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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.
What the fuck?
Hang on.
I swear to God I'm coming.
I'll be right there.
some reason everything they want to share
properly all right hello there everybody
and welcome to the united states
department of nerves where we are for the
people by the people and of the people
today we are spotlighting a creator who
isn't just launching a comic he is
building a universe rooted in
representation culture and identity nathan
rouse also known as mr unchained unlimited
is the creator behind jupiter man
in the expanded Idolverse,
a world designed to ensure every reader
can see themselves as the hero.
This is a conversation about legacy,
inclusivity,
and building something that matters.
The Council of Nerds is now in session.
Nathan, welcome to the Council.
What's good?
I appreciate you so much for having me.
This is about to be a good one.
This is going to be a good one.
I've been excited about this since you
emailed me and you were very direct.
You were very upfront.
You provided the comics,
which was amazing.
And I was like, dude,
he made it so easy for me.
And there is nothing better in life than
somebody making it easier for you to a
schedule with them.
read the material and put together a great
interview to talk about your work, man.
Man, thank you for making it easy.
I was supposed to be on another podcast
a couple of days ago called Comics for
All and that that filled through.
And then, you know,
you came through with the save and that
was you know, that was an amazing thing.
And I'm so glad that you read it
and loved it.
I've gotten a lot of good feedback on
the book so far.
And, you know,
you saying that you loved it just
amplifies that.
It really was.
And so for those who are discovering you
for the first time tonight, who is Nathan?
And did I say your last name correct?
Rouse.
Yes.
Yes.
Perfect.
Nailed it.
Well, you know, a small,
small time kid from Hyattsville, Maryland.
Yeah.
know i went to northwestern high school uh
where i played ball i played ball for
a while i wasn't in comic books i've
only been in comic books for two years
uh i've been writing all my life you
know poetry loved loved reading movies tv
shows that's where you know that's where
my inspiration comes from but i played
football for a very long time and from
out of
Out of Northwestern, you know,
where I played in high school,
I went to Bethany College in West Virginia
and played for a while.
Okay.
Yeah.
The whole concept for Jupiter Man came one
day when it was a summer.
It was a summer.
I was on campus and I was watching
Justice League Unlimited.
Nice one.
Yep.
Yep.
And then I was like, wow,
what if I mix Native American culture
with, you know,
one of my favorite antiheroes or villains,
Black Adam?
And then that's where I was like, wow.
And then from there.
When I seen Jupiter Man at first,
my first thought was like,
this is Native American Black Adam.
I was like,
I didn't want to I didn't want to
like imply it.
That's why I almost messaged you.
I was like,
I kind of want to message him.
But then I'm like, let's save it.
Let's save that.
No, no, no.
That was that was really awesome.
No, that was so I was watching.
So I got it where so I watched
Justice League Unlimited.
But right before that,
I watched Superman and Shazam when they
took on Black Adam.
And the black out and handed Superman that
ass with.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Wow.
What if I mix the two together and
come out with some and come out with
something original?
And, you know,
Greek gods are always being used.
So I was like,
what if I switched it up a little
bit?
And then I went, you know, Roman gods.
And then it like it grew from there.
So let me tell you the original.
So the original plan behind Jupiter, man.
So the first two episodes,
that was actually the very next question.
Roll with it, dude.
Let's do it.
Before Juverment was ever even created,
I created this superhero called Defiance.
It was about an African-American astronaut
that ventures off into space,
and then his soul merges with a star,
and then he becomes like this silver
surfer type character.
Then three thousand years later,
he goes back to Earth to see that
everything that he left behind is gone.
And then it's like he has to protect
the world.
Here's that one.
I sold it.
I wind up selling that character to some
French comic book company for a thousand
dollars.
That would have been so dope.
I hope they did something good with it.
Oh, they changed them.
They changed this whole everything.
They changed this backstory.
You're not going to find Defiance
anywhere.
I hate to hear that, but hey,
glad you got to make a thousand bucks
off of it.
Yeah, for sure.
I tried to do it again.
So that's where Jupiter Man comes in.
I created the concept for Jupiter Man,
the original backstory.
I was like, oh man,
let me go and try and sell this
again.
I'm a college kid, low on cash.
Let's see if I can get another thousand
dollars.
um so then i meet this comic book
creator um i'm not gonna say his name
because you know there's bad blood there
but um he says i'm gonna help you
put this character together instead of
paying you because why sell it to somebody
that can make millions of dollars off of
it when you can
So he helps me put it together.
But then he starts to do a lot
of weird things with the backstories.
He's throwing a lot of different
characters into it.
It's not really working out.
So I'm like,
I think I'm going to go my own
way and I'm going to try and do
it myself because this I've never written
a script before.
I didn't know the first thing about,
you know, comic books or anything.
Yeah.
Read a lot of them.
And, but I've always,
I've always wrote stuff.
And then he was, he, he said, oh,
I'm gonna sue you.
I'm gonna sue you.
I was like, okay, have fun with that.
I'm gonna take my character though and try
to build this comic book.
And so day in, day out, I'm,
I'm studying how to write scripts.
Uh, like artists have,
I'm falling out with artists because this
artist didn't finish the original project
and I had to find a different artist.
Mm-hmm.
And then I wound up finding the artist
for Jupiter Man that I'm working with
currently, Jeffrey Slyzantizon.
He is like the dopest artist that I've
seen.
He does all the work on it,
the pencils, the inks, the colors,
the letters.
Man, awesome guy.
And then we came out with Jupiter Man.
And it's about a Native American man that
is manipulated by the government to be a
superhero.
the first like the first two episodes that
you see or really the first episode that
you see is basically the entire simulation
it is the oh it is the simulation
that is embedded in his mind uh you're
seeing like everything that he believes to
be real is what you see in this
episode like gotcha yeah bovias the the
evil alien that's supposed to be taking
them taken down uh his backstory is him
being like this
This distant tribal man that's been exiled
from his tribe.
Everything that you see is something that
the government is implanting.
That adds another layer to it,
and it's so good because I didn't realize
that.
Oh, yes.
Yep.
And then in the second one,
in the second episode,
when you see him talking to the president
and then you see the general and all
these other aspects, it's like, wait,
what's happening?
I thought we were on this mythical
journey.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It becomes something completely different
as you know, as the story.
So how about his life as the small
town cop?
Is that real?
Okay,
so there are pieces and sections of it
that are mythic in nature but are also
being manipulated.
So there are certain characters that
you're going to see that he might come
into contact with and talk to that have
also been placed.
So him as the sheriff,
obviously we have to make certain things
look real.
So we're going to create this town and
we're going to allow him to be the
sheriff there.
Put a couple of things there that he'll
have to figure out for himself.
But ultimately...
it's being manipulated.
So him as a sheriff is real,
but it's also not.
Dude,
that's just another phenomenally amazing
layer on top of this story because the
reader, if you don't know,
gonna be like oh he's a small town
sheriff now he's he's like this immortal
bm because he got these powers from these
gods so dude no that that's actually
that's that's pretty slick dude which is
crazy because um i owe it to my
brother elijah uh we were talking about it
for a while and um
When he when he first read the first
episode, he was like, I mean,
this is cool.
You know,
I feel like this is something I've read
before.
And it's like, I don't know.
It's like not something that's really
speaking to me.
And I and I thought about it a
lot.
And this is where we wind up building
the idol verse, you know.
This is just going to be a book.
And then I was like,
how can I make it more expansive better?
Because the point of the Outerverse is
basically to explore everything.
This is to explore conspiracy theories,
sci-fi, romance, philosophical nature,
everything encompassing.
The question that you ask when you walk
into the Outerverse is,
what if everybody is right?
What if every religion is real?
What if every thought process is
connected?
And so I really wanted to explore that
in, you know, Judaism's nature, you know,
because...
And I have no problem saying this because
I was talking to my girlfriend about it.
She was like, don't give too much away.
And I was like,
whatever I give away is far less than
what they're going to see in the book
because it's like so many things connected
to it.
But it's like... So...
Jooperman, Wahali, he is a spirit walker.
Government doesn't know is that when they
mix the MDT,
the MDT is like a special drug for
like people in the adverse that basically
are, you know,
mutants or they have special abilities.
Okay.
Something that's been interceded
throughout the U.S.
for a long period of time through
experimentation and such.
So he was kidnapped as a child and
he was injected with MDT.
But what the government does not know is
that he's also a spirit walker.
So his spirit,
so his natural deviant ability was mixed
with the MDT drug to create the God
cell, which is his blood.
But it's the powers that manifested from
the connection,
which is why he has so much strength
and speed and he can utilize it.
because he's not only connected to the
spirit world but there's a sci-fi aspect
with this blood that's actually created
from aliens blood that you're going to
find out within this series so there's a
lot it's a lot to unpack but dude
it's phenomenal like
It's, it has, you know,
you got the Edsman vibe there,
but you also have this really cool that
what could be this fantastic underlying
sci-fi saga mixed into it.
And dude, it,
I'm telling you and everybody else
listening out there, it,
the books are phenomenal.
Like they were such good reads and
everything that he just said is,
There's small context clues in it,
but not enough to give you what he
just gave you.
The whole first book,
you honestly believe that this individual
was gifted his powers from these Roman
gods.
And you believe it.
It's a hundred percent believable.
There's some context clues,
but they're very vague context clues to
what he just said within book two.
But like you are not going to decipher
it just from reading the books unless he
just told you what he just told you.
And I'm sure once number three comes out
and four eventually that what you just
said will make plenty more sense.
And I'm here for every single bit of
it.
A hundred percent.
We're working on the third,
working on the third book now.
I don't know if I sent you some
sneak peeks.
Everybody that, you know,
checked out the first.
No, you didn't.
I didn't get sneak peeks on this one.
I got, I just got one in two.
Okay.
And then you sent me the video too.
I'm going to send you some sneak peeks
of the third because we're working with a
new artist on this one because I wanted
more of a Saturday morning cartoon feel.
The first two, Jeff did an amazing job,
but he's currently working on a first
episode of another character that I'm
putting down.
I wanted a different feel.
I wanted Jupiter Man to be a little
bit more bulky and swole for the next
episode installment.
It's going to be a good one.
It's going to be a good one.
So is the next character also going to
be a part of this idol verse that
you're building?
Yes, a hundred percent.
All the stories,
the great thing is all the stories are
interconnected.
They're all happening at the same time
because they're leading to a story.
Considering actually,
do you know who Hancock is?
Yeah.
Oh yeah, dude.
I've seen your,
I've seen the work you were doing on
it.
If you're going to follow that sort of
timeline and that sort of timeline,
universe, then dude.
Everything is leading up to that book,
one for all.
John Hancock has to save the world by
building a team of superheroes.
And the world is in shambles because of
the battle that Jupiter Man has with Vice.
So that is going to be crazy.
Now,
the moment I've seen the Hancock artwork,
On your Instagram.
I was like, dude,
if he is building up to this,
then it is going to be amazing because
I don't think the actual movie of Hancock
gave the actual story of Hancock justice.
No, no.
And what's so crazy is I actually gave
him a backstory.
So you're going to get the backstory in
that book.
Well,
they teased the backstory in the movie.
They did, but I couldn't, I couldn't.
Right.
right but i couldn't i actually couldn't
use that so yeah yeah so the way
so the way that it works is i
had to create a character basically based
on the original movie character that's the
only way because um i actually had i
actually wound up getting my version not
only trademarked but his original story
copyrighted
which was a blessing.
Yeah, no kidding.
This is IP just out in the wild?
Or is this IP owned by somebody else?
I mean, the original IP, the movie,
is owned by whoever created the movie.
Yeah, okay, gotcha.
um i was able to you know recreate
the suit you know little minor details
having to do as an insignia yeah and
switch the story up but i have a
john hancock in my universe which is
pretty freaking sweet dude that's gonna be
sweet dude i knew the moment i seen
it i was like dude if he's building
to a universe to that degree where hancock
is in it because again
that movie was amazing and I felt like
there was so much left on the table
there.
So for you to be able to pick
it up and kind of, okay,
we're gonna start the story here though,
build to Hancock and then go past it.
That's what's up, dude.
I love that, every bit of it.
I am super excited for it.
I'm working really hard.
That book is also in production.
I'm working on a lot of stuff at
once.
And yeah, so actually,
I actually got a pretty like pencil and
ink for the one for all story alone.
I got a pretty good chunk of it
done and, you know,
I'm working on it sparingly, but.
Uh, yeah, but back to Jupiter man, uh,
super,
super excited for the third to come out
because the third is going to include the
first introduction to nemesis, which is,
yeah,
I was always thinking of an interesting
way to introduce villains without always
having to go like in depth and backstory
and, you know,
having to do this big buildup.
So I came up with an organization.
called Nemesis.
And Nemesis basically commissions villains
to do different offhand jobs,
like contractors.
So I can always have a steady rotation
of a rogue gallery into the universe.
So you're going to get the first shot
at Nemesis in the third episode.
Nice.
Which, you're a busy man.
Obviously,
this brings us to your nickname, Mr.
Unchained Unlimited.
What does that represent creatively for
you?
Oh, well, how did this name come about?
Let me tell you a story about the
name.
I was watching Baki one day
And there was this character that came
across the screen.
It was late at night.
I was watching Baki at like two AM.
As you should be.
That's like the perfect thing for two AM.
For sure.
And Biscuit Oliver came across the screen
and he was the baddest guy on the
screen.
Like he flicked the dude across the room
and he picked his big wife on his
back and carried her across.
I was like, who is this guy?
And they called him Mr. Unchained.
And I was like, that's a cool name.
That's cool.
And I was like, man,
what would my pen name be?
Because this is before I really started
writing anything.
And I was like,
what if I call myself Mr. Unchained?
And actually,
this is before I started writing.
Because a lot of different football
players come up with alter egos.
Brian Dawkins was Weapon X.
And the list goes on.
And I was like,
We got Megatron in there.
Megatron, yeah.
That name itself was just cold.
Right, right.
Bo Jackson was Jason Voorhees.
I was like, what is going on?
I want to come over.
I think I have that baseball card,
actually.
That's funny.
And I was like,
what if I went by Mr. Unchained?
And then when I started writing,
I added The Unlimited because my
imagination is ridiculous.
Like, I can't stop.
Like,
I can't walk down the stairs without
thinking about, hmm, what if each step,
what if each step guided me into a
different dimension?
Like, I'm just,
my mind is just wired to keep going.
um i can't watch anything or do anything
or read anything uh without thinking about
ten different ways a story can be told
and i was like unlimited and then i
put the two together and i was like
become mr and chain unlimited um the man
that opens portals the guy that thinks
without with an unbounded mind so that's
kind of how i you know came up
with the nickname
Oh, dude, I like it.
And everything you're saying with what
you're doing in your comic book verse,
it all comes together and it all makes
sense.
where and how you're doing everything.
Dude,
the moment I seen Hancock on your
Instagram, I was just like, all right,
dude, I'm invested now.
I'm invested.
I'm a partner.
Let's do it.
I appreciate that.
I'm trying to do different things.
You know, there's this,
there's the age of, you know,
AI and things that we're in.
Yeah.
um they're man we get a lot me
and my brother get a lot of uh
i would say we get a lot of
backlash you know now i'm not going to
say hate and i don't think there's any
reason to you know for us to be
hated or you know people to be jealous
of us but we're we're we're in we're
in an age right now where you know
a lot of things are popping up a
lot of fear you know is being had
and for me
Me and my brother are just trying to
figure out a way to build what we
have going on with the limited resources
that we have and grow as much as
we can.
I help a lot of people out when
it comes to writing,
when it comes to creating,
putting their stories together.
And I just want to be able to
do that in peace, but also elevate.
I can't pay a thousand dollars a second
for animation.
But what I can do is teach myself
how different people are doing it with
Sora or whatnot and put like a cool
trailer together, you know,
to put an idea out there, you know,
for people.
And this is where I don't have a
problem with AI because it's,
you're taking your product.
Right.
You're putting it into an AI to generate
something for your product.
Right.
It's not like you're stealing somebody
else's and sticking it in the machine to
teach it to do your product.
You're not doing that.
It's like a lot of our logos and
stuff.
We took our original logo and we just
tell the AI, like, hey,
give it the Christmas theme.
Right.
And that's what it does.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean,
I'm not doing anything with it.
It's just...
I'm taking what I already own and giving
it a new twist.
I personally think it gives us a certain
professional look.
To the offhand person that views our
stuff, they're like, man,
how are you guys doing?
But you're not doing it to your comic
book.
You know what I'm saying?
You have an artist.
You're paying an artist to do your comic
book.
The art is your artist's.
His name is on the cover next to
yours.
You're using it to create the animations
to promote your book.
Exactly.
There's a,
there's a clean distinction there that
needs to be pointed out.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and in its entirety,
I personally don't consider.
Like there,
there've been many people that I've come
up that I've come across, uh,
come across and talk to about it.
And there was a guy that I talked
to, you know, uh, not,
not even a couple of days ago.
And he was like, yeah,
I'm thinking about ways on like creating a
book using like this AI program.
And I was like,
I don't hate on the fact that you're
doing that.
Yeah.
but i can't like i personally could never
like i don't know i couldn't do that
because as somebody who is in the process
of creating a book himself and i have
my artists already picked out he's a
friend of mine he's a friend of the
podcast somebody i have a whole lot of
respect for right who provides inputs who
tells me if i did sucks
you know who shoots me good ideas and
i'm like oh i like that even better
and um so i from artistic standpoint and
what's going to happen within my own
personal comic book is all human right a
hundred percent all human and now i know
people who do actual animation that's like
their job right which is really weird
because i met him because he made a
comic book and he's been on the podcast
but
my plan is once i'm to that level
to where i'm ready to reach out and
go hey can you animate me a thirty
second short to promote this with my
characters you know and i'm like i will
pay his his team to do it or
pay him to do it so it's kind
of wild now that i do know somebody
so if you want to get in touch
with him let me know and i'll put
you in touch with him i don't know
what how that works for his side of
the house but
I do know like because he sent me
some of his team's work like their
Christmas animation they did.
Dude, it was freaking beautiful.
There's a lot of different people that
I've seen.
Some of the people that I've been in
contact with use spoof animations and
there's been different animation companies
that I've talked to and then they'll hit
me with their quote and I'm like...
I think Lloyd who was on last night
He he's taught himself to do some
animation as well.
OK, that's dope.
So you might could reach out to him
and see what he's using and see how
he does it as well.
The thing about it is I personally don't
consider AI to be I don't consider it
to be art.
Like I feel art,
the beauty of art and the talent of
it is the human.
It's not only the small,
like soulful imperfections of it,
but it's also the steady hand.
Oh, what is going on here?
It's also the steady hand that it takes
like years to master and learn.
I like,
I could never think that something that,
you know,
that can generate something in a few
seconds.
I could never consider it art personally
to me.
I could never do that.
But, um,
as far as like as far as the
promotion and especially with jupiter man
i've been able to make some i've been
able to make trailers uh we he has
a theme song now the theme song that
goes with the books uh you know and
i i feel that there's there is a
place there there's a place not
necessarily in the books at all like yeah
no i i'm a firm believer that ai
will not touch my book oh yeah at
all but
But yeah, from an other perspective,
if you're using it to create a design
or a logo, if you're using Canva,
because Canva has a thing on ChatGPT where
ChatGPT will help you with certain things
on Canva, which I've used before.
And it just helped me clean up some
products that I was using to make
thumbnails.
Right.
So, I mean...
i don't have an issue with that kind
of stuff right because i'm not using it
to create anything to trying to take jobs
from people however i don't have a hundred
bucks to throw at somebody every time i
want to redesign something right or create
a thumbnail i definitely use it in our
process um so when we were originally
creating some of the characters that went
into the book i actually wanted to talk
to you about um
have this thing in the idol verse called
character spotlights which i think is
really cool so i don't know if you
read all the way through the second
episode because cover to cover okay so did
you read a short call okay yes yeah
it's something that we do called character
spotlights in the idol verse where we
bring you in to the idol verse yeah
that was one of my favorite things dude
and i love when books do that
Because it reminds me of the old school
stuff from back in the nineties when they
would do that.
You would get to the end of the
comic book and they'd have like a full
character breakdown of somebody.
Their powers, their abilities,
their height, their weight,
their love interest, their favorite color,
their favorite music.
And all that would just be wrapped up
with the character.
And I always thought that was really cool
that they did that.
There's something that I saw in the older
comics that I had, the old Marvel stuff.
There's also something that I saw on
TikTok.
I think it's called Dial H for Hero.
I didn't get this idea from that,
but when I found out that Marvel was
doing it,
that you could create your own character
and then send it in,
and then they might be able to put
it in the book,
I didn't know that at the time.
But when I found that out,
I was like, okay,
I'm going to keep doing this.
But-
in the character spotlights if you send us
a picture like of your likeness and
everything then you can me and then we
can create a character and see we can
get into the book that's some of my
favorite things to see people do too is
like when they have that level of the
kickstarter or you know that like hey if
you you know donate this much we will
include you in the comic book i'm
Don't get me wrong.
I want to support your product,
but that's usually above my pay grade on
that one.
However, you know,
I will kick in like an extra ten
bucks to get my name in the back
of the book because I want a way
to promote the podcast.
So I will put the USDN chairman in
the back of the comic book or I
will put the USDN podcast because when
people get the book and they're looking at
the back to try to find their names,
I want them to see that and go
like, ooh, what's that?
And they're going, look, you know.
Well, if I'm being honest with you,
a lot of the characters that have been,
you know, in the book so far,
especially my friends,
they haven't had to pay anything.
And you put me on your podcast.
So if you want to be a character
in the Outerverse, you just let me know.
You're a bearded guy, man.
That's all I need.
Whatever, whatever.
You're a great bearded guy, and I'm good,
man.
That would be pretty dope.
But yeah, one of my friends,
the guy Homestead that you saw in the
book,
that is one of my football buddies that
wanted a Homelander-type character.
And then you got The Rock in there,
Braven in it.
I was surprised when I got to the
end of it and I seen that.
And I was like,
this whole additional story that was in
the back of the book, I was like,
oh,
I love when they do this kind of
stuff.
Because...
um god what's his name give me just
a second let me because he does uh
dark pink comics and um oh come on
you're gonna be slow on me
Christopher Ford.
Chris Ford.
Dark Pink Comics.
He put out one of the largest quickly
funded Kickstarters ever.
I forgot how much money he made in
the beginning and people wanting to be in
the comic book.
He had to end up going back and
creating short stories in order to include
people
that paid to be in the comic book.
So he was literally making like these like
short stories for people.
That's cool.
As additions because so many people were
interested in that, which is really cool.
What I try to do is I try
to like,
like Homestead is like a big part of
the plot in Jupiter Man's World.
so what i try to do is depending
on depending on what book you know i'm
working on at the time i really try
to like make you an integral piece like
you're gonna see a lot more of homestead
which is crazy because these books become
famous he's gonna be like hey my
character's in there so can i get a
little something for that but uh but uh
yeah like i try to make i try
to make a big i want to create
a universe filled with fans that's low-key
that's low-key the dream
Dude, that would be so, so clean though.
Just like these characters are your
friends, your family,
people you've met and people that had some
type of influence on you throughout your
lifetime, you know?
And I think that's really dope to try
to do.
Right.
And like, it's definitely different.
And that's why it's appealing about that.
That's the inclusive piece of it.
Like the thing, the thing that, um,
The thing that kind of hit me a
little bit when it came to like starting
to create my own comics and, you know,
how I thought about putting the Adalberts
together was like everybody was counting
down to how many days it had been,
you know,
since an African-American character was,
you know,
had their own solo run or this character
or this different ethnicity or that.
And I was like, you know,
Marvel and DC don't really have an
obligation to do that.
They don't.
They don't.
And I was like,
but it would be so cool if they
did.
So that's why I was like,
what if I could slowly build a universe
where everybody could see themselves and
whatever character was flying across the
sky?
I don't necessarily need to start with an
African-American superhero because I'm the
creator.
But to create a dope Native American
Superman-like guy that isn't wearing the
feathers,
that doesn't have all the regalia on,
but he represents something and it's a
part of his heritage,
I felt would be the coolest thing.
And dude, that's what pulled me into it,
is that he is Native American and he
isn't being...
Like, his culture isn't being, like,
exposed in that kind of way.
Right, right.
You know?
So that's really, like, a plus.
It's just, yes, he's Native American.
Yes, he's a superhero.
If you just picked up book two,
you would not necessarily know he was
Native American.
Right.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Which is what I really wanted,
which is what I really wanted it to
be.
Like, I felt like, I mean,
when Superman was originally created,
I don't think they ever expressed,
you know, the religion, you know,
what he represented or if he was or
not.
But there were always those hints or notes
there,
especially what he fought for at the time.
But I kind of wanted,
that's actually what kind of inspired me a
little bit when pushing forward, you know,
how Jupiter Man was going to be
represented.
It was like,
I want that to be a part of
his culture, his heritage.
And there are definitely going to be
elements of that spirit walking and,
you know, loving the woman.
I'm really interested in that part of it.
Yeah.
When he kind of like discovers that,
because I don't think he's discovered that
yet, has he?
Nope.
Nope.
Yeah.
He thinks he thinks he has to like
the manipulations and whatnot.
But no, not really.
That's what's going to be.
That's really going to be explored in
later issues when things really get
heated.
But right now I'm working on like the
simulation slowly cracking,
which is why I can't wait to send
you those sneak peeks later.
Bet I'm down, dude.
Let me ask you this.
OK, the.
What made you decide to build a whole
universe instead of just, like,
these single character issues?
You know what I'm saying?
Like, these, like, one-shot issues.
Like, you see so many other artists doing.
Build a universe or one-shots.
Right.
Or maybe a four-comic run of a character
or something.
In the words of the great DJ Jazzy
Jeff, die empty.
You gotta die empty.
I can't, for whatever reason,
my mind can't do one shots.
I can't do one-off stories.
Like there are pieces of me,
there are pieces of me that are going
to create like, like me, my journey,
I want to create a hundred books.
As a writer,
I feel like that substantiates myself.
If I make a hundred books,
then I have a longstanding body of work.
And if I'm an eight-year-old man with an
attic filled with books that I wrote,
then I accomplished something.
But there are so many different ideas and
thoughts and stories that run through my
mind.
I can't stop.
And I really want to try and stop
myself, but I can't.
So I want to create as much as
possible.
Storylines might be muddled.
Stuff might come out before other stuff.
And I'm only one guy.
And I hope the people that read my
books understands that.
but I want to create something that's
awesome.
And I want to create something that
somebody, like there's so many creators.
There are mentors that I have right now
that have created books back in the
nineties or back in the early two
thousands.
And they don't create books anymore,
like six books.
And I'm like, bro, this is amazing work.
Why aren't you continuing this?
And they don't continue the books.
And I'm like, burnout is real, dude.
Who's going to remember this?
I just don't want
I feel like even if I wasn't to
create a long body of work and I
was to create a bunch of interconnecting
books, that's still a universe base.
That's somewhere to start.
But to me,
creating six issues of one character and
then stopping after a long period of time,
i just feel like it depends though did
they have a beginning a middle and an
ending or was it just like they got
to six and they were like yeah i'm
just kind of done with this they got
to six no he still creates today i'm
gonna have no problem saying his name
because we're we're you know we're still
good and in good standing his name is
vince white uh creator of the power verse
amazing amazing mind
um actually my my brother e compares me
to him a lot because our brains just
keep going like we just keep doing things
and he's created so far i think like
six uh he's created six issues of
willpower and i'm waiting on the seventh
and the eighth and he hasn't created
anything new or at least he's not
promoting anything new and he hasn't told
me about anything new and i'm like man
Like,
I would hate for something to happen to
you and there's nobody to continue your
work because it's amazing.
It could be something that's on any comic
book shelf, any bookstore shelf, anywhere.
And, yeah,
it hits me in a special place.
Like,
when people create great stuff and then it
fades into obscurity,
I just feel like it shouldn't be that
way.
Well,
how do you feel about some of the
modern-day guys and some of the stories
that they are doing?
Take, for instance, James Tinian.
Like his Something Is Killing the
Children, The House of Slaughter,
Book of Butcher.
Something Is Killing the Children was just
picked up for TV.
Right, right.
And then I think several of his other
stories have also been picked up for
either movies or –
You know,
animations and that kind of stuff,
like all of a sudden,
like his work is like about to be
all over streaming networks, Netflix,
Amazon.
Like, how do you feel about that?
When it comes to because I mean,
he's a like he's in his hands are
into so much stuff.
Right.
And then all of a sudden, like, boom,
TV is calling in.
Hey, these are called.
That's the great thing about creating,
man.
Like you said,
his hands are in so many things.
And I'm actually I'm not the
I'm not the most knowledgeable in his
work.
I've heard of his different projects.
But to create so many different things,
and then for a studio to actually take
interest and then build on those things,
that's the dream.
And not just one project.
He had multiple projects at one time,
it feels like,
within a few weeks or months of each
other,
get picked up for some type of
syndication.
I think that that's the goal.
That's the objective.
When you look at it, though,
The Walking Dead was that way.
It started out as a comic book.
Invincible.
To me, it's always cool.
I read that.
Like this big thing is bigger than life.
Yeah.
Like I still, to this day,
like I don't see my daughter loves to
watch invincible.
It's one of her favorite shows.
I cannot watch it because I know the
book in the book to me is a
hundred times better.
Better.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah,
which is so crazy because my brother
Elijah read like the big omnibus of it
and he finished it.
He was like, ah,
the series just doesn't hit the same.
It doesn't.
See, that's my point right there.
You read that first omnibus and my
daughter has all,
I think it's five omnibuses, I think.
Right.
And she read that first one and she's
like, damn,
I see what you're talking about.
She's like, it doesn't hit the same.
So now she's holding off reading
everything so she can watch it.
And then we go back and read like
the next omnibus of it.
Cause I just got her the whole thing
at once because we found them at a
secondhand bookstore for half the price.
So I was like,
let's just pick them all up right now.
While they have every single one,
just grab them.
That's awesome.
That is the objective.
That is the goal,
to build up as many books as possible.
And then, hey,
maybe one day somebody sees Jupiter Man
and is like, yo,
this would be a dope Saturday morning
cartoon.
Like, I grew up on Grave Star.
I grew up on He-Man.
I grew up on all the great eighties
cartoons.
And to have something like that for Drew,
I'm not even trying to get live action.
Cartoons is it for me.
Yeah, I kind of figured that one.
And I love that one cover that you
sent me of you and all your characters
around you.
I thought that was so dope.
Because it felt like...
Because I've seen it done by Stan Lee,
George Lucas with the Star Wars
characters.
I've seen it done with him.
And then I was like, dude,
this is like the coolest homage ever.
And what was crazy about it is you
haven't even seen those characters yet.
In the book.
So it's like this perfect tease because
I'm sitting there looking at it and I'm
like,
I know like five of these characters.
I'm like, there's some good shit coming.
Yes, for sure.
There's Sir Absolute in there who's my
freaking...
wrestling superstar like he's my ode to
eighties wrestling and he's in there
hancock is in it my brother's character
more eyes in it like there's so many
and which is so crazy is just like
majority of those characters are all based
off of friends of mine so like it's
like like my like the there's a female
character called ages that's my
girlfriend's character and she's in it and
it's like
Yeah, it feels good.
It's very surreal to see everything that
I've created in one place like that.
It's like Stan Lee.
The one thing that I felt is missing
from comic books, even to this day,
is back when Stan Lee was doing his
thing, running and gunning with Marvel,
he was a superhero in his own right.
Like all the writers and artists were,
they all had nicknames.
Like you knew who was drawing the book.
That's what made you,
or you knew who was writing it.
And that's what made you go to the
comic book store.
I don't think of that anymore.
Like- I will disagree with that.
Really?
I think we have her own modern-day rock
stars.
Because, I mean,
you have people like Todd McFarlane.
You have the Capullos,
the Jim Lees of the world,
the Daniel Warren Johnsons of the world,
the David Nakayamas, the James Tedians.
And that list could go on and on
and on.
And these guys within their...
like our own,
like in our own comic book medium,
of course we all know those names.
But if you walk to the random guy
on the street and say, Stan the man,
nine times out of ten,
they'll know who Lee is, you know?
a different time because comic books were
being born right at that time and these
guys become became rock stars and they
were shoveling out stuff in the masses for
ten cents an issue yeah oh and it's
one of those where you have to go
okay different time different situations
comic books were looked at as a getaway
from what the world was going through at
that time.
Very true.
And that's kind of what I want The
Adalberts to be too.
I kind of feel like
I kind of feel like the surrealism,
like the mythic adventure of comic books
is missing, at least for me.
There's a piece of like an other
worldliness.
Like when you open the book,
it kind of felt like the world was
coming out at you.
I don't know.
I kind of felt I really did feel
that way.
But if you want to feel that you
have to dive into the indie world.
Yes.
Yes.
I would say that with Marvel,
you're not going to get that with DC
because these stories have all been
recycled multiple times outside of what DC
is currently doing with DC KO and the
absolute universe that they have built.
But if you really want to feel like
you're being immersed into something new,
fresh and different,
you have to look to like the Boom
Studios, the Image Comics,
the Dynamite Comets, Mad Cave, Bad Idea,
you know.
And to me, those guys right now,
the Keen Spot, Zen Scope.
I mean, Ani Press,
they have Rick and Morty.
Well,
Rick and Morty just retired in December,
which hopefully somebody else will maybe
pick that comic book up and start running
with it again.
Maybe not.
Who knows?
I kind of hope it don't because all
my Rick and Mortys are going to shoot
up in value.
So being selfish there,
but my pick of Rick number one is
going to be like skadoodle up.
You know what I'm saying?
No skyrocketing.
But I really do think what you're saying
is born right now and being born every
day as we speak.
Right.
Those universes are being created by a guy
like you,
by a guy like Lloyd last night.
by a guy like you know matt who's
going to be on the show in the
the bruno catarinos of the world the
nicholas keaton casperos of the world who
does the vidalirium series right and shout
out he just get he just dropped the
name of his second book can't wait to
get my hands on that book my dude
but um everything you just said is is
why we're here right now right it's to
promote and highlight
guys like you and put the spotlight on
guys like you who are creating these
amazing universes and i'm glad you said
that dude because i just like it's there
it's just it's not where people are
looking it's not in mainstream it's not in
marvel it's not in dc you have to
take a step away from them give yourself
that
Ooh, that looks cool right there.
Let me grab that.
Like, who does this book?
Bad Idea?
What the hell is Bad Idea Comics?
Oh, Bad Idea Comics is a phenomenal,
phenomenal indie press.
And they have some really cool stuff out
on the shelves right now.
But it's taking that twenty-five foot
look.
at the comic book rack now i think
you're gonna find it um i think the
thing that kind of differs uh the idol
verse from a lot of uh comic book
you know comic book companies that are
coming out now even you know from the
sake of image or boom studios or whoever
else is well i want to say this
one thing cartoons today in my opinion
cartoons today
are not what they used to be.
This is not the cartoons that we grew
up with.
The Benton, the Avengers,
Earth's Mightiest Heroes,
even all the way back with Brave Star
and He-Man and all of those great cartoons
are not what it's not.
It's not the same,
which is why I think that we differ
even from our counterparts,
Concrete or Midnight Comics or even six.
We're vibrant, we're bright,
our plots are easy for both kids from
eight all the way up to fifteen, eighteen.
You can get the message and you can
enjoy it and it's fun, it's energetic,
it's entertaining.
I feel that it's something that a lot
of kids can grow up with and also
come out with it learning something,
which is what I really wanted it to
be.
I see what you're saying with that, yeah.
Because, I mean,
he is learning important lessons as he
goes in this.
And you get those, especially issue one,
you got those old G, like,
eighties cartoon vibes.
Like,
the only thing that I was waiting for
was to pop out was, like,
the rainbow to come across the screen.
The more you know.
That's hilarious.
You got to do one of those now.
You got to do that at least once.
Just a small panel, like a quarter panel.
The more you know.
The more you know.
that's funny um but yeah man yeah and
I yeah I wanted to be vibrant I
wanted it to be bright uh all of
our covers I wanted to be in your
face like you're turning on that's why our
that's why our logo is a freaking TV
like we are the Saturday show one of
the covers oh yeah for sure yeah this
is probably my favorite one right here let
me uh do a little present screen
here we go boom yeah that's the one
see that's when that's the one I was
like oh like this is a Native American
Black Adam yeah man uh that's that's
Jupiter man um funny enough I got some
inspiration uh of this where did I get
inspiration from this
this is actually inspiration from a
superman cover that i saw on pinterest and
i was like let's flip this around add
some lightning specs put jupiter man in
there funny i one of the background so
uh i don't want to get this is
one thing i don't want to give away
don't give away spoilers unless you want
to because once it's in the once it's
out there it's out there
I think I'm going to let it go.
There are undertones.
I really like this one too.
The purples and the blue and the pink.
This is Jupiter Man in the spirit world,
quote unquote.
um but yeah man like this i just
wanted i wanted to be i wanted to
be vibrant i wanted to be something that
if you walked into a comic book store
and you saw it like next to your
superman or batman and it's like yeah what
is this i i don't know if you're
gonna buy it but i at least want
you to pick it up no and you
gotta think though a lot of people when
they walk in the comic book store the
first thing they look at is the cover
right does that cover jump out at you
right
I can't tell you the number of some
of my favorite reads I've have is because
I seen the cover and was just like,
what the hell is that?
Let me get that.
And then it turns out to just be
this fantastic reading.
That's actually how I discovered Tinian to
begin with was the Department of Truth.
Right.
And then later on,
when he did some stuff for what?
Well, it's Vertigo again,
but it was DC Dark or Black Label
when he did the last house by the
lake or the nice house by the lake.
It was just this dark story.
The nice house by the lake was the
cover with the guy in the bathtub floating
in body parts in the bathtub.
And I was just like, holy shit,
that's a wild cover.
And I was just like,
that's insane that that's a cover.
And I was just getting back into comics
at the time with my daughter.
And I was just like, ooh,
I like this.
I like conspiracy theories.
That's why it's led me to the Department
of Truth.
And, you know, it's...
Covers say a lot.
If the cover jumps out,
people are going to pick it up.
If they pick it up,
they're going to flip pages.
So that's your ultimate seller right there
is to have these covers that evoke some
type of emotion and make people want to
pick it up.
And it took some time.
It really did take some time.
I can't tell you how many different times
I've had to go back to Jeff and
be like, hey, Jeff,
I just switched up the way that I
did the branding for the cover.
Could you go back to the PDF and
switch it around?
Like, there's been so many times,
down to our games being static.
I switched the logo a couple of times.
Like,
the Jupiter Man logo has been switched.
Our borders are supposed to be, like,
TV screen-like borders at the bottom.
It's, like, so many different things.
And I finally found something that,
you know, I'm pleased with.
The fact that it looks like an actual
Saturday morning cut scene where it's,
like, we'll be back.
Yeah.
yeah i'm i'm proud of it super proud
you know you should be dude you've earned
that right to be proud of this product
dude because it is a fantastic read a
fantastic story character development is
amazing and like i said earlier in the
show when you were describing how this how
the world is actually working
You're not getting that until probably,
like, what, issue three or issue four?
There's only two issues out right now.
Issue three,
it blows up issue three for sure.
So, yeah, so, like, when I read it,
I'm thinking, like,
this whole thing is real.
Right.
You know,
I'm thinking these gods gave him powers
and you know,
he's a real cop in this real small
town and he really has this girl in
prison and now you're telling me like, oh,
ain't none of that shit real.
Oh, well, it's real.
The girl is real.
Ah, okay.
At least his girl is real.
The girl is real.
Alright.
I was like, man,
don't do it that dirty.
Oh,
so what I wanted to tell you is
there are undertones of
the story of moses in his story okay
i have to go i have to go
back and look at that because that should
have jumped out a little bit more moses
is my favorite biblical tale and and
you're not gonna you're not gonna really
see it in the first two but as
the story goes on as the story moves
on it's gonna be like oh i see
what you okay i see what you did
there but there are i was just saying
because i didn't really see anything in
issue one or two that gave me that
kind of like feel you know
But as the story moves on,
just because there was one,
which is so funny.
If you ever scroll back through my
Instagram, there is a picture,
one of the first covers that I upload.
And then it's the Deliver Us song from
Prince of Egypt as it introduces the
cover.
And it's because his backstory is kind of
tagged to that loss almost.
gotcha like um he doesn't know who he
really is you know thinking thinking that
he's these ethereal superhero and then
finding finding out he comes from like
really humble beginnings yeah like
supposed to be like this savior for far
more than you know you know native
american people you know the oppressed and
you know the people that really that
really are downtrodden and you see that
throughout his you know his story no i
i yeah
You have my love and respect on this
one, dude,
because it is such a fun and enjoyable
read.
Now, I got to ask you,
what does success look like to you beyond
your sales numbers and beyond the dollar
value on this?
Man, creating a community.
That's why I wanted to get on this
podcast.
That's why I'm giving out for free to
as many hands as possible.
You won't have to pay for the third,
but I'm giving out.
Hey, let me know, dude.
Let me know.
Are you gonna Kickstarter the third?
Everything is, I only,
I have come up with my own rule.
I will only be doing Kickstarters once the
books are done.
Okay.
That is my number one rule because after
that it's about getting you guys cool
stuff.
Like I'm not like a big pin stickers
guy, but getting like posters.
If I can do t-shirts,
then we'll do t-shirts.
We'll do art by,
I work with a lot of amazing artists.
So I'm trying to get all that cool
stuff out to you guys.
Plus cameos because I'm a big cameo guy.
So I love that idea.
I will always love that idea.
Yeah.
If you're trying to get in the book,
then I'll definitely try and get you in
the book and try to get you a
character.
Because what I also do is with the
character spotlights is we you partner up
with me.
We make the character.
I create the design.
I also I'll send you a character sheet
card with the character in it.
the backstory, the powers,
and then you get a secret file with
the IDV.
That's dope.
I send that off to you for it
to be framed or whatever you want to
do with it.
I really like that.
I can send you some of the stuff
because I've done that for a friend of
mine.
I love that kind of stuff.
I love helping promote Kickstarters and
that kind of stuff.
I've done...
a lot of Kickstarter promotions.
I love bringing those guys on and letting
them sell their book to people.
You know what I'm saying?
It sounds weird,
but to sell themselves to the audience to
promote their book,
because that's essentially what you're
doing is selling yourself to people to get
them to come and support your comic book.
It still feels weird to say that,
but that is exactly what we're doing.
But yeah,
I plan on when all the when the
book is done,
I plan on selling physicals through
Kickstarter, either Kickstarter,
Indiegogo, you know, whichever.
And I have a problem with Indiegogo's
backside, like they're back in stuff.
Right.
Yeah.
I do like Kickstarter a lot more because
it seems like it's an easier flow.
And the last time I purchased somebody
from Indiegogo,
I ended up having to go back and
pay Indiegogo.
for shipping on the back end myself
through just sending the money to him to
send me the stuff.
Really?
I'm thinking of going back to Kickstarter
just because a lot of people were talking
to me about that problem.
But the first time I did Kickstarter,
I thought I got funded,
but basically it was a lot of scammer
money that I was being given.
Yeah, so that's...
I think you get that on both sides
of the house,
whether it's an Indiegogo or a
Kickstarter.
And it's...
I think it's a lot better now.
I don't know when the last time you
ran a Kickstarter was.
It was a while back.
Yeah,
I think they've gotten a lot better about
that.
And basically...
They lock your money.
Once you put in your support,
that money gets locked, basically.
The way it doesn't go through is if
the funds aren't there.
Okay.
Yeah, well, like I said,
I plan on getting all the books done
first.
And then when it kickstarted,
it gets you guys the physicals because I
really want to focus on making sure that
I have all the rewards on the back
end and that you guys get the finished
product as quickly as possible.
So that means the minute that the
Kickstarter ends,
I'm off to USPS to send you your
stuff.
Dude, I like that.
And I hear this goes both ways.
Like I know some guys who...
And it depends on the individual too,
right?
Like a lot of people say,
have the money on hand to have the
books printed and done and ready to go.
And you're only using the Kickstarter
basically to fund what you've already done
and get yourself the headstart for the
next issue.
But I've also known people on the opposite
end of that to where if they didn't
have Kickstarter,
the book wasn't getting made period.
And the dream was ended.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like being, me personally,
the books are getting made regardless.
I just want people to enjoy them.
Like this, I'm not gonna lie to you,
is not,
it's not a money thing for me.
And I tell a lot of people that,
and they're like, what?
I mean,
you want to get paid for this?
I was like, of course,
of course you want to get paid for
it.
But this is a, this is a dream.
Like this is a creative outlet just to
get,
because
ADHD is a real thing.
Sometimes that out ADHD and those other
things need a way to a,
for the person to get stuff out that
they keep in.
And they just,
some people just are a bottle of energy.
And I think you're just a bottle of
energy and ideas that just needs a outlet
to express itself.
And you've chosen to do comic books and
to write stories and bring these heroes to
life.
and yes it's dope dude i'm glad you're
doing it yeah man i'm yeah so the
books are the books are going to get
made regardless i just want to build a
community of people if i could get ten
people always asking me hitting me up
annoying bro when's the next book when's
the next book what's the next i would
accept that without any complaint and i'll
continue making books that's the ultimate
compliment is it not
Yeah.
When's the next book coming out?
Like I would like if you went and
come in on this podcast,
I would have been that guy after you
had sent me the books.
Like if we were for some reason,
I wasn't able to get you on the
podcast.
And for some time and things happen,
I would still be there.
Hey, dude.
What's up with number three?
Right.
Right.
How can I get my hands on number
one and number two for real?
You know?
And yeah, man.
Yeah.
I'm a physical media guy.
I love,
I love having the electric copies of,
I love having the PDFs.
I think they're really cool.
I can like zoom in really far and
see like little details in the work and
the art,
but it's something about physical media
that will, I will always love.
Right.
And what, so,
and we're also working on that as well.
Like I'm working with Kablam printing
currently and,
I don't know if I'm going to continue
that,
but for now I'm trying to get it
up on their site so people could always
go to Kablam Printing to get physicals.
And I think I'm also going to go
Comics Wellspring and maybe mix them,
but I'm working on getting site right now
and then getting some stuff on hand so
I can send out to people.
uh yeah but um but yeah i'm i'm
really trying to build a community around
it if anybody wants to check out the
first two please just dm me because that
would be awesome and i'll send it to
you if he's making the offer dm him
the books are worth the read and dude
just
I wrote out this whole long interview and
we just been sitting here talking like two
dudes almost the entire time.
And, uh,
and I love when conversations are this way
because it's just two dudes hanging out
and talking about what we love about the
work, you know what I'm saying?
Um, but.
What is next?
When can we expect that number three,
though, to start hitting it,
whether it's Kickstarter or if it goes up
on your Instagram, like, hey, DM me and,
you know,
I will get you the third book.
It will work out like when can we
expect number three?
OK,
so right now we're in the pencil and
ink phase with number three.
I'm working on once we get that phase
done,
then everything is going to go to a
man, Jeff,
who's going to polish it up real nice
for us.
So I'm probably going to be able to
expect it within the winter,
within the winter of twenty twenty six.
So most likely sometime next year near.
Yeah,
that'll probably be the best time for it,
because then I'll be working on putting
together all three one,
two and three to get it out to
you for the people that want the first
three books as a limited edition.
As like a trade paperback?
Yep, in a holo.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, so I'm really excited.
That's the extra nineties right there,
putting that holo cover.
Although I will say, last year,
holo covers came back out of nowhere.
That and foils,
they made this huge comeback.
Not to the point where it wasn't like
the nineties, thankfully,
but you were starting to see a lot
of really cool
hollow covers and foil covers and stuff
like that.
It wasn't to the point like it was
in the nineties because the nineties was
off the charts with that.
It's like every other comic book had
hollow or foil or something.
Right.
So that's the plan.
The plan is next winter to have the
third done.
And then hopefully not only will I have
the first, second and third episode,
but also the first episode
of my girlfriend's comic,
Aegis the Immortal Sister,
which I would love to come back on
the show to talk to you about.
Dude,
pull her up a chair right next to
you.
We'll do it again, dude.
For sure.
Hang on, let me, my mind is like,
I'm preparing in my head for this winter
storm that we're supposed to be getting.
Oh man, I'm preparing over here too.
Yeah, you're right there with me, dude.
And so, like,
all my brain cells are going to, like,
okay, dude, I remember this, this, this,
and this.
And I remember to pay this, this,
and this.
Lucky Devil Comics.
Him and his wife.
Love them to death.
Great people.
But they did...
She helps him with the comic book.
She helps him with some minor details and
some of the background type of stuff and
develops some of that kind of things.
And I interviewed both of them at the
same time because when we first brought
them onto the show, she was sitting there.
She's like, hey,
I'm just going to get up and let
y'all talk.
I'm like...
you played a part in this.
What are you doing?
Sit your butt back down.
We're all going to have a great
conversation.
We're all going to have a great talk
and talk about, you know,
the plague because that's the name of the
book.
Right.
And she's like, really?
Her husband's like, yes.
Yes.
So I enjoy that kind of stuff.
Like, I don't need me.
Bring your brother to shit.
We're making a party, man.
We'll talk about it.
And to me, this is fun.
It's coming out to a more.
This ain't even a, this ain't like,
this ain't a job for me.
This is just me talking about some of
my favorite things with great people and
putting, you know,
people like you own in a spotlight to
have some time to discuss your book.
That's great.
And I love doing this kind of stuff.
Like,
shit.
This is like after this,
this kind of week and the kind of
weekend we're about to have,
this is my highlight.
This is no getting to talk to Lloyd
last night,
who I met just a few months ago
through Matt and then talking about his
book.
That's about to come out.
Right.
And then talking to you tonight,
I'm like two in a row.
I'm going to have a nice,
relaxing weekend where I edit some videos,
get them prepped to go to YouTube,
into the podcast platforms,
chalk these up,
get them out to you and Lloyd.
That's a great weekend, dude.
And it's going to be shitty weather
anyway, so...
But so we're looking at the winter.
Yeah.
Twenty twenty six for issue three.
I know I'm going to be like one
of the first dudes in line to get
issue three to end one because I want
physical copies, man.
And that's like I love digital.
I do.
But there's something about that physical,
physical book.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
For sure.
I'm glad to see it's going to be
expanding.
Your brother's got a role in it.
Your girlfriend's got a role in it.
That's really dope that it's all about the
people you love and them having their
stake in this Idolverse as well,
which is really cool.
You mentioned you did have Nemesis waiting
in the wings.
What else do you have waiting in the
wings?
oh well beside your girlfriends and your
brother's story what else do you got uh
so i'm working on so my other friend
his uh he has a vigilante character named
braven uh who is more of like a
street terror character you know raised in
baltimore uh uh newly that's what that one
short story was right exactly yep yeah
uh he's coming he's coming out with his
own book called bravery that dude had that
dog in him yes for sure for sure
so he'll he's uh he his first episode
i'm currently working on i'm also working
on a character called galvarino um there
was such a cool native american story
about a mapuche warrior that got his arms
cut off and then he put blades in
his forearms
and took down conquistadors and i was like
they had to have made wolverine from this
particular character that's some gangster
ass right there dude nobody created a
character based off of this story no comic
book so it's just out there all right
let me get in i'm in i'm in
so uh so i created a character named
galvarina i'll send you that too but i'm
working on that story as well and um
Wow.
I felt like it's such the right time.
Like it's, it's like,
it's definitely the right time to do a
story like that, especially with,
you know, the, our world at current.
Um, and I was like, let me,
let me put something,
let me put something together that,
you know, people can rally behind, uh,
a cool, a cool story.
Cause I'm all about nuance and about real
world messaging mixed with, you know,
putting it in the outputs and creating
something fascinating.
And, um,
yeah i did that with the galvarino story
and i'm that's something else that i'm
really really proud of and um i actually
got there's a cool pin up up that
that's on my facebook page with galvarino
and one of his villains called comanche
that um that i have to go back
and check that one out yes like i
said when i'm putting this stuff together
i go back through i look at the
facebook i look at instagram i try to
pull like tidbits of stuff out of
everywhere and if you have a website
that's even better because then i can just
go straight to the website
and start pulling your info off of it.
And that just makes life easier.
I'm working on,
I'm working on trying to design a website
for us, you know,
to just put all our stuff up there.
Yeah.
Cool.
But, but yeah, I'm doing that.
And let me see what else I'm working
on there.
Okay.
So there are,
There are some obscure characters that on
this is this is something I'm working on
slow because there are a lot of characters
involved.
But there was a comic book company made
by a bunch of African-American creatives
way back in the nineties alongside
Milestone.
And for like a month it was Milestone
and Aenea Comics.
And a lot of the characters faded into
obscurity.
They had characters like Zoana,
the son of Zulu, Purge.
It's funny you mentioned that.
Lloyd's comic book last night that he's
doing, Brother to the Night,
is based off a character like that.
Wow.
Yeah.
So I'm taking all of their care.
I'm taking except for Purge because Mr.
Roosevelt Pitt,
he still uses that character.
It's his character.
Yeah.
But all the other curators have seemingly
fell off the face of the earth.
I've tried to get in contact with them.
I tried to talk to them,
but they their characters are gone.
They're just in the wings,
they're obscure.
And so what I wanted to do was
create a graphic novel,
basically bringing together all the cool
obscure characters that I found.
I found Captain Africa.
Ebony Warrior, Zoana, Son of Zulu,
and Heru, the Son of Asar.
And I brought them together into this
graphic novel that I'm doing called The
Land of Aenea,
where it's basically about saving Africa,
basically, but saving the world,
but it's based in Africa.
Yeah.
but that's going to be a really cool
graphic novel to get together.
And it was a lot of companies in
the nineties that kind of, Oh yeah.
They came in swinging and then they were
gone.
Then they were gone.
And Neil was definitely one of them.
They had, they had, it was literally,
they were in,
They were in like news.
They were in the news.
They were in newspapers.
It was them and Milestone for like a
month.
And then, you know,
money came into it and then, you know,
they kind of fell off.
But I felt like it's kind of wild,
dude, because especially in the nineties,
I remember buying so many different number
one comics from so many different
companies.
Yeah.
And then I would be waiting for a
number two to come out and it would
just never.
Yep.
Yeah.
It just never came.
I'm like, Whoa,
what happened to this character?
I want to know what happens to them.
Like I invested in this number one,
because a, it was a cool hollow cover.
Right.
And,
and B these characters were really dope.
And they told a really dope story in
this first issue,
like how this team came about.
I'm like,
I need to know where they're going.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's how I felt when I found
out about Aenea because I found out
through a Roosevelt Pits Purge.
And I was like,
he was connected to like this whole comic
book company that, you know,
didn't come to be.
And I was like, what is Aenea?
And then I did all this research and
I was like,
no and i me i have there's a
soft spot in my heart for obscure
characters for characters could have been
something and i was like i create comic
books it's just gonna be another project
that i'm gonna do so yeah that's something
that i'm writing slowly and i actually
made a cover to go to go along
with it and i have no problem sending
you that to you know show that's one
of those where that's what i loved about
the nineties is so many obscure characters
came and left
and but at the same time you invested
into it especially for like me i was
just getting into comic books and i had
that very brief moment from where i got
to enjoy comic books before my life went
into a whole nother direction and joined
in the military and um
I didn't come back around to it until
my daughter was like, hey,
can we stop at this comic book store?
I was like, yeah, sure.
And then I realized like Spawn was still
being made and a few other comics.
I can get back into this.
And that's what I've been doing.
And now here I am talking to indie
comic creators on a Friday afternoon,
you know, and I'm like,
what's better than this?
Man, it's a great thing.
But yeah, I'm working on Galvarino.
I'm working on Age of the Immortal Sister,
Land of Nia,
and the last project that I'm slowly
working on is something that's near and
dear to my heart.
I made a Black Adam,
so I had to make Captain Marvel.
Dude, that's what's up.
So I made,
so there was a character that was coming
out back when
there was this whole battle over Captain
Marvel between DC and, you know, Marvel.
DC created Captain Thunder,
and it was supposed to be basically the
black version of Captain Marvel,
basically.
But it never came to be.
So when I found that out,
I was like,
so you guys just abandoned Captain Thunder
and did nothing with him?
Okay, cool.
So now I'm coming out with a Captain
Thunder project that I got some pages for,
too.
So I'm...
There's some pages done for that one.
I got a couple of different covers done.
And it's a character called Willy Walsett.
And he's born and raised in Acostia, D.C.
And he gets his powers from a wizard
called Yith Gamal.
And he goes on.
And then after that,
that's basically where the similarities
between Captain Marvel and Captain Thunder
cease.
Because after that,
he goes on this giant spiritual journey.
in thundara which is this land that i
created filled with monsters and aliens
and it's like this completely spiritual
realm that he has to go into and
basically discover how to use his powers
so that's dope it's got like a lot
of little dungeons and dragons undertones
into it i was like the moment you
started saying like i was like this was
like a lot like dnd man that's like
a whole storyline there like that's what's
up
And actually him and Jupiter Man are going
to cross paths because Jupiter Man is
going to teach him a little something
about how to summon lightning.
which he doesn't say nice.
So yeah, nice.
Cool story.
I love that you built this massive,
massive universe that is ever expanding.
Yeah.
And you are not limited in it to
like your core little circle, you know,
like some comic book companies do.
You're like,
Oh,
I found this one character from back in
the sixties that only got used once.
Let me drag his ass over here.
He's he's now he's one of us.
He's one of us.
Okay.
So there's one last project that I'm
working on that.
I actually got a couple of pages for
as well.
It's a Halloween comic.
Those are my favorite.
I love Halloween comics.
Every September,
I start looking forward to those Halloween
comics coming out.
It's a comic book called Idle Crawlers.
There's a really dope guy on TikTok called
called Barry Morton.
He created this,
he created his own horror universe called
the Crawlers,
which is basically like these characters
called the Horvidians that like basically
live in like this dark,
dark sector of like the spirit world.
And what I wanted to do is I
asked him, I was like, bro,
would you mind?
Because this is after I read the book,
Deceased.
And I was like, man,
this book is so dope.
Yeah, but the DC deceased, right?
Yeah, yeah.
That was the dopest Justice League comics
I've read.
Dude,
that's been my favorite DC of the last
five years.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
And I asked him, I was like, bro,
would you mind?
Oh, no.
So I read Deceased,
and then I watched the new Marvel Zombies
series that came out.
Yeah.
And I kind of felt that it was
a bit lackluster, in my opinion.
It was.
The Marvel version of it didn't measure up
to DC Deceased.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
I mean, it came close in certain aspects.
Yep.
DC Deceased?
That was another level of darkness, man.
Like, if all of DC read like that,
it would be a DC for life.
No, for real.
Honestly.
And I read, like,
all of them in one day.
I was like...
It's funny because I read them like as
they come out, right?
Right.
But then when I finally had them all,
I just had them all out on my
desk.
And I was just like, all right,
let's start with number one.
Right, right.
Then I just read them all in one
sitting and I was just like,
You know what?
Let me come back over here again and
give it another.
Because it was just that good.
You read it once and you're like,
I know I missed something.
And you pick it up again and you're
like, I did miss stuff.
And the more you pick it up and
the more you read it,
you find little nuances in the story.
You find little nuances in the art.
You see that characters actually decayed
more as the art grew.
There was like the continuity of that book
was phenomenal.
Right.
So the story.
So I asked the guy that created his
own horror universe.
I was like, bro,
would you mind if I created a comic
book mixing my team,
my superhero team with the monsters that
you created?
He was like, yeah, bro, go ahead.
And I was like, oh,
you shouldn't have told me that.
So my mind is just my mind is
just rolling.
And I basically so he had.
So basically there's this deity,
this angel deity.
that was casted down to save the world
from this dark dimension of beings that
were rising up.
And he went into the dark dimension and
chose to be kind of like their keeper.
And he was slowly tormented over time.
So I was like, oh man.
So basically in an alternate realm of the
idol verse,
where the one for all team is basically
doing their thing they defeat this being
like this this ultimate villain called
grim seed and the cataclysmic effect of
that battle opens up the portals through
like every planet in the universe and the
horvidians spew out and leviathan calls
out to everybody and slowly turns them
into night crawlers
And you get infected by like hearing his
song almost.
Like he speaks to your depression.
He speaks to anger and aggression and you
slowly become demented.
And I was like,
Hancock was the first one that had to
be infected.
I was like, oh yeah,
I'm just going to infect my character and
see where this goes.
So that's another comic book that I'm
working on.
I'm big into horror, so I was like,
yeah.
Horror comic books are like my number one
jam, dude.
Like,
My new comic book is over there,
and there's exquisite corpses in there.
There's some darker stuff from Boom
Studios and Dark Horse.
Anything related to horror or the
creepiness and just the general blood,
the gore,
the stuff that Marvel and DC won't give
you in most circumstances unless it's on
the Vertigo label or the Black Label.
you know,
that's one of the main reasons I love
the indie stuff is, oh,
that person just cut off that other
person's face and then put their face on.
You know?
And they show it panel by panel by
panel by panel.
And you're like,
that's why I read comic books.
But yeah, those are all the things.
Those are really all the things that I'm
working on currently.
You have a
a very busy life and you probably have
a normal job as well, right?
Oh yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Those stubborn nine to fives.
Exactly.
That's how I do what I do.
And that's how I continue to bring people
like Nathan, Mr.
Unchained Unlimited to the USDN.
Before I let you go, man,
Your final message to readers who are
discovering your work tonight.
And when you drop your third issue,
I want to know about it right away.
That way I can share it with all
the council members.
I appreciate it.
One last final message to readers
discovering your work.
Oh, man.
When you open...
you open jupiter man one when you open
jupiter man two or any idol verse project
i want you to go back to when
you poured that bowl of cereal so when
you sat in front of that tv on
saturday mornings uh remember your
childhood remember the things that made
you dream big and uh don't forget go
beyond and look to the sky love it
dude tell everybody where they can find
you before we get off the air tonight
You can find me on Instagram, TikTok,
Facebook at either Mr.
Unchained Unlimited or the Idolverse with
a Z. And yeah,
that's how you can get all of our
updates.
Love it, dude.
I want to send a huge thank you
to Nathan for joining us today.
It's been a pleasure to talk to you,
get more details on what the Idolverse is,
and get to know you more and what
you have planned for the future.
But if you believe in inclusive
storytelling,
indie creators doing it right,
make sure to follow, share,
and support Jupiter Man and the Idolverse.
Until next time.
The Council of Nerds is adjourned.
This has been the United States Department
of Nerds, where indie comics come to life.
Y'all be safe out there in this crazy
weather we are about to get.
Peace.