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USDN Podcast is a cinematic indie comics interview series hosted by the USDN_Chairman and the Council of Nerds spotlighting the creators, storytellers, and worldbuilders shaping the future of independent comics.
Each episode dives beyond headlines into the real journeys behind the books from Kickstarter launches and creative struggles to the philosophies driving today’s indie storytelling movement.
This isn’t about rumors or recycled news.
It’s about the people creating the worlds.
Through in-depth conversations, creator spotlights, and crowdfunding discussions, USDN explores:
• The rise of indie comics
• The business of crowdfunding
• The art of worldbuilding
• The realities of independent storytelling
USDN is where indie comics come to life for the fans, by the creators, and powered by the community.
You are listening to the USDN on the
DFPN.
Thank you.
What is up, everybody?
And welcome to the United States
Department of Nerds,
where we are for the people,
by the people, and of the people.
Conspiracy theories, secret societies,
hidden knowledge.
Every generation has that one story that
refuses to disappear,
a story that fuels debate,
sparks imagination,
and leaves people wondering where fiction
ends and reality ends.
begins.
For decades,
Tales of the Illuminatis has done exactly
that.
Now that legacy continues in comic book
form.
Returning to the council is creator Bobby
Campbell,
the writer behind Tales of the
Illuminatis,
who is bringing one of the most
influential conspiracy stories ever
written to a new generation of readers
with issue three, Opus Chow.
Cal, yep.
Cal?
Is it on Kickstarter now or is it
coming soon?
So it'll be out in August.
We're finishing up right now.
Perfect.
Coming soon in August.
Bobby joins us to talk about spending an
iconic universe building creator-owned
comics and why some stories never stop
asking questions.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the Council of Nerds is now in session.
Bobby, welcome back to the council,
my friend.
Thank you so much.
It's great to be back.
That is an excellent intro,
a very perfect encapsulation of what we're
doing and why we're doing it.
And yeah, the mystery continues.
We're taking a left turn.
with our third issue instead of just
straight up adapting the next part of the
immortal trilogy.
So what we're doing is there's also a
trilogy
of prequel books.
So we're doing a sequel to the prequel
of the Illuminatus Chronicles.
So in the eighties,
Robert Anton Wilson on his own wrote a
series of historical novels set in the
late eighteenth century.
And so, yes,
we're picking up from where those novels
left off,
but also tying in with the previous
adventures and just kind of building the
world out and showing just how expansive
it actually is.
I love it, dude.
So the last time you joined us,
the Tales of the Illuminati was just
beginning its journey as a comic book.
Now we're talking issue three.
Before we dive into the campaign and get
to really dig it into what you're doing
with this issue three,
what's this journey been like since the
last time we talked to you?
Well, so since last we talked,
it kind of escaped out into the world
and has met the both new and old
readers of Illuminatus.
And it's been really fun, like,
seeing what people do and do not remember
or understand about the original
Illuminatus.
So the original Illuminatus,
if you haven't read it, so it's, it's,
it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
it's, it's, it's,
psychedelic surrealism.
It is like part like dense real life
historical information and also just off
the wall pastiche and parody and just as
strange as a fiction can possibly get.
Yeah.
And so what's interesting is so people
will come up that have read Illuminatus
and they'll talk about the comic.
And there's things that I made up in
the comic that are not in the original
novel.
And they'll talk about how they remember
that from the original novel.
Or there's things that are straight up
from the original novel that people will
think that I made up.
And it's this.
real swirl it's just building on to the
uh the legacy of the illuminatus at the
end of the day it is so cool
to see because there's such a cult
following for this yeah no for sure um
i i find that most people don't remember
the details of the story they just
remember how it made them feel
And that's the legacy of Illuminatus.
It's really more of a feeling than of
any specific story elements because it's
very hard to hold it all in your
head.
It's very much one of those novels that
needs like guidebooks written about it.
And there have been.
books written about it.
It was heavily influenced by James Joyce
and those kinds of literary games.
It's about a detective,
but it also requires you to be a
detective in certain areas to figure out
what's going on.
Yeah.
And then likewise,
so the idea then as I saw it
was, all right,
so we have this eight hundred page
behemoth that is so complicated people can
barely wrap their minds around it.
Let's expand it out and let's include a
spinoff novel like Masks of the
Illuminati.
an old universe book like Schrodinger's
Cat,
and then also the historical Luminosity
Chronicles,
just to blow it even further wide open.
And hopefully, as it's worked out,
so you're catching me at a good time.
I'm on the last few pages,
so now I'm over the mountain.
And so now everything's like newly
invigorated because I can see the end of
the line.
But as it's worked out,
it kind of works perfectly whether you
have read that mountain of books or not.
So there's a lot of world building that's
done in summary.
So you can kind of head into it.
I'll bring you up to speed.
But while I'm bringing you up to speed,
I'm also planting new seeds.
Then if you're very familiar,
you'll see the new developments that are
mixed in with the summaries.
And it all has kind of cohered really
organically.
There's this idea that when you have a
complicated enough information ecosystem
that there's emergent properties.
And having worked with this material,
it really,
a lot of the ideas that I came
up with when I went back to double
check if they were plausible,
if they had a textual basis.
Yeah.
Not only did they, they was baked in.
It was almost like it was meant to
be all along.
And so, yeah,
so playing around with this kind of
material has been really gratifying,
especially by, like you say, expanding it,
adding on to it,
kind of playing the iteration game with
it.
Yeah,
and it's one of those that it offers
itself to that, you know?
Yes, for sure.
Go ahead.
No, no, go ahead.
I was going to ask you about the
campaign and just kind of like looking
back at that first campaign.
And I think that was your first time
here.
It's like, was it issue?
Can you remember if it was issue one
or issue two?
I think it was issue one is when,
when I was here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, but looking back on that,
like what's something that you thought
would get easier that has actually turned
out to be harder.
And I know what my answer is on
this one.
Cause it's, I deal with it every day.
Okay.
Something I thought would be easier turned
out to be harder, I guess.
To be honest, just getting the word out.
Just getting, like, because it's so weird.
There are people who are, like,
super into Illuminatus and follow along
very closely.
And, you know,
I've been banging this drum for three
years.
And there's still people just, you know,
kind of just noticing what we're doing.
And so, yeah.
So the idea is...
It's even hard to reach the people that
are tuned in.
It's not just the people that are not
aware of it in general.
Even if you are vaguely aware of it,
it's still hard to get through that noise.
I did not know there was a Toy
Story movie coming out.
How many millions of dollars did they
spend to make sure everyone knew there was
a Toy Story movie coming out?
missed it completely till we went to the
theater to see the Odyssey.
And I go, oh, there's a toy story.
So yeah,
cutting through the noise is extremely
difficult,
even with people that want to hear what
you're saying.
Yeah, it's definitely one of those.
Like any certain books, certain people,
they have a tremendous following and they
show up and they show out.
remember when you were on the first time
and when i did the announcements for it
like people showed up like tons of lights
tons of views this time i feel like
it doubled once again from the first time
you were on in just terms of people
like the likes and the views and the
shares i'm just like
I wish every creator could bring this.
I don't know if it's the Bobby of
it,
or if it's just the tales of the
Illuminati.
Does it feel like it's one of those
where you mentioned the tales of the
Illuminati people are like, Ooh, Ooh, Ooh.
Yeah, no, the support has been fantastic.
I cannot complain about that whatsoever.
And some of it is just people who
have a lasting fondness for those books
and specifically for Robert Anton Wilson.
He's one of those writers that if you
read him and became a fan of his,
he probably changed your life in a
meaningful and very positive way.
uh and that leaves a mark and so
there's a lot of people who uh kind
of carry that torch for him because of
what he did for them and so whenever
there's any any project associated with
him is going to get a significant amount
of love uh just because of uh
how impactful he was on a large group
of people without really becoming super
successful on a like
like national level.
He remained kind of an underground writer.
I mean, he was successful enough to keep,
I mean,
he wrote thirty five plus books and,
you know,
had a long career and did very well.
But he's not a guy that was getting
reviewed in The New York Times.
But to abuse a metaphor I've been using,
he's kind of like the velvet underground
of writers in, in that,
like he may not have, you know,
been the top of the New York times
bestseller list,
but a lot of everyone that read his
books are,
took the ball and ran with it.
And he was very influential specifically
on other creators.
And that seems to be a good reason
why he's remained so relevant is that a
lot of people with prominent voices are
very fond of him.
There was a comic book to come out,
I think last year sometime before I went
full-time just doing independent creators
and I was still doing new comic book
day.
It was called a Benjamin.
I believe it was,
put out by Ani Press,
if I'm not mistaken.
And it had that same Robert Anton Wilson
feel to it,
the Illuminati's feel to that story where
a guy who knows he died,
but he somehow he's awake and walking
around in L.A.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
It's a freaking amazing story.
I think it was,
I can't remember if it was a three
issue or a four issue series,
but it was just amazing.
But it gave me like the way the
book was done in the way that your
comic book is done.
Yeah.
How vibrant it is.
They remind me of each other in that
regard.
So it's just really cool that,
Like the first thing,
like when I got issue one in my
hands, I was like,
this kind of feels like a little bit
of the tells of the Illuminatus with some
other like sci-fi stuff mixed into it.
I'm like, that's kind of cool.
You know?
Yeah, I love it.
But it's just kind of cool.
Here we are.
Why this book was written thirty plus
years ago.
not even longer so it was written in
it was written in the late sixties so
it was uh yeah so it uh so
it was written in the late sixties into
the early seventies but publishers sat on
it for years and years so it didn't
it didn't see print until uh the uh
mid-seventies i think seventy-five so it's
wild nineteen seventy-five and this book
is still having
that big of an impact on how pop
culture and written books and comic books
are done today yeah it was one of
those it all just became more relevant
like all the all the trends and uh
all the kind of uh
themes and paranoia it all just kind of
accelerated uh in in the years following
its publications if anything it's probably
more relevant now than it was even when
it was originally published um in in good
and bad ways but so what's one lesson
you've learned over these past few years
that's kind of fundamentally changed how
you are approaching making this comic book
Because the vision you started with versus
here we are at issue three,
has that vision kind of like bobbed and
weaved a little bit along the way?
Yeah, I suppose it has.
It definitely...
I've definitely leaned into a more
improvisational feel.
And because since I have source material
to fall back on,
I've found the part that I've enjoyed the
most is discoveries in the moment on the
page.
And so first two issues, I kind of...
scripted out pretty meticulously and kind
of had a more like strict plan that
I was following.
But as I discovered as I was going
through that a lot of the good stuff
came from the pivots and the discoveries.
So this time around,
I only worked with an outline.
and just kind of trusted that it would
all come together,
and kind of intentionally.
It was an experiment of crossing a bridge
while I was building it,
and it just worked out exactly like how
I hoped.
I just assumed all the pieces would come
together,
and they came together better than I could
have if I had tried at the outset
to construct a specific map and instead
just let it emerge on the page.
And like I said,
I had my general idea of what I
wanted to happen.
I went back and made sure that there
was a textual basis for everything and
there was.
And not only was there a textual basis,
there was a lot of yes anding that
was happening
uh in in the text and uh yeah
it was awesome it was it was nice
to work with a looser more exploratory
style as opposed to just like at the
outset having a
script that i had to follow had to
be this many panels and this this dialogue
has to be on this page and um
yeah loosening up was was definitely uh
what i learned and just trusting that the
process would work and this is one of
those books though like it's hard to like
I can't imagine like what you're going
through from a headspace of translating
that book to a comic book format to
begin with, like what stays, what goes,
um,
that's actually part of the book or that
part of the book.
And that part actually was relatively
easy.
Once I figured out to follow the what's
physically happening in the book and
So because in a novel,
you'll get eight pages of descriptive
text,
but nothing is physically happening in the
story.
A guy is sitting in his apartment and
there's page after page of his ruminations
while he's sitting in his apartment.
And then he gets up and hails a
cab.
So then in the world of the comic.
He drinks his coffee in the apartment and
then he goes and hails a cab.
And you're just plucking the best parts of
the prose on those pages.
So sticking with the physical actions,
because in a comic,
you don't want people sitting around too
long.
You want the.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Something there to keep people reading the
pages.
Yeah.
So I just followed the the physical what
is
physically happening in the story and
translated that to the page first and then
brought the words in.
And it really was a visual first
translation.
I want you to be able to look
at the page with no words and be
able to tell what's happening.
Yeah.
and that's and i think that's a lot
of the like novel to comic book
adaptations i've read i think uh some of
them get caught up on uh some of
the pretty phrases and they want to get
all the pretty uh phrases in and so
you have you know a static scene going
on too long so you can get in
all your pretty phrases and uh yeah that
that is uh was not my approach
So CJ here, he said,
you don't often hear of someone going from
planning to pants.
And I asked him what pants and he
meant.
Cause I don't think people be as like
writing by the seat of your pants is
what he means.
Yeah.
That's awesome that you were able to do
that.
Well, and the other thing, too, is that,
like, this is not my first comic.
I've been making comics for twenty five
years.
So like and the lesson you learn when
you make comics for twenty five years is
it all works out.
You always find a solution.
It's like every time you think you're
painted in a corner, there's a solution.
There's an answer and you get out of
it.
And so now instead of panicking,
I know that there's a solution.
You work it through, the solution arrives,
and on you go.
Vince Gilligan, the Breaking Bad guy,
he has a process where he writes himself
into a corner.
He writes himself into as impossible a
corner as he can find,
and then he works his way out of
it.
And that's the recipe for those stories
that everyone loves.
And whenever you hear Vince Gilligan...
Breaking Bad just flows so good.
I know.
But they didn't know what they were doing.
Whenever you hear Vince Gilligan talk
about a project while he's working on it,
he's like, it's not going well.
Things are bad.
It's always that thing because it's the
process of putting yourself into a corner.
And that's all...
like creative projects are is a problem
solving exercise.
There's always a way to get from point
A to point B. There's always a caption.
There's always some transition that'll get
you there.
And that's what CJ said.
That's brilliant.
Create a problem to solve.
And if I complain about any one thing
about Breaking Bad,
it was I did not enjoy the last
season as much as I wanted to.
It just did not work for me.
The whole train thing,
that was either the second to last or
the last season,
but the whole thing with the train and
stuff like that just didn't carry well for
me on that one.
Oh, right on.
Yeah, yeah.
I loved it.
The ending was great.
I thought it was a great ending,
but I felt like stuff got lost in
there before it delivered one of the...
best endings in TV.
And the funny thing is that ending,
so they start the season with the big
machine gun in the trunk, right?
Yep.
famously they did not know what that was
for that was not a plan that was
like so that comes around and that's the
big ending of the show and they did
not have that worked out um so yeah
so it was it was definitely i i
wanted to try something like that
something where and and i should say i
guess i i indicated it there this is
all brand new material in this issue this
is not uh
an adaptation this is new material um so
yeah i just wanted to set the parameters
in like based in the text and just
run it forward and see what would that's
really you know kind of logically progress
from that situation but you know that
you're going to be sitting at a comic
con one day and somebody's going to talk
to you about issue three about how they
remember it from the book
and you're like dude i just pulled that
one out of my ass man i don't
know what you're talking about yep
absolutely but um we're going to talk
about the tells of the illuminatus as a
big picture real quick but for someone
discovering tells of the illuminatus for
the very first time give us your we're
at the kind give us your elevator pitch
as you're trying to pitch this book to
new potential readers
So yeah, I would say in this world,
every single conspiracy theory you've ever
heard is true.
everything is true even the ones that are
contradictory even the ones that uh are uh
too absurd to comprehend it's all true
it's a microcosm really of uh how we
experience the world everything is uh
a little bit unknown to us.
And you kind of have to figure your
way through it.
And you're getting bombarded with more
information than you can reasonably
process.
But there is a kind of a signal
underneath the static.
There is something going on through the
noise.
And part of the inspiration for it was
the idea that you could get people out
of conditioned thinking by overwhelming
them with possibilities that if if you
could go and to persuade people out of
binary thinking of things are either true
or false and persuade them into
considering degrees of possibility,
degrees of maybe,
that you would end up with a better
interior space and then eventually a
better exterior space as well when we no
longer thought of ourselves as right or
wrong, but rather somewhere in between.
And it's about...
the world in between right and wrong,
true and false.
And it really is designed,
Robert Anton Wilson made a very specific
point of mixing fact and fiction to the
point that you couldn't tell them apart
that he, especially in the, the old,
the historical novels that he,
you could get three historians to go over
the manuscript of the historical
Illuminatus Chronicles,
and they would all disagree on which were
the parts he made up and which were
the parts that were real.
And then,
and then it's an interesting thing because
so he's writing those books and he has
the main character Sigismundo,
who's also the main character in this
issue.
He's trapped in the Bastille and he needs
to escape from the Bastille in France.
Right.
So he looks up in an encyclopedia,
how tall is the Bastille?
Well,
one encyclopedia gives one measurement,
another gives another,
and another gives another.
So which one is it when every time
you look it up,
you get a different answer?
And...
Yeah,
so the antithesis of the illusory truth
concept.
It kind of is very much that we
don't know and we can't know,
so what do we do now?
If you don't know and you can't know,
what do you do?
Because we're not completely...
lost in uh darkness and chaos though we
can reasonably suppose some things but
it's all about finding that balance of um
the things that we can reasonably know and
the things that we absolutely cannot and
it's about that search and it's uh also
about expanding uh the horizons of the
possible
So if we don't really know what's going
on,
then things might be better than we
suppose.
And there's no reason to not think that
because it's actually beneficial to think
that you get more done when you think
that things might go well.
And so why not?
If all we can do is exist in
artificial constructs,
shouldn't we make the best
brightest ones we can and that's it's an
exercise in that in building the best
possible reality tunnels that we can
because if that's all we have well we
might as well make the most of it
so every generation seems to have that one
story that refuses to fade away why has
the illuminatis
killed people talking for decades.
This is that one book.
And I say like, oh,
it's a story that refuses to fade away.
Well,
it just so happens that Illuminatus is
like that one book for everybody's decade
of the last sixty years that just refuses
to fade away.
Well, yeah,
I guess it is because it deals with
that concept of a controlling elite,
which is something that is...
certainly true in some sense.
It's probably not true in the sense that
there is actually a specific group that
controls everything.
I doubt that that's the case.
But, you know,
certainly there are people with been
outside lately.
Well, yeah, that's right.
I mean,
my guess in reality is there are multiple
groups that are trying to control things,
and that's why things are so chaotic.
But yeah,
the idea of there being some invisible
power behind the scenes that's controlling
everything,
you can't prove that it's not true.
Because the premise of it is that it's
secret.
So if the premise of it is secret,
then...
You can't prove it because it's hidden.
And then so if it can't be proven
wrong, it just persists.
It just grows.
It just keeps going.
And really, it was an interesting thing.
So the the idea of the Illuminati being
a fixture in popular culture does,
in fact,
have its roots in the Illuminati trilogy.
This is where it enters popular culture.
It was
I might have told this story last time,
so forgive me.
You're good.
Tell it again.
Robert Anton Wilson was friends with this
guy, Kerry Thornley.
And Kerry Thornley was in the Marines with
Lee Harvey Oswald.
And Lee Harvey Oswald made a strong
impression on Kerry Thornley such that
when they parted ways and Thornley
defected to Russia,
I'm sorry, Oswald defected to Russia.
Thornley wrote a novel about him.
And then when Thornley came back and shot
the president,
then Thornley was quite taken aback by
this.
And especially because he had been just
writing a book about this man and felt
very much like the hero of his novel
had leapt off the page and assassinated
JFK.
So he was very forthcoming with the
investigators who were looking into Lee
Harvey Oswald and kind of put himself on
their radar.
So much so that they began to suspect
that he was involved.
And there was witnesses that put him in
contact with Thornley leading up to the
assassination.
So his whole life gets turned upside down
by this,
being investigated for being involved in
the Kennedy assassination and as kind of a
little bit of revenge.
So he was charged with perjury,
but he found out one of the investigators
that was after him believed in this old,
weird conspiracy about the Illuminati.
The Illuminati was a real secret society
within Freemasonry in Bavaria founded in
That was a great era here.
I know, yeah.
I tied that together in issue two.
I make the Illuminati responsible for the
American Revolution.
So Thornley,
to get revenge on these investigators,
starts planting stories in the underground
press about the Illuminati.
And it's just meant to mess with
Garrison's investigation to be like,
you guys are trying to pin this on
me, but you believe in these fairy tales.
And so it was just meant to be
this mocking thing.
Um,
But, you know,
once you plant something like that into
the psyche,
it's just there and then it just grows
and grows.
And then I would say like the there
was a card game,
the Steve Jackson card game that you
always see.
You always see the it always gets credit
for predicting nine eleven because there's
like a World Trade Center card.
You've probably seen that online.
So that was an Illuminati trading card
game.
And then Dan Brown picks him up for
The Da Vinci Code.
And then it just explodes everywhere.
Just everyone knows what it is.
But it all kind of starts with this
novel.
And...
it's kind of a lot of people think
that it has gone too far that the
idea of the illuminati has kind of uh
become counterproductive and yeah when
when they it was called operation mind
that was what uh robert anton wilson and
carrie thornley
called it when they were planting all the
stories in the underground press.
And Robert Anton Wilson and his co-writer,
Robert Shea,
worked at Playboy at the time.
So they were planting letters in the
Playboy forum about the Illuminati.
And the idea was to kind of put
people into a state of mind where they
didn't know what was true and that it
would induce critical thinking.
I think that that has been disproven.
I think that people not knowing what to
think.
Yes, we can say that today,
but in the sixties and seventies into the
eighties, people believed everything.
I don't want to say everything they read,
but they were more susceptible to that
kind of stuff.
It wasn't just one thing saying, Oh,
I read this article in playboy,
but then the news would see it and
then they would pick it up.
Yeah.
There's any real.
actual fact in there,
but they still picked it up and ran
with it.
The World Wars, you know, the Cold War,
all this stuff happening in these
timeframes led people to believe like, oh,
this is a real possible thing that could
be doing this.
For sure.
Yeah.
And I do think that, you know,
because at the time,
Walter Cronkite could show up on TV and
he would just say,
and that's the way it is or that's
the way it was.
And and that was just the case.
If he said that's the way it was,
that's the way it was.
And I don't think that that's necessarily
healthy for a society to have just one
top down interpretation of reality that's
imposed on everyone else.
But that's the way it was, though, then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every news channel, your local news,
your national news, everybody,
they got the story and it flowed down
like this.
It went to the masses,
whether it was on TV, the radio,
what have you, the local newspapers.
And now that that is broken,
that paradigm is broken,
some people want to go back.
And I don't think that that's the way.
I think this is a necessary between stage
from top-down dictated information
and something that is a little bit more
flexible and accurate to people's lived
experiences.
I do think things are a little bit
of a mess right now,
so I don't blame people for wanting to
go back to something a little bit more
comfortable.
But I do think this is a necessary
between stage.
And that is a lot, like I said,
that's kind of the situation that the
comic is wrestling with.
That thing where truth has been kind of
fragmented,
but just putting it back into a false
paradigm is probably not the best
solution.
I think we probably have to learn to
live
with the chaos how how to how to
thrive and uh achieve harmony amongst
chaos i think that's probably our best go
ask our u.s military they'll tell you how
they do it every day sure that's all
we do yeah yeah yeah yeah so cj
said he loves the concept he's gonna have
to pick it up
The link to the Kickstarter, I believe,
is already down in the description.
So if you want to go follow the
link on Kickstarter,
it will notify you when it launches in
August.
And he also said it sounds like an
approach similar to St.
Maude, I believe is how that's pronounced.
I've definitely heard of St.
Maude.
I don't know that I know specifically.
Yeah, yeah.
But I'll definitely look it up.
Oh,
and I would say the Kickstarter is already
rolling.
We're actually wrapping up.
So...
Ah, okay.
We're taking orders up until the eleventh
and then shutting down and getting ready
for fulfillment.
Okay, perfect.
Yeah.
And the first two issues are on the
website, so you can...
You can read the first two issues.
Issue one is a mind trip until you
get about that page ten or twelve.
Yeah.
It's a complete mind trip.
But CJ does watch a lot of weird
shit.
He he's the the man main man over
at Nightmares and Nerdscapes.
That's his baby.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Really,
really deep dives into some psychological
horror movies and horror movies in
general.
Oh, I love it.
We've had him checked out.
He's okay,
according to all psychologists we've had
him checked out by.
Yeah, yeah.
He's one of us.
He's a great dude.
Yeah, man.
You'll...
you'll navigate this terrain expertly.
Then you'll, you'll,
you'll know what it is.
He will figure out the secrets to Robert
Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
That's fantastic.
But speaking of both of those fellas,
this book is ultimately a,
a love letter to those guys and this
really cool quirky book that they built.
How do you continue to honor that legacy
while also still making this book a
hundred percent yours?
Yeah, so a little bit,
that was why I did the third issue
where I could riff and I could kind
of go off and do my own thing.
The first two issues,
I wanted to make sure that I wasn't
changing things just for the sake of
changing things.
Anything that was changed was solving some
kind of problem.
And...
so I wanted to make sure that I
was able to do both sides.
Like,
so if you read the first two issues,
it's pretty faithful.
It's like, it's I,
I do everything I can to make sure
that it's the world that they created.
But, but yeah, to be honest,
it's a trippy first book.
I'm telling you,
I think we had this conversation before
the first time you were on,
because I was like, Hey dude,
I'm kind of lost here.
Cause the tells of the Illuminatus was
like,
whole new concept for me.
I mean, I did my Googling, you know,
but it's still like my head didn't process
it fully because it's hard to get your
hands on this book.
I'm probably going to have to go dig
through like an old bookstore or something
to find like these books.
Cause I really want them and I'm probably
can get them off Amazon too,
but I want some older ones, you know,
I want that.
Oh yeah.
That loved smell of the book.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like that first one,
I believe we had a conversation before we
went live again during that first one,
just about, Hey dude, that first like,
like,
Yeah, yeah.
And it is a little bit me taking
liberties in not all of the early pages,
but I definitely set up
seeds for what I pay off in the
third issue.
So I, it,
it does work as a complete story issues
one, two, and three,
and we're collecting it as a graphic
novel.
So, so we're just,
we're doing issue three just for this
Kickstarter and
After the Kickstarter,
we're not reprinting issue three.
We're just going to print them as a
set.
And I'm doing that thing like Futurama
always does,
where it will function either as a season
or a series finale.
You know what I mean?
It's a dual ending.
If this is where it ends,
it's a satisfying ending that wraps up the
whole thing.
Yeah.
But there's so much material here that it
could be a Cerebus style,
three hundred issue indie comic if there
is enough interest.
But I wanted to make sure that we
had
something where if you read all the issues
that are out,
you get a satisfying conclusion.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So a lot of that stuff in the
beginning of the issue that is really
confusing,
hopefully will not be so confused.
Yeah.
I think you get to the end of
issue three, it should all make sense.
Or at least not make sense in a
satisfying way.
That's even better.
Cause this is one of those where you
can just leave weird shit as it is
in this.
And it's like, Oh yeah, that makes sense.
Actually just given the nature of the book
itself.
Like if it's something like completely out
there, weird shit, you're like,
Robert Anton Wilson probably did do that
in the book.
So that's a hundred percent believable.
It is.
It,
it is a very nice thing to work
with because there's so much ambiguity
that you're right.
I mean, like I,
you could really kind of do anything.
There is no black and white in that
book.
It's all fucking shades of gray.
That's right.
And the kind of reader it attracts is
a very flexible, creative kind of reader.
So yeah,
it's very nice to have a highly
intelligent audience to work with.
And so I never worry.
I never go, oh, people won't get this.
people will get it or they'll get it
in their own way yeah or they'll do
what i did and just be like let
me google yeah oh it makes sense okay
i see what's going on here but you
know for somebody who's never heard of
this you're gonna have to quite possibly
pause what you're doing google the the
premise of this whole concept and then
once you do that and you're like
light bulbs all start going off some are
dimmer than others but they do go off
and i got this uh i got this
friend out in berkeley uh michael johnson
he's a scholar of esoteric uh literature
and so i've i've had him write a
guide for the first two issues though and
it's on the kickstarter
So if you're lost and, you know,
because not only is the original novel,
you know, kind of tricky to begin with,
I'm layering in all kinds of like extra
like background Easter eggs and stuff.
So he's written a very exhaustive guide
that should hopefully confuse everyone
even further.
So yeah, so that's...
Yeah,
so we have a zine that's coming out
along with the comic.
We even did we did a video game.
I made a video game over the winter
with the Illuminatus like yellow submarine
and the dolphins and everything.
So that's part of the Kickstarter as well.
That's dope.
Yeah, that is such a trippy, trippy time.
um so yeah so hopefully just kind of
uh you know expanding it and you know
just broadcasting it if nothing else if it
gets people to read the original source
material i i think that would be a
job well done so book three you take
a step forward within this series for opus
cow which is just
I love that.
Oh, yeah, I should.
So Cal is a single unit of chaos.
That's what that's what Cal is.
Yeah,
that's that's even more fucking epic.
I'm going to start throwing out four
letter words now because it's just such a
cool concept.
But you took a step forward and you
really put your signature on the book with
this issue.
But without giving away a whole lot of
spoilers.
What are readers going to experience in
this issue that they haven't experienced
before in issues one and two?
And I know you've already hinted that,
hey, this is just me riffing this entire,
what is it, eighteen, twenty two pages?
No, we're thirty six.
Oh, shit.
Thirty six pages.
Even better.
So.
So, yeah,
so we have an entirely new cast for
the most part.
There's some cameos of familiar
characters.
So we're back in pre-revolution France.
So we're at late,
late-eighteenth-century France.
Sigismundo Selene has...
disappeared from his adventures in the
historical Illuminatus Chronicles and is
just making his first reappearance into
the world and is set on...
He is kind of...
Tangled up with all of the secret
societies and powerful structures of the
late eighteenth century.
He is so many of them were floating
around then, too.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So as it's set up in the original
trilogy that Robert Anton Wilson wrote,
basically everybody wants a piece of him.
He has been in hiding and now it's
time to reemerge in public.
And like I say, pre-revolutionary France,
so you know things are about to get
interesting in that world.
And I will say this is,
in a lot of ways,
a very straightforward story with...
complicated background material.
So you're not going to be lost with
what's going on.
Some of the broader implications,
if you want to look into it,
there are rabbit holes everywhere to fall
down.
And that's kind of my approach with this
one is the surface level story is pretty
simple.
but just a million opportunities to get
lost in interesting wormholes of actual
real history.
And that's,
I don't wanna give away too much just
because if I go into too much detail,
people that are watching that are familiar
will be mad.
That was one of the requests.
Yeah, I don't wanna do that.
One of the requests after the first issue
was people asked me to not serialize
before the issue came out.
And so even on the Kickstarter,
I think I only put up three pages
because people wanted to experience it
kind of all at once,
which I've actually successfully...
I've successfully stopped watching
trailers for movies.
I want to say,
I kind of know what I want to
say.
And so like, I, I,
I just kind of go in cold now
and yeah.
So yeah,
I would say if you're on the fence,
the first two issues are free and issue
three continues in that style.
So if you don't like issues one and
two, you're not going to like issue three.
If you do like issues one and two,
I think you will love issue three.
One and two is so good.
I appreciate it.
Big brains are going to love it.
It should very much satisfy that crossword
puzzle portion of your imagination.
That part of you that wants to figure
things out.
That's why I enjoyed it so much.
And I've tried...
One thing I think I've gotten better at
is not connecting the dots for the
readers.
Trying not to do the like, oh,
so here's why his last name is Solo.
To not do stuff like that.
And so there's a lot of things that
are...
hinted at but not spelled out and uh
like i say like there's a lot of
um there's going to be the zine so
if you want to have a guided tour
of some of those rabbit holes uh there's
an opportunity for that and yeah there's a
whole stack of books uh about this stuff
and i mean i mean in addition to
all the novels he also wrote you know
uh a
several dozen philosophy books that expand
on the ideas that are in here.
So the world just keeps on going and
going.
Yeah.
So that very first interview that I did
with you,
as I was introducing the tales of the
Illuminatus to the council,
that very first time that day,
I believe I went down just this huge
rabbit hole of this book and just
connected my own internal dots from that
first interview.
issue i believe and i was just like
i had to stop because it just kept
going and going yeah and going i think
i might have had like fifty sixty seventy
tabs open and i was just like my
computer was like dude please just close
tabs yeah yeah yeah just stop yeah i'm
using a hundred and twenty percent of my
cpu
like no matter like how obscure a subject
uh you know the kids bring up i'll
be like actually that's a big part of
illuminatus and they're like everything's
a big part of illuminatus it is kind
of that kind of thing and uh and
that's the fun of it the fun it's
it's a dot connector and and that's where
uh you you as a reader uh are
kind of have a lot asked of you
But I think it's also more rewarding that
it's structured like that,
that it asks a lot of you.
But when you make those discoveries,
because it's very easy to make original
discoveries with this stuff and to connect
a dot that no one is connected yet
because there's so many of them and
there's only so many people and so much
time.
So if you dive in,
there's likely something there that you'll
see that no one has caught yet.
And that's really cool about this whole
thing.
But the campaign right now is Lake Pledge
is correct?
That's correct.
Yep.
So why has this campaign?
I mean,
I know you've crowdfunded other posts
before,
but I feel like we all learn something
new every time we run a Kickstarter
campaign.
Why have you like,
Why has this one taught you that previous
campaigns just didn't teach you?
Did you have this like, oh, shit,
this makes this easier now or one of
those types of things with this new
current campaign?
So, yeah,
one thing that I it wasn't so much
a lesson,
but just as a fortunate situation,
which is at this point,
we've accumulated a lot of material.
So now I could do different packages.
I could, you know, put together a.
a lot of different options for people to
get stuff um and it kind of just
made it more fun i one of my
i love uh shipping stuff out it's just
so gratifying to go to the post office
with a package and so i i just
kind of uh was able to you know
because before we were selling issue one
And then we were selling issue two.
Then this time we're selling issue one,
two, three, the trade paperback, the zine,
the video game.
We've got music, we've got albums,
like original recorded music that is a
part of the story.
So a big part of the story are
these warring record labels.
So I have two friends of mine,
Dan Robinson and Steve Pratt.
They've recorded albums that are in
universe and also in real life.
We have a cassette tape that we're
selling.
Cassette tape?
Yeah, like an actual...
Who the hell does that?
Who's got a tape player laid around?
That's what I want to know.
People do.
People buy them.
It's almost become like vinyl.
I mean, I have a vinyl player,
like a really nice vinyl player, but...
yeah no you're not you're going to get
a a tape deck now that's wild sitting
around somewhere
Yeah,
so the idea of kind of like growing
it into this like circus has been really
fun.
And it like kind of performed better
monetarily.
We definitely brought in more money on
this one than we did any of the
previous ones.
That's awesome.
And yeah,
and it's just been fun to kind of
like diversify the experience.
And again, it's all about expansion.
So, you know, we're...
bringing the story to life in a lot
of different ways,
whether putting you in the story as a
video game player or you listening to an
album out in the real world made by
characters in the story.
And yeah, so it's just kind of
letting it each thing progress naturally,
from thing to thing to thing.
It's, it's kind of like dominoes falling.
And it's just been this cumulative effect
of just everything getting bigger and
bigger and bigger.
So can I give you a quote of
yours?
Sure.
You've said growing your readership is
actually more important than the total
dollars raised.
Why do you see readership as the true
measure of success?
right well that's because the the money at
this point is kind of negligible it's like
it's not making any kind of money that's
going to change my day um so
To be honest,
this is more of an exercise in
communication than it is a business trying
to turn a profit.
There's easier ways.
We were talking about communication before
we went live.
Yeah.
There's easier ways to make money.
Comics is a terrible way to make money.
Horrible.
You did not get into comics to make
money.
And if you did, boy,
you just got some big old reality checks.
And I don't need the dollar checks.
no for sure so like yeah so uh
it making four grand or
six grand or eight grand is not really
going to change my life.
So I would really rather there just be
more people that are receiving what we're
creating,
just communicating with more people,
creating a larger community and network of
creatives.
And because, you know,
in addition to the comic,
I also organize a comic con in Wilmington,
Delaware.
We do these online and a little bit
in-person art events every year,
maybe day and maybe night.
So this is kind of just like one
tentacle of a larger sea monster.
And so, yeah, so like I said,
if the point was to make money,
this isn't the way to do it.
That's why we all have day jobs.
Right, exactly.
So yeah,
so the number of the money going up
while the number of people going down,
which is what it was doing for a
second, I was like, oh, that's not good.
Because, you know, previous,
I think on the first Kickstarter,
we did like
one hundred and twenty people.
And we were sitting well below that while
having made much more money.
Like I said,
the money doesn't really help much.
So, yeah,
I just wanted to get that number back
into the triple digits,
which we were fortunately able to do.
And yeah, because, you know,
that's that's the kiss of death in comics
is, you know,
you put out an issue one,
it's like so
two, it goes down, three, it goes down,
and then you're out of the game.
So we managed to get it.
Three is higher than two, which, you know,
it's at least the graph going up.
So I take that as a good sign.
So let's talk a little bit about just
creator-owned comics in general.
We're both a member of that society.
For sure.
So creator-owned comics have more
opportunities than ever.
And I think we've seen a lot of
that, really.
If you paid attention to San Diego
Comic-Con,
we definitely seen a lot of publishers
investing in their creators.
But they're also competing for readers'
attention like never before.
Not enough readers for everything out
there, right?
Yeah.
Where do you think this industry is headed
right now?
Do you see us as going into a
possible bust like we did?
I think the last one was like maybe
ten or twelve years ago.
Yeah, no,
I definitely don't see it going into a
bust because I think what's happening is
that comics are kind of stealing the
traditional book reader market.
And I think a lot of people that
previously read novels are now reading
graphic novels.
Graphic novels are booming right now.
Yeah.
And I don't see that reversing.
I think that's going to continue to grow.
And I think you're going to see more
and more like probably fragmentation is
probably going to continue.
And
I mean,
I would love it if there was, like,
some cohesive way to access what is
available.
Because even right now,
I've been talking to the local comic store
guy.
You know, without Diamond,
without the previews guide,
he's ordering from, like,
four different things just to stock the
store.
And then you have some of these, like,
Power Pulp, which is...
gathering together a bunch of indie people
to have an ordering system and so i
i think trust me i i know i'm
yeah i'm gonna have them on soon um
so i think if you could
The direction I would like to see it
going is not a not a centralization of
distribution,
but maybe some sort of centralization of
access to distribution so you can have a
more cohesive look of what's available.
Because I think in terms of production,
it's going to keep splintering because now
I mean, you know, like I said,
I've been doing this twenty five years.
It's never been easier to put out a
competitive product.
Never.
When I first started, I was printing
on newsprint with a thousand copies being
the minimum order.
Which is wild.
I don't know a single printer that will
print you a thousand copies unless you're
Marvel or DC or something.
Because back when I started,
they didn't have the digital presses yet.
It was all off printing.
And offset printer is not going to do
you up for anything less than a thousand.
And when the digital printers started at
first, they didn't look great.
now they look great the price is not
bad yeah and uh it's you can definitely
compete you can definitely like put out a
book that looks great and without
necessarily like going into crazy debt and
i and you know the the kickstarter thing
it functions for me it's just a pre-order
it's you know what i mean it's i
yeah i'm not waiting for the money so
i can make the thing you know it's
yeah it's just because you know back in
the day you would
get do a giant print run,
sell half of it,
and then they'd sit in your garage
forever.
You don't have to do that anymore.
You have a means to take pre-orders,
buy just what you need.
Yeah,
you get a good round number in your
head.
So if a hundred and fifty people back
the book, you know,
you need a hundred and fifty copies.
And then you go, okay,
how many cons am I attending this year?
Because you pretty much have your year
mapped out.
Yeah, for sure.
And then you can plan ahead, like, okay,
I know last year at this convention I
sold thirty-five copies.
So let me do thirty-five copies for this
one.
And then, oh,
this one I sold ten or fifteen.
So now I'm at, what, fifty-five,
sixty comics.
And you can order that exact amount now.
You don't have to just say, okay,
I need five hundred.
yeah you can like scale it down and
so instead of doing that that thing where
i just have boxes of comics in the
garage i i've sold out four print runs
of issue one and and it just like
you know you just buy what you need
you sell them and then you do it
again and it's uh yeah so i would
say i i think indie comics are in
a great place i think it's
the market is doing everything that scott
mcleod said they should do back uh do
you do you ever read uh mute or
not mute it uh reinventing comics it was
his follow-up to understanding yeah no one
no one knows this one uh so after
understanding comics and before making
comics uh scott mcleod did reinventing
comics and everything in it has come true
And people, when it first came out,
people hated it.
People did not like it.
That's why most people haven't heard of
it.
But he laid out the roadmap for the
future.
Diversifying genre, creator, format,
and that would lead to the growth of
the industry.
And you've seen it in every possible way.
Dude,
if San Diego Comic-Con this year taught us
anything, it is exactly...
I've released a Patreon episode on just my
thoughts from San Diego Comic-Con,
who I thought won the weekend.
And I think a lot of people would
probably be surprised on who went in with
a plan, executed the plan,
and walked out of San Diego Comic-Con
looking like a million freaking dollars.
And it's a publisher that I have said
for years now that if you ain't paying
attention to them,
You should pay attention to them now in
mad cave.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And, but that was, and I told my,
my team earlier, I was like, that's.
Episode originally was two and a half,
almost three hours.
And I cut that much material to make
it a thirty minute episode.
Yeah.
Because there was just so much that I
wanted to cover,
and so much of it was Mad Cave.
And it's not to, like, you know,
Mad Cave Studios or anything, but, dude,
they...
They fucking win the weekend.
I don't care what anybody says.
No, I buy it.
Cause they do that thing where like,
they're not just appealing to one genre
that they, and, and that's like in France,
in Japan, they have comics for everybody.
There's, you know,
there's any sort of general interest.
There's going to be a comic for it.
Do you know who else does?
mad cave studios now that that's what i
mean yeah they're doing that thing where
it's not just selling superhero books it
can be any kind of thing in the
world anything can be a young adult was
their big focus uh children horror adult
and i'm gonna say adult i mean for
like adults not like adult content oh yeah
yeah yeah and um like dude they just
walked out looking like
A whole million dollars.
And John Cusack is going to be doing
his graphic novel, Momo,
through them as well.
Yeah.
John Cusack fan.
But when he goes, hey, you know,
Mad Cave,
can you help me produce this comic book
instead of doing the Hollywood thing?
You know, it's cool as hell.
Like Mad Cave Studios,
that little publisher that people don't
pay attention to.
They see these great covers on the shelf,
some of the best horror out there right
now.
people are like yeah i've been saying it
for many years now i believe that cave
studios is the one to watch and this
weekend they proved it once again but yeah
i know that was off topic no no
no that's that's perfect that makes sense
i mean because you know like marvel and
dc have kind of like shoehorned themselves
they can only do one kind of book
like dc of dc maybe has a little
bit more flexibility because they have the
vertigo
Yeah, Vertigo.
The new Vertigo relaunch I thought was
amazing.
They got some great titles right now on
Vertigo.
Yeah, so they have some flexibility.
Marvel's really got to find a way to
give themselves another...
I don't think they ever will.
I don't think they want to.
Yeah, I guess they don't.
They would have if they wanted to by
now, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very odd to just give yourself...
We only make one flavor of ice cream
here.
And it's vanilla.
Yeah.
We're going to wait ten years and we're
going to reboot it and tell you the
same story again and you're still going to
buy it.
Right, right.
Which brings me to my next question,
actually.
What's one mistake you see indie creators
make over and over again?
Yeah,
I would say trying to go too big
too early.
It's definitely the mistake I made when I
was younger was trying to start your giant
preacher style magnum opus when you've
never done a book before.
You know who does stuff like that?
Robert Kirkman does stuff like that.
You know why?
Because he's Robert freaking Kirkman.
Right,
and he's been doing it for decades and
decades.
Exactly.
But yeah,
I would say probably start smaller.
I think that would probably be the way
to do it.
Kiss, right?
Keep it simple, stupid.
Yeah, yeah.
The traditional route for indie creators
is the one-man anthology,
and I think that's probably the ideal way
to start is short stories...
do them again do them again do them
again do them again once you're
comfortable once you know what you're
doing then you can jump into something a
little bit bigger but yeah i i would
i definitely uh have made the mistake
myself and i've seen other people make the
mistake of trying to do the big thing
at the beginning as opposed to growing
into it and some people they they go
in they've they've done the math right
they've done the homework and they can
just go in and
Full tilt, right?
Full swing.
Yeah, yeah.
Get out of the park.
However, if, you know,
you've not got – if you don't have
the season in on you,
I would not go in full tilt.
Like, hey, here's all my – like,
if there's an offering out there,
I'm going to offer it to you.
And you just not have a clue when
people go, oh, yeah, that's kind of cool.
Let me get that.
Hey, let me get that.
And then they're like, oh, wait,
now I actually have to –
do that yeah yeah and that's the people
you're going to read about on instagram
and everything else like oh this creator
on this one kickstarter because i get that
sometimes yeah yeah people who've run kit
starters and maybe didn't deliver on the
full fulfillment things happen but they
will complain to me and my my my
p my dms and i'm just like
I'm just talking to the creator, man.
I don't know.
Oh,
they come to you after the Kickstarter.
Yeah.
Because I will have them on, right?
Like the creator on,
and then I will get messages sometimes
going, Hey, that one guy I'm like, dude,
just between you and him.
I'm like,
I'm just talking to him as this,
as the creator of this.
And he addressed that problem that people
are having like on the show anyway.
But I'm like,
don't DM me with that kind of stuff
or don't DM me for something that happened
ten years ago between you and this
creator.
Like,
I don't know what you want me to
do about it.
You know, I'm like,
I'm not going to sit here.
I'm like, hey,
I need you to fill out this questionnaire.
If there's any skeletons in your closet,
I need to know.
I'm not going to do that.
I mean, my process has changed,
as you know,
but it ain't that deep and it ain't
that serious for me.
So we're talking indie comic books.
Yeah.
But for someone who is preparing to launch
their very first Kickstarter tomorrow,
what's the one piece of advice you would
want them to hear?
I guess...
There are going to be unforeseen
complications.
So as much as you can get ahead
on the work before you launch, the better.
It's like...
The printer,
as soon as I sent them the files
for issue number two,
the printer got hit with back-to-back
hurricanes.
And then I told everyone the books are
on the way.
It was exactly what you were talking
about.
Yeah.
And just back-to-back hurricanes.
And then I had to come back out
and be like, actually,
the books aren't on the way.
So completely out of my control.
The East Coast, man, we got hammered.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So I would say just...
assume that there are going to be
complications and try to get as far ahead
of things as you can so that it's
not a big deal.
So then, you know,
if you do got to hunt for a
couple of weeks,
you're not sweating it too much.
And to be honest, I think going forward,
I think I'm going to switch up and
wait until things are done before I start
doing the Kickstarter.
I mean,
I did kind of like the idea of
selling the book while I'm making it.
But I think it would be,
I think the stress level would be like
negligible if the book was already done.
And, and I,
cause there is that weird thing where
you're like split in time and,
between selling the book and making the
book and so i think you want to
make sure that you're uh i i would
i would err on the side of making
the book rather than selling it yeah and
i have a my philosophy is like i
get it both ways but at least be
able to prove the proof of concept you
know what i'm saying yeah yeah for sure
but uh what's what's next for the tales
of the illuminatis and more importantly
what's next for bobby
So what's next for me is finishing up
my big giant graphic novel that I've been
working on for the past twenty years.
I haven't been waiting twenty years,
but I've been waiting.
Okie dokie.
So I'm about fifteen pages away from being
finished.
So after issue three wraps up,
I'm going to jump right into that and
strike while the iron's hot.
I'm at that point now where I'm a
I'm all warmed up because like one of
the things about being an indie comic
creator is, you know,
sometimes you have to stop drawing to do
admin stuff.
You have to like fulfill orders and,
you know,
you're doing all this other stuff so that
by the time you get back to drawing,
you got to warm back up again.
It's like a picture in the bullpen.
Your arm is cold and it takes a
while to get warmed up.
So I think we're going to do is
while I'm warmed up,
I'm going to just go straight into those
last couple of pages.
So because, you know, when I first start,
it's like a page every four days.
When I'm warmed up,
it's sometimes one to a day.
So, yeah,
so I'm going to roll right into that
graphic novel.
Here's a secret.
It's the same way when editing.
I'm sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Once you get going,
you do not want to stop because you
get in a zone, not auto zone,
but that editing zone,
like I'm not stopping until all this is
done.
Yeah.
It's all about batch processing for me.
It's gotta be like,
if I'm in a mindset to do something,
I just gotta, I just gotta do it.
Exactly.
Like I get the shorts done.
I get the long cuts done.
Okay.
What's next.
Okay.
I need to go back into YouTube,
update the description,
add time-ins like once that ball starts
rolling.
I don't care what time it is when
that ball starts rolling.
I will not stop until it's all scheduled.
It's all done.
It's all complete.
I have sent you that final email saying,
Hey, you know,
here's your cuts of the podcast.
Here's your USDN syllable approval.
And I'm looking forward to do it again.
Like I cannot stop that ball from rolling,
you know, once it goes,
We're rolling with it until we're done.
I can't sleep.
I can't do nothing else,
but my blinders are on and we are
finishing.
I like it.
Yep.
But, um,
so when readers look back on this years
from now,
what do you hope they'll say about the
comic book series?
Not tells it the Illuminati is the book,
but the comic book series, um,
Sure.
I hope that they will see it as
opening a new window into the material.
I hope they'll see it as a legitimate
part of that universe and something that
helped bring it into reality.
current times.
That's kind of the end goal is to
add another branch to that tree,
something that shines a light and
recontextualizes the old material in a way
that keeps it fresh and kind of viable
for the future.
Dude, that's freaking amazing.
And I love that you're doing this.
It's so cool.
But before we wrap up,
Where can everybody support the campaign,
follow your work and just stay connected
with you?
Sure.
So talesofilluminatis.com is a good way to
get to everything related to the book.
It's got links to the Kickstarter or to
the Etsy page if you just want to
order what's already done.
And then my website,
bobbycampbell.net will
bring you to all the different places i
am online and uh yeah there's you know
because now everybody's everywhere so i
figure you know those are the two best
way stations to get to your preferred uh
channels of of how you like to tune
into things so it's all kind of branches
off from there even the usdn is getting
the website i love it yeah
I've gotten super into personal websites
again, and I've been all hand-coded.
That's my new rule.
No platforms, all just straight HTML.
So if you go to TalesOfLuminatus.com,
that's all me in the code there.
God bless you, man.
I've flirted with HTML on multiple
occasions, and some were good,
a lot more of them were bad.
Yeah, some of it is bad.
But I call it artisanal.
It's French.
Yeah, exactly.
Bobby, I appreciate you once again.
Oh, yeah.
Thanks so much for having me on.
he mentioned are down in the description
below this video as you're watching it.
Or if you're listening to it later,
all these links are actually in the
description of that as well.
But Bobby,
I want to thank you once again for
taking the time to join us here
Next time, don't wait so long.
Always fun catching up with you.
But it's been incredible watching the
tales of the Illuminatis grow from our
first conversation to now discussing issue
three.
I appreciate sharing not only your
creative journey,
but also the realities of building a
creator-owned comic,
one issue and one reader at a time.
But for everyone watching,
if you would like to support Bobby and
the Tales of the Illuminatus,
we have all the links linked down in
the description to the Kickstarter.
The Late Pledge campaign is still ongoing.
The official website is there.
Social media is all in the description.
Go check those out.
Give them a follow.
Show them some love.
But if you enjoyed today's conversation,
don't forget to like, share,
and subscribe.
It helps us continue bringing new
independent creators and their stories to
a wider audience.
And until next time,
this has been the USDN Podcast,
where indie comics come to life,
ladies and gentlemen.
The Council of Nerds is now adjourned.
Y'all be safe out there.
box.