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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 everyone and welcome to the
United States Department of Nerds where we
are for the people, by the people,
and of the people.
And tonight,
a mysterious fog rolls across a shattered
world,
a world where the past and the future
will collide,
a world where survival isn't guaranteed,
where secrets hide in the mist,
and where every step forward could reveal
answers
or unleash new dangers.
From the depths of creator-owned comics
comes a series that blends
post-apocalyptic adventure,
military action,
sci-fi and mystery into something uniquely
its own.
For years,
creator Sean Wood has been building the
world of The Fog within one issue at
a time,
taking readers deeper into a reality
shaped by a phenomenon that defies
explanation.
It changes everything it touches now.
With issue five launching and a brand new
story arc beginning, the fog is expanding.
The state's horizon and the future of this
universe is only just beginning to unfold.
Tonight,
we welcome creator Sean Wood to the
Council of Nerds.
And with that, ladies and gentlemen,
the Council of Nerds is now in session.
Sean, welcome to the USDN, my friend.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
I love that reading too.
I need to use all of that on
my Kickstarter.
That was perfect.
I'll send it to you.
It's all you got to say, man,
and I will send it to you.
Nice.
But the Kickstarter is live, man.
How are we looking day one?
How are you feeling about it?
yeah i'm feeling good this is my i
think ninth uh campaign uh fifth for the
the fog within so yeah i'm feeling good
it's a good start we're close to a
thousand already and uh way to go so
yeah yeah but if you're at a thousand
on day one man that's uh you're moving
pretty fast and this is only going to
be a fifteen day or right
Yeah, something like that.
Fifteen or nineteen days.
It's like fifteen or nineteen.
It's something weird.
I don't know where they came up with
the numbers for that.
But yeah.
But for everybody who is just now meeting
you for the first time,
why don't you let them know who Sean
Wood is and kind of what got you
into comments for the first time?
Yeah, so I've always been a comic nerd.
I mean,
I've been collecting since I was five
years old.
I was in that early nineties era of
like X-Men,
ninety two and and Power Rangers and
Batman animated series and all that.
And that's where I started collecting
first was the Batman animated series
books,
which is where Harley Quinn's first
appearance was.
I had that,
didn't realize it until like a couple of
years ago and sold that and everything.
It's pretty cool.
And the X-Men books and then became
obsessed with X-Men in general.
I was kind of forced into nerddom because
my dad,
he had been collecting since the sixties.
um so as soon as i started liking
that kind of stuff he showed me his
ten thousand plus comics and said have at
it nice that was perfect you know i
was always reading like the phoenix saga
and you know stuff like that you know
yeah that was just insane it just blew
my mind
Also, my dad named me Logan,
the middle name, because of Wolverine.
So I was kind of forced at birth.
Oh, yeah.
You were born into it.
Yeah, yeah.
He didn't tell my mom that until later.
But when I was growing up,
he always said,
that's why we named you that,
because it was Wolverine.
Yeah.
I'm looking for the creator of Harley.
I can't remember her name to save my
life.
Misty Franklin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that was,
and there's really nothing much to that
issue either.
She's just on the cover.
She's not really even in the book,
but you know,
Misty Franklin is the one who actually did
the first Harley Quinn.
Okay.
Nice.
So shout out to her.
She's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
um but yeah so like uh that's how
i started with the nerdom stuff and i've
always loved stories whether it's comics
whether it's uh movies um stuff like that
and um when i you know a couple
years later a couple years ago about four
years ago i started uh trying to write
i never saw like uh a way into
it and then i realized kickstarter's a
thing uh to find things and i started
doing writing class with scott snyder on
substack
and yeah brian michael bendis also had one
when substack first started um so i was
talking with them and actually the first
year i was with uh scott steyer's class
i uh met with him uh once a
month which was crazy um that he would
do something like that yeah and like now
he's got like yeah
No time to do anything, it feels like,
because he's pumping a book out like every
week,
it seems like multiple books every week.
Oh, yeah.
So he actually does the subset class
still.
He does meet with some,
not a whole lot of us.
I don't meet with him anymore.
I did just for the first year,
but he still does writing.
And I always see it as an inspiration
and I'm always trying to learn something
from it.
So that's always been fun.
But yeah,
so that's how I got my writing started
was getting the confidence from Scott
Snyder himself and then doing the
Kickstarter at the same time and learning
both of those worlds because writing and
doing Kickstarter campaigns are two
totally separate things in their own
rights.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So you've already answered a few of the
questions.
Remember what I was telling you before?
I get you talking and just let you
answer.
But was there a moment that kind of
convinced you to finally do your first
comic?
Was there something specifically that
said, hey,
I am going to write a comic book?
Yeah.
So I'm a runner.
That's where you see these medals behind
me.
I mean, is somebody chasing you?
No, no, I'm doing my own free will.
Are you in danger blink twice?
Right.
No, not that many times at least.
But I was on a run one day.
And as you're running or just doing just
some task in general that doesn't take a
lot of brain space, your mind wanders.
I just thought of on a foggy day,
this was my first comic that I was
going to do was The Fog Within.
And I just realized, hey,
what if I ran through this fog and
ended up somewhere else?
What would that look like?
And that was my first thought.
And I couldn't let go of that thought.
And then I found the Kickstarter space and
the writing space and everything.
And then a whole community of other indie
writers and helping each other out and all
that kind of stuff.
And it just grew from there.
But yeah,
that was definitely the first thought was
on a run with the fog in the
front of me.
And then it ended up being a time
traveling X-Men type book.
Because, you know, like I said,
I was such a cool kid.
cool thing like the smallest things in the
real world that like just kind of trigger
this thought in your head that just won't
stop nagging at you and um but no
that's it's a really cool concept i like
absolutely love this concept of this book
um for someone discovering the fog within
for the very first time give us your
elevator pitch
Yeah.
So the quickest elevator pitch is G.I.
Joe meets X-Men with a time traveling fog
in the apocalypse.
The sort of longer elevator pitch is the
whole thing starts out in the town of
Brooks.
uh there's a cataclysmic event hunter our
main character uh he's um around during
this event a couple days later um after
the event he's on a run go figure
and uh he ends up uh going through
some fog and like i said he ends
up twenty six years in the future after
he runs this fog doesn't know how he
got there um there's actually uh rebels um
that are that know he's coming because
there's a prophecy in place after he
um disappeared um that there's and there's
some mystery around that how is there a
prophecy um and what he's missed in that
time frame is um the cataclysmic event
caused an infection in the town of brooks
the government doesn't know how to stop it
so instead of trying to take care of
the people of brooks
They just wallop this city and the
outstretches of the area.
And this regime goes in place,
oppresses everybody,
and puts them under the thumb.
And then rebels, of course,
come from that.
And they're trying to get out of this
city.
And they think that Hunter is the one
that's going to save them because of this
prophecy.
And then that's how the story first
starts.
And then it just goes crazy after that.
I like it.
I like it.
It's just such an interesting concept to,
I mean,
I'm pretty sure you can probably Google
something similar and you'll find
something maybe close to it,
but it's like truly unique on its own,
you know?
Yeah.
It's some of my favorite franchises.
And The Fog, I thought,
was a great scary movie.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, actually,
funny thing is I started with The Fog.
And, of course, that is other places.
So I can't use The Fog.
So it took me forever to figure out
the third word in my title.
It's kind of crazy how that works, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Like who can – was The Fog –
was it a –
Was it trademarked or?
Well,
it's not I don't think it's really
trademarked,
but there is a fog comic as well
off of the movie and the book.
Yeah, yeah.
So I didn't want to confuse anything.
I didn't want anybody coming after me
because it's the same name.
Yeah,
I was trying to do everything possible.
And plus, I was brand new.
I had no idea what I was doing.
So I was like,
let's just try to keep as far away
of those kind of things as possible.
But it makes sense because the fog within,
it's metaphorically speaking,
and it's also in the book,
it is from within Hunter.
And you find out there might be other
fogs as well.
Oh, that's, that's, that's, that's,
I like that.
It's a little twist in there,
like a little, like not necessarily,
I'm trying,
what's the word I'm looking for?
It's not necessarily a twist, but.
It's intriguing.
Yeah,
it's very intriguing because there could
be multiple fogs.
there in each one of those faults does
it take them to like a different like
time loop or a timeline or so i'll
say oh this is for my own pleasure
by the way that question like i gotta
know now yeah so they each have their
own abilities they're not all okay time
involved or uh stopping time and
everything
because Hunter is still learning how to
control this.
So like in the first issue of the
first page, he jumps twenty six years.
He doesn't know how he did it.
He doesn't have control of it or anything.
And he's slowly learning of this.
So he doesn't he's not really going
through time anymore.
He's stuck at this future point at the
moment.
It might not stay that way, you know,
the issues,
but that's how it is at the moment.
He he is learning how to stop time.
I mean,
he shows that from time to time and
just using time kind of powers,
but he's not going back and forth anyways.
But the other fogs that they have other
abilities that they help people become,
you know, X-Men kind of characters,
mutant kind of characters.
Perfect.
There you go.
Okay.
That was the plot that I was missing
right there is that part of it.
Because when you said they have the fog
and now the title makes really good sense.
The fog within.
Yeah.
It's literally within the person.
So, dude, that's a...
I like it.
I like his mind trying to be anyways.
Exactly.
No, it's really cool.
It's really unique.
It's definitely a one of one in that
term.
So I like it like that when it's
just like it's a one of one with
its own generalities to it.
And there's really nothing like that I've
never seen.
concept like that before so that's really
freaking cool thanks for anything that i
write i'm trying to be very original i
mean there's always something out there
that's going to be close exactly original
ideas anymore you know yeah original
thoughts but um i want to be as
original as possible to show what i can
i can do as a writer no and
i think you definitely
definitely did that so i know you had
mentioned like the fog itself kind of gave
you this idea for building this universe
of characters and everything but when you
sit down to really start putting it
together what kind of came first for you
was it the characters the world like the
mytho of the fog like kind of like
what was that first thing when you sit
down to actually start putting it together
Yeah, so I mean,
the first thing was the world building for
me,
because if you don't have a good world,
then everything else will fall apart in my
mind.
Of course,
the characters are the next big thing,
but you have to have that world.
And in my mind,
you have to think of the world as
its own character,
that it has its own life of itself
kind of thing.
And I wanted I put the walls up
in the city because I didn't want it
to be the whole world,
because then I don't want to have to
at some point spread out as my first
writing.
And, you know, yeah,
everything I wanted to consolidate what
area.
But it leaves it open, though,
because people don't know what's going on
beyond the walls.
So there could be other things.
cities or states or countries and cities
within those countries going through the
same thing so it's a really cool like
open-ended story that if even if you said
hey probably going to do up to issue
ten on this but you know and it
kind of closes out that first arc or
the second arc i guess for you yeah
but you can always come back with the
fog within like volume two and it starts
with a different city and on a different
coast or what have you.
So it's such a,
a cool concept that you can keep using
any eventually maybe bouncing around the
world.
So it's really one of those cool worlds
where you are,
it's only limitation essentially and how
much you want to do.
Thank you.
So, so what I started with, so I,
Not knowing what I was doing,
I definitely made this series a twelve
issue series.
And within the indie world,
that's that's a big feat to start with,
especially.
Yeah,
we're in issue five now where we're
rolling.
So it's working out.
I mean, it's issue five in what,
two years?
Yeah, close to three.
Three in September, I think.
This is my first Kickstarter,
and now I have two other series that
I'm doing at the same time,
but those are much smaller because I knew
more of what I was doing at that
point.
Nine Kickstarters in three years.
That's successful?
All of them?
All of them, yeah.
That's a testament to you more than
anything in the fact that
outside of work,
come home and work on Kickstarter is like
you have no social life.
I know exactly how you feel.
I know exactly how you feel.
My wife thinks I'm crazy.
She gets it now.
You literally have to love the game to
do it, man.
And that's on both sides over here.
You literally have to love what you do.
Otherwise, that first month or two,
you're just like...
the hell with this, I'm quitting.
No, it's not worth it.
But the strong survive.
Right.
Yeah, this is definitely a dream.
I mean,
I was kind of telling you right before
we started that I was kind of naive
when I started this thing and nobody's
doing this.
And I was like, oh,
this is an untapped market.
I'm going to be a writer for DC
and Marvel almost instantly.
They're going to find me because I'm the
only one.
And then I'm going to be golden.
If I didn't have that mentality starting
out, though,
I might not have ever started because of
the fear of all the work.
But now that I've started,
I'm totally addicted.
I thought I was just going to do
this one series and now I have two
other ones as well.
And I'm not stopping.
As long as I keep on funding,
I'm going to keep on writing.
I'd love to be picked up by any
other publisher as well in the future,
but I'm enjoying the stories that I'm
writing and I'm just going to keep on
going as long as I can.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah, dude.
Just keep pressing, you know?
Thank you.
So I know you had just said there
was going to be a twelve part series.
Yeah.
And I actually kind of just alluded to
like the possible world building that is
this beyond what readers have seen so far,
which I unintentionally answered my own
damn question there.
So we'll go ahead and jump over to
some of the characters in this story.
So who kind of is the main character
that readers should be paying attention to
right now?
I know you mentioned Hunter and that there
was possibly other fogs out there.
So but like really within the book is
Hunter and what are some of the other
characters in the book?
Yeah, so this is really a team book.
So it's mainly Hunter.
You're seeing you start out the series
with not knowing anything,
just like Hunter.
So you are the same perspective as Hunter
the entire time as he's growing in his
powers and learning about this area and
the mysteries around it.
and everything but there is a team the
rebels are the main characters so a lot
of them go by instead of their names
because of the trauma that they went
through because basically the infection
takes over the the adults so all of
these rebels they're parentless the
parents are gone they don't know what
happened
I have explained it a little bit in
one of the issues so far,
but they didn't know for the longest time
of what happened to their parents when the
infection,
they were taken away by this regime.
So the rebels themselves,
the main ones is Alpha.
Zeta and Epsilon.
Epsilon is, she's a badass punk character.
She's a sniper.
She's a blade specialist.
She's just whatever she has a thought of,
she's saying it, you know, kind of thing.
She doesn't hold anything back.
i feel like we should have more punk
rock characters in comic books and i think
i had that same discussion with the long
box punk not that long ago where we
had we talked about that when he was
on the podcast to promote aha uh-huh yeah
but um yeah it was one of those
yeah chris yeah yeah yeah chris we need
more punk rock characters in comic books
you know yeah in my head comic books
are punk rock to begin with oh yeah
for sure
Yeah,
so she's my punk rock girl in the
book, and she's one of the favorites.
She's really cool.
And you've got Alpha.
He's kind of like the alpha male.
He's like the big brute looking guy,
the bigger weapons specialist kind of guy.
He's kind of second in command.
um and uh and then you've got uh
zeta he is the um he's the younger
guy out of the group but he is
the the super intelligent guy uh
technology he's the one that built or had
the ideas of all the builds for the
rebels uh to be using um against schism
which is the the guys in power and
um and those are the the main characters
uh you've got cole he's really the leader
but he's a young leader um
And so Alpha is kind of second in
command with him,
but it's not really like certain like
structural.
Yeah, they listen to him anyways.
And you find out why the longer the
book is gone.
And yeah, that's the main characters,
though.
And then you've got the bad side,
which they're called Schism and they're
soldiers.
They're kind of like grunts.
They're called the Swarm.
um they seem i'll say they seem robotic
um and uh and there's a lot of
them so they can you know the rubs
can go through them and a lot of
fun ways um in the books and uh
they kind of look like smaller sentinels
uh that was like my idea uh behind
it kind of the foot clan sentinels oh
that's really cool actually yeah i don't
know if was it um
Yeah,
it was the Foot Clan that went from
being actual humans.
And then when no more humans would
volunteer for the Foot Clan,
they switched over to the cybernetic Foot
Clan and TMNT.
And I think they did that in one
of the shows, too,
just so they could actually slice through
them in a kid's show versus killing
people.
Exactly, exactly.
But that's kind of what I do, too,
a little bit with the Swarm.
And so they have like a hive mind,
hence the Swarm.
um together and uh then you've got the
main character uh damon he is like the
big bad um and you don't see a
whole lot of him in the the first
like two issues uh but after that it
builds on it and actually um the the
fourth issue was the the arc finale uh
that i had uh last year that we
did that campaign and that was like the
big fight between hunter and damon you
find a little bit more about him and
and why he is where he is
uh but now in the second arc a
lot of the backstory is learning why damon
is where he is and why he thinks
that he's the good guy saving the the
city because if if the bad guy thinks
he's bad he's not as complex as yeah
he has to think he's doing it for
the right reasons yeah i think every big
bad has to feel like they're the good
guy or they're the right they're in the
right for some reason what's
so no that's that's spot on dude i
like that a lot thank you now it
gives it gives the character a lot more
depth because in their mind they are good
and they don't realize what they do is
necessarily bad because they feel it's for
the greater good they justify everything
Exactly.
Exactly.
So as you were writing these characters
out,
was there like a particular character that
was like surprise you the most during the
writing process?
Like you didn't really kind of intend the
character to be this way,
but they were like, God damn,
I really like this character, you know,
or like, man,
that character really makes you freaking
hate him.
So did you have that as you went?
Yeah,
so funny thing is all the characters that
I just mentioned,
it's a different character.
So he wasn't intended as a main character,
but now he's becoming a fan favorite.
A couple of the podcasts,
they say hashtag Gary and things like
that.
Gary, man.
Gary is this random dude that's screaming.
I didn't even put him in the script.
My artist said,
um i had uh epsilon shooting her sniper
for the first time in like the third
page i think and there was like the
way to introduce all the characters in a
fast-paced way and um the swarm guy gets
shot in the head and there's a random
dude screaming right next to him like big
right next to the guy my son goes
when he sees the the page he's like
that guy with a beard his name is
now going to be called gary and i
want to control that character and he was
like
what nine at the time and i was
like okay gary that sounds funny every
night he wanted to see before bed he
wanted to like blow up on my phone
the picture of gary just like laugh at
his silly ridiculous looking face yeah and
so now my son um he controls this
character and we're in five issues and now
he's one of the rebels so he has
his own little arc that i've allowed my
son to do
So the first one is just random screaming
civilian next to a shot swarm character.
And then the second one,
he's being captured by the swarm and also
saved by the rebels.
And so the third one,
you see him putting on a suit and
he's not really saying anything yet,
but you see slowly building.
And by the fourth issue with the big
final battle,
Gary comes in with a gatling gun mowing
down some guys.
Because it's a little bigger to go home,
I guess, right?
Exactly.
And so now he's in the fifth issue,
and he's on, instead of just one page,
he's actually,
he has kind of a thing going against
Zeta.
Him and Zeta kind of like bicker like
brothers.
And there's a little bit back and forth.
Actually,
some of the pages that I have on
the Kickstarter for the issue five has
this back and forth.
And he's just a cool character.
He's also on the cover of number four,
the main cover with the Gatling gun.
And he's on cover C for The Fog
Within number five that's live right now.
Yeah.
So he's becoming a favorite.
And just people love hearing about Gary
that my son controls him at cons.
Everybody loves it.
That screaming picture of him from the
first issue,
I blew it up as the first sticker.
And that one goes a lot of times.
Everybody wants that one when they hear
about the story.
And then my son has a shirt that
I got.
It was a bright orange shirt.
And then that screaming Gary,
that's all it was.
And that's his favorite shirt.
We went to Disney this year,
and he wanted to wear that on all
the pictures because he wanted Gary to be
everywhere.
And it had holes in it and stuff.
I already had to buy him another shirt
of Gary.
And now it's even bigger.
It's like bigger than just his chest.
It's like down to his belly.
And he just absolutely loves it.
It's like his favorite thing.
So it makes it my favorite thing.
And it's just a funny story.
And it makes, you know,
it gives your son a connection to your
book that you wrote.
And who knows, you know,
he will follow in your footsteps and start
writing comics someday.
And I always love hearing stories where
the kids are,
help the parents write the book.
I think that's a lot of fun.
I know John McLaren with Gen X Toys
does the same thing.
His son works on one of the books,
has his own little characters.
I always enjoy hearing and seeing...
it's a family thing, you know,
like the whole family's in on it.
And the fact that he gets to control
Gary and it just adds a,
another depth in connection to your
relationship with your son and to the
comic book as well.
So that's, that's really cool.
yeah yeah and actually gary is a part
of all the series in a way um
so i sort of call my my three
series the gary verse like to myself it's
not like it's not like anywhere but in
my mind it's the gary verse so there's
different versions of gary's like
different uh different areas that the gary
could be in kind of thing so yeah
dude that's a freaking cool gary i love
it so are there any particular themes
you're exploring through these characters
And before you answer that question,
shout out to my boss, Gary.
Nice.
Not even intentional.
Not even intentional.
Fucking Gary.
But yeah,
so I want to write about emotions because
that's where the best stories are is
definitely emotions.
One of the big things that I brought
up with this story was that they're
without parents.
What would they go through if the whole
generation were just kids and how they
grew up?
And I slowly build on that a little
bit by little.
And then Hunter, he was when he left,
he just got married to her name's Madison
and he just disappeared.
And she doesn't know what happened to him
for the longest time.
um she sort of knows now uh but
she didn't know for the longest time and
and that kind of adds drama to it
uh she might be now not by choice
with damon uh which is the leader of
schism um basically damon came in and uh
saved the day with her yeah and then
she slowly got stuck kind of in that
kind of relationship um and then now he's
the ruler and she's stuck there because
she can't go anywhere and he won't let
her
it's kind of like with al simmons's best
friend you know snuck in and grabbed wanda
right right right the whole plot there for
our spawn right right yep yeah i love
spawn too this one's amazing um
But yeah,
so trying to do like family type emotions
in this series.
Other series I have with my daughter.
It's a zombie book with robots and
basically the robot protects my daughter.
As a parent,
how I want to protect her.
And then later in that series,
she's actually an adult and she's actually
the one protecting me and showing how
strong she can be.
And I'm showing like,
know what she can do in the future.
And I believe in her kind of thing.
And then, yeah, I mean,
that's so I always have like that kind
of family dynamic,
whether it's a broken family or whether
it's a strong family,
some kind of family setting.
No, I like it.
And I do feel like we need more
stuff like that,
whether it because you're not going to get
that in anything mainstream.
So it's kind of cool to see it
done on the indie scene where
you can tell those types of stories and
there's the audience for that.
Again, I always say if you write it,
there is an audience for it.
It's a simple truth.
There will be an audience for it.
It's just you...
have to find that market in that audience.
And it's hard.
That's the hard part.
And we'll talk a little bit more about
that later.
But let's talk about issue five.
No spoilers or anything,
because I know it's coming.
um so start the new arc in issue
five this is arc number three two two
yeah so the first arc was one through
four uh so that story but also left
mystery involved gotcha so what can
readers expect in the new arc without
giving too much away we don't want to
spoil it for anybody
Yeah.
Um, so, uh,
without spoiling the issue for there's a
huge battle.
Um, once you get to that issue,
you'll understand why, um,
some crazy things happen, of course.
And, uh, now there's repercussions of,
of that battle.
Um,
They leave the battle.
They think they won.
But the last page, something happens,
a big shocker to make people want to
continue,
but also is my biggest shocker that I
planned from the get-go.
From the first page, it was planned.
And so now there's repercussions of all
that.
And what Damon's going through,
Schism is now weak.
And they need to try to keep them
weak and continue to take them out.
little by little.
But this is also a way to start.
It's a slower book than issue four,
of course,
because you ramped it all up to get
to that big battle.
Now you have to slow down the story
to talk about repercussions and backstory
of Damon and why he does what he
does.
And they go on a mission with different
rebels this time.
Some of them are the same.
Some of them are newer, like Gary.
He hasn't been really on the team yet.
And the dynamics of that.
And Alpha and Hunter do not see eye
to eye.
They've never seen eye to eye since the
beginning.
And now,
because of what happened in issue four,
he's even more pissed off with them.
And he doesn't trust them.
But he needs them for his power kind
of thing.
And yeah.
And it's just it's building on this this
next arc.
So each issue will ramp up even more.
More will be revealed of this whole
mystery of the fog.
Why?
Why they're there and everything and what
they are.
And yeah,
just keep on continuing that way.
Just slowly building.
Oh, yeah.
So looking back on issues one through
four.
Is there any lessons that you've learned
from a writer creator standpoint that
you've learned from those first four
issues of this story?
Yeah.
So with the first one,
that was my first writing of any comic
whatsoever.
So I had no idea what I was
doing.
That book by itself took me.
really to get the final story and the
final script and everything it probably
took me six months to figure out how
to how to build this world correctly and
do it in a smart way and not
look like a newbie um and then uh
since then excuse me um since then I've
it's been a lot easier each issue that
I write it's been easier and easier to
come up with the whole thing um
And I have a pattern of how I'm
doing it.
I'm not trying to do the final script
with dialogue before I have the art,
because the art's going to change what I'm
going to do.
That's definitely a huge thing that has
helped me.
So I have a basic dialogue of what
I want the characters to be doing in
each panel, in each scene.
But then I'll completely change it,
and it'll be way better dialogue by the
end.
I'm starting out with the very basic
things like, oh, why is me?
And then I'm actually going to be saying,
I'm not going to be saying, oh,
why is me?
I'll be trying to relay that without
saying, you know, the.
You have to guide the artists through the
panels.
Yeah.
And then you provide it with basic
dialogue.
Yeah.
You know, but yeah,
I think that's one of the better ways
to do it.
If you just explain panel by panel by
panel what you're looking for.
and then you can go back in and
add the dialogue because who does do you
have a letter yeah so letter squids he's
lettered everything since they started his
name he's great yeah yeah yeah so i
mean squids is going to be basically the
guy right yep yep so yeah i don't
have to have everything you know completed
until i get there um so i definitely
make sure uh by the time he has
the script that it it's done
uh with the art and everything but uh
but yeah um so that was one thing
i had to learn early um that i
was trying to do too much with the
first script and yeah that first six
months when i did that first issue i
i went through like twenty at least twenty
scripts like this doesn't make any sense
i'm a i'm a failure you know kind
of thing but uh but yeah i've built
a pattern around what's worked and act
with different teams so the fall within
has been the same team since the beginning
the same artist and the same colorist and
the same letterer.
That's been nice.
I appreciate that so much when I see
that.
Even in Indie Comics,
because Indie Comics,
you hardly ever see it.
But I've noticed lately I'm seeing it more
than I used to.
But I always appreciate when it's the same
team doing a book,
because you know what to expect when you
get that book in your hand.
So it's always appreciated.
Indie comics should cultivate
relationships from that standpoint between
a writer, an artist, a letter, an editor,
an inker, a penciler.
Everything should be a cultivated
relationship.
Or you know when you, hey,
here you go,
and you know you're getting back,
you know, top-notch, great A, good shit.
So...
yeah consistency and then cover A's is my
big thing that I make sure it's the
interior artist because that drives me
nuts when there's variant covers on the
stand and it's it's this great cover and
you open it up like what the crap
is this yeah I can't stand that like
you have I have variants too of course
uh but the main cover is key yeah
I always appreciate when cover A is the
actual artist
cover b probably i know a lot of
really good anchors out there a lot of
good colors out there that do covers so
i always appreciate it when the people
associated with the book get those first
two covers and then you can reach out
to a guest to do a cover of
like the cover sees yep but no and
i i love consistency i'm a consistent like
it's something about just shit just
it works better.
And that's just,
it might just be a me as I'm
there, but like,
I love a good comic book team.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not a hero team,
but the guys making the thing I get
to hold in my hand.
Yeah.
I mean,
the only thing that hasn't been consistent
and it's just because we've been,
we've all grown is I feel like my
writing has gotten better.
My artist has gotten better over the last
three years.
My colors has gotten better.
So it's elevated,
but it's the same team elevated together.
You elevated each other up to the next
level and that consistency drawing these
characters is what has elevated them to
that next level growth as a team, man.
I love to see it.
I preach it all the time,
both on this and in my real job,
like consistency,
it will always be the key.
You reach down and you pull the others
up with you.
Yeah.
Yep, exactly.
This is going to be a two parter
because I want to know what you're most
excited about with this new chapter in
this new arc.
And also,
what do you think is going to surprise
people in this new issue?
So the biggest thing that I'm excited
about with this arc in general,
I've kind of touched on a little bit
was just Damon's backstory.
So I haven't really said anything about
Damon other than he's saying mean things
to his minions or whatever.
And then there's the big battle.
um throughout the the first four issues so
that that's a lot of fun just playing
into his psyche um into that and and
why he's doing what he's doing and also
with that uh backstory kind of touching on
things that i kind of hinted at like
the first issue so if people have just
read the first issue or have been reading
it the whole time and they see like
a couple of easter egg kind of things
for his backstory it's fun i love it
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
These drugs are great.
You know,
they're just for me and I don't tell
anybody.
It's fine.
It's still it's still awesome just to know
it's there.
Yeah.
But yeah,
so that that's a big thing just in
the arc in general.
And then the I'll say,
how do I say this without spoiling
anything?
So the big thing about this issue is
one of the other fogs is a key
factor into the middle of the story and
the ending of the story.
And without really spoiling anything,
that's really all I can really say about
it, honestly, unfortunately.
That's a good answer in my book.
Like,
I always say I'm not a fan of
spoilers,
and then I'm trying to remember who it
was.
But then they just drop a spoiler, like,
right in the middle.
Like, I asked a question.
I'm like, hey, without spoilers.
And they start answering.
They're like, fuck.
I just spoiled it.
Right.
And I was laughing.
I'm like, I'm not editing that.
I'm leaving it in.
And it's lives anyway.
So it's not like they can't go back
and watch the lives.
They're going to.
I'm like, yeah, well,
it's not a whole lot I can do.
I mean,
I can edit out in the final product.
It's just like, whatever.
Yeah.
yeah yeah I try not to spoil because
that's like my biggest pet peeve yeah I
love the story and how you get to
that story so I don't want to know
anything going in other than a trailer for
a movie or whatever I don't want to
know really too much going in I want
to be shocked and odd the way that
they intended it yeah so even when you
can kind of figure it out in your
head what's taking place I still like like
oh I bet this is going to happen
because you
it's a natural human instinct you read
something or you watch something in your
head you're playing out the events yeah
you're like this and that maybe this and
that and then when you get there you're
like i didn't expect that like hell yeah
i always love it when that happens when
what's in my head doesn't play out like
it's supposed to or i think it's supposed
to on the page right everything's so much
better because then it's like oh so it's
not very predictable and it makes it
better
Yeah.
So,
but let's jump in and talk about the
Kickstarter that launched today at what?
If I'm not mistaken.
Oh yeah.
Nailed it.
I knew it.
I'm on top of my current events is
what I'm saying.
Nice.
At least I try to be right.
And, um,
so this is number nine on the Kickstarter
campaign front.
What has been the biggest thing you have
learned running nine campaigns so
Definitely pre-launch, pre-launch,
pre-launch and be prepared just like at a
regular job.
You got to do as much as you
can behind the scenes for as long as
you can.
Because as soon as you hit that button,
it's all out there for the world to
see and you only get one chance sometimes.
Sometimes people are on Kickstarter and
they see it pop up and they have
no idea what your stuff is.
They go to the campaign,
have no idea what's going on and they
just leave.
But at it at the best format as
you possibly can think of or see other
people do or hear a little talk about
or whatever,
then you have the best chance for that
one click to end up being a backer.
um that's my my biggest honestly that's my
biggest fear is not having exactly
everything correct as soon as i go live
yeah but that fear makes me work harder
behind the scenes because like each
campaign that i do i mean it takes
me easily
I don't know,
twelve to sixteen hours to build,
which is I mean,
that's probably low on the low side,
honestly,
because I'm doing it as I have time,
you know, after work.
Yeah.
But you cram it all together.
We're talking sixteen,
twenty plus hours of hard work to because
it's not just throwing your pages on the
screen.
It's the description of the book is a
character definition.
It's
It's what order should this stuff flow
from?
How should it look on the page?
It's saving the page,
going back and looking at the page.
Did everything stay aligned?
I've seen some crooked ass Kickstarters
out there where shit was just like,
and you're like,
I got no idea what's going on here.
So you're not even gonna look at it.
Yep, exactly.
And I always say,
if you can't hook me in,
As I first get to the page,
I'm not sticking around for it.
Even if I like you,
even if you're my friend and you've been
on the podcast before.
But if your Kickstarter page is just hot
ass, ask me the question.
I have no problems helping.
I will tell you, shut up.
I was looking at your page, man.
I noticed X, Y,
and Z was a little off and that
you've repeated yourself multiple times.
Right, yeah.
Here's what you need to do to fix
this.
I can't make the decisions for you,
but here's my recommendations.
Yeah.
So, you know, that's a...
That's a good one.
And I kind of have a format now
that I've done so many that I have
certain PDFs or Photoshop files that I'm
using for each series.
And then I'll just add to it or
use that same format.
And I can copy and paste of what
I know that has worked so far and
what people told me they liked,
they didn't like, whatever.
um so it makes it a lot easier
that I have those templates um in place
now because you don't have those it'd be
even longer than than you know the twenty
hours easily um just trying to build all
the the graphics and everything and I'm no
graphic designer whatsoever no but you
know I can fiddle with Photoshop for for
a while and learn something yeah give it
ten minutes man I'll get it figured out
right yeah but here's what I love about
that though is like
we developed certain techniques to make
stuff happen.
But what's great about the community,
the Indie comic community and as a whole,
for the most part,
is you can just go out on one
of the Facebook groups and be like, hey,
I have a question about this on
Kickstarter.
Can anybody help me out?
And I can guarantee you,
you're going to get twenty,
thirty people on there going, hey,
here's what works for me.
Hey, here's what I've tried.
Here's what I like to see.
And
It's just such a great community out there
that if you have a question,
somebody is going to have a pretty darn
good answer for you.
That's true.
So even my first Kickstarter,
I didn't know anybody before I went in
the prelaunch when I first started.
I didn't know about the scene at all
or anything.
I was just putting out there.
And a couple of guys really pulled me
in.
And I talk to them still to this
day about everything.
And I get some of my ideas from
them.
We've worked together on some things.
And I have pretty much all my best
friends now, honestly, are indie creators.
We talk to them all the time.
It's wild, right?
Yeah, it's a crazy, crazy scene for sure.
There is some negativity,
just like there is negativity everywhere
in the world.
The ones that I deal with, I mean,
they're awesome.
It couldn't be any better.
And everybody wants to help each other.
And now that I'm
i've been around for a couple years
anybody that comes to me or sees me
on a podcast i always say hey i'm
here if anybody has any questions yeah
they want to start i love to help
i love to teach i'm a manager myself
in in the regular world outside of the
fun world of comics um so that's my
my bread and butter is i love teaching
people how to to do things so
I'm all for another scene for sure.
Yeah, no, a hundred percent.
And I, and I'm like,
you always say that on here when we
talk about this kind of stuff.
And it's just like,
have I written a comic book myself?
Not a hundred percent yet.
It's in the process.
Yeah.
Um, however,
I have done this now for like two
plus years and doing interviews and
Kickstarters and discussing all these
things.
And, um,
I like to think I've learned a thing
or two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So by all means, I'm always available.
If you have questions, just,
literally just a message away right just
ask the question if i don't have the
answer i can almost guarantee i've talked
to a creator at some point that i
will direct you and i will guide you
to somebody who can maybe mentor you a
little bit better than i can and that's
what's great about this is like hey i
may not know this but i think i
know a guy let me put you in
contact with them so yeah
Yeah, as soon as anybody in the scene,
some people think from the outside in that
they think that we're all competition.
But really, if we raise each other up,
we're all better for it.
And the scene's better for it, I think.
And that's really how I've seen it play
out these past couple years.
It's been awesome.
I mean, you still see people like that.
But I think that's just a lot of
people have that natural competitiveness
in them.
And there's room for that to some degree,
as long as you're not like a healthy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've seen you only raise three thousand
dollars.
I agree.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dude,
you're charging twenty dollars for your
book.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're still not going to make your
overhead back because you use a lot of
money to make a book.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's like,
so where was the equal out there?
You know, you actually need more money.
Right.
Exactly.
That nice two-ply cover you got is costing
you extra money.
Yeah.
It's cool and it looks great,
but it cost you twenty dollars.
Well,
it cost you twelve dollars to make the
cover and eight dollars to print the rest
of the book.
Yeah.
So because they charge you by paperweight
for anybody wondering.
Yeah.
But what mistake do you see a lot
of new creators making as they launch
these campaigns?
And I know we just talked about some
great examples of that,
but what do you think is like the
main one you see?
um i mean there's a lot of times
where new creators they're not trying to
find the audience first they feel like the
audience will just come to them that um
everybody's waiting for their book and
that's not the case nobody gives a you
gotta make them give you gotta yeah you
gotta give them a reason to care um
i mean that's definitely a big one i
think um
and not reaching out to other creators
beforehand.
That's what I try to do.
I was trying to find anybody to possibly
talk to about this.
Who's been through this first?
Yeah, I would say not understanding
what is needed on the story page,
the campaign page of the Kickstarter.
I mean,
there's definitely a science to it and
what people are looking for.
Not everybody's looking for the same
thing,
but they need certain things to
understand, for one, your book in general,
of what it even is.
You can't be mysterious without giving
them an idea.
Yeah, that's that stuff right there when
People will contact me like, hey,
I want to come on the podcast and
talk about my book.
I'm like, okay, hey, here's what I need.
And you sent me a press package.
I love that.
When you send a press package that has
everything like, bam.
I always tell people, have a press kit.
But I have to ask.
And if I have to ask and go
back and keep asking for things,
I'm not going to want you on the
podcast.
You've made me do too much work at
that point.
Yeah, yeah.
And I get it, man.
These are people's passion projects.
And trust me,
I'm a hundred percent on board.
I get it.
It's literally my job to get it and
to understand it.
But when you keep it all locked in
right here and you don't want to share
nothing.
can't do nothing yeah like my hands are
tied because if you're not willing to
share it with me or to give me
a sample or or do something how do
i know i want to talk to you
about your book yeah unless you're willing
to give me something right so and that's
my biggest one right there yeah so like
when you talk about the story at the
beginning of the campaign page
the the newer people typically are the
ones that are saying like just names of
characters going through this situation
they're like who is this why are they
here why are they important whereas the
elevator pitch like my elevator pitch gi
joe meets x-men in the apocalypse with the
time traveling fog
That tells you everything you know.
You just sold it, right?
You just sold it.
Yeah.
And that's the elevator pitch to the cons,
too,
because you got to be quick because people
are just like passing by.
They say, oh, that's a pretty picture.
You have them for like a minute.
You got to say something that they like
as soon as they catch up on.
Oh, I like X-Men.
OK, cool.
Keep on talking now.
Now you can go into your bigger spiel
kind of thing.
That's definitely I would say that's if
anything,
that's probably the biggest thing on the
pages.
They don't explain why.
why you would want to back this book
and understand what it relates to that
they already know what that kind of
subject is, at least.
Another big one I often see is the
proof of concept, right?
And this is when you,
even when you pitch a book to say
Dark Horse or Boom Studios,
whoever it may be, proof of concept,
right?
I want to see pages to have
the lettering on it.
I want to see fully colored.
I want to see your black and whites.
I want to see all these things.
When I come to your page for the
first time,
when I log on to Kickstarter and I
look at your book,
I want to see the proof of concept
there.
The same as you would always say you're
pitching it to a comic book company,
right?
Well,
you're pitching it to the people who you
want to give you money, right?
So it's the same concept.
Show them what they're investing in.
And then at the end,
tell me why I'm investing in you and
who you are.
Right.
Like,
I don't want to see who you are
at the end and get in.
I'm like, oh, I'm this person.
Who?
I'm not paying.
Yeah.
I'm not paying for you and your.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's why you made order of priority.
Right.
Order of relevance.
What you're looking at.
Yep.
Your one-minute pitch,
your two-minute pitch,
give me some samples,
give me some character development,
give me some colored pages,
give me some other developmental type
stuff,
then give me a couple of finished pages,
and then tell me who the hell you
are.
Yep, yep, for sure.
So it's an easy formula, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Because that's how you're going to be
pitching it to comic book companies if you
wanted to pitch the book.
Yeah, yeah.
so yeah that's another thing too you kind
of hinted at too i didn't think about
recently anyways is the lettering is the
lettering it should not uh pull you out
of the story it should be if it's
good lettering it's just in the background
Now, Letter Squids, my letterer,
he does have like the sound effects are
definitely like eye popping and
everything.
As they should be.
Yeah, it's not it's not distracting.
It's it adds the fun of the whole
story.
It builds to what I'm trying to do.
um but yeah lettering can make or break
a book and that's the cheapest thing that
you're you're paying right now that is
like literally like a day one thing i
said here on the podcast lettering is a
maker break because lettering is meant to
advance the story of the that the art
is telling yep
if it's overpowering if it's too much
dialogue i'm gone yeah like you've lost me
yeah i mean i'm gonna read it because
obviously i've paid money for it if i'm
pulling it but yeah you're not gonna get
my money again yeah yeah so dude i
love the fact that you just said that
that's like almost a word for a direct
quote from me and we've never talked
before so it's even cooler so
And this is a question I ask a
lot on here,
and I love people's answers to this
question because it's almost always the
same.
How much work goes into promoting a book
compared to actually creating it?
Oh, man.
exponentially more to promoting it than
creating it for sure.
The fun part is the creation, right?
Then the work begins.
You have to now promote it.
But you have to have that passion.
If you don't have that passion in the
first place to write it and to want
to promote it and go through all that,
then you're never going to be writing for
a long period of time because no one's
going to pay you thousands of dollars
Just because you have a story,
you might get lucky going to some kind
of publisher, but nine times out of ten,
I'd probably say nine point five times out
of ten,
you're not going to ever be with the
publisher right away,
especially unless you've done some other
kind of writing outside of comics.
Then maybe it's like the one percent of
the one percent, right?
Yeah.
You're going to get picked up eventually
by a big publisher to work on big
publisher things.
Yeah.
So actually probably even less than one
percent of the one percent.
Oh, yeah.
So you have to have that passion.
So that passion is what drives you to
be able to do the promotion because the
promotion doesn't come easy,
at least for me.
I mean,
outside of podcasting for the
Kickstarters,
I don't do a whole lot of social
stuff.
This is my, like you were saying before,
this is my social part.
It's talking to people.
This is my human interaction right here.
Because other times I'm just,
I'm on social media.
I'm pushing clips.
I'm pushing the next show.
I'm sharing the creators who were just on
here before you.
I'm pushing their stuff.
And I'm always pushing something to the
community.
So like I said,
we were having this discussion beforehand.
That's why people...
they'll notice that i've been doing i did
a lot and then as like we go
through this year it's going to become
less and less and less not because i
don't love what i do i absolutely love
what i do but i want to do
other things for the community as well i'm
going to go back to doing reviews so
i'm going to need a day where i
can record two or three four reviews on
comic books and i'm not
Could I write the review?
Yes.
But that's a lot of work that I
don't want to do when I can just
turn my equipment on, record five, ninety,
ninety seconds to three minute reviews
that are still clippable.
I can still post to social media as
long as it's under three minutes.
It's still a short and give you my
two cents on what I felt about this
comic book.
yeah yeah so and i can't do that
with the current format that i'm running
that's why people are going to start
seeing that yeah they're going to start
seeing like i got chairman's desk what's
on the chairman's desk this is a new
concept i'm coming up with and it's just
basically what i'm reading that week what
i picked up for new comic book day
what's what series i'm thoroughly enjoying
you know it's just going to be just
different types of fun things to help push
the community and drive the community and
if all i'm doing is like editing pushing
shows it's too much repetition for me and
it gets boring to be fair yeah no
it makes complete sense i totally get it
yeah you got to change it up um
yeah and this is a change up yeah
yeah i want to do some fun different
things and i want to watch some actual
tv
yeah yeah sometimes that gets hard doing
stuff is uh like after uh after this
podcast i'm gonna try to like play some
video games or whatever for a while i'm
gonna probably pass out you know it'll be
later but you know it is what it
is you gotta find ways to
to enjoy things.
It's funny that you mentioned that because
I'm actually doing a quick run through of
Ghost of Tsushima again.
Just the main story arc.
I'm not doing the side quests.
I'm just playing the main story and then
I'm going to jump in and do a
run through of the new version of that.
Ghost of Yotai?
Ghost of Yotai, yeah.
I've been wanting to do another run
through.
I haven't played Ghost of Yotai yet
because I wanted to do this quick run
through of
Ghost of Tsushima,
even though I know they're completely
separate stories,
I still wanted to do another run-through
because Ghost of Tsushima is such a
freaking beautiful game.
Holy hell.
That game is beautiful.
I agree.
I don't get to do that unless I'm...
because I'm always doing editing and
stuff, and I love it.
I love this community.
This is one of the best types of
communities to be a part of and to
participate in, but...
damn,
I need to do some adult and man,
some grass or something.
I don't know.
Yeah, but yeah, I get it.
But um, which is funny,
because we're sitting here talking about
the indie comics community.
And that's literally the next question is
like,
what has this community of any comments
meant to you?
And kind of your journey?
Yeah, so I mean,
like I said from the beginning,
I found a couple guys.
They brought me into different groups on
Discord or Messenger groups on Facebook,
and they're constantly talking.
Whether I'm always talking as well,
I'm definitely listening to hear,
because I don't always have something to
say,
but I always can learn from other guys
that have been doing it.
And yeah,
I talk to them all the time to
this day.
I've definitely grown the groups that I'm
a part of,
and
um the ones i talk to more on
a regular basis um i've definitely i've
done some um collaborating uh with two of
the bigger guys that i started out with
uh talking to um you know i was
able to meet a bunch of them at
different cons uh some of them are are
local some of them are a couple hours
away i went to baltimore my first year
um you know writing uh the fog within
number one when i was live with that
first one
And I got to meet some of the
guys that I was real big helping me
in the summer before I went live.
So that's always really cool seeing in the
real world those guys.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean,
definitely helped me figure out stories.
Like one guy, he'll literally tell me,
hey,
I just read the issue that I got
from your Kickstarter.
And I like this.
And this was OK.
And I think you can improve on this.
And this is why.
And that's what you really need.
You don't need a yes man.
Because a yes man ain't going to help
you.
Or the person who just says, hey,
this shit sucks.
Yeah, exactly.
Did you read it?
It hurts in the moment.
But at the same time, you're like, yeah,
I can see where he's coming from.
I didn't force that.
Or, oh,
this would have been better if I did
it this way.
Or whatever.
And I hope that I'm building my stories
and my writing.
I always say,
you're your own worst critic.
Yeah.
You're always going to be harder on
yourself than anybody else out there.
So now when somebody says something like
that, I'm just like, dude, trust me,
I know.
I'm a self-loathing asshole, man.
Trust me, I know.
yeah but um but yeah i mean that's
like the biggest thing that's helped in
the in the scene and like i said
before how just i'm there for other people
that are getting into it or if they
have any questions i'm also going to
continue to ask questions because i'm
never going to know everything if i know
everything i should go ahead and quit
because that's not really possible yeah
So let's jump in.
While we're still talking about
Kickstarters and Indie Comets,
what can people expect in this campaign
from a reward standpoint?
What are we looking at for this campaign
for issue number five?
Are we just doing books?
You've got stickers coming.
You've got t-shirts.
What you got going on, man?
yeah uh so i always like to do
the the metals uh for one so the
regular covers as well but i have uh
covers a through c um in general then
you got the metals you got the foils
those are always fun um they're eye
catchers are you doing the true metals
yeah yeah the aluminum metal covers yeah i
got um i got a few of them
from um
It was one of the series that Ani
Press, not Ani Press, I'm sorry,
the Keen Spot had.
And they did metal covers on all of
them.
And somebody had ordered them and then
didn't want them.
Or they just never picked them up.
Yeah.
And I'm reading that.
I was reading that series.
And so the local comic shop was like,
hey, somebody ordered these,
decided they didn't want them.
He's like,
I'll sell them to you at half price.
I was like, give me all of them.
Yeah.
nice so i ended up with like all
these cool metal covers and i'm just like
what am i ever going to do with
these i mean they're cool they're cool
little top pieces right oh yeah yeah yeah
um yeah i mean the foils and the
metals both they they look fantastic um
some of the the series that i do
i do embossed metals so they're actually
like three d metal yeah those are some
of my favorites man it reminds me of
old nineties uh marvel comics
Yeah.
And same with the foils, too.
Like, yeah, it's just just pretty.
So I typically do like the sea cover
for the metals in general for the whole
series.
So I've got that.
I've got, of course,
the trade is on here as well from
the last Kickstarter that I did.
So you can get either the singles or
you can get the one through four as
the trade and then the five issue.
And then I've got stickers for every
Kickstarter that I've done.
I do at least one sticker per campaign.
I also do the metal training cards.
That's always a lot of fun.
It's typically one of the pages or one
of the panels.
from that that book is the newest uh
metal cards um so that that's really what
I got going on uh this time I
have done Legos in the past of the
swarm uh but I'm actually as of this
uh afternoon I am completely out of the
Legos that I got custom made but they're
really cool we're done yeah what kind of
print were they the UV print or whatever
So I don't even know.
But I do know that this is called
Dragon Layer LEGOs, I think.
Yeah.
They need to customize them.
And it's actually on.
It's not like a sticker on it.
Yeah, it's just the UV print.
Yeah.
uh so they're really cool and they're
exactly my my character which is fun and
i'll probably be doing that more in the
future too so like probably the arc finale
of um for issue eight uh we'll probably
do another one we'll probably do gary
would be my next lego which would be
fun dude gary man um so yeah so
stuff like that i would actually
absolutely like crash out over that like
oh yeah yeah i'd have to buy more
swarm characters and you have to fight all
of them with gary yeah
with this gun gun hell yeah yeah exactly
you know that's all the the fun stuff
uh i do have like a mini poster
which you can sort of see the large
poster of it those are actually uh my
double cover of issue four which has the
bad guys on one side and the heroes
on the other side
That was the mini poster that I have
for this campaign and others that I've
done in the past.
Add-ons of all my other books.
I've got the other series on there with
stickers or variant covers and all that
kind of stuff as well, of course.
I like it, dude.
I like it.
It's not too much.
But it's also like,
it's like just enough stuff.
And you're at this point, I always say,
if it's your first one to keep it
simple,
the first couple always keep them simple.
I think.
And then after you've kind of,
you've been around the blocker time or
two, and then you can, you can expand,
right?
You can do the stickers.
You can do the mini posters.
You can do the cool little Lego figures
if they make them for you.
and um yeah no that's really cool man
it's it's not overbearing on you either
yeah you know that's like a mass-produced
thing it's not like you have to apply
a lot of brain bites and they'll always
say that save me brain bites yeah yeah
it's gotta make sense it can't just be
pretty it's gotta make sense for your back
page as well
Yeah.
So you got to be smart about it.
You want to do all the bells and
whistles, of course,
because it's fun just for you to see
in general.
But when you see those prices after you're
done with Kickstarter, you're like, oh,
maybe I shouldn't.
I didn't mean nothing.
I'm actually still in the red.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
You know, because I mean,
that's the whole point, right?
You make you get the book,
you make it, you get it printed,
you sell it on Kickstarter,
basically the first.
make some of your money back and maybe
a little bit more and then that hopefully
funds the next one because at some point
you're in the red and you may be
in the red for a while.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You may be just getting just enough to
make the bottom line to get the next
one made, but it takes a while.
Yeah.
I mean, it's just like,
that was a Geico commercial back in the
day.
It was like, I got your dollar.
I got your dollar.
It's just enough to like nag you along
to like, okay, I got enough to continue.
I can survive for the next, next book.
yeah literally just on the show like when
ce was on the show which was like
two shows ago with the clan versus the
mafia versus the clan he's like it's like
throwing money on top of a fire until
you throw enough money on it to snuff
it out and then you're making money so
yeah a hundred percent like yeah
People are like, oh, you do this.
I know you've got money.
I'm like, where is it?
Yeah, yeah.
Like, do you know where my money is?
It's not here.
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
But so let's look at the future of
the fog.
And do you already know how the story
will ultimately end?
Or are you like into like,
I don't quite know what the future holds
yet.
yeah so um i mean in comics you
can always figure out a way to continue
the story whether you had an ending or
not you can always you know build it
up again um into a new story like
you said another city or whatever but um
that was one thing that scott snyder was
big on when i first started was okay
you have this idea you kind of have
an idea where it's going to go you
need to do an outline of you want
to do twelve issues so all right every
month we're going to talk about an arc
of what is the outline like page by
page at least a general description of
what you're trying to bring across each
page not do panel by panel but yeah
and so i do have the whole outline
uh for every issue um so and it's
really easy to break down now that i
already have that i have a format to
go by so as soon as this one's
the big one right that's always a big
one it's like get a good format
know oh yeah and it makes everything so
much easier so um i have page by
page uh for issue six but i don't
have panel by panel so once i'm going
to be going to the artists you know
in a month or so i'll go ahead
and and write panel by panel and like
i was saying before that basic dialogue of
what i'm trying to bring across and then
put in uh you know some general pictures
that i see on google of expressions i'm
looking for in this or this is the
kind of layout i'm talking about in my
mind
Kind of thing and that and I can
just keep on going.
And it's very fast process now and also,
it gives me time to think of something
new that I can change in that page
or in that panel that because if I
did every page and every script for all
twelve issues right now.
And by the time I finish to that
twelfth issue of actually getting into the
art, I'm going to change as a writer.
I want to be way better as a
writer.
Yeah.
So I don't want to stifle my my
writing and stifle myself in that future
year in a corner.
Yeah, exactly.
I want to have that that leeway of
changing around.
I still have the structure I need,
but then I can I can play with
it as I see this other idea come
up.
You may get to issue number ten and
be like, I really like this one part,
but damn, if I did it this way,
I was going to bring it to that
next level.
I get it.
It's evolution.
You may have twelve issues broken out how
you want to do it,
but as you start telling those stories and
getting through these arcs, you're like,
I need to evolve this.
So I'm going to switch this up.
I'm going to change this.
And, you know,
hopefully if you're like me,
you have different versions of,
of everything like, Oh, here's V two of,
you know, issue number two,
here's V three of issue number two.
And it's like that way,
when you get to the next part, like,
I can't remember what I was supposed to
be doing over here with this one thing.
Let me go back.
Right.
There is, you know?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It can get messy fast if you let
it, right?
Yeah, and if you don't have an ending,
you end up being like the show Lost.
And you don't need that.
That was a writer's strike, okay?
Yeah.
And they were fucking lost.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Great series until the end.
And it just, like, fell apart.
And I was like, ah.
It's like Hero, right?
Or Heroes, whatever that TV show was.
Yeah, yeah.
Loved the very first, like, three seasons.
And then the last couple of seasons were
just the hottest of garbage.
Yep.
Like, raccoons avoided that garbage.
Yeah.
I don't even think I finished Heroes.
Nobody finished it.
It's the writer's strike again.
I think the writer's strike hit both of
them.
They were like, oh,
we've got to get this done.
Let's just crank it out.
We can do this.
Anybody can write.
No hot garbage.
But that...
Is everything I got for you,
is there anything that you want to add
about the Fog Within and the Kickstarter
before we start doing these closing
questions?
I'm live right now on everything.
It's live.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
It's definitely live.
We are.
It's dropping your hand too.
Yeah, definitely live.
We are live until June twenty six,
I think, is the Friday, Friday, eight p.m.
that week.
I always like to start on Tuesday morning
and on Friday.
It just that's been my format since the
flow.
Yeah.
and it's not a full starter campaign it's
only a small um the smaller of the
two options that you get yeah yeah yeah
so definitely do a smaller campaign it's
not too much smaller but it doesn't have
that nice space in between or nine days
or something different between the two
yeah yeah so uh but yeah it's worked
out well so far and
um this is already done as well i
do have it on the kickstarter campaign but
um everything is done except for the um
the draw in characters for those one panel
um and by the time we finish uh
with kickstarter um i'll reach out to the
four people that do the draw in and
then
it won't take very long after that and
this will be going to everybody by
september um i am happy to say that
every campaign um i've been around two
months for each um after finishing the
campaign and i have pretty much done it
um for all of them um the trade
took a little bit longer because it came
from china
um but yeah that's all everybody has all
their books the last i think for recon
uh like my last campaign it was live
in february ending in march yeah uh the
last seven on that one everybody i do
apologize i was booked up in february but
thankfully because he did email me in
february something like that yeah yeah we
were able to make it work for
for the fall within but we originally were
going to do the one he just mentioned
i wish we could have done that one
too but
it's all good it's been a wild year
and i'm loving it it's been a great
ride yeah but the last few books that
i have to send out the foil just
came in uh yesterday so tomorrow i'm
pretty much be sending out the last few
books of that campaign then all of them
are good um i always have the books
done before i go live with the
kickstarters just because it makes it
easier on me less stress trying to um
get it out to the world and less
stress for everyone else that there
they know that they're going to get their
book.
They're not worried about never getting it
like a year later or whatever.
Yeah.
It's kind of,
I've had a few like that where I
like a book arrives at my house and
I'm like, what the hell is this?
Right.
Yeah.
And I'm like, did I back this?
Like, let me rip it open.
I'm like,
bring up Kickstarter real quick and be
like, Oh, a year plus.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah.
It was a great book.
Beautiful covers, beautiful art.
You could tell they delayed it to do
a better print, a better quality of paper,
which I'm okay with.
My biggest thing was they didn't really
communicate very well on the back end.
That's another ism that I cannot stand.
That's true.
Yeah.
You got to let everybody know.
Yeah.
Communication is definitely key for sure.
Now they,
I will say they did eventually come like,
Hey guys, we know we're delayed.
And here is why we do apologize.
We thought we had sent this message
earlier, but we didn't,
but here's the reason I was like, Hey,
cool.
Got it.
But I'd still yeah.
still forget the book was even a thing
until it arrived at my doorstep so but
let's start closing this out man and we're
going to do that with some quick questions
here and that is we'll start with this
one what are you reading right now oh
man um i mean absolute batman i mean
as talk about scott snyder still but
absolute batman's been uh amazing
everybody's dreaming for me oh yeah
Yeah.
Um, I would say that one,
it's just too much.
Yeah.
It was too much.
It was overbearing and I couldn't do it.
That's fair.
And it's definitely different too.
Um, but, uh,
let's see what else major things, um,
There's so many books that I can't even
just think of one off the top of
my head.
I mean, finally,
I just now ordered The Anabases of the
Boys because I finished the show.
Actually,
that's the first thing that I've watched
the show first,
and now I'm going back to read the
books.
I did it the other way.
I did read first,
and then the TV series come out,
and I was just like,
I know why they had to do certain
things a certain way, and I get it.
It was good for what it was.
The TV show is good.
It is not the comic book.
It is not a Robert Kirkman comic,
but that's for sure.
Another big one is going to be Battle
Beast.
I love anything Invincible.
I've read Invincible way before it was a
show.
I didn't start out at the beginning,
but I definitely caught up.
I think I started reading it issue a
hundred or something.
and then i i went back straight paper
back saying yeah yeah yeah um so battle
beast is great just just a crazy fun
character um i'm reading uh the new lobos
what is that scotty young scotty young
yeah yeah scotty young is just art in
general and then lobo the character is
just fun i'm personally a huge fan of
i hate fairyland as a character
and so fun and i love his art
because it's just like it's charlie
brown-esque yeah you know it's just like
very carefree it's almost like a child
drew you something but it's freaking
scotty young you know and i love
everything about it and gert is just such
a fun character if you're reading i hate
freeland you know exactly what i'm talking
about
I'm trying to think.
I read so many things.
I do too.
I don't read a whole lot of the
big two.
I'm reading Lobo because it's Lobo.
I don't read the absolute series,
but I do collect specific covers from
specific cover artists that I do enjoy.
I ended up with the Mark Spears
of foils for the Holy Trinity of the,
for the absolute universe.
Cause again, some people will be like,
Hey, can you order this for me?
And my local comic shop will order it
for them.
And
they'll never pick it up.
Yeah.
And then like Mark Spears,
I'm a huge Mark Spears fan.
I love his monster series.
Yeah.
And so they'll ask like, Hey,
these Mark Spears covers came in.
I'm like, dude,
is that a Holy Trinity of Mark Spears?
And for the absolute, he's like, yeah,
you got the other covers.
You want the foils as well?
Yes, I do.
I didn't even know they made the foils.
So yes, yes,
I do want them and I'll get them.
And I'll get them cheaper because I'm
doing my comic shop a favor by just
getting them out of the store.
And one less thing he has to store,
you know?
Right, yeah.
But next one up is,
what is one indie comic more people should
know about?
And it cannot be one of yours.
Oh, man.
But I'll give you anything indie.
Okay.
yeah so like indie on kickstarter in
general or just every general in general
it could be a kickstarter it could be
a image it could be a well maybe
not image so much but it could be
image boom dark horse awa bonnie press
keen spot you name it yeah yeah i
would say one book
I think it's called Kill All Immortals.
It's in its second volume.
Volume two right now.
Yep.
Zack, what's his last name?
It's not Snyder, is it?
No, it's Zack.
Hang on.
That's why I have the internets right
here.
So I'm not caught up with two,
but I'm waiting for the trade on that
one.
I don't normally trade weight,
but I was already like reading.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
I mean, he's a great writer.
He also has masterminds and he has.
Yeah.
I was going to say masterminds was
amazing, dude.
And his new series too.
I haven't got it.
I'm actually getting it tomorrow from my
guy.
It's the apocalypse book.
It's about monsters.
I think I'm reading it.
Number one just came out, I think,
two weeks ago.
And I didn't get it that day because
my guy wasn't available.
But yeah, that series looks great.
Mastermind, which was really good.
It was very different and enjoyable.
um eclipse kill all immortals oh you're
thinking um what's the name of this book
what's called only the savager left yes
that dude i've already read the first
issue yeah so good yes so good
i get it tomorrow so i'll be reading
it tomorrow um but yeah i've heard great
things about it and i've i've thought it
was an interesting concept since it came
out like you know the focs and everything
um but uh i'll give you that one
because that is the even the i got
the trade paperback on the first one
I didn't even know the first one was
a thing.
I'm a Zach Kaplan fan now because I
wasn't a lot of years without reading
comics.
And then when I seen the announcement for
Kill All Immortals,
I fell in love with just the concept
of it.
And then it was like, oh,
if you haven't read this yet,
go check this out.
And it was like, oh,
there's a volume one.
I have to get volume one.
So naturally I sent a text to my
local comic shop.
Hey,
do you have Kill All Immortals volume one?
He's like, I'll put it in your box.
Yeah.
Nice.
So yeah,
I will a hundred percent give you that
one.
Cause that is a great story.
So for anybody wondering,
kill all immortals is about immortal,
immortal Viking family.
I think it's Eric the red.
Yeah, I think so.
But they discover basically a way to
become immortal.
His kids are all immortal and they pissed
off baby sister and baby sister's life
goal is to kill all
every single one of them yep that's the
synopsis yeah and it is a bloody gory
good time yep and the art is fantastic
too that doesn't help amazing art amazing
art so what is one big lesson comments
has taught you oh man um
I mean, they've taught me evolution,
if that makes any sense.
I know exactly what you're referring to,
and I know exactly what you mean.
So, I mean, just evolving as a writer,
evolving as a person in general, I mean,
all of those things.
I love the process of all of it.
Like, not knowing anything starting out,
and now...
I'm writing some of the stories, you know,
the main panel by panel,
at least in like a week,
maybe even two days.
I just did an issue the last couple
of days before I went live.
It's hard to do when you're live with
Kickstarters.
But, you know, beforehand, you know,
I try to be as creative as possible.
And just that whole process of.
understanding where the story needs to go
and and the aha moments that you're
finding as a writer and then you're gonna
have an audience that's gonna see these
aha moments on their own and how it's
gonna bring them joy it's gonna bring me
joy all that's just insanity i feel that
on so many different levels and just
seeing where i started to where i am
now as both uh
a bit just creative and like how much
better everything i do now works and flows
together the systems i have in place to
make things easier like evolution is just
such a perfect way to sum that up
and i'll really like that answer thank you
um if you could give any aspiring creators
one piece of advice what would it be
don't be afraid to ask
great answer i love that one short sweet
but absolutely brings it home and with
that one tell everybody where they can
find you and where they can go to
find you own for your kickstarter yep so
if you search on kickstarter the fall
within uh number one through five uh
that's the one that's live um if you
find me on socials i'm on facebook i'm
on x i'm on blue sky
i'm sort of on tick tock i'm on
reddit i'm typically under the same name
as sean wood underscore writer on almost
all of those uh yeah yeah minus blue
sky i don't you had a blue sky
handle at one time and it's gone
Oh, well, I'm still there, but yeah,
I don't know.
I'm not great at blue sky, but yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
But I'm anywhere that I can possibly think
of that I can at least associate my
time with.
I'm on Instagram too.
Sean Wood underscore writer is there as
well.
So all of those places,
if you find me, message me,
ask me about my books,
ask me about comics in general.
If you have creative questions,
I'm all for all of it.
Perfect, dude.
I love it, man.
And I'm loving The Fog Within.
I'm going to be doing my own pledge
to it for anybody wondering.
I do back some books that come on
the podcast and I love the concept of
this story.
So I'll absolutely be backing that one as
well.
But Sean,
I want to thank you again for joining
us here at the United States Department of
Nerds.
It's always inspiring to sit down with
creators who aren't waiting for permission
to tell their stories.
through the fog within you you've built
the world assemble the community and
continue to provide that independent
comics remain one of the most creative
spaces in all of entertainment on behalf
of the council and there's congratulations
on everything you've accomplished so far
and best of luck with the newly launched
today at ten a.m by the way everybody
it launched
of chapter five of The Fog Within.
For everyone watching and listening,
make sure you check out the Kickstarter,
follow Sean's work,
and support creator-owned comics because
every great comic universe starts with
readers willing to believe in something
new.
Thank you for spending part of your day
with us.
Make sure you like, follow,
and share because this is the USDN
Podcast,
where indie comics
come to life and until next time the
council is adjourned y'all be safe out
there