You are listening to the USDN on the
DFPN.
Thank you.
Oh, busted.
I was banging my head to the music.
Oh,
this thing is not wanting to cooperate
this morning.
I have no idea what's going on.
I'm still trying to get everything shared.
Give me just a second.
I do apologize.
Must be a Saturday morning.
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 in
a world of airships,
dragons and untold legends.
Some creators don't just tell stories.
They build the world's pieces by pieces
and layers by layers from sound to script
to the very lettering on the page.
Today's guest
is a creator who understands that
storytelling is more than words.
It's experience.
And today,
we're diving into a world of Dragon
Whisperer,
a steampunk fantasy epic filled with
dragons, mystery, and deep world building.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the Council of Nerds is now in session.
Alex, welcome to the USDN from Italy.
Thank you for having me.
I'm in Italy right now.
Yes, indeed.
So if the audio or the video gets
a little weird on us,
he's in Italy having a good time with
this family doing a little European
travel.
But Alex,
let's jump into this from the beginning.
What pulled you into storytelling and
comics?
Oh, gosh.
From from a well,
from a very young age,
I have I have a brother who's eight
years older than me and
in upstate New York, in Rochester,
New York,
right next to where my dad used to
work,
there was a kind of a newsstand store.
And I never knew that a comic shop
was a store,
but so I was a really little kid.
This is the early seventies.
I'm going to give away a little bit
of my age and
And, you know, and I was like,
my brother went into the store.
So I went into this store and we
made a beeline right to the corner where
the where the comics were.
It was just it was all relegated to
a corner.
It's one of those newsprint stores where
you can just go in there and you
could you could smell it.
Just all that.
I love that smell.
Yeah.
That newspaper on that newsprint on ink on
cheap paper kind of thing.
And then there they were, you know,
comics that if I had every single one
of them.
I'd be a rich man.
And I don't.
But I had them then.
And, you know,
we didn't know that they were valuable.
So, okay, so that was the beginning.
I mean,
I saw this completely unique medium.
It wasn't television.
It wasn't movies.
It wasn't books.
It was its very own thing.
It had a storytelling in it.
But there's a complete uniqueness to the
medium of comics.
And then
it completely hooked me.
It hooked me as it did kids of
every generation before that,
that this is amazing.
This is like,
what is this beautiful magic that is
completely making my brain explode?
And then I was hooked.
That was it.
This, there was,
this was not a fad for me and
it wasn't something I liked.
It was a new way of life.
And, uh,
And then I just continued.
I never stopped.
I had lulls, you know, as one does,
but I was always into comics.
And then it got to the point where
I was looking at the credits.
Okay, there's an artist.
I like that artist.
There's a letterer.
I like that person's letters.
And there's a writer.
I like that person's writing.
So I said, okay,
there's human beings with brains that do
this.
then and then i said okay and then
fast forward to a more mature alex i
said i like that person's writing and i
sought that person chris claremont i mean
come on yeah yeah john john byrne whoa
tom orzkowski on the letters um and you
know and um and uh terry austin on
inks it's like all right
This is good.
And then Frank Miller happened.
And then, whoa.
And then Jim Shooter, to me,
Jim Shooter was the editor-in-chief of
Marvel during a formative time for me in
which there was a noticeable direction
towards story.
Jim Shooter, rest in peace,
he was a hard nose with his management
style.
But look at what happened.
He made a Marvel
of my generation.
And that was it.
And then I said, let me try this.
I'm not very good at drawing,
but let me try writing stuff and then
lettering stuff.
And then I discovered the British invasion
of comic book writers.
And at the top of that pyramid was
Alan Moore.
Alan Moore was the kind of like,
you know, I play the guitar.
You see this guitar here.
And I can look at guitar players and
sing Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page.
Okay, no problem.
Dude, royalty.
Right.
But then there's other guitar players that
are like, nah, I'm not going to try.
You're from another planet,
but I'm going to listen.
Alan Moore was that to me.
He inspired me, but he was like,
What are you on?
I don't think...
He was probably on a lot back then.
Yeah, he was, yeah.
So then I got into writing in earnest
in the early nineties.
And then, you know,
I submitted to my fingers to the bone.
I could barely afford artists,
but I afforded a few pages.
And then one thing led to another.
Then I got, you know, my first...
Just the door opened just that much with
a gentleman by the name of Jimmy Robinson
who had an independent comic.
He later went on to some minor fame
with Image Comics.
He did Bomb Queen and various things.
And I wrote on the coattails of that.
Then one thing led to another.
And then here I am, you know,
writing some more comics.
So I got to ask, though,
what's your favorite Alec Moore comic?
My favorite Alan Moore comic.
It's probably a tie between all of them,
but no, that's not true.
V for Vendetta is sort of like the
pinnacle.
It's the kind of read where you're one
man at...
the opening,
you're one man at the cover and you're
a different man when you turn the last
page.
It's that impactful.
And after reading it, you put it down,
it's kind of like, okay, whoa.
And you're breathing hard.
Watchmen, of course.
And I have a soft spot for From
Hell also.
I really love From Hell.
and the Jack the Ripper story and the
meticulous research that went into it.
So I would say... And the movie.
The movie was good, too.
I thought the movie did really well
compared to the comic as well.
Yeah, I liked the movie.
I liked the movie, but it couldn't...
It was impossible in two hours to delve
into the depth of the comic.
But I did like the movie.
It wasn't bad as far as adaptations go.
But V for Vendetta,
which is also a movie I liked,
That one is heavy.
And of course, Watchmen.
You know, it's like, you play the guitar,
yes.
Do you like Jimi Hendrix?
Yeah.
So, you know, you like Eddie Van Halen?
Yeah.
So that's what Watchmen is.
It's like, you don't like Watchmen...
don't know you you didn't read it then
so yeah no and and my daughter had
just recently read that as well and she
was like dad this is intense i was
like yeah now go watch the movie
But you named mine and then you left
off Swamp Thing because that's the other
one on my tier list with him.
I absolutely love Swamp Thing run.
I love Swamp Thing.
Yeah, it's true.
I love Swamp Thing as well.
I just got the slip case entire edition.
It's great.
Yeah.
I recently just seen that one,
but I've been doing the Omnibuses on that
one for years and years and years now
because when I was in the service,
I didn't collect anything.
I just...
It was one of those where I got
away from it when I joined and picked
it back up.
And then I've been trying to pick up
stuff that I didn't get to read in
that time frame.
And Swamp Thing's just always been the one
of them.
And that and Hellblazer and anything from
that era of comics, the Vertigo era.
I've been picking up slowly but surely,
but I'm at that point now where it's
getting really expensive to pick up,
and I'm just like,
I think I might be good.
Everything else is up there in the price,
and I'm like, I think I'm good.
There's one comic book I'm still after,
and I don't care if it's slabbed or
raw or whatever.
okay condition and that's the um first
appearance of constantine or constantine
however you want to say his name in
swamp name that's the one comic like my
one holy grail that i do not have
yet now have it as part of a
compendium or omnibus however you want to
classify them as yeah but i want the
solo i want the single issue of that
one that's like my holy grail that i
do not have right now it's out there
it's out there i should also say i
can also say that um
Neil Gaiman was an enormous influence on
me and The Sandman and everything else
that he wrote.
He kind of couldn't write anything bad,
and he was just a magnificent,
magnificent writer,
and he was a big influence on my
writing as a writer,
as the writer Neil Gaiman.
Let's specify that,
the writer Neil Gaiman, not the person.
The person, as we found out later,
was not a –
Doesn't seem to be a good person,
but from a writer's standpoint,
absolute freaking genius.
Yeah, he's a genius.
He's got something that other people
don't, and it shows.
He's that good.
I think Tinian may be on that level
or approaching that level.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You're right.
Yeah, Tinian.
I haven't read as much of his work,
but yeah, he is a great writer.
He is a great writer, yeah.
I think that man at this point can
slap his name on a coloring book,
and I'd be like, yeah,
let me get that.
Yeah.
So you've worked across music,
audio engineering, lettering, and writing.
Were comics always kind of like your end
goal, or did that evolve over time?
Comics was...
sort of like the Jupiter in my solar
system.
It was the biggest thing for me.
Being a musician was big.
You know, there are different mediums.
Being a musician,
one could pick up their instrument and
play it in front of a person.
You're a musician.
And it's a very self...
self-made art form insofar as you can
start completely at the bottom and work
your way up and the doors are slightly
easier to open and then what happened was
I got a lot of then that was
the house band in a restaurant for for
ten years it was like one or two
gigs a week and
at a restaurant.
So it was a very quiet thing.
We were sitting down,
we were doing the mellow,
jazzy kind of thing.
And that was great.
So I achieved a modicum of success in
music.
I made money.
It was a supplemental income.
It made a really big difference in my
wallet.
So that was great.
And I achieved great things.
I was in lots of other cover bands.
I was in a children's music group.
I did really well with music.
With comics,
I don't know if the word gatekeeping is
necessarily the term,
but there are mountains you have to climb
and doors you have to open to be
seen.
And they're an ongoing expense.
Before digital,
and I'm of the print era and I'm
always going to be of the print era
and comics are going to be in print.
Yeah,
and I appreciate reading something on a
tablet.
It's great, and it's immediate,
and I appreciate everybody that does it.
It's just, maybe it's generational.
But comics,
you have to surpass certain things more
so, I would say, than music.
You have to be good enough,
you have to be noticeable enough,
and you have to be lucky.
It's just,
you have to be in the right place
at the right time.
So,
So that, that was a mountain.
That was my biggest mountain that I always
wanted to serve, you know, summit.
Oh, a hundred percent.
And you're right about the gatekeeping
thing.
I hear a lot of people use that
term and it's one of those where all
the stars and the planets have to align
on a single person for them to really
be picked up.
Otherwise you're getting a rejection
letter.
Yep.
And it's wild today because I think all
like anytime you're submitting to a
company to try to get picked up for
publication,
I think it's all digital now too,
which is wild.
Yeah.
The submission process for sure.
Yeah.
So let's,
was there a defining moment for you where
you kind of like,
like this is what I'm going to do?
Yes, there was.
When writers, comic writers,
for the most part, write a script.
There's the Marvel way of doing things,
quote unquote, but I wrote scripts.
And I just wrote scripts until my fingers
were bloody.
But then when an artist, a good artist,
for the first time took my script,
interpreted it,
and gave me back their interpretation of
my script,
So I saw another person's point of view
of what I had in my head,
and it was completely different.
It was completely different,
but it was better.
It was like, what?
This was in my brain and yet you
interpreted it.
And it was like the collaborative process
and everything was just,
It was, it was, um,
I was hooked and I was addicted to
the drug and it was like,
this is it.
This is it.
You know,
Jimmy Robinson with issues six of cyber
zone, which is the issue that I wrote,
that was like the turning point.
And that was like,
I held it in my hand.
It was a floppy comic in the early
nineties.
And it's like, I did it.
I made a comment.
I didn't, and I didn't do it alone.
um i didn't draw it i i if
we get to it later there is something
i'm doing art for but we'll get to
it later but that was the moment that
was the moment in which uh it was
the early nineties in which somebody's art
somebody an artist interpreted my script
in comic book sequential art format and it
was like i i can't believe it i
can't believe it's real it it was like
i it was like the greatest moment it
was wonderful
Dude, that's awesome.
That's something that I'm looking to
achieve here soon.
Actually,
I front loaded the front of my year
unintentionally,
but the
My medium of work here kind of took
off for me,
and I become a requested commodity within
the indie comic book world,
which I'm so thankful for.
And I did in the month of May,
I'm slowing it down to allow myself time
to actually write my very first comic
book.
And I'm excited to start that journey.
I've already got my I talked to my
artists pretty frequently.
We're friends.
And but it's something I'm definitely
excited for.
And I can't wait to have that feeling
that you just described.
It's just remember today,
because you're you're awaiting that
moment.
But when it happens, that first page,
you're just
I can't believe it.
It's magic.
It's just wonderful.
And remember that moment.
You will remember it,
but I'm telling you to remember that
moment.
Yeah.
I can't wait.
I'm going a la Frank Miller,
Sin City on it,
that type of vibe with it.
But it's going to be great.
And I love that, Arcel,
the black and white.
with the just color splash for like the
neon signs and that kind of stuff is
going to be really fun for me from
a story perspective but i can't wait to
see what he does with the art on
it so but let's talk about some dragon
whisper sure where did this idea come from
because i'm a big fan of steampunk i'm
a big fan of dragons as all human
beings on earth should be but where did
that come from
Okay,
it's funny you say that about dragons.
Everybody loves dragons.
I call them the pizza of fantasy
creatures.
Everybody loves everybody.
There's not a bad pizza.
There's just worse.
Great comparison.
I love it.
Everybody loves a dragon.
But where it came from, that's funny.
So probably nineteen or so years ago,
nineteen, twenty years ago,
I was working on a story that was
completely terrestrial based.
It was robust pirate fantasy.
It was kind of a
Treasure Island-esque,
but it had a dragon.
And then I wrote a script and I
got an artist to do it.
And then it was there, it was cool.
And then I got a few nibbles,
but nothing happened of it.
And then I shelved it.
And then ten years after that,
I came across those pages and I said,
wow, these are cool.
This is very...
classic Edwardian-looking Treasure Island.
And I said,
make this a flashback to a steampunk
future.
And it also coincided.
I like steampunk,
but I'm not a practitioner of
steampunkiness.
I'm not of that world.
It's a way of life.
It's not just a hobby.
Steampunk folk, I love it.
It's beautiful.
And it's very romantic looking.
And I love the feel of it.
But what sort of turned the corner?
My favorite band is Rush.
And Rush's last album was called Clockwork
Angels.
And it was a steampunk concept album.
And then if it's good enough for Rush,
it's good enough for me.
But the lyricist, the late Neil Peart,
he had this great line.
He says, it's very romantic.
He said,
steampunk is a view of the future from
the past.
It's kind of like you go to Victorian
England and they said,
what's the future going to look like?
Well,
it's going to have these airships that are
made with leather balloons and it's going
to have a lot of, you know,
gas lanterns and a lot of gears and
cogs because that's how stuff moves now.
So it just would be better in the
future, you know?
So I love that view.
So I said,
let me just retweet this dragon story.
to steampunk.
And then I did.
And then I wrote a script.
But I was very meticulous in how I
was going to approach.
So I went online.
I looked for artists.
I did comics and steampunk.
And then my first artist, Glenn Fernandez,
unmitigated genius,
an absolute genius artist.
Glenn, you're a magnificent artist.
Two hits came back that, well,
lots of hits came back,
but two people that I wanted to work
with.
One of them, she wasn't available,
but Glenn, I said, I love your work.
Do you want to work with me?
whatever your page rate is i'll pay it
and he said yes and then and then
so the look of the world so much
of it i i owe it to glenn
he's the artist he he made it look
like what it is i i sort of
i sort of built the ship but he
made it fly in this incredible direction
so glenn fernandez art he's a venezuelan
artist just an absolute genius and then um
So I made sure I had one full
issue of his artwork and then my lettering
and everything.
And then,
and I just didn't suddenly start to
letter.
I learned the craft of lettering and I
lettered hundreds of pages before I even
thought of submitting it to anybody.
And even my first,
even the first lettering that was
published, I look at it and go,
which everybody does at their early stuff.
So I had a complete first issue and
I submitted that.
And then I kind of knew that it
was, if I may say so,
I knew it was good.
And the responses were reflective of that.
I got a lot of bites.
And I went with the deal that I
liked the best, Red Five Comics.
And then here we are.
So it started in a simpler form.
It morphed into steampunk fantasy.
Characters change throughout the years,
but then I hit on an idea,
and here it is.
And now I got Dragon Whisperer.
I like it.
So let's talk about one of your
characters, Rosalinda Eberhardt.
What makes her stand out?
Well, she...
What makes her stand out?
She's a main character.
Well, I'm gonna say something very basic.
She's like me, okay?
No, she's a young woman,
I'm an old guy, but she's like me.
And here's how she's like me.
I'm not a badass.
If I were in a confrontation, yeah,
I would defend myself.
I might try to run away.
I'm nobody's badass and I have nothing
against a badass,
but I can't relate to someone who could
jump into a cockpit of a spaceship and
just fly it or pick up a sword
and wield it like they immediately know
what they're doing.
I can relate to someone who would do
that if they have to.
I can relate to someone who could do
that and be scared because that would be
me.
But the most thing I can relate to
is if they get whacked in the face
and they fall down and then they get
right back up.
In pain,
having gotten whacked in the face,
still afraid, but ouched.
And they go, dang,
I'm going to do something else now that
will make that not happen to me.
I'm going to do something to you.
So Rosalinda...
What makes her stand out is she is
that person.
She's not anybody's badass.
She's not a sexualized person.
I'm going to say first and foremost,
she's a human being.
She's relatable.
And she's also, you know,
I have nothing against the snarky teenager
either.
Nothing against all those characters who
were pushed into the locker because they
were a snarky teenager.
But not everybody is a snarky teenager if
you're a teenager.
You could be kind of a regular person.
You could have your qualities of snark.
But, you know, she's a relatable,
non-badass person that when she falls
down, she gets back up.
But...
Something in her changed from that first
fall down,
and then something is going to change with
the next fall down.
And then she's going to grow,
and then she's going to get better at
who she is and what she does.
So that's what makes her stand out.
She could be like anybody else.
She just lives in the steampunk world,
and she can talk to creatures.
That's it.
She's like steampunk Dr. Dolittle.
i like that that's a good reference but
no so it's in your book instead of
hunting the dragons you focus on
communication and you explore that concept
kind of where did that originate because
that's such a opposite when you hear
dragons in a comic book you're thinking oh
we're hunting dragons or we're riding
dragons we're doing something else but you
focus on the communication of it like we
can communicate with them
I'm glad that was very astute.
Um, yes,
that was a very intentional thing.
It so happens that my son is autistic
and, um, and you know,
he went to speech therapies.
So, and he's my only child.
So I, he's now,
my point in mentioning that is as far
as being a father and a caregiver and
a nurturer of another human being who is
completely reliant on me for their
survival and his mother.
I have no frame of reference of a
teenager wanting to learn how to drive a
car or get a girlfriend or boyfriend or
do anything else to those.
I have a completely different view as a
nurturer.
I see that in other people.
I was that as a kid.
But as somebody who needs to,
as a carer of that person,
I see that and I saw that communication
with that person is it's life or death.
It's an over-exaggeration saying that,
but it's life or death and a different
kind of communication and not a
neurologically typical communication.
So I wanted to channel that experience of
myself into the writing of a comic about
communication.
And no, we're not
Well,
I don't want to give the comic away,
but some people have intentions of getting
the dragon in the classic dragon sense,
but other people have intentions of like,
no, no,
we're not going to kill the dragon because
it's a dragon.
I mean, I think...
The person that wants to kill the dragon
is more of a monster than the dragon.
Unless it's Smaug from Lord of the Rings.
And then, yeah.
He got what he deserved.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
So that's a long answer.
I give long answers.
Sorry.
No, no, that's the perfect answer.
I like answers like that where you give
just enough without giving it all away.
And that to me is it makes people
curious.
And that's what I like to do is
you build the curiosity for people to want
to go out and purchase the book.
whether it's digital or paper but that's
that's to me those are the perfect dancers
and that was a perfect dancer so i
appreciate that a lot um so when you're
we built this world and i'm guessing in
this instance since you did go back and
pull us went off the shelf and kind
of bring it into something else did you
build this world first or did you have
these characters in mind
No, I did not build the world first.
I built the foundation of the world first.
That's another really good question.
I built the foundation of the world first.
I consider myself an organic writer
insofar as I have a very loose outline
and I just start writing.
And then whatever comes to me.
But I know that I needed to have
the bones, the skeleton, you know,
of the story.
But I didn't, I'm also,
I know that if I went full force
into world building,
I would get lost in that and all
the cool research behind it and I would
never actually write.
So I said,
so I gauged what my strength is and
my strength is an organic style of
writing.
but I needed a map,
a very basic map and a very basic
bones.
And then I wrote,
and then I built the world
as needed while I was writing it.
So writing, writing, writing,
Rosa Linda doing ABC, XYZ.
And then she comes to a point in
the story or the story comes to a
point in which there needs to be legend
here.
There needs to be world.
There needs to be history at this moment.
There needs to be an answer to the
why of what is happening.
Then I world build.
So then I pause the writing and then
I develop
Everything that would make that moment
make sense.
So there's world building.
And then more writing.
And then I do that again later.
So I did not build the flesh of
the world at the beginning.
I fleshed it out as I was writing
it, which to me was the best approach.
It worked best for me.
That's actually a really great concept
because that's the first time I've heard a
writer go,
I'll write until I need to build.
And I actually kind of like that myself.
Right.
It may not be for everyone.
I'm working on another project in which
the world is so enormous that I had
to build a lot of it before I
wrote it.
It's kind of like...
George Lucas, I love Star Wars,
but I'm not like, it's not in my,
I saw the first movie when it came
out when I was a kid,
but it's not like I'm an enormous Star
Wars fan.
But I believe George Lucas,
he came up with a concept of the
Star Wars universe that was so big that
he go, whoa, okay,
I need to start small and I can't
start at the beginning because it's just
too much world.
So I'm gonna find this one snippet
of the Skywalker family saga,
and then I'm gonna do that.
It's like, Lord of the Rings,
the whole three massive books,
if you read the Silmarillion,
and I only did once, the Silmarillion is,
it's not an easy read,
but it's this- Absolutely.
Right, it's a four hundred page history,
and the Lord of the Rings saga maybe
takes up a paragraph,
so that tells you how big the Middle
Earth history is.
Um, so this other project that I'm doing,
if we can get to later,
if you want that,
I had to build more world, but,
but no,
the answer to your question is I, I,
I built the skeleton of it and they
added the organs and the muscles and the
skin as I was going along.
You're talking about drag my town.
No, that's the other book.
Yeah, no,
Enigma Town is another project that's
done, that's released.
That was,
if you want to talk about that,
that was no real build.
We can take a few minutes.
I was going to focus on Dragon Whisperer
because that was kind of like,
My favorite one of the two.
Yeah.
I love the idea of steampunk.
I love the idea of dragons,
like I said.
So I was like,
we can focus on that.
But if you're working on other projects,
by all means,
we can talk about those two because I'm
interested.
I mean, you wrote a steampunk dragon book.
I'm like,
you kind of got my interest anyway.
Absolutely.
You know, we can continue that.
I'll just say Enigma Town,
also by Red Five Comics.
That's more of a contemporary, cozy,
classic haunted house,
haunted mansion kind of thing.
It's sort of like the Haunted Mansion
meets Toy Story.
And it has like a Winchester Mystery House
vibe, which is, you know,
but Dragon Whisperer.
Yeah,
that was that was world building as I
was going along.
like it so for anybody watching right now
or listening later when i do the podcast
release why is dragon whisper a must read
well it's it's a must read because it's
it's a steampunk fantasy with a dragon in
it i mean it's kind of like a
reese's peanut butter cup it's chocolate
and peanut butter it's got steampunk and a
dragon i mean come on so there's that
and um
Well, the main character is a young woman,
and that's not a new concept.
But it's a young woman who kind of
could be an every person.
You know, Luke Skywalker was a farm boy,
and then he became the Jedi Master that
he was.
And this woman, she's a farm girl,
actually.
She is.
And then...
There's a horrible tragedy that occurs in
her life that makes her need to branch
out.
And it was kind of her fault.
And it makes her need to branch out
in her life.
So you could see the story arc of...
somebody like you becoming somebody
amazing but still keeping the core of who
that person is like like like frodo frodo
is very different than luke skywalker luke
skywalker becomes the greatest jedi for me
he's the greatest jedi not anakin luke
that's my generation of star wars anakin
anakin yeah he's great he's darth vader
he's wonderful but for me luke is the
greatest jedi
um Frodo is always Frodo he saves Middle
Earth but he's always Frodo Rosalinda but
he does change he does change to a
point in which he can't he can't go
back but he's still Frodo um Rosalinda is
always going to be Rosalinda she does
change
And she does grow and she does gain
in her abilities,
but she's always Rosalinda.
So there's that person.
And ultimately it's,
I'm glad you said communication.
It's about,
it's really about communication because
every art form is communication.
So this, this is a, it,
and it's got everything that you'd want.
It's got all the steam and all the
punks.
Love it.
Is there any other story you want to
just like throw out real quick before?
Because next we're going to talk a little
bit more about the creative process as a
whole.
And I don't think we really get back
to talking about any of the other stories.
It's mainly just about creative processes.
So if you want to if there's any
other stories you want to throw out there
right now, let's do that.
right i'll just i'll just bring up enigma
town it's it is out it is also
by red five comics it came out as
a as a graphic novel that one is
actually um uh more of a personal story
because it the main character is a little
bit of my dad and a little bit
of me but it it's um it's more
of a of a classic it's a cozy
read it's a kind of read that you
do on a cold night
with the blanket and your slippers out
with a warm drink.
And it's definitely got the Haunted
Mansion thing.
Well, here it is.
There's a mansion.
It's similar to the Winchester Mystery
House.
If you don't know it, look it up.
But the owner of this mansion,
he's a toy maker.
And he makes these incredibly lifelike,
really hot selling toys that just fly off
the shelves.
But
right before the toys go on sale,
that exact number of children disappear.
Like, oh, what's going on?
So there's this ghastly secret to this
mansion and these toys.
So three unlikely friends,
a young woman named Luz Marie,
L-U-Z Marie, it's a Hispanic name,
but she goes by Lucy.
And then a young man,
His name is Joey.
At the beginning, he's ninety,
but then later on he comes back as
his ghost, as his fifteen-year-old self,
and then his childhood friend, Frankie.
She's eighty-nine,
and then they all get together,
an unlikely trio.
They go to try to find out the
ghastly secret of the mystery and the
devastating secret that has haunted a town
for generations of this mansion and the
toys.
and um family secrets of the past so
that's enigma town it's all one word it's
uh totally different than dragon whisperer
and um but check that one out too
red five comics yeah such a cool concept
too because i mean you just from what
you said you kind of know where the
story goes but at the same time you're
still intrigued by it you know so yeah
and i like those types of stories so
yeah you're not just a writer though
you're a full-time creative
How did your background in music and audio
kind of shape your storytelling?
Because it's still communication,
you know, it's still art form.
And when I got my daughter into music,
it definitely improved her other scores in
other subjects in school.
So I've always kind of...
if you can learn to read music and
write music and play music,
you're going to be better off in school.
That's just been my belief and it shows
with my daughter.
So how did that kind of like shape
your storytelling?
Great question.
Well, anything creative, I'm going to say
It has to,
in order for your creative output to fully
manifest,
you need to embrace it as a form
of expression.
Now,
that doesn't mean that a person could stay
in a room their whole life and make
art and make music.
That's great.
but it's not going to cross the hurdle
if it's not expressed to a recipient.
So that's my process.
Creating music is an expression.
It is a communicative expression that is
different than talking,
that's different than writing,
that's different than taking pictures.
but it's an expression.
I can get that guitar.
I'll put chords together.
I'll sing some words to it.
I am constructing an expressive output.
And it builds an entire set of tools
in one area that you can completely
rejigger and MacGyver these tools to help
you in another area.
So that was music.
And I started playing when I was ten
and I got good at it.
I listened to other people.
What I did is I absorbed it,
not like a mirror because a mirror just
reflects it.
I absorbed it sort of like a satellite
dish.
I got that information and I compiled it
in my own way
in the Alex way,
and then I re-expressed it completely my
way.
So what music did for me was it,
without a doubt,
unequivocally gave me all the tools of
expressing and constructing that
expression.
Because if you don't know the first thing
about
making music you could hear a song and
feel inspired but you can't just suddenly
come out writing the song purple rain you
have to you have to build the tools
you have to build your strength in that
craft you have to exercise that craft so
that
Making music gave me the knowledge of
making and building the tools to be able
to do other creative endeavors like
writing.
It's different, very different,
but it's creative.
So when you're writing comic book stories,
do you hear in your head music to
the story that you're writing?
Like as you're writing along or whatever,
can you hear the music for a particular
scene in your head?
Just like, it's not there.
You haven't written it,
but do you hear like a specific like
song or like,
can you imagine like a song as you're
writing a particular scene or anything
like that?
Wow.
That's, that's so interesting.
I've never ever thought about that.
Sometimes.
Yes.
I do hear some music in writing certain
scenes.
Like,
scene punk is a whole genre of music,
as a matter of fact, too.
It's got a little bit of classical,
but it's much more of an industrial makeup
to it.
It's earthier, and it's more tangible.
But I suppose, yeah,
I did hear that kind of thing.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
And with Enigma Town, I heard eerie,
spooky music.
Dad, I'm glad you asked me that.
I never thought about that.
I did.
I did hear music that,
for the most part,
was reflective of the genre and the style
that I was writing.
Sometimes I heard metal, though, too,
with something that was completely not
heavy metal.
But yeah, I did hear stuff.
Yeah, it was all instrumental, though,
except for parts in which somebody's
singing in the comic, which somebody did.
Yeah,
because I ask that question because I know
once the Game of Thrones...
tv show came out i was still in
the process of reading the books as well
so as i would be reading like the
pages of the book i would also be
hearing the game of thrones you know theme
song in my head at the same time
and i'm just like i catch myself like
kind of bobbing my head along a little
bit about right because i'm like that song
is stuck in my head for that and
it's one of those where
like if you're reading a Batman comic,
you know, you kind of have that,
the Batman theme song from the,
I think the sixties,
like kind of like pop it in your
head as well.
Or the animated series from the nineties.
It's just stuff.
It's like,
there's two things that go together
perfectly.
And that was one of those where I'm
like, I'm like, you do music,
you write comics.
It's kind of like one of those questions.
Like, I wonder if he does that too,
because I know I'm, I definitely do that.
When, if I,
there's a theme to a particular comic book
or a character,
I hear that theme as I read that
character.
So I'm not the only crazy person in
this world.
No, great, great question.
No, I agree.
Bring on the crazies.
Come on.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So as a letterer,
you control pacing and tone.
And I've said this a lot.
A letterer can make or break a good
comic book.
Boom.
How important is that to you as a
letterer yourself?
Crucial.
Absolutely crucial.
crucial it is it is air that we
breathe um it's funny i i i often
make a joke and all my friends are
going to go here he goes alex saying
the same thing but i i make a
joke if if writer me ever met letterer
me letterer me would want to just knock
out writer because he writes writes too
damn much letter he says
Calm the hell down, all right?
All that stuff won't fit.
It's now to the point where there's,
I will never hire another letterer.
I mean,
if Todd Klein or Tom Orszkowski said,
I want a letter to your comic for
real cheap, I'd say absolutely yes.
Oh yeah, you can't say no to that.
Oh, yeah.
But I edit myself big time when I
letter.
And here's the wonderful thing.
Robert Kirkman on The Walking Dead
lettered The Walking Dead.
And I completely assert The Walking Dead
was as good as it was because the
letterer was the writer.
Because I edited myself.
Because writing is abstract.
Writing a comic is abstract.
Because a script...
and the words,
nothing in a quantifiable sense of what
you're writing will appear in the finished
product.
Now, before you say, wait a minute,
here's what I mean.
The artist is drawing something,
that art will appear in the comic.
The inker,
that ink will appear in the comic.
The colors,
that color will appear in the comic.
The letterer,
those letters will appear in the comic.
The writer is doing something more
abstract.
They're orchestrating.
It's sort of like the conductor of an
orchestra is not one of the musicians.
They're the conductor.
So writing is abstract.
I could describe a panel.
I could write the dialogue.
I could write the captions.
The artist will do it.
And then when I receive it, the art
may or may not be one hundred percent
reflective of the dialogue that I put in
there.
It says, you know what?
That person's facial expression is
different.
Things are different.
If it's crucial,
I'll tell the artist to change it.
But for the most part,
I want the artist to be the artist.
So me as the letterer,
I can retweet the lettering of my own
writing to make it fit.
So and then and then flow, flow, flow,
flow.
It's just like.
It's got to flow.
This balloon needs to lead into that
balloon, which leads into this caption,
which if you read it in the wrong
order, you're SOL.
You're up a creek.
You got to read it in the correct
order.
So flow, lettering is the art of flow.
It's truly the art of flow.
And then when to make a word bold
italic,
when not to make the word bold italic,
when to add ellipses,
when not to add ellipses, dashes,
and that kind of thing.
I'm so glad you asked.
It's crucial.
It's essential.
I just had this conversation with Donald
on Powerscaped not that long ago.
We were talking about how that has changed
and how people use the gutters now to
do self-inflections or have the character
have a conversation with themselves
in their own heads and it's kind of
like morphed to where every inch of a
page is now being used there's not really
traditional gutters and you know that kind
of stuff anymore because people are taking
advantage of that full page and the
writings not not writing styles but
lettering has changed to like there could
be multiple things happening on the page
within a bots or within a
bubble and it can be confusing to
sometimes because sometimes you can get
two three four pages deep and realize
that one-shaped box over here has nothing
to do with the actual story.
They're giving you their characters and
their monologue with themselves.
Right.
It's just not explicitly stated.
It can be very confusing for a few
pages until you realize they'll say
something and it'll trigger in your head
to go,
that's in our dialogue with themselves.
That's why it makes zero sense.
They're in the middle of a fight
And they're giving you what they plan to
do next in that fight because they're
having that conversation with themselves
in their own head,
which I think is a really cool thing
to do.
Right.
But it could take you two, three,
four pages to catch on to what is
going on with that.
Right.
Exactly.
Yep.
Good observation.
But again,
I go back to say lettering can make
or break the book.
there's some Marvel books out there where
the lettering was so bad I couldn't
I'm like, yeah, it's a great issue.
One, it had potential, but the lettering,
the art.
It takes you right out.
It just,
it sucked the life out of you to
want to read it because it just didn't
feel right.
It didn't feel good.
It didn't feel like it went together.
Like themes,
they put emphasis on stuff that I would
have had never put emphasis on.
And I do want to say this.
What it deserves is the craft that it
is.
Yes, go ahead, please.
A lot of people may be new to
this,
but script writing for a comic book is
very much like a movie.
It's not like those bubbles you see with
text and stuff on a comic book page
are not what's on a script of a
comic book.
A script of a comic book literally has
panel by panel,
page by page of not just the words
that are being spoken,
But the visuals,
it has where characters are looking,
if there's trees, if there's birds,
if there's a house, if there's a gun,
if there's a car,
all that stuff is described in a script
to a comic book,
just like it would be for a movie.
And that's how the artist knows what to
build.
for a page or a panel in a
comic book as well.
So it's a really cool concept that a
lot of people I don't think really think
about.
They just, oh, there's my comic book,
there's my words, there's my art,
there's my pages.
But that was a whole concept
Like, yes, twenty two pages,
twenty eight pages, thirty two pages.
That might have been two hundred pages
worth of a script is all.
Right.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, it's true.
Yeah.
My scripts are ridiculous.
I, you know, sorry,
all you artists that work with me.
Sorry for overwriting.
But I would rather have those details in
there than not.
And I know some artists who they like
that complete hundred percent direction.
Tell me exactly what you want.
And then I heard, you know,
of artists going,
you really just tell me the story and
I'll make it work.
And they're just that good.
They've got that experience to where they
can interpret your words into damn near a
hundred percent of what it is that you
want.
and i think that's really cool two
different concepts out there different
ways of doing business and i can
appreciate all of them because i know the
amount of work and love that went into
that project and that's why i love comic
books as a medium so so what do
you think are is something that a lot
of creators overlook that you think is
like one of the essentials
um well i'm gonna say show don't tell
that's that's sort of the the big the
big tenet out there um where you know
show me what you're talking about instead
of telling me what you're talking about
but i'm not going to say that it
is it is a hard and fast rule
Sometimes telling is fine if it's right
for that moment.
So that being said, going back to show,
don't tell, let your comic breathe.
I'm guilty of cramming,
I'm guilty of rushing at times, my comics,
especially when,
first chapters of any series that I'm
doing.
I guess I'm gonna get insecurely obsessive
compulsive about making sure the reader
knows what I mean here.
So I'm gonna,
I instinctively try to write too much to
try to describe everything.
And that's where like an editor would come
in or, you know, yourself calmly saying,
slow down.
Trust your audience.
Trust your audience to have them figure
out,
but don't just be lazy to try to
make them figure out something that they
can't figure out because you didn't
establish it enough.
So ultimately I'll say show, don't tell.
And I'd have that manifest mostly as much
as letting the scene breathe.
While keeping in mind,
that a comic has what time is to
a movie or a television show space is
to a comic so if a scene goes
five minutes you have five minutes if a
scene in the comic you have to decide
how many panels and pages but you have
to consider that that's gonna that's that
many pages
that you won't have the rest of the
story to tell.
So got to let it breathe,
but you have to let it breathe in
the right amount of panels and pages that
you create in your head.
How much is that?
You decide.
It's like asking the question,
how long is a rope?
Yeah.
So you've worked across multiple
publishers in your time.
What's the biggest difference between...
I don't want to use the term indie,
but I'm going to between a pure indie
comic that is being published by an
individual or a person versus a publisher
that project.
Oh, well, the,
the biggest publisher I work with is red
five and they're, they're indie,
but they're, they're, they're known.
They're big.
They had a movie just in the theaters
and, you know,
lots and lots and lots of books.
Um,
The publisher is going to curate more,
and the publisher slash editor is going to
curate more.
They are going to edit more.
They are going to...
They actually might say,
I'm not going to publish that scene,
or you need to do more there.
So when they're bigger,
when there's more...
more at stake for them when they're more
established.
And when they have a brand,
when they have a brand,
they are going to steer,
hopefully as little as possible,
but they're going to steer the story and
the art to be supportive of that brand.
um if if it's if it's way off
the mark if it's magnificent but if it's
so off the mark a bigger publisher might
say this is great i would read this
i would buy this if i were somebody
different i would publish this but it's
not my brand so um that's that's the
difference between working with somebody
really big and working with somebody small
in which they'd say go nuts
Um, so, so that,
that would be the difference is somebody
with somebody with a brand and a
noticeable brand and the uniqueness to
their brand would, um,
have more say in your output.
So how do you go about pitching a
comic to a publisher?
Because I'm guessing that's how you ended
up linked up with Red Five is that
you did it for them.
And how did you go about that pitch?
Okay.
There's a hard and fast truth with comic
book writing if you're just a writer.
It's a visual medium.
A writer needs,
a comic book writer needs art to go
along with their comic.
If you're just getting started,
I did a panel once and then a
writer said, I'm a writer.
He asked me a question.
He says, I'm a writer, but, you know,
and I have all these scripts and,
you know,
I want to pitch these scripts to the
publisher.
And I said,
Sadly, not nine out of ten,
not ninety-nine out of a hundred,
probably not even nine hundred and
ninety-nine out of a thousand publishers,
there's no way they're going to take a
script,
unless your name is like James Cameron or
Alan Moore.
They're not going to take a script,
however much of a page turner it may
be, and say,
I'm going to pair you with an artist.
That is...
that is so incredibly virtually impossible
to happen.
What a writer needs.
I'm gonna speak for myself,
but I'm gonna say what a writer needs
is an artist.
So the question is, and I said, here,
I'm gonna answer this question with a poll
of the audience.
And it says, okay,
all you writers that don't draw,
raise your hand.
A bunch of people raised their hand.
Okay.
Artists, raise your hand.
A bunch of artists raise their hand.
Artists that will take a script from a
writer and draw it without completely on
spec,
taking eight hours of your day to take
all this time to draw this other person,
this person's thing, without getting paid.
How many will do that?
And they all put their hands down.
So I said, okay, writer,
back to you with apologies.
You need to get an artist.
You need to work out a deal with
that artist.
If you're gonna pitch something,
I would say under no circumstances pitch a
script by itself.
The going rate is many publishers wanna
see six sequential pages of comic book
storytelling, pencils, inks, letters.
It is a visual medium.
This is what they want to see.
And submission editors, God bless them,
they're going to look at a script and
go, oy.
So under every possible recommendation,
I couldn't recommend more,
have art with your story.
At least six pages.
For Dragon Whisperer,
Since I've been around the block,
I had a complete first issue with a
beginning, middle,
and a cliffhanging bit of closure.
So boom, it was without question,
it was picked up.
No,
and that's a hundred percent because like
I do a lot of interviews with people
starting Kickstarters and I I've said this
multiple multitude of times that if I land
on your Kickstarter page and I can't see
a sample of that book,
I am not going to back that book.
I just can't do it.
you can have one day left or ten
days left but if there is not a
sample of that book on your home page
of your kickstarter i am not going to
back the book because i do not know
what i'm invested in yet and i want
to invest i am a huge i am
a super backer on kickstarter however i
cannot
throw my good money,
hard-earned money at something that I
cannot visually see at the time I go
to want to back the book,
no matter how great it sounds on paper.
Right.
It's just I can't do it.
Right.
And I don't mean character.
pages, and I don't mean portraiture,
and I don't mean a cover.
I mean sequential art,
paneled sequential art pages.
I mean,
a good character page is wonderful.
That's great.
But it's not telling me a story.
A hundred percent.
So what was something about the business
side of comics that surprised you when you
got started?
Oh, let's see.
Do it because you love it.
Because unless you're like a genius and
you knock it out of the park your
first time at bat,
you will be spending a lot more money
than you'll be earning.
Do it because you love it.
Don't go into this thinking you're going
to make money.
Do it because you love it.
There was an old skit of Bob Hope
interviewing, I'm dating myself,
Bob Hope interviewing Charo.
Charo is this Spanish singing flamenco
guitar playing very beautiful,
voluptuous woman.
she had this heavy accent so she comes
on stage with you know in her baseball
nice and tight with her bat and all
that and she says to bob hope bob
hope i want to be a baseball player
and she was great what position do you
want to play and then she says what
position pays the most money then bob hope
says well
a home run hitter pays the most money.
And then she says,
that is the position I want to be.
I want to be a home run hitter.
So the joke is that's not a position.
There is no position called the old run
hitter.
You have to be damn good.
You have to time it right.
You have to have skill.
You have to have luck.
Luck gets turned, talked down upon a lot,
but you got to get lucky and you
have to be at the right place at
the right time.
So, um,
My point there is, make your comic.
Pay the money.
If someone's gonna pay the money to print
it, you lucked out.
If you have to pay the money to
print it,
pay the damn money to print it.
If you have to pay an artist,
pay the damn money to pay the artist.
If you gotta do all these things,
do it.
If you got an artist, colorist, inker,
letterer, publisher nice enough to say,
I'll do it on spec,
take the take the ball and run with
that one because yeah a lot of artists
real professional artists ain't gonna do
that you gotta pay them you know what
legends you just mentioned geez like i
have that skit in my head now because
that is like that was when she was
really young too so and that's oh yeah
i have to watch some of her old
stuff because she is so funny
You've sustained creativity.
She's one of the best flamenco guitarists.
Go ahead.
That's wild to think about.
When you see her, you don't see that.
Then when she starts playing, you're like,
holy shit.
She can play.
Yeah.
Cause you, you see the exterior,
the over the top character that she is.
And then you're like, right.
She's talented.
Like, and she's funny.
Her timing was delivering jokes.
Just absolutely amazing.
But she's a, so why keep you going?
No, no, that was, I love that.
Cause Bob Hope.
Yeah.
Just phenomenal.
Phenomenal there.
So you've sustained creativity across
multiple disciplines.
What keeps that creativity going?
Because it's tiring at times.
It is exhausting.
I'm going to tell you a story about
how physically exhausting it is.
But what keeps me going?
Sitting and doing it.
Sitting and doing it because...
I'm insecure.
I'm an extroverted person.
I can talk a lot,
but I'm insecure about my own abilities.
So before I sit down and write,
I'm gonna go, oh God,
I'm gonna sit down and write and it's
gonna suck.
Then type, type, type.
Oh, yeah.
Type, type, type.
I know myself well enough to know once
I get going,
I am going to get into that zone.
I know myself well enough.
I do a lot of conventions,
and I'm super nervous.
Even though I'm a talker,
I'm super nervous before the convention to
say, I'm not going to sell anything.
It's going to be a complete disaster.
But
The minute I see the like-minded people
show up,
I get into the zone and then I
sell comics.
So what keeps creativity going for me is
doing it.
I know writers that could write a script
in a day and literally right out of
the gate.
I need a little bit more incentive for
that.
So for me, the biggest cure for
writer's block is a deadline.
Without question, it's a deadline.
Dragon Whisperer Volume One,
I like to make the joke,
people ask me,
how long did it take you to write?
And it says, well,
since it's the first volume,
it took all my life up to that
point.
So it took four or five years up
to that point.
So it's a flippant jerk of an answer.
But it's not a real answer,
but I'm telling them,
that's how long that album, that...
volume took volume two that that separates
the amateurs from the professionals volume
two is when like the publisher says give
me volume two oh that's like the second
album of a band the first album they
took all their life to get to that
that that point but the second album if
the first album was any good the second
album is like okay
The clock's ticking.
Give me an album.
That's where.
So the second volume of Dragon Whisperer
took several months,
maybe four or five months just to
completely write and to get it all down.
So, yeah,
a deadline is the best cure for writer's
block without question, without question.
I've always been a fan of deadlines myself
in my day job because if I'm handed
a project and it's like, hey,
do this project, well,
what's the deadline?
Oh, just whenever you can get it done.
I'm like, dude,
if you give it to me like that,
I ain't going to do it because it
ain't that serious for you and I'm not
going to waste my time on it.
You're like, well, okay,
then put it like that Friday.
All right, cool.
I'll have it to you Thursday.
Yeah.
Right.
By when?
If somebody says something to you,
say by when.
That's one of the most powerful two words
that you could say to somebody in any
sort of endeavor in which you're providing
a service or somebody.
By when?
Write it down.
Committed to paper.
By when?
But it's funny you say how exhausting it
is.
I was behind on a deadline,
speaking of which, and I told my wife,
I said, look,
I got to get a really cheap,
boring motel with nothing around me just
for two nights so I can just write
without interruption.
And she did.
And then I did that and then it
was great.
I was writing and then I was doing
this thing.
I was measuring my fat content and
calories at the time.
And I got this thing,
it's called a lumen and it was,
you blow into it like a breathalyzer and
it measures and it measures your,
your body fat.
So, you know,
I used to do it after working out
and body fat was this.
And, you know, after I ate a pizza,
my body fat was way high.
And then, um,
But I remember I was so keen.
I just was eating raisins and peanuts and
just writing, just drinking water,
raisins and peanuts.
And then I got like a chicken,
but then writing, writing, writing.
And by the end of that weekend,
and keep in mind, Jeff,
I was just sitting in a chair,
just typing.
I was not exercising.
I did the lumen and I measured my
body fat.
It was the lowest it had ever been
after no matter how much amount of workout
I've ever did.
Sitting and writing with my brain in a
feverish state, sitting and writing.
unbelievable amount of power yeah just
thinking and writing it's amazing how the
body reacts to that because you're using
so much of your brain to process what
you're doing and absolutely you also when
you're writing you want to kind of have
your back up straight and you're focusing
on your core you want to be you
know comfortable but yet relaxed that way
you can flow into the writing
Exactly.
It's a whole science, y'all.
It's all we're saying here.
Absolutely.
It's taking the time between them, too.
And I learned that this month.
And I'm also going to learn some more
of that lesson next month because,
like I said,
I was just saying yes to everybody instead
of giving myself some more time to process
things and to enjoy things I enjoy.
I didn't really get to do that this
month.
And then...
If you follow me,
you'll notice that over the next month,
there's less stuff.
And then you come to May, you're like,
oh, he's only doing like, I think,
eight shows or ten shows for the month
of May,
which by some standards is still a lot.
But I do believe
I'd love to do this.
So that's why I'm doing it that way.
And if I do four days or three
days in between shows,
that means I've had time to process it,
prepare for the next one.
And I'll prepare in batches.
Like I'll take a weekend and I'll get
like five or six shows done.
Yeah.
They're already written.
Everything's ready to go.
And you're very good at it.
You're very good at it.
It shows the preparation.
You're very good at it.
One of those things where the more I
get from you,
the better I can make things.
And the more that's out there on you,
because I don't just, you know, yes,
I love when people give me the stuff
and I can make it,
but I also go to your Instagram.
I go to your Facebook.
I go to your social media.
I look, look at things I learn.
Because in my head,
I want to be the best at what
I do.
It's just a competitive drive.
Who am I competing with?
Nobody.
Myself.
That's the way I see it.
I have no competition.
And it sounds like a conceited asshole
when I say it that way,
but the only person I will ever compete
with is myself.
As a matter of fact,
if there's a guy in a store to
me doing the same exact thing as me,
talking to the same exact people as me,
I'm going to go to him and go,
hey, what did you learn?
How did you do something?
I want to learn how he does things
so I can be better at the things
I do.
And that was the whole point of that
question and that part of it.
You're very good at it.
No, dude,
you're going to give me a big old
ego.
Stop it.
So before we get into some rapid fire
questions, I wanna ask you,
how does life outside of comics influence
your life inside of comics,
the storytelling, the lettering,
and that kind of stuff?
It's crucial.
It's the fuel.
It's the fuel that fills the tank of
the creativity.
You know,
it's been said by so many people that
writers see the world differently.
And it's going to sound egomaniacal or
egotistical.
I don't mean it in that sense.
Someone who declares themself a writer,
someone who decides that they're a writer,
that person sees the world differently.
It could be a curse too.
It could be, that's a beautiful tree.
Oh, I could put it in a story.
You know,
shut up and just admire the tree or
that nice bird or the waves on the
beach.
But writers see the world.
And as I said earlier,
we're sort of a satellite dish receiving
this information and then compiling it in
our own way.
um that's that's how writers see the world
so everything everything outside of life
everything can be taken in and compiled in
such a way that it could be it
could be part of the fuel for a
creative process yes
hundred percent and you know it's funny
because not that long ago i kind of
went away from calling myself i'm a
podcast a hundred percent i'm a podcaster
that's what i do but i consider myself
a a like a journalistic media because
that's how i want to present people like
i i consider this as
I'm talking to Alex today and I'm taking
my audience on a journey through Alex's
creative life and a little bit of the
personal side too and talking about your
music and your family and you're traveling
in beautiful Italy right now and I'm sure
right now it's just absolutely amazing
over there.
So kind of a little jealous of that
one because I know how spring is in
Italy is just amazing.
But yeah, I call myself a media platform.
It's kind of cold today,
but it has been nice.
Yes.
You know,
I had eighty degrees and then it was
like forty seven this morning when I woke
up.
So I'm just like, come on.
Let's figure it out, Mother Nature.
Let's go.
I know.
But it's weird because I know people who
are just like, oh, I'm just a podcast.
I get on there and I talk about
X, Y, and Z. I'm like, well,
I kind of consider myself a journalist who
has a media front.
Because I do interviews.
I talk to people.
I promote their Kickstarters.
I do a lot of everything.
So a multimedia platform is kind of what
I consider myself now at this point.
We had a comment that I missed.
Oh, no,
that's just somebody trying to sell me
views on Twitch.
No, thank you.
But no, it's just to me,
it's just so much fun.
I did burn myself out a little bit
this month, but it was worth it.
I got to talk to so many great
people this month.
So many of my friends have been back
on.
And that's what happens at the end of
this.
I'm like, Alice, that's my friend.
he's a great writer.
He writes about steampunk and dragons and
check out Red Five Comets because Red Five
Comets has some really dope stuff on
there.
And it's named after Luke Skywalker's
X-Wing.
Come on.
I mean, yeah, it's true.
It's true.
Yeah, it has, it had its,
the name of the company had its roots
from the main publisher, Scott Chitwood.
He was, you know, an early, well,
he was one of the early people that
worked at, well,
he worked in the Star Wars world
And in order for him to get the
name Red Five,
he must have been an early adopter of
all this stuff.
So, yes.
Oh, yeah.
Because I know there's many other
platforms out there calling themselves Red
Five something.
And when I seen that,
I was just like, you know,
like you just said,
he's been at it for a while.
So, it's really cool.
But you ready for some rapid fire
questions before we start wrapping it up?
Right.
All right.
What's your favorite comic book growing
up?
Lay it on me.
Favorite comic book growing up?
My favorite...
My favorite comic book growing up.
Oh, I would probably say the Hulk.
Ooh, good one.
Dream Collaboration.
Jill Thompson.
She is just such an awesome, awesome,
awesome art.
She did my favorite run of the Sandman.
She makes these comics called Scary
Godmother.
She's a genius.
I would do anything to work with her
and make her team.
That's a good choice.
I like that one.
One tool you can't live without.
One tool I can't live without?
i would say my uh my big samsung
galaxy tablet i'd love to do all kinds
of stuff on that i'm the same way
with my ipad and then also i have
this nobody sees this one but this is
another screen over here and literally
everything that we just discussed is like
right there that's why if you watch my
eyes it goes over there right but uh
coffee or energy drinks
Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee.
I drink way too much and I can't
help it.
It's just so good.
It'll catch up with you.
I mean,
I used to be able to drink ten
cups a day.
Now it's like I better stop at a
certain point.
Oh, yeah.
No, it's already done it.
Yeah.
It's already caught way up to me.
Physical or digital comments?
I know you mentioned earlier.
Oh, physical.
Physical.
Oh, a hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Physical.
All right.
Alice, before we get out of here, man,
tell everybody where they can find you and
what's up coming for you.
Okay.
Well go to red five comics, red,
the number five comics,
C O M I C S.com red five
comics.com.
There's all kinds of stuff.
My comic is dragon whisperer.
My comic is enigma town.
Um, those are the two for those.
You can find me on Facebook.
You can find me on, um, blue sky.
You can find me on Instagram.
Um,
Hopefully I'm working on two other
projects right now.
I can't go into great detail about,
but they are- We almost got the exclusive.
We almost got it, y'all.
Well, I'll tell you this.
I'm actually drawing a young children's
comic.
Oh, that's really cool.
It's dog man age.
It's like ages four to seven.
That's really cool.
A young children's comic.
I'm drawing that.
And the other one,
these couldn't possibly be more
diametrically opposite of each other.
The other one is a grown-up,
I'd say equal parts horror,
science fiction, and fantasy.
I will tell you the artist that I'm
working with, his name is Gary Amaro,
and he is a veteran of DC Vertigo
Comets.
He did a Sandman.
He did the Books of Magic.
I love the Books of Magic.
Yeah, he's a genius artist.
I have very small nibbles for either one
from different publishers,
but that's what I'm working on.
In the future,
you're going to see Alex DeLuca
artist and illustrator i mean um writer
and illustrator and you know and musician
when that and musician well a musician
i've always been and i always will be
and you know and i and i will
always i'll never stop being a musician
but when you see this comic this young
children's comic come out and one way or
another it's going to come out if i
have to self-publish it but it will be
for really little kids and their parents
and it'll be alex deluca author and
illustrator
Dude, I love that.
I really do.
And if you decide you want a Kickstarter
or anything else,
Come on back.
We'll do it again.
That's for sure.
I love talking to you.
It was so fun.
I'll come your way.
Absolutely.
It was insightful.
What a pleasure.
We got through all the audio issues we
had before you joined,
before we went live.
This was a really good one.
It's going to be up there in my
top ten for sure of guests I've ever
had.
It was so fun.
Great podcast.
I've done a lot of them.
This was the tops.
oh dude i appreciate it but ladies and
gentlemen there you have it another deep
dive into the minds shaping indie comics
and another story in another world and
another creator pushing the boundaries of
what's possible to alex again man thank
you for stepping to the council of nerves
today and giving us a look behind the
curtains from dragons and airships to the
craft the grind
And the passion that fuels it.
And I always say that you can tell
when somebody has that passion.
And Alex, you have that.
Everyone watching, listening right now,
if you believe in creator-owned comments,
if you believe in independent voices,
and if you believe that the future of
comments is being built as we speak,
as always, you're in the right place.
Make sure you support Alex,
follow his journey, pick up the bullets,
and most importantly,
up for Indie Comics because the guys we
talked to today may be your favorite
writer at Marvel or DC tomorrow.
It's because of this platform here,
this community,
this movement is for the people,
by the people, and of the people.
This has been the USDM Podcast where Indie
Comics come to life.
Council of Nerds is adjourned.
Thank you.
Y'all be safe out there.
All right.
Thanks.
Likewise.