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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.
Thanks for watching!
what is up everybody it's the chairman of
the united states department of nerds
where we are for the people by the
people and of the people today we're
stepping into a world of dragons fallen
gods and alien mythologies colliding with
earth our guest is win i'm sorry whim
burn a creator blending the legendary
influence of akira toriyama and pokemon's
kin
Sugimori?
Sugimori.
I was close.
I was very close there.
Into an original sci-fi fantasy epic
called... Sagia?
Sagia.
Sagia.
Okay.
This is a story about legacy, power,
and what happens when gods fall and new
heroes are forced to rise.
The council is now in session.
Wimburn, welcome to the USDN.
Hi.
Hi.
So she's going to help me out a
lot tonight in pronunciating a lot of
different words because I have proven that
I cannot pronounce anything today.
So not only is she our guest,
but she is also my translator for the
night.
So if you're ready to dive in,
let's dive into this.
So for those meeting you for the first
time, who is Wim Byrne?
Oh, I'm an artist.
I also do voice acting.
I'm not into like bigger projects.
I just do voice acting for fun.
I started joining social media around
twenty nineteen and I mostly draw like
Dragon Ball fan art, Pokemon and all that.
And I started growing a lot of followers.
And about my comic, Sagia,
I started in a, during the pandemic.
And I think that was the year I
started college.
And originally,
Saga was going to be a video game.
But at the time,
I didn't know how to program.
So instead,
I just turned it into a comic book
series.
And Volume One,
which you're seeing on screen right now,
I didn't finish it until twenty twenty
three.
And I didn't release it to the public
until twenty twenty four.
okay so i've had the pleasure of reading
the first one i thoroughly enjoyed it and
you can definitely see the influences of
akira in that work but you're also
influenced by kin they're both
inspirations to you kind of like why have
you taken from those two brilliant people
and kind of applied to your characters and
what you are doing
Great question.
For Akira Toriyama,
I'm mainly inspired by the original Dragon
Ball series, if you've seen that one,
where Goku was a kid.
One of the main characters,
let me pull up the front cover.
This is Haido,
and this is Jikiru right here,
where my fingers are at.
Mm-hmm.
My main inspiration for these two is a
character on Dragon Ball by the name of
Lunch.
They call her Lunch in Japan.
For those who don't know who she is,
she first appeared
In the original Dragon Ball,
the very first Dragon Ball,
and she has this sneezing problem.
So every time she sneezes,
she'll switch between good to bad and then
vice versa.
Yeah, when I was...
It's like a great little character thing.
Yeah,
my first introduction to that character
was I was in high school and I
checked out the very first Dragon Ball
manga at my library.
And I was introduced to her when I
got to her chapter and I was like,
I like her.
I really like her.
And I started watching clips of her on
YouTube and I really liked her English dub
voice.
where she talked like this.
She had like a Brooklyn accent for her
evil side, her blonde-haired side.
It's almost like she's congested,
you know?
She's got a little congestion in there.
It's maybe why she's sneezing all the
time.
Yeah.
And fun fact,
I actually met her voice actress at a
Dragon Ball convention in twenty twenty
two.
And that's my profile picture on
Instagram.
That's me and my favorite voice actor.
That's really cool.
Was it up at what's it called?
I'm trying to think of that big convention
they have up there every year.
Kamea Con.
There's that one and there's another one
that's more comic book related,
but I can't remember what it's called off
the top of my head.
It's something to do with
architecture of the city but it's neither
here nor there because i cannot remember
anything today it has been the monday of
mondays as we were talking before the show
got started so how do you balance wearing
both this creator hat and this world
builder hat where you're kind of like
everything you're the artist you're the
writer you're the colorist you you are
doing the whole
thing yourself?
How are you balancing all that?
Plus just your normal, you gotta,
you gotta be human.
You know,
you gotta have some time for yourself and
do those things as well.
How are you balancing all this things?
Oh man,
I don't know how to answer that question.
I just, it's a difficult one.
Yeah.
I don't have like a job or anything.
I just,
I just do it in my free time.
At the time when I was in college,
I,
I focused more on my college work first
and,
then I worked on the comic.
About my comic,
I drew it all digitally on my iPad.
There's an app I use called Procreate,
and that's why I used to work on
the comic.
Procreate is amazing.
I have it on my iPad as well.
I just hardly ever get to use it
for anything other than
fits in pictures of comic books that I
sometimes post or that I was posting when
I was doing that on the podcast.
And that's how I would fit some of
my blemishes on books.
But I do love that program a lot.
And I know a lot of really good
and talented creators, yourself included,
that use Procreate for their comics as
well.
Or they start it off by hand,
then take the picture of it and load
it into Procreate and finish them that
way.
So it's a very good program that's very
useful for the comic book world.
So...
Give us your elevator pitch for Sagia in
your own words.
Sagia in your own words.
I love it.
Thank you for that because I'm so bad
today.
I don't know why.
An elevator pitch.
So I've never done an elevator pitch
before.
It's my first time.
Just go out there what it is.
Hmm.
So Sagia is a comic about these aliens
known as Sagians that live on the planet
Saraju.
And there are three guys that live there.
Their names are Raiden, Flareden,
and Liquidin.
fire water and lightning and another evil
alien race by the name of the dragons
yeah the dragons they take over their
planet and they kill they kill all they
kill the three gods so the soggins are
in panic the dragons are looking for these
eight magical pieces known as the claw
relics
So the claw relics fly away,
and the pieces move to Earth.
All the Sogians move to Earth,
and the Drakons follow.
So on Earth, a human boy named Lane,
he meets the Sogian, Hydo,
when a Drakonoid breaks in Lane's room.
And when Hydo defeats the Drakonoid...
You know, they talk, they meet up,
they later become partners.
They become partners.
And one thing I wanted to say is
Haido has another half by the name of
Jiggy Roo, which I showed on the cover.
Yep.
And whenever Haido is feeling calm,
she switches to Jikiru.
And when Jikiru is feeling angry,
she changes into Haido.
Although there are times in the story
where Haido will take over Jikiru's body
whenever she feels like it.
Okay, that's really cool.
I like that.
I like these little nuances to characters
like that.
So Sarju.
Sarju.
sarju is a planet filled with sajians
sagians sagians god bless america what
makes this world different from other
sci-fi fantasy settings um i told you i
did my research before we ever went live
Yeah,
I don't have a response to that question.
About that question,
you asked me the first question about
Akira Toriyama and Ken Sugimori.
Yes.
The influence.
I want to finish that one.
Yeah, no, go ahead.
Yeah, I'm also inspired by,
besides original Dragon Ball where Goku
was a kid,
there is like so many other eighties
anime,
nineties anime that I watched that
influenced Saguya.
For Ken Sugimori, Pokemon's Ken Sugimori,
I love his watercolor artworks and his
It inspired some of my artworks that I
post on social media.
My art style is inspired by both Toriyama
and Sugimori.
Another thing I want to say is...
In the first volume,
the art style is rough.
It's a little different.
Starting around volume two,
which I will show right now on the
screen,
I started improving with the art style.
And currently I'm working on volume three,
which I say is an improvement.
That's how everything works.
We get better as we go at everything.
I was not very good at this when
I first started.
I will tell you that right now.
In the beginning,
in chapter one of your book,
the dragons wipe out the gods.
That was a very bold move in the
very first volume.
What made you go straight out the gate
just like,
hammer down and like,
we're going to do something big and we're
going to do something bold and something
that sets this apart.
Hmm.
That is a good question.
Like when I,
at the time when I was writing Saga,
I was like, you know what?
I'm just going to make up something in
my head.
Like this evil race of aliens,
wipe out these three gods.
Um,
i have i run this like sagia blog
too besides the the website by myself and
i think i remember having this back story
or something i can't remember what i wrote
okay yeah no i i like it i
wish more comic books would just go like
straight in issue one
big plot and hammer down the whole time.
So it's a,
it's a very good way to do it.
So let's talk about,
I'm going to see if I can pronounce
it.
Drag bloom, drag one, drag one.
What does this dragon represent to the
story?
so dragline um so those eight claw relic
pieces um i i wrote like a backstory
for dragline on um oh man i shouldn't
have looked at the website i shouldn't
have re-looked at the website before this
podcast but um those eight claw relic
pieces when they're together they're
They um they revive Draglan is uh freed
He's revived and uh If I remember
correctly he can Grant um The the person
who summoned him A wish and um The
the reason lane And heido are trying to
bring Like trying to make sure Sarge you
and earth is save Is because uh like
they're Trying to gather all eight of the
call Relic pieces and
um revive dragline and then their goal is
to revive the three gods like bring them
back okay and yeah i'm glad you brought
up lane and haido again so lane's life
really changes when he meets haido is
their relationship kind of like the
emotional core of the story um
uh like when when i when when lane
first when heido first meets lane they
they like it's like a like a rocky
relationship but as the story goes on they
started like fill a bond between them and
uh
um heido's like heido wants to just wants
to get stronger and i i think that
lane is helping her you know with that
like like to to make her like more
powerful like there are times in the story
where she just goes out of control um
there's a chapter in volume two where she
she just went really out of control let
me see what chapter chapter
Oh, it's really cool.
And I like that.
Because Link is like the Yes, they're,
they're,
he's helping her to become stronger.
But he's also kind of like her,
like emotional, like support,
you know what I'm saying?
Like,
to help her calm down or to get
stronger.
So the eight claw relics,
which you have mentioned,
they feel very mythic, very anime,
which is very own theme for your book.
How did you come up with this concept?
maybe Dragon Ball I guess like the seven
Dragon Balls I guess was the inspiration
for the claw relics there's literally
nothing wrong with that it's such a good
series to be influenced by that nobody can
be mad at that yeah originally the color
of the claw relics was orange but I
changed it to like a blue purple color
I like those colors personally myself yeah
So each relic carries power.
As those relics are recovered,
do they carry any consequences?
Like you found one and now there's like
a consequence of finding these eight
dragon claws or eight claw relics?
No.
Or is it just like, you know,
you found it, it's yours?
Yes.
No, there's no consequences.
Although I mentioned,
I think it's in chapter two where Heido
mentions that only someone with a pure
heart can have these claw relics.
When the dragons try to get it,
one of the claw relic pieces just flies
away from them.
They meet this Sagan named Asai to help
them get the pieces for them.
Gotcha.
Okay.
So it has to recognize that you are
pure of heart in order to be able
to hold them and to capture them.
Yes.
I like it.
So could you tease anything else that's
coming up next for your book?
Anything else coming out for it?
yeah so I am currently working on volume
three most recently I just completed
chapter fifteen and if you want to read
the chapters early before volume three
releases I post them on a website called
global comics you can read the chapters
early for one ninety nine the first
chapter is free to read if you want
to check that out read that one it
was terrific yeah
So can you kind of walk us through
like your creative process from writing
the story and then drawing the story?
Or do you kind of like do work
on both as you go since you are
the only person who does the book?
So I just like write out,
I type out like the story for each
chapter.
First in Google Docs,
I make any corrections.
Then once I'm feeling like motivated,
I illustrate it in Procreate.
First off, I set up the panels and
I sketch it out in blue.
Sometimes I'll write, you know,
this dialogue and where it goes so I
can so I can know where to place
the character at.
Then I sketch out the character and then
I draw it over in black.
And yeah.
OK, no, that's that's on point.
That's.
Yeah,
I can't complain when you just keep it
simple.
I wish more people just kept it simple
like that.
So do you do characters come first or
did this world come first when you were
coming up with everything?
Did you have a character in mind or
did you just have this world that you
wanted to put characters into?
I think the characters came first.
When I started Sagia, like, I remember,
okay, as I said earlier in this interview,
I said that it was originally going to
be like a video game,
and I just changed it into a comic.
The first characters I drew were three
Sagians named Ula, Akira, and Sayuri.
Sayuri.
And yeah,
those are my first three characters that I
drew.
Are they still in the book?
Yeah,
Ula does appear in Volume Two in the
last chapter.
Akira, I'm just going to say this early,
Akira will appear in Chapter Sixteen,
which I am currently working on.
Okay.
And Sayuri will appear in Chapter...
I plan to have her...
I plan to have Sayuri appear in Chapter
Twenty-One.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um...
So what has been your hardest thing so
far in doing this book,
whether it was the art or the story?
What do you think was kind of like
the hardest part of that?
Oh, the hardest part.
Like for the art, I just,
I do these,
I recently finished my commentary for
chapter fifteen yesterday.
For those who don't know,
I do these chapter commentaries on my
Ko-fi page.
So Ko-fi is a place where
Artists can post their work and people can
donate and stuff.
Those commentaries are only for members
only, if you want to check that out.
They're up on the official Saga website
too.
But I recently finished my commentary for
Chapter XV.
I got that scheduled.
Something I mentioned is...
There's a character that I had a hard
time drawing with from a certain angle.
He appears in chapter six.
I think in chapter six.
Yeah.
He appears in chapter six and his name
is Faint.
Fang Noon.
I have a hard time drawing his beast
form.
Okay.
Like, I'm used to drawing him from, like,
the two-thirds angle or side view because
I'm using this,
my very first drawing of him as reference.
But if it's, like, from a top-down view,
from the front, yeah.
Like, I have to, like,
sketch out in blue and make so many
corrections.
That's what's weird about Procreate though
Is that you can literally just erase it
And start it fresh Yeah he appears a
lot Like Fang Noon's beast form He appears
a lot in chapter fifteen Okay Yeah I
just try to make sure He looks fine
He looks fine from this angle If I'm
satisfied with the sketch Then I like Draw
it over in black
So was there a moment for you when
you were getting started on the book that
you kind of took a step back and
said,
I think I'm going to do this and
I think I'm going to make this a
public thing.
Was there a moment for you or maybe
like a part in the story that you
had written for it or maybe a part
in when you were drawing a certain
character that you decided like,
this isn't just going to be for me.
I'm going to share this with the world.
hmm not really okay fair enough fair
enough so what has been what has been
an indie creator taught you so far like
can you paraphrase that question um as an
indie creator what has been the most
important lesson that you've learned
Oh man,
from YouTube videos that I've watched,
I shouldn't have made a one-shot comic
instead of a full series.
Yeah.
But, you know, that's one of those...
That can go both ways.
If you know to yourself that this is
something that you want to keep going and
keep expanding and keep doing,
would a one-shot have benefited you in the
long term?
Yeah, maybe.
Fair enough.
So what is one piece of advice you
wish somebody would have given you before
starting this journey?
Oh, man.
I really don't know.
It's also fair enough.
So let me ask you this.
What is one piece of advice you would
give to an indie creator out there right
now who's just kind of like, you know,
pushing it off,
pushing it off like they're not ready or.
They're scared or they're nervous to push
forward with their own work.
What kind of advice would you give them?
I'm trying to think of some advice.
That is a good question.
All I have to say is just...
never like all like when i i was
like nervous about like when i started
sagia when i published that to the public
i was like i i i didn't know
i was afraid of like the feedback how
much like the negative feedback but
surprisingly i got good feedback just my
advice would just be like listen to the
feedback um don't give up don't don't be
scared you all i have to say is
just you got this
perfect device perfect device especially
listening to feedback but i i i am
available for feedback i do mention that
often like if somebody wants to send me
their comic and have me do a pre-read
before they do anything with it i'm always
available for that kind of stuff
And I've done it a few times.
And those went on to be successful
Kickstarters in the long term.
So that's really cool.
And that's perfect advice right there is
just listen to feedback.
So how big do you plan on your
universe being?
Uh...
You got five chapter or five books,
six books.
What are you thinking?
I'm thinking, so currently this is,
I would like to call this the,
the dragon arc, the dragon saga.
I'm planning for this to last eight
volumes.
Okay.
Um, and then I have like future,
future arcs planned.
And how many, um,
chapters do you have per arc or per
volume?
I should say.
So volume one, how many chapters is it?
For volume one, it'll be six.
It has six chapters.
For volume two,
I expanded it with like seven.
Volume three will have seven chapters.
Okay.
That's pretty spot on.
How long is a chapter for you?
How long?
Yeah.
I don't know.
Like the most recent chapter I finished
was like forty four pages.
It was just so much work.
That's incredible, though.
So when people are buying your book,
they're getting their value for their
money.
You know,
chapters being that big and seven chapters
of volume.
That's incredible.
So keep that up.
I like that.
Thank you.
So let me ask,
where can people tell the people where
they can find your work and where they
can find you?
So if you're interested in a physical copy
of a saga, I also do sign copies,
too.
You can go to Kofi dot com slash
Wimburn slash shop.
I also have merch.
I'm wearing one of them right now.
Some nice t shirts.
Yeah.
I got t-shirts.
I recently released this merch last year
for a third event I was at.
It was a really big event.
I have t-shirts, prints, stickers.
I will sign the prints too if you
request it.
I also want to thank shoutouts to Comics
Wellspring for printing out my books.
They're a really good company and I do
recommend them.
If you want to follow me,
as of this podcast,
I am on break from social media.
I told you before,
everybody has to take one sometimes.
Yeah.
I'm on Instagram at Wimburn.
Blue Sky Threads.
I have a Facebook page if you want
to follow that.
I used to be on Twitter,
but not anymore.
Not as much because that site went
downhill.
real quick yeah so yep you you hit
them all do you still have the uh
the weebly
account yeah yeah if you want to check
out sagya itself um you can go to
sagya official.weebly.com or um i also
have that blog like i mentioned um i
think it's sagya sagya
official.blogspot.com it's also on the
official sagya website so yeah it's like
So Wimber,
I want to thank you so much for
bringing your work to the USDN community
and for proving that indie comics are
still the best place for bold new worlds.
To everyone watching,
make sure you follow, support,
and share not only Wimber's work,
but all indie creators' work.
This movement only grows when you show up
for it and support it.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the council is adjourned.
This has been the USDM podcast where indie
comics come to life.
Y'all be safe out there.
See ya.
Thank you.