You are now entering Nowhere California. If you love what you hear, you can find us on your favorite podcast search engines and subscribe. And also, if you don't mind, leave us a like or review. And if hearing us is not enough, you can always get your Nowhere California fix by going to NowhereCalifornia.com. And you can send your thoughts, ideas, or some random bullshit to our email, which is Nowhere underscore California at Yahoo dot com. Don't forget, we are Nowhere California. Ideas from everywhere, voices from nowhere since 2011. Help! Nowhere California is currently doing a custom inked shirt campaign.
It will run through June 14th, and you can go to custominc.com slash fundraising slash Nowhere2024, buy a shirt, donate, spread the word, help some guys from Nowhere out. Welcome to Nowhere California Presents, our conversation with Greg Weissman. Hey everybody, it's Josh, and welcome to another Nowhere California Presents. We are starting our coverage from the 2024 Ontario Comic-Con revolution. Our first conversation will be with Greg Weissman. He is the creative mind behind a lot of things, but the thing that stuck out for me and the main reason I really wanted to talk to him, he was the creator of Gargoyles. Gargoyles is a huge piece of my childhood and probably a lot of yours. It's that cartoon from the Disney afternoon lineup that wasn't the normal Disney fare. It was dark. It was moody. It was awesome. Anyways, I'm not going to keep this intro going pretty long because I want to get to the conversation. It was a blast talking to him, and I hope we cross paths again at another convention. But for now, here's my conversation with Greg Weissman.
We are at Comic-Con Revolution with the creator of Gargoyles, Young Justice, Star Wars Rebels, Reign of the Ghosts, and spectacular Spider-Man animated series, Greg Weissman. How's the con been going for you so far? It's been great. I've been having fun. I did one panel. I mean, I just got here today, so the table's been good, and no complaints. Awesome. We talked a little bit earlier. I might as well get it on mic. My childhood revolved around Gargoyles. With your creativity and everything, where did the first creative spark come from for you?
I mean, the absolute first spark for gargoyles is just actual gargoyles. You know, when I was a teenager, I took a trip to Europe and I just became fascinated with gargoyles. I got photos of them. I collected postcards with them. It's not like I sat there at age 15 going, I'm going to make an animated series about this someday. I just thought they were cool. And I thought the only really legends about them was that they were put up to scare away evil spirits. And there wasn't much mythology beyond that. And I thought that's a fascinating notion to put something scary up to scare other things away. And so down the road, you know,
I sort of extrapolated backwards, why would people think that's a good idea? And that's sort of where we came up with our idea for Gargoyles. And like with the fascination with Gargoyles, what were some of the other things in your younger years and teenage life that kind of sparked your creative interest? Well, I mean, I was a huge superhero fan, Marvel and DC. Loved all that in an era when, you know, it wasn't common. There was very little being done with superheroes in the media.
But, you know, I also love detective fiction. I love science fiction. I love fantasy. I'm a big old geek, you know. So all that stuff wound up being part of Gargoyles because they're all part of the superhero genre, which is, in my opinion, a kind of master genre that absorbs all these other things. You have detective fiction, horror, comedy, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy. All of that is in the superhero genre, which is one of the things I liked about it. So the idea was, can we create something that uses all that stuff?
but in a cohesive vein. And that's what I've set out to do with Gargoyles and years later with Young Justice and stuff like that. What kind of advice would you give a person if they're going through either creative block or, for me personally, creative doubt? Well, the first piece of advice I have is you need to write every day. I don't have it with me, but I have one of those black and white comp books, and you write every day.
Some days you may write pages and pages and pages and some days you may only get a paragraph out. Some days you may only get a market list done. But the trick is that you just get in the habit of I am writing every day and I never take a day off. I might not write a ton every day, but I never take a day off because that's a muscle. And you've got to learn to use that muscle all the time. So that's sort of my first advice. My second advice is sort of...
You don't want to noodle something forever, but you want to make sure before you're showing it for evaluation. I don't mean like to peers to get, hey, give me feedback on this, but actually showing it to people who might decide whether or not you get a job. You trust your instincts, get notes from friends or whatever, but at the end of the day, it's your piece. You have to decide for yourself whether you like it or not, whether it's working. and then make a decision on your own about whether or not you need to rewrite. But you've got to be open to rewriting. You've got to be open to revision, open to making it better. But I think there comes a point after you've revised and revised where fear can make you just keep noodling and noodling and noodling. And at that point, you've got to sort of pull the trigger and say, no, I think this is ready for people to see. Awesome. Thank you so much. Before we wrap it up, where can we find you online? I'm on Twitter, at Greg underscore Weissman, W-E-I-S-M-A-N. I also have a website, ask, A-S-K, askgregweissman.com. And with no
For California, we have a specific end question we'd like to ask everybody, and we're going to pose it to you. Greg, what is your favorite WTF movie moment? Good, bad moment in the movie that just made you go, what? It's a good question, but I haven't thought about it. I think when I was 19 and Risky Business came out, the seat on the train was pretty stunning to me, kind of mind-blowing. So I think it's going to be that. Risky Business, somewhere in the early 80s. Awesome, thank you so much for your time. You're welcome.