that there are people like us out there.

Yeah, it was fantastic. And the story is really killer too. Like I said, I didn't really know what to expect going into it. At first, I just thought it was like a dog superhero type thing.

I realized that, you know, that it's actually a person with the name, you know, Rob Weiler and Doberman and whatnot, but it's really, it's really good. I'm enjoying it. I'm actually probably going to finish reading it as soon as we get off this call, but no, I'm enjoying it a lot. And I'm really looking forward to volume two.

Those people out there have not read it yet. Maybe a little bit about what the story's about for us to do. Yeah. The world's greatest.

I don't want to call them the world's greatest detective because that would get me the playing into somebody else's hands. One of the world's greatest heroes, the Bill Boman, is killed by an unseen assailant. And his former sidekick, the Rottweiler, has basically retired for five years, stopping the sidekick, stopped fighting crime for five years. And he basically gave up on being a superhero, gave up on the whole thing.

And you find out why in issue four, so I'm not going to spoil that for you. But yeah, he gave up and he's been gone and he's been kind of selling drugs and promoting parties since then. You know, like kind of on his own and when he finds out that the Bill Boman is dead, he decides he's going to come back and try to solve his murder because the Bill Boman is his father. And what follows then is, you know, it's about a guy who's trying to figure out who he wants to be and how he's going to be that person.

I tell everybody it's about identity and it's about choices. It's semi-autobiographical based partially on how I got with my father's death. Obviously I'm not a superhero, so that has nothing to do with it. But yeah, you know, like that died when I was 15.

And I did, you know, get involved in drugs and stuff. And it was a very dark time. So I took that and I turned it into a compliment, basically. Now I was going to say, even reading like on your Kickstarter, the preview pages and everything, just from that little bit of information, I could feel a connection with the character already.

And it was someone that seemed relatable. Very relatable. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, there's a lot of things that are, what's funny is like, you know, you guys are like, you know, not to pull the curtain back too much, but before we started, you know, we just kind of talk to a conversational.

And I write in a very conversational tone, like I write in my own voice, basically. And everyone sounds, not everyone sounds like me, you know, not everyone, not even the main characters sound like me sometimes, but I have a really good ear for dialogue. So I feel like whenever someone's speaking, there's like a real voice, you know, I think that helps in, you know, establishing who the character is. The world, when you open up, I hope, you know, and you guys will be able to say this better than I could.

But when you open up the pages of the first issue and you start reading it, the world feels lived in, you know, like it feels like a familiar, you know, like that's also a good thing. And that's also kind of by design, because, you know, we know that we're dealing with archetypes and established character type of models, like, you know, we open up and we see a Batman character. And obviously, the Robin character. So what comes next is the Justice League type team, you know, and like they look all familiar.

And that's so that when the reader jumps in for the first time, they can't say they don't know who these characters are. They can feel who they are. They might not know their names. They might not know their particular motivations, but you know, they feel like, oh, that's the grace.

And you know, even though it's broadening weller, you know, like that I know that guy is I know exactly what the choices he's going to make are. But then you don't. So we kind of pull all that up. So I'm going to need to kind of make you live this world with that.

See now that's something that I was going to say to even in one of the panels. When I first started reading it, I kind of got, I hope this isn't a guy I hope it wouldn't. But I kind of got like a Peter Parker vibe at first. And then as it went on, I saw the panel where he's holding the guy, I guess from falling.

And he's like, a roddy. And he's like, don't call me rodding. He's like, okay, roddy. And then he like drops him.

And he's like, okay, this guy isn't really like a Peter Parker character. Never mind. Yeah. He hates being called Roddy.

Yeah. The thing I was going to say to kind of going back to a recipe just said about the Peter Parker is in Volume 1. When I was first reading, I thought that that was the right way of the character. But when they're talking about the party promoting scenes and things like that.

But then I was saying that you see him selling drugs and I'm like, no, no, no, that's not him. And then you kind of see like the bouncing around. So I'm like, okay, what is going on here? But then you have some really awesome flash back scenes.

And the thing I love about the flash back scenes is kind of the whole Peter Parker thing comes in as when he was young. You know, he was what, 14, 15 ish at that time. He was even under the mat. Like he started his training started eight.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And there's the part where there's the tons of puns where they do a flashback as the Rottweiler. And he's fighting all the guys and there's just the pun after pun after pun.

And that's where I also got the Peter Parker vibe was more so when he was younger, not so much in the current world. But I was just, I honestly, I was laughing out loud at some of these puns and I'm just like, this is wonderful. Like, it was awesome. Like you said, it felt very real.

It felt like you could relate and hear their voices. So it was definitely. Thanks, man. Well, you know, like there's those puns, you know, basically, like somebody had said like the second issue back flashback, you know, when he saves the Doberman and he fights off the School of Crime, basically.

I don't know the name of anything like that. I'll just call him that for now. But it felt like Batman 66, you know, like in the only, you know, I was like, that's not a compliment, I guess. It's like 10 years ago, whatever it was, you know, like, so it's a, it's a thing.

It's fun. You know, like, and that's the whole point is that we just wanted to make those flashbacks seem fun. Because when you come into the present, you see that his life is not fun at all. You know, like it's a very, you know, he grew up, you know, and like the world grew up with him, you know, like the world grew up around him and things changed.

You know, things got worse in some respects, you know, like him being a side, not being a side trick five years might have impacted the world. I'm not going to say it didn't. I'm not going to say it did. But yeah, I might have impacted the world around him and what became a, what the world could have been.

No, it's, it's pretty clear. Well, at least for me, you guys are saying Peter Parker, I was did Grayson through and through for me. You also mentioned, you know, like, when before, so clearly there's this sort of a love letter to the character. Would you say he's, you know, a character that you've always been, you know, like a favorite character one that's always inspired you in some way or?

Who did Grayson? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

When I was a kid, I was born in 73. So I grew up really in the late 70s and the early 80s and in New York. I was on Channel 11, which is the CW channel now, but 10 11 back then would play the Batman 66 show right as soon as I got home from school. So I would just come home straight from school, turn on Channel 11 Batman was on and then, you know, whatever got into him on after that, but I was always watching Batman.

I thought my dad was Batman because he wasn't around a lot growing up and I figured, oh, he must be fighting crime. I got to get ready to be Robin. And so, you know, and like I didn't have to stand x now did you? My grandmother did make me, she was a seamstress.

She made me an amazing Robin costume when I was a kid and I wish God I still had it for my son. But yeah, like I lived being Batman and Robin with my dad, you know, so like, and I'll give you a better anecdote. My mom and I were driving around one time. I think she had just picked me up from seeing my father and my grandparents out.

So we were driving back and we went along this road that was kind of off the main road that went along the water. And I could see the Verrazano Bridge. And I just remember distinctly being in the passenger seat because you could put kids in the passenger seat back then, instead of like in the back and in a car seat, but like I was in the passenger seat and we're driving and my mom says, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I go Superman and she didn't want to hurt my feelings.

She didn't want to like break my heart or anything. She's like, honey, you can't fly. You can't be Superman. And I said with out hesitation immediately.

I said, right, I'll be Batman. So, so yeah, was this around the time? Was this around the time that the Superman movie came out? Probably probably not too far after.

Yeah, like I would say like 79. Yeah. You know, so yeah, it would have been round about that time if not like a second Superman movie. But yeah, like, you know, Christopher Reeve, you know, I'm looking to say, but like I was very cognizant of comics, you know, you know, you know, you know, I was very cognizant of comics.

That, you know, like super friends, you know, everything. So, so yeah, and Robin was just, you know, Robin was created specifically for little boys and little kids early to relate to, you know, like, you know, we can't we can't bat me and we're not open up, but we can bat me in his best friend. Yeah, it was the whole point of Robin's creation and Bucky by extension and to our own all the other side kids. The whole reason for the psychic was we can be the hero's best friend, you know, and so I always want to be the hero's best friend.

I'm more attracted, I guess you know, like, like my, my stories are more geared towards the story. Or more geared towards supporting characters anyway. So I've always loved, you know, like the side characters or the sidekick, you know, or, you know, Lois Lane, you know, like, who's not, she's not really a psychic, but she gives a psychic consent. You know, like, I've always liked those characters because they seem to inform everything we wanted to know about the hero.

And with stray, you know, it's just again going back to my wing. It's all right. Now that the side is grown up. Who is who is he?

What does he want to be? What does one of his choices does he want to be the Doberman? Because he wants to be the Rottweiler. And ultimately the answer is without really spoiling anything.

The answer is he wants to be his own man. He wants to not go the same path. That's the whole point of the name. Like the name is he strays.

He strays from the path. So he is a stray in more than one way. No, definitely. Like just reading through the, like I said, through the preview pages, you can tell I put the name again pretty well with the straight thing.

And, but yeah, no, but what were you going to say? Well, I was just going to ask, you know, you mentioned that whole Justice League S team. You know, you've got like the Sparta female character. I can't to wonder woman.

Is there any chance that in the future you'll move on from the Rottweiler? Maybe we'll get some, you know, older stories of this, of this team or some of the individual characters on there. Well, the next volume of straight, the ongoing begins with a flashback. It's all flashback basically.

It's all the while of years. And so if we're going to do the Rottweiler years, we're going to see the formation of the team that he ends up creating called a team ages. You know, so yeah, we're going to see more of the ages. Mentor characters.

We're going to see the teenagers, you know, like fully. And I have every hope. I can't say that I have every intention because there are stories that I want to help us. But I really want there to be interest.

I hope that there's interest in the Titan and in Sparta and in the theory. A lot of people love the theory for some reason. He's a lot of fun. But I hope that there's interest in those characters so that we can maybe spin them off, do one shots.

I know Sean wants to do one shots for Sparta immediately. And we have a couple of creators that we've contacted saying, look, if we can pay you to do a one shot of this character, not only are we going to put it out if we can, but we're open to talking partial ownership. So that way you feel like you've created something and you can keep working on this and stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's not like people need my creations to become a creator and stuff.

But when you deal with a character that is largely undeveloped, you want to, at least we want to kind of make it so that the character is not like you want to be able to do it. So that the person that works on it has an investment in that character to flush them out even more than we could, you know, even at this point. Very cool. So for volume one for those that want to go back and, you know, they're not as lucky as us to have the file.

Where can they get it? Do you have it on Comitology? Oh, yeah. Is it in like any of the major bookstores?

It's I mean, it's still available from Diamond. So your books will be your counterparts or can order it. Okay. It's at Amazon.

It's on Barnes and Noble.com. It is on Comitology. It's also on comets. Okay.

Individual, individual issues are on comets. And from what I understand, if you sign up with Comitology Unlimited, you can read the first issue for free. Oh, very cool. Very cool.

And that's a good time for everybody out there listening to go ahead and talk to your shop and request a volume two to be at a two-door box. That's true. Now for volume two, is that going to be also through Action Lab or do you guys not know yet? Oh, it is going to remain in Action Lab.

Yeah, the idea is that, you know, it's funny because people are like, hey, it's still an Action Lab because you're doing a Kickstarter. If you read the Kickstarter, it does say that Action Lab is involved. You know, like they're part of the people that are involved in the conversation. You know, it's not an Action Lab Kickstarter.

It's my Kickstarter. They are involved heavily in it. They're the ones printing the books and the ones doing the fulfillment. So yeah, they have to be involved.

But yeah, like the book doesn't have a schedule yet. You know, we want to raise this money to start working on the book. The first three issues are already written. Fourth issues being worked on.

Fifth issues being worked on. So, you know, we are ready to go. Sean has already started Layox, as you can see on the Kickstarter page. So it's not, we just, you know, we can't work afraid.

You know, like it'd be nice, but we can't. If comics were so lucrative in terms of sales, because of the indie books, you know, like if they were so lucrative that you would just make the money on just selling the comics, that'd be great. We could probably not require page rates or anything like that. But that's the world we're living in.

You know, we all have rents to pay and go. I was going to say like the Kickstarter is basically to raise production funds to start working on the book. We're hoping to have the first issue out by December. You know, like it might end up being January, February, something like that.

And I also noticed you do consulting for, I guess, writers trying to get into the comic book medium. I could. I mean, you know, like, here's the thing. I'm very weirded out by the idea that I'm somebody that has any kind of mentorship or any kind of knowledge to offer someone else, you know, because I feel like I'm still learning every day.

But I have a couple of things I can tell you about how to put a script together. Again, like I edited the action verse mini series. So I can, I can check with anybody's project, you know, like, especially if it's not mine, like, business. Like, I can tell you how to put together a book and, you know, how to tell a story, even or even how to tell a story.

But, you know, as simple as why the story doesn't work this way, you would work a lot better this way. And so, I mean, I don't know that that makes me an expert or anything like that. I would never go so far to say that. But I can help people.

You know, I love to help people. You know, I repeat the sweats are free. You know, all the time. So, I mean, why not?

Why not try it? I can't believe two people took that award. It's like you have to prep yourself. You some Batman work.

So, I understand you have some other work coming down the road with Dean Hasselt. Is that correct? Yeah, July 27 to be exact. So, in less than three weeks, we're going to launch the next book in the New Brooklyn universe on language.

For those that aren't familiar, language is a free app that you can download and you can read books more. I heard the description the other day and I think it's free app. You read comics in the same way that you look at your Twitter feed. So, you scroll up and down instead of left to right.

And so, it's more geared towards today's kind of mobile audience and stuff. So, this is line web to free app on iOS and Android and all the other stores will apply and leave and stuff. So, if you download it and you should, and if you read a red hook by Dean Hasselt, which you should, you'll understand that red hook is about a super thief that becomes a superhero. And it's totally the weirdest Jack Kirby book you've ever, you've never ran, I should say.

Dean does that one. And Brooklyn itself is an entity in this world. So, that's what Purple Heart deals with. A Navy veteran who just came back from war, he's wounded.

He's got PTSD and he is trying to just, as simple as this, he's just trying to put his head down on a pillow and just go to sleep. So, he wants to go home. And, unfortunately, Brooklyn has other plans for him. So, that's probably the best way to sell it.

But the better way to sell it is the artwork is by an artist from Portugal by the name of Ricardo Venancio, who you guys probably haven't heard of. He's an amazing artist. He's incredible. We've worked together on a couple of things in the past.

And he is basically the child of Pazahiro, Tomo and Paul Pope. Just the most amazing artwork you've never seen. I'm looking forward to seeing out, too. Yeah, me too.

I mean, it's funny, I have five pages that I have for letter tonight. But yeah, he's incredible. The book is incredible. I just reread the entire story last week.

And I was just kind of shocked at how, I don't want to say how good I am, but how good it is. You know, because I didn't write it alone. Dean kind of acted as an editor in a sense. You know, where I would go, hey, what about if we did this and he would say, hey, try this.

I did the actual physical work of writing at the Dean's as much as writing. If you could work with anyone dead or alive, be the artist to your writing, who would it be? That's tough. I mean, because I work with all the guys I want to work with, you know, number one, I got to work with Jamal Eigle this year.

I got the letter over Molly Danger issue in Action First. So, and Jamal's been a friend of mine for years, and I got to work with Anthony Hite, you know, I got to write his script or the Action First stuff. So, I mean, these are guys that are my friends, but, you know, I wanted to work with them. And more often than not, when people ask me who do you want to work with, it's probably a friend of mine that I haven't worked with.

Mike Morton is a good one. Evan Shainer, who's on future quest is another friend of mine that I would love to work with at some point. Dead or alive, I mean, like, George Perez, so Jimenez, um, geez, I can keep naming him. George Perez is a good answer.

But if you're going to, you know, work with somebody, you know, if you're ever your choice of work with anybody, like, yeah, big masters, Cliff Chang. I really love Paul Sniff. We had a run on the next minute of the 80s. Did Golden Age with James Robinson, he's an amazing artist, beautiful, beautiful artist.

Yeah, I'll stop with Daniel, who drew Nightwing. I'd love to work with him. But you know, but just as much as I'd like to work with those guys, you know, you know, Dead artists, Jack Herbie, Alex Toh, you know, all those. But as much as I'd like to work with those guys, I still want to work with Dean.

I still want to work with Sean. I still want to work with Ricardo and Chris Cross and all the people I'm working with that actually I'm on. Actually, I've done a wonder, you know, like, I still want to work with the people that I work with. And I think that says as much about them as it does, you know, the projects that we work on.

I'm excited to get artwork in my email. You know, I'm excited to get a Dropbox invite her for artwork that everybody takes. But like, you know, whenever I sit down and I'm working, Sean sent me those layoffs last week and I rarely had to do spumps the entire time while lettering them because here we are again. Just like a, like, like favorite t-shirt, you know, like, and we're going back to school.

You know, that kind of thing, you know, it just the familiarity and the craftsmanship that we both brought to the first miniseries. You know, and we worked on the action version too, like I let it over his artwork in that. He wrote that issue. So, you know, this is the first time like I'm seeing my script being brought to life by Sean in a while.

So it's always exciting. So I'll take the guys that I work with now. Mike, Evan, you know, those guys, I'll take the film in his book, Chang, Paul Smith, you know, I'll take those guys, you know, sure. But like, give me more Sean.

Very cool. So, so corny. So corny. Not at all.

That speaks volumes about the people you work with. Yeah, I mean, it also means that you must be one happy camper. Absolutely. You know, you don't, you know, it's funny.

Like, there was a point where Sean and I were ready to just quit on straight and just go, you know, that first straight. You know, that first trade is pretty great. You know, we don't have to say anything more activist. We can let it go and just, you know, move on.

And we were discussing doing more work, you know, different stories, you know, not even superior stuff. So, you know, he's my man, you know, like he's my boy. So, like, why not, you know, just keep working again and stuff. And then, you know, then we just look at each other and we're just like, you know what?

I love straight. You love straight. What are we doing? You know, like, let's just make it.

Let's just keep making it. You know, let's just keep doing the impossible. So, Vito, one of my questions I would always love to ask everybody is what you keep in your sort box. Like, what do I call it?

Like, what's good stuff? Yeah. What you have your full box or what do you like to collect? What do you keep?

Um, trades mostly. Um, you know, what's funny is I got a really incredible honor about a month and a half ago. My local library, I've been three years ago or something. I've been donating all my books and I don't want to them.

And they're a small library in a small town of Pennsylvania. You know, they don't have much of a budget. So, here I am, just, I just keep donating books and stuff. And now they have a graphic novel section, which is great.

And I don't know, like, it's amazing. And the thing was a couple months ago, they decided that they were going to name their graphic novel section after me. Oh, wow. That's awesome.

Yeah, it's incredible. It's insane. And I bring that up because I'm in the process of not keeping. And that's because, you know, comics are a very disposable medium, in a sense, but they don't have to be.

You can keep them in your box forever and print them in storage and all that stuff. But there's a kid that hasn't discovered comics yet, that you could give new frontier to, you know, you've read it, dog, you're, it's like, you know, everything you want in a comic and you're like, you know what? I can like, I can like, let this go and like give it to a kid. And maybe they discover Darwin.

Maybe they discover the silver age of DC. Maybe they discover just the idea of the old giving way to the new, you know, whatever it might be that you get from New Frontier. You know, it's, it's, but I mean, I'm just picking a story up, right? I had Darwin to that list of artists that I wish I could have worked.

We talked. I don't mean to go back to another story or another question, but we had talked right before he passed Baltimore last year, it was actually the last time I saw him. And he came over to my table and I gave him a copy of the straight trade paper back and he looks and he goes, I guess I got to draw this cover now. And the sad thing is I don't know if you ever did.

And I don't care. You know, I don't want to, you know, say what if you know anything like that. But like the fact the guy thought enough of me, you know, and like our friendship was, you know, it wasn't super deep, but like I cried for days, you know, like, and you know, you can't put, you can't put like a value on something like that. And I made the guy smile.

He made me smile. We laughed together. We shared beer. We shared drinks, you know, we don't have a lot of anecdotes, but we want to have a great, you know, what's in my post box.

I'm currently reading the, I guess all of the rebirth titles are, you know, I don't, I don't read detective and I don't read action. But you should pick up action this FYI. I've never been a big Superman fan, but action is phenomenal. But I'm like a Superman, you know, so that's most important to me.

But one, it's really surprising to me is Batman because I'm not, I never really like Tom Kingsworth, you know, like I didn't really like Raisin. So, and I'm sure it's a fine book. I have nothing against him, you know, but I'm just reading it never connected with me. But I'm really enjoying this new Batman.

So I'm reading that Wonder Woman Greg Rutherford, I think it's wrong. I'm looking forward to, you know, the Teen Titans and Titans, you know, Nightwing, Nightwing, I guess my Nightwing back. That was a big thing is, um, while straight was coming out, there was no Nightwing. So I killed an itch, you know, so I was, no, I can't say that I'm doing that.

So I have to do different types of stories that Nightwing wouldn't do, I guess. But yeah, I'm enjoying those. I like anything that my friends are working on, you know, like I'll read anything that a friend of mine is working on. Trying to think of the last thing that somebody I know was working on.

We know Dean did, I think it was called the Fox with Mark. Yeah, I read those, you know, anything my way I read to wait a great, great supporter of mine for no frigging reason. Like I get this across to your readers as well, or your listener, I should say. I understand that you can't, you know what I mean?

Like I know what it's like to see something that you want, but you can't get behind it, you know, for some reason. Maybe people don't let read comics, you know, like that's fine. But we are doing this kind of crazy, why are we doing two things at the same time type of fundraising, not just for the Kickstarter, but we're doing this thing called Rescue the Stray. I just want to see that on my Twitter feed, it's a hashtag that I started up and it's basically, you know, it's for the Kickstarter, but it's also for this organization called Stubby Dog Project.

My dog curvities you guys can see is as a people and people get kind of aligned in the press and, you know, by people, you know, and people just think that people aren't worth, you know, worth a damn as a pet. And there are legislation that says that if people is found on certain premises, you can kill it, you know, and so Stubby Dog, they are trying to dispel the myths behind people's and as a people owner, you know, I'm 100% behind them. So as a thank you to them, not even a thank you, but I've worked with them in the past and you know, actually I've got to wonder that they do a column every month. And so as something, I wanted to raise money for them.

So we have this t-shirt on our Threadless Store, which is straight comic, all in word.threadless.com. And it's called Rescue the Stray and it's basically straight with a bunch of puppies around them and all the proceeds from the Stee Shorter going to his Stubby Dog Project. So again, you know, if you look at a Kickstarter and you're like, well, that's a lot of money for that reward, you know, I can't really afford that. I don't know, I've never read this book, I can't really get behind it.

But do you think that, you know, people shouldn't be killed for no reason other than being a pickled and maybe the t-shirt is something that you want to get behind. And so I totally encourage that. I understand, you know, like that I'm basically pulling people away from my own fundraising for my book, but at the same time, I'm cool with it. You know, I want to raise awareness for the charity.

So very cool. So do you have just real quick on your Kickstarter, do you have like, if you pledge $5, you'll get this or you can end up with this, you know what I mean, like a pledge amount? So you can send it. Yeah, I guess incentives.

Oh, well, you know, we have three different covers for stray volume two, number one. One is only for Kickstarter. And one, you know, so there's Sean Isaac's doing 80s movie variants. So the first one is a Paris Boulins A off kind of variant.

It's really cool. The second one is the Action Figure variant. That'll be a retailer incentive for when we go through Diamond. And then the third one is done by Amelia Lopez.

So you can, you can back it at, I think, $10 or $15 and get one of the three. I think at 25, you can get all three at 35. I think we've included the straight trade paperback. You know, I don't have a memorized.

So I might be fine. Then there is, you know, there's a complete one where you get all three, the straight trade paperback and the action for a straight paperback. So, you know, you can have basically every straight story that's been produced today. And then, you know, then there's like some high end incentives like my favorite one is the biggest one we have.

It's called the legend in the reward strip. And it's basically $1,500 for original artwork by Sean Isaac. Sean does not do traditional artwork. That's why this is so special.

Sean is a purely digital artist. He works at Mongo Studio exclusively. So the fact that he's going to pencil and ink something for a wrap around cover. So it's a double page splash, you know, for our trade paperback is special.

You know, and we really hope that somebody picks it up because Sean is the next big thing. I don't know anything that says about me. You know, like, I don't know what my career is going to be over tomorrow. But Sean is going to be huge in this industry.

He's only getting better. And, you know, he's working on projects with Jim Zump with Ron Mars with a bunch of big names, you know, like, you know, but he weighed. He's like, where do you find this guy? Why, you know, why are you having so busy?

You know, so, so yeah, he's going to be a big player at some point. So I feel like, you know, asking for that much amount of money, you know, for that is not a bad, you know, it's not a bad thing. So yeah, so I, and then like we were doing a 3D print of a Disney infinity style stray figure. We have like a couple of like we have like if you're a creator and you, you know, have a book coming out and you want to have an action figure cover.

David Golding with the hours is offering three free backers. So there's a lot of things there, especially for creators, you know, to help creators, you know, usher them into the next level of their careers. Yeah, I was looking for them. There's some cool things in there.

I mean, some of them are out of my price range, but for others, there's a lot of opportunity. Yeah, man, they're out of mine too. It's perfectly honest, but you know, at the same time there are people out there that are like, no, I really like a cameo of my character in your book. So yeah, you know, weirdly enough people want the higher end one.

So that's, that's, it's nice. You know, all the more power to them, right? Right. Right.

All right, I'm actually pledging as we speak. What number, what number backer are you? I think it's three is like the one is 15 bucks. It's the one where you get like the physical copy of the book.

I mean, what number are you like 104? I'll be 103. Nice. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. I really enjoy the book.

Anything I can do to help, you know, I'm more than happy to do. I appreciate it. I appreciate everybody. I mean, you know, that's the thing like, can't say thank you enough to everybody.

You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's like, I lose my voice. Thank you're clearly in love with what you do and, you know, you just want everyone else to be in love with it as well, which is always a good thing. And it was, it was, again, a pleasure to talk to you about the straight.

Sorry, everybody. Well, we just had a wonderful interview and it is that time of the show where we dot comics. I'm excited. B2.

Yes, you too. I mean, it's just so exciting. No, does anyone go first? You want to go first?

Yes. I will go first. You guys could only see how giddy he is right now. I read a comic that has brought the Joy of Comic books back to me.

Beat me up. And it was a rebirth, apparently. No, it's not at all. It's a vertical title from 2010.

So I'm talking about a book written by Graham Worsen drawn by Sean Murphy. I have just creaming thinking about this book and I'm not even talking about that book yet. Okay, so the one thing I wanted to do during this review is describe it in one or two sentences to you guys. It's a book about a boy named Joe, who is either a sophomore in high school or just finishing middle school, but it's a journey of him getting to his kitchen to get a bottle of soda.

That is the book. Wait, what? What about him getting from his room to the kitchen to get a bottle of soda? Now I'm assuming that kid has big active imagination.

The kid has type one diabetes. And the problem with that is he needs sugar and his life. He needs glucose. And during the story he has a lack of glucose and he goes into a he goes hypoglycemic is a term for it.

And while he's hypoglycemic, he hallucinates. But before I get into that, he's a young kid, you know, got bullies in his life, but he's really big into artwork. He's drawing like knights in armor and stuff like that. His dad actually passed away during his second tour in the east.

And because of that, him and his mom are in debt. You know, they can't pay the bills. They can't pay off the house, stuff like that. But as all kids want in that early part of their life, he has a room in the attic and in the attic, he's got a bunch of action figures.

He's got a Batman. He's got a Robin. He's got a Superman. He's got Will Eisner's the spirit.

He's got Optimus Prime. He's got Skye's from G.I. Joe. And while he's going into this hypoglycemic state, he starts hallucinating.

And it's just it's insane. What does this with the story? I'm just I'm so excited to talk about it. This is just such a revolutionary book for me anyway, because it's got stuff like, for example, he's got a pet rat.

And in the real world is just a rat. It's just sitting in a cage. But in this fantasy world that hallucinating this rat called Jack in the real world is named Jack with the C.H. at the start.

And it's this huge rat warrior that protects him along the way. And while he's suffering through this hyperglycemic attack, I guess, is what it's called. He goes to like the bathroom. He lets a bathtub run and he's like the bathtub run.

But in the fantasy world he's in, it starts, you know, the bathtub flooding starts to create new rivers. It starts to create new lakes. And in this fantasy world, they're sort of like, well, you know, these these lakes and these rivers didn't exist before you came here. And what's amazing is in the fantasy world, they call him the dying boy, because that's what's happening until Joe gets some sugar, until he gets some glucose in his system.

He's basically on the verge of death. He's going to fall into a coma. And once he falls into a coma, it's very hard for a hypoglycemic coma to basically, you know, come back to life. It's a sad truth.

But that's what's happening to this kid. And during this huge grand adventure, you know, there's like a scene where he left the door open by accident before he came home. And there's a dog that walks in a wild, wild, wilder. And you know, it starts attacking this rat.

And this rat in his fantasy world is his bodyguard Jack. And you see Jack playing this huge dog in this fantasy, they show it mirroring in the real world. And it's just so tragic in the real world because this dog is devouring this rat. And it was just, it was such a phenomenal storyline.

Because you see this kid who is stuff of prophecy in this fantasy world, but in real life, he's sort of, he's suffering, he's dying, he's falling down the stairs, his nose is bleeding, because he's running out of it. You know, he's glucose. But what really gets me is sort of, it's not really the climax of the story, but in the story, in the fantasy world, there's the main villain, his name is King Death. And of course, Joe's name in the fantasy storyline is Joe the barbearer is the dying boy.

That's what his name is in the prophecy. And the whole point is, while all of this is happening, there is a huge thunderstorm going on and it knocks out the lights. So Joe sort of has a primary mission of getting to get soda. He has to go get soda in order to save himself.

Or he can go and save world, this fantasy world by going and turning on the generator. And I don't really want to say more than that because the end of this comic literally had tears streaming down my face because it was so emotionally gratifying. It was just like this kid who so utterly buckles in a fantasy world, but at the same time ends up saving his own world, it was just, oh my God, it was amazing. Sean Murphy, he's drawing in this book.

It's a vertical type. He's drawing Batman. He's drawing Robin. And they're going to war with undead warriors.

He's drawing the T.H.B. Ninja Turtles. He's drawing Optimus Prime. Snake Eyes.

Will Eisner is the spirit and they're all like this huge army of kids toys going to fight this undead army while this kid, who is like basically the Jesus of this fantasy world, going to save it. And as soon as I finished it, I read it digitally. I purchased it online. And I can't wait to read it again.

If you haven't read Jodabarbarbarian, you should. It will change your life. It will change your kids lives, in all honesty. I hope I haven't been ranting too long.

That's all I wanted to say because literally if I talk more about it, I will shed to you. It was like me as a kid with my toys just so happy. It was phenomenal. Is it like a one shot?

Right. I should say that. It's an eight-issue limited series. Okay.

I started in 2010 and ended in 2010. I think it was an issue limited series. And I absolutely, yeah. Well, I usually like everything you recommend to me, so I will be checking that out sometime soon.

Yeah, I mean, literally, if you want to explain it to someone in less than a sentence, you say it's about a kid going to get a can of soda from his kitchen. And from there, oh my god, it's amazing. Anyway, whoever's next, go ahead. Yeah, I guess I can go.

So kind of, I guess, piggybacking off a vertigo. I'm trying to think. What if I even read recently besides rebirth and the only other things I've read was old JLA and then what I'm going to discuss tonight, which is the original Hellblazer series. So I went back, because I started Hellblazer like in the 200s issues is kind of where I first ever read a Hellblazer issue.

So I was like, okay, I need to go back and actually read these, you know, beginning issues. So I went back and I read the trade paperback of the first nine issues. Nice. And it's Jamie Delano did the story, Steve Delano Art, and it's, well, the artist kind of jumped around.

There's a few artists, but it's really good. The story was freaking phenomenal. Obviously, everyone kind of knows who John Constantine Hellblazer is at this point, so I don't really need to dive into that. But it starts off like Constantine's already been an established magician right when this book starts.

He's not so there's not really an origin story. They kind of hinted things about his origin, but he's already haunted by his past at this point. And the talk and like the first arc is like him trying to save his niece and then they kind of go on from there, they introduced a pop of midnight and it's just really, really good and sucks you in. Now the trade paperback also has a swamp thing, 76 and 77, I want to say.

And the where it's at in the trade paperback kind of threw me off because I didn't quite realize right away that that's, I was thinking I'm still reading a Hellblazer story and all of a sudden it's like the swamp thing like possessing John Constantine and have sex with his wife. It was really weird. It was really freaking weird. And so I'm like, all right, I don't know what's going on here.

And then I realized that it was part of this one thing book. So it didn't like tie in with the Hellblazer series per se with what was going on in the Hellblazer world. But the story was freaking phenomenal. It was such a fun book to read.

The art in it is very 80s-ish, which is good though, but it's hit and miss. There were the original artists, I think, I want to say Steve Dillon. Fantastic. I don't think it was, but whoever was sort of had they had detail in like the two page splashes, but yeah, I don't know who it was.

Maybe it was Steve Dillon. So anyway, the art in the beginning, I think it says it's here John Ridgeway. So the art in the beginning was really good. But then as like you get into the swamp thing books and like later on towards the end, the art kind of like changed.

I didn't really like the way they drew Hellblazer. His hair, instead of like being like the short croppy, you know, spiky type hair. Like the one artist I think it might have been in the swamp thing issues is like just real long and hanging in front of space. They looked weird.

Just not very good art. But anyway, overall, the art was very 1980s-ish, but the story, it was phenomenal even to quote unquote today standards. The book held up very well over the last 30 years. I'm very excited to go continue reading it.

Hellblazers, one of those series that I want to try to collect all of the issues in physical form. In the meantime, I'm going to read them all via trade paperbacks so I can continue reading. But yeah, it's a really good book. Go check it out.

You're not going to go wrong with some Hellblazer, that's for sure. No. With the issues you read, he hasn't accessed the technical magic verse yet, right? No, no, no.

Okay, so this was him going, did he go to Hell and deal with? No. Wow. This is very early on.

Oh, so this is where he has like, he's talking to his friend who's addicted to heroin or something? Yes, and he has all the bugs all over him? Yes. Yes.

Okay. Wow, it's tough. And he's haunted by the ghosts of his past. Literally, literally haunted by the ghosts of his past.

Insane. And the first arc is him trying to save his niece from the guy that once aired you and give you his ring and really he's killing little girls is what he's doing. Yep. And then the second arc is where he saves his buddy and he takes his buddy to pop a midnight and you get him to pop a midnight is.

You see the zombies, the voodoo zombies that pop a midnight keeps in his basement. So yeah, it's a fun read. The art took me a little while to get used to. I'm not going to lie.

But now I can't see it any other way. Now if I saw the art with what I would normally... Yeah, it becomes like your Hellblazer art. Exactly.