I'm told I have bad posture by the producers of this show Ryan and I'm trying to fix it. How are you? I'm doing alright. Good.
We might start there. We might not. I think we're going to start there. I'm feeling pretty strong about it.
I can understand why. Okay, good. But of course, as long as we're wondering things, the one thing I've been wondering since yesterday evening is how many people canceled before you decided to book the one guy on Kill Tony who does not talk? Well, that's actually not true.
Nobody actually canceled on me. So there you go. Nice. I appreciate that.
Yes, nobody actually canceled on me. I'm going to be on for a while because I got really good positive feedback when you were on the roadcast. People were like, this is awesome hearing from Ryan. Yeah, a lot of people hit me up after that and saying that they found, you know, especially the anxiety stuff, for some reason that struck a chord with them.
Yeah, which will, I mean, we can talk about that now or later, but yeah, there's definitely some questions that people send in about anxiety and stuff like that. Right. Yeah, we'll ramp up to that. That's fair.
I want to rob the anxiety. At the top of that, why are we not? Welcome to psychoanalysis. How are we?
Right. Now, I had an idea and you can shoot this down if you want, but I've never done this on the show. You have drawn me for those of you who don't know, Ryan J. Bell is the house artist on Kill Tony and so much more.
He's a phenomenal artist in general, but that's how we kind of know each other. We see each other every week. We've been to a bunch of different cities together. And it's one of those things where Ryan has to draw me all the time, like as different characters or whatever.
And he's really, really good. Like I love like so much of the art that he makes for the show. So I thought what might be kind of fun is if I drew you. Fair enough.
Now I have a big disclaimer here. I am not an artist. You might even get offended by what you appear on the page because I don't have the proper tools. I have a legal pad.
I don't have a proper white canvas or anything like that. So this is more of a courtroom rendering of what I think Ryan J. Bell looks like. And I'm going to draw you while we talk and then I'll show you what I think you look like.
Okay, great. So if you turn your chin to like, I get really technical. It's like, okay, I think the lighting is flat enough, but also it's also voluminous. Enough where I get a really good idea of what you look like.
Can we get a shiny board up over here? Sometimes I feel like you've drawn me so many times where you really get a sense of what other people think of you after you've seen multiple drawings of you. And I'm like, just when I think that my nose is not big, I look at like multiple of your drawings and I was like, oh, this is what everybody's seeing. Okay, cool.
That's good enough. Yeah. The funny thing about you, it's gotten to the point where Tony, I can more or less do without looking at him. Really?
Just because I've done it so many times. Ryan is actually, Red Man is tough sometimes because if he doesn't have his beard. He looks like a different dude. And it's hard.
He doesn't, well, see, that's the thing. You bring up your nose and the thing about speed, especially doing speed likeness, is having something to hang the look on. You also think the nose. And it builds my face around the nose.
You know, people ask me, who do I like drawing? Like Dom Ira. Dom is one of my favorite people to draw because you really have to screw up because he's very distinctive looking. Very distinctive.
And so it's, and of course the other one that I would say, like the biggest cheat code one of all time was my chlorants. Oh, well, yeah. Because of beard and glasses and you were somewhere in the ballpark. Where's other people?
It's like, you just don't, there's nothing to hang. But the funny thing about you is, and I've told people, you were initially, you were one of the harder people to draw because for some reason there is this very narrow window where if it's not quite right, to me, it doesn't look like you at all. Oh, interesting. But if you get the one thing or the other thing and it's like, okay, that's close enough.
Right, right. No, my nose at certain angles, it will look like a different person if it's right, right? And it's like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, did a haunted. This is going to be so good. I'm not, I'm excited. I'm going to forget to blow your freaking mind.
A lot of people, I mean, you've mentioned it like it's actually in the forward of one of the Kill Tony art books of how you got involved with the show. But for those of you who haven't purchased that, which I highly implore you to do that because it's really, you, like your favorite episodes of the show, he's documented every single one in the moment through art while the show is going on. And it's really cool to see as a book. And I get, you know, I'll get a little choked up at times when people bring it on the road because people always want us to sign the Brody episodes.
And that's just an example of just like how, how cool is like that you've been with the show like along this journey is that you've been documenting it and, and to see all the, like all the guests who've come and gone and all the characters, some that are really obscure. You're like, I don't even remember those characters. But like Ryan was capturing it like, and it's like a nice walk down memory lane. So check out his book.
But I want to ask you kind of like how you got involved with the show because that was a question that kept coming up like when I reset to people for questions for the show. So a mutual friend of ours, Andrew thimbliss. Love thimbliss. He, thimbliss is one of those guys who I started out with out here.
He's like OG like open mikers where we started out out here. So yeah, he's, yeah. See, and I met him. There was a comic book store.
We used to both go to and we, because we were friends with one of the guys that worked there. Like he was a mutual friend between us. And so we met there and, you know, started talking and hanging out and whatever. And so he knew, you know, Stephen Randolph formerly of the comedy store door guy and Aaron the liner and Bill Posley had a show called Palapalooza.
It was a super fun show. It was a lot of fun. And they used to have a live artist who had drawn Andrew when he had done the show before and they changed locations over to Meltdown, which now no longer exists. And I guess for whatever reason, she decided not to come with him.
So Andrew recommended me. So I went in and I had never done live drawing before. But I had friends who had done it and I'd gone to watch them. And so I said, sure, you know, that's the whole thing about living out here.
You learn to just say yes to things because you don't know where it's going to go. That's yeah, that's like advice that I give people all the time is like, keep saying yes, you don't know where it's going to lead to. Like I sometimes like begrudgingly. I'm like, yeah.
But it works out a lot of the time. Sometimes it doesn't at all. But you know, you just have to have a good positive energy about it and then hopefully it'll lead to something. Yeah.
And so I went and the first guest on the first night I drew the show was Tony. And so of course I get to that point in the story most times when people go, oh, you know, the kismet and it was like, no, no, no. Now after the show, he liked what I had done. And he said, it's like, oh, you should come check out our show.
Of course I had never done live drawing before. I wasn't used to it. And so to be honest, I kind of blew him off. Like I was like, sure.
And I was open to doing it. And he said, yeah, I'll go do it. But for the time being, I might just let it lie. And I did.
And sure enough, I did. I did Palupaloosa for about another month and a half and got more used to being there and doing it and drawing live. And then Red Band was a guest on the show. And he said, yeah, why don't you come check out our show?
And after that one, Randolph and Dan Baudonia happened to be there tonight and some other comics from the store. And they all said, yeah, dude, dude, they've both invited you. You should totally go do it. It's a much bigger show than ours.
You know, you'll get much more. And of course, what's funny is telling people that now and they're like, yeah, but when you were in the belly room, like, well, there are really that many people watching. And it's like, yeah, it's a lot smaller than it was by comparison to now. But the difference was it was still going out as a podcast.
And they were putting it up. And it's like, so yeah, it had a much bigger reach than we were just doing a live show. And yeah, the house was usually full for Palupaloosa every week, but it was people who were into the local comedy scene. And so that show was on a Sunday night and the following Monday, I told Andrew about it.
And he was nice enough to reach out toenie and said that I was going to come. And so they were ready for me when I got there. But of course, when it ended up happening first night, I was on episode 104, which if you get the book, you'll notice it's not in there. Because in my panic to get to the show, even though I had all my kit together from doing Palupaloosa the night before, I somehow left all of my pins and drawing implements.
I took my sketch pad, but I had forgotten everything I needed. And so I get up and, as anybody knows, who's been to the belly room at the comedy store, it is very dark. Yeah, it's so dark, which is horrible for an artist. And I had arranged for no lighting because I didn't know, because I had been to the belly room before to see other friends of mine would perform.
But I didn't even think of it. And so I've got no kit. I've got my sketch pad. I have no light.
All I had was a ballpoint pen. And it was Greg Fitzimmons and Morgan Murphy were the guests that night. And so I did the world's worst ballpoint pen, you know, sitting in an office meeting across a conference room table, making fun of your boss, kind of drawing of them. And I was like, all right, this may be it because sure enough, after the show, you know, Tony was very friendly, like, how was it, pal?
How'd you do? Did you have fun? Like, let's see what you did. And so I quickly tried to explain it.
I forgot my stuff. And he was like, no, no, no, you know, come like we'll do it next week. We'll get it, whatever. And sure enough.
And I didn't even think to tell him about the light. And then it occurred to me about halfway through the week. I was like, oh, God, I should figure something. And so sure enough, it all worked out.
And Josh Martin arranged for me to have a little desk light. And we just kind of went from there. But of course, that initially ended up causing problems. Because then everyone who was sat behind me would immediately complain, hey, do you turn that light off?
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of blinding my eyes. I don't know what you do. It's like, well, I can't see to do what I'm doing if I do. So I ended up figuring out this way of wrapping a paper towel around it to make a diffusion, to make a slide on fire.
No, no, I knew enough from working on movies and TV shows and stuff to kind of get a little space. Right. It's such a bulb. Because Chris, Chrome and Chris, one time, there's these hot old school bulbs in the back green room in the main room.
I came back and he left up his shirt. And he goes, oh, no, my favorite shirt. And there's a burn mark that was burned into the armpit. It could have easily lit on fire during the show.
It smelled all smoky and brown. And we're like, well, that's a fire hazard that didn't happen luckily. But anyway. So basically, after that first mess up, Tony's kind of like, oh, it's all good, whatever.
And you just keep kind of coming back. But the second week, I'm sure you're like, I have some to prove this time. Yes. Yes.
And so that one I went in and I found out who the guests were and planned it a little bit. In fact, you know, may as well dispel the rumor now because it's becoming an inside joke for me and me alone is, of course, Tony always says at the beginning of the show with a blank sheet of paper. Now back in the day, that was a lot of times true because I may not have known who the guest was or wasn't able to find any good reference of them or whatever. So I couldn't plan anything.
I just kind of had to show up and see what happened in the episode. And I was only doing four people. Right. The show has grown tremendously since you started.
It was Tony, Brian, and then whoever the guests were, one or two people. And so I could wing it. I got used to drawing Tony, used to drawing Brian. I could just guess.
But as it went, then I started trying to include Pat and then Joel was on the show. It's like trying to get Joel in there. And then you came on. And everybody started.
It just started mounding up. And I always felt bad later because I never included Sarah and Kim, who were the regulars who were there when I started because at the time, like I said, winging it, I didn't think about it. But now for the last two weeks, for instance, we've had 10 people on the stage. Yeah, it's been insane.
Yeah, there's three regulars on the show now. The band, that's three. Sometimes we have Jesse Johnson now. Plus the panel, which can sometimes be up to four people.
That's a lot of drawing. Yeah. And there's always the random chance that Ron White or somebody just wanders in mid-epos. And I always try to fit those guys in there when I can because it's fun.
And I've noticed the fans love it. Ari Shafir doesn't wander through at the end of an episode or Ron or whoever. Somebody just like Doug Benson's coming in. Sand hope that the fans always love it.
That I managed to squeeze them in like in the last five minutes. Oh, for sure. They've been wandered through. But with that many people, it's like I do have to block something in.
And I kind of have to have an idea beforehand. I still try to let the show dictate some of the details and maybe some stuff I had or what I just, like this last week, Matt McCarthy came in and Tim William, one of the most hilarious things ever. So fun. And they were both spot on.
It was when I had a few minutes at the end of the episode. I had done what I wanted to do. I already had William a block, like a place for him to be. But I was like, again, William's in sunglasses.
He's got a hat on a beard. It's the easiest thing in the world. Right, right. We're getting Matt McCarthy in there.
So we have double William. So good. That's awesome. What's like, you do, like, I kind of want to touch upon some of the stuff that you've done before, Kill Tony, because you've had some cool things in your career that I want to talk about.
Like, you did some artwork on Team America, right? No. No. Actually, I sort of did, but it was all in-house production stuff.
Doesn't matter. That still counts. But no, I was one of the producers assistants on Team America. I spent it.
Yeah. And it's funny now because it's like, people sing that song. And it's hilarious to me because it's like, I'll ask them if they know where it comes from. And nine times out of 10, they have no idea.
That's one of those songs that caught on outside of the movie. It's own Lexicorn. And it became like a meme. Because it's literally the epitome of stupid Americans.
Like, America. And so it became so pervasive. And so it's hilarious to me to run into people who singing it, no idea where it comes from. But I was just a production assistant on that.
It took us six months before we went into production. And a bunch of people changed over. And we got to do producer. And since I had been there and they do everything, he kept me on.
And anyway, but the fun thing was we were upstairs from the prop and the construction department. And he was on set all day. So if I got my work done for him, I would just go downstairs and hang out with them. So I got to make stuff.
I still have it at home. I got to make my own miniature AK-47. Yes. Like did the two resins into the mold and like, I got to tap out all the bubbles and all the stuff and then split it open and cut off the loose ends and stuff.
It was a lot of fun. And it's funny because I'll still meet people to this day who have friends who worked on it. And they're like, oh, did you know Fred so and so? And I'm like, if they weren't on the first team, I have no idea.
Because at one point, we were in one warehouse in Culver City. And at one point, we were running five units at the same time. Because it's puppets. You don't have to record any sound.
So we had five full crews, cameras, lighting guys, grips, the whole bit, all pressed into one warehouse space shooting stuff. It was crazy. That sounds like such an intense shoot. Didn't it take like a crazy amount of time?
Like any time you're working with puppets or stop motion or animation, like it seems like it's so like I've done, I mean, this is such a small scale example is nothing to compare. But I've done a bunch of stop motion short films back in the day when I was in high school and stuff. And they take so long just for like a three minute short. So I can't even imagine like some of like the Wallace and Grumman.
Yeah, like that kind of stuff. It's insane. Have you done different work with any like clay or some of the different materials outside of like drawing and art? Oh, yeah.
And in different over like different times. But I mean, to your point, I was going to say, what cracked me up at the beginning was I kept overhearing because I was there before we even had the studio space and we're building anything and I would hear them on these conference calls saying, you know, yeah, dude, it's going to look just like Thunderbirds. But that was made like 30 years ago. It's going to be so much.
And of course, in my mind, I'm just thinking, yeah, yeah, because Mary and Ned technology is coming along the way. It's just new cutting-edge Mary and Ned where the strings are. Carbon fiber strings. Yeah.
So I'm just and sure. I'm going to use guitar strings and make it sound epic while I'm. Do you America brought you by Ernie Ball strings? And so Matt and Trey hated it that we would literally because we had to have animals on set like they had the sharks and Kim Jong-il's palace.
They would just have the animal guy bring in random animals to kind of keep Trey and muse because he would get so bored because any you know, they like to improvise and just change stuff on the fly. But every time you did that, you were having to move scaffolding. You were having to move lights. You were having to move all the marionettes, all the puppeteers, and the heads were robotic so that they would look like they were kind of saying whatever the dialogue was.
Sure. But you had to program that. Right. So it doesn't just look like this.
So anytime they wanted to change things, it would take forever to reset up and they would get so bored and just flustered. So like I said, we had to start coming up with fun ways to keep Trey happy and into what he was doing because he was like, oh God, again. Well, it's probably one of those projects where they really bit off more than they could chew. Do you know what I mean?
Which is so much work as it is every single week being that topical and writing new episodes and that whole thing. And then they're like, we're going to make a movie with puppets. And they're like, oh, what have we done? Yeah.
Yeah. Like I said, you know, them thinking like, oh, it's going to be like Thunderbirds. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. Definitely not.
It's like that was a well-oiled machine because they were doing it all the time. Like you, this is the first time. So did you go to like an art school or have like formal education with art? Like how does that work?
Like as far as your come up as an artist? I mean, I took classes here and there, you know, but it wasn't anything specialized. Like in college, I took two oil painting courses. Just general oil painting.
Yeah. Almost everything was self-taught. Like I started drawing as a little kid and had some friends. It was about in the fifth grade.
We sort of seriously collecting comic books and stuff. And we used to sit in the back of class and spend most of the classes drawing Spider-Man or whatever. Dude, I used to doodle Spider-Man so much. Spider-Man, the Batman logo, AK-47s, pistols, men with moustaches because I saw like a draw.
I'm like, my dad has a beard. And I kind of know how to do that. So I'm going to, that's my forte right there. Just a little boy drawing men with beards.
Get some crosses here and there. Shout out. What's up? How you doing out there?
Good. Talk to you later. That's cool, man. Yeah, when I was in college, I took like, I had an associate's degree.
That's all I got. And like, it was all just performance like classes and stuff. But that's where I had an improv teacher who was really encouraging. Who I would just like, I'd be having these great scenes and improv class and he pulled me aside after one.
He's like, you know, this is your thing, right? And I just needed, you just need that push from an outside force. It's not your mom sometimes, you know what I mean? Because like after a while, you're like, you're surfing a little bit delusional.
You're like, I mean, my mom says I'm gay, but I'm not killing it anywhere else. What's going on here? This is really frustrating. She says I'm cool, but I keep getting cut from other sports teams.
What's going on? I've somehow cleared the family hurdle. Exactly. Nailin' it there.
I don't know why this isn't transitioning to a broader audience. Okay, can my mom talk to you real quick? I mean, she's a really good pusher of like my skill set and everything. My mom's going to interview with me if that's okay.
What are your strengths? I don't know. What are they, mom? She says I'm due for an academy of work.
Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I want to get into this next segment and I'll return to my secret drawing here in a second. I want to get into this next segment called wig. Stayed ass.
Thank you. All right. You're going to pick a wig for you. All right.
You're going to pick a wig for me and we're going to try to figure out who these people are together and have a conversation. No. Maybe paint some kind of picture or scene with what this is. I think I already know what I want for you.
There's a handful of different ones. I kind of want to see you in this one. Or this one. Which one would you rather do?
Red or curly? I'm feeling sort of ginger today. Okay. Or is it?
Or is it? That's kind of Auburn. Okay. You're feeling sorry.
I'm not an artist so I'm not specific with my colors. I'm like, that's brown bro. I don't know what kind of color parlor you got over there. But listen, blue is blue.
None of this turquoise queer stuff. Okay. My crayon box has six colors. Okay.
Red, white, blue, times two. That's all I got. That's all I got in my crayon box. Okay.
That's the only fibers of America that you need. You don't need this green stuff. Green card, brown card, get the F out of my country. I don't care what the hell you're saying to me.
All right. My son at my school that I teach from home will only have six crayons. And then I say crayons. I say crayons.
See, are a crayons. As I think we've already established. Fuck yeah. See, I like this guy's gumption right there.
I like this guy. Okay. I think I got my character. All right.
Go ahead. I think I got mine. I'm just going to pick one. Okay.
I haven't used this one yet. Not done. I don't like this guy right here. Okay.
One second here. Now Ryan's going to put on there. I'm going to put on the left side and put on the other side. Take these headphones off.
Okay. Ryan is turning it into some kind of, well, either a beautiful man or a hideous woman. I don't know which one he is yet. But we're going to try to figure that out together.
What I like about that, the way you're wearing that right now is like, it's like you have a huge thick full head of curly hair. But it's like it starts a little more back. Oh, there we go. Unfortunately, I have an exceptional and size noggin.
Oh, yeah. It's just real nice now. Man, man. Sometimes you just nail a voice to a person.
And sometimes it works perfectly. He's one of them guys that does this while it talks for sure. He plays with his right tail. While it looks at people.
And now, okay. All right. So these guys name his tail for sure. Maybe.
Maybe like a dale or a, maybe like a, no, maybe like a, a, a, a, a rusted. Yeah. My name is Rustin. Rustin.
Rustin. Feels. Rustin. How do you just rustin?
Feels right here. How the hell are you doing? Okay. Okay.
Hooting there. This guy over here. Rustin feels. Okay.
I think that you come into my mechanic shop. In the mechanic shop. Yeah. Okay.
Maybe you're my secretary. By the way, you're making a voice down. I don't know who the hell you are. Okay.
Yeah. You're my secretary at my, at my tire slash mechanic shop. Well, that's appropriate. I think my name's kind of like Valene.
It's sort of like Val-Ene. Only it's missing a couple. Hell yeah. That's an American woman right there.
Valene. Man. I love my job. Man.
It's good to be here. Okay. Hey, Valene. Yes.
Get your sweet ass over here. It's time for the morning pension. What you need? Just a sweetie.
Time for the morning pension, Valene. I got a case of the Mondays and the only way to make it a fun day is a little up skirt with Valene. I'm going to check the oil real quick. She loves it.
She loves it. It's all right if she loves it. We just tried to keep it to the left. I'm going to throw this at last week.
Oh my God. I was not prepared for you to say that. Okay. Valene.
How are the numbers looking? All right. How are the numbers looking for this week? We haven't had a customer in damn two new weeks now.
Well, we are this down. I think the Stodem machine can sound varsity call again. What the hell are we? I love my favorite right there.
That's a good American company. RC. Actually, no guy named RC. The Royal Crown?
Yeah, exactly. The Royal Crown. But you know Scooter? He comes in.
He likes drinking. I know. Yeah. What's going on with...
Okay, we need to evenly distribute. We can't just have RC call just in the machine though. We got to have other people get their son kissed, their dad's root beer, and they also got to get maybe like some 7-up or something like that. Like why are people only buying RC call in his damn pair?
Well, I mean, could I put in a vote for TAB maybe or some DAT right? I mean, TAB. We don't do DAT. What kind of gay stuff are you talking about, Valene?
I'm trying to keep my finger. I'll check to get your new normal side, Valene. You better watch yourself over here. I haven't seen anything in years.
I've been blind for five years. I don't know what's going on. Valene! Valene, don't need me.
I can't see anybody. Anyway, Valene. Sometimes I think about you. When did I go home?
I have to confess that. When I'm petting my dog rifle, yes, I named my dog rifle. And then I named my other cat assault, so I got assault rifle. Anywho.
That's... I never put that together. Yeah. Well, you're not the smartest at Chick's Valley.
And that's okay. Yeah, you're simple, you know? There can only be one brain here of the business. All right.
Now, that's me. And I was trying to tell you, I think you got to decide to work sometimes. And I was wondering, I know it may not be appropriate. I know I haven't seen a woman in six years, but also...
Would you maybe see me outside work, Valene? Well, I don't know. That could be crossed in the line, but... I literally check your tutor every Monday morning.
I mean, how much more leading on to a man you can beat? It was actually your idea. Well, I mean, that's just old fashioned. These modern people up...
I don't know where do you think we might go? Listen, you and I go together like a Vina Gurun oil, okay? We come together, we look at each other, it's awkward, and then we go our separate ways. All right.
And that's what love is. Yes. That's what love is. So you think we could just be awkward?
Valene, I think I'm having a struggle right now. I'm back. All right. I'm back.
I'm back, Valene. Valene, well, I still can't see you, but I haven't sensed this kind of aroma of erotic fantasy in years. So what do you say? I'll take you to the finest buffet you can get your hands on.
Oh, come here, Buffet. Maybe even a rhymes if we can find one here here. Is it all you can eat? Oh, it's all you can eat.
And guess what? If we go to the buffet, I'm going to be all you can eat in your downstairs later tonight. I'm going to be dining in and taking half. I'm going to be going at you, and I'm going to be taking some of that to go.
What do you think about that, Valene? As long as they still got the soft serve ice cream, I could be on board for this. Yeah, the ones I could always go to be some hard serve. I'm having another stroke, damn it.
Yeah, I can kill you. I got through it, Valene. You're my light and shining armor all. That's what you are.
You've always been so strong. I know. If you can grab my spare legs on my hair, then we can hop in my stage coat to get to all country. Did you want both feet or one with the pig leg on at this time?
I don't want to be a damn pirate. Get me my real feet. Well, the die beats took it from me years ago. We're not losing you again, are we?
No. I just want to hold your hand for a second there. Of course. Well, this is what it feels like to actually touch a woman.
Do you have anything you'd like to say to me before we finish this up in closed shop today? Well, we've known each other all these years. I've always loved the smell of lava soap. I'm looking forward to this.
It'll be more than just a pinch on the buttocks. That hell of was born. Man, I always wanted to hear a Redneck love story. You know what I mean?
Well, there was deliverance. Oh, my goodness. You sure got a pretty mouth. What about the guy who was into that banjo?
They weren't expecting it. You know? You'd hear that. You'd hear that.
Me, me, me, me, me. And you'd be like, ew, yeah. Let's go. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
Banjo tool for one over here. I would love to squeal like a pig for you. I'll be here picking a blanket. Anywho, let's get into this next segment.
Before we do, I want to make sure that people can find you on your socials and purchase some of your art. If they're under that, you're at Ryan J.E. belt on social media. And then pull up his website here.
If you want to plug in the Kill Tony art books and stuff like that right now? Sure. So there's two volumes. Volume one is the earliest of, Volume two, the newer stuff.
And then for new fans of the show, if you want, I did a combo book. That's the yellow one, which has both volumes in one book. But it includes everything that was in the first book, the forward, all the other materials. And then the second book has a new forward by Tony.
And yeah, I don't know. It's just everything I've done. It's got a lot of posters, other graphics I've made for the show. And come see us when we're on the road.
And then we'll talk about the first book posters that Ryan J.E. belt makes specifically for the city that we're going to or the region that we're going to. And they're always fun and unique and different. And they're super dope.
So check that out at RyanJ.E. belt.com. And you can get some prints sent out to you. I'm actually on tour right now.
And I wanted to tell you guys about some of the dates that I've come up on. I'm in Buffalo, New York at Helium this week, actually. They're very sixth to Ray. They're very sixth to Ray.
They're very third to their 15th. I'm headlining in Syracuse, New York at the Funny Bone. And then March 1st, February 28th or March 1st, I'm headlining the Funny Bone in Albany, New York. And then Huntington Beach coming up, Las Vegas, Nevada, Sunnyvale, California.
And then we'll be back in Houston and Austin. And I just added dates in San Antonio, Texas. I will be heading back there to the L.L.O. comedy club to headline there myself for a full weekend.
So definitely check that out. That comes out in March that I will be there. And New Merch. There's Milk Man shirts, Darwin shirts, all at JeremiahWackens.com.
Hit that merch button. You got some good stuff coming your way. A lot of stuff. Cap burglar beanies, the whole thing.
So get that stuff. Let's get into this next segment. Fanning out. Fanning out.
I reached out to the people online and said if you could ask Ryan J.E. belt any questions or send us some character suggestions or whatever. What would it be? And this one comes from, this first one comes from, at Gerard Adam on Twitter.
Does Ryan have any favorite comic book artists? Favorite comedians to draw or consider? Have you considered drawing a Kill Tony comic book? You answered the favorite comedian to draw one with the Dom and Rare, but do you have any favorite comic book artists or would you consider drawing a Kill Tony comic book eventually?
Yeah. I mean probably, whoops, sorry. The two big ones are the two most influential ones. There was a guy named Bernie Reitzen who was one of the creators of Swamp Thing way back when.
And he was one of the first ones where I looked at it. I loved to read, I read comics since I was a little kid. He was one of the first ones where I saw it and thought, I want to do that. That's my thing right there.
And then the second one which happened a little bit later in particular. There were a few but the one that stands out the most was a guy named Bill St. Kevich. I mean there's so much stuff that Bill's done and Bill's all done.
A bunch of album covers and movie poster stuff and whatever. But he was the first guy where I looked at his stuff and thought, you can do that in comics? He did this very multimedia crazy style that was all over the place and that was just gorgeous. And it worked and he was able to tell great stories with it.
As for a Kill Tony comic book, the thing about that is much like we were talking about puppets earlier is that people don't realize how much it goes into it. Just on a small scale production side, we saw those Kill Tony band calendars. Right. People don't know that we spent months shooting those photos around LA with all the locations everything with Eric Stanford who shot the calendar and what it took to get those photo shots and everything.
It was such a huge project where you're going to do another one next year and you're like, I don't know. It was really difficult. I'm really proud of how it turned out but all that stuff takes so much time. I was going to say, while I had no formal art education, when I moved out here I got to be friends with a number of comic book artists, prose and I learned a lot from them and a couple of them.
I've helped with stuff. There's no sense seeking it out. You're not going to see my work in it because it was one where it was deadlines. They were working on multiple books or something and something falling behind or whatever.
I worked on an issue of Batman once. I got to realize my fifth grade dreams but at the same time all I was drawing was if I never had to draw another fire escape again. That's why they had to draw. It was backgrounds.
He needed the backgrounds. Wow. That's got to be so surreal though for you as a Batman fan. Sure.
To just be working in any capacity. I'll make the fire. Whatever. The only thing was I would block in where the characters went but he did all of that.
The only fun one I got to do from that was I did get to draw one panel where I did get to draw the Batmobile. Oh yes. You've drawn me as Batman multiple times. I love because your character is the mask literally doesn't fit right because the nose.
It's like me eating pizza or something. It's really cool. I love it. That one all came together.
It was the first time playing DC. I know Tony loved the Joker. I went around and asked everybody who their favorite characters were. Tony knew.
I asked you and you like Batman. I asked Red Man. He also says Batman. I said, I don't know.
I like Batman. I like Wonder Woman. I was like, there we go. It's perfect.
It's become a joke that I draw in the Batman and drag a lot. The Joel said Bane and I was like, all right. We've got a whole Batman thing going here. Yeah.
I want to ask this next question. There's so many good ones that people send in. This is an interesting one. At Mile High High Coo, a question for Ryan, is the Kill Tony Gig the most purpose you felt as an artist or do you prefer solo commissions for your art?
I'm just more interested in like, when you get a solo commission, like what is the process behind that? Because you've drawn a lot of art for like a lot of our friends podcast now and just in general for other people. So I guess they're asking like, what's maybe, what's the feeling behind doing that weekly kill Tony Gigg versus like getting a random commission out of nowhere. Well, it ends up being kind of a sweet spot thing.
There's two things you don't want. The one that's the, I dread the most is, oh man, I just love your stuff. You just do whatever you want. That is always the big, because it means we're going to be working in reverse.
I will do something. Yeah, that's nice, but could you change this and could you change that? And I don't know how I feel about this. And we're going to be doing draft after draft or draft backwards.