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USDN Podcast is a cinematic indie comics interview series hosted by the USDN_Chairman and the Council of Nerds spotlighting the creators, storytellers, and worldbuilders shaping the future of independent comics.
Each episode dives beyond headlines into the real journeys behind the books from Kickstarter launches and creative struggles to the philosophies driving today’s indie storytelling movement.
This isn’t about rumors or recycled news.
It’s about the people creating the worlds.
Through in-depth conversations, creator spotlights, and crowdfunding discussions, USDN explores:
• The rise of indie comics
• The business of crowdfunding
• The art of worldbuilding
• The realities of independent storytelling
USDN is where indie comics come to life for the fans, by the creators, and powered by the community.
You are listening to the USDN on the
DFPN.
Thank you.
What is up everybody and welcome to the
United States Department of Nerds where we
are for the people, by the people,
and of the people.
Comic books were never just about stories.
They were action figures on bedroom
floors, late night cartoons,
spinner racks at grocery stores,
convention halls and entire worlds built
from imagination tonight we step into
world of phantom ink comics from tote man
to villains anonymous from retro nostalgia
to modern indie storytelling our guest has
spent years building comics filled by
heart humor fandom
in the spirit of old school creativity.
He's a creator, a collector,
a convention warrior,
and a man proving that indie comics are
still one of the purest forms of
storytelling left.
So whether you grew up chasing comic
books, action figures,
or Saturday morning cartoons,
or you're simply an independent creator,
or independent or are you simply believe
independent creators still matter pull up
a cheer because tonight the council of
nerds is now in session john welcome to
the council my friend thank you very much
for having me that was a great intro
i got tongue tied tells me i need
more coffee or i need to lay off
the coffee one of the two
But, John, outside of comics,
who is John McLaren?
Father.
That's basically what I would classify
myself as.
I have three boys.
They're all eleven years apart.
I have a nine, twenty,
and thirty-one year old.
Oh, wow, dude.
You spaced that out horribly, didn't you?
Each wife got a son,
and that was it.
That's what I think of myself.
I'm a dad.
I love my kids.
This is where it all started with my
oldest son.
On the side, I'm also in IT.
I do tech support and stuff.
That's freaking awesome.
So what kind of pulled you into comic
books?
So originally the first comic book I did
was, um, tote man, you are not alone.
Epilepsy.
Um, uh,
my son who was now saw me have
a seizure when he was two and didn't
know how to explain it to a kid.
So I'm like,
how do I explain this to a child
to get it through?
So I wrote a story,
wrote a comic book, uh,
and i was working at canon at the
time uh and we had to test copiers
so i would test them with my comic
book oh nice yeah yeah i'm like i'm
not gonna waste paper so i would write
i would print out hundreds of these things
on a table at baltimore comic-con i
actually did philly first
because I'm from up that area.
Then I went to Baltimore, bought a table,
and was just giving out books,
just giving out books to the kids about
epilepsy.
The Epilepsy Foundation of America,
someone from one of their people was there
at the show.
I was like, hey,
can we print these in color for you?
And I'm like, yes, yes, you can.
Then they invited me to come to the
epilepsy walk event.
And I did.
I came in the costume to talk to
kids, speak about it.
Then they asked me to come to Virginia
the next day before they went to the
Senate to talk to senators about epilepsy.
And I talked there, talked to the kids.
And yeah, so I did that first.
And then people sort of asked me,
who is Tote Man?
So I had to make an origin comic.
and at one point my son my middle
son decided he was going to be a
superhero and he was going to write his
own books so my son xavier from when
he was five through twelve would actually
sit down every summer and we'd write a
story beginning it was him telling me the
story i'd script it by the third year
he was doing it on his own he
was he was quite brilliant so a twist
and turns into it he solved one of
my
hiccups that i couldn't figure out how to
bring a character back he brought him back
in his book and then after that uh
my buddy chris jerusalem we would go to
conventions all the time with him and my
son xavier is like mr chris can i
use your characters and do a crossover
his original characters g-man chris is
like yeah and he did so he had
that created he's he's written four comic
books basically um and yeah it's just
continually cool more and more every year
Were you influenced by comics, cartoons,
toys, or movies growing up more?
Cartoons, comics, and toys.
He-Man is my absolute favorite toy.
Did you see the new movie?
I have not.
It's not out yet.
In two weeks?
I thought it was already in theaters.
No, I think it's June fourth.
Mandalorian's out now,
which I'm going to go see with my
son tomorrow.
Masters, I think, is June fourth.
That is my absolute favorite.
I have two rooms in my house dedicated
to it.
I just have a lot of stuff.
One comic book as my ode to it
I don't know how much you can see.
Let's see.
So that is my He-Man.
Oh, that's really cool.
Oh, crossover comic.
Complete with action figures on the back.
Oh, that's really cool.
And next year they will actually be out
because you're going to do something,
do it right.
Oh, dude, that's, that's where it is.
That's money right there.
And these are completely resin.
So they actually, you can play with them,
move them.
He has glow in the dark features.
Full-up articulation the whole nine, huh?
Yep, and even the rubber band crotch,
like...
All of it.
They don't have the twist action to do
anything I couldn't get done.
But this one actually will disappear.
That's his character.
He's in Villains Anonymous.
He disappears.
Hot water, heat.
The character goes from the color here to
kind of pink.
I love those.
There was an Edsman that did that back
in the nineties.
You could put them in hot water and
they would disappear.
Invisible Woman, too.
She did it.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, so like,
that's what I grew up with and I
loved cartoons.
I loved He-Man.
I love the comic books going to the
seven,
eleven right down the street and picking
them off the rack.
Yeah.
I mean,
I'm an eighties child.
Like,
so Transformers and He-Man were throughout
my entire bedroom and Star Wars.
Yeah.
I had G.I.
Joe's.
No, my friend was,
my friend was the Joe.
He had all the Joe's.
I had Transformers, He-Man and Star Wars.
I think it's cool now because when, uh,
Skybound, uh,
brought over um gi joe transformers uh
radiant black all of them into one big
universe yeah and they're doing those cool
crossovers with them the energy just like
yeah they're yeah i'm just like this is
so freaking cool it is it's a joy
that's actually on my um do you know
the uh the open and close signs they
sent to all the the comic book shops
On the one side, it's got Starscream.
On the other side, it's got Optimus Prime.
Optimus Prime is the open side.
Starscream is the closed side.
That's actually on the front of my cubicle
at work.
It stays closed.
It stays closed.
You're in the office.
You should flip it to open.
I'm like, no.
I like stars.
I can't do that.
Same, same.
And there's just so yeah, I mean,
that's how I grew up.
And like, I'm from Jersey.
I'm South Jersey.
So in the winter, out in the snow,
playing with all my toys.
playing with my toys in the backyard and
you know everything so my uh fifth
birthday yeah so it was star wars based
as well so everything yeah
still got all those the old seventies
figures i i don't have mine but my
little one my nine-year-old is a fanatic
about star wars and okay he prefers the
old ones so he's getting his own
collection of the seventies he's i just
got a millennium falcon
um he has an ad that works he
has uh a snow speeder and then a
bunch of figures and he wants multiples of
like rito multiples of um the bounty
hunters and then troopers like so yeah
yeah i have um a lot of the
tbc the vintage collection stuff but i'm
actually probably going to end up selling
that just so i can get more black
series
and um i i do prefer the black
series a little bit more over the tvc
yeah well he had to make a decision
i'm like yeah you got to make a
decision yeah recorder or black and with
him three and three quarter one instantly
he's like yeah yeah all the vehicle and
he also does have
um a black series tie fighter and a
black series the tie fighter pilot but
like they're just too big bud you can
actually play better with the small guy so
yeah and that's where i was because i
was doing both yeah i was like like
i really don't like the three and three
quarter i do prefer the seven inch figures
with the black series oh yeah so now
i'm like
I got a bunch of three and three
quarters at work,
so I'm going to bring those home.
They're just on display on my desk,
and they're all in the package,
and I'll probably end up selling them one
night just to be rid of them.
Yeah.
And then just focus on Black Series.
Yeah.
That and comic books.
That's where I'm at.
Put some more money in my account so
I can back some more Kickstarters and do
that kind of stuff because that's really
what I'm all about, so...
i'm i'm with you there i like kickstarters
and i like doing the ads i try
to find kickstarters that have ads for my
books yeah i do um like the name
stuff and i just plugged the podcast name
into it and yeah that way when people
get to the back of the book and
see the names they can go what the
hell's usdm podcast and nine times out of
ten that person's been on the podcast
before so it's really cool right yeah
exactly now that's that's what like i like
doing i like doing
I love doing Kickstarter.
I do all kinds toys.
Oh dude.
At this point, I'm a,
I'm a super backer and I've been trying
to get them to either partner with me
or give me affiliate links or something to
use for them and with them.
But again, who am I?
That's the way they see it.
I'm like,
I'm just the guy that interviews all the
guys selling their books on your website,
but okay.
Yeah.
exactly now it's hard to it's hard
nowadays to get break into these things it
really is and i you know it's a
process that i'm working and eventually it
gets there you know just gotta be patient
but um so where did so if people
don't know you are jen at toy bots
where did that identity come from it was
a joke on facebook
During COVID,
I just made another page for my stuff.
I was taking pictures of all my Gen
X stuff.
And I'm like, you know what?
My buddy's like, we can use this.
So then he designed the logo for me.
Because I made a really, really bad one.
I'm like, I want graffiti on it.
I want it to feel like graffiti or
not.
So I show it to him.
He's like, no.
Then he created one for me,
which is what I use now.
And it just slowly got bigger and bigger.
And then I'm like...
a storage unit that i'm paying fees on
it keeps going up keeps going up keeps
going up yeah i've seen storage fee prices
not that long ago and i was just
like it's insane like it's not even like
a year or whatever it's like every three
months so at one point i'm like wait
and i found an antique mall i'm like
how much for a booth they're like well
i'm like
That's just like fifteen dollars more than
my rent for the storage unit.
This way you can make some money.
And my buddy went and he designed all
the Gen X logo toy box.
Like I have eggs.
I have the price stickers.
We have everything to make it feel retro.
So he did all that for me and
we set it up in there and it's
making money.
I'm like, all right, I take that.
I put it towards the comic books and
I just keep the cycle going.
Oh,
that's really cool that you're able to
capitalize on stuff that you,
that would just sit there collecting dust.
And as long as you don't have that
emotional attachment to it,
it's easy to let go.
Right.
There's things that were under my house
that I had no idea were in the
house.
But then my wife at the time,
she was doing the Gen X Toy Box
videos and whatnot, unboxings,
and took a trip underneath the house,
which was the funniest video because like,
where did that come from?
What?
Huh?
Just bins and bins and bins in my
small space.
But that's all now like, cool,
it's for sale.
So I still do my,
most of my social media is, you know,
here's this thing, do the rotations,
do the theme song for the cartoon if
they have it.
And I'm like,
you might find this at my store.
So go to my store and look at
it.
Between eBay and the booth,
it pays for it.
That's where you need to be, man.
I agree.
So what is Phantom Inc.
Comics now?
Now it is a much bigger brand than
it ever was.
So Phantom Ink comes from probably eighty
four.
My father passed away when I was twelve.
And that Halloween,
my mom had Cub Scouts and she asked
me to do a haunted house for them
because I love horror.
And I did an entire,
we had a house,
a breezeway and a garage.
So I did the whole entire breezeway and
everyone loved it.
So from eighty four through ninety two,
I ran a haunted house out of my
mother's house every year.
And it was under Phantom Inc.
I don't know why that was.
Yeah.
So I became an adult and I'm like,
well, I have a comic book now.
I'm going to do Phantom Inc.
comics.
and that's how it started i now have
i think eight books eight titles currently
and my goal which on your uh your
instagram yeah i i did use your this
the second year plan for the uh you
sent me two i didn't know which one
was right so i just rolled the dice
yeah well yeah there was it was a
seven year plan of twenty four to thirty
uh one book a year
Well,
that got blown out of the water because
it's two books a year now.
Twenty four had two books.
Twenty five books this year had two books.
And I have three or four more complete.
Like,
I don't want to push them all out
at once.
I'm doing it.
My birthday's in May.
So I'm like,
I'm doing every May a new book and
then another book somewhere in the year.
So I have.
All of the ones that are listed on
there right now currently are finished.
They're done.
Villains Anonymous is complete.
There's no worry about the Kickstarter.
It is complete.
Oh, that was one of my ads.
I am an eighties child,
so I have eighties ads throughout all the
books.
Oh, dude, that's like a Tamodachi.
Yeah,
that was like the handheld Tiger
electronics.
Yeah.
So I also in college made a video
game,
a functional video game with Tote Man.
And there was an ad back in the
day for an Atari Spider-Man versus Green
Goblin.
So I took that ad,
remade it into Tote Man and Hair Freon,
and the screenshots that are in each of
the monitors is real from the video game.
That's really cool.
The only thing left for me is animation.
One day I will get it animated.
And I have a guy who did,
from Kubert School in Jersey,
actually storyboarded that whole Epilepsy
Awareness comic into a PSA cartoon,
which is the ultimate goal.
When we were kids,
we had all those PSAs we had to
watch.
What if you have to watch a cartoon
about stuff?
Like, so that's the goal.
One day I'm going to find somebody who
can fund it and we're going to make
a cartoon of the epilepsy comic book.
Dude, that'd be cool.
Especially for schools.
That would be really cool for schools.
So what's the goal when you started making
comic books to have a connected universe
between all your characters?
So the goal originally was just to spread
awareness for epilepsy.
But then it grew into like when my
son started doing it,
that he really put the universe together
because my oldest son, you know,
created a character to go with my
character at one point,
never did anything with it.
And then we created their Teen Titans,
which is Teen Angst.
And we just had it just floating around.
But when Xavier started,
he started pulling my characters in.
Like, I'm using this one.
I'm using this one.
I'm taking this one.
And he just built his universe.
And it went into my universe.
But like I said,
he fixed a plot hole that I couldn't
figure out how to fix.
And he said,
this is what's going to happen, Dad.
And he did.
It worked so well.
And then I've always had, I mean,
I've had all these things written down
since ninety four, ninety five.
I just like building and like this.
And when people see it and they come
back to me,
because I'm not a big-name guy,
but I'll do a lot of conventions in
North Carolina,
and there are people who come back and
go, oh, I remember this book.
I want this one now.
I want to try a different one.
I have parents who are like,
my son wants to do comics,
and I keep telling them, like, well,
this is my son and I.
We did this for seven years.
I'm like, that's really cool.
So he came to me and I sit
and talk to the kids.
I'm like, yeah, you know,
if you're doing it.
And I use Kablam.
I like Kablam printing.
They've done nothing but great things for
me.
So I always tell them, hey, use them.
You know, you can buy a single book.
You can do it.
Just buy a single one, and it's yours.
I bought like four Billings Anonymous just
so I can go in there and, oh,
the Serify.
I got to fix that.
Oh, I got to do it.
Because I do the writing,
the color flatting,
and the lettering in all my books.
So I'm like,
I go in there and do lettering.
I always forget the Serify with the
crossbar and not doing it for –
capitalized only when it's II.
I'm like, okay.
I have to go in and check those.
Like I do.
I print them out a couple at a
time and go through it, check it,
and then I can sell them.
Yeah.
No, that's really cool,
especially getting to do it with your son
must have been like the best thing ever.
It was.
He was invited to Baltimore,
was given a table in Baltimore,
and they did the cosplay,
which we also enjoyed, the family.
And I built his suit, his bubbler suit,
and made the bubble guns blow bubbles,
Yeah.
He went on stage and blew everybody away.
He beat grown adults in cosplay.
That's cool.
And then he would get back to the
table and we're buying stuff because it
was him and he did it.
It wasn't me.
I'm like, yeah,
I got to help you find the artist.
I got to do this stuff,
but this is his thing.
And he was very well spoken.
He just, he,
he had a blast and I loved it.
He was,
and he was related to heroes as well.
So yeah.
Nice.
That's really cool.
So how hard is it building an indie
comic line from the ground up with today's
market?
Oh, extremely hard.
You've been at it for a little while,
so you've had some practice in this at
this point.
Yeah,
the end of ninety-four is when I created
the character, Toteman,
for my son so he doesn't remember anybody
because I thought I was going to pass
away early like my dad did.
I have epilepsy.
All these things were worrying me.
So I made this character and I was
showing to my friends and we started
making more characters and making more
characters.
And I started doing the circuit in two
thousand two in Philly.
And I don't know, it's hard.
You can't even give comic books to some
people like they don't even take it from
you.
but i have an advantage now all twenty
some years later i do conventions with
chris jerusalem who does mini marvels and
all that kind of stuff he's my best
friend so he's like come and sit at
the table with me come to the table
with me
And for the last two years, I mean,
I'm now selling out of my books at
shows.
Dude, that's big.
Because I know a lot of people,
the people just walk by their stuff.
It is.
And I help him talk to people while
he's drawing.
And I sell my stuff.
And it's just people understand it.
People see it.
They love it.
Like my sock comic, The Argyle Avenger.
Mm-hmm.
It is what happens to your sock when
he's lost in the dryer.
He's out fighting crime.
So that's a pitch that you can get
a person quickly on.
Yeah.
And it's a silent book.
It was an experiment,
like an old thirties thing.
So there's a few like sound effects,
but mostly it's silent.
So a kid can take it and not
worry about reading.
They have something in their head.
People who are dyslexic can read it easily
and just enjoy the book.
People who don't speak English,
they enjoy the book.
It's funny.
The fact that your sock's out fighting
crime and that number two comes out next
year.
It's just things that come up.
I've never been afraid to try something.
My friends laugh at me and they'd say,
you're the guy who jumps off a bridge
and figures out what you're doing on the
way down.
I'm like, yeah, I mean, try it.
What's the harm in it?
This stuff sat for years,
but now that I'm down here with a
bunch of conventions,
people are buying my books and it's
freaking me out.
People are asking for my signatures.
It freaks me out.
Why?
I'm nobody.
But today I had a bunch of people,
I told you before we started,
I had somebody just say, hey,
you want to come down and do a
show thing?
I'm like, sure.
Sure.
went down, sold a bunch of books.
So,
and then people were asking me
photographs.
I'm like, yeah, but okay.
So it's hard.
It is really hard.
If it's your single job,
I don't suggest it.
I thankfully have a job in it pays
for my bills.
And now it pays for my obsession with
comic books,
but I've met so many people over the
years.
I've been to San Diego.
I've been all over.
I have artists from around the world that
I use to do whatever.
I will never use AI.
I can't draw to save my life.
I'm going to hire somebody.
I'm going to find somebody.
If I can't afford it,
I can't get done.
I have to keep going with artists and
doing the stuff I love the way I
love it.
no i i know exactly how you feel
there because i i when i was younger
i thought i could draw great and then
when i got older and i met people
who could actually draw i was like well
i guess i really can't draw huh yeah
my my original thing i got a strong
imagination and i can write so right well
my original drawing is a tattoo on my
arm my first tattoo i ever got
And I would take it to shows and
say,
I would like you to draw this guy
and have to stand there so they could
see what it was, draw him.
And there were probably about a year I
got turnarounds drawn,
which I suggest for anybody,
anybody who writes or draws turnarounds.
oh my god they're so helpful i can
just this is my guy i'll be back
later this is my guy i'll be back
later all my books are the same because
there's this there's distinguishing
features and turnarounds for everyone on
my camera so ask you this what's harder
creating comments or getting people to
notice them at this point getting people
to notice them at this point yeah nowadays
i mean like i said i go to
kablam you can buy one book
Like you can make your own comic book
with your kid and just be like,
we'll do them at the house.
We'll fold a piece of paper up into
four and then cut the top off,
staple it, and that's his comic book.
And he draws that and he'll sit and
do that for hours.
Like it's easy to make the comic book.
It's easy to write it and whatnot.
It's so difficult to get people to stop
and go, that's not Batman.
That's not Superman.
That's not Spider-Man.
I don't want that.
Our stories are just as good,
if not better sometimes.
And they're different.
And I've had people on and, you know,
always try to,
especially when they're young and they're
new to this and they've got their very
first comic book coming out.
I always try to give them the opportunity
on the show, like sell me your book.
Give me your two-minute pitch.
They're like, my what?
Your two-minute pitch.
Sell me your book.
I'm going to have you on the show
for an hour, hour and a half.
You're selling your book to a big audience
at that point.
If you only have me for two minutes
and I walk up to your table at
a con, you go,
tell me about your book.
If you can't tell me what your book
is about,
I don't care.
I'm going to walk away.
If you can't sell it to me in
a few minutes or less, you've lost them.
I got the nine-year-old doing that now,
which is also helpful.
Believe me.
Especially if the kid is cute.
Cute kids.
He'll yell to the people,
you want to hear about my books?
And they'll walk over,
and he'll do his two-minute pitch between
the sock.
He knows them all.
Different ones he'll pick,
and he'll just go,
this is what happens to your sock when
it's lost in the dryer.
He's out fighting crime.
This book,
my father and my dad did for seven
years.
My brother from when he was five until
he was twelve.
He does the whole thing each time,
and he does well.
He's going to be his freshman year in
college when he gets ready to do speech.
He's going to be already there, man.
He has no fear with that.
I've been doing it for two years with
him now.
It's something he likes to do,
and he does well with it.
It gets him to talk to people.
It gets him out of his shell.
It gets him comfortable.
I know we've been talking.
We've name-dropped Tote Man a few times
now,
but let's get into the meat and potatoes
of who is Tote Man.
tote man is also a a father because
all my stuff is but tote man is
is a character that was supposed to make
fun of me in before my son was
born in he has a wolverine mask of
course he does wolverine was my favorite
yeah if i got super powers tomorrow i'd
have a super i'd have a wolverine mask
plain and simple yeah everything about him
is things i don't like about myself
The cape.
I would never have a superhero with a
cape.
It doesn't make sense.
The screwdriver on his chest is because I
fix machines.
I'm at IT.
I work on cannon copiers.
I've worked on vaccines.
I'm that old.
I've worked on arcade games.
I've worked mechanically my entire life.
So I gave him a flaming screwdriver.
It's just they were to make fun of
me.
And then it became more.
So Toteman gets his screwdriver from his
father who died when he was young.
And the screwdriver was lost in the mail.
It arrives on his eighteenth birthday.
The screwdriver gives him his powers.
So the metal is actually from...
a sword, the flaming sword from Scotland.
I am Scottish,
if the last name doesn't give it away.
I'm first generation here, actually.
So, like, the sword destroyed Samhain,
which people, it's actually Samhain,
but people call him Samhain.
And the sword was broken so that nobody
else could get hurt by it.
It was given to different clans in
Scotland, you know, our group,
our family members.
My grandfather forged his into a
screwdriver to hide it.
And that's what gives us all our powers.
The screwdriver.
Dude, I like it.
That's who Tote Man is.
And Tote Boy is a fun story because...
It's a similar thing.
He's half hero, half villain.
He's mad at his father, Tote Man.
Of course he is.
He doesn't like him.
He's pissed off at him and steals the
screwdriver.
He's going through his emo years, okay?
I'm sorry?
He's going through his emo years, okay?
Oh, yeah.
No, no.
Trust me.
Because the Tote Boy origin book,
the Tote Boy origin book,
the two the two older boys wrote together
so Xavier created dirty DJ but Dave had
had created toe boy years before that so
I told them two boys together I'm like
you guys got to figure out how he
becomes him because they're all in the
same universe so it's all about divorce
and whatnot and our you know this is
a flip book so we got
This, we got two stories in one,
which this is about bullying and whatnot.
It's our dog Ace and whatnot.
So it's a family thing, family stories,
fun things to do.
My plan is to do,
I have to do a horror book once,
but I'm not sure when that's coming.
I've already written most of it.
That's coming out.
I'm enjoying the origins of the characters
because I never sat down and thought about
it.
Never.
People are like, how do I pitch it?
I don't know.
I just made up something stupid years ago.
That's why the origins are more important
to me right now.
Yeah.
So you had mentioned earlier about your
epilepsy and how Toadman was created to
help explain that to your son.
Was there ever a hesitation about blending
the real world awareness behind this
medical illness into a superhero comic?
No, never in a million.
So it was originally written as a story
in college.
um and when i was in one of
my photoshop classes or whatever for my
elective um i i was in a class
and there was this girl who was there
with her mom and we were talking back
and forth and i gave her a copy
of it a printed copy of course because
we're talking years ago gave her a printed
copy of it she took it home
She brought it back.
Her mom gave it to me.
And she's like, she was in tears.
I'm like, oh, God, why?
I'm sorry.
She has epilepsy.
That's why I'm in class with her.
I'm like, oh, she loved it.
I'm like, oh,
everyone that knew a person with epilepsy
or had it was just like,
this is really amazing.
I had written it.
in Jamaica while I was in college.
But then the script for the comic book
came during college.
And I'm like, oh, that's the answer.
This is going to work.
And then when the Epilepsy Foundation of
America found it, they're like,
we love this.
We want to help you with this.
So no,
I've never been ashamed of talking about
it since I was a kid.
It's a scary thing to talk about to
people.
People freak out.
Yeah.
I'm sure they do.
So what do you think makes superheroes
such an effective way to explain difficult
topics to children?
It's easy to read.
It's colorful.
It's not – well, especially mine.
Mine are not dumbed down.
They're not like talking down.
Yeah, that's a big thing.
I believe that if you're going to have
a difficult conversation with a child,
don't dumb it down.
Correct.
They understand so much more than you will
think they do.
Just tell them about it and what it
is.
And it clicks with some people.
Like here's a superhero who has epilepsy.
He is a superhero.
This does not stop him.
We went so far into it that I
had to think about the reason he has
white eyes,
like the Batman eyes and everything.
I'm like, why does he have that?
It's not to hide his eyes.
They reflect so that the flashing lights
of a villain would not affect him.
because flashing lights affect me.
So we're going to have a story where
it happens to him,
and then he realizes he has to put
those in.
Like, it's all these things that, like,
why does this work?
And again, it's kids like to emulate.
Kids like to see their heroes,
their parents.
And it's like Ninja Boy,
that comic book is also epilepsy
awareness.
But you don't know it.
It is... Yeah.
Toad Man is ham-fisted.
It's all about it.
It's subtle in the Ninja Boy story.
At the very end,
after all the fighting is done,
something happens.
And it's like, no.
But it's not like pushed down their
throat.
Where Toad Man really is, it's all like,
no, this is what it's about.
No, this is what it's about.
So, yeah, I mean, superheroes do well.
They've done other things.
They've done drugs with...
Green Arrow and Speedy.
They've done other stuff.
I'm Gen X, so I'm sorry.
Give me a second.
homosexuality with north star in alpha
flight it's just something that it it
broaches the other people that it's not
they're not afraid to they can now see
it they can now read it and not
be embarrassed by these things yeah which
is a great segue for the question that
i had coming up so do indie comments
have an advantage over mainstream comments
when it comes to telling personal stories
like that
oh yeah you really don't see a lot
of that in the marvel and dc world
especially anymore right exactly not since
the eighties and the spider-man crossover
with the power pack and whatnot
I would say if you want to sell
comics, it's not as easy, that thing.
But I never wanted to sell originally.
I wanted to give away.
So it is a lot easier.
I mean, wholeheartedly,
I can tell whatever I want.
You don't buy it, you don't buy it.
I have nobody telling me,
you can't deal with that.
You can't say that.
Yeah.
It's a great thing about being a comic,
right?
Right.
Ain't nobody telling you what to do.
All of them are like – they're all
kid-friendly, my books.
But Villanueva's is going to be like
teenage because there's a bar scene.
And I gave it to the librarian who
I know.
She's like, yeah,
that's kind of – you want to keep
it away from little kids.
I'm like,
that's why I gave it to you.
I wanted to see what you thought.
So I do go out and I do
check things before I just do it.
um i have people who read things i
have other people i just talked to but
no there's no nothing to stop me from
doing whatever i want and it's a good
thing i mean there's a lot of stories
being told a lot of personal stories being
told in indie no a hundred percent i
i know oh what's his name i think
mark
Confirm.
Let me go to twenty twenty six.
I think I had come on.
There we go.
I was the only January.
I do a lot of interviews,
so I'm sorry.
Well, you're fine.
Mark Mark Dooley is literally telling his
whole entire life story right now through
comics from the time he met his wife
to before they met like it is just
this like beautiful comic book he's in his
seventies I think now
them he's drawing them and just telling
this beautiful story of his life with his
wife and that's also their struggles and
um i'm just like dude this is so
freaking cool like yeah this is such a
wholesome probably one of the most
wholesome stories i've ever had the chance
to take people on you know through the
journey of who mark is and um
Such a fantastic dude, man.
It was so heartwarming to get to tell
his story.
I'm just like, shit, dude.
This is... Damn it, man.
What's up, Catanaut?
I think he's got a book right now
on Kickstarter, if I'm not mistaken.
So if anybody's interested in checking his
book out, especially if you love cats,
definitely give him a follow.
He's at the cat or not on everything,
I believe.
He's kind of so cat or not,
just say hi.
So when you first released Tote Man and
you started getting the initial responses
from readers saying,
How did that – like what was your
reactions to how they were responding to
this story,
especially – I mean you have the –
was it American Epilepsy Society or
whatever?
Epilepsy Foundation of America.
Epilepsy Foundation of America.
I was almost there.
But to be able to work with them
with this book and to bring this to
a higher level because I have friends who
have epilepsy and –
That shit is scary.
I don't care what age you are.
When you see this happen to somebody you
love or you care about,
it's still extremely scary.
And again,
picture at two years old and just seeing
daddy fall down.
I was a single dad.
He said, daddy fall down, daddy fall down.
That's all he could say.
And I'm like, I don't know how...
It's not even just the grandmas that I
have.
You also...
Like the petite malls where you just stare
into space.
You can't make a comic about it.
People are like, oh, I'm like, you can't.
There's no way to visualize that.
You don't get that while you're in a
movie, a TV show.
Sure.
But comic book,
it's just not going to work.
There's a page in my book where the
massive seizures I had in my life.
And, like,
it was – it still freaks me out
to this day.
Like, this is every – not every.
These are the grand mauls I had in
life.
You know, starting in high school,
kids laughing at me because, you know,
I peed my pants because I had a
full – Yeah, you have no – yeah.
You bodily functions just release.
I lost my job at Canon because –
I had a seizure at one of the
companies.
I was fixing their copier,
and I had a seizure,
and I was laid off, laid off,
and I couldn't fill it again,
even though I had built most of that
part of the thing.
I built machines.
I fixed machines.
I went to Navy places.
I went to everywhere,
taught people about it.
I was the only technician who could do
copier, fax, and printer at the time.
I knew them all,
but they couldn't find a place for me.
So I'm like, I get it.
Like it's a lot.
And to see what I've never,
I've only seen one and I don't want
to see one again.
I've never seen my own.
They're scary.
Like on TV, they're,
they're a lot worse than what you see
on TV.
So it was great to the Apple foundation.
Like I said,
I thought they were going to yell at
me for doing it.
But again, like Indy,
I can do whatever I want,
but I'm like,
are you going to have a problem with
this?
Like, no, we love it.
I'm like, Oh yeah.
And they were all about it.
I'm like, this is awesome.
This is what I want.
The goal is a cartoon and the other
goal is to get it into hospitals and
schools, the comic book itself.
That's what I want.
Take it for free.
I don't want it.
Just take it, use it,
next year i think we're actually going to
re redo this because i'm almost out of
this version too so i think we're going
to redraw it a little bit nicer going
forward but yeah i mean it was it
was weird it wasn't talked about a lot
when i was growing up people but now
I talk about it all the time,
just who I am.
It's part of me.
People don't like being called epileptics.
I don't know what the whole word system
is nowadays.
People don't like calling it a disease,
having fits.
I've had it since the early seventies.
If I was a few years older,
I would have been put in a sanitarium.
because in the sixties you were put in
the sanitarium if you had epilepsy you
couldn't take care of yourself i made it
by a few years hey there we go
man so they got the mom and dad
on that one exactly thank you yeah but
yeah no i'm i have no other than
seizures once in a while like i fully
function as an adult i have kids i
have a house job
doesn't stop me i'm glad it didn't stop
you man and i i hate any time
i hear about somebody suffering from an
illness getting laid off due to it and
then not having a job like that to
me just bothers me so much that you
can't fight it they'll come up with
something else but i had a full-on seizure
fixing a copier at a naval base just
that's what happened i didn't
I can't help it.
Yeah.
Fuck.
Sorry.
That's one of my things there.
I was very angry at that company.
But I've persevered.
I've been to other companies.
I stay at a company because that's our
generation.
I've been at my current one for almost
ten years.
Yeah.
Good.
Good.
So let's talk a little bit more about
villain anonymous now.
Yes.
This is kind of like a different tone
from tote man.
Where did this one come from?
Or was this another one of your,
your kids?
Like this was me.
I just thought it'd be funny.
And I, I mean, I,
I copy wrote villains anonymous,
like right away.
Cause I'm like, yeah,
I know we do something with this.
I'm going to do something with this.
And just, you know, what about the losers,
the really terrible villains?
Like one of the villains in here,
he's robbing a gift store for a snow
globe.
His guns have died.
the star from Peanuts.
He doesn't even have anything else.
He's just that bad.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
So I'm like, what about those guys?
So it just slowly progressed with, okay,
well, here we got this guy,
we got this guy, we got this guy.
And basically what Dolores Llamas is doing
is...
They're not helping the villains.
They're deciding who they can use in their
corporation to be a better villain or
experiment on versus the guy with the
styrofoam penis who's going to go nowhere
in life.
yeah so it's just we have all the
other anonymous alcoholics um yeah i just
thought it'd be kind of an interesting
twist and to see it's almost like um
i don't know if you've ever seen the
um the facebook all right i don't know
if he's on facebook or youtube but the
villain help desk
No, I haven't seen that.
I gotta look for that.
Yeah.
So it's like villains call into their help
desk and the guy, he, he helps them.
He's like, Oh,
I'm trying to like the ones with the
predator are absolutely hilarious.
They're like, you cannot assimilate,
you know, with the Borg or whatever,
you know?
And it's just hilarious.
Like, cause he, he's like, he had a,
what's his name?
Harry Dresden in the Harry Potter world.
exactly exactly so it's kind of like
there's a guy here in a trench coat
in a cane you're like wait what's he
look like and you know he's like ah
just run voldemort just run there's like a
whole fireball there's a huge fireball
falling out of the sky and then
voldemort's like this is my immense power
he's like no voldemort run
It's like,
how bad can I make a villain?
Not like evil, just terrible at their job.
Yeah, dude.
I love those types of concepts, though,
man.
Those to me are just so fun.
Just the worst of the worst villains.
Exactly.
And on day one,
anybody who does a villain anonymous coin,
you get a one-month chip.
Dude, that's awesome.
Villains Anonymous one-month ship that you
didn't do anything bad for one month.
You know what?
There's some Batman comics where it tells
the story of some of those really bad
villains and kind of how Batman has looked
over those really bad villains and then
set them up later in life.
And I know they're not like key comics,
so people don't collect them.
They're just very heartfelt stories from
that perspective.
Like,
know the one who learns who you know
that bruce wayne is batman and he wants
to sell that information and everybody's
like we're not touching that like no we
do not want that actually we don't want
the wrath of batman on us so no
i do not want that you take that
information someplace else and um
eventually bruce wayne runs into him and
he's like hey i think we need to
have a talk
And then Batman takes care of his son,
gets him set up on scholarships and makes
sure he gets through school and turns his
life around.
And he gets his father the help he
needs to turn his life around,
sends him away to Gotham.
And then he comes back a better person
and eventually him and his son reconnect.
And it's just a beautiful story told in
Batman.
a half-assed villain who used to work for
the Catwoman.
Yeah.
I prefer like Stiltman and what Punisher
did to him.
You know,
the whole getting rid of all those
nobodies in the bar at one point.
It's just, yeah.
I mean, it's just,
I wanted to have fun.
I wanted to just couple something I
haven't seen.
So that's how that came about.
Now, I like these types of stories.
To me, they're just so fun,
like the worst of the worst criminals.
Yep, how did they get their start?
What made them flip?
So why do you think audiences are so
drawn to villain stories right now?
Because we see a lot of them right
now, like origin stories of villains,
and we've got the absolute universe going
on right now, and they're telling, like,
we've got the absolute Joker,
the absolute Catwoman,
and we have all these villain origin
stories going on.
And they're all really damn good,
by the way.
What do you think we all of a
sudden have this huge audience drawn to
that?
Do you remember when we had the two
Asteroids movies?
The one with Pierce Brosnan and one with
Bruce Willis.
And we had a lot of double scenes.
It's just what's going on in the world.
And people see it and are like...
I had a guy who worked at the
Naval base at Canon who swore.
When they do that,
the government's actually doing that to
tell people,
this is what you do to prepare for
it.
The radiation on that ship's leaking out,
obviously.
No,
but it is weird that you get groups
of things happening.
It kind of follows what's going on in
the world,
and our country is just in turmoil
completely.
So we need to reach out to something,
and comic books are writing what you know.
That's what it is.
I think you're getting more of that right
now.
I love these types of stories, man.
They're so fun because you can just do
whatever.
That's the great thing about indie comics.
Do whatever.
You can't do it.
The Cerebus comic with Spawn is probably
my favorite Spawn of all time.
Todd's like, I can kill him.
I can bring him back.
I don't have to do anything about this.
This is my guy.
next in two years,
I have a death coming.
So like,
I know I'm playing around with that.
So, but yeah, I mean, it's just like,
you brought up the Todd father.
That's my dude right there, man.
He's the one that kind of like,
really like comic books for me, you know,
gotcha.
Especially there in the mid nineties,
early nineties, when he started,
when he dropped image and with Rob and,
you know, all those guys.
And yeah,
I liked it when he was writing and
drawing it.
I think he did the first hundred.
Something like that.
I don't think it was that many.
Maybe the first fifty.
After he stopped writing it, I was like,
I'm not really enjoying it anymore.
He may not be writing it,
but I'm telling you,
he still has creative control over it.
He's still storyboarding it.
I did really like Rat City.
Erica Schultz.
I thought that was phenomenal, phenomenal,
different version and different story for
the spawn universe.
And Erica absolutely killed it on that
one.
And then she did daredevil right after
that, or while she was doing that with,
uh, taking up the mantle of the daredevil.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
She is the red band.
The red band edition of daredevil was so
damn good.
And, um,
When I went to the Comic-Con this year,
the only signature I wanted was Erica's.
I was like,
I just came here to get your signature
and I'm done for the day.
I did that with San Diego one year.
I wanted a Bruce Timm Harley Quinn for
my girlfriend.
I write to them like,
this is what I want.
I'm like, can you do it?
You may not be able to afford it.
I'm like, what are you charging?
Because this is what I came here for.
This tells me what I'm going to spend
the rest of the convention.
I need to know what you are and
go for it.
Yeah.
But like this one,
this is Tote Man number one.
This one is twenty seven years in the
making.
I wrote this in nineteen ninety nine and
finally just finished getting it drawn
because I had to find the right person
to do it.
Yeah.
And it came out at Tidewater.
So like, oh, cool.
Yeah, it's it's it's been a long journey.
It's a lot of fun.
So do you think comedy is harder to
write than a serious superhero
storytelling?
I don't know because I don't know.
I think mine are funny,
but I also have friends who are a
lot funnier than I am.
So I know I don't write serious because
I'm writing for kids and above.
But I would think –
In this day and age, unfortunately,
comedy would be a lot easier to write
than actual realism.
Oh, yeah.
No, a hundred percent.
So what do you think makes your villains
and Villains Anonymous so relatable as
characters?
They're exactly like Spaceball,
who just wants to,
all he wants to do is matter.
All he wants to do is be a
hero.
That's his entire thing.
And when he doesn't get noticed the
correct way, he flips out.
He gets really angry.
Like,
why can't people acknowledge I'm doing
well?
It's just about being seen.
The whole book is about being seen.
And we all have that at one point
or another in our lives.
I just for me, not for snow globe.
He loves snow globes.
He goes to buy a discounted snow globe.
He doesn't want to buy it.
He wants to steal it.
He just wants to be seen.
He's wearing a lawn ornament for Christmas
for love of God.
That's his costume.
He wants to be seen.
We all want to be seen.
A lot of my characters have the whole
they're not seen in it because that's my
life.
so like space ball doesn't get he can't
see him until he's noticed um what you
call it like snow globe wants to be
seen uh captain cleanup which is two years
you never see him in the book the
whole thing is about it's just weird
things i want to try so how do
you have a superhero book that you never
see the hero
It sounds like a lot of fun,
but here's a fun question for you.
If you had to attend a real Villains
Anonymous meeting,
what comic villain would absolutely just
dominate the conversation and all the
attention?
Well, Stiltman is dead.
I like to see Matt Gargan, Scorpion.
The fact that
Again,
he's one of those characters who has just
been verbally abused most of his life,
and the whole, don't call me stupid,
don't do this.
He is the person who would be in
there crying, complaining, and tired,
tired thing.
No one else could get a word in
edgewise.
Matt Gargan, not Venom Matt Gargan,
Scorpion Matt Gargan.
No, I like it.
I like that one a lot.
So let's jump over and we'll talk to
some Argyle Avenger and some Ninja Boy.
Yeah.
Why can you tell us about the Argyle
Avenger?
Other than that's where my other thoughts
are.
So that's basically it.
It was just a, you know, everyone says,
where's the sock that gets lost?
So I'm like, well,
what if he's out fighting crime?
And it's the same sock.
That's the thing is, like, he travels.
The dryers are portals.
So he'll wind up in different things.
He's in Japan and New York in this
one.
The next one, he's in Jersey and...
It doesn't really matter what city he's
in.
But, like,
what if he's out there fighting it?
And then his partner, what about that?
What's that partner doing?
The partner's always sad in my book.
Like, where is he going to be?
The partner will probably wind up being
the villain eventually.
But it's just, what if?
And it's a fun little, like I said,
portals.
We get to play with characters.
I got...
godzilla a kaiju in this one um we
got the the generic new yorker the guy
who the cleaner in this book is terrified
like he is a germaphobe and sock always
finds a way to to battle them and
defeat them in the in the silliest way
Yeah.
The cleaner throws him into a vat of
hot dog juice.
He flies back into the suit,
crawls up in the exhaust,
and the cleaner's like, oh, my God, oh,
my God, takes off his suit and falls.
It's just dumb things like that.
Again, it's made for kids.
You don't have to read it.
You can imagine what they're saying,
what they're doing.
Yeah.
it's all on you in the book so
the first one's black and white the second
one's in color i don't know the third
going forward and ninja boy is basically
about when i'm on vacation the main heroes
on vacation of of garden city um he's
gotta do it he's had a long night
of fighting um
he his uh he calls in his his
helpers the tai kwan duo it's tai and
kwan and they have to go out and
battle because they were they were
actually made for bubbler and teen angst
yeah i'm gonna use them in this because
they're more of the martial arts things
yeah he meets his cat woman that they
flirt back and forth
and again it's just a very small bit
at the end of somebody having a seizure
what to do and he after a long
night of battling he still is able to
help this person because he knows somebody
who has epilepsy and he helps the helps
this guy that's ninja boy and um our
al avenger
No, I like both of them, man,
because it's just such a fun thing.
And I know the only other comic book
I can think of off the top of
my head that has no words is Peach
Momoko's Star Wars comic that she did.
Well, yeah, I mean,
there's been like silent issues.
I think there's a Daredevil silent issue,
but I'm mistaken.
It might have been.
But yeah, I mean, it was just, again,
an experiment.
Like I did a nineteen thirties type thing.
You know, there's no words.
It's black and white.
That was actually a question on here was
it kind of feels like a retro pulp
influence behind the character and
everything.
Yeah.
So and because I'm Scottish,
that's why he's an Argyle Avenger.
So next one is actually just sock.
I like it.
I like it.
So for Ninja Boy,
when you built this comic,
did you intend for it to have all
this classic comic energy in it?
Yes, wholeheartedly.
So his cat woman is named Windshine.
And the thing about her is she has
mystical tattoos.
Her tattoos change based on her mood.
So if you're looking at the book and
you're reading the book,
you actually see when she's chasing
somebody,
she's got like a black panther on her
leg.
When she's jumping over a gate,
she's a kangaroo on her body somewhere.
So I made sure the artist knew,
and he did his best one ever so
far to get her concept.
Yeah.
I like that concept.
That's a legit concept right there.
And Ninja Boy and her have this ceremonial
ink.
So when they're next to each other as
Dennis and Chung,
Their tattoos,
when they're standing next to each other,
form the full tattoo.
It's a chi symbol, the yin-yang,
with a rose in between.
So he always has the,
because he's an African-American,
he has the white side,
which I never noticed yin or yang,
and she has the black.
But when they're together,
the whole thing turns solid and becomes
the rose.
So it was just Ninja Boy was to
make fun of my brother as well.
That's my brother.
I make fun of him in there because
he loved everything samurai, ninja,
had all the weapons when we were like,
eighteen years old.
We would go to Philly South Street and
watch the old kung fu movies in the
theater.
I'm actually jealous that y'all actually
got to go and see them in theaters.
A friend of mine growing up,
he collected the old DVDs.
I would go to his house and we
would just binge these over a weekend.
When we were kids,
they had it after Laurel and Hardy.
And they had it after all that on
Saturday mornings.
Well, when we became adults,
we could actually go to South Philly.
They had a beautiful theater.
And we'd go and just watch them in
the theater.
The name is derogatory.
It was my first ex-wife.
She called him Ninja Boy.
And that's why the B is capitalized
because she wanted to enunciate it.
And I'm like, dude, are you sure?
He goes, oh, I want that.
I'm owning that.
I'm like, yeah.
okay.
Because again,
this entire thing before it was what it
is,
was just to make fun of me and
my friends and to make fun of my
coworkers.
The man is a character who he thought
he was this big, beefy guy,
but he was ninety pounds soaking wet.
But he always walked around like...
I gave him pump-up sneakers.
Remember when we had basketball?
His weakness is anything sharp in the
back.
He steps on a splinter.
He steps on a nail.
It deflates, and he becomes back-to-back.
It's just all dumb things to get through.
All of it is just to make fun
of everything.
Job robber has a condom on his head.
What?
Yeah.
So when I was designing him,
he actually has,
if you look at his picture,
I think you can see it.
Yeah.
He has a condom on his head because
he's a dickhead.
Dude, that's fucked up.
So kids can't tell it, but I mean,
that's what it came from.
Yeah.
Wave one has five figures.
Wave two will be out next year.
Yeah.
Wind chime will be there.
She'll actually come with a sticker pack
of tattoos.
So her body will be blank.
and you put your own tattoos on her.
Oh, that's cool.
My youngest son created Bite Force,
so that's going to be out next year.
And then Toad Boy is out next year.
But even the packaging for all these is
just... Yeah, it's the old retro...
Insane superpowers.
Yeah.
Even with the pump-up
sneaker power like dude yeah that's that's
cool i love you're gonna do it you
do it right yeah yeah you gotta make
it feel right yeah so what do you
think is missing from modern superhero
storytelling that they got right with the
older stuff
think just like movies everything's just
being rehashed there's nothing new like
i'm excited to see a terminal everyone's
talking about that from kirkman that's
gonna be like x-men in the invincible
universe i'm i'm excited to read it um
walking dead was just like a blowed up
thing it happened greatly thirty days of
night
is my absolute favorite sleeper comic.
Yeah.
Did you read?
Yeah.
I was about to ask you,
did you read the latest one?
No, but I met him.
I talked to him.
I bought his novel and like,
I just let him like, you know,
the storytelling alone just made it.
And how did it take that long for
someone to think of that about vampires?
Like, so in the new one,
so you know, the original one, he kills,
uh,
The main vampire, right?
Right.
And the new one,
his brother is back for revenge for the
death of his brother.
Wow.
Dude, this shit is so good.
It's such a sleeper.
Go check that out.
The movie did not do it justice.
The movie was good, though.
It was good,
but it didn't do it justice.
They lost me at The Walking Dead.
I love the comic book for The Walking
Dead.
It's so damn good.
Yes.
Granted,
they have to take some creative liberties
with the TV show, right?
But when they killed Carl, I was like,
you can't kill Carl.
He's telling the damn story.
Right.
And then when they killed him,
I was like, never again.
And that was the last episode I watched.
The boys were what got me.
I mean, like, yeah,
you had to change some things.
But, like, that's nothing like the book.
You got the names of people.
That's it.
Well,
you can't show some things from the comic
book in the TV show.
I know.
That's why I was like,
I'm actually going to try it.
They pushed the limits.
The scene with Homelander on the roof of
the building doing his business.
Why couldn't they have their powers?
Why couldn't the boys have their powers?
Why?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's not something you need to take out.
The herogasm, the entire episode of that,
the whole,
I get you can't have it in there.
Yeah.
Why couldn't they have their powers like
they did in the book?
No, I agree with that,
and I haven't watched the newest season
yet.
I was looking forward to all come out.
I will be okay with how it ends
if it ends the way of the comic
book.
If it doesn't end any way other than
the way it ends in the comic book,
it's a foul,
and they should never pick up another one
and do it again.
I agree.
And that's, that's where I'm at.
Like, but I mean, yeah.
So like nowadays there's me,
you're rebooting DC.
How many times?
I don't know anymore.
I haven't read much of the Absolute,
but I'm assuming it's close to when
Ultima.
I don't read a lot of DC or
Marvel anything.
There's certain things.
I will pick certain covers from the
Absolute universe because it's done by one
of my favorite artists or something.
I don't read a lot of that.
I'm an indie guy through and through.
I mean,
this is technically indie again now,
is Master Universe.
Yeah.
Everything, I have a subscription to it,
but there's not much else.
I mean, I read my friends' stuff.
I make sure I support when their books
come out.
I'm like, yes,
I'm going to get a copy just because
you want the stores to see that.
Yeah, it's just rehashed, rehashed,
rehashed, rehashed.
Yeah.
And because you are constrained,
Batman can't do X.
Batman can only do – I can do
whatever I want.
Yeah.
No.
And that's what's great about it, right?
Yeah.
I created two characters for Captain
Cleanup just to throw away.
Like I don't care about them.
I don't need a backstory.
They're just there because I don't want to
use my guys.
They're fodder.
Exactly.
Exactly.
But –
So do you think modern audiences are
rediscovering sincerity in comics after
years of the darker storytelling?
Because we've had years and years of this
very dark comics from like the
mid-nineties to Mac series and the yeah.
What was DC's brand?
Yeah, Vertigo.
I love Vertigo.
You're just saying, yeah,
this is what we went through.
I'm a big proponent of Vertigo because
Vertigo and when they were doing their
Black Label,
because I like those darker stories to
begin with.
I like the horror, the magic stuff.
I like that kind of stuff.
And I will read Vertigo all day because...
it's like a fu to the the lighter
side of dc right and um plus swap
thing i will swap thing hellblazer will
always be up there in my top fives
but um but you take a look at
what's going on now with like dynamite
they're doing the speed racers they're
doing ducktails they're doing uh all these
like
Lilo and Stitch.
They have all these light-hearted,
fun comic books to tell the stories of
the TV shows, basically.
But they're fun.
They're different.
They got Ben Ten.
Ben Ten was really cool because it just
came out.
But I think that's because that age group
is now already getting older.
So they're like,
my son would have been a Ben-Ten person.
My Power Rangers.
All that stuff is the millennials who are
now, oh, and they're, oh, comic books.
And now, oh,
I wonder what happened to Launchpad
McQuack.
What happened to him?
Maybe we'll find out in this comic book.
So I think-
There's a new run of Power Rangers getting
ready to drop,
and it has an old man Tommy,
the Green Ranger,
in a homemade Green Ranger suit with his
Dragon Zord.
Dude, I was like...
Yes.
I'm going to go Wednesday when I see
my guy at the comic book shop,
I'm going to be like, hey,
I know I don't read a lot of
Power Rangers.
I just collect certain covers from the
Power Rangers.
However,
this one's going to have old man Tommy.
I'm going to have to do that one
because it's Ashley, Tommy, and rest easy,
JDF.
I'm like, because it's JDF.
It's him.
it's like a homage to him he is
the green ranger in the book and it's
like the old man tommy i'm like dude
this is going to be legit like if
they do this right like when old man
logan came out that was just yeah dude
that was some amazing storytelling but the
book the movie ruined that one though
straight up yeah yeah it was just again
when you have something that's new and
creative yes
But when you're still having the same
villains, the same thing, and, oh, wait,
we want to scrap it.
Let's just change the whole universe
again.
No, no.
Yeah, no, I can't.
That's one of the biggest reasons why I
don't read a lot of like DC and
Marvel because they're always rebooting
stuff.
I'm like, what are we doing?
like i can't get with this this i'll
read these twelve sixteen issue arts for
you to go okay we messed it up
we're gonna reboot now click and i don't
know what happened all right i'm done this
is why i don't have like i have
maybe like the marvel stuff i like
psylocke i like uh like particular covers
done by particular artists i'll pick up
and um
Like the Daniel Warren Johnson anniversary
Wolverine that he just did.
I picked that up because that book went
from being five ninety nine on the shelf
to eighty nine bucks or ninety bucks or
whatever it was like within by the end
of the day.
Oh, I'm like,
do I sell it already or do I
want to hang on to it already?
Yeah.
I ended up keeping it because it's just
such a fricking beautiful book.
The black cover with the Wolverine on it
with the arrows going into him.
Okay.
I said, Daniel Warren Johnson.
I'm just like,
I'm going to have to keep this one
as bad as I want to sell it
and just make a quick dollar.
Right.
It's such a beautiful book.
I'm like,
I just can't part with it yet.
Let me enjoy it on the shelf for
a little bit.
And then I may feel different about it.
But it's such a beautiful book.
I can't, I tried to like,
I had somebody asking me about it and
I'm like, you know what?
I need some more time with it.
Ask me again in six months.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You never know.
Like, catch me in six months.
Right.
But let's let's talk a little bit more
about some convention culture and like the
indie hustle because you've done that a
lot and you've been doing it for a
hot minute now.
You spend a lot of time in conventions.
So what have been some of your biggest
lessons learned from working in the
convention scenes?
So I guess so.
Yeah,
I've been doing it for over twenty years.
I remember a person who would be at
a table with a megaphone yelling towards
people.
Yeah.
And then when you got to talk to
them, they're like, don't do comics.
It's terrible.
It'll never make anything for you.
I'm like, then why are you doing it?
Then you have the people who like the
great thing about Chris and I is he
does commissions all day and like people
want his commissions and
But people think he's ignoring them when
he's drawing and his head's down and he's
working and whatnot.
And I'm like,
I'm the guy sitting next to him going
talking to them and, hey, hey.
So Chris Mariano at Tidewater made it
perfect.
He's like,
you need two people at a table.
You need two people.
You need the artist who's doing their
thing and doing commissions and whatnot.
And you need the –
The talker.
Or you need the person who hooks it
and pushes it over to the other person
and they complete the sale.
Doing it by yourself is just not a
good idea.
That's one thing I learned early.
I don't draw,
so it's very easy for me to actually
talk to people all day.
I love talking to people all day.
I'm in IT.
I talk to people all day.
I also...
To get their attention,
I say hi to everybody who walks by.
Hi.
Hello.
How you doing?
Good morning.
And then shirts.
I have a thing about shirts.
I have my own.
I have a thing that I want.
Oh, I have that shirt.
I don't have that shirt.
It just brings people in.
They're not ignoring you.
And then you get hit.
So you have to get their attention.
You have to smile.
You have to talk.
If you're sitting there,
just sitting there, slumped over,
looking pissed off,
nobody's going to come up to you.
Yeah.
I'm not going to.
Yeah.
If I see you sitting there looking like
a complete asshole.
Exactly.
I joke with people.
I mess with people with their costumes.
And then I give out stickers for kids.
Like you just got to get their attention.
Once you have their attention,
they'll listen to you.
Yeah.
They'll listen.
I keep freebie stickers.
I buy them by the thousand of the
Marvel and DC stickers.
Exactly.
I keep those by the thousand.
I get them off Amazon for like nine
bucks or something.
Exactly.
People use candy dishes,
which I have one guy who said it
really works well for him.
I don't want to do that.
I'm also a dad,
so I don't want my kids getting candy
from somebody they don't know.
Besides, Halloween's one thing.
You're going to neighbors.
It's just one of those things.
I always ask,
can your kid have a sticker?
Can your kid have a...
It's just thinking of what parents and my
stuff's for kids.
I target families.
I really want to talk to them.
So that's how,
that's what I've learned for conventions
and bring water, bring water.
And yes, I'm Jersey and Philly.
Cause I say water, water.
But so do you think conventions are still
one of the best way for indie creators
to grow,
even though it's very difficult and very
expensive to get into?
So heroes, Baltimore, New York ish,
San Diego ish.
Yes.
Galaxy Con, those type,
the celebrity ones, no.
Those are difficult.
They're difficult to get into.
They don't treat you as well as a
comic book convention.
They kind of put you aside that
celebrities are the main thing,
and people are coming there for the
celebrities.
They're not coming for buying comics.
Well,
I wouldn't even consider Galaxy Con a
comic con at all.
No.
There's no comic creators there anymore.
They don't go to them.
Yeah.
But your local one, you know,
Jersey has North Jersey has a show every
other month.
Find those.
Those tables are usually less.
They may even just let you come in
just to be because, hey,
we have an artist.
We have a writer.
We have just something you ask.
You have to ask.
You have to talk to people and don't
do it the day before.
Like they post it, go, hey, in April,
we're having it.
January, reach out.
Hey, what do you have for tables?
Do you have talent?
How do I get to go in here
and table and talk to people about my
comic?
Try.
Those are where you build up from.
And then you start getting more and more
than the bigger shows.
And yes, they are expensive.
Yes, you will not make your money back.
But what are you in it for?
Are you in it for the publicity to
get your stuff known?
Or are you in it for money?
I'm in it.
Any convention I go to,
if I sell one comic book, one,
I'm good.
And people are like, well, I'm like,
I have friends here.
I sit with my friend.
all day.
I get to watch cosplay.
I get to watch, talk to people.
Yeah.
I'm out of my house.
I'm only here to enjoy and talk to
people.
If somebody buys a comic book, I'm happy.
I'm going there knowing I'm not going to
make my table back.
It's about networking.
It's about enjoying with your friends.
Yeah.
No, I can agree with that to,
to very much to some degree, but, um,
What do you think some of the biggest
mistakes new indie creators are making
right now?
Selling your twenty some odd page book for
fifteen to twenty dollars.
Yeah.
And then if somebody asks you to sign
it,
you say it's a charge to sign it.
that is i've seen it at a lot
of shows down here and i'm like i
can't jump in for twenty five bucks on
a book that i don't know my books
are basically five dollars a piece it's
seven dollars for one two for ten i
don't make a lot of money on them
at all a dollar maybe
but I don't care.
I'm there to have my thing out there.
If somebody else has it in their hand,
a poster in their room,
a comic book on their floor of mine,
that's what I'm in it for.
Indie creators are one thing.
It's the people who go to the shows
and all you're doing is fan art.
That bothers me.
If you don't have your own thing,
that's kind of thing.
But if you're an artist in your book
and you're doing a Raphael and it brings
the attention in to your book and you're
selling something different,
I think the biggest mistakes are expecting
to be Todd McFarlane on day one.
Yeah.
if you think yourself so well,
and it's going to be your,
you need to make all this money.
It's go with real expectations,
real expectations, enjoy yourself.
So what do you think keeps any comic
creators go and when the industry gets
difficult?
I mean,
I know why I do what I do,
but I'll just say,
I know why I do it.
Um,
all just again want to be seen that
i guess it all boils down to that
i mean yeah it's it's it's a lot
it's a it's a drudge but if you're
passionate about your idea your story
you're gonna keep going you're gonna like
i said i've already paid for all of
my books for the next up till thirty
twenty thirty
Yeah,
I'm going to do the Kickstarter to get
people to see it and pay for printing.
I just want it out there.
But I knew no one's going to take
a chance on me.
Nobody knows me.
I'm going to write it.
I'm going to hire an artist and I'm
going to get it made.
If it's just for me and my family
doing it.
So mine's my family just continuing to
make them laugh.
It's funny.
When I said I know why I do
this and that's because I want to put
the John McLarens into the mainstream
media.
I want to put the Mark Dooley's into
the mainstream media.
My goal is to make indie comics
mainstream.
Not necessarily what we do mainstream,
but
when i can say indie comics are in
everybody's house now i want to be a
part of that conversation that's right i
want to be like oh i learned about
indie comics from the usdm that's what i
want is for when people are scrolling
through youtube or facebook and go oh i
like that comic book who is that right
and it's you know they discovered their
new favorite artist
From me.
That's what I want.
That's what I mean when I want to
make it main stream.
I'm with you.
And I'm doing it when one damn day
at a time, you know, dredging it away.
Like you said, man, just, it will happen.
And I want to be one of the
reasons that happens.
So, but let's talk about the future, John.
Yeah.
What is the nest on the docket for
Phantom Inc.?
Well, Villains Anonymous is next.
That's next year along with,
I believe it's Sock by himself.
Like, not Argyle, but Sock.
And then I should have pulled it up,
but I didn't have it up in front
of me.
The following year is Bubbler and the
final Bubbler issue.
And Captain Cleanup, I believe.
Off of my memory.
And then it's Junkyard Jess and Hair
Freon.
Then it's the incredibly unbalanced
adventures of Bob.
He's a superhero with...
I love it because I know a lot
of people named Bob.
Well, see, in our household,
that's the generic person.
It's just like, you did it, Bob.
Bob did it.
So it's about a guy who is schizophrenic
Multiple personality disorder.
I think most of the Bobs I know
may be leading that way.
Right.
And he's given medication that actually
tells me that you could gain superpowers
from it.
It's, again, a joke book.
Yeah.
And he's in a comic book store when
it explodes, and he now has different,
every personality has a different ability.
Arachnobob, Dark Bob.
um ultra bob that's what i love about
what you're doing man just everything is
just freaking fun nothing is taking itself
seriously your characters are just like
out there man and that's like that's
something beautiful and it just don't take
itself too seriously like i love i love
serious books i love dark books i love
horror right but every now and then it's
nothing wrong with sitting down and just
reading
like a book that's just making fun of
anything and everything and of itself.
Exactly.
It's like, I used to call them something.
I can't remember what it is anymore,
but it's like,
the good books that you read while you're
on the toilet.
You know what I'm saying?
Exactly.
Like,
you don't have to put a lot of
thought into it because your thoughts are
everywhere.
And you can just sit there and just,
like,
let your mind go numb and read this
book and laugh a little bit.
Exactly.
That's what my fan make is.
It's just making fun of everything and
anything.
Again, our generation.
Like, Gen X, we poke fun at everything.
It's just...
Yeah.
I don't give a shit.
Like exactly.
Like there's just so many things and yeah,
we're just, we're just here to have fun.
And my friends now, like they're at the,
at the function are all these artists and
whatnot.
And they're, they're DC and Marvel people.
And I'm like,
I snuck in, but they push me.
They push me to be better.
And they're like, oh,
I just sold this book.
I just did this book.
I want to do a new book.
And then I sit down and write a
new book.
I want to do this.
I want...
And they just push me, Smitty, Chris,
Randy.
They all push me to be better,
and it's just fun.
And they don't think of me as, oh,
he's just an idiot who wants to try
and do something.
They're like, no, this is cool.
Let's do this.
Let's do that.
They're very supportive,
and it's a lot of fun.
Why are you most excited for readers to
discover Nets from you?
Unfortunately, Villains Anonymous.
I'm excited for this one too.
It's going to be a wild ride.
I have, I think, four different covers.
Do you already have the pre-launch for it?
The pre-launch is up, yep.
Shoot me the pre-launch when we get done
here.
Absolutely.
And I will make sure it makes it
into the description as well.
That way I can follow it too.
That way I get notified when it's live
as well.
Yeah.
I got a cover from Brian Smitty Smith,
who has done DC and done all kinds
of stuff.
Neil Vokes has done a cover for me.
He used to do The Adventures of Batman,
Superman, that kind of stuff.
Chris Drewis was going to do one.
It's going to be a vendor exclusive,
like a retail store exclusive.
Yeah.
You can have your logo put on the
book.
There'll be an add on.
If you're within a hundred and twenty
miles,
I said of Durham will come to your
store and do a signing.
Chris and I. OK,
you get fifty books with your logo on
it.
You can order more.
You get fifty books.
They'll be exclusive to you.
And nobody can get the Chris cover unless
you're going to a retailer.
It won't be available anywhere except
Chris at shows and retailers.
They have it.
That's really cool.
And then Nate Lovett did a cover for
me as well.
They're a lot of fun.
I'm going to slowly put those out because
it's going to happen in the fall.
yeah i'm trying to do it between uh
baltimore and big lick greensboro those
are the two okay i'm gonna have it
between those and then uh yeah so you
like i said and these will actually be
made into real medallions yeah i want one
of those so bad like yeah like anybody
physical you get one of these if you
if you've pledged for physical
yeah i always do physical i'm i always
end up with a whole bunch of digital
copies of comic books and they just go
into a folder on my external drive that
says digital comics and that's where they
reside because as soon as i get the
physical copy i sit down i'm yeah
You have to touch it.
You have to touch it.
You have to immerse yourself in that new
comic smell and the paper.
People use different weights of paper for
the covers.
I'm working on Toteman, the first issue,
being a newsprint.
i have people in in uh maryland who
are going i'm working with that company to
actually release it with the original
covers and newsprint inside that's that's
another thing coming there's a label
currently doing i think it might be is
it ignition
is doing their stuff in newsprint like the
cover is a normal comic book cover right
that's what mine's going to be but most
of them like the pages and stuff are
like newsprint and it's really cool like
the book is like thick yeah but it
feels like a newspaper like my ads it
goes with my old ads too it all
works together there'll be a tier four um
catch up on all the other comics that
i've done um
There'll be action figures,
the three printed ones,
and there'll be five available that I
handpainted originally.
There's going to be all kinds of different
here.
I'm doing trading cards from people who
have known for years and they've done art
over the years for me.
Like, hey,
can I use your art in my trading
card?
Yeah, cool.
So it's going to be fun.
It's going to be fun.
It's going to change some things.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
Dude, I like it, man.
Uh, I do.
And maybe I'll see a upcoming convention.
I know.
Um,
I'm going back cause people like they
close stuff too early on me and I'm
trying to get into as many as possible
because like, why are you closing this?
And like, you're like,
you're not until August.
Why are you closing in fricking it's may.
Why are we closed?
Like, what are we doing?
So I'm trying to get into a few
of the same ones you're actually going to
do.
I was doing.
You froze on me, John.
Yeah.
Like there's a – I'm sorry?
You're freezing on me.
Did I lose you?
No.
You're good.
Yeah, I don't know what – yeah,
now you're good.
Like I could hear you like kind of
talking, but nothing was coming out.
Gotcha.
Sorry.
When I was out doing –
talking to people about the Kickstarter in
stores, Epic mighty mini con in Wendell,
North Carolina is like, Hey,
you want to come to the show?
I'm like, yes, we'll come to the show.
So it's been a lot of that kind
of stuff.
So it's really nice.
And looking forward to all these cons this
year.
Yeah.
No,
this year is like my year that I
want to do at least two to three.
Just getting my foot in the door and
just getting a feel for it and just
doing it from a creator perspective.
John,
let everybody know where they can find you
right now.
I have Linktree with Gen X Toy Box.
I have the Kickstarter.
If you search Gen X Toy Box or
Tote Man, you will find me everywhere.
And I'll make sure that the Kickstarter
description goes into the description when
I release this on YouTube later because
he's going to send that to me.
And right now,
if you go into the description,
you can find this link tree and all
of the above.
I will make sure that Kickstarter makes it
into the description when I release this
here in a couple of days.
Perfect.
John, thank you so much for coming on.
This was a lot of fun.
I can't wait.
It's going to be freaking awesome.
I'm so excited for that book.
But I'm going to bring it home now,
and if you could hang out just for
a few minutes after the fact.
But tonight,
we explored the worlds of Phantom Inc.
Comets with creator John McLaurin.
From the heartfelt mission behind Toad Man
to the chaotic fun of Villains Anonymous
to the retro spirit that still fuels
indie comics today conversations like this
are exactly why indie comics matter
they're personal they're creative they're
built by people willing to turn passion
into something real so make sure you
support independent creators support indie
comments and support the people still
keeping imagination alive one page at a
time because this is
the USDN podcast where indie comics come
to life.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the council is adjourned.
Enjoy your long weekend.
If you have one and stay safe.
All right.