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USDN Podcast is a cinematic indie comics interview series hosted by the USDN_Chairman and the Council of Nerds spotlighting the creators, storytellers, and worldbuilders shaping the future of independent comics.
Each episode dives beyond headlines into the real journeys behind the books from Kickstarter launches and creative struggles to the philosophies driving today’s indie storytelling movement.
This isn’t about rumors or recycled news.
It’s about the people creating the worlds.
Through in-depth conversations, creator spotlights, and crowdfunding discussions, USDN explores:
• The rise of indie comics
• The business of crowdfunding
• The art of worldbuilding
• The realities of independent storytelling
USDN is where indie comics come to life for the fans, by the creators, and powered by the community.
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DFPN.
Thank you 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 and tonight we're stepping
into the shadows of victoria england where
logic meets legend where reason collides
with the supernatural and where one of
literature's greatest detectives is forced
to confront
a darkness he can no longer explain away.
Sherlock Holmes has survived for nearly a
hundred and forty years through countless
novels, films, television series,
and reinterpretations.
But tonight's story asks a question no one
has dared to answer quite like this.
What happens when the world's greatest
detective becomes part of the very
nightmare he wants salt to destroy?
Joining us tonight is Kaz,
founder and editor of Killer
Entertainment, to discuss Holmes Undead,
issue number two,
the next chapter in a gothic,
reimagining that transforms Sherlock
Holmes into a darker,
more haunted figure while preserving
everything readers have loved about the
world's most famous detective,
not named Batman.
We'll talk about adapting literary icons,
balancing mystery with horror,
building an entirely new mythology around
poems,
and launching the latest Kickstarter
campaign, which went live today.
And while some stories never stop
evolving, ladies and gentlemen,
the Council of Nerds is now in session.
Cass, welcome to the Council.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Can you hear me okay?
I can hear you just fine now.
We had some technical difficulties and we
worked through them.
That's why I always get people on a
little bit early.
That way we can work through some issues
and get it going the proper way.
so with that man hey again welcome to
the council i know it's been a hot
minute since you've been on the schedule
and i've been like waiting for this story
for quite some times now and i'm so
glad it went live today that way i
could jump in and get in on this
but before we dive into the homes undead
let's start with you tell us a little
bit about your journey into comics and
what ultimately led you to find founding
killer entertainment which is like
Thank you.
a killer name for an entertainment studio.
Thank you.
I kind of derived that name from like,
it was kind of a cool word,
you know, at a certain period of time,
you know, you would say, oh,
that's killer, you know,
and I kind of always liked that and
it sounded dark.
So,
and I made that name up probably around
like the year, two thousand,
two thousand one or something like that.
When I first heard it was really killer.
yeah yeah and that's when i first tried
self-publishing and um that was the name
that i that i used then and so
uh when it came time to found um
you know a business here uh publishing
homes on dead um i resurrected that old
name so um yeah the journey the journey's
been you know
I just like you probably was a comic
book fan when I was a little kid
and you know,
the comic book cartoons that we read with
and that inspired me to get into comic
books.
And then when I found comic books,
you know, that just,
I fell in love, obviously, and, you know,
that same kind of story that every comic
book fan has.
No, I'm right there with you.
I mean, again, I was a kid,
loved comic books.
I always loved, like,
the non-traditional characters.
I mean,
I liked the Batman animated series.
I liked the movies.
But from a comic book perspective,
I always preferred the indie stuff because
they –
They could get away with a lot more
stuff that was outside of the norm from
the DCs and the Marvels.
But I got out of collecting for like
twenty plus years.
Wow.
I didn't start collecting again until
twenty twenty one.
And when my daughter asked me to take
her to the comic book shop,
it's been back on ever since.
I've really been missing so many wonderful
stories and.
I jumped right in headfirst, of course.
Yeah.
And it's been a journey ever since.
I did a similar thing.
I didn't read or collect for several
years, many years,
and sold all my collection a couple times.
A couple times I did that.
And yeah, and then...
you know when life sort of started to
coalesce back into normal normalcy uh yeah
i slowly found my way back to comics
of course and um you know and then
uh and then and then realized um i
wanted to start creating again too so and
that's kind of how homes undead was born
yeah i i know exactly that feeling like
i after interviewing
countless creators and artists and all
this stuff.
And I was just like,
I have to try my hand at this.
So I've been in the background, you know,
silently, you know, working, making notes,
putting stuff together.
And then you'll notice like next month,
my schedule really drops from like,
eight to ten creators on mine well it's
already dropped from like twenty now to
about ten and then august will be one
per week
Honestly,
I'm giving time back to myself because I
really, really want to write this book.
And the only way I was going to
do that is to take the time off.
Plus,
I wanted to start doing conventions and I
just got press passes for a couple of
conventions this year,
which is going to be really cool.
so i was really i'm still kind of
like in shock you know getting press
passes to his ten comic conventions and
that kind of stuff oh kitty yeah she
looks just like mine only mine's in a
box her favorite napping spot like i have
bosses all over the house yeah you know
and it's just because the cats love boxes
like
So like a boss will live in my
house for a month until they wear it
out and you toss it out and then
you find them another one and that becomes
their, their new place,
new favorite place to take a nap.
Yeah.
So,
but you yourself have worn a lot of
hats throughout your career from martial
arts to professional wrestling to
publishing comics.
Looking back,
how has this unconventional path
influenced the stories that you tell
today?
That's a good question.
And I'm going to be honest with you.
When I get ready to drop the long
form clips of this show,
your wrestling photo is going to be like
the one I use.
That's why I sent it.
The moment you sent that one,
I was like, that's the one.
I know.
I mean, that's why I sent it.
Those are great pictures.
I love those pictures.
And yeah,
that was a big part of my life.
kind of stretched out over many years,
but really had a really like intense
period of like five years from like twenty
nineteen to twenty twenty four was when I
was really going and wrestling on the
independence.
I'm guessing in the California area.
no i'm in minnesota actually oh yeah okay
there you go yeah yeah they're in uh
tiffany stratton territory territory chad
gable brock lesnar i i actually live some
amazing wrestlers have come out of
minnesota
Tiffany Stratton, I think,
is from Prior Lake.
Prior Lake.
My girlfriend works in Prior Lake.
We live in the next town touching that
one.
Just for some context of where we are.
That's really cool.
I think Shelton Benjamin,
I don't know if he's from there,
but I think he went to school there
because I think he went to school with
Brock Lesnar, if I'm not mistaken.
I think you're right about that, yeah.
I actually I went the very first foray
I ever made into wrestling was in probably
about two thousand or two thousand one.
There was a there was a contest like
that old tough enough show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it was but a local wrestling,
you know, organization here.
And they did a little thing like that.
I got involved with that.
We trained for, you know,
several months and then they picked a
winner.
Out of out of the group, you know,
and the winner of that little contest and
our little group was Chad Gable.
That's not his real name,
but that was he was.
Yeah, no,
he was a sixteen year old high school
kid and he won that contest.
I mean,
he went to the Olympics for a reason,
right?
Yeah.
So when I saw it pop up on
NXT, I was like, wow,
I remember that kid.
That was crazy.
That's wild.
Sorry, we're big wrestling fans here,
and we have a podcast on the Dat
Phelan Podcast Network called No Gimmicks,
and they work a lot with the independents
in Texas in the Dallas area.
Cool.
So we're big-time indie wrestling fans and
just wrestling fans in general.
That's great.
Sorry, I got a soft topic there.
But so how did that unconventional path
influence the stories that you tell today?
Well, I guess, you know,
my whole life has felt sort of
unconventional, you know.
I'm sure everybody's life or most many
people's feel that way.
I only have my own to compare it
to really.
So, you know,
I guess I've always kind of done
unconventional things.
Sherlock Holmes is a character that is
very unconventional.
Dolphin, you know, that resonates with me.
Probably it resonates with a lot of
people, as you mentioned, you know.
Yeah, I mean,
I'm a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes stories.
And as you mentioned,
he's been around for so long.
I mean, a hundred and forty years,
which is wild to think about.
I know something's resonating.
So maybe it's that for me.
And, you know,
to to kind of go from wrestling to
comic books,
I stopped wrestling in twenty twenty four.
I got injured pretty bad.
And in that downtime,
you know uh that's when i i the
creative energy shifted from wrestling i
had to shift into something else and so
um i was sitting had been sitting on
homes i'm dead uh after a failed attempt
years prior and i yeah resurrected it
again and uh and here we are now
talking about issue two no it and like
i said i'm so excited to
And I think before we went live,
I looked and I think it was halfway
funded already.
Really?
Day one.
Yeah.
Let me let me double check.
I don't like to misspeak,
but I'm pretty sure it was pretty darn
close to being halfway there.
Yeah, I haven't looked.
I've been working.
I've been out of my skull today.
Oh, dude, it's day one of a Kickstarter.
Yeah, no, we're just shy of halfway.
You're at two eighty one of seven fifty,
which, dude,
that's the price of this book.
And the goal is like.
Amazing,
like you're not out there asking for five
thousand dollars to make a book.
which I'm getting ahead of myself on this,
but... Yeah, that's awesome.
I mean,
it's gone up a little bit since last
I checked, so that's great.
Yeah, no, and I'm happy.
You sent me that,
because I remember I told you,
I was like, hey, I can't find this,
and you sent me that scroll.
I'm like, hang on a second.
So when I clicked the number two and
it popped up as an add-on,
I was like, okay, there's number one.
I'm like,
I can't get number two without getting
number one because my OCD would absolutely
be insane.
Yeah, well, good.
That's why we put it up there,
and we put a cool,
fresh new cover on it.
That cover is dope.
Yeah, I love it, too.
I love it, too.
I was building your thumbnail last night
for this show, and I was like...
Originally,
I had took the comic book cover that
you had sent me, pulled it apart,
and I was piecing it into a graveyard,
and I was just like...
I'm way over complicating this because
it's such a cool story.
I'm just going to blood splatter,
you know, you know,
homes undead with killer entertainment,
which is cool as hell to begin with.
And I was just like,
and set it into a graveyard.
And I'm like, and then I was like,
yeah, I liked that.
Cause I was like getting away.
Like I was trying to make the fight
scene look cool in a graveyard.
I was trying to do all kinds of
stuff.
And I was just like,
I'm doing too much.
Let me just keep this shit simple.
Hey,
and then when people go look at it,
they'll be blown away when they look
inside.
Oh, absolutely.
But I got to ask, though,
why Sherlock Holmes?
Well, again, I mean, like I said,
he resonated with me, you know,
at one point years ago,
around twenty fourteen,
fifteen or something.
um something inspired me i don't remember
what to just uh dive into all those
all those original stories by like arthur
conan doyle and um and uh so i
read them all and then i like i
listened to them all on audio and uh
and i just fell in love with the
stuff and uh
You know,
I had always liked the character,
but had never, you know,
gone that deep of a dive on the
character.
And just when I got in there,
I just loved it.
So I fell in love with it.
And, you know,
maybe it's as simple as that.
And then again,
and then something else inspired the idea
one day to, you know,
cross vampirism with Holmes.
And it just kind of weirdly clicked into
place.
And I was like, gosh,
that's a really good idea.
And I just couldn't let it go.
It really is.
And what do you think makes Holmes such
a timeless character?
Oh, boy.
so original maybe.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that's one.
If you think about when
when he was written you know when when
that that when that stuff was first uh
published gosh i mean i i know there
were inspirations that preceded that but
pretty original i think for the yeah what
kind of life was sir author conan doyle
living to be writing the kinds of stories
that he wrote in his lifetime
oh because there has to be some truth
to the fiction right there is in in
fact i i read his uh his autobiography
and um it's it's very interesting when you
as you're listening to the autobiography
and you pick up on
the things here and there,
the little pieces that you can tell,
like informed some of the stuff that he
would write about in Sherlock or the ways
he would write about it and whatever in
the Holmes stories.
So it's really interesting, definitely.
And then like his life started to imitate
his art at some point.
And so he had a very,
very interesting life.
He was a very, very interesting person.
I always find characters like him so
fascinating.
You look at people like Christopher Lee,
who is related to Charlemagne.
I think he might be the only person
alive today who witnessed the last hanging
in France.
Yeah.
Wow.
You know,
so like you look at people like that
who are they themselves.
Yes,
they play amazing characters on TV and
movies, but they themselves,
the person is a bigger character than any
character they will ever play.
I mean, right about.
That's pretty cool when you when you reach
that.
That's peak.
That's peak.
That kind of, that persona.
Christopher Lee, that was Count Dooku?
Mm-hmm.
Ah, yeah.
I think he played Sherlock Holmes in a
movie, too.
I want to say he did, yeah.
I think I'm pretty sure.
I can't remember the title, but...
So that's a weird... Yeah,
that's kind of wild.
So when you wrote, you know,
Sherlock Holmes...
with vampires,
what was kind of like the central idea
that you wanted readers to take away
beyond the horror itself?
Well, and first just to clarify,
as you may have seen on the cover,
uh i'm i'm the creator so i'm listed
as the creator of homes on dead created
by um but thomas pew is the writer
of the book and uh virgilio calcagno is
the artist on the book so tom is
uh
writer who uh lives in the uk and
uh i found him many years ago um
through an old uh well it's still around
but uh used a lot more on the
past website called digital webbing where
um had this had a community board and
you could connect with people that was
that was some of that late nineties early
two thousand stuff right there when there
was so many of those out there yes
yeah yep and uh so that's where i
found him and uh
he sent me something that just seemed
like, um, was right.
Just like he was ready to write a
Sherlock Holmes story and it just worked
out perfectly.
So, um,
so it was written by him and, um,
you know, what,
what the central message is to get across.
Well, gosh, you know,
The central message,
I'm not sure I could come to one.
We're trying to tell a really cool story
with a really cool character.
We're trying to be really respectful to
the source material.
In that,
we're trying the very best we can to
have our Sherlock have the same
as close as possible voice that I had
in the Doyle stories,
obviously we're making a huge twist,
but we're trying to make it feel like
it could fit right in there.
Like it just could have really happened.
Like, wow, this fits right in there.
Like, oh, I see how this all, oh,
that really happened.
So, a hundred and forty years ago,
I think was the first Nosferatu somewhere
in that timeframe as well.
Oh, my gosh.
I can't remember.
I don't know.
For that era, though,
that he was written in,
I think there was a lot of books
like that being written like with monsters
and stuff like that.
So for me,
they're kind of a hand in hand thing.
And it's one of those two where you
always wondered like a what if, you know,
like, oh,
what if Holmes came across something that
was real that he couldn't?
you know,
explain away with logic and evidence.
So it's just a really cool concept.
Exactly.
And I think those books,
if I could be wrong,
I think probably those preceded
poems by you know a few decades more
something like that but yeah and you know
yeah in the original doyle stories uh you
know um he would have these brushes with
things that like seemed supernatural but
they never were you know and uh
And so, and other authors, you know,
books and comics have made those brushes
real.
And I wanted to make him the supernatural
element, you know,
and how would he deal with that,
you know, if it was happening to him.
And like what you said about logic and
reason, well,
it's his adherence to that that kind of,
Gets him.
It kind of makes him the perfect vampire,
though, as well.
That too.
Which leads us to Holmes Undead itself.
For anyone discovering the series for the
first time tonight or later on when this
hits podcast platforms,
what is Holmes Undead?
Holmes Undead is Sherlock Holmes...
It's like Sherlock Holmes crossed with
Vampire the Masquerade.
If you know Vampire the Masquerade,
it's a RPG vampire game.
It's Sherlock Holmes in present day as a
vampire.
It's sprinkled with flashbacks,
narrated with narration from the secret
journals of John Watson,
telling the secret truth.
of what really happened at, uh,
and leading up to the Reichenbach falls
and what happened after.
And as the story continues the years in
between then and now, uh,
because Sherlock is immortal,
he's the undead, he's the vampire.
And in the first issue, um,
We have a great hook where we see
a little bit of that revealed.
And then in the new issue two,
it really opens up and we really see
what we set up in issue one.
So issue two is a study in Crimson,
which is a really cool nod to a
study in Scarlet, in my opinion.
How important was it to pay homage to
Doyle while still making this story
entirely your own?
Well, we love the homages.
I mean, that's the Easter eggs.
I mean, that's so fun to do.
I always speak very highly of Easter eggs.
Like those are some of my favorite things
to find in any book.
Yeah, they're fun to do.
And they're not easy to do either.
You know, they take a lot of...
forethought and you know i have
communication um and uh but we try to
it gets easier as as you go so
in this issue in this issue there's some
some interesting little things um but uh
just a slight correction what we're
calling a study in crimson will actually
be the first story arc of six okay
Gotcha, okay.
And the title of issue two is The
Sussex Vampire.
Okay, yeah.
In itself is an homage to...
to an original Doyle story that had a
vampiric element in it that everybody
thought was supernatural but wasn't.
It's not unusual.
I dig through a lot of stuff,
and I try to put it together in
my head without having a full picture.
It's hard to get the full picture into
the person sitting next to us talking to
us.
So I always love when you go, hey,
wait a minute.
You're almost there, but it's this.
And that's cool.
I absolutely love that.
Hopefully we'll have a trade someday,
you know,
of the six issues and that'll be called
a study.
This would be a that would be really
freaking cool.
Yeah.
So you recently just revealed the cover
for issue three without giving too much
away.
Why can fans take away from that cover?
And what does it tease about where this
story is headed?
Well,
I'll answer that question by kind of
rolling it into the last one,
because that cover is an homage too,
and they have all been homages so far,
every cover, one, two, three.
the first issue homaged,
they've all homaged classic pieces of
artwork from the artists that did the art
in the original publications.
So cool.
And so whether it be, you know,
kind of like the third one,
the new one is kind of a culmination
of a couple or a few pieces of
that classic artwork.
switched up with some homes undead stuff
it's so cool um people should see it
go to our socials it's so awesome but
it's more that's next level marketing too
it's it's moriarty it's it's our you know
we're about to talk about professor
moriarty well it's our villainous ancient
Vampire Sire Moriarty on the cover in
front of the Mark of Cain instead of
Raka written in blood on the wall like
in a study in Scarlet.
The Mark of Cain and that has something
to do with Moriarty and there's a body.
And it's pretty wicked.
So that's one of my favorite twists as
I was digging into this is that Professor
Moriarty is an immortal vampire.
It's like a natural evolution for Holmes'
greatest enemy, you know?
How early did this idea come into
development as you were like,
because I know you're the creator of the
story, and then it was written by Philip,
right?
Thomas.
Thomas.
Thomas Puth.
which is a cool name to say.
But as you were pitching this to him
and telling him your ideas and your
thoughts and giving him all these details,
how did that develop into Professor
Moriarty being the vampire?
Well,
it almost wrote itself when I started
thinking about it.
I mean, Moriarty, as we know, is Holmes'
greatest enemy,
even though his appearances were very
brief in those original stories,
but the effect he had.
The pitch to the writer, to Tom, was
This explains a lot.
If Moriarty was a vampire and has already
been around by the time it's the eighteen
nineties,
has already been around for a couple few
centuries, who knows how long,
he would have certainly had time to build
the kind of criminal empire network that
he's famous for.
And who knows what he would have his
hands in.
from that time till now,
how much more would that network and that
empire grow maybe into global politics is
the possibility.
It's kind of wild that he's always,
Moriarty has always kind of represented
Holmes as intellectual equal,
but given the new data in your comic
book,
would him possibly
It is no wonder that Moriarty always
seemed to better Holmes or be his equal
or even maybe just a little bit better
than Holmes.
And it kind of is a really cool
spin on this.
And that was actually the question I'm
leading up to is,
does his immortality at this point make
him even more dangerous now?
than intelligence ever could.
And he is by all means, you know,
the equal of Holmes, if not, you know,
maybe just a little bit smarter.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I would say he's both,
I would say is intelligence is equal to
his, um, to his longevity.
You know,
they go hand in hand and they're mutually,
uh,
you know uh separate too that didn't make
sense but they're they're but you know um
definitely makes him more dangerous uh how
much time he would have to spread you
know his web uh and how deep and
how layered it would be uh would be
uh amazing and uh so that's what holmes
is you know really up against and he
does he is better than holmes in our
story in our story he does and we
find this out in issue two um he
does outsmart holmes and uh you know that
and it's part it's partly moriarty's
moriarty outsmarting holmes and it's
partly on holmes's again his adherence to
his own
his own logic, his own systems.
Maybe a little bit of arrogance there too.
Probably.
He won't admit that, but well, if it's,
you know,
maybe afterwards he might admit it in
private to Watson, but yeah,
that's not one of those over tea and
crumpets conversations.
Yeah.
No, no.
But that gets him into deep trouble.
And he learns a hard, hard lesson.
And we're about to dive into some of
these lessons.
So Holmes is famous for explaining away
impossible mysteries through logic,
as I've stated.
Your version forces him into a world where
logic may no longer be enough to explain
away.
How much fun has it been turning one
of fiction's greatest skeptics into
the truly impossible because this the
story the concept when you first sent it
to me i was like i probably told
you straight up like hey dude i'm in
you know actually i think that was
actually one of the first lines in the
emails like hey dude yeah no i think
you did say something like that actually
yeah that's yeah um
you know, just, I'm sorry, repeat that.
I was laughing so hard.
Repeat the question one more time.
No, you're good.
It was just,
how much fun has it been turning one
of the nation's greatest skeptics into
someone confronting the truly impossible?
It's super fun.
It makes him such a,
know makes him such a uh it makes
it gives him such a clash you know
yeah an internal clash you know and that's
always interesting and it's a really
powerful one like you said because it's
they're totally opposites you know what uh
what he's become and what he everything he
thought was real before that and um and
uh so and what what it's what's fun
and interesting about it is that
it's not going to suddenly turn him into
like, you know,
some believer in the mystic arts or
something like that.
Like still Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah.
And he's going to approach his new
situation like Sherlock Holmes would.
How else could he do it?
Yes.
I can.
I'm like,
the scene is literally playing out in my
head after he realizes why he has become.
And then like him being Sherlock Holmes,
doing the Sherlock Holmes thing.
and going okay logically where am i at
what am i doing this is what i
got to do like i could see him
just playing this out in his head in
my head which is probably dangerous in and
above itself but it's just a real cool
thing to think about like holmes is about
to have the homes himself so to speak
to figure out what he has become yep
yep and and uh and that's
part of the journey you know that we'll
go on and it's not just you know
at that moment but it's throughout the
years too you know so as the series
continues if it does no matter how long
it does we'll get to see you know
there's an end there's decades and decades
of you know um stories that could be
told you know of time that has passed
of him uh of him you know going
through this and uh
So that's what I love about it is,
yeah, seeing how – and Tom does that.
So I just – it blows my mind
the stuff that he comes up with,
the way he's able to take my ideas,
my concepts.
Which is a great segue there because he
had to find a way to strike a
balance between –
detective fiction, Gothic horror,
and the supernatural so that none of those
elements overshadowed the other.
That's a fantastic writing to be able to
take your ideas and then find this balance
to create a story where one element of
this story didn't overshadow the others.
And then try to fit it into the
Doyle
yes canon yeah without like you know being
too crazy and uh without like just
disregarding you know with being
respectful to it so yeah he he's he's
uh he's weaving some threads together and
uh gosh i really feel like i found
a diamond in the rough uh writer
unknown writer and uh and the diamond and
the rough artist too i just uh feel
it feel when stuff like that happens it
feels like it's meant to happen yeah
because like gosh how could i be so
lucky it just worked out perfectly yeah
it's one of those like i was talking
to um bruno catarino just a few shows
ago and actually i'm editing his show
right now which is why it's kind of
fresh in my head and um
his team that works on Crimson Bay and
bereavement,
a few of his other issues are like
the same two guys who have done a
lot of his other books with them.
So you can always tell, uh,
like a good team as working together.
Cause it shows through in the art,
the writing, the publishing,
it all shines through together to make a
really good book.
And you can kind of tell if one
or the other doesn't want to be there
because it's not going to reflect artists
can get paid,
but they still may give you something that
is probably mid tier at best, you know?
So it's kind of wild.
That's,
That's what editors are for,
and editors can be great or not great,
but a good editor is there to make
sure everything
And I'm the creator,
so it's extra special to me.
But you've got to pour over every piece
of it and make sure it's where it's
supposed to be.
Otherwise, like you said,
it's going to show.
And the whole thing is going to suffer
because of it.
So you really have to be meticulous and
stay after it every day.
Oh, yeah.
And then the Kickstarter, too,
and then everything else on top of that,
which we'll get to a little later.
But let's talk about Rickenback Falls,
which is, like,
probably one of the greatest
confrontations in literature.
And revisiting that, it was, like,
that was...
some gall there, you know,
to try to like,
how do I recreate this and just kind
of hopefully maybe take it up just a
notch.
And it had to be intimidating for on
Tom's behalf and yours as the creator to
go, Hey,
we're going to recreate and take it up
a notch.
This confrontation at Rickenback falls.
Like,
How was that approached with Tom?
Because that's one of those things,
you look back in literature,
and I don't care what anybody says,
Holmes with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
some of the best shit ever written.
Oh, yeah.
totally agree with all of that that's one
of the most famous yeah scenes of all
time in fact you can go there uh
to switzerland where that is and they've
got it it's you should look it up
sometime i have to look it up and
better yet i would love to go there
yeah i would love to go there someday
i will someday i will but uh yeah
and they've got it's all decked out with
um sherlock yeah and it's like a sherlock
tour you can go
That would be so cool.
It would be great.
You know, was it intimidating?
I just wanted to make it really cool.
Yeah.
You know, and be, again, be respectful,
but make it really cool and badass.
You know, I mean.
Yeah.
I mean,
I've seen some of the art from it.
You've sent me some of the pieces of
art and like,
I kind of see how it ends and
it's like,
Yeah, it's pretty wicked.
I mean,
our artist for Helio did an awesome job.
And the way Tom wrote it,
the second issue especially,
I feel like...
it feels like it is cut like a
Christopher Nolan movie a little bit with
the layers you're getting of the scenes.
Oh, it's so cool.
And yeah, that scene at the falls,
you know, I mean,
that was really the hook of the whole
story almost was at the falls.
That's where it clicks for Sherlock and,
too late and everything changes, you know?
And everything's more or less how it
seemed, you know,
in the Doyle stories up until then.
But after that,
There's a trunk full of secret journals
written by Watson that tell that story.
And that is also how the story kicks
off in issue one.
So again,
we just wanted to make it awesome.
And in issue two,
you get to see what actually goes down.
We hooked it in issue one.
We showed you that it was about to
go down.
If you took those two on that cliff
and in issue two,
we see it go down.
And, you know,
I don't know if it goes how people
would expect, you know.
We'll see what happens.
Moriarty's a vampire.
Sherlock's a man.
And we know the title of the story.
So I can tell you this,
it's going to be bloody.
Oh, dude, it's really cool to think about.
So were there any particular details or
moments that inspired the direction you
ultimately took?
I mean, I know there is.
We know the story.
We know the fight that happened.
But what were some of those things like
when you were talking to Tom and planning
this part of the story that you went
and go, this, this,
and this must be in this story?
Well, I think, again,
going back to just what we talked about,
the Reichenbach Falls, that was really,
that's the critical scene,
the critical moment
where everything changes from day to
night.
Literally.
Yes, literally and figuratively.
And so we really wanted to fit our
story into the things that happened in
that scene.
And that whole story, the final problem,
you know really uh is played out um
you know backwards in in our uh story
because we're seeing it kind of go in
a different direction um and how those
events what was really happening and um so
uh
I kind of lost my train of thought
there,
but it was really important to fit it
all in there and make sure that... Oh,
what scenes were really important?
I apologize.
Oh, you're good.
And, you know,
important elements were obviously the
characters, you know, and, you know,
getting those voices and those
relationships to feel right.
We introduced a brand new character,
and I think Tom's done a beautiful job
making her...
fit right in and feel like she belongs
there.
She's a descendant of John Watson and is
becoming Sherlock's new Watson in present
day.
That's really cool.
One of those things I was curious about
is,
because Holmes being Holmes and we know
his character, he has a Watson.
It's almost like
it's a must have for him that he
has a Watson.
And I was like,
my curiosity in my head, I'm thinking,
I hope he's like been there for the,
every generation of Watson that he's like
went back.
He's like, Hey, it's time.
I need a new Watson.
And the Watsons are just like, Hey,
here's our next one.
You know, that's such a,
it's so funny that you say that because
my, my, uh,
my wife and I have kind of joked
about a similar concept only in like a
comedic way.
Like what if he just shows up and
like this generation's Watson is like
totally unqualified to do this,
but he's being pulled along.
Yeah.
I mean, crazy stuff.
It's cool to think about, though.
It's just like, hey, yo,
he's a immortal vampire now.
But he he's always took care of the
Watson family.
He's always provided and made sure that
they're good.
And, you know.
They have always, you know,
did the same for him and had a
era that could be his Watson through the
generations or whatever.
And like to me that like it adds
a cool little layer in there to what
is already a cool story.
I mean,
I know that's not what's happening here,
but it's one of those like if it
was ever done again,
I don't care who it is, but hey.
here's here's a nugget from the chairman
right this is how it should be done
that would just be a cool element to
the story well i think you can imagine
that that our sherlock has probably been
keeping an eye in some way on you
know i mean he's a man of means
for sure
He's probably been keeping an eye on the
family.
In fact, he for sure has.
And issue one and two reveal why that
is.
There's a MacGuffin.
There's something...
that this descendant of Watson receives
that kind of kicks this whole thing off.
Sherlock's been, you know,
waiting for that to,
or even if he knows what it is,
something to appear all this time.
So he's been keeping an eye,
you can imagine, for sure.
I have suggested to Tom that it would
be cool to do, you know, like a...
a one-shot story uh somewhere that maybe
did tell the tale of a past watson
uh that he got close to in some
decade in the past whatever that may be
some interesting aesthetically interesting
decade you know the twenties or the
sixties who knows
I'm fond of the somewhere between the
twenties and the forties.
Yeah.
I'm fond of that era too.
So that could be cool to see Sherlock
in that era,
especially as a vampire in black and
white.
Dude.
Yeah.
That's.
one of my favorite eras of, of everything.
And that's actually where my comic book
takes places in that area as well.
So really, well,
we have something to talk about because if
we talk about future projects,
the one that I said, we're getting there,
we're definitely getting there.
Yeah.
The death planner, very similar.
Yeah.
Genre.
that that cover looked really cool um very
cool it was it was weird i checked
my email and i'm like i'm like you
sent me everything i'm like what is i'm
like all right you know what i'm not
gonna let me just i'm like oh i
like that one and then the other one
was just funny with the gingerbread man
that's funny but it's such a dark story
it's oh it's oh i imagine like it
because
Yeah.
It's going to turn people's,
it's going to turn,
it's going to put people off, I think.
Probably, probably.
But hey, it's cool to me.
I like those types of weird stories.
But let's take this world beyond Baker
Street.
We've been introduced to Susset's
forgotten history, journal entries,
and mystery stretching across generations.
Home's Undead is...
Street and it's introducing readers to a
much larger mythology.
How much of this world have you already
kind of fleshed out and how far are
you planning to go with it?
I would say we fleshed it out quite
a bit.
The first that I talked about,
the first six issues being called The
Study in Crimson,
that's one arc that we've got that fully
outlined.
Not all the scripts are written,
but it's fully outlined.
And then Tom kind of writes the scripts
as we go.
It takes a while to make these things,
so he's not in a huge hurry.
So issue three is actually almost done,
that script.
But so pretty fleshed out, you know,
throughout six issues.
And then we have talked about a second
arc and have actually done some outlining
for a second arc also.
And we've even talked about a third arc.
So there's probably nothing on paper for
that, but we've talked about it.
Um, we have a script, uh, in, uh,
in production for, uh, like a zero issue,
um, that would precede this, uh,
first arc.
So, um, we got, we got some stuff,
you know, uh, planned out.
And, um, uh, so we,
we know where we're going and, uh,
we know what the end is.
We know where we're going, you know,
where we're going after that.
And, um, you know, if, uh,
The name of the book, Holmes Undead,
is really, you know,
the undead portion of it is really going
to be explored, you know, in future arcs,
you know.
There's other ways to be undead.
There's other...
things that that could refer to and um
so it's going to be very very interesting
and um so i mean if we know
that vampires exist in this world that
means other things probably exist in this
world too yeah exactly exactly and we're
gonna that's what i love about these types
of stories that if it's focused on one
element of the story
more than likely the other elements that
would accompany a vampire i.e a werewolf
or something like that probably or like
also exist in this world and to me
that concept is just really cool those are
some of my favorite types of stories and
movies i'm a huge fan of the um
monsters like that which
is basically what I'm writing anyway,
is old Hollywood movie monsters.
Like I said,
I'm a big fan of The Creature of
the Black Lagoon, Phantom of the Opera.
Some of my favorite books being written
right now over at Starbound are those
Hollywood movie monster stories that are
being rewritten by Tinian and that team
over there,
Did you read the Wolfman one that just
came out?
Yes.
Oh, it was amazing.
That was amazing.
And it felt so like original and real.
And yeah, like a lot.
I'm going to be honest.
When they released Dracula,
we'll think last year sometime.
There hasn't been a bad series.
I love The Mummy.
The Mummy was such a cool,
unique story around The Mummy.
It was original.
It was just so damn good.
But they haven't missed.
Not one has been bad.
And if anybody is willing to argue with
me on that,
then we can argue about it.
But I'm telling you right now,
there has not been a bad series.
Hollywood movie monster from Starbound and
Image with Tinian at the helm or one
of the other writers on the helm of
those books.
They have been amazing.
I've always loved that old Wolfman movie.
That was the one that finally got me
to come to the party.
Did you ever watch Penny Dreadful?
No.
I never did.
I know what it is,
but I never watched it.
So Josh Hartnett was, he's in it,
you know, as Eva green,
but Penny dreadfuls are a series of short
stories that were pinned in the UK.
And they were just like these weird tells,
like you see in the TV series,
Penny dreadful about vampires and
werewolves and witches and that kind of
stuff.
Yeah.
And there's actually a comic book called
the Penny dreadfuls.
You can't find it no more.
It's very hard to find.
And when you do find it,
They've been read.
They've been loved.
But I've always loved those types of
stories.
So I remember watching the old black and
white Dracula movies,
The Creature from the Black Lagoon,
the werewolf movies,
the werewolf movie that came out in the
early two thousands.
I can't remember.
I wish I could remember the name of
the actor.
Underworld stuff?
No, not the Underworld stuff.
No, no, no, no, no.
This is actual The Wolfman stuff.
Oh, the one with the guy...
from the uh it was the remake of
the original yeah of the original yeah
yeah i thought that movie anthony hopkins
yes but he doesn't play the werewolf right
but that movie was phenomenal like that
one is like one of the ones that
kind of like like i've always been a
fan of it but that one kind of
like
brought it back you know for me because
it was just that damn good like i
think i own that one on dvd actually
like that's how good it was well god
you know it just is my dream someday
to bring it back to homes undead like
to see that on the screen like dude
with that those vibes like that oh my
god yeah just unbelievable
kick it off, like,
start it out in black and white,
and then all of a sudden, like,
Rickenback Falls happens,
and then there's, like,
a cutscene and we're in color in modern
day.
Dude.
Sign me up.
Totally.
But let's talk about Killer Entertainment
and what's next.
You are not just simply publishing another
comic.
You've built Killer Entertainment from the
top
are from the bottom up.
And we've already kind of like discussed
what inspired the creation of that,
but what's really the mission of Killer
Entertainment and kind of like what
stories are you hoping to become known
for?
well, gosh, we're so new, but you know,
if I had a mission statement,
it's in the title, you know,
I want to make killer comics,
like I said, you know, and,
and the killer has this kind of sub
text or vibe, you know, of,
of that edge, you know, of, uh,
It invokes that idea of a killer.
So maybe, you know,
a kind of imagery that even horrors.
So we can expect a bunch of horror
stuff, you know,
psychological type thrillers,
which I'm also a big fan of.
Yes, exactly.
I would call it, in fact,
so I would call, you know, Homes Undead,
you know, is what it is.
But, you know,
as far as upcoming projects, yeah.
you know um psychological horror yeah i
would i would call the death planner the
gingerbread man that's like slasher it's
going to be gory so you sent me
the covers i'm not going to share those
covers with anybody until i start
releasing the shorts for this video so
you'll have to people will have to tune
into the shorts they're going to see the
covers of homes undead they're going to
see these two covers that he just sent
me for gingerbread man
and for um the death planner the death
planner they're going to be included
within the first five seconds of the
shorts for this video when those start
releasing
probably early next week.
Cool.
So people are going to have to stay
tuned to see those covers.
I don't know if you've released them yet
or not.
They're on the socials.
So, okay.
So if you want to see them now,
go check out his socials.
Otherwise you can wait till I release the
shorts of this video because they're too
cool not to share with y'all.
So they will be included in the short
clips.
they are really great.
And yeah, they're on the socials.
You just have to dig a little bit,
you know,
but there's just tons of cool stuff in
there.
I post,
I try to post almost every day,
just cool art, you know?
So lots of fun stuff to see in
there.
And, um,
Yeah.
And all the socials are like on the
side and the bottom.
They're also linked down below this
episode as well.
So, yeah.
And anything that you send me is is
down in the description.
When I go to update the description later
with chapters,
they'll all still be in there.
Anything else you want me to share,
including the Kickstarter link is in there
as well.
Awesome.
But let's talk about the Kickstarter.
So of course,
crowdfunding has become like the backbone
of independent comments.
i'm guessing you kick started for issue
one and was there any kind of like
lessons you learned for issue one that you
kind of like brought over issue two and
kind of how you handle this one lots
sorry i'm just making sure my uh cord
is plugged in properly here oh you're good
if you're on an ipad i know those
things especially with stream yard zap
them to chew up energy it wasn't yeah
Wasn't plugged in the right way,
but I got it now.
So, yeah, I mean, lots of lessons.
Gosh, I mean,
it's amazing how much you learn just by
doing it.
And I didn't have any experience doing
that.
Well, I had a little bit, but...
Because I did a campaign prior to the
Kickstarter for issue one on Zoop,
which is a similar crowdfunding.
I don't know if you're aware of that
one.
I'm aware of it.
I don't have a whole lot of experience
with that one.
I have some experience with Indiegogo.
However,
I like the front end of Indiegogo.
I'm not a fan of the back end
of Indiegogo.
Yeah.
Kickstarter just seems a lot easier for
me.
Kickstarter has designed their platform to
be very user-friendly.
It's nice.
And I learned a ton from that first
one for sure.
And hopefully,
I'll learn a lot from this new one.
Always, always.
That's that evolution thing, right?
If you're not learning, you're not living.
Well, you see what works and what doesn't.
And so I'm trying some different stuff
with this.
With this one,
I really wanted to try to keep it
as simple as possible.
It really is.
Yeah.
Like even I was just like, I'm like,
this may be too simple for me,
you know, because I had to message you.
I'm like, hey, dude, I don't see this.
And you literally had to send me a
scroll like, oh, it's here.
I was like, oh, well,
just like you've kept that so simple that
it was too complicated for me.
Well, that's good, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well,
just to clarify that for people listening,
if you if there's there's like there's
four four tiers that use the four tiers
or the different cover,
the physical and the digital and then the
two covers.
Yeah.
And if you just select the cover you
want and then you'll be able to add
all of those other things to that if
you want those two.
Yeah.
And it's that's it.
That's where issue one is hiding,
by the way.
That's where issue one is hiding.
Pick your issue two cover.
And if you want to get issue one,
it will give you the option to get
issue one, get the Deerstalker variant,
by the way.
Yes.
Because that is a beautiful cover.
I already got mine,
so I'm not worried about it.
So you need everybody else go pick the
deer stalker cover.
It's the issue one cover,
but we just changed his hat to the
deer stalker.
And we don't use it very much in
our stuff, you know.
Yeah.
Um, you know, cause just,
it was just a choice.
And, uh, so,
but we use it sparingly and, uh,
I think it's, it's really cool.
It's really cool.
And I hope other people knew that the
deer stalker was for reference to the hat
and not him actually stalking a deer.
because and so i've been like watching a
lot of hat videos lately about how they
make them and shape them and stuff like
that it's really cool yeah and so i've
been learning all the different names of
all these different styles of hats and uh
because you know the cowboy hat is
literally just based off of a fedora's
type hat just different shapes and so it's
been yeah i'm not gonna go too deep
on that but i've been watching a lot
of hat videos nice nice but um
I watched a little,
or I learned a little bit about hats.
We went to this convention in March called
two, two, one beacon in Atlanta,
broke from Minnesota down to Atlanta.
And we just, we bought some, some, some,
you know,
victorian era clothing and we dressed up
uh for our booth to sell and promote
homes undead that's really cool so i had
a fedora and uh it was really fun
and uh my wife dressed up and um
those pictures are on the socialist too
and
And it was a Sherlock Holmes centric
convention and we did pretty well there.
What a perfect way to do that.
You know,
go to a Holmes convention and sell a
comic book based on Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah, it did well.
It worked out, made some new fans.
And so we're growing steadily and surely.
this this kickstarter you know is is part
of that um i'm so happy that it's
like over a third funded already it's like
the first day it like almost happened
overnight it hasn't even been twenty four
hours yet and uh and uh so just
really excited for everybody to see those
variant we were talking about which i'm
glad that's that's again we're segwaying
the hell out of this interview i love
it
one thing collectors love is a good
variant cover tell us some of the
different editions you have for homes
undead issue two i know we got some
andy dugan in there and the secret
deerstalker variant that we were just
talking about for issue one what else you
got on town for people um well the
the deerstalker variant for issue one so
it just gives people a reason to uh
if they haven't gotten it yet or you
know if they've already gotten it and they
want that cool new cover grab yourself
another one um and uh
the Andy Duggan cover you mentioned.
So Andy Duggan is from...
Dark Horse Comets?
Yeah, he's worked with Dark Horse Comets.
You can see there's a little bio on
the Kickstarter that you can look at.
He's done some work... Star Wars covers.
Yeah.
To be fair, I probably own it.
Oh, yeah?
If he's done anything for Dark Horse,
because Dark Horse does the...
The older stuff.
Well, he's been doing the recent stuff.
He's a younger guy.
Yeah.
Well, that's what I'm talking about.
But when I say the older stuff,
I mean, from a story perspective,
Marvel has the newer stories.
Right.
And then Dark Horse is covering like,
you know,
before the Star Wars that people are used
to.
Well,
the one that I believe he's got a
cover on and maybe a story in is
there was a trade out of it recently
called Young Jedi Adventures.
Yeah, I got it.
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
I believe that cover on that trade is
Andy Duggan.
And he also has a YouTube show with
his buddy called Infinity Flux,
which is the name actually of a comic
book shop in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
that they work out of.
And when we were at that two to
one beacon in Atlanta that I just
mentioned,
their comic book shop was on the way
back to minnesota so we started and we
stopped there and unfortunately they
weren't chattanooga is beautiful i'm glad
you got to to go to chattanooga the
mountains are phenomenal it was a pretty
little area i was yeah you gotta see
rock mountain man
I commented on that to, uh, to,
to my wife actually, but, uh,
that it was pretty here and, uh,
they have a really cool little shop there
too.
Right there.
Yeah.
Dollywood is right there.
Oh my gosh.
Um, so, uh, we stopped in there.
They weren't there,
but I left them a few copies and,
uh,
he got in touch and, uh, you know,
we chatted a little bit and then I
just occurred to me,
ask this guy to do a variant cover.
And he said, yes.
And it wasn't that expensive.
And, uh, um, and so, um,
his cover is so awesome.
That's the end.
I call that, uh,
I titled that Embrace.
Yeah, no, that one is really cool.
Yeah.
So get that one.
It's great.
And then we have one more.
I hope people can put two and two
together to figure out what that's about.
Because that's such a cool cover.
Yeah.
Well,
if you know a little bit or a
lot about vampires,
you probably know what that means.
Embrace is a very specific thing.
term and uh and you know you might
think it's because they're in an embrace
on that cover wrestling that famous
wrestling match they have going over the
falls but that's not the embrace we're
talking about and um then we have the
action figure
Blister pack.
I always love those.
Those are always really cool.
I know.
I just had to do it.
I love those action figure variant covers.
There's one out on the shelves right now,
I think, with Supergirl.
It's like a superpowers figure.
They're so great.
Star Wars does them so well.
I always love when Star Wars does those.
They did them for Gargoyles.
They've done them for DuckTales and
Thundercats.
They're great.
But ours is extra special because it's a
wraparound.
We did the front and the back of
the car.
Yeah.
It's so cool.
Wraparound covers are always so cool.
So Virgilio drew the other figures in the
wave.
And...
it started out as a as as like
a like a more like a marvel legends
style and then i said you know i
really loved these super seven reaction
vintage collection style i love those
figures and i said our that's where holmes
undead would really fit and we switched to
that and it turned out just amazing so
it's a really cool cover it's a really
great cover
But for anybody like for someone,
let's say they've never backed a
Kickstarter before.
What makes Holmes Undead the perfect
project for them to jump in on?
And I will start this answer first.
This is probably one of the cheapest
Kickstarters with the lowest goal I have
ever supported.
And A, it's a beautiful book,
a dope-ass story.
And now I'll let you pick it up,
Kaz, because I can't say any more.
I appreciate that.
And that's interesting information to
hear, you know, because I...
I'm winging it, you know, I don't know.
I've never used Kickstarter.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm just doing the best I can and
learning from here and there and pulling
and doing the best I can.
And so, you know, we're not presumptuous.
I come from a martial arts background and
I'm a believer.
And I like to think that, you know,
hopefully I'm not a presumptuous person.
So I'm not trying to put some crazy
goal out there.
Yeah.
of money it's one of those where you
have to ask like where where do i
need to be to make what i put
in back or to make a little more
you know yeah the book is done you
know and uh i wanted to offer a
product to people not a like a like
a promise or hope you know but it's
we're putting it out there and um
we,
the goal for the issue one was even
lower.
I raised it this time by two hundred
fifty dollars and it may turn out to
have been a low goal.
Maybe I should have went higher.
And to hear that it's the least expensive.
That's great because we raised the prices.
It is one of those is still it's
just such a dumb ass book.
Yeah.
Like I cannot express that to people.
That's the thing.
And that's the other.
point that that I would make to that
question is, you know,
it's a it's a really,
you're getting you're going to get a
premium
book here in in in its printing in
its art in its coloring in its inking
in its writing in its cover in its
design all of it it's premium this book
could if you saw this book sitting on
the shelf i took a picture of it
sitting on the shelf at a comic book
that put some copies out for us
it's just it's every other comic book it's
it's exactly it belongs there it looks
exactly up to the quality level of every
other comic book so um it's a premium
uh collector's uh item and uh so i
think if you know that's what you're
getting when you buy this book and uh
like and plus like you said it's dope
as hell yeah dude i i
I cannot express like the story is just
such a fun concept of a story.
And I don't know if it's a nostalgic
thing for me or what.
I've always just been a huge fan of
Doyle's work of, you know,
Sherlock Holmes.
Like those stories have always been really
cool to me.
They've always appealed to me for a
multitude of reasons.
And then I've always loved vampires and
monsters and you throw that element on top
of it.
I know.
It's like this great synergy of characters
and concepts.
I love seeing it too.
As the creator,
I can't imagine when that popped into your
head like,
But what if I did this?
Well, and when I see the scripts come,
when I get a new script or I
see new art, man, I mean, it's,
you know, it's like it's,
I have the same feelings, you know,
so it's really, really fun.
And, uh,
we're having a great time making it and
I think that the proof of that is
in the product.
The quality is there because
we love what we're doing.
We love Sherlock Holmes and we, uh,
love vampires, all that stuff.
So that's why the book is good and
it must be good.
People are buying it.
So, and if it's good,
it's be good because we love it and
we're doing the best with, you know, so,
but let's build a community, man.
You'll be appearing at the Gothic market
in Minneapolis as independent graders.
So much of the success that comes from
building relationships,
with readers,
why have you learned from meeting fans
face-to-face that you can never really
learn online?
I mean, it's priceless.
You can't replace that face-to-face
element to meeting the fans at the
conventions.
You can't replace it and you can't do
it with something else.
It's such a necessary...
element and it's so fun you know like
when we were at two to be two
to one beacon you know so many people
uh were there because they love sherlock
holmes and uh people flew from like we
talked to a woman that flew from australia
that's so cool those are my favorite
people to meet though like she flew
to go to this convention because she's
such a fan of Sherlock Holmes.
And our book was awesome enough that she
bought it, you know?
Yeah.
I thought that was, that stuff you can't,
you know, so it's about making fans.
Mm-hmm.
think fans not just fans but long term
fans that's getting to you because they
want to and meeting them helps that
because you know putting a face to the
whole thing and you know people like to
know the people that make this stuff and
what we're like and that's why i still
play so it shows them that you're you're
you're a local you're a hometown guy and
look what I'm doing.
You know,
I always like to use that as a
reference.
I'm like,
you don't know what the dude next to
you does in his free time.
Like, you know,
he could be writing the nets, you know,
Sherlock Holmes in his attic or his,
in his office or his study or his
man cave or whatever you want to call
it these days, you know?
And I think that's just a cool concept.
And I always say, I'm like,
think about how many cool stories, um,
are just sitting on somebody's shelf or in
a box in their notebook.
It's just something cool to think about
that the next big story is probably just
sitting in a notebook or on a shelf.
It's hard to take it to the next
level.
It's really hard.
but, uh, any,
any other conventions or anything coming
up?
Well, to elaborate on the Grimoire, uh,
the Gothic market, it's,
if you were to look it up online,
it would be, uh,
the Gothic market by Grimoire Academy.
So it's a national convention.
They've had shows, um, in many,
many different States.
And, uh, and, uh, so, um, July,
the fifth,
the twenty-sixth is the one here in
Minneapolis at the convention center.
And, uh,
It's a gothic market.
It's a gothic convention, gothic wares.
It's what you probably imagine it would
be.
Those are always so cool to see.
It says that it gets thousands of people
in attendance.
So, two, two, one, beacon was...
very little it was so great but it
was little and gothic market's going to be
much bigger so we did well at two
to one b we'll see what happens i'm
printing some uh copies of issue two just
for the convention so we're gonna sell
them both and um issue one and two
and uh i have high hopes i think
it's a perfect market for us
I mean,
it's like those things go hand in hand.
Yeah, I mean, it's vampires.
Sherlock Holmes has a,
even without vampires,
Sherlock Holmes has a gothic vibe.
You know,
because of the era that he was originated
in.
And so, and making,
adding vampires just makes it more so.
So I think it's going to be fun
and we're going to do well.
And then maybe one more convention at the
end of the year here, a local one.
uh it's called the twin cities con also
in minneapolis um so just does you know
trying to build slowly yeah and you know
we're doing the local thing even though we
travel to atlanta but uh you know and
uh slowly but surely so what's next for
homes on ted when can we expect the
issue three to to be teased
Well, it's teased with that new cover.
Um,
we'll see that printed in issue two and
I did put it on the social.
Some people can go look for that.
Um, it's very cool.
Uh, um, issue three,
the title is the Napoleon of crime.
And that's, uh, the moniker that, um,
Sherlock gave, uh, uh, professor Moriarty.
And, um,
that's a you know a heavy sherlockian
reference so yeah and but that also
signifies you know we're gonna we're gonna
the story's gonna open up on moriarty's
background in that issue so it's gonna be
very very very interesting yeah yeah
especially him being an immortal vampire
yeah so so all right i meant to
ask you earlier your books like like pages
or pages how long are your comics
We just did that because it was our
first thing.
We wanted to kind of stay standard and
we were thinking about collecting into a
trade in the future,
hopefully because we knew we were
committed to finishing the first arc.
Our other projects will probably be maybe
twenty-four pages.
whatever so okay but so they're twenty two
and uh but issue two is actually gonna
be thirty two pages we're gonna okay we're
twenty two story but we're gonna cram a
bunch of extra really cool art in there
really fun stuff some sweet pinups and oh
nice it's gonna be almost like a mini
art book in the back it's gonna be
really fun so people are gonna get their
worth for that book so
yeah for the price yeah i mean absolutely
yeah well if the price is low then
buy all the covers everybody help us out
help yeah i know absolutely i mean i
picked up um i think the embrace issue
too and then the deer stalker issue one
i think is low ones i grabbed i
appreciate that so much thank you but um
let everybody know where they can find the
kickstarter at i'll just
Go to Kickstarter.
I don't have the link right in front
of me.
I do.
If you go to Kickstarter,
it should be here.
And it's easy to find, though.
If you go to Kickstarter and you type
in Homes Undead, you're going to find it.
If you Google Homes Undead,
you're going to find it.
If you Google Homes Undead on Kickstarter,
you'll find it.
Easy to find.
The link is also down in the description
below.
And it's right here.
So go straight from watching this video to
that link.
absolutely and go do the thing a hundred
percent and uh i think people won't regret
it you know um and like kickstarters
become like this amazing like backbone of
uh independent publishing i think this is
where the real indies are i don't consider
This is just me,
but I don't consider anything that just
about anything that you can get on a
shelf at a comic shop.
I don't really consider Indies.
This is the Indies, you know,
I can't get on the comic book shop.
I mean, I can, but it's like,
you know, it's like, it's like, it's like,
so this is,
that's where the real Indies are.
And I think it's so cool.
And the more I learn about it,
the deeper into that,
the environment I get, it just,
The more it excites me.
It's really cool.
I'm really glad that you're a part of
it helping that whole thing.
I appreciate it.
To this day,
I think one of the best things I
ever did for the podcast from a podcasting
perspective is change my direction from
focusing on pop culture and comic books to
independent comics because I felt that's
where I could do
the most good for the community that I
love so much.
And I haven't looked back.
I haven't regretted it.
As a matter of fact,
I guess I'll go ahead and announce it
now.
I got press credentials for Baltimore
Comic Con this year.
Cool.
So I will be there at least two
and a half days.
I don't know if I'll stay for the
full third day,
but I'll be there talking to independent
creators the entirety of the weekend.
Awesome.
And I will also be at Small Press
Expo in Maryland as well,
which is like
a huge independent creator networking
convention and i will be at both of
those in september i'm super excited like
you have no idea i've worked hard i've
busted my ass i've put in hours upon
hours
of doing what I love and to finally
get these opportunities.
I am forever thankful for that and for
the creators really just putting their
trust in me to help them market and
push their projects.
So I owe a big part of this
to everybody out there who has supported
and gave me the opportunity to talk to
people like UCAS.
It all works together.
I mean, we need,
we all need each other.
Oh, a hundred percent.
You know, I mean, we, we need,
we need press.
We need.
we need the word to get out there
and you'll also notice that i've gone away
from yes i am a podcast at the
end of the day but if you look
at some of the other things that i've
been building like the subtle things that
i've been dropping on social media and
places like that
My goal is to – the podcast is
going to be the podcast,
but I'm transitioning more toward being a
media place for indie comics.
That's so great.
So eventually there's going to be a
website.
There's going to be articles.
There's going to be – I'm going to
start doing reviews in August again.
Not written.
I'm not – I just want to make
that clear.
I will not do written reviews.
I will do –
I will then take that short transcript and
probably convert that into a semi article.
That's going to be the extent,
but it will at least be me talking
about your book.
So that's coming.
There's a lot of cool things coming down
the pipe for the USDN.
So I'm really excited about that.
And yeah, I'm excited about that.
cast.
I know I just took a few minutes
of your time to make some really cool
announcements on my behalf and I apologize
for that.
I'm happy to hear all that.
That's so cool that it's growing.
It's been amazing.
It's fun to think about where we could
all be in five years.
I'm so excited for what the future has
for this.
I'm lots and lots of hours behind the
scenes.
I'm actually behind on editing because I
Yeah,
I was redefining a process and like I
beat myself up.
Anytime I do stuff like this,
like I have to hammer down certain things.
Like if I decide I don't like a
process,
that process is getting fixed right then
and there.
And so that's what I had to work
on.
And it put me behind of it a
little bit,
but I'm going to catch up over the
four day weekend.
But cats for everybody out there,
let everybody know where they can find you
and killer entertainment at.
Well, KillerEntertainmentLLC.com.
But again,
just Google Killer Entertainment or
whatever you do, you'll find it.
But it is KillerEntertainmentLLC.com.
We're making some changes and slowly
making changes.
It's just me and my wife here to
the website, but it's pretty cool.
Go there.
pretty much everything that you would need
to know you'd be able to find through
there um if not the kickstarter we may
not have put that link up yet because
i just did it yesterday that kickstarter
it's going to be here in the video
um and easy to find on google or
however you search homes on dead
kickstarter um and um so that's where you
can find me and i would say pay
attention to all of our socials
um again that you can find through the
website because i'm always posting
something you know i try to get every
day but uh especially now during the
campaign i'll probably be going hard um
but i'm always posting dude you got to
you got to uh but i'm always posting
some art or some
something cool to look at.
So, uh, and with cool music on it,
you know,
creepy homes on dead videos and stuff.
So, so stay there.
That's actually how I do it too.
Like Instagram had a really cool, uh,
cause I don't know if anybody ever notices
this or really pays attention,
but every song I put to every video
video I do or every real,
I share on Instagram has something to do
with the topic of, uh,
the real.
So for when I announced Holmes Undead
coming to USDN,
name of the song was like home something
but it was just this really cool gothic
beat you know i was like oh that's
perfect it fits it so well so i
do that for every reel in every video
i share like that even when i make
shorts i find the song that fits the
vibe of the video
And it goes unnoticed,
but I know it's there.
And that's the important part is I know
what I have done and it makes me
happy.
And that's the best part.
For our stuff,
it just adds a really cool,
creepy vibe to all the videos I put
out, which I want.
And so, yeah,
the socials and the website and the
Kickstarter issue, too.
You know, it's going down.
We're already rocketing towards the goals.
Everybody go help us out.
Just short of,
you're almost halfway there, so to speak.
Not to quote Bon Jovi so often,
but he's halfway there.
That's okay.
All those links that we just mentioned are
down below in the description of this
video.
Cass, one last time,
I want to thank you for joining us
tonight and giving us a look behind the
curtain of Homes Undead.
It's always a sighting to see creators,
Take familiar characters that you like or
that you give those characters an entirely
new life to them.
And I personally cannot wait to see where
this series goes next to everyone watching
and listening.
If you enjoyed tonight's conversation,
be sure to support the Holmes Undead to
kickstart or follow killer entertainment
across social media.
and let them know that council sent you
if you enjoyed tonight's episode don't
forget to like this video subscribe to the
channel and share it with comic fans
horror lovers and sherlock holmes
enthusiasts in your life every share helps
us continue shining a spotlight on
independent creators and the incredible
stories that they're bringing to the world
and until next time
This has been the USDN Podcast,
where indie comments come to life.
The council is now adjourned.
Y'all be safe out there,
and we'll see you on the next one.
Peace out.
gas.