The United States Department of Nerds Podcast

Len Mihalovich, creator and publisher behind Lenovations Press, joins the USDN Podcast to discuss building a lasting indie comics universe across decades.

From the 1990s indie comic boom to today’s creator-driven landscape, Len shares his journey from rejection letters and early publishing struggles to launching Section 12 and establishing a boutique publishing model focused on quality and longevity.

We explore:
 • Breaking into comics in the 90s
 • Indie publishing challenges and distribution collapse
 • The evolution of Section 12
 • Building Lenovations Press
 • Creating comics beyond Kickstarter
 • Sustaining a long-term indie publishing vision

This episode is a deep dive into persistence, storytelling, and what it really takes to build something that lasts in indie comics.

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📢 ABOUT USDN PODCAST
The USDN Podcast is a creator-focused media platform dedicated to indie comics, crowdfunding, and the people shaping the future of storytelling.

🎙️ Hosted by The Chairman
 📅 New episodes weekly

Business / Media Inquiries: thechairman@usdnpodcast.com

What is The United States Department of Nerds Podcast?

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.

Oh, my God.

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 some creators chase the

industry others build their own from the

indie boom of the to today's creator

driven comic renaissance one publisher

never stopped telling stories not for

trends and not for algorithms

They kept doing it for the love of

the medium.

This is more than comments.

This is legacy.

Tonight, we are joined by Lynn Mihalovic.

Mihalovic.

Yeah, I was close.

That's okay.

creator and publisher behind Linovations

Press,

a boutique indie comics imprint built on

passion, persistence,

and storytelling that spans decades.

This is a conversation about longevity,

creativity,

and what it really takes to build

something that lasts in indie comics.

The Council of Nerds is now in session.

Lynn, welcome to the USDN.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

and i apologize for your name i am

not a name person i i try my

damn this though i was practicing before

we we got started and before you had

popped in i'm like i'm gonna say it

like this and if it's wrong it's wrong

and apologize about it so somebody who

calls himself the chairman and doesn't use

his real easy to pronounce name okay hey

the chairman is a character that's all i'm

saying all right

But, uh,

so take us back to the early nineties

and what got you doing,

what created innovations press?

Well, okay.

Um, I have problems editing my story,

but I'll try.

Um, so way back, way back when, um,

I always been a comic fan,

sent in stuff.

I won a Marvel No Prize.

Just a big,

big super fan all my life as a

kid growing up, whatever.

Then all of a sudden,

I turned a magic age,

I went whitewater rafting.

I went doing all kinds of dangerous

things.

And I'm like, you know what?

I want to try this whole comic writing

thing.

So it's like every senior graduating

college, I'm like, here I am, world.

I'm ready to do it.

And you just get slapped in the face

because you're like, you know,

get out of here, kid,

because everybody has tried this before.

And you're just one of many.

I started collecting all my rejection

letters.

I have my one from Marvel on my

website, actually.

But I sent submissions to everybody.

I wanted to be a comic writer.

That's what I wanted to do.

This is going to be fun.

I know so much about it.

I know the whole history of Marvel, DC,

you know, Archie,

whoever's going to hire me.

I was ready to write some stories.

And I got rejection letters from all of

them.

But it wasn't until I got the one

from Dark Horse that was that really

resonated with me because it was an editor

who took some time,

took the form letter and wrote on the

other side of it.

Some suggestions that I should do said,

you know, my samples were decent.

I've never been published by anybody else.

So, of course,

they wouldn't want to take a chance on

me.

OK.

Yeah.

So that was that was a valid thing.

And she said to get published like

anywhere that you could just just write,

just write, get published,

work with editors, get better at it.

So I did all kinds of zines and

fan fiction and things like that.

I got picked up by the Comic Buyer's

Guide,

which was a comic newspaper back in the

day.

And I wrote a couple of articles for

them.

I wrote something for a collect magazine.

I wrote something for Indie Magazine.

I wrote a feature there.

So there were a lot of things that

I wrote.

And then I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to take the second part of

her suggestion,

and I'm going to make my own comic

series,

and I'm going to start shopping it.

And I'm not going to shop it to

Marvel or DC.

I'm going to shop it to these smaller

publishers.

So way back when we had that comic

buyer's guide,

which was a comic newspaper that came out

every week,

little publishers would take out ads in

there, you know,

pitching their books and everything.

So I collected all these little publishers

and I started sending out my samples of

a series I created called Section Twelve

to them.

And the first one I sent out to,

you know,

Dilemma Productions out of Springfield,

Massachusetts,

about two hours away from my house.

He called me.

He's like, I want to do this.

He goes, I'm doing a book right now.

And he goes,

I want to do this one, too.

I can't afford to do both.

So we're going to put it together.

We're going to make an anthology.

You know, I'll take half your story,

half my story.

And we'll and we're in this together.

And I'm like, absolutely.

This is great.

The guy's name was Mike Kelleher.

And he he works for Marvel, D.C.,

all kinds of places right now.

But at the time,

he was just self-publishing his book,

Legend Killer.

We had Section XII on the other side.

He called it Dilemma Presents.

It was one of those black and white

flippy books.

Very indie.

And they're still out there on eBay if

you want to find them, folks.

It ran for four issues before it got

shut down by all of the...

all of the stuff that was happening back

in the nineties with comic publishers.

So after that,

I had met during the convention trail,

this guy called named Phil Miller.

And he was a really nice guy.

I met him up in Utica.

and i'm like i really want to work

with you as an artist you're fantastic i'd

love to see how you draw section twelve

he drew a story for me it was

wonderful and i'm like okay we're gonna

we're gonna have this as number five of

dilemma presents and mike's like no we

can't do that

So then I was able to cut a

deal with a company in Canada called

Mythic Comics,

and they picked up Section XII as a

full feature.

So Phil redrew the first issue of Section

XII.

It looked beautiful.

It became their bestseller.

It got that diamond spotlight or whatever

in the catalog.

Everybody loved it.

And then...

Mythic had to close doors because Marvel

bought distributors and if you didn't use

their distributor,

if you weren't Marvel or DC,

they weren't going to distribute the Indy

Comics.

So an Indy Comics publisher who's not able

to get to the store at the time,

it was just the kiss of death.

So we walked off into the sunset with

a lot of those stories,

never seeing the light of day.

So flash forward,

life happens to two thousand fourteen.

I'm working my real job.

I fly on a plane every week.

This is where the story gets really crazy.

I fly on a plane every week.

I'm one of those people who I work

on.

I work from Monday to Thursday off site

and then I fly home.

So I'm on the same plane every week.

commuting at this time I was commuting to

the Midwest and it happens that this guy

was on the plane and he was taking

up all the overhead space and it was

because he was pushing his way in front

of line and he was just getting there

first and I'd have to check my bag

every time because it's like I only carry

this one little backpack but he had four

suitcases and I'm like why are they

letting this guy carry four suitcases and

And I knew him because he wore a

ridiculous looking tracksuit that he

traveled with him.

So I was like, okay,

I'm going to get there at five in

the morning.

And just out of spite,

I'm going to stand right by the gate

the entire time for this, you know,

for this six thirty flight.

And I stood there for an hour and

a half.

And the gate agent said, okay,

anybody with any disabilities or anything

that needs to board first?

So this guy fake limps up there,

fake limps past the gate agent and then

runs down the jet by laughing.

And I was like, okay.

I'm putting this on social media.

I got to tell the world about this.

I did.

Week after week,

it was something different.

He would do something else to get on

the plane first.

He would foil me,

and he would get on the plane first.

One week,

he pretended he was the wheelchair guy,

and he pushed this woman with a wheelchair

onto the plane with him.

He pretended he knew her.

I was like,

wow, this is all really happening.

And I have photos of it and I'm,

I'm putting it on social media and my

following is growing.

And all of a sudden, you know,

people are asking my wife in the preschool

pickup line,

like what did tracksuit man do this week?

And what did tracksuit man do that week?

and so here i am now it's two

thousand fourteen and my my buddy mike

kelleher is like you know you should do

comics again because you just had a

perfect story fall on your lap make this

into a comic story and i'm like okay

so i took all of the social media

posts and looked at them and said okay

this can be a page and this can

be a page and so on the left

i would have the

the visual representation of it and on the

right i'd have everybody's comments which

were hilarious so that was tracksuit man

and

a funny thing happened when I did that

comic because as a writer,

I didn't really have a lot of skills.

So I had to go find an artist.

I had a, you know,

I had learned how to digitally color and

letter.

So I was able to do that.

I was a,

I had a printer who helped me with

all the pre-press stuff.

So I got it all.

I got it all together.

I printed it out.

It looked like a great book.

And then my comic friends started to come

back out of the woodwork.

I'm hearing from Phil Miller.

I'm hearing from Mike Keller.

And they're like,

let's do this let's make comics again

let's put section twelve back up and i

was like okay you guys want to do

this we'll we'll make uh we'll make

section twelve so we did we had all

these great stories from the nineties that

that never saw print so the question with

section twelve became

What do we do?

Do we do what everybody does?

And do we do we just rewrite everything

so that it's going to happen in twenty

twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen at

this point?

Or I said, no,

I think it's going to be cool if

we do if we set the whole thing

in nineteen ninety four and we keep it

in nineteen ninety four.

And then the other voice in my head

said.

But GPSs and cell phones and stuff like

that are cool too.

And I'm like, yeah, they are.

So what if we set the story in

the modern day

And I'm like, you know what?

I'm a little publisher.

I can do them both.

So I have both.

So I expanded my timeline by I did

all the nineteen ninety four stories that

I had in inventory.

And then I created another one in the

modern day where there's this team of

people that are looking for the section

twelve technology because it's all

futuristic, even even in two thousand.

that we're at at this point.

And they want to find all that technology

and it's valuable to them,

but it's all gone.

So it's a very interesting series because

I have to find a plausible way to

make things that were.

Twenty,

twenty two years ago at this point come

up.

In a plausible way that they can be.

that they can have survived.

So just as an example,

in the first issue,

we found this woman hires this guy who's

going to be one of the Section-XII new

team,

and he is paid to clear out a

widow's basement because she's moving to

Florida,

while all these boxes have the Section-XII

logo because her late husband was a

hoarder, and he worked at Section-XII,

and he was stealing stuff from the...

from the installation.

So he has all this top secret tech.

Sorry,

my head just went to Johnny Cash working

at the Cadillac plant and stealing all the

Cadillac parts.

Yes, exactly.

So that was one thing.

And then I had another where a guy

was in a coma for twenty years and

he woke up and he was nonverbal,

but he's painting pictures of what he saw

in section twelve and the logo was all

over the place.

So there's another plausible way.

So just just an example.

I had a lot of fun with a

storage locker that was prepaid for twenty

years and then got opened up and auctioned

off with a reality TV show.

Yeah.

And so so that was that series has

been a lot of fun and it's really

caught on.

We just we just released section twelve

declassified where the team finds a clue

and it takes them to a renaissance fair.

And I won't spoil it any more than

that.

So yeah.

It's really fun.

But the classic series is the one that

I love.

Section twelve is a top secret government

installation that keeps scientific

failures out of the public eye.

So every time something fails,

science wise, catastrophically,

they call this special team of superheroes

in that are all inmates of section twelve

because they were all parts of failed

experiments and their job is to cover

everything up so we have a we have

a lot of fun covering everything up and

recently people have been asking me so i

have started combining them into um not

quite graphic novels i call them mega size

comics so it's the first four issues of

section twelve

um paperbacks yeah yeah yeah it's it's

still in the floppy format it's you know

but

cause it's a little more inexpensive for

people that way, but it's like, it's nice.

Um,

and we've had a lot of success with

those.

So it's, um, because I'm,

I'm running out of the,

the original print runs.

So rather than, uh, reprinting a second,

a second run, I decided to, um,

make these mega size ones because I can

add some director's cut kind of stuff in

there.

And, you know, So,

You just basically answered a whole lot of

questions all at once, which is – No,

hell no, dude.

That is – I love that kind of

stuff.

When I could just ask a question and

just let the person go,

it makes for a whole lot of less

editing and stuff like that later.

So for me,

it's like ask a question and let them

go.

All right.

But let me see.

How far did you go?

Let's see.

So let's talk about section twelve.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's go back to the nineties for a

second because the nineties scene,

the birth of image,

the birth of image mirage was still

around.

Marvel DC was trying to do everything in

its power to stop the images and the

mirages and the black horses and those

types of people from Marvel.

being able to get their books into stores

that's well it's well known that's well

known history that that's what they were

doing but from an indie perspective a pure

indie perspective what was that like

watching image be born mirage and all

these other companies being born at the

time despite what marvel and dc were

trying to accomplish on their side and

then you

Like, hey,

I'm going to make comics now and kind

of jumping into the midst with the big

boys before some of them became big boys.

So I'll jump into my,

so you want to get into comics school

speech for a second.

I'll take a paragraph out of that.

No, dude, I love that.

Go for it.

Okay.

So publishing in the twenty-first century

was a lot different than publishing

public than it was in the twentieth

century.

So in the twentieth century,

a lot of publishers had things in black

and white just because it was so cost

prohibitive to do printing.

Digital printing wasn't really a thing.

You had to do the four color offset

stuff and that meant you were either

getting a thousand or two thousand copies

of something and you were going to have

them sitting in your garage when you sold

twenty, thirty copies a show.

at two or three dollars a piece.

The numbers didn't work well.

So it was tough.

You put in your

book was more like a magazine because you

put it in and for a month you

had some great sales you had sales from

diamond you had sales from capital city

you had sales from hero's world and they

would order you know twelve hundred books

fifteen hundred books things like that all

you had to do was show up in

the catalog and these indie friendly

stores would would get if you had a

good cover and a good description you'd

get the orders and that that was great

and that's exactly what you were saying

that

you know,

DC and everybody else hated because,

you know,

all you had to do was show up.

Um, and it was a lot of fun.

We, we got out there,

we got back then you've got fan letters.

We got fan letters from all over the

world.

It was great.

We, um, we got a call from, um,

and this is really aging me,

but we got a call from a company

in New Jersey that was filming a movie

about two comic creators that fell in love

and they wanted to have people be extras

in that movie.

And this director was a fan of our

comics.

So he had called my publisher and asked

if he and I would be willing to

drive down to Red Bank,

New Jersey and be extras in the movie,

Chasing Amy.

so it was like yeah we got to

spend the weekend that's really cool ben

affleck and you know we were in this

creepy hotel in new jersey and you know

they're all creepy in new jersey yeah it

looked like something out of shining um

yeah you know the good version of the

show oh i know which one you meant

yeah to me there's only one yeah so

it was like wow it was so much

fun hanging out with these guys for the

weekend and there were all kinds of indie

guys there um you know

And it was incredible.

So you were featured in Stan Lee's How

to Draw Comics.

Yeah.

How was that moment for you?

It was a Christmas present from Mike

Kelleher.

Mike was working with Stan Lee on how

to draw comics.

And he,

Stan and Mike were looking for something

that was a good...

good powerful page one image that was in

black and white that was a recognizable

indie comic because you know Stan was

doing this outside of Marvel so you know

and

The mind came up and Mike is like,

I know this guy.

Well, I can I can get this.

So it was it was Phil Miller's

illustration from from Section twelve,

which is in Section twelve flashback

number one.

And it was a fantastic illustration.

And it and it was in there and

it was in the in the section on

scanning and digitally cleaning up images,

you know, when they start with and they,

you know,

They got my permission.

They took it through the scan to the

digital cleanups and all of that.

So it was it was fantastic.

I did not get a Stanley nickname.

Mike did.

He's mighty.

Mike, tell her I did not get one.

I was a little jealous, but yeah.

It was great.

I met Stan once at a convention.

I never got to really work with him

much on that,

but Mike traded a lot of emails with

him.

He was corresponding with him a lot.

He said it was a great experience.

It's still I think I don't think I

know for a fact I had that book

in the nineties growing up.

Yeah.

And I wish I still had it to

this day because I remember getting it at

a bookstore because I was really big into

drawing.

I was trying it anyway.

I was never very good at it.

But it was just one of those where

it was a Stan Lee thing.

So it was one of those where I'm

like,

Stan Lee's going to tell me how to

draw comic books.

And I'm like, that's cool.

I want that.

And I remember getting it,

taking it home and trying to practice,

probably tracing the pictures from the

book.

So who knows?

I probably traced your... You might have,

yeah.

That's really cool, man.

As I was creating this interview over

here,

that was one of those where I was

like,

I have to tell him that because it's

so cool that you were featured in it.

I used to trace pictures out of that

thing like it was going out of style.

I'm pretty sure that was one of those

books where

i had some espn like comic books from

the nineties too where i probably just

wore right through the staples and

everything i traced out of it so much

just trying to learn how to do shading

and drawing and line work and like i

said i never got good at it but

it was i just i loved it you

know

We were in Borders one time,

a friend of mine and myself.

And I don't know,

he was ragging on me like, oh,

you wrote a comic book.

You know, good luck having it in here.

And I said,

I'll bet you dinner that I can find

my name in this bookstore.

And he's like, oh, yeah, right.

And then I went right over and they

had that book.

The deck was loaded because I knew they

had the book.

And I just opened it up.

I opened up the index and I'm like,

OK, here you go.

free dinner let's go yep exactly so what

sparked the creation of lenovations press

in which is just the coolest name ever

by the way because you literally got to

take the first part of your name and

just like add ovations in it and boom

yeah that's why it's called jay leno's

garage now because i got the domain first

uh

That's why the show is called Jay Leno's

garage They did contact me for it.

But no, um,

I I in another life I was a

web designer and I needed a cool name

and that was what I came up with

and Then at in twenty fourteen tracksuit

man was only gonna be a one-shot,

you know I'm you know,

I Want to prove that I can do

this thing.

So what do I call it?

Exciting comics good comics,

you know fun comics

Lenovations Press.

Okay.

You know,

because I already had the Lenovations logo

from the website and all of that stuff.

So I said, okay,

it's going to be Lenovations Press.

If I had known that it was going

to, like, turn into something,

I probably wouldn't have named it after

myself,

because there's a lot of other people that

are involved.

But here we are.

Hey, you know, it sounds cool.

It rose off the tongue really good.

So, I mean, hey.

Yeah.

But let me ask,

what does boutique publishing mean to you?

Because I love that word,

boutique publishing.

It just sounds fancy.

Again, we get together and we talk,

and it's kind of like –

I don't do Kickstarters because I have

this thing about holding on to somebody

else's money and making promises and

things like that.

So that's not my model.

My model is...

I go out there, I publish.

I have three or four sites that either

do fulfillment and do printing or that I

sell through.

I sell digital copies.

I sell print copies.

I have a stock here.

that i um do i do shows not

just comic shows i'll do you know fan

shows media shows craft shows sometimes i

do things events at schools i do you

know things at libraries so there's a lot

of things that i do um and how

do you what word brings all of that

eclectic stuff together you know and i

think a boutique publisher because

Yeah, I'm not in a lot of stores.

I'm in a couple of stores locally where

I can sign stuff, but that's about it.

Because I never went the diamond path,

which in twenty fourteen was really weird.

And everybody said, oh, good.

You didn't.

Yeah.

Don't do the diet.

You know,

don't do this without the diamond path

because you'll starve.

And I said.

through social media,

through the internet,

through just getting the word out,

I can make enough to cover what I

need to do.

And I have.

And it's like one comic funds the next.

And that's how this is all built.

So yeah, I'm not rolling in.

I'm not acting like a lottery winner.

But it's like it's paying for itself,

which keeps my wife happy.

And that's the important part, right?

Exactly.

So so that pays for itself.

But but little else.

So I thought boutique was really a good

word because think of a small specialty

shop that you would go in,

which is the only place that you can

go and buy something.

You know,

it's it's available some other places,

but, you know, not widely.

So so that's what we are.

We're a boutique publisher.

No, I like it.

And like I said.

Linovations Press, Boutique Publishing.

You've gotten these words that just roll

off the tongue just so well.

It is great marketing, too.

So, I mean... But no, hey,

if you're ever...

You need somebody to come do a show

with you, I know a couple of things.

I know enough to get me into some

trouble.

I love Mass.

Mass is so fun to be up there.

When it warms up.

We have a lot of fun at shows.

Yeah.

But...

When you say we don't chase volume,

we create something worth collecting.

It's another one of those sayings that you

have and I really like.

What is that?

Okay.

So I'm not looking to... Again,

me trying to edit my stories.

So when I delved into...

Public domain and golden age characters.

I was like, wow, this is great.

Here's all this content.

I could put out so many books just

by reprinting, you know,

all of these old Western stories,

these horror stories,

these superhero stories,

all of this stuff that's in the public

domain.

And I'm like,

I started reading it and I'm like,

I know why these books were canceled.

I'm sorry.

They're horrible.

So why should I devote my time, money,

and resources and that of the people that

work with me on a project that I'm

not excited about?

So I made a rule that we don't

publish something unless we're excited

about it.

So what you read is a fancy way

of saying we don't half-ass it.

You know,

I'm not putting out a book just to

say I put out more books.

So to brag,

I just sent off to the printer today,

book number forty and forty one from

Lenovations Press,

which we've been around a little over ten

years.

It's not it's not a startling number,

but I'm proud of it because a lot

a lot of indie creators don't get beyond

number five of

so you know yeah and i i interview

a lot of young kids coming up in

the in the industry right now and i

love talking to them i love to fill

their energy their excitement and we i was

just talking about this last night with

donald as well and it's like i hope

they have what it takes to make it

past that number you know they get to

two they get to three and then

the amount of work it takes to sustain

what they dream of.

I don't think that that's really caught up

to them yet.

And when it does catch up to them,

that's when you see the crash and burn.

Yeah, there's a,

there's a lot of crashes and burns.

Um,

Mega Size was born because everybody buys

the most recent one.

Everybody buys ones and twos.

What about three, four, five?

You know, when you start to get up.

I still got to bring them all to

shows.

But I'm going to.

You know what?

I call that the meat and potatoes of

any comic series.

That's the meat and potatoes.

Yeah.

So I was like, you know what?

By combining these into these little mini

graphic novels.

I don't have to carry as much stock.

And number three has just as much weight

now as number one, because it's in,

because it's, it's part of the same story.

It's in the same book.

Yeah.

So that's worked really well.

So you're in local shops up there.

So I need to feel that a lot

of local comic shops won't carry their

local comic book writers and artists.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's tough.

And the consignment thing is tough, too.

And I tell people this, you know,

because local shops, let's be honest,

it's not all brick and mortar store like

you see on TV or the movies.

Sometimes it's a guy at a flea market

that has a booth there every week.

you know yeah so it's stuff like that

too but what i've learned is if you're

going to consign things you have to visit

them often and you have to inventory often

because through you know it's not always

just one person working there and you know

through no fault of their own if you

leave if you leave twenty copies of

something there and they only have three

they're like oh

Who are you again?

I don't know.

We must have got these from somebody's

collection or something.

You have to keep renewing that

relationship.

That's a lot of work.

It really is.

I've definitely cut back on that because

I've been burned too many times.

I know...

There's some like Ray Raynett down in

South Florida drives like hours on end to

get to shops that will carry his product

on the shelves.

He has no problems doing that because he

has such a good relationship with that

shop, which is really amazing.

And I love to hear local comic shops

supporting their local artists and local

writers and local producers of comic

books.

When they have in-store sign-ins or

in-store promotions and stuff like that,

and they bring in the local people,

I always enjoy seeing that being done.

I just don't think it happens on a

scale that I wish it would.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Well,

part of it is not the store owner's

fault either,

because I've talked to a lot of store

owners about it.

They have these events and there's a big

store up by where Phil Miller lives.

And I'm like,

I'll do I'll drive up there anytime and

do a signing with him.

And, you know,

we have stuff coming out if you want

us on free comic book day or whatever.

And they're like,

not a lot of people show up.

And that's what happens.

I always also look at that as, okay,

where was the marketing from the LCS to

announce this thing was happening?

And it's a two-way street with that.

Mom and pop shops aren't going to do

what it takes to get that word of

mouth out there.

So if it doesn't do good that first

year they attempt it,

they're not going to come back a second

year to try it again because they wasted

money on the first year.

But

but did you market it the proper way?

And nine times out of ten,

the answer is no.

Yeah.

I did one about a couple years back

in Connecticut,

and the guy marketed it really well,

and it was a free comic book day

event,

and there were like fifteen of us there.

It was a mini comic show in the

back of his store,

because he had a huge store.

And it was like, I'm like, wow,

this is busy.

I made a lot of money.

I've connected with a lot of people.

And when you go to things like this,

to be clear,

When I say I made a lot of

money,

that just means that I got people

interested in my stuff,

which is really the goal.

It's not about the revenue that you bring

in.

It's about how many new readers are you

getting on board?

Because at the end of the day,

that's why we're making comics is for

people to read them and for people to

enjoy them.

And those people lead to clicks on the

website,

which lead to sales on the website,

which leads...

Yeah.

Our pockets being a little heavier.

And that's what you want.

And we were talking before we went live

about how many people cannot give that two

minute pitch on their comic book.

And it's their comic book.

Yeah.

So, well,

the other the other thing and I'll say

this for all these people that have a

problem with that at the show.

Just remember one thing.

OK,

if you can get the information in

somebody's hand,

if they're so so about it,

that doesn't mean just because they're not

buying it from you today doesn't mean that

they're not going to buy it from you.

The last comic show I went to,

I was packing up the car and my

phone started blowing up because people

were buying things that they, you know,

the show closed earlier than they thought

and they went on my website and went

out and bought it.

So that happens too.

Yeah.

So, fourteen years now,

what does it actually take to sustain a

publishing line over that long of a

timeframe from an independent perspective?

Five words.

Don't quit your day job.

That's why I have one.

That's why people are like, hey,

I shot you an email.

I'm like, yeah, I know you did.

I'll get to it when I get home.

Right.

Yeah.

Most of us do.

You know, big, big secret.

Most of us don't do this full time.

Can't do this full time.

Would like to do it full time,

but we don't.

Oh, yeah.

So.

There's so many people that I try and

counsel out of quitting their day job

because they think they think that this is

the path to success.

They think that this is going to make

them rich,

that they're going to be the next big

thing.

Much like when I got into writing,

I'm like, hey, world, here I am.

You know, it just doesn't work that way.

You have to take the ladder one rung

at a time.

And you're going to start from the bottom.

No matter how much you want to start

from the middle,

you're going to start from the bottom.

So what does it take?

It takes patience.

It takes a thick skin.

Just because people walk away from your

table at a show,

either rudely or not rudely,

You know, they're not rejecting you.

Sometimes people are not nice about it

either.

And they're like, oh, this sucks.

Or this is stupid.

Or I've seen something like this before.

it's used for people.

There's no more new comic book ideas out

there.

No, there's not.

It's been done in some way.

Everything is something else.

Yeah.

So, um,

one of the things that you have to

remember is sometimes it's not about you.

It's about them.

It's about they, we had,

we had an incident at a show, um,

last year where somebody came up and said

i could have done this better i i

draw better than this or i do that

i do better than this and it was

it was a little upsetting and hurtful the

way he was saying it so i talked

to the two guys that i was with

there and i said look i said this

this wasn't about you or your artwork at

all

it was about him feeling bad about himself

because he hasn't done this with his life

and he wanted to clearly so because of

that he makes himself feel better by

saying bad things about you and so you

have to have a little bit of a

thick skin and a little bit of a

patience to be able to understand that you

know some sometimes people just take it

out on you unfortunately and that's part

of being look facing you know

Because when you put your work out there,

it's a very personal thing.

And you're putting stories that you made

out there.

You're putting your work out there.

Not everybody's going to be gracious about

it.

And I feel that so much.

You're doing it too.

You have media.

It's just a different type of medium,

but it's the same thing.

And it's amazing to me the amount of,

I don't want to say it's hate.

It's just better or I should do this.

I'm like, hey, please, I encourage you.

If you need help, reach out.

I will help you get started in what

I do.

And I will give every tip and every

pointer and everything I've learned along

the way.

And if you're still around in a month,

hey, cool.

Yeah, it's it's not that easy.

And, you know,

not everybody has the patience to learn

something and develop it as a craft.

And I guess that's what it takes is

having patience, having thick skin,

having confidence,

being daring enough to put yourself out

there and wanting to learn and grow and

develop along the way.

And understand this stuff don't happen

overnight.

And when people go, oh, well,

you're making money.

Oh, no, I'm not.

Yeah.

And if I am making money off of

it,

it's off affiliate clicks from BCW and a

few others that I have.

Yes.

And, and oh, by the way,

for anybody out there,

whoever wonders like, oh,

how much does he get off a click?

Two cents.

Okay.

Yeah.

two cents and oh by the way i

don't even i can't even take out the

cash until i hit a certain dollar amount

which is it's the same with comic books

yeah it's the same with digital comic

sales it's like there's a certain amount

they take a commission after you take it

out yeah i know i mean if somebody

buys something from the site then yes i

do get a little bit more but it's

not that much more it's a couple of

bucks yeah but exactly

Exactly.

You have this affiliate thing and...

No,

all the subscriptions to the software that

you have to pay for and all of

that stuff, you know,

it's probably barely covering those costs.

They don't cover anything.

Okay.

There you go.

I literally just got it.

So it's one of those where I just

got this.

Hey, people,

go click this link and go buy stuff

from the website.

Get ten percent off, please.

And thank you.

And, you know,

it's like people are people in their head

have this certain thing.

Like it's a number in their head.

And for, in this instance,

it's ten thousand, right?

Yeah.

Ten thousand followers across your

platforms.

That's when they start to take notice and

start willing to be, hey,

you run my advertisements.

This is what I will pay you.

And I'm working toward that number right

now.

It's just not easy to do.

And people think, oh,

I'm charismatic and I'm this and I'm like,

hey, that's cool, man.

But can you market yourself?

Can you market your product?

Do your friends and family give a damn

what you're trying to do?

Will they support you in this?

Because all of that matters is do you

have that kind of support?

And thankfully,

I came into this with a support system

in place.

I have a lot of

people who are very smart and very

knowledgeable in this.

But the rest of it was up to

me.

Can I market this?

Can I get people willingly to come on

this podcast to sell people their

products?

And at the end of the day,

that's what I do.

I provide a platform for people to sell

their products on and to pitch themselves

to you for you to become a new

fan of them and vice versa.

and it's fun i don't care either way

i get to talk to to lynn here

i get to talk to donald last night

i get to talk to all these amazing

creators and get their stories out there

for everybody to hear and to listen to

and to enjoy as much as i enjoy

pulling the stories from people whether

it's a bridge the abridged version or the

edited version of the story right lynn

yeah

So this is what I tell my guys

and I'll tell you.

OK,

so this is because I think your your

show falls into the same category.

So when I create comics, I say,

this is my statue in the park.

This is what I'm famous for.

I've contributed something to pop culture

that is going to outlive me.

All right.

So, fifty years from now,

somebody will be looking with their

holographic, you know,

Apple Watch version.

And it'll display my comic book and

they'll be able to read it and scroll

through it like that.

And they'll be doing the same thing with

your podcast.

And, you know,

it's outlived us and it's amused somebody

else in the future.

So this is our this is our shot

of doing something to, you know,

make this pop culture of ours matter.

Yeah,

and what I always say is I'm giving

back to the industry that I love so

much, which is indie comic books.

And getting to talk to indie creators is

so fun.

And people,

if you're at a convention and you see

an indie comic book creator just sitting

there bored off his ass,

go get their story because their story is

going to blow you away with how this

happened.

The passion they bring to storytelling is

some of the,

the best energy that you could soak in.

And I get to do it so often.

And it's so fun for me to get

to do this and talk to people.

Like I can't explain how,

like the adrenaline rush i have sitting

here talking to people that goes well

after the show ends of course you know

you crash because you're riding that

adrenaline high you're gonna crash

eventually you're gonna sleep like a baby

but um but

So I got asked, though,

how do you decide which of your projects

will get made and like which artists are

collaborators that you work with?

Do you have like your little inner circle

there where you all get together on a

Zoom or whatever it is?

And we're like, no, what are we doing?

It's not like that at all.

It's been a lot of trial and error,

I'll be honest.

With Phil Miller, it's just a natural fit.

He's got that classic Silver Age style.

I don't know if you got a chance

to look at some of the comics.

I did get a chance to finally figure

out how to make the passwords and stuff

work,

so I was able to get my eyes

on a few of them.

Some of the links,

I would download the covers and they would

be this big,

so I would try to blow it back

up.

Yeah.

Make it something I could use and it

would just distort it so bad.

So I had to go to Facebook and

grab a couple from there.

I grabbed your,

the innovations press thing from there and

just use that to kind of advertise that,

Hey, you're going to be on here tonight.

And I use the same ones when I

go to make these clips as well.

Yeah.

We have two free comics online that you

can totally read.

I'm not looking for anybody's information

or anything like that.

So it's like you can just go read

them.

So that works out really well.

But Phil had that natural Silver Age style

for Section XII,

and it's just become the defining look.

So I was like, okay,

we're going to give you...

The Section XII flashback title is yours.

Nobody else is going to take it.

And that all...

Once upon a time,

we just did section twelve flashback and

section twelve declassified.

You know, we had two series.

We had the modern day.

We had the nineteen ninety four one.

I finally found a guy in the Philippines.

He was a artist for Upper Deck.

He was doing trading cards.

And I'm like, you know what?

If I give this guy the right direction,

I think he's he's got what it takes

to give us that modern day look.

And his name is Dominic Rancho.

And he

He's fantastic.

He does that.

So we'll,

we'll go on Facebook and we'll chat for

every once in a while.

Phil and I text, um, you know,

more than we actually talk on the phone,

but, um, you know,

those are the main two guys.

And then we have,

we've had a lot of people join us

over the years.

Um,

some of them stuck and some of them

don't, um, but that's okay too.

But, um,

We were we were sitting there and somebody

a lot of my stories start with somebody

came up to me at a show and

asked.

So somebody came up to me at a

show and asked,

is that all you do is section twelve?

And I said, well, I have tracksuit man,

too.

And they're like, well, that's one book.

And the secret of doing well at a

show is having having a lot of things

to sell to people.

If you have one comic you can expect

that somebody will come over to your table

and buy one comic They're not gonna buy

ten of the same comic So you can

if ten people come over to your table

You're going to make ten sales if you

you know,

if you sell your comic for five dollars

a piece You're gonna make fifty dollars

that day that that's just simple math.

Yeah,

so if you scale that up and you

have a

fifteen twenty twenty five comics at your

table then you know the numbers get a

little more real so i was looking at

phil and i was saying you know we

could do some other stuff and phil goes

i want to draw cowboys so i'm like

okay let me that's wild i just had

this conversation at my lcs with um

with the owner there.

And I forgot what comic book it was,

but I was like, dude,

we need more cowboy comic books,

like stuff like that.

Whether it's like a sci-fi type of Western

or just like apocalyptic type of Western,

something like that.

And then the following week,

no kidding to come out like two separate

ones.

I think one from boom studios and one

from a dark horse.

Yeah.

And I was just like, he was,

he was holding them up.

Like, yeah.

Two of them come out, dude.

He's like, I don't know what you did,

but two of them come out.

Yeah.

So I was looking at public domain stuff.

I think I mentioned that earlier on.

And I was kind of like, well,

you know,

maybe I can just do something with one

of these characters because it's free.

It's already established.

I don't have to craft this origin story.

So I found Red Mask from Magazine

Enterprises.

So I made Red Mask Rides Again.

And I did reprint the origin because the

origin story was decent.

And the whole thing of that book was

Tim Holt was a cowboy star and they

wanted to make him into a comic book

superhero.

But that's just, you know,

it ran for a number of issues,

but it was more Tim Holt centric than

Red Mask.

So I took the Tim Holt out of

it and I made Red Mask rides again.

Yeah.

and um it's it's a great comic it's

done well we're working on number two i'm

very excited about that and then the other

one i did was um wild west adventures

of buffalo bill and phil made a face

at me when i said that uh because

he's like i like the idea of the

red mask and i'm like okay i'll get

somebody else to do buffalo bill so i

found this guy with a very quirky and

unique art style alexander bosick he's

from um

Serbia,

and he does a great job on it.

And it reimagines Buffalo Bill.

Buffalo Bill had a Wild West show.

that was very famous, and that's all true.

But I changed it a little bit.

I made it into a traveling Wild West

show.

So now he goes around the Old West,

and he finds all of these things.

Now,

you're talking to a guy who doesn't like

Westerns,

so I wrote it more like that old

TV show, The Wild Wild West,

than I did the

you know yeah a western show so um

you know he he fights frankenstein he

fights remember that old john wayne movie

the war wagon oh yeah um yeah so

somebody somebody resurrected you know

what that reminds me of though is you

can still find them every now and then

and like dollar bins and stuff like that

but the penny dreadfuls oh right yeah

It was just a collection of stories like

that.

And then they made the TV series,

which is really fantastic.

I really love that TV series and was

sad when it ended,

but it ended on a good note and

in the proper way.

But I just think that's really cool.

That's like one of some of my favorite

types of stories where it's just fun and

it's quirky.

And why in the hell is Frankenstein's

muster in a Western?

Exactly.

So I did that and I thought, hey,

this is my chance because I love to

hide Easter eggs in stories.

I love to put hidden references in

stories.

And I'm like,

how many hidden references can I actually

put in there?

And this stuff is just full of it.

It was getting to be,

and I'm going to segue on to something

else now.

It was getting to be a bit cumbersome

having all of these Easter eggs and hidden

references because I'd have to burn so

many pages to tell people where they were.

So, you know, when you're telling a story,

pages are money.

And it's like,

I don't want to have eight pages of

exposition to say in the last issue,

did you see this?

Did you see this?

Did you see this?

So I decided that I would follow in

your footsteps, before I even knew you,

to make a video and a video explainer

of that.

So I and I'm going to segue on

to another story about how I created my

own YouTube videos and things like that

and how I do it.

It's fairly unique.

I went in and I dressed up my

basement like a comic show.

So I had all my banners and I

had tables and everything and I did it

over there and I put my iPad up

and I'm like, okay, I'm going to record.

And I'm like, hi everybody, this is Len.

And I'm, you know,

I'm here to talk to you about the

Wild West Adventures of Buffalo Bill.

Did you see this?

And, and,

And I showed it to my kids and

you could hear them laughing from down the

street.

They said,

this is like you were taken hostage and

we have to buy your comic books to

get you free.

And so they just thought it was- I

actually kind of liked that concept.

Yeah.

So much for my video career.

I'm kind of like, okay,

I'm all done with this.

And that sat on the shelf for a

couple of years.

And I'm like,

I don't know how I'm going to get

it.

I'm just going to have to do like

a book or something with all the Easter

eggs in it or something.

I don't know.

I'm just going to put that on the

shelf.

So then you're going to hate this word,

but some of these AI programs came out.

So I was able to use an AI

program.

and manipulate it to the point where I

had two podcast hosts talking about my

comic book.

I fed it in all of the details.

I gave it every single Easter egg.

I gave it all of that.

And the banter that went back and forth

was what was missing.

So rather than hearing me drone on and

on about comics,

it really took just two people talking

about it to make the same content

interesting.

So I created Indie Comics Deep Dive with

Mona and Sam and Mona and Sam are

my virtual hosts and they go on and

they will tell you what all the Easter

eggs in Buffalo Bill number one are and

they will point it out and.

I like the concept.

I'm not a fan of AI,

but if AI is used ethically for the

right reasons, it could be... It's a tool,

right?

It is a tool.

I'm not ripping off any artists because

I'm using my own art.

Art that I...

that I either made or bought and paid

for.

So I have perfect,

I have perfect rights to use it.

I'm not saying like create an image of

Buffalo bill doing this, you know, it's,

it's all my own stuff in there that,

you know, has been bought and paid for.

So we have a lot of fun with

that.

And yeah,

Every comic will have its own show.

And like you,

it takes me a very long time to

do them.

I'm not as quick as you are.

But it's a lot of fun.

We have a small but mighty following.

When I stop doing them and I focus

on comics,

I start getting emails from people like,

when's the next show coming out?

So I know that there's some interest

there, which is great.

So it's...

I'm not in the podcast business per se.

I'm just in the business of promoting the

Lenovations Press brand.

It's another way of connecting with our

readers to give them a little bit behind

the scenes.

If it works, it works, right?

Do I want to see it in my

comic books?

Absolutely not.

But in the way you're doing it,

it's fine.

Is it hurting anybody?

No.

And if people are going, hey,

when's the next one?

You're probably on to something and you're

probably doing it right.

Yeah.

So what we're working on now is Mona

and Sam, the fictitious characters,

are going to have their own comic book

where they're going to interview all the

Lenovations Press characters on their

fictitious podcast show.

So how is that for three levels of

meta?

That's actually kind of cool.

It's a pretty cool concept, actually.

Yeah.

Where they're interviewing Wild West Bill

and, you know,

Tracksuit Man would be interesting.

Yeah.

Tracksuit Man is going to be on there

and Batter from Section Twelve and,

you know,

somebody else from Section Twelve and the

Fantastic Fanboys.

So there's a lot of there's a lot

of stuff that is going on.

So let me ask,

what do you think is the biggest mistake

indie creators are making?

I think you touched on it earlier.

I think that they are going to give

up too soon.

I think that if you...

one issue you print it you you lay

out a dozen of them on the table

why did i only make fifty bucks this

show because you only had one comic to

sell and you're you're getting ten bucks a

piece and only five people bought them um

so i think that they're you know they

pay a hundred two hundred dollars to have

a table of the show for the weekend

they don't sell a lot that's being

generous it could be more

yeah so they don't sell a lot they

don't make a lot and they give up

and they go on to something else and

they try something else and they try

something else like one of these is

magically going to hit and you got to

put in the work i mean it's it's

not i've been doing this for you know

over a decade now and i'm you know

yeah it pays for itself uh i'm not

super famous at it but it's like

You've got to find that it's rewarding for

its own sake.

Yeah.

So beyond Kickstarter,

because you've never used Kickstarter

yourself or Indiegogo or anything like

that.

Patreon.

I use Patreon.

Patreon is a subscription based because

they have a pay as you go model.

And that way people,

people can not only support me,

but they get, you know,

inside scoop on things.

I get,

I get them peaks every month on,

on artwork that's ongoing.

Like the text between me and Phil are

art based a lot.

And I'll just put those up on Patreon

and say,

this is what we're working on right now.

You know,

Um, so that's great.

And then I'll build them when a comic

comes out.

This was the last one that comes out.

And for the print customers,

if I'm mailing something,

I'm going to stuff something else in that

envelope too,

because it doesn't cost me any extra to

postage.

So I'm like, if I,

if I have another comic that I know

you don't have,

I'm going to stuff that in there too.

Oh, that's really cool.

Yeah.

So beyond that, um,

Where do you think creators should focus

their time beyond the Kickstarters and

beyond Indiegogos and that kind of stuff?

I know Patreon is a great asset for

people if they can use it correctly and

understand that.

Fifty dollars for a subscription to you to

post sneak peeks of your your work or

your writing, it's not worth fifty bucks.

I'm just putting it out there for people.

And I like to follow some creators on

there.

And if I see you're charging,

trying to charge me fifty bucks for and

you only put out one thing a month,

I'm not coming back to it.

No, of course not.

You're probably going to get a nasty gram

from me going bus for one post a

month.

No.

Yeah.

But, you know,

it's it's like and I'm I'm a big

proponent of the free memberships, too.

I mean,

we have more free people than anything.

And all you got to do is sign

up for free and you'll you'll see these

sneak peeks and these art art pics and

things like that.

So, you know, why not?

I'm not.

I'm not after anything other than

increasing the brand.

And I think that's what people should

focus on.

What's the best way you can increase your

brand?

Like Global Comics,

DriveThru Comics are two digital platforms

that I use.

Do I make a ton of money on

them?

No.

And it's because of how their model is

set up.

It's not that I'm not selling a lot

there.

It's just that they don't pay a lot.

Um, and,

and know that as you go in,

you know, it's, it's like, again,

you know, your penny a click,

you're happy to get the penny.

You're happy to get the click because,

you know,

it drives traffic around and that's what

you're here to do.

Um, but you know, is there,

if there were a magic way to do

this and be successful at it,

I'd already be doing it right now.

I wouldn't be trying.

Yeah.

So, and,

and now I'm going to segue again.

So if you read my comic book,

section twelve, flashback number one,

which is the story that started it all.

It's a cool twenty two page story about,

you know,

somebody who who turns into a monster and

gets abducted.

He's blackmailed into, you know,

working for a secret government project

that he finds out all about.

And then in the midst of it,

there's a prison break that he has to

help, you know.

That it has to help suppress.

Okay.

There's a lot that could happen in between

all of those scenes and all of those

panels.

And I wrote a book,

like a book book.

And it's just about that novel.

So imagine taking your favorite comic book

and blowing up that story and giving

characterization, giving pacing,

giving motivation,

giving the guards that walked by,

what's his story?

Is he afraid?

Does he have a backstory?

Does he have...

there's a lot more world building that was

possible so i i released my first novel

last year i'm working on my second one

um and i'm you know that's gonna be

another way to increase the brand you know

i i i took the ninety four timeline

and i and i put a a you

know present day timeline on top of it

as a way of stretching my world and

now i'm making it a little thicker by

putting uh novels together

So that's really cool.

And it's just another element to what

you're already doing with no real work

because everything is already there in

your head.

So I already have the outline.

Yeah, it's a printed comic.

So it's like, yeah.

So what's next for Lenovations Press and

what has you the most decided?

So I've already touched on it.

The novels have me excited because I think

that that's a future because it's a way

of introducing people into the brand that

wouldn't normally be there.

So in the last show,

I had a father that was looking for

a science fiction book and I had a

son who was younger who didn't want to

read the science fiction book,

but he was happy to read a twenty

page comic book.

So the comic book is the same story

as the novel.

So I sold the father of the novel

and gave the comic book to the kid.

And they were able to do that as

a father and son activity together.

And they really enjoyed it.

And the father could tell the son all

of the things that was happening in

between the panels.

So I think I really served the audience

that way.

That's a cool moment.

I like to do stuff like that.

The Mona and Sam podcast is like getting

out of control in the best way possible

because my last video was like, I'm like,

What do I get Phil Miller for his

birthday?

He's one of my best friends.

He's a great artist.

He doesn't need anything.

It's like, OK, I'll get him.

I'll get him a pack of pens or

something.

And I'm like, no,

I can just I'll just put all this

stuff through Mona and Sam's algorithm and

tell him it's his birthday and see what

comes up.

So we had a virtual birthday party for

Phil Miller on Thursday.

on the show and it was great he

had he had a show and they talked

about what they liked the best about all

of the art that i uploaded there and

their honest feedback about it and it was

a lot of fun so you know we

were able to take it in that take

the show in that direction which was

really cool and then we took um

You know, like I said,

we're making a comic book out of it

right now.

Our newest artist, Kevin Phillips,

is drawing it.

He's doing a fantastic job with it.

And it's just a lot of fun.

It's goofy.

It's really goofy.

But I think people are going to enjoy

it.

We also have a very aggressive,

and this is another one of my podcast

things where I had a lot of fun.

I kicked Sam off the show and Mona

and I did it.

So I recorded my voice along with the

AI host and we bantered back and forth

with each other about our twenty twenty

six schedule because I wanted to.

I started again.

I had that same moment.

I started reading the twenty twenty six

schedule into the microphone and I'm like,

this is so boring.

So then I loaded that recording into the

microphone and she came up with witty

banter as I was doing it.

So I just had to cut the audio

a little bit and it sounded like we

were hosting a show together.

That's really cool,

and it's really amazing what you can

actually do utilizing that tool.

Yeah.

But what do you think, Lynn?

Got another five to ten years in you

for the universe?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, we're going down swinging.

We have a lot of things planned.

We have some good storylines that are

going to finish with –

with section twelve and we have i i

do have a rule no more number ones

um we started tales of the unknown which

is a horror anthology um this month and

last year around this time we started

uneven ground which is a historical

fiction um which gives underserved moments

in history a chance

Right now I'm writing about the largest

mail truck robbery in history.

So I'm writing a story about that.

I wrote about a USO show that with

a downed helicopter in nineteen sixty

eight.

And then the first issue was a distant

relative of mine who was a freedom fighter

in Yugoslavia fighting against the Nazis.

That's really cool, actually.

So, Lynn,

you ready for some rapid-fire questions?

Sure.

Physical or digital comics?

Physical.

Which surprises even me.

I thought digital was really going to take

off more than it does.

Everybody likes digital.

I do, too.

People love digital, too,

but I'm a physical guy, man.

Something about holding it and the smells

and, yeah.

Favorite era of comics?

seventies okay yeah i mean that's really

where everything was really the modern day

stuff was born in that time frame so

indie or mainstream um it depends if you

go back in time and you ask me

i'm gonna say mainstream but now it's

indie i'm an indie guy all the way

so one comic every creator should read

Yeah, this is a loaded question, but,

you know,

it's like I've been working a lot with

Don Simpson.

I did his multi mentions book.

So so my characters got to cross over

with Megaton Man, which was fantastic.

I think everybody should read his Megaton

Man stuff because it's it's great parody.

It's great satire.

It's just a lot of fun.

And one mistake every indie creator should

avoid.

i think we've said it multiple times yeah

i think we have to um you know

don't give up um other other than that

um don't be surprised when you fail like

just because you have a kickstarter

doesn't mean you're gonna get funded

nailed it so lynn tell everybody now where

they can find you

Lenovationspress.com is where everything

is.

There's a link to,

you can read two of my comic books

for free.

You can read section twelve flashback and

section twelve declassified.

Absolutely free.

I'm not looking for your email address or

anything.

It's displayed right there on the screen.

You don't have to click through.

You don't have to fill out a form.

Um, we have everything for sale on there.

You don't have to try and track us

down at a show.

I'll combine shipping when I can.

If, uh,

the combo packages don't work for you,

just send us an email.

I'll make up a custom combo package for

you, whatever you need.

You can buy the novel there.

You can buy any of our books.

I'll throw some stickers in the envelope.

We'd love it if you join us on

Patreon.

Even if you join us for free,

you'll get to see some of those art

texts between me and Phil Miller.

That's always a lot of fun.

And, of course,

if you want to see Mona and Sam

in action, I've talked about them so much,

you can go to our YouTube channel and

check that out too.

I did see them, and I was –

At first,

I didn't realize what I was watching.

After a moment, I was like, oh, gotcha.

I'm like, I see you.

It's a really cool concept that I know

a lot of people are making use of

that kind of stuff,

but it's just kind of cool to see

it.

You're not using it in a nefarious way

at all.

It's just one of those,

you're doing something fun for your own

brand, which is really cool to do.

It promotes it better than I can.

And all these links will be in the

description of this podcast when it goes

live.

maybe Sunday.

I'm not for sure yet, but, but Lynn,

this has been an incredible conversation.

Hopefully everybody who listens,

learn something from this one.

Cause this was a really good one.

And, you know, it's just not,

it wasn't just about comics.

We had, this has been about persistence,

evolution and building something that

stands the test of time.

And we'll continue to stand the test of

time.

Cause you heard it first.

Lynn's got another good ten,

twenty years in it.

Yeah.

So for everyone watching,

make sure you check out Lenovation Press,

support indie creators and dive into these

stories.

They are amazing.

Section twelve to number ones are both

free.

And those were my favorite reads that I

got to do from his collection.

So but if you enjoyed this conversation,

make sure you like,

subscribe and share this episode with

somebody who loves indie comics.

And remember,

Indie Comets aren't just the future.

They're happening right now.

The Council of Nerds is now adjourned.

This has been the USDN Podcast,

where Indie Comets come to life.

Y'all be safe out there.