The United States Department of Nerds Podcast

In this episode of The USDN Podcast, The Chairman sits down with Deece Casillas, stand-up comedian turned comic creator and founder of Inferno Comics.

Deece discusses the origins of his indie comic Kill Stan, a dark character-driven story centered around trauma, purpose, and the complicated human desire to keep going even when everything feels lost.

The conversation explores Dees’ journey from comedy writing into the world of comics, the creation of Inferno Comics, and what it takes to build a creator-owned publishing label in the modern indie comic landscape.

Topics include:

• The inspiration behind Kill Stan
• Launching Inferno Comics
• The rise of indie and creator-owned comics
• Marketing and selling comics independently
• Why authentic storytelling matters more than ever

If you're passionate about indie comics, creator journeys, and the future of independent storytelling, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

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#IndieComics, #KillStan, #InfernoComics, #ComicBookPodcast, #CreatorOwnedComics, #IndependentComics, #ComicCreators, #GraphicNovels, #ComicCommunity, #NerdCulture

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.

Thanks for watching!

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.

Every creator's journey starts somewhere.

Sometimes it begins with a comic book in

your hands,

sometimes with a character you can't stop

thinking about,

and sometimes it starts with a simple

question,

what if I built something of my own?

Across the indie comic landscape,

more creators are stepping forward to

build their own worlds.

their own characters, their own stories,

and their own publishing paths.

Tonight, we sit down with Dees Kaseem,

So close.

You're almost there.

Believe in yourself.

Casillas?

Casillas.

That's all right.

My pronunciation is always going to be

bad.

And he is the creator behind Inferno

Comics.

From his creative background in comedy to

launching a new indie comic label to the

stories and characters he's bringing into

the world.

This is a conversation about creativity,

risk,

and building something from the ground up.

So settle in because the Council of Nerds

is now in session.

Deese, welcome to the USDM, my friend.

Thanks for having me, man.

And honestly,

in today's climate in America,

the less Hispanic you can make my last

name sound about.

I wasn't trying to do that at all.

No, no, no.

Honestly, it's good for me, really.

I mean, you know,

when they start shooting white women,

it's over for the brown folks.

Wrap it up.

Game over.

You know, that's when, you know, we lost.

So I always tell people like, no, no,

it was Casillas Berg when we came across

Ellis Island.

We dropped the Berg.

Yeah, definitely not.

We definitely didn't come across the

southern border.

Don't look behind the curtain, you know.

Dude,

I don't know what is going on with

this today,

but all of a sudden it is not

working on Facebook or Twitch,

but we'll be live on YouTube tonight only

so.

All right.

Yeah, sometimes you got to...

It happens from time to time.

You got to go back and like reconnect

the destinations and it just...

That's already... Yeah,

I double checked everything and I think

what had happened is I had accidentally

had two like...

projects in the stream yard.

And for some reason,

one was giving me issues.

So I started the other one,

got everything built in there and

When I went to go live and I

went over to Facebook to actually share it

out,

it was playing like last week's or two

days ago show.

I'm like,

I have no idea what's going on right

now.

I ain't got time to mess with it.

I'm like, I will figure this out later.

StreamYard is not always the most user

friendly, in my opinion.

They've made so many updates and upgrades

to it over the last month.

And it's like every time I go in

there, which is very often,

like every other day or two,

I'm building a new show.

Yeah.

And it's something different and something

new and something's changed.

And I'm just like.

Put it back to the way it was.

I like Dan.

It worked so well, you know.

You're just fucking with everything now,

StreamYard.

Come on.

Yeah,

there's just some bored engineer trying to

keep his job before AI takes it.

And he's like, no, no, no,

I'm updating it.

Look, it's better.

It's better.

AI can't do that.

And they're like, eh.

Give it another year or two,

and that guy's gone too because I swear

every time.

It's like it's okay if they make changes

to StreamYard,

but make the program better and

user-friendly for me.

Yeah, yeah.

Because it even does like an advertisement

thing.

Like you can advertise your show within

the room you built.

I'm like I don't want to do that

because otherwise why am I building all

this other stuff?

Like I literally built you a hype video

for this show.

I'm like –

You're going to do my advertising?

No, thank you.

I will do it my old-fashioned way with

Canva in three minutes.

It's already pre-built.

All I do is drop the new images

in, change out the song,

and put new words in it.

Because that's when you have something

built that works.

Yeah.

Stick with it.

Plug and play.

Exactly.

But let's dive into this and let everybody

know who you are and kind of how

did your journey into comics and

storytelling begin?

yeah well i am a uh internationally

touring stand-up comedian by profession

that's what i do for a living been

doing that in some form of fashion for

about twenty years uh been a writer all

my life i've written in a bunch of

formats i mean literally from a small

child all i ever wanted to do was

write um and i loved comic books i

always wanted to write comic books but i

didn't really know how to get there but

i wanted to write everything i've

And I've been fortunate enough to publish

books, do some TV, film, sketch stuff,

worked in radio, comedy, obviously,

written for a bunch of doing comedy and

things.

So been able to parlay it into a

living of doing what I love.

Dude, that's the dream right there.

It's just doing something that you love to

do.

That way it doesn't feel like you're going

to work every day.

It is nice.

I will say it sounds great now,

but I mean,

there was years of like driving five hours

to do three minutes on a show and

get paid in a hot dog and sleep

in my car.

So like, I definitely, you know,

it wasn't, it wasn't like I just said,

well,

I'm going to do comedy and now I

get to pay my mortgage that way.

I mean, there was a lot of in-between,

you know,

But, yeah, man,

it that's that's part of the journey,

I think,

is just that delayed gratification thing,

which I think we too many people are

missing these days.

But the ability to kind of have long

term vision of how you want your life

to look and slowly chipping away at it

day by day.

A hundred percent.

A hundred percent on that one.

Everybody wants the instant gratification

of the now.

Yeah.

And I've literally been building what

we're doing right now for over a year

in this format that we're currently in.

And it gets better each time I do

this.

Well, today, StreamYard just said,

fuck it.

You'll also appreciate it better,

you know, because like... You really do.

If you...

work a shitty job for like a year

to save up to buy like a,

you know, like a, you know, like a,

you know,

Within three weeks,

you're going to be eating McDonald's

french fries,

driving with your knee while you're on

your cell phone taxi.

You just don't give a shit because there

was no investment into making that thing

happen, right?

Oh, a hundred percent.

A hundred percent.

And if somebody gave me a Ferrari,

I'd be like, this is cool and all,

but I can go sell this and get

my money out of it and go reinvest

that into something I actually want.

There you go.

But so what were some particular comments

or characters or maybe some other creators

that kind of inspired you growing up to

lead you to where we are today?

Oh, well, this is fun.

I can do this.

This is actually the first comic book I

ever owned in my life.

Oh, nice.

It's Guardians of the Galaxy number twenty

one from, I think, nineteen ninety.

And I read comic books before,

but this was the first one that was

like mine.

And for you kids listening,

this is not your newfangled Guardians of

the Galaxy.

No, it's not.

There's no tree.

There's no raccoon.

None of that shit.

This is the thirty first century Guardians

of the Galaxy with a bunch of characters.

I guarantee most of you have never heard

of.

But Jim Valentino,

who's a really great guy,

I've got to meet him,

got to hang out with him and talk

to me.

He's been generous with his time with me

over the years.

you got it in a good top loader

too look at you oh yeah this is

like uh i had to protect this one

because this is you know this is the

uh again this is the uh the one

that started the journey for me um that

was where i you know the first comic

book that was mine you know i had

a bunch of older cousins who had comic

books you know i was aware of them

and you know watched

like had action figures and watch the

Batman sixty six live action show,

you know, you know,

group knowing about Superman, Batman,

things like that.

But like that was where my entry point

of really get like falling in love with

it.

And from there it was just on, man.

Yeah.

I was a big X-Men fan.

That's my main thing.

Yeah.

But I really like weird C-list,

D-list stuff.

I think Guardians of the Galaxy was part

of that journey.

After Guardians of the Galaxy,

I got really into Avengers West Coast.

uh i got really that's an odd one

yeah it's an odd one uh i got

really into x factor uh okay but that

was like during peter david's run which is

phenomenal um you know that was the stuff

that i kind of cut my teeth on

and then started going back and you know

reading more of the earlier x-men stuff

earlier and then all the claremont stuff

and oh yeah

That's what I grew up with in the

nineties there.

And then Image came around and Spawn

released and I kind of became a Spawn

guy.

And then all the stuff that started coming

from Image was just,

I just ate that up.

Yeah.

I mean,

I was definitely in that same wheelhouse.

I've got a,

right next to my Guardians of the Galaxy,

I have a Shadowhawk number one also,

because that was my first,

also Jim Valentino, coincidentally,

my first Image comic book.

I just, I just remember going to,

it was one of the first times I

got to actually go to a comic book

store because, you know,

I don't know about you, your experience,

but for me,

you know i just grew up going to

the local seven eleven and whatever they

had yeah this little rack on the floor

was about you know four feet wide and

you know they'd get in ten books every

week and it was just whatever they had

you know is what i would get into

um but the first time i got to

go to a comic book shop actually shadow

walk number one had just released and i

picked it up and again just enamored with

it um

And got into Image.

I was never a – you know,

I didn't even read Spawn until number one,

until probably –

almost the year two thousand i bet oh

wow like i i i was into shadowhawk

i was into wildcats because i was a

jim you know x-men jim lee guy yeah

um and those were the main things from

image then i kind of went back and

started reading some of the other stuff

like i got into the max which to

me one of the best comic book runs

yes um

So, yeah,

that's kind of the stuff I cut my

teeth with as far as comic books.

But I think things really changed for me

in the early two thousands with the

when it became more writer driven and more

character driven stories you had people

like uh um you know brian michael bendis

ed brubaker greg rucka uh joe casey um

you know some grant morrison and uh uh

warren ellis mark millar guys like that

mixed in there um and that was

I don't want to say it shaped the

way I write,

but it validated the way I wrote.

Cause I wrote,

I always wrote in a way that was,

I didn't feel was a traditional like style

of writing for comic books.

And then when I started reading,

these guys, I'm like, oh, this is,

you can do these other things, you know?

Um, and, uh,

that along with how much film is

influential in my creative journey kind of

shaped the way I create and write and

build my stories.

So was there, um, I lost myself.

I was

so okay so your background is in comedy

and how did that world kind of influence

the way you think about storytelling calls

kill stan which is freaking phenomenal by

the way thank you it it like this

guy just has a walking death wish but

he also has like comedic timing with it

you know yeah yeah

Yeah, it's funny.

People always ask me when they find out

I use stand-up comedy, like, oh,

is your book funny?

And I'm like,

I wouldn't call it a laugh riot.

No, not at all.

I go, there are comedic moments,

but it's mostly dark humor, gallows humor.

Yes.

But, you know, the nice thing is with...

you know,

having a background in writing and then

having, you know,

such a breadth of background in comedy,

there's ways to intertwine them to make

them, you know,

this synergistically work together and not

feel jarring, you know,

you just got to find the right tone.

So I kind of have like a,

in almost anything I write,

there is like a dark cynicism,

a little bit of fatalism woven into that,

probably because, you know, that's me.

So, you know,

that part of me leaks in to the

story a little bit.

But yeah, I mean,

I wanted it to be

to feel like approachable and feel read,

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

it's in your head,

like you're in his head,

he's in your head.

You're,

you're just like on this journey and feels

very organic.

Oh,

it was absolutely just such a fantastic

read and all the dark humor and just

kind of like walking into certain

situations, just being like,

You know, I was like,

I relate to this guy minus the death

wish.

Sure.

Yeah.

And that that was really the idea is

I wanted people to feel very comfortable

and like, you know, it's very raw.

It's very open and allows people to kind

of slide into the character pretty easily

was was the goal.

And even the death wish part is,

to give quick elevator pitch for

listeners,

the elevator pitch is suicide by

vigilantism.

It's a story about a guy who wants

to end his own life,

so he decides to do it through

vigilantism.

Kind of a neo-noir crime thriller on the

surface.

But really,

it's a character piece about one man's

journey of loss, trauma,

and the crazy things we do when we

feel as if we have nothing left to

live for.

Yo, what up, man?

What's up, Kath?

My boy, Kevin.

My dude.

Yeah, he's going to be on soon.

Okay, yeah.

I just did his show the other day,

too.

I've known him for a long time.

So, you know...

that kind of idea of wanting to end

your own life.

I mean,

I feel like everyone has that thought in

some capacity and in some level,

some people it's a ten,

some people it's a it's a one,

you know,

but there is that like

Is this worth it moment we people have,

you know, at some point,

some people have it once briefly,

some people have it as a cloud over

their head every single day.

So I wanted that to be another feeling

that people could be like, oh,

this could be me, you know,

with the right under the right

circumstances.

The problem, though,

with Stan is Stan happens to be good

at...

I don't know if he's just good at

what he does or accidentally good at what

he does.

Yeah, he's kind of...

He's like failing upwards, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, if you're going to fail,

that's the way to do it.

Yeah, yeah, I suppose it's better.

So...

But now, guys,

and I'm going to be a hundred percent

serious.

I got to read book one and thank

you for sending book one.

It's always a pleasure when somebody

actually gives me something to read before

I walk into one of these.

I mean, I could build an interview.

Yeah, sure.

But when I actually get to read it

and enjoy it and get to know Stan.

it makes it so much better for me

because my damn, I like Stan.

Yeah.

Well, that's one.

Yeah.

You, he, he doesn't.

So you're one vote for him at least.

I mean, he's,

he's got some relatable moments in that

first book where it was just like,

we've all just want to kind of wanted

to go in and just start throwing hands.

Yeah.

You know, lose yourself.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

But let's jump on to Inferno Comics.

What was this moment where you decided you

wanted to launch your own publishing label

rather than the repeated, like,

let me send this to Dark Horse,

let me send this to Image,

let me send it here and there?

Yeah, I mean, so don't get me wrong.

I did those things,

but I also did those things knowing full

well I would never get a –

get picked up um not because i don't

believe in this project not because i

don't think it's good enough um but

because i i mean i just understand the

business at a side of comic books where

yeah you know i'm not they're not reading

my book in a vacuum they're reading my

book against the you know james tinian's

eight new pitches he gave them and

hickman's latest pitch

And Rick Remender's latest pitch and the

three things Kirkman wants to do.

So like they're they're looking at their

schedule going, well, we have room for,

you know, I don't know how many,

fifty new books, fifty books in a year.

Everything we're publishing plus room for

new stuff.

And like, do we want to pick up?

Hickman's eighth book?

Or do we want to do fucking Dick

Beg Casillas from Texas's book who we've

never heard of?

I get why no one's... I did it

I did it knowing it wouldn't get picked

up,

but I did it to kind of craft

the pitch, craft, you know,

hone me talking about the book, hone,

you know,

to help me know what the book's about,

to force me to think about what the

book's about and what is important about

it and how to present it.

So, you know, what I mean, honestly,

the funny thing is the way this book

actually ended up getting made

is i actually had an offer from a

company named apex comics that wanted to

do the book yeah um which is it's

a small small small uh label but fabian

nicieza's brother is uh involved in the

company and i kind of know fabian

a little bit.

And he posted something about his brother

needed someone to volunteer at the LA

Comic Con a couple years ago to help

run their booth for this company he has.

And I was going to be in LA

that weekend doing comedy anyway,

stand-up comedy.

So I'm like, oh, cool.

I'll go hang out during the day,

convention, comedy at night.

Sounds great.

So I did.

didn't i never mentioned the book the

whole time i was there that i'd written

this project but i just wanted to like

maybe i'll glean some knowledge maybe i'll

meet who knows and whatever but weekend

came and went and uh after the weekend

Fabian's brother, Mario,

the guy who helps run the company,

is part of the company, Apex, called me.

And he's like, hey,

I just wanted to thank you for helping

out.

And, you know,

kind of didn't get to talk to you

much.

Maybe get to know you a little more.

I know you do stand-up comedy.

He's like,

do you write all your own material?

I'm like, yeah,

of course I write all my own material.

You know,

I've written for a bunch of different

things and blah, blah, blah.

And he goes,

Do you write anything else?

I'm like, yeah,

I've written for a TV film.

I've published books.

And he goes,

you ever think about writing a comic book?

And I go, well, actually, I have.

I have this book I've been working on.

It's kind of I just kind of had

wrapped it up at the time.

And he goes, well,

send over the script to number one,

and I'll take a look at it and

give you some notes.

And I'm like, that's fine.

Sure.

And he's like,

I'll email you back in a couple days.

And he emails back a couple days later,

and he's like, hey,

I'm going to send this up to our

editor-in-chief and have him take a look

at it too.

And I'm like, great.

Someone else to give me notes.

Great.

And then...

Emails me back and goes, hey,

do you have time to get on a

call?

And I go, sure.

So he scheduled this call in the editor

in chief was like, hey,

we want to do this book.

And I was like, oh, shit.

OK.

So we kind of started that.

That's where the ball rolling of me

feeling like, oh,

this book is actually really doable.

And then for reasons, no, no animosity.

I just kind of felt like it wasn't.

gonna work the way the book wasn't going

to be exactly what i wanted it to

be in the end going through them like

they had a house artist they wanted me

to use who was like a really great

artist i won't name him but it's a

guy who's like an industry artist he's

worked on thor superman captain america

yeah like you guys can do the math

if you want but uh i'm like this

isn't the look i want on the book

and they were really firm on the changing

the name and they wanted i

to do a four issue,

they wanted me to condense it to like

a four issue thing instead of ten issues.

And then if it goes well,

write a follow up.

And I'm like, I don't know, man,

it just isn't going the way I want.

So I just kind of like I'm like,

you know what,

I'm going to back up for a minute.

And then I started looking at the

logistics of it.

I'm like,

I think I can do this myself.

You know, and then I just I did,

you know, there we I I mean,

I since I was a little kid,

I wanted to name my my label Inferno

Comics.

I've got old, you know,

pretend comic book covers.

I drew up eight, nine years old.

They have Inferno logo in the corner and

I just kept it going.

And here we are.

Dude, I like it.

And I love to hear stories like that.

And it's not necessarily like,

that was my almost success.

Like, no,

that was your one that led you to

success with the book now because I think

you're on what number four now?

Yeah,

we're number four is coming out soon.

We're working on that right now.

Like Kickstarter is launching in a couple

weeks.

awesome i love getting to talk to people

about a kickstarter getting ready to

launch it is like one of our favorite

things to do um so the name inferno

comics can you give us kind of the

story behind that name and why you landed

on that

Yes.

So a lot of a lot of people

have more than one person has asked me

if it's related to the Inferno X-Men

crossover, because, you know, classic,

arguably one of the best,

if not the best crossover of all time.

And no, it's not.

Although I love that crossover.

And, you know,

anything that has Havok dressed like a,

you know,

gimp sex slave has got to be good,

right?

We're on to some weird shit here.

We're on to some weird shit, Alex Summers.

What are you doing with your brother's

wife?

I won't touch that one, but no,

you're right.

So, you know, honestly,

it's it's named after I was obsessed with

Dante's Inferno with the book,

like the divine or yeah,

the divine comedy.

Yeah.

Dante Alighieri's Inferno.

Read it a million times.

I was obsessed with it at a very

young age and still am.

And that's why I named it after that.

So that was my first thought, too,

as well.

But I like to get the story behind

it first because there's nothing better

than hearing the stories.

And I'm a story person.

Obviously,

that's why I kind of do what I

do.

And like I told you before we started,

I do enjoy taking the audience through the

journey of the creator.

So but now I'm a huge fan of

the same thing.

So I'm hearing that that's why you named

it.

That is like top notch for me.

So yeah.

So when you first started building

Inferno, was kill Stan,

like always the plan to go on with

that?

Or do you have some other titles maybe

that you're going to eventually introduce

on Inferno comics?

So, I mean, I have got, this is,

this sounds crazy when I say it,

but it's true.

I have hundreds,

if not thousands of comic book scripts

I've written in my life.

Um,

summer, many, many are ideas,

original ideas.

I've, I've got, you know, my Batman story.

I've got my X-Men story.

I've got my Ninja Turtles story.

I want to do, you know, you know,

I like a twenty issue arc here.

I've got those things, but I've,

I've had a million original ideas that I,

I've wanted to do, uh, scripted out,

fleshed out, um,

And but Kill Stan is actually one of

the newer ideas I had.

So I've tried to do comic book indie

comics in the past,

and it just never worked out,

which looking back now,

I'm glad it didn't because I probably

wasn't ready or prepared to do what I

needed to do.

And this just wouldn't have told the story

I wanted to tell.

So I worked on a couple of projects

that I that I do want to tell

eventually that will come out,

but not right away.

This this story,

I actually wrote this story in twenty

twenty.

So what happened is my best friend,

another comedian,

actually took his life in January of

twenty twenty.

And it was

Yeah, it was a tough experience.

The guy was best friend for years.

We toured together for years.

He was the closest thing I ever had

to a brother,

and I say that having an actual brother.

It was a challenging,

tough experience because

I mean,

I grew up in South Central LA in

the eighties.

I mean, it's not the first time I've,

you know,

I've seen plenty of people killed in front

of me from a very young age.

I've experienced a lot of that loss over

the years.

So it wasn't,

it wasn't just that it was, you know,

I was the one who had to do

the wellness check with the police because

he wasn't responding to anything.

So getting into the house,

identifying him, calling his parents,

letting his parents know what happened.

It was just a lot, you know,

a lot.

Anyway, so that occurred.

And then, you know,

March of twenty twenty rolls around and

COVID happens.

And then, you know,

I was living in Washington state at the

time,

which was one of the most locked down

states next to probably California.

And the.

I was just kind of stuck in my

house, you know, um,

watching people's lives crumble

physically, mentally, spiritually,

financially, you know, people were just,

just losing it in so many different ways.

And, you know,

watching things crumble in a way that was

unprecedented for us.

And then, um,

You know,

there were civil unrest and all kinds of

stuff.

And I was watching some news article and

I heard that I had already kind of

started working on this idea of a guy

with nothing to lose and nothing to live

for.

I heard this phrase suicide by cop.

And then the phrase suicide by vigilantism

popped into my head and I go, oh,

that's interesting.

And I kind of married that idea up

with what I was already was percolating.

And then I was off to the races

and I just wrote this story.

It's all I wrote the whole thing in

a couple of months.

And then I'm like, well.

Then soon after that,

I did the convention with Mario and they

read it and they liked it.

And after they wanted to do it,

and then after we split ways,

I was like, you know,

I think I can do this.

So I, and I'm like,

this is the story I need to tell

out of all the ones I have, like,

this is the one that needs to be

told right, right now.

Oh, yeah.

And that story very much resonates still

because we still see that.

And I hate saying it, but fuck,

it's horrible.

Yeah.

Just the way shit's been the last five

or six years, man.

It's just...

It's one of those where it's like,

I had already brought it, you know,

my daughter had already been born and I'm

like,

this isn't the place that I wanted this

for her.

Yeah.

Hoping this would be different.

This is, yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

I didn't want to bring my daughter into

the Terminator future.

Exactly.

You know,

and John Connor's knocking on my door.

Yeah.

But yeah.

That's a good reference.

I like it.

Are you the only sole proprietor of

Inferno,

or is there other people behind the scenes

with you?

It's pretty much just a one-man operation

right now, yeah.

I feel you.

So, you know, when I say we,

when I refer to Inferno,

it's like the royal we, you know.

We as in me.

Yeah.

We and we.

Yeah, yeah.

But I am working on...

trying to bring on some other creators and

help them help publish their works too

yeah it's it's just been a little slow

going because i'm i'm busy but uh that

is part of the place it means you're

working and you're making money that is

true yeah yeah um it just

But it is part of the plan is

to bring on some other creators.

I just am very laser specific about what

I want to publish under the label.

And I don't mean a specific genre.

I don't mean a specific style.

I mean the content.

I really want like...

character-driven stories with a purpose.

If it's a cool superhero ditty,

I'm not saying don't do it.

That just doesn't fit what we want to

do.

It makes sense.

It's one of those where we're probably

both in our forties and we've earned that

right at this point to be like,

that ain't really our thing.

We wish you luck.

There is space for that out there.

Plenty of space for that.

I talked to

I think I've got like eighteen creators on

this month.

And, you know,

most of them are superhero related and

there's nothing wrong with that.

I love superhero stuff,

but it's when I get the project like

the kill stands that I'm just like,

that's what I want to talk about is

that kind of stuff because it's fun.

and i don't mean fun in a like

damn this is a dark i think that's

funny but it's a very character driven

outside of your normal comic book

superhero this guy just wants to die right

but he he can't even do that right

he keeps that up yeah you know

so for me the i love those

character-driven unique stories like that

and that's why i'm also such a big

fan of the independent comic scene yeah is

because you get so much of that kind

of stuff whether it's in the horror genre

the thriller genre you know the james

tinian genre because he's his own genre

now i believe yeah well he's and i

love the guy i absolutely love his work

i could read the dude all day and

there's some days where i do

And but yeah,

that's the stuff I really love.

And I love talking to the superheroes,

too.

I love talking to those creators.

I'm doing that in like two days,

actually talking to a guy building a new

superhero world.

And I love when people are building their

own worlds, their own superheroes.

It's fun, but I like these darker, greedy,

Neo-Nor type of stories.

That's why I was such a huge fan

of Sin City when Martin Millard released

that.

Actually,

to a point where my own comic book

is very much a Sin City-esque type of

story.

and um so that's what i really like

anytime something like that comes across

the desk i'm like yep when do you

want to do this you know and i

think i did that's what i did to

you it was like yeah hell yeah when

do you want to do it well i

appreciate it man yeah and it's uh you

know in into people out there writing

other stuff it's like you know you can

write

a character driven purpose driven

superhero story you know you can you can

make that happen um and you know or

you can write a light and fluffy superhero

ditty um again there's room for both

there's room for all you know do what

you want to do um just i know

for me

I know what I love.

I know what I want to read.

And if I feel like I'm just reading,

like, just kind of stuff happening,

I'm not that interested.

If there's subtext,

if it's meaty to chew on, there's things,

there's characters with complex nuances

that I'm trying to figure out.

Like, that's the thing where I'm like, oh,

okay, this is interesting, you know?

Mm-hmm.

No, I'm with you on that.

And that will always and you'll as the

USD and it evolves, I will.

Oh, actually,

it's already done this in later months

coming up.

It's kind of I'm not saying I'm being

I'm picking and choosing.

But what I am saying,

I'm not doing everything.

I've set myself a schedule.

It's going to be one interview every three

to four days because what I'm doing

currently isn't sustainable from my

well-being.

And when I say my well-being is I

actually want to watch some of the new

TV shows that are out.

And if I'm always writing and I'm always

working and I'm always editing,

I don't get I really want to watch

the new one piece.

Yeah.

You know, season two just dropped.

I really want to watch it.

However,

I can't watch it because until probably,

you know,

a couple of months from now when I

actually do get the chance to slow down.

I will be able to watch it in

probably June.

Yeah.

It's a conscious thing that I had to

do is like,

I'm going one interview every three to

four days because it gives me a lot

of time in between things to

Watch TV, relax.

Maybe go to the beach and go for

a drive.

Yeah, you got to live a little,

you know.

That's how you get the creative juices to

flow is actually living, you know.

I would like to take the doors off

my Bronco for once.

There you go.

I've had it for a year and I

haven't even had the chance.

Yeah.

So independent comics currently are

growing rapidly.

Like, I mean,

you look at my schedule and I think

I have like eighteen or nineteen creators

on this month alone.

But from your perspective,

what's making this such an exciting time

for creator owned comics?

Um,

I think that we have been on a

swing, you know, I mean,

you've been around long enough to know,

and not even just comic books, but, um,

the world in general.

I mean, any, whether it's, uh,

entertainment, politics, et cetera,

things swing really hard one way,

and then they swing back the other way,

even harder, this pendulum, you know?

And we've been in a world of garbage

media and entertainment for so long,

for so long.

Yeah.

Where it's just, you know, it's like this.

Thirty second clickbait reels,

no actual depth, no content.

I mean, you know,

even like Netflix literally put out a memo

that.

the Netflix movies that they're making,

they tell the creators,

you have to explain the plot at least

four times in the movie because people are

dumb and they're on their phones while

they're watching.

So it's like, I mean, that's real.

That sounds like a joke.

That's real like that.

No, that's spot on.

you know it's just been i think people

are tired of that and whether they realize

it or not people are starved for real

art um real content something that matters

everything is so all this like ai digital

thirty second dopamine it's just not

tangible it's not sustainable yeah and

people are starting to crave

real art again um and i think that's

what's helping the the indie scene a lot

um i mean not even just the super

indie scene but like you see oh as

a whole a hundred percent as a whole

yeah well i mean even even like

image in in vault in mad cave like

these books are starting and they're

starting to get uh really crank up right

now um because people are just going away

from this like machine cranked just

formulaic marvel bullshit um you know just

we're just an ip house we're just selling

you these comics so we can sell you

fucking the movie later action figures and

movies is all you know the stuff we

actually care about so

Yeah,

people are looking for something a little

more real.

I mean, I do a lot of conventions.

I think I did like thirty six conventions

in twenty twenty five.

Wow, dude, that's like a lot.

It was too much.

It was stupid.

I did it.

And, you know,

what I was surprised me a lot.

is how many younger people I was getting

to my booth.

How many people who I would, you know,

I would assume most you're in, you know,

your average comic book reader probably

does look like us, you know,

kind of late thirties, early forties,

you know,

straight male is kind of you're probably,

I don't know, I would say,

sixty plus percent of the market,

if not seventy percent,

you know what I mean, easily.

So,

but I was getting kids who were like,

you know, in their early teens, thirteen,

fourteen, and, you know,

coming up and buying the book.

And then I would read.

Like I was doing this one convention in

– it's a small convention in Del Rio,

Texas, but they're very nice people.

They brought me in as a featured guest.

They're very, very kind.

Those are some of my favorite ones though.

Because you have time to connect with

people and the people are there really

like trying to connect with you.

But this guy who is probably my age,

maybe younger,

came up with his young daughter who was

probably – I don't know.

And he's like, what's your book?

You know, she was like, he's like, oh,

she was looking at your book.

And, you know, she liked how it looked.

I'm like, oh, cool.

And she goes, what's it about?

I go, well,

it's kind of I kind of look at

him like it's kind of a little adult.

It's got some themes of self-harm and some

violence and language and stuff.

And he's like, that's OK.

And she goes and she looks through it

and she she's like, can I get one?

He goes, yeah.

And he buys her one.

And he bought her, she number one.

And then he came back,

or they came back the next day to

the convention.

They go,

we came back just to get number two.

She loved number one so much.

That's really cool.

But the kids these days are exposed to

that so soon.

Right, right.

You go, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that is so true.

It just is like, you know,

it's this twelve year old girl.

And I'm like, oh, this like this,

this girl already gets it.

You know,

like she's already she's already on board

with like wanting to get this real art

in her hands.

And I'm like, this is great.

You know,

she's a kid we don't have to worry

about.

She's on the right path.

That's the way I see it every single

time.

And it's awesome.

I love seeing like I've interviewed and I

say kids and I'm using the term loosely.

I'm thinking like if I'm old enough to

be your father, you're a kid to me.

So like the guy who was just on

with the manga studio in the Philippines,

he's twenty two years old, right?

Mm hmm.

Clearly old enough to be his father,

but he's doing his own thing outside of

the big system within the manga community.

It's like unless you're coming out of

Japan,

nobody's really going to concern

themselves with you.

So he's got this huge uphill battle.

Right, right, right.

But he's so determined and so driven that

like, dude, good luck, man.

I really hope you make it.

yeah then a lot of the guys who

are like my interview in a couple of

days i'm not sure how old he is

but he he's like probably again young

enough to be you know a child of

mine and uh but he's building his own

universe he's created his own superhero

and i love that and i love to

see parents nurturing that right yeah yeah

Well, I mean, especially, you know,

at these conventions, a lot of times,

not not all the time.

There are parents who are you can tell

are just dragged there.

But sometimes there's parents who are like

also fans and their kids who are becoming

fans, which is like, yeah, such a great,

you know, it's like I mean,

it's so heartwarming to see what I would

have given to have one of my parents

give a shit about comic books when I

was a kid.

Yeah.

So it was like, yeah,

I just think that, you know,

we're in this weird moment in history

where, I mean,

it sounds cliche because we hear it every

time we turn on the news,

but we're more divided than ever, right?

And I mean that on almost every front.

You know,

they've done a great job of dividing us

between,

politically, religious, religiously,

sexually, racially, they've, they've,

they've, they've masterfully done it.

They've,

they've damn near accomplished their goal.

A hundred percent.

Um, but like, so I think we're,

we're in this weird moment where I think

a lot of society is going to start

to split where we're going to have the,

like the people who are going to absorb

into their fucking Peter,

a teal fucking matrix cocoons,

like the Luddites.

who like go into the woods and build

their own little house and build a little

homestead and have a little cow and a

couple dogs.

And I think that's going to be the

next real divide we see in our country.

But I think those people who are in

the Luddite group are the ones that are

going –

We need something real, you know,

we need something real to spend our time

on in this art,

something that has some real soul to it,

you know,

because like everything that's pushed

through the algorithm is so soulless.

It's dead.

It's yeah, there's nothing.

There's no, you know, it's, you know,

it's like you're that drunk friend when

they're so blacked out,

they're still like soldiering on.

But there's like nothing behind the eyes

anymore.

Yeah,

I might have been that friend once or

twice.

Yeah,

it's like that scene out of Jaws when

Quint is describing the sharks.

It's like black eyes, like a doll's eyes,

you know?

It's like that look where it's like, yeah,

there's eyes there, but there's nothing.

They're just fucking glazed.

Yeah.

oh yeah i think we've all been there

once or twice yeah yeah maybe more that's

how you know you're living that's how you

know you're living yeah i know i'm living

because i don't remember and i was told

how much fun i had exactly exactly so

why were some of your biggest challenges

you ran into when you're starting to put

the pieces together whether it was finding

people to collaborate with produce the

bullets or building the actual brand

itself

Yeah, you know, I was pretty fortunate.

Getting the creative team together was a

really easy process for me.

Probably for a couple reasons.

I have a background in business.

I did, you know, marketing,

business development,

consulting for a long time.

So I'm pretty discerning.

I knew what I wanted.

You know,

the business aspect of it was fairly

simple to kind of figure out.

You know,

it was the marketing is the hardest thing.

Always.

Yeah.

That's just it's like,

how do you you know,

you can create someone can create.

The goddamn Mona Lisa.

But if if they post it on Instagram

and only eight people see it,

then who gives a shit?

You know,

so it's like it's it's getting everything

out there, which was the tricky part.

And that is.

uh,

so challenging in today's ever changing in

very fickle market and algorithm driven,

uh, you know, uh,

entertainment consumption.

Um, you know, I, I still say,

I mean,

I certainly haven't mastered it yet.

I can definitely see how getting,

it's definitely way better than it was.

I found out a couple of things,

done a couple of things that seemed to

work better, but, um,

You know,

getting the team together was fairly easy.

I did some research on some printers in

kind of, you know,

customer service was a big issue who I

could get a hold of uh what they

were willing to give me for paper samples

like because I had a specific I wanted

it to have a specific weight to it

yeah um price obviously is a factor uh

but you know I was willing to pay

a little more if I was getting a

better product with better customer

service um but yeah I think really the

biggest hurdle was uh figuring out the

marketing because you know you make it

then you're like

now what do i do with it um

but i just i i put a ton

of conventions on the calendar and just

i'm like i'm gonna get in front of

people i'm gonna you know when i'm on

tour for comedy i'm gonna walk into comic

book shops in town and drop off copies

of the book um

I'm going to, you know,

get into a lot of Facebook groups,

Reddit groups,

create Instagram groups of comic book

creators and, you know,

just things like that.

And it's, it's slowly built and it's,

it's, yeah, I can feel it slowly,

but surely it's, it's definitely working.

We've, you know, I've,

in about twenty retailers now uh you know

uh we've got a shop on our website

we you know selling books every week we

got purchases coming off the website um i

mean i probably i mean number one came

out october twenty twenty four so a little

over a year ago and i've probably i

mean it doesn't it doesn't sound like that

much in in grand terms but i probably

sold thirty five hundred copies of that

book in a little over that's huge numbers

though so and you know number two is

probably twenty five hundred closing on

three three thousand and then number

number three um has only been out about

six weeks and we're uh we're probably

probably we just did another order that'll

that that order will put us at like

um you know like fourteen hundred books or

something like that for number three those

are actually big numbers from a pure indie

standpoint without a major machine behind

it yeah i mean i have no distribution

i have no marketing besides me just you

know you know and no yeah i'm not

Not in the previews catalog or anything

like that.

So you brought up paper.

What kind of paper are you using?

I use a seven.

Is it seventy or eighty weight?

It's a heavier duty paper.

Yeah, I think we do.

I think we do an eighty weight.

Yes.

Eighty weight matte finish paper.

Red and white would look so good on

that matte finish paper.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

The color you see on the book,

I was very specific about the way it

was colored also.

You know, the saturation, the depth,

the structure, the texture.

Yeah.

The heavy blues and reds for that noir

feel using black gutters on the book.

It it took a little back and forth

with my colorist through the first issue

to get for him to understand what I

wanted.

But once we got it now,

like I'll give him I just kind of

give him basic color notes and he just

he's got it.

He just cranks.

Yeah.

Very little revisions.

And I brought up the thing about paper

book calls.

I don't know if you've heard of bad

idea comics.

They do murder podcasts, cul-de-sac.

They got a few other titles that are

just really good.

I think they, they're,

they're very up and coming and they,

to me,

like some of their stories are just

phenomenal,

but they print on almost like a newspaper.

Okay.

It's a very unique, like paper, like,

it feels heavy,

but as you turn the page,

it gives you that old Sunday morning feel

of turning the newspaper, you know?

Yeah.

I know there's some,

some printers you can get that like news

strip paper still.

I really just wanted it.

I mean, it's one of the,

it's one of the first things people say

when they pick up a physical book is

they go, Oh, this is like hefty.

It's hardy.

You know, we use a,

we use a heavier duty card stock.

cover.

Um, and because again,

I wanted the book to feel substantial.

I wanted it, you know, if you put,

when you put my book on the shelf

next to other retailers at like an LCS.

Yeah.

You want it to feel premium.

Right.

And people look at it and they're like,

Oh, it's got a, got a good,

the cover looks nice.

Uh, they pick it up.

It's got a good, you know,

good weight to it.

You know,

you think most comic books and they're

just like,

even marble is flimsy yeah just terrible i

mean they're probably using like their

paper stock is probably like honestly

probably like a fifty weight maybe less i

mean it's probably less because it's a

true floppy issue here recently it's cheap

unless it's like something big cover

coming out like the uh the daniel warren

johnson wolverine cover

right right they'll use a little bit on

the cover yeah um and but i it

feels like i'm not sure but yeah a

lot of them are like self-covered now

where the book and the the cover have

the same yeah weight yeah yeah that's what

bad idea does

Really?

Yeah.

Well, some of their stuff,

like Murder Podcast,

I think had a little bit thicker of

a cover on it.

But still,

the actual paper itself felt like

newspaper.

And I love that.

It's such a unique thing to them.

It's a vibe and it creates an ambiance

with the book.

It also allows them to produce more story

per issue because they're not printing on

expensive paper.

They're giving you the story,

not necessarily the paper experience like

an image would do.

Even image though,

like Free Planet is printing on just

normal paper.

know the the fifty mil or sixty mil

whatever it is which i'm a huge fan

of free planet aubrey sitterson my dude

and um yeah i i love that that

is the smell of the paper for me

too like each company has its own unique

smell and i know that's where we're

talking about the smell of paper and a

smell of a book but it's true man

it makes a difference yeah yeah oh

So what do you think independent

publishers can do today that the

traditional comic industry sometimes just

struggles with other than putting out a

good story?

Yeah.

I mean,

when you say traditional comic book

industry, do you mean like, are you,

do you mean like Image, Dark Horse,

the other big, big guys?

Or are we more talking about the

institution of like Marvel?

I'm talking about the institutional ones,

you know?

And you can even throw Image now into

the institutional ones,

but they still treat,

they're still very much indie because they

still, you know,

print other people's stories.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, they don't own anything.

They're just printing what people, I mean,

they're basically just a printer

essentially.

A distributor, printer and distributor.

Yeah.

Which I love.

It's such a great business.

I mean, they really,

they nailed that business model.

That was the best business decision Todd

probably ever made.

Yeah.

So what?

Sorry, the question was,

what do I think their biggest mistake is?

Or what can they like?

Let me find it again.

I'm losing myself.

That's okay.

I just want to make sure I'm answering

the question you actually asked me.

Instead of just going.

What do you think independent publishers

can do today that the traditional comic

industry sometimes struggles with?

Okay.

Yeah.

I, I will say this.

I think so beyond just like you said,

beyond just creating a good story.

I think a lot of it is like.

When I am.

at a convention and people ask me about

my book or I'm there talking about my

book, I'm really not trying to,

I really do this,

and I didn't even realize this until

later,

but I don't even so much try to

sell them on the book.

I realize that I'm telling them why I

love the book and why I wrote the

book,

what the purpose of it is more than

anything.

And that is like, I'm building,

and I realized like, oh,

I'm building like a connection with this

person about why this thing is important

to me,

which gives them a trust in why it

could be important to them instead of me

just going, hey, here's the thing I wrote.

Do you want to buy it?

You know, I'm like,

I'm like telling them about why I love

this thing.

Yeah.

The passion of the creator sells the book.

And if you're passionate about what you're

producing,

they're going to pick up on that and

they're going to want to be a part

of that.

Right.

Yeah, it does.

You know,

whether consciously or subconsciously,

that attraction of like, oh,

this is like a thing that there's like

there's a magnetism there.

And I think that coupled with like

basically just being truly passionate

about the medium, you know, like I am.

On my Instagram, inferno.earth,

the Instagram page,

I obviously promote the book a lot,

talk a lot about the book,

have promotional artwork and upcoming

stuff.

But I also do a lot of other

comic book related things that have

nothing to do with Kill Stan.

Like every Monday...

I post my pick of the week for

new comic book day that week.

So I'll be like, Oh,

this is the book I'm looking forward to

the most this week.

Because I want,

I want the people who follow me to

be like, Oh,

this guy just loves comic books.

Like he's still, he's still,

he's still a Wednesday warrior.

Like he's still going to the comic book

shop and be like, you know,

whether I'm going or, or I pre-ordered,

I'll pick them up later.

Like I have a local comic book shop.

I get books.

I read them.

I, I,

there's things I'm looking forward to,

you know, and,

Or like on Wednesdays on in my Instagram,

I will do something called, you know,

because Wednesday is new comic book day.

So I do a thing called old comic

book day where I will pull an old

comic book out of my collection that I

love.

That's important to me and has like a

significance.

And I will make a little reel and

talk about it and talk about why I

love it.

And, you know,

things like that where I'm like,

I want people to know that, like,

I love this medium.

I love I'm a fan before I'm a

creator.

And like, you know,

come along the journey.

Love comic books.

Even if you don't read mine,

love comic books.

There's so much out there for for

everyone.

You know,

I always say there's something for

everybody.

yeah so i i think just being organic

and like letting you know not just it

not just be about you know uh sales

figures but be about we really love this

you're a fan right you're a fan just

like everybody else yeah yeah no i i

like it and i used to do just

straight up new comic book days before i

transitioned into like this and i gotta

tell you making new comic book content was

tiresome

It was never ending.

Yeah.

But I enjoyed it.

Yeah.

I just didn't feel satisfied from that,

you know?

Sure.

Yeah.

But, no, I still enjoy it.

Like, I forgot who it was.

I think it's Lo over at Dark City

Comics does comic, like,

comic talks in his car.

And it's just a fun, like,

thirty seconds or a minute long of, like,

what he picked up for New Comic Book

Day.

And it's just enjoyable for me to see

people doing it.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm just like,

that's so fun to see.

Like, I'm like, oh, I'm reading that one.

All right.

I'll have to look at that one.

You know,

the the biggest one in this is I'm

not trying to throw shade at anyone,

but one of the biggest like internal gut

punches for me is when I meet an

indie creator and they tell me how much

they don't like.

not in these words,

but basically they tell me they don't care

about comics or like they don't read

comics or they never read comics.

They're not a comic,

like they're not a comic book fan.

And I'm like, ah, you fucking poser.

Like, yeah, exactly.

That'd be my first thought too.

What a fucking poser.

Well,

I try to be understanding and be like,

yeah, it's a medium.

You can tell stories in,

you don't have to, but also I'm like,

come on.

Yeah.

Where's that little kid inside you at,

you know?

Yeah.

Like what?

Yeah, it just kind of blows my mind,

and I'm just like,

I don't know if I can trust a

man who doesn't read comics.

Right.

Especially if you're trying to, you know,

it's like, if you're, I don't know,

I feel like if you're trying to get

in that industry, you should have some,

like some knowledge, knowledge,

kind of this background in it, you know?

Yeah.

If you don't have a,

at least one comic book that you've read

multiple times,

many times to a point where it has

your fingerprints engraved into the page.

And then you love that comic book so

much.

You've gone back to the LCS and,

We found that same common,

but when it minty condition,

I have a few like that.

I have actually a few series like that,

that I have at least two runs of

that series because I like that series so

much.

I can go to the boxes stored in,

pull out that series,

go back to my office space,

put it down.

All right.

Let's go.

Yeah.

You know,

And then it's like it's worn that there's,

you know, dog ears on it.

There's like a page folded in half because

I really like that splash page.

Yeah.

You know,

but it's like you're careful when you open

that splash page up because it's to that

point where you've read it so many times.

Like if you blow on it wrong,

that whole page is going to rip in

half.

Right.

That's a true story.

I do have a comic book like that

because it was that good.

And I really enjoy the run of it.

So,

but so you're working on kill stand right

now and future is to hopefully bring in

some other guys to help publish them as

well.

So the future for Inferno is looking

really good.

What else do you think,

or where else do you see you taking

Inferno in the future?

Well, um, yeah, I mean,

the next thing that come down the pipeline

is very likely an anthology book.

I love a good anthology.

Talk about bang for your buck.

Yeah,

I really like – and I don't know

how good it's – there's pros and cons

to it,

but I'm going to do it because I

love the idea of it.

But I want to do like a heavy

metal type anthology.

And I don't mean necessarily like that.

Yeah,

because I was going to say heavy metal

is back on shelves.

So you can't exactly – But I mean

like where it's like –

wildly different stories with wildly

different art styles you know like you

have an eight page of this you get

ten pages of this you get four pages

in like yeah um part of it is

because i like that style part of it

is because i've got a lot of shorter

stories i want to tell that i can

compartmentalize into anthologies that i

don't necessarily feel like i need to do

a whole series for but if i do

an anthology um

partly i want to do it as a

testing ground i want to throw pepper in

a couple uh stories and see if one

of them more than others really connects

and be like okay maybe that one is

the one i do need to bring into

its own yeah like like and you know

that's a smart way to do it i

mean marvel does it dc does it they

all have their hey here's what's coming up

and they watched the

social media.

They pay people to watch social media to

see if it's being talked about.

And if it's not being talked about,

I mean, it may still get made,

but it's probably only going to get like

a four to six issue run.

Right.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's, that's kind of,

that's the main next thing.

And I'm, I mean,

I'll probably have some other creators

involved in that.

And then I've got, I mean,

I have a ton of series that I'm,

I'm ready to launch.

It's just kind of time and money to

get up, to get up, to get up.

The roots of all evil time and money.

Yeah.

I mean, they're like written,

but I have to, you know,

do the Kickstarter and get the finances,

you know, find the artist for it.

So, you know,

those are sitting there waiting and then,

yeah,

working on getting some other people out

there also.

Um, and then hopefully, you know,

just kind of keep it growing.

I'd like to grow the label,

grow the roster, grow the, um,

titles and I mean ultimately I'd love to

be able to see

kill Stan being made into like a, uh,

I see it as like an adult animation,

kind of like the HBO series.

Yeah.

Dude, that would be so dope.

And it honestly,

that would be one of those where, yeah,

actually, yeah.

HBO hit him up.

Cause I want to kind of,

I kind of want to see that one

happen myself because it's such a fun

series.

Like issue one,

like people like to slow roll their issue

ones, uh,

Like you may get to how this person

became who they are.

Right.

Now kill Stan just gets in that door.

He's already wearing the mask and he's

fucking guns blazing.

And again,

felon upwards in the most outstanding

ways.

Right.

Yeah.

We throw you right in the deep end

right away.

That's that, you know,

you gotta have that hook.

It's so easy to lose people.

Cause like we talked earlier,

there's so much content.

So like if you can hook them right

away and grab them,

I didn't want to give anyone a chance

to slip away, you know?

Oh, no,

it's one of those where you flip that

cover.

Well, in my case, I scrolled down.

Yeah.

And it was like, oh, oh, yeah.

And it just like, I'm like, dude,

I think I probably emailed you like right

after I read it.

And I was just like, yeah,

let's let's let's let's get you on the

get you on the books.

Yeah.

Thank you.

If you're going to give advice to any

of these new guys coming up into this,

what would you tell to them?

Well, like I mentioned a second ago,

make sure you have lots of time and

money.

That's the first thing.

If you have time and money,

you can make it work.

The more time and the more money you

have,

the more likely you can make it work.

And the better it's going to be.

The better it's going to be.

But I will say this,

and I said this on another show the

other day,

but I would say don't –

don't

So the advice I would give,

this is kind of a two-pronged piece of

advice, but I think they go together.

The first thing I'd say is don't write

for the algorithm.

And what I mean by that is don't

write something you think that people are

going to love.

Don't write something you think that is

going to game the system and like, oh,

this genre is really popular.

You're not going to game the system and

that algorithm is just going to change

before you ever hit it on the shelf.

Well, yeah, that too.

But also, I mean...

My main point with that is it's never

going to connect with people because

you're not connected to it.

So write what you love for a reason,

something with purpose that's truly like

on your heart.

And that sounds cheesy,

but however you want to feel it on

your mind, something you believe in.

And people are more likely to gravitate to

it because it's going to be real.

It's going to be how you really feel

and something you really believe in and

love,

not just a thing you wrote because you

thought it would catch on, you know.

And.

Take this in the spirit it's intended,

guys.

If you're not ready to fully commit the

time and effort it's going to take to

do this thing, don't start.

And I don't mean that in a negative

way.

I'm not telling you to not start.

I think you absolutely should if you have

something you love doing.

Just start.

be ready to sacrifice a lot of time

and effort and you're gonna have a lot

of ups and downs and a lot of

pitfalls and things are gonna go wrong and

you have to be prepared for that and

you know you're gonna have bad days where

you feel like giving up or maybe for

you know you you take you give up

for a couple days and circle back or

whatever just know that like

it's gonna take all that so if you're

not prepared for all that you're not ready

to start the journey don't do it

half-assed make sure you're ready to give

it your all yeah a hundred percent what's

next for inferno man i know we we

were talking a little bit about it before

but what's next

And when can we expect it?

Killstand number four is next.

That's the next thing we got right now.

That'll be out hopefully... Timeline-wise,

what's today?

Mid-March, early April.

Probably, hopefully in...

I think we should see it in June,

hopefully.

It's kind of the timeline we're shooting

for right now.

That's the big next thing.

Also,

I guess this is kind of a thing

I haven't really talked about yet.

we are also going to with this next

kickstarter for number four we are going

to be offering uh a trade paperback we're

going to do a collected edition of the

first four issues so for people who want

to like to you know kind of binge

read we're going to have that option i'm

going to be i'm him

yeah there you go so i yeah it's

good to throw in a backpack and travel

with so we're gonna do that with the

kickstarter for number four um and uh then

yeah then uh hopefully i think after that

the next thing will be um the anthology

i have some some really cool stories i

want to tell that are

smaller summer one-off things uh and i i

i kind of want to make that make

that happen i think that's the next thing

dude i like it and whatever the

kickstarter is ready man if you just

shoot me a message,

whether it's on Instagram or whatever,

I'll be sure I share that around as

well.

Yeah.

The, uh,

the pre-launch page for number four is up

now.

So if you don't think,

did you send that to me when I

don't think so, let me get it.

If you shoot that to me,

I'll make sure it's in the description

when this goes live.

Yeah,

because the more followers we have on the

pre-launch page when we launch,

the better odds of funding faster,

the higher up in the algorithm you go,

and more people see it.

So we're trying to get as many as

we can.

Let's see.

Let me give it to you right now.

One second.

Yeah.

Dude,

I don't know if you've ever read a

description of one of my videos,

but I make sure...

It's all in there.

I just sent it to you there.

Perfect.

Okay, I see it.

So, yeah,

you can follow the link in the show

or just type in Killstand number four in

the search box on Kickstarter and it'll

take you to it.

Yeah, we'll get this added into...

see for people out there who do this

for a living like i do when you

when you have your notes and your

questions over here make sure you can

still edit it that way if they do

send you something else yeah you can

control v it right in that way when

you go to make this here into your

youtube description

You have everything right in front of you

and you don't have to do a whole

bunch of extra work.

A little easier.

Because if you're like me and you're lazy,

the easier you can make things,

the better.

Yeah, yeah.

And I am that lazy.

But tell everybody now where they can find

you.

Yeah, so for the comic book,

go to inferno.earth on Instagram.

That's our Instagram page.

That's where I'm most active.

We do have a Facebook.

I don't use it as often.

We get a lot of engagement on Instagram,

so I've just tried to focus on that.

And yeah,

I post new content pretty much every day.

Like I said,

some stuff is it's not all about kill

Stan.

It's all kinds of stuff.

I'm probably going to start doing like a

fun thing right where I do some comic

book trivia with my mom.

So I think that just a little fun

game where you see how much she actually

knows, which is very little to nothing.

Or you go to our website, inferno.earth.

There's no .com.

.earth is the domain.

We have a shop up there.

You can order all the back issues.

We've got multiple covers, foil editions,

variants, all kinds of stuff.

It's all right there.

You can even order digital copies.

We'll email them to you.

and uh also i do stand-up comedy for

a living so go to you can follow

me thank you that was my next one

yeah uh follow me at dees.comedy on

instagram or dees comedy is my website

i've got tour dates all across the country

uh in the next few months i'll be

in texas oklahoma arizona california

oregon washington idaho montana

uh and a couple other places um so

i'll i'll be doing comedy somewhere near

your face if you want me to come

to you uh shoot me a message those

hooks to some of them i'll come out

come anywhere if you pay me um and

uh uh if you like comedy

I've got a comedy special.

We're doing a deal on my website right

now where if you go to the Not

Your Cup of Tea link on my website,

Deez Comedy, click that,

and it's all pay whatever you want,

donation only,

and we'll send you the full one-hour

download, four-K special.

You can pay five bucks, ten bucks,

doesn't matter.

You can even pay a dollar.

It's a dick move,

but you'll still get it.

We will send it to you.

I get like like thirty seven cents after

PayPal.

Yeah, I'll get it to you.

The and then I also host a weekly

podcast called The Social Hour.

New episodes almost every Wednesday.

I take a couple Wednesdays off for travel,

but pretty much every Wednesday.

It's a comedy talk show.

I've been doing it for weeks.

uh for twelve years now you know we're

it's it's fun we i kind of talked

to everyone i've talked to everyone from

presidential candidates to kevin eastman

of the ninja turtles so uh you know

we we talked all all sorts of different

people it's a fun show uh check that

out too i like it man appreciate you

these thank you for joining us tonight man

ton of fun yeah thanks for having me

on i appreciate it uh thank you for

sharing the story behind it for no

comments and the creative journey that you

are building independent creators continue

to push the boundaries of storytelling and

comedy and it's always exciting to see new

publishers and new voices stepping forward

into the indie comic spear

If you want to follow these and see

why Inferno Comics is building nets,

make sure you check out the links down

in the description when this video goes

live, I think Friday.

All right.

I'm pretty sure it will be Friday.

And to everyone watching and listening,

thank you all for your support of

Independent Comics and the stories they

bring to life.

But until next time,

the Council of Nerds is adjourned.

This has been the USDM Podcast,

where indie comics come to life.

Y'all be safe out there.

Peace, man.

Appreciate you.

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