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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.
What is up everybody and welcome to the
United States Department of Nerds where we
are for the people, by the people,
and of the people.
Independent comments have always been
about creating outside the traditional
system.
But what happens when an independent
publisher starts building a system of its
own?
Critical Entertainment
is entering a new chapter.
With universal distribution bringing its
catalog into comic shops across the United
States and Canada,
the launch of the Indie Comic Alliance,
new publishing imprints,
new graphic novels,
and an expanding lineup of original
stories,
Critical Entertainment is making moves
designed to take independent comments
beyond crowdfunding
And directly into the hands.
Of more readers.
At the same time.
Zombie Zero returns.
In it's first.
Deluxe hardcover edition.
Through Zoop.
Collecting all seven issues.
Of Christopher's.
in Leandro's post-apocalyptic series as
the property continues its journey toward
Fim.
You heard it right, Fim.
And that's only part of this story.
Patriot Comic Books is bringing Blackout,
and God is a bullet from the screen...
to the comic book page,
while KTUNE Studios looks towards an
entirely different frontier,
bringing Korean comics to English-speaking
audiences around the world.
Tonight,
we're not just talking about one comic.
We're talking about distribution,
crowdfunding, collaboration, adaptation,
and expansion and what it takes to build
something bigger while remaining
independent ladies and gentlemen this is
christopher rita this is critical
entertainment and this is the future they
are building this is the united states
department of nerds ladies and gentlemen
the council of nerds is now in session
chris
Welcome to the council, my friend.
Yeah, thanks, Jeff, for having me on.
It's good to be on the show here.
Appreciate it.
And we were talking before we went live,
and it was one of those days where
the Indie Comic Alliance, I think,
you had just announced it.
It was probably the day before or the
day of.
I can't remember which.
But I just sent you a message.
It was like, hey, dude, I won't in.
How can I do my part?
And you're like, well,
I got this thing going that...
I would love to come talk about it.
I said, stay no more, dude,
let's do it.
So I'm excited to have you here and
to get to talk about all these great
things that you have going on.
Probably the busiest man in independent
comics right now, to be honest with you.
Yeah, I'm pretty busy.
Yeah, I heard from you and
kind of the whole point of the Indie
Comic Alliance is for fans and retailers
who love independent books.
And it's just a very hard part of
the industry to break into and to be
an independent creator and get your books
in front of people.
So this is a good way to make
independent books, you know,
kind of bigger on a grand grand scale
in the comic industry.
And it's amazing what you are doing.
But for anybody right now discovering
Critical Entertainment for the very first
time tonight,
can you give us a quick story of
who Chris is and what Critical
Entertainment is all about?
Yeah, so I originally went to film school,
and I wanted to be kind of like
a filmmaker, screenwriter.
And when I was there,
it was kind of this time where they
were adapting a lot of comic books into
film, right?
Sin City, Watchmen, you know,
Thirty Days of Night.
And I kind of went down the rabbit
hole of graphic novels.
more than just kind of your basic
superhero stories.
It was just there were all these great
books, right, Why the Last Man,
other stuff like that that were just like
these amazing stories that were slice of
life or science fiction or just something
different.
And I kind of fell in love with
comics, started writing more comic books,
and found it as an easier method to
be able to show producers
a story where they could just pick up
a comic book,
read it instead of read like an eighty
ninety page screenplay that they just flip
through.
Right.
So and then when you're done with a
comic,
it's like you feel like you're the
director of this film.
That's a comic and it's all visualized.
You didn't have to spend eighty million
dollars.
So I started doing a bunch of cons
and I'd have Zombie Zero and a few
of my shorts and stuff like that.
And then I started Critical Entertainment
maybe like nine years ago,
started releasing more comic books,
got into Diamond,
and I was being distributed through Lunar
as well.
So my books were selling thousands of
copies across the United States and
Canada.
So cool.
which was great.
You know,
I'd have friends in Philadelphia be like,
look, I found your book on the shelf,
you know, that's really cool.
Um, and then, you know,
I'd be shipping all these comics to people
in Florida and like Virginia and on the
East coast and Texas and California and
the Northwest and Canada and, um,
Norway and, you know, internationally.
So, um, yeah, you know,
I just have kind of like an,
a range of, uh, independent books here,
different genres.
We're signing like four or five new
writers.
So we're expanding as a publishing
company.
And yeah, we've,
we've made a deal with universal
distribution so we can, uh,
kind of pick back up where diamond left
off.
Um,
And then we started the Indie Comic
Alliance.
So now we're going to team up with
some other independent publishers and get
their books in the stores as well.
Which is so cool to see.
But real quick, you brought it up,
Thirty Days of Night.
Did you read the new one?
I haven't.
So good.
And I love the way it spans the
original story.
And they did it in such a great
way.
And I'm like...
Because I didn't know what to expect going
into it.
I'm not going to give it away for
people,
but go read that new Thirty Days of
Night, people.
You're going to love it.
If you love the movie or the original
comic book,
definitely check it out because it's a
perfect segue into the new story.
And the new story picks up where you
would expect the original,
where you think it's over,
to pick up from.
Interesting.
But so you founded Critical Entertainment
in twenty seventeen.
When you look at where the company started
compared with everything happening right
now,
how close is it to the original vision
that you had or have you completely blown
that original vision out of the water?
Yeah, I mean,
where I'm at now is not anywhere where
I thought I would be in terms of
when I started the company.
A lot of it was just publishing my
own stuff.
But as things moved on...
I came up with the Indie Comic Alliance.
I teamed up with Thomas Joe, my printer.
And it's kind of turned into,
why don't we make another type of image
type company where you publish a bunch of
other imprints, really?
But in terms of doing this,
everyone gets to keep their logo.
They don't have to put our logo on
there or have us tell them what to
do or what not to do.
So really,
I'm trying to expand on being a bigger
publisher.
I think there's kind of like this space
where you have Marvel and DC,
and then you have guys like Image and
Boom and IDW.
I'd like to kind of jump into that
tier of publisher.
No,
and you have the – you have slowly
started to put together the right people
to do that with.
I mean, you have Wise Acre with Frederick.
Shout out to those guys in the House
of Wise who will be returning in October
for anybody wondering.
The whole team is coming on in October.
You got Distillery,
which is really cool to see.
And I know anybody who don't know,
Distillery does –
I don't want to say it's adult theme,
but really cool stories.
Really interesting stuff.
Yeah, all types of genres.
But they're really good,
and they're magazine size.
So if you're into the larger size books,
definitely check them out.
So I've got to add with Distillery,
they're still going to be distributed
through Penguin Random House.
Are they?
Okay.
They're exclusive to them.
Okay.
But another part of this any comic
alliance is we're all going to be printing
and shipping and doing storage together.
So distilleries really doing the printing
part.
They're joining in on the printing part.
But the idea is,
is that all of us will be printing
at the same time through the same printer
and bringing all our costs down.
So that way it's like we are a
bigger publisher where we get the better
rates and we can all print more and
be more profitable,
but we can be our own independent self
and make less titles,
not have as many titles,
but still get that kind of like big
group discount rate.
And then, you know,
shipping is kind of a big deal, right?
Getting stuff to distributors, um,
I would be shipping like thirteen boxes
via FedEx to Lunar.
And that just ate a lot of my
costs up.
It's really expensive.
But shipping is like ridiculous.
Yeah.
So if all of us put all our
books onto one pallet and ship it out,
we all can share that cost.
It's much cheaper.
And then your books get less damage, too,
as well.
So again,
the whole point of us doing this is
to be stronger together.
So what does,
you basically just answered this question
kind of,
but what does reaching this level of
distribution really mean for not just
critical entertainment and the guys under
the Indie Comic Alliance,
but as kind of like a footprint for
the larger Indie Comic community as a
whole?
What you find out when you're in comic
book shops and through distribution is you
gain bigger brand awareness.
It's a little bit more than just being
in a comic book shop.
It's now new customers who go into these
comic book shops every day.
They learn about you.
Um,
so I would see a huge uptick on
our online sales.
Once a book came out,
say the first Americans,
number two would come out,
someone would pick it up in their comic
book shop and then they'd order issue one
off our website.
Um,
even just simple things of like your book
comes out in a comic shop on Instagram,
the comic shop does, you know,
new comic book day.
Here's my shelf with all the new books.
Good,
you get to learn who's carrying your
books.
You can share it and put it on
your stories.
So now you're driving your audience into
their bookstores.
Then you're giving them a little bit more
than just they're buying your book to
resell it, right?
You become part of this social ecosystem.
Yeah, the social media ecosystem.
And we were literally just talking about
that before we went live and kind of
how that is a...
You know, quid pro quo, you know,
Clarice and everybody's helping everybody.
You know, if it's done the proper way,
you tag people,
you collaborate with people,
you share their stuff, you know,
not just share it,
but add it to your story.
That way,
multiple sets of eyes can see what is
out there and they can hopefully go, oh,
damn.
that is really interesting.
Let me follow this down the rabbit hole.
That way I can find where this book
is coming from.
And that's really cool that all this is
coming together that way.
And I've said this for quite some time
now that if everybody does that for
everybody, uh,
indie comics as a whole.
And this has been one of my goals
since January is how do we put indie
comic books mainstream into people's
homes?
And that's one of the biggest ways to
do that.
That's one of the big goals too,
because I want to be able to sell
more of my books, right?
And if, if someone likes my books and,
and they see I'm part of this alliance,
they can go to Frederick's Wiseacre Comics
and go, well, OK,
I want something similar.
They're all part of this network.
They can go to our website,
see all these different publishers and go,
OK,
I'm someone who loves independent books.
Here's these fifteen publishers that all
have their independent titles.
I might be able to find something that
I like.
So, right.
We have an Instagram and a Twitter X
account.
Yeah.
It's my followers can find Wiseacre
comics, followers, bent box, you know,
distillery, all these different places.
And now customers can kind of go to
a place where they can kind of shop
for type of books.
It's so cool, man.
And I absolutely love that.
what what you're doing because i literally
because every january right you sit down
and you go what do i want to
accomplish this year and like my number
one goal not monetization you know not how
do i get sponsors not any of that
is my number one goal
How do I make independent comics
mainstream and how do I spread the word
to get them into more people's hands and
more people's houses?
And literally eight months later,
seven months, something like that,
you come rolling through the front door
and go, hey, look at what I'm doing.
I'm like, he's doing it.
How do I do this?
How do I help them make this possible?
Because as a team, as a group effort,
we can more than get that done.
Yeah.
And like, you know,
I go to all these cons and you
go down artist alley or small press and
there's these amazing books.
Okay.
And they just can't get into comic book
shops.
And you can't like blame a company like
boom or IDW or image for not taking
their books because they already have
their own creators.
And, you know,
they get tons of submissions and they can
only, you know,
print and publish as many titles as
possible, you know?
So it's just very hard to break in.
Um,
so this is just a good way for
other small publishers to be able to get
into comic book shops,
be part of a bigger publishing unit, get,
um,
better pricing, be more affordable.
That's our real goal is really to have
it.
So these, all these publishers,
including myself and wise acre and monkey
gong and bent box and all this,
so we can actually make money even when
we're doing well.
Cause like I was doing well through lunar
and diamond,
I was selling thousands of copies,
but the print cost was too high.
The shipping cost was too high.
Um,
it's it's hard for retailers to find
independent books it's hard for customers
it's hard for customers to find
independent books it really is so you're
at san diego comic-con i i did my
thing on san diego comic-con it's up on
patreon if anybody is interested in that
if you could just go over to the
dfp and patreon page look for my san
diego comic-con piece and it's just
basically my two cents of who won
San Diego Comic-Con and through my lens
look it in from an outside perspective and
I set up my feed and I was
getting all the daily news as
on San Diego Comic-Con.
And the one thing that I thought was
really cool coming out of there was
independent creators getting a lot of love
from their publishers and the publishers
investing into their creators.
And the one that I said probably did
the best job at San Diego Comic-Con this
year was Mad Cave.
And I've been trying to get Mad Cave
on people's radars for a very long time.
Just like, hey,
They got great stuff going on.
I think people should pay attention to
them.
And then through my eyes from the outside
looking in,
I thought they had a killer San Diego
Comic-Con.
You were there through your eyes.
What was your perspective of San Diego
Comic-Con this year,
especially now that it really felt like –
It was more about the comic.
But yeah, Hall H, that's a whatever.
That's going to do what it does every
year.
But through your eyes as an independent
comic person,
how did you feel San Diego Comic-Con was
for an independent publisher?
So one of the best years a few
years ago is when they didn't have like
Hall H and a bunch of like Hollywood
stuff.
So there were more people on the floor.
But this year, like compared to last year,
there were more people for sure.
We sold really well.
But it was definitely a lot of people
say like this year there it was a
lot busier.
There were a lot more people interested.
in independent books.
And, you know,
I had more press people come up to
my booth than before.
That's awesome, dude.
I love that.
So I think...
hopefully we can enter like a golden age
of indie books.
I think it's just becoming easier and
easier.
I think stuff like this, you know,
any comic Alliance,
I think digital comics, global comics, uh,
stuff like that.
Uh, it opens a lot more doors.
And yeah,
Look, you know,
I grew up on Marvel and DC and
Batman and Spider-Man, you know,
absolute Batman's doing great and stuff
like that.
But it's another take on Batman and we've
seen it a million, million times.
And this industry is, you know,
sequential art.
It's not just about superheroes.
Okay.
You know,
Will Eisner was all like slice of life
books and all that.
So yeah,
And then he's got an award named after
him.
Yeah.
And I have a lot of retailers who
go,
independent books are my bread and butter.
So if we can just find a way
for them to know about all these different
titles and people and books, it just...
it we can really have like indie comics
kind of like blow up in this industry
and dude that would be the greatest thing
ever i know i'm always like when i
go to my get my uh local my
local comic shop on wednesdays and i'm
like hey you heard of this book hey
you heard of this book and it's all
like indie stuff and he's like dude no
i'm like you should really check this out
you should really get into this and that
and i was telling them about murder hobo
And he's like, dude, I read Murder Hobo.
I'm like, and he's like, you're right.
I was like, I told you.
I'm like, he's like,
so you're going to get it, right?
Yeah, dude, I'll get it in.
I was like, yeah.
There's,
there's so many good books and I learned,
you know, it was like,
first I was scared,
are my books going to be good?
And then once I had customers say like,
my books are good and they liked them
and they'd pick up issues five and six
and seven and stuff like that.
I was like, okay,
now it's really about just getting found
out.
And you find all these creators do the,
like,
I have the greatest book since sliced
bread, you know?
Yeah, I've heard that once or twice.
But if you don't want to market,
if you don't want to do social media
posts or any of that stuff,
no one's going to find out about them.
Does it really exist outside of your head
if it's not out there for the people
to discover?
Yeah.
So it's a lot of work.
I'm trying to make it so it's easier
for retailers and customers to be able to
sort through and find something they want
and order it through their comic shop so
they don't have to pay shipping.
And yeah,
make these comic book stores a little bit
more like bookstores than just...
That's the dream.
Marvel and DC promotional shops.
I will say this.
My local comic shop does a very good
job on independent comics.
I think he probably moves more indie
comics than he does Marvel and DC.
I'll give him credit.
He does do,
but I'm wanting him to do more actual
indie comics.
And every time I bring it up,
he just gives me a look.
And I'm like,
I'm going to win this war someday.
And you're going to do it.
And I'm going to be in here for
final order cutoff with you circling
titles going, hey, you want this one?
You want this?
I'm like, hey,
I know that guy right there.
You definitely want his boots in your
store.
you know so i'm waiting for it and
i got a feeling i'm gonna have him
broken down soon we're gonna be doing foc
together for independent comics yeah i
mean it's got to be more than just
like five comic book writers that people
know and then that's it you know yeah
i mean really um your common person on
the street doesn't know a single like
well-known comic book writer you know um
It's just kind of how it is.
Yeah,
and I can sit here and ramble on
a hundred different names of independent
comic writers, and then somebody will go,
oh, but do you know this one guy?
I'm like, who?
They're like, oh, he works for Marvel.
I'm like, oh, dude,
I don't mess with that.
Like, why would I know that guy?
Unless, you know, he's a really,
really big name who...
Which, hey,
if they got their start in independent
comics, I'll probably know who they are.
But if they never touched independent
comics at any given point,
then I probably don't know them.
I mean, just doing this,
I've learned about a lot of these great
publishers that were maybe a diamond
before, but they would be just, you know,
one little square box in that giant cat,
four or page catalog.
Okay.
And that's a big catalog.
We're talking to people.
The catalog is, is a catalog.
Yeah.
You'd get lost and yeah.
There'd be six publishers that are like,
eighty percent of the catalog because they
get all these pages for free or they
blow all their money on those pages.
Those pages are like,
fifteen hundred dollars a piece to be in
there.
So a company like ours couldn't do that.
And even when we did,
they wouldn't like fulfill the demand it
brought sometimes because you just weren't
a priority.
That's what the Alliance is here to fit
for y'all.
But what does the success at the end
of the day for the Indie Comic Alliance
ultimately look like to you, Thomas,
and the team there?
I think it's really that we become another
image type like publisher where every
retailer can go through our catalog each
month when they're ordering books.
And they can go, okay, here's...
indie comic alliance books these are kind
of these nice indie maybe you know you
could say underground type comics but they
can go through and go okay let me
try out this title let me try out
this title and get their customer base to
get hooked onto it so when do you
see like y'all's um
order book being in comic shops?
Or when would that be available for local
comic shops,
your mom and pops out there to get
their hands on to order books?
The goal is for October to be the
first solicitation month.
Let's go right around the corner.
The First Americans, number one,
that's my book I'm going to put on
there.
Wise Acres is going to have three books
and then some of the other publishers are
going to have books.
I can tell you right now that it's
going to be some sweet stuff.
Knowing you, knowing Wise Acres,
knowing Frederick over there,
I know he's going to have like
the good stuff on it.
Yeah.
So like,
this is one of my most popular books
and comic book shop.
I love that cover by the way.
Yeah.
This cover grabs a lot of people.
Um, it's about the, you know,
a tribe of paleo Indians.
They travel from Siberia into North
America for the first time.
So prehistoric, really cool, you know,
people discovering America and befriending
wolves and hunting mammoths and fighting
saber tooth cats.
That's going to be one that I do
first, right?
I'm reprinting it.
I've sold thousands of copies in comic
book shops.
And basically it's going to be a two
month solicitation period.
And then the first books will be releasing
the third week of January.
I want to say like January.
So we're starting solicitations October.
Everyone's first books are coming out in
January.
And then it's,
we're going to have all our books released
on the third week of the month.
So the third week of February is,
Third week of March, April, May, June,
you know,
that way everyone knows when our books are
coming out of the alliance.
You know,
I call it independent comic book day.
Right.
I like it.
I like that.
But again,
it's to create like a consistency,
you know, that's so marketable though.
Yeah.
Just calling it that independent comic
Alliance day.
Yeah.
Wednesday of the month, you know,
Dude, that's so marketable.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I mean.
Dude, I love that.
Like,
it's genius level marketing right there.
You didn't even realize it until you're
like, wait a minute.
Yeah, no, that works.
That works.
You know, it's us trying to be, again,
it's like trying to act like a big
publisher with all of us together.
You know?
Yeah.
um but you can you imagine the signs
though that can go up in front of
comic book shops every third wednesday
independent comic alliance day yeah that's
a good idea so i'm in it right
i'm here for you i'm not even going
to charge you the fee for that one
But let's talk about Zombie Zero.
So it is getting its first to last
hardcover edition through Zoop Collect in
the complete seven issue series.
Why was now the right time to kind
of revisit this story and give it its
own hardcover treatment?
And what is Zoop for anybody wondering out
there?
Yeah, so Zoop is a crowdfunding platform.
They specifically do comic books.
They're a little bit more hands-on than
Kickstarter.
So they do a little bit more of
the marketing for you,
and they can help set up your campaign
a little bit more.
They have some people who are in the
comic industry that run it.
Oh, nice.
So a little more specific.
um i had a connection to them uh
through thomas joe my printer here so i
decided to give give it a whirl i've
done kickstarter before i wanted to do
zoop um and they've been great so far
um
it's just a nice crowd funding platform.
Same deal.
There's reward tiers and the,
the whole Shabam.
Um,
and then you're not as lost in kind
of like the Kickstarter algorithm, right?
So they run maybe like three campaigns at
a time.
Um,
They have a Frank Miller book up right
now.
They did the Art of Descender kind of
book for Dustin Wynn, who I know.
And right now,
we're doing the Zombie Zero Deluxe
Hardcover Edition.
Basically,
we have this soft cover that we sell
out.
I did a big print run of it,
and I sold out of it.
So I need to do another print run.
And this time I thought I should do
a hardcover edition.
Mm-hmm.
where I can take the chapter covers that
I usually did with single issues.
They were color.
But in this book,
it was black and white.
So now it's color in there.
I added some more like art pages.
All my books,
I like to kind of do like an
art gallery, right?
Where you kind of like show the process.
Um, so I added more of those.
I added some script pages too.
So people can, you know,
who want to see how the story was.
Yeah.
They can see the script page.
Then they can see like, you know,
layout pencils, inks, art.
Um, yeah.
So more people would do stuff like that.
I mean, some, I'll,
Let me rephrase that.
A lot of independent publishers,
when they get to the point where they
can produce their first trade paperback of
their book,
they will do those types of things.
But then when you get to like,
let's say, Boom Studios or IDW,
when they release a trade paperback,
they're not giving you that kind of stuff
like that.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, even like my single issues here,
I do that.
I do like...
an art gallery and the, and the,
and the print that I'm doing now,
I want the book.
Yeah.
The print I'm doing for universal,
it's going to,
it's going to be an art edition where
I have even more of the art gallery
stuff in there.
So I like doing that.
This is an art form.
Um, right.
And, uh,
Traditionally, actually,
this industry's been really rough on
artists.
So this is kind of a way for
me to showcase the artist,
give them a little bit more boost and
marketing.
it also uh you know you get a
lot of people who go up to the
booth and they go straight to the back
of the book you know the ending it's
it's kind of a buffer for that it's
like yes genius yeah that's like pretty
genius but now you just showed that
picture and there's that big mammoth i'm
like my favorite elephant the animal in
the world is the elephant and the mammoth
is a just a hairy elephant when you
open that page and it was immediately that
mammoth there i'm like i want the book
like
The cover sold me.
The dean showed me a picture of a
woolly mammoth.
I'm like,
now I have to have the book.
FOC, I'm getting it.
So, you know, Zombie Zero,
it's always been a very popular book for
us.
I sell out of it all the time.
And then with, you know, printing,
it's always about doing big print runs to
get a better price.
So I blew through my big print run
of Zombie Zero here and I thought,
why don't I do a hardcover?
Why don't I offer more to customers and
retailers or people who've already read
the book?
And now I can have my, you know,
it's my first hardcover of any of my
books.
And then, you know,
the film is going to, you know,
start going into production soon.
So I want to be able to capitalize
on that.
That's the perfect segue.
So Zombie Zero, for those who don't know,
is also option for film production at
Patriot Pictures.
What has this experience taught you about
taking a creator-owned business
comic beyond comments,
potentially into a whole nother medium and
not just any medium, but film.
I think that's every independent comic
creators dream is to take their work from
paper to the silver screen.
Yeah, so as I said before,
I went to film school.
So it's always been kind of an ultimate
goal of mine to work in the film
industry.
Basically,
the producer of Patriot Pictures,
Michael Mendelson, found us at Comic-Con.
He likes picking up comic book parties.
So he also picked up Valentine and The
Damnation of Charlie Wormwood,
which are two other great indie books.
They are, yeah.
So he optioned it.
And he's kind of been a mentor to
me and brought me in with some of
the key decisions and wanted to know my
perspective of it.
So, you know,
the fact that I've kind of worked in
the film industry helped a lot.
You get a lot of
a lot of comic book creators,
they want to have their stuff turned into
film and stuff,
but they don't know the lingo.
They don't know like how to carry
themselves or, you know,
like you can't change a single thing,
you know, you can't do that.
It's my precious baby.
And it's like, well,
The producer's going to change things.
The director's going to change things.
The screenwriter's going to change things.
And if you're a prima donna about it,
they're going to just go, forget it.
You're too much trouble.
They're not going to work with you.
I also work for him.
So I look for comic books that he
can turn into films.
And we've had some trouble picking up some
comic book properties recently.
You know,
sometimes the publisher has a ten percent
stake in your book,
but they need to sign off on it
and they'll be in a Zoom meeting with
like eight people and I need eight yeses.
And they want to know what the budget
is and if they can change this and
if they can be in charge of that
or, oh, is it paramount or not?
It's like, guys,
you've never even made a film.
It's an independent film, most likely.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's more of an indie film,
and you're lucky to have something be
made.
I'm telling you, certain books,
like Zombie Zero as an indie movie,
where it's just gory and bloody and a
good story mixed in with that kind of
stuff, it's going to be amazing.
Picked up by Screamify or something like
that.
Shout out to Screamify.
They're doing great things over there.
No, it's so cool.
From the Council of Nerds, Chris,
congrats on Zombie Zero being picked up
and optioned for production.
It is such a cool thing.
Couldn't have happened to a better guy,
man.
That's so cool.
Good luck with it, dude.
It's going to be awesome.
I know it is.
Yeah.
You know,
it's kind of been a dream come true
and, you know,
I'm hoping this opens the door to more
of my stuff being turned into films.
Uh,
I'm working on a screenplay for the cowboy
with many hats, you know,
so we're going to get there.
Oh, trust me.
I got that.
It's in, it's in here.
But if anybody's interested in picking up
Christopher's first hardback, Zombie Zero,
that link is actually down in the
description.
If you want to go over to Zoop
and get yourself a hardback like I'm going
to do,
then that link is directly in the
description right now for y'all to check
out.
Patriot Comic Books.
They're doing something almost opposite to
what we normally discuss rather than
adapting a comic into a movie.
They're taking films like Blackout and God
is a Bullet, which both really good films,
by the way, and bringing them into comics.
And I love this.
It's really cool.
What interested you in exploring
adaptation in that direction?
So, uh, Michael Mendelson, he, uh,
he picked up zombie zero and he's always
loved comic books.
Right.
Um,
and he wanted me to make some comic
books out of some of this films,
you know, mainly promotional.
Um,
the first thing he had me do was
prisoners of the ghost land starring
Nicholas cage.
So this was a film that came out
there, man.
yeah maybe like seven years ago yeah it's
kind of easy very well there yeah east
meets west um about like two outlaws who
rob a bank um and things go wrong
right um and it's a prequel to the
film
So it's kind of one of those things
like if you're at a Comic-Con and you
pick this book up for a few bucks
and you like it,
you can go and watch the film.
Or if you like the film and wanted
to see what happened before it,
you can pick up the comic book.
Like how they get there.
Yeah, how they get there.
That's some of my favorite stuff to see.
So it was really cool.
Even the cinematographer is going to want
to change things when it comes to adapting
stuff.
Shout out to Donald.
He does Powerscape, the comic book.
Great dude.
Actor.
He's got a new show coming out,
I believe, on Tubi or something like that.
But shout out to Donald, man.
Good people right there.
And he's also a member of the Council
of Nerds.
Yeah.
Yeah,
so that was the first book we did
for him.
And then the next two is Blackout.
So this is a full graphic novel,
nice and thick, like,
two hundred and sixty pages.
And the idea of this book,
this came out on Netflix.
It's about a CIA agent who goes undercover
for a drug cartel in Mexico.
He gets in a car accident and then
he loses his memory.
So he has when he's trying to figure
out things, who he's actually working for,
who's trying to betray him.
And basically.
We take the film, we take film stills,
and we turn it in a comic book
form.
That is so cool.
So it was kind of going in reverse,
right?
Really high action-packed film.
It was a really good film.
I liked it.
I'm a Josh Duhamel fan.
I know a lot of people ain't a
fan of his,
but I happen to like the guy.
I mean, he's great.
And I went through this film frame by
frame and I chopped it up and put
it together.
Did they actually give you the thirty five
millimeter film to chop up?
I mean,
I don't think it was thirty five,
but I mean,
I took the final like kind of,
you know, digital print of it.
Oh, that's cool.
And I screen grabbed and, you know,
and I know how to make comic comic
books.
So I made it really dynamic and action
packed.
Did you do that alone?
I did it mostly alone.
Yeah.
It took forever.
Oh, my God.
It took forever.
break that down for people because i i
really need them to understand the amount
like i could do a screen grab of
what we're doing right now for instance if
i needed a picture of you to use
on the thumbnail later i could just grab
the grab it from here that's one takes
me about thirty seconds to grab it cut
it and make it pretty i didn't have
to process it bring it up to four
k whatever
He had to literally do that thousands of
times to make that look for y'all frame
by frame, frame by frame, you know,
each action sequence,
you had to get the right frame of,
so it comes out and you can see
the fighting.
Um, it is absolutely insane, my man.
break it down by page um and panel
by panel so you know i had to
make it real dynamic you go through you
get all the dialogue from the film make
sure they go on the right panel and
get it to the letterist you are insane
it took thousands of hours thousands of
hours insane my man but dude it's so
cool to see because i really enjoyed that
movie
so we did that too,
with God is a bullet.
And then Ben Miller did part of this
too.
So he helped on this.
But it's the same deal.
We take the film stills,
we put it together.
This one stars Nikolai coaster Waldo.
You know,
most people know him as Jamie Lannister
from Game of Thrones.
I think this was done during the one
of the seasons of Game of Thrones,
if I'm not mistaken.
I think after.
Right after, yeah, right after.
And it's directed by Nick Cassavetes,
who did The Notebook and a bunch of
other films.
And this one's about this cop whose
daughter gets kidnapped by a satanic
group.
So he has to work with one of
the ex-members to kind of infiltrate this
group and get his daughter back.
So another like...
action packed kind of like thriller film.
Um, and yeah, you know,
it's kind of one of those things.
If you like the film,
you can kind of read the book and
have it frame by frame or for a
lot of people who haven't ever seen the
film, um,
there it is right there.
You know,
you can kind of just read it.
So then watch it.
That's what I always tell people when I
see books being adapted into film.
Like,
we know something is killing the children
is getting a film adaptation or TV series
adaptation and also animated adaptation.
Keep telling people,
read it before you are able to watch
it.
Just because I think there's nothing that
compares to me to comic books.
And the amount of story and imagery you
can get out of comic books.
I got a feeling the TV series will
be great and all, but the comic book.
You know, so Michael here, he can,
he has two full books and a nice
comic, you know,
of an extension of some of his films,
you know, um,
And he can be kind of part of
this comic book industry.
He loves going to Comic-Con.
That's really cool.
You know,
we basically – I have a critical
entertainment booth,
and then I run a Patriot comic book
booth as well.
So great marketing and promotion for him.
It's cool because it's not something you
see often.
I think I've only seen it –
Actually,
I'm trying to remember the last time I've
seen something like that done.
I think for the Ahsoka comic book that
Rodney Barnes wrote,
I think there was some stills they took
from the TV series they used in the
comic book mixed in with the stuff that
was drawn.
And I thought that was kind of unique
that Marvel did that.
And shout out Rodney Barnes, too.
Love that guy.
And that was just something that came to
my head that they also kind of pulled
stills from the other when they do the
comic covers with the live action.
I think that's really cool.
Yeah.
But here's one of my favorite ones that
y'all are doing.
And it has,
because I have such a deep history with
the country,
and that is you've launched KTUNE Studios
to bring Korean comics to English speaking
audience.
What opportunity did you kind of see in
K-Comics that convinced you that this
needed to become its own imprint?
so uh thomas joe came to me about
this um you know he's he we print
in south korea and so he has a
lot of connections over there and all the
comics over there are digital okay and
pretty much all manhwa is digital um and
he thought you know maybe in the us
market
If we can get Korean comics as popular
as manga is and we have physical prints
and just make standard comic book form but
with Korean creators,
he can be a publisher now and publish
some new stories.
And you know what?
We can throw them on digital form as
well.
But read as a comic book would be
so cool.
Yeah, there's a giant market.
There's a giant hole where you can have
Korean comics be printed out.
You know,
I went to Italy last year and the
bookstore I went to, it was like one,
you know,
large shelf of comic books and then like
five shelves of manga.
OK, so there is room to grow.
And everything here is kind of like under
Webtoons.
So.
I know Penguin has an imprint where they
print out some of the webtoon comics.
But really, that's it.
It's a hole there.
Yeah.
So there's a big hole in the market.
Thomas wants to publish some new comics,
and he wants to go through us to
do it.
Tap it.
I think it's a great opportunity,
not just for –
you all who are bringing this to the
american audience but the american
audience who are going to get who may
not necessarily know how to read some of
those they're interested because korean
culture and the k-pop and that kind of
stuff is so huge right now and if
you could put that kind of stuff in
front of the american audience i kind of
feel in there's a area of the american
public that are just going to eat that
up right
And it's good for everybody.
It's good for Korea.
It's good for the artists over there,
the writers over there who are making
these sometimes often weekly comic strips,
these weekly memoirs that they're doing.
And then pulling into the North American
audience.
From North America,
you know it's going to spread.
Once it's there,
it's going to spread like fire.
And they don't have a lot of avenues,
right?
It's like webtoons and that's kind of it.
So I will say here in recent years,
we've seen a lot of artists and writers
who are getting like –
are finally coming to the American market,
especially within the covers,
for covers and stuff like that.
And a couple of years ago,
I think it was A Cruel Universe from
EC Comets,
one of the stories that was produced in
there was written by a Korean,
which was really cool.
I follow him on Instagram now.
And they were really difficult to track
down because it was my favorite story from
that copy of it.
And I just wanted to literally just shoot
them a shout out and go, hey,
there was a lot of great stories in
this, but you absolutely nailed it.
And now we talk maybe once every two
or three months, just like, hey,
just wanted to check in and see how
you were doing type of stuff.
But I do wish we could get more
of that over here,
especially the Korean horror.
Like that is an untapped market that needs
to make its way over here so badly.
Yeah, so like Train to Busan,
that was originally a comic book.
Part two is coming.
Yeah, part two.
So there's a lot of like Korean,
Netflix has picked up a lot of Korean
content.
So much K-drama on Netflix.
And it makes my wife happy,
so keep it coming.
Yeah,
a lot of that has originated from comics
over there.
So look,
if we jump on this train to Busan,
if we kind of get into this market
and we can get them in the comic
book shops through Universal and stuff
like that, just more content.
I've actually taken the train to Busan
before.
It wasn't that bad.
And there was not that many zombies that
I personally remember.
But no, you're killing it right now,
my man.
So when we put all this together,
universal distribution,
the Indie Comic Alliance,
Patriot Comic Books, K-Tune Studios,
crowdfunded in your original Critical
Entertainment title,
it feels like you're simply publishing
individual comics and more like you're
building an infrastructure around
independent publishing.
Everything you've done has been very
intentional and very deliberate.
It's really cool to see what you are
doing.
But as this continues to grow,
how do you scale the business without
losing independence and creative freedom
that has allowed you to build it all
in the first place?
I mean,
that's the hard thing is I have much
less time to write and be creative,
but that's kind of the reality of it.
It's what I said before.
It's like,
you might have the best book ever,
but if you don't have put any business
into it, you're in trouble.
Yeah.
and i never really thought of myself being
more of like a publisher editor but now
i am you know i'm i'm basically heading
all these different indie publishers to go
through universal um i'm signing four or
five other writers for critical
entertainment i'm going to help thomas
with selecting and publishing
manual titles uh michael mendelsohn at
patriot pictures with doing blackout and
god is a bullet and comics out of
his films so you know the name of
the game is try to have a business
that works you know it's working business
yeah try to have a career that that
goes you know um and
It's kind of sad that I feel like
I have to be this champion of independent
books,
but it's just how the industry was set
up.
I'd be going to comic book shops just
selling my books at the bat,
and I had a lot of retailers who
were like, if you're not Marvel and DC,
you shouldn't even have a publishing
company.
You know,
and it's like ass backwards stinking that
it's like,
what's crazy is those are the current
comic shops that are going under.
Yeah.
Because people don't want to read DC and
Marvel anymore.
I mean, they do.
Don't get me wrong.
I think Marvel and DC made a lot
of, well, not DC,
but Marvel made some really good
announcements at San Diego comic-con for
comic books that are coming in.
Some of them are okay.
Will I read them?
No.
because I'm tired.
It doesn't work for me no more.
Imagine if Barnes & Noble only had two
publishers that they sold books of.
It doesn't make sense.
You would miss out on so much.
I would have never discovered Alex Segura,
who, oh, by the way,
writes comic books as well,
if that was the case.
And I would be heartbroken by that.
But look,
some of these creators I'm signing to do
books, they're like,
thank you so much for this opportunity.
It's a dream come true.
And get my book in the comic book
shops.
And I can kind of mentor them and
help them in making the best comic book
possible.
And then they can go and shop it
around to get optioned into a film.
It's kind of felt good to be in
the position, though,
to help move this industry,
to move independent comic books forward.
Because I feel like we've kind of been
here for the longest time.
And here comes Chris,
here comes the Independent Comic Alliance,
just kind of like ready to really put
their foot into it and kick this ball
down the road where it needs to be.
Yeah, you know,
I can take a lot of these publishers
who won't get looked at twice from another
indie publishing company, you know,
and try to get them into bookstores,
and at least give them the option of
growing.
And being in retailer stores is kind of
just the name of the game, you know,
it's,
it gives you kind of some legitimacy.
Yeah.
It's cool, man.
I'm so here for it.
And like I said,
when I sent you that message,
wherever I can help out to kick that
ball down the road with you,
you want me to hold the football?
I got you.
And I won't even pull it away from
you.
Yeah.
But, um, exactly.
I would not do that to you,
but that was a good one.
But, um,
You've already announced a lot this year
for twenty twenty sets,
but you're also bringing new creators,
new books into critical entertainment.
Why should creators who may be interested
in working with critical entertainment,
maybe joining the Indie Comic Alliance,
know about what you're looking for and
kind of like.
What it is when you go to assess
these things,
what you're looking for and kind of like
just other than going, hey, pick me.
Yeah.
Um, so I get a lot of submissions,
right?
So that's why I learned like when I
was submitting places and people don't get
back, it's because they're busy.
Okay.
Right.
I'm really busy.
I can't look at everyone's submission.
I tell a lot of these people who
submit to me, go to LA Comic Con,
go to San Diego Comic Con,
go to Anaheim WonderCon,
come up to my booth and meet me
and try to establish a relationship with
me.
Same thing in the film industry.
People work with people that they like and
want to be around.
It's so competitive, all these industries,
comics, film, all that.
I'd rather work with someone I like.
So I met Francis Marfon through an agency,
kind of like a film agency.
And he's interested in making films and
using comic books as a vehicle for that.
i mean he's real excited he posts stuff
on social media he collaborates with us he
came to comic-con and went on our panel
but he also came to the booth with
flyers and he handed out flyers and he
got people to the booth and i told
him you know this goes a long way
you know it's if you want to get
this your book made
we need to be able to sell them.
And if you're just a guy who's like,
my book's the greatest of all time and
I don't need to sell it,
I don't need you there because the best
person is going to sell it.
Yeah,
the best people who's going to sell your
book is you.
Tommy Halls, he has Kingsville.
He has the first three issues.
I'm sure you've heard of him.
He's very well connected.
What is it,
World War Comics or something like that?
Yeah, World War Comics.
Yeah, I've been following him for years,
and he's – between him,
the long bots punk, and a few others,
when I made my transition from the pop
culture side of the house,
new comic book day side of the house
to go –
I'm going to, you know, shoot my shot.
Like, Hey, if any comic book creator,
and this was just like in general type
of thing, I just blasted social media.
If an independent comic creator wants to,
or just a comic creator wants to come
on and talk to my audience about comic
books, pick me.
I'm here.
I got a platform.
Let me utilize it to help further you
and tell your story.
And if it wouldn't have been for a
creator to go, Hey,
I have this book coming out.
Can I come on and talk about it?
Yeah.
Yes.
And that kind of,
once that show is over and I was
sitting there, I was like,
this is it.
That's the direction I need it.
And I've been doing it ever since.
He has a lot of indie creators on
there.
So I was on his show a lot
and he had a,
he had his book and, you know,
I was like,
if I get him in a comic book
shops,
he's going to be able to sell them.
Oh yeah.
He's, he's going to be able, you know,
he, he goes to cons,
he can sell them at cons.
He's doing a Kickstarter for Kingsville
number one right now.
So we're seeing it today.
like it's it's hitting popularity um i
know like dark pink he just dropped his
volume two of um his book which i
think is already up to like twenty
thousand dollars in like three days or
something so yeah dude it's and so i
was saying world war like tommy hole's a
long boss punk these are some of the
guys when i decided to do this as
this i sit down and watch wars
the hours of their work just to,
you know,
learn how to do a good interview.
And, uh, then I'm like, okay,
I like what they're doing.
I want to tell stories,
not a comic book story.
I want to tell the creator story,
which is something they kind of do,
but they,
they do the comic book side of things.
And I wanted to tell the creator story
and,
and um that's what i've been doing ever
since for like i think two years now
and it's been amazing because i got to
do this and it's really cool to get
to do this kind of stuff and get
like kind of some behind the scenes and
get get into the mind of the person
making all these amazing cool things
happen but for readers watching tonight
after everything we've talked about
What should they be watching for next from
Christopher, Critical Entertainment,
and the Indie Comic Alliance?
Yeah.
So at least from critical, um,
the first Americans number four is being
illustrated.
That's going to be an eight issue series.
Um, so real popular series, um,
planetary expansions, my ongoing,
there's eight issues,
six have been released in comic book
stores.
So seven and eight will come out and
that's ongoing.
Um, and then, yeah, we're doing, you know,
Tom, Tommy holes, books, King Kingsville.
Uh, so good to you.
yeah mike smith uh one of our new
creators he has tazara number one in
rhythm and combat those are ongoing
jonathan chance we're signing he uh is
doing moonlit palms it's gonna be like a
sixty page kind of one shot smaller
graphic novel um
jack roberts has a book called swat man
he that's a that's like five six issues
that's a twelve issue series and then
francis uh marphone doing the wheel turner
that's gonna be a limited series so that's
all our new creators and then yeah in
the comic alliance we have fifteen
different publishers fifteen sixteen
publishers
starting in October.
So, you know, look,
look at universal distribution,
look at our October solicitations,
tell your comic book stores, Hey,
you want some more indie books,
even if you just order one book,
maybe the store order too.
Right.
So they can sell an extra one.
So if you shoot me a message,
when that goes live,
I'm going straight to my local comic shop
and be like, Hey, I want this book,
this book, this book, this book.
He's going to look at me and go,
I hate you, but okay.
And look,
if you like critical entertainment books,
look at Wiseacre.
A hundred percent.
And he was just on here.
So if anybody's not familiar who Frederick
Edels is, his episode aired in July.
It's live on podcasts and platforms.
It's live on YouTube.
Go see what Frederick is about.
He has some amazing things going on over
there.
And they're coming back in October with
the House of Wise.
Yeah, look, Red Five, Ray Media Comics.
Red Five, another great one.
I've had one of their creators on too.
Bent Box, Phantom Blade Productions,
and there's some other newer type
publishing companies coming out.
Monkey Gong, Bear Treasure Studios,
Norwall Press,
Twenty Five Ten Press with...
stephen prince so we just uh a lot
of really good books that have never
gotten the love uh to be in a
comic book shop so you know or or
order our books that's that's the best way
to help us and to help other future
indie creators it really is and and doing
this is telling the local comic shops that
independent comics sell and if you want to
continue to see them selling
you have to be willing to go into
your local comic book shop and demand they
carry this stuff.
Ask for it by name.
And that right there is helping the entire
independent comic industry get our slice
of that billion-dollar pie that Marvel and
DC and these other bigger publishers get
to enjoy.
Hell yeah.
Hell yeah.
But Chris, before we get out of here,
the floor is yours.
Where can everyone find Critical
Entertainment?
Check out Zombie Zero's Zoop campaign and
follow everything you're building to
support your books.
You can go to zoop.gg.
It'll show all the campaigns that are
going on.
Zombie Zero is one of the ones up
there.
Our website,
www.criticalentertainmentla.com,
is the best place to pick up some
of our books and have them shipped out
directly to you.
We also have patriotcomicbooks.com and
then indiecomicaliance.com as well.
We use Instagram a lot.
There's critical underscore entertainment
and indie underscore comic underscore
alliance.com.
We're on X, TikTok.
We have a YouTube channel.
So we're across all social media.
You guys feel free to message and DM
us.
I'll try to get around to answering
questions.
But there's contact emails on all those
sites as well.
So if you guys have any questions,
you can find us there.
And yeah, look for us in Universal.
All those links that he just mentioned,
for the most part,
are down in the description below.
So make sure you go give them a
follow.
And if you're not following this DN yet,
give us a follow too.
We appreciate every single one of those
guys who hit that button that says follow.
But so is there anything else that we
did not cover tonight that you would like
to have a chance to talk about?
I'll give you the floor real quick,
let you get out anything else that I
did not cover tonight off your chest.
Let's see, you know, planetary expansion,
ongoing series.
I have Space Dragon.
This is a really good graphic novel.
It's a seven and a half by twelve
about this huge dragon.
He can hop from planet to planet.
He's going to look for a new water
source.
Super visual.
Really, really cool book.
I lost pages, too.
That's a good print right there.
nice printing uh the cowboy with many hats
it's a short about a sheriff he thinks
he's on top of the world he gets
framed for murder and he has to go
on the run um another book by tad
galusha and myself so this has been real
popular i'm making a screenplay i'll
eventually do a limited series on this
later but yeah you know um
Leandro Rizzo, Alonzo Molina-Gonzalez,
Tad Galusha,
they're the artists I work with the most.
They're amazing.
I've worked with them for over ten years.
So, yeah, you know,
I work with a lot of amazing artists
and writers.
So there's a lot of fun stuff here
at Critical Entertainment,
different genres,
something up everybody's alley.
I love it, Ro.
It's amazing.
And I can't wait to see what is
next for you, the alliance,
everything that you're doing.
Because, dude,
you're on top of it right now.
And honestly,
I can say I want to wear your
shoes because you've got your hands in all
these pies.
But at the same time,
you're handing a lot of pies, my man.
Yeah.
But Chris,
I want to thank you so much for
joining us tonight.
It has been great learning more about
Critical Entertainment,
the move into national distribution,
the Indie Comic Alliance, Zombie Zero,
Patriot Comic Books, K-Tune Studios,
and everything you're building for the
future.
We wish you nothing but success with the
Zombie Zero Deluxe hardcover campaign,
everything that you have ahead of you with
Critical Entertainment.
And we look forward to seeing where this
next chapter takes you and the creators
that you are working with
To everyone watching,
all of Chris's links include in Critical
Entertainment, Indie Comic Alliance,
his Zombie Zero Zoop campaign.
All those links, like I said earlier,
are down in the description for you to
check out before you get off the offline
tonight.
If you enjoyed today's conversation,
be sure to like this video,
subscribe to the channel,
and share it with somebody who loves
independent comic books or somebody you
think should love independent comic books,
and that should be everybody.
But, ladies and gentlemen, as always,
this has been the USDN Podcast,
where indie comics come to life.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the Council of Nerds is now adjourned.
Y'all be safe out there.