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USDN Podcast is a cinematic indie comics interview series hosted by the USDN_Chairman and the Council of Nerds spotlighting the creators, storytellers, and worldbuilders shaping the future of independent comics.
Each episode dives beyond headlines into the real journeys behind the books from Kickstarter launches and creative struggles to the philosophies driving today’s indie storytelling movement.
This isn’t about rumors or recycled news.
It’s about the people creating the worlds.
Through in-depth conversations, creator spotlights, and crowdfunding discussions, USDN explores:
• The rise of indie comics
• The business of crowdfunding
• The art of worldbuilding
• The realities of independent storytelling
USDN is where indie comics come to life for the fans, by the creators, and powered by the community.
You are listening to the USDN on the
DFPN.
Thanks for watching!
what is up everybody and welcome to the
usdn podcast where we are for the people
by the people and of the people and
in a universe where survival means
outrunning your past a thief crashes into
a world that should not exist a world
of monsters of predators of extinction
level dangers oh and dinosaurs roam free
and something far worse is happening
is hunting him tonight we witness the end
of a saga the final chapter the final
choice and the truth behind escape to
earth the council of nerds is now in
session steve welcome to the council my
friend thank you mr chairman it's an honor
to be here and i'm are we gonna
rag on star wars i'm confused here i
got a real hot take kathleen kennedy
ruined star wars no one's ever said that
before right
Oh, no,
I think that was actually chiseled in
stone by Moses in the Commandments.
Oh, wait, wait, no.
We're talking comics, right?
Comics?
Yeah, not just comics, though.
Your finale of Escape to Earth,
issue number five, man.
How does that feel?
It feels great.
And I feel like I've been working on
this comic for many years.
And it has been a few years since.
I think that first Kickstarter was in, uh,
and then there was obviously a bit of
work that went in before it actually came
to a Kickstarter, but, uh,
But yeah, it feels great.
And I like how ultimate and final that
you're making it sound in the promos and
whatnot.
But there can and probably will be sequels
and prequels and solo stories.
We're getting ahead of ourselves on that
one.
That comes later.
That comes later.
We'll talk about that.
But for everybody just now getting to meet
Steve,
who is Steve and how did you get
into comic books?
Oh man,
Steve Honeycutt is usually an actor and
performer.
Just a guy with a lot of creative
energy who doesn't normally talk about
himself in the third person.
But yeah, I've always loved comics.
I mean,
but I think before we can read,
you know,
we can watch cartoons and get attracted by
the bright colors and stuff like that.
And of course, like in, I think,
tmnt uh animated series was on and i
was obsessed with it like uh around that
era and i think my very first like
non-archie comic book was uh was actually
an archie tmnt do you remember when they
were publishing tmnt back then oh yeah oh
yeah it was it was like a digest
that uh no actually at the time it
was the full comic it was very confusing
because there was like a floating cow head
and for some reason raphael was
black and they were wearing these weird
wrestling outfits i discovered later when
i read like the full run that they
had been professional wrestlers on like a
far off planet or something before they
came back to earth but uh anyway that
was like the first ever superhero comic
yeah yeah that wasn't like an archie and
veronica that my mom got from the grocery
store or whatever and then i uh slowly
sort of discovered the marvel heroes and
dc and stuff because
Because I'm the eldest and I didn't have
an older brother to tell me about that
stuff.
And my parents are normies.
They never read comics.
So I sort of just had to discover
them myself, basically.
I think my first comics were in a
shoebox that my grandpa found while
cleaning out an old abandoned house that
somebody had bought and was paying him to
renovate.
He found this shoebox of comics in a
random closet in that house.
That was my first foray into comics.
I imagine it was two shoeboxes.
One was filled with comics.
The other was filled with porn.
Probably.
Yeah.
Probably.
Or maybe it was a box of metal,
which is both comics and porn.
Erotica.
Yeah.
Which is funny because I say that,
but my very first Atari that I ever
got was actually found in the same way.
It was unopened.
og atari that was um he had found
in a closet unopened which he thinks was
probably a christmas present and the
parents just forgot about it or didn't
remember it then i forgot why the house
was abandoned at that point but that's how
i ended up with an atari which was
kind of cool too it came with pong
i think i'll wear that i'll wear that
thing out i'm not even gonna lie yeah
i mean uh
Video consoles were not easy to come by
for free back in the late eighties and
nineties.
Oh, absolutely not.
I remember like celebrating the hell out
of getting a Nintendo like maybe six years
after it had originally came out.
Sure, sure.
Absolutely.
But so when did storytelling first click
for you?
I mean, did it ever click?
No, no.
In the nineties, I sort of got,
I mean,
aside from my obsession with comics,
i saw the movie pulp fiction and
discovered the world of like you know
indie filmmaking for you know what it was
back there in the nineties and um like
and i always was interested in the making
of uh movies and i mean when i
was watching like james bond when i was
like six or eight i was like i
asked my mom like who makes the movies
and she's like the directors do and um
so that sort of also was like hey
i want to be a filmmaker someday kind
of thing
i read a lot of the uh screenwriting
books back in the nineties because like
they were they were like dropping left and
right back then yeah the robert rodriguez
book like how to make uh like short
films at uh or how to make feature
films at used car prices all like
pre-digital stuff where they say like you
know you have to take out a five
thousand dollar loan go buy like you know
actual film negatives and somehow find a
uh a film camera and go just shoot
your friends or whatever
Um, and then, uh,
and then also at the same time,
I was like, well, like what,
how could I write comics?
But there was like nothing about how to
write a comic.
Like the late nineties,
early two thousands,
I think is when that first book really
come out on like comic book writing.
I remember, uh, I got the, um,
writing comics by Peter David book,
but I think that might have been early
two thousands and that definitely shed
some light on it.
By then I had already been pretty deep
into screenplay writing and it was very,
almost like painful to go from, you know,
saying that, you know,
John shoots the guy or John has shot
the guy.
He holds the gun with a smoking barrel,
you know, in a medium, like a panel,
panel four on page six or whatever.
So yeah, so yeah, like, but then,
You know, my son was born.
I had already moved out to L.A.
and tried my shot at the entertainment
business out here.
And I was going to have to like
stay home and watch him basically while my
wife worked.
And I was like, well, what?
I'm not going to be able to go
on a set for like twelve to fourteen
hours as an actor or anything at that
point.
Yeah.
So like, you know,
what can I do at home that I
can use my creative energy or imagination
for?
and that's when i took the escape towards
screenplay and i was like well let me
try to adapt this into a uh to
a comic and actually um i started reaching
out to artists and the guy that i
eventually um settled with uh antonio um i
asked him i was like can you work
from a screenplay and he said yes
And I think I maybe gave him like
the first I let him read the whole
thing and then gave him a we did
the first eight pages as a teaser.
But then from there, I was like,
I don't know,
I guess a little bit of a control
freak.
And I realized, if I did the actual,
you know, comic book style,
I could have a lot more control.
And you know,
hopefully there would be less, you know,
second drafts and fixing stuff on his end.
So I basically forced myself
To learn a version of comic book
screenplay writing at that point.
And I mean, I've learned a lot.
Like I've learned that if you just because
you can write a screenplay does not mean
it's going to automatically translate to a
comic book.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, trust me.
I'm teaching myself right now how to do
the same thing.
Yeah, I remember, like, I think it was,
like, the Dynamite books,
especially because I was reading.
I'm a huge fan of the Pulps.
I love the Shadow and the Phantom and
people like that.
That's probably another thing that really
sort of contributed to my love of comics.
They're both back out on the shelf right
now.
Oh, yeah.
I've been picking them up here and there.
But, yeah,
I was obsessed with that Shadow Alec
Baldwin movie that came out back in the
And the Phantom, too.
I went and saw it in the theater.
Yes, I am.
Regardless of what people think about the
Phantom.
I mean, Billy Zane always tries hard,
no matter what he's in.
Dude,
Billy Zane was excellent in that role.
And anybody out there who disagrees can
fight me on it.
You ever see Tales from the Crypt Demon
Knight?
Yes.
It hits his finest performance, I think.
I would, if it was on right now,
I'd be like, hey,
we got to go watch this real quick
because then we can come back to this.
Because that's how much I like it.
It leads up into his speech where he's
like, enough of this corn cob,
whatever he says, you know?
Yeah.
classic stuff um so were you always kind
of like drawn to sci-fi and action or
was that just something that happened you
know this was the story that popped in
your head and that should just so happen
to be sci-fi and action uh action i
think is definitely uh number one uh when
i conferred when i first conceived escape
to earth as a movie it was going
to be more like a
I mean,
and I still hope that it has this
kind of feel.
It's more of like a Roger Corman,
almost like swords and sorcery kind of
thing where with lots of fighting or maybe
even more like Albert Pune.
I don't know.
Are you familiar with the work of Albert
Pune?
He did Cyborg with Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Oh, yeah.
And like a bunch of other like he's
just one of those directors.
Oh, and also very notoriously,
the nineteen nineties Captain America.
That was horrible, though.
Come on, man.
There's a story behind it.
Apparently,
the studio ripped it to shreds,
and you can now go online and buy
the Albert Pune cut of The Ninth Captain
America.
I mean,
I don't know if it's any better.
The Spider-Man from that era, too,
was just absolutely horrid.
Well, that's before.
You're thinking of, like,
Seventy's Spider-Man, right?
Yeah, the Seventy's Spider-Man, yeah,
but the Ninth Captain America was not good
at all, either.
No, I mean, but it's weird.
When was the last time you watched it?
Probably the nineties.
I'll be honest with you.
It was probably the nineties.
When the new Captain America came out,
the MCU one.
i went back and watched it and it's
actually got a lot more serious tone like
the action is taken a lot more serious
but yeah anyway uh maybe you know one
day if you have the time uh to
sit back with a six pack and give
it another shot but i'll have to man
because like i could just remember just
how cringe it was and just like thinking
like you want to talk about cringe have
you seen the seventies captain america
with brad brown
I mean, I think that's way cringier,
but they're both... No, it is.
That's why I didn't want to bring that
one up.
They're unique with their cringe in their
own separate ways because it's really...
It's almost the same as that story
done two very different ways for the era
that it was born in.
It's kind of wild.
But that Captain America van and
motorcycle from the seventies, oh,
that thing is awesome.
Oh,
it's still one of the coolest things ever.
You're right about that.
But yeah, I mean,
a lot of Albert Pune's filmography is like
basically cyborgs in the middle of a
jungle fighting each other.
Like he was big during the nineties,
the direct video, like cyborg stuff.
And for whatever reason,
I wanted to bring that back because I
just I was looking around and I was
like, man,
they don't make action movies like they
used to.
They don't make no fighting each other for
no reason in the jungle like they used
to.
So at least I mean,
and they say for your first screenplay.
which, I mean,
I would say Escape to Earth was the
first one that I kind of completed,
I guess after I was out here at
least,
that you shouldn't make something super
expensive because, you know,
nobody knows who you are,
they're not going to give you a lot
of money to go make, you know,
Star Wars or anything like that.
But I was like, well,
at least if I have it in screenplay
format, like,
the idea will be there and...
like maybe later i could find something
else to do with it and thus it
ended up as a comic but then you
know a lot of rewriting happened along the
way because like you know people dudes
standing around and doing nothing but
fighting each other in comic book format
like can work but like i also there's
also a story in there that i had
to like because the motion is gone you
know there's no
Because it's movies versus comics at that
point.
So yeah, I did a lot of rewriting.
I think in this final Kickstarter coming
up,
I might offer the screenplay along with
the deluxe digital issue of number five.
That'd actually be kind of cool.
Yeah, I mean, why not, right?
Yeah.
And so, yeah, if anyone wanted to see,
like,
the original incarnation of Escape to
Earth, it'll be there,
and then you'll have the final, at least,
comic book version to read.
Yeah.
You know what I want to do,
since we're talking about screenplays,
I want to read Kevin Smith's Batman
screenplay.
I didn't even know he did a Batman.
I know he did Superman.
Sorry, yeah, you're right.
It is his Superman one.
Because I know in his office,
he has a wall of screenplays that he
says will probably never be made.
And I know one of them is a
Superman cut.
And I really, really want to read that.
Sure.
I mean, he had like that whole tour,
like that whole evening with Kevin Smith
thing there where, I mean, the whole...
I know a lot of that speech or
whatever was taken up by him telling the
story about him working with,
I think it was Guggenheim or whatever at
the time.
Yeah, Guggenheim.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was a huge Kevin Smith fan in
the nineties.
I mean,
he's kind of lost a little cred with
me over the years.
I mean, of course,
if I saw him in real life,
I would be, I would just say hello.
Nerd out.
Oh yeah, sure, sure.
I'm just saying as far as like,
I mean,
I wanted to do stuff that I can
get excited about, but I'm like, oh, yay.
Another Jay and Silent Bob.
But he did try to do different stuff,
and then people weren't into it.
So, I mean, I really don't buy it.
Which is funny, because I like that stuff,
too.
I did.
I mean, like, I liked the walrus one,
Tusk.
I liked that one.
Dude, that was...
What's the actor in that movie?
Yeah, that guy.
The guy from the old Mac commercials.
never yeah i mean he he's a certified
screen queen at this point because he's
done all those b movies and like the
barbarian yeah yeah he did he did the
goosebumps recently which was really good
barbarian was really good severely
underrated movie in my opinion i will i
mean it launched that director's career
because i mean everybody loved weapons
Yeah.
I mean,
it's so much so that it now has
a spinoff too, so.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
For sure.
So you did audio storytelling as well.
Why don't you talk about that a little
bit with Ray Can't Sleep?
Oh, yes.
Yeah, basically, Ray Can't Sleep was,
for me,
like practice leading up to Escape to
Earth, the comic,
as far as serialized storytelling is
concerned.
Mm-hmm.
So before that,
the majority of my writing had been,
you know, features,
a couple others aside from Escape to
Earth.
I never really wanted to work in like
TV or anything like that.
But, you know, with a monthly comic,
you know,
you have to leave them wanting more,
you know, at the end of the issue.
So they come back.
I mean,
that's basically serialized storytelling
one-on-one.
So, yeah, I basically just...
sort of came up with this idea of
like this burnt out musician who hasn't
slept in a month.
They can't understand why.
So he like goes on this like underground,
like conspiracy,
like journey through Hollywood in L.A.,
basically.
And the reason why he can't sleep is
insane, more or less.
And it involves
Reptilians and all other kinds of crazy
crap that you could possibly imagine.
It's also kind of a comedy on top
of it.
That reminds me of a comic book.
I can't remember who did it,
but it was called Benjamin.
It was from Bonnie Press.
It was about a screenwriter, I believe,
who died.
But then he wakes up.
And he's like, dude,
I know for a fact I'm dead.
Why am I here?
I think I read that first issue.
That shit was so good.
Oh my god.
It was like...
out of left field,
it was a random on-the-shelf pull that I
did that day,
and I was so happy I did.
Then I went back the next week at
my LCS.
I was like, dude,
add this to my pulls.
He's like, well,
it's probably just going to be two or
three issues or whatever.
I don't care.
If any of this is as good as
this first issue was,
I want it because it was an amazing
read.
I find it funny that
you know, he was like,
it's only going to be two or three
more issues.
I mean,
that's all they do now is limited series,
right?
Like, at least at Marvel, at least.
Yeah, no, I mean, Psylocke is still going,
but I had to stop it after,
I think,
issue seven or eight because it was just
like, holy hell.
I'm like, okay, I'm done.
Did it get bad?
I mean,
I sort of skimmed through the first issue
because Psylocke is... It didn't...
It's not that it got bad.
It just...
Once they get past issue six to me,
five or six, it just feels repetitive.
And it just felt like it was doing
the same thing over and over on the
next three issues.
Are you talking about Psylocke Ninja or
the one before it?
The one before it.
The one that was done by Crash.
Oh, I didn't...
I thought Psylocke Ninja had potential.
The one previous, yeah.
I couldn't even...
I don't think I could make the first
issue.
It wasn't bad.
And I think Crash Wong has written better
stuff.
Like, for sure has written better stuff.
And for me,
I don't know what it was.
Maybe it was the intro of the collector
or, like,
whatever he was calling himself in the
first five issues, the first main villain.
I just wasn't feeling it as much,
but I made it through it.
Like, let me just see what's next.
And I think it was issue six wasn't
bad,
but then seven and eight repetitively were
just –
like okay i'm done with this i can't
do it no more well if you like
psylocke she's a very heavy inspiration on
the female co-lead and escape to earth ika
um are we there yet oh we are
there and that's a good segue man so
let's talk about the birth escape to earth
i love when that kind of stuff happens
but um so we got a fugitive thief
Alien Forcers,
a crash landing on a prehistoric Earth,
and oh, by the way, freaking dinosaurs.
What came first?
The idea of dinosaurs or the idea of
this man running out of time and options?
Because I love the idea and the concept
of this whole story.
I was so happy when you sent it
over.
I was like, oh, this is so good.
Aw, thank you.
Yeah, it... Man...
the sort of i the whole idea or
the germ of the idea came from i
had read there was like an article going
around this is years ago that a script
a screenplay sold for like i got stuck
in a bidding war and ended up selling
for like a couple million for this
ridiculous story about like a retelling of
the origin of santa claus like he was
some sort of like viking or warrior or
something like that
And I'm like, oh,
that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
I need to write that.
But that movie was so cool.
Did it come out?
So that's the origin of the Santa Claus.
The dude from Stranger Things,
the sheriff.
Oh, yeah, I wanted to watch that.
Walls or whatever it is, or Amazon.
I can't think of the name of it.
Yeah, there's a lot of...
That's his origin story.
Yeah,
there's a lot of hardcore Christmas movies
now.
Everybody wants to be the next Die Hard.
So, yeah, but I mean,
and I mean dumb in a good way,
because I like big,
dumb ideas if they're executed well.
Yeah.
And I was just like...
Well,
if they want something stupid like that,
well, what can I come up with?
And I was like, huh, well...
well,
I need to come up with a really
dumb reason why humans and dinosaurs
existed at the same time.
And so I sort of extracted from there.
And also,
I was listening to a lot of podcasts
about creating comics at the time,
especially utilizing Kickstarter.
And I remember some guy was like, oh,
if you put dinosaurs in your comics,
that definitely helps with the sales.
And I was like, OK, sold.
I love dinosaurs.
Why not?
Yeah.
and uh yeah so basically it's just sort
of extracted from there like as far as
um you know the creation of the characters
i just wanted like a wise kraken like
gambit kind of anti-hero and then uh
psylocke but not psylocke for the female
but there's more to her than that really
dope character and she's got a fire fire
cover i'm not even gonna lie the waterfall
cover
amazing oh yeah yeah that's um yeah sean
forney he's uh
He's a fantastic artist.
I mean,
I can afford him for covers and that's
about it.
No, I get that.
And it's one of those things where like
I've had so many different like artists
and writers on and, you know,
I always talk to him and I'm, well,
obviously I've talked to him,
but every now and then after at the
end of the show,
I will talk about what I'm writing or
attempting to write.
And they're like, Oh yeah,
if you want to cover,
just hit me up.
And I'm like,
You know, they hit you up, right?
Hit you up for free?
Yeah, no, I couldn't.
Or maybe at least the bro rate.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
I mean,
because what you do is very valuable
because, like, generally people don't,
you know,
don't care about indie comic creators.
I know, and it's wild.
And when I first started doing this, like,
The one person I found that I thoroughly
enjoyed was the long boss punk Chris
comments.
Great dude.
And like he was really the one that
stuck out that I he's more of a
process guy.
Whereas I'm more of a,
let me take you on the journey of
the creator type of guy.
Yeah.
I need to hit that guy up.
He's terrific, man.
If you go CHK comments are long bots,
punk, and you'll find him.
And I'm actually doing his anthology
series right now on the podcast for his
upcoming comic book.
And I think we're going to be issue
five in like two days or episode five
in two days.
And that's what ended up being a seven
part series.
And I kind of blew my whole March
and April schedule out of the water
because I was like,
i got y'all because it was an honor
for me to do that you know i
bet he could have did it himself on
his podcast and i he asked they had
asked me to do it so i was
like absolutely yeah that's great it is
such an it's like because i'm a niche
within a niche within a niche i guess
like three times removed from the main
niche of comic books you got new comment
but then you got guys who interview like
all the big guys i'm like well that's
cool but my access to them is going
to be null and void because they're not
going to want to talk to a small
podcaster like me and i'm like so i
put it out there one day on blue
sky i believe it was is like hey
if any artist or writer out there wants
to come on the podcast and talk about
their upcoming book or what they have
going on,
I will happily talk to you about your
book.
And I just kind of, you know,
you shoot it into the interwebs and maybe
somebody with a name or somebody who comes
back and says, Hey, yeah, absolutely.
That sounds like a good time.
And nothing happens for a while.
And then all of a sudden,
Somebody hits you up.
It's like, Hey,
I have this Kickstarter coming up.
Can I come on and talk about Kickstarter
and my upcoming book?
I was like, yes.
I'm like,
cause at that point I was tired of
doing new comic book day because everybody
does new comic book day.
And I was just getting, you know,
lost in the sauce.
It was an opportunity for me to break
myself out of that and do something else.
And it worked out because here I am
over a year later talking to Steve.
And it's only the sky's the limit from
there, buddy.
And I hope so because it's one of
those where like I intentionally don't
chase after the guys doing bigger books.
It's cool.
You're signed to image.
If you want to come on and talk
to me, I would love to have you,
but you're not my primary customer.
You know, the Steve's of the world,
CHK comments of the world,
Malcolm over at sis,
Those guys are my customer and that's who
I want to put that spotlight on and
really just let these guys tell their
story.
And so that's what I do now.
And it's the best shit ever for me,
man,
because I have like a corner of this
niche that basically belongs to me and
like one or two other people.
i see people pop in like hey i
have this podcast if you want to come
over and promote your kickstarter let's do
it i'm like that's cool hey yeah hey
if you got some questions you got i
got you i will help you out and
then they're gone yeah well i mean that's
oh i mean i've run some non-comic book
podcasts i mean and that's just people you
know it's uh
Sometimes they think they want to be on
a podcast and then when it comes down
to the wire, then they just flake out.
It's not easy, people.
Nope.
Nope.
And I think when they realize how much
work goes into it and how much of
your money, your own money,
because you're not making money at this
right away,
goes into this to just get yourself up
and going.
it's quite a substantial amount, you know,
if you're not, if you don't have a,
you know, good day job.
Right.
So, but yeah, here we are, man.
Let's break down the core of this book.
Okay.
We have Adam who is our thief.
Zero.
Yes.
Zero thief.
Yes.
The arc who is the winged security force.
And we have prehistoric earth, which,
you know,
when I read through this and I look
through it, I'm like, dude,
this feels just like, um,
that TV show in the seventies.
Um,
land of the lost land of the lost
with, um, nineties action.
Oh, it's funny.
Everyone says, uh,
like at least the cons and stuff,
when people flip through the book,
they say that it feels, uh,
nineties edge is the,
is the term I hear every now and
then I didn't do that on purpose,
but that's when I grew up.
Uh, that's what I grew up reading.
Like I loved, uh,
the street level characters, like, uh,
nomad.
Oh yeah.
Oh dude.
Yes.
I had, um, I mean,
I read through shadow Hawk number one,
like a million times.
Oh, we all did dude.
That was so good.
i mean and despite you know how you
know he's very divisive but man i loved
and still love rob liefeld i mean i
had x-force number one and uh it wasn't
until much later when i like i love
the guy right because i mean obviously
s-force he's one of the founding members
of image but it wasn't until much later
you grow up and you start to realize
he's probably not that great of a dude
But I love his work.
Do you listen to his podcast?
No.
I have a podcast and I listen to
my podcast.
I don't say that to be egotistical or
anything.
But I do like to continuously learn.
And I always listen back.
I'm cutting clips out for you later.
So obviously I'm going to listen to it
back.
But as far as
Well, all right,
it would probably drive you nuts,
because he's not he's not a very good
talker.
But his information is amazing.
And he calls them the receipts to like
back it up,
basically the facts to back up
whatever it is he's talking about and also
robert kirkman has been on there a few
times and yeah i'm always down to listen
to whatever robert kirkman i might go back
and listen to that then just the robert
kirkman stuff because yeah there's at
least three or four episodes with uh
robert kirkman but yeah but but anyway so
i mean i at least wanted to have
like the sort of energy of the nineties
at least uh i don't want to say
extreme
uh but uh yeah and and but then
also kind of like a very pulpy like
high um high concept sort of story or
plot so you could say it's basically like
like a john carter um yeah john carter
or even like flash gordon with nine edge
and dinosaurs yeah so
this is going to sound crazy.
Did not enjoy the John Carter movie.
Disney messed it up.
The book in or the comic book of
it.
Phenomenal.
Even though I was, what was the,
the female's name?
Her comic book.
Phenomenal as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I,
did not hate John Carter.
I remember it bombed,
everyone ragged on it when it came out.
But then when I actually sat down and
watched it,
sort of divorced from the hype or
anti-hype, whatever you wanna call them.
Also,
that guy was not a very good John
Carter.
I mean,
John Carter is supposed to be a
Southerner,
but we know Hollywood's not going to allow
that.
And plus,
he didn't pull off a Southern accent
anyway.
But that stuff aside,
I thought the effects were pretty...
It sort of had the soul,
but then it faltered here and there.
It was... I don't know what it was.
I mean, it started out fine.
Mm-hmm.
And then it just kind of went flat.
Yeah.
And I hated that.
But like I said,
the book and the comic, phenomenal stuff.
Deja's comic book, phenomenal stuff.
Yeah.
I mean,
and a lot of people don't even realize
that, you know, Star Wars, you know,
George Lucas took a lot of inspiration
from John Carter, Flash Gordon,
all that other stuff.
I like going back and, you know,
seeing the stuff that inspired, like,
the other stuff that, like, really worked.
Like, for some people,
it's just Star Wars and then nothing even
came before that.
Or, like,
I know I was reading that even the
Green Lantern Corps was inspired by some
random, like,
pulp novel called The Lumen or something
like that.
So The Lumen's a comic book.
I mean, it probably, I, I,
or maybe it's the lantern men or something
along those lines.
The name escapes me, but, um, but yeah,
so, uh, so yeah, pulp,
pulp and nineties edge and dinosaurs.
And, uh, it's all those check marks, man.
It's really, it's such a fun read.
It's.
Anytime I can just sit down and enjoy
something for what it is and not read
too much into it.
There's no real like what's the word I'm
looking for?
I could turn my brain off and enjoy
it and just read it for what it
is.
And that's what I love about the book.
Turn your brain off.
Enjoy it.
don't have to look at deep meanings of
stuff it it's nineties action with the
pulp nor to it and there's damn dinosaurs
and a hot chick what more does anybody
need yeah i mean then in the fourth
issue i don't know if you uh if
you i can't remember if i sent that
one over or not i can't remember i
know that i got issue one if you
like uh like nineties style
anthropomorphic superhero teams like
street sharks and the turtles oh yeah one
of them shows up awesome they don't show
up they're created but um but yeah just
one more sort of like twist if you
will so what makes adam different from
your typical sci-fi protagonist um he's a
pretty big uh jerk especially at first um
i would say uh
He has a pretty clear character arc.
He's very heavily inspired from Snake
Plissken and Ash from Army of Darkness.
That's the same vibes I got, too.
And also Jack Burton from Big Trouble in
Little China.
I love characters when they can talk
trash.
and back it up and then sometimes not
back it up like the original deadpool when
he was dangerous and sort of insane um
is like the best version of deadpool and
then they added like chimichangas and then
him having multi-personalities and that
was his lame but ironically that's what
the world wanted because then he blew up
but i digress um then they added just
that few extra pouches to it
I think they reduced the pouches as the
time went on,
but I guess it depends on who's drawing
them.
Exactly.
He's just a guy who, I mean,
he was raised in a very poor environment.
He never really had any friends or family
or anything like that.
And he was basically forced into being a
thief because, I mean, he's surrounded,
he's stuck on this sort of prison planet
for a reason that gets revealed later.
And the reason why he's the zero thief
is because he's basically smaller than
everyone and is the quickest.
uh so so yeah he botches his uh
job and lands on prehistoric earth and um
and there he meets someone that changes
his life basically i mean if if you
want to like really reduce it down if
you could imagine like if you went to
like another country like either on
vacation or for a job and you fell
in love with someone that's also escape to
worth
i like it and then you have to
basically fight against the world around
you yeah because this world does not play
right so how much of this storytelling is
driven by visuals versus dialogue or how
do you i guess a better way to
phrase that would be when you're writing
escape to earth do you put the visuals
or or the dialogue first do you write
a full-up story or do you allow the
art
to tell the story?
Well, I mean,
since it was a screenplay first, I mean,
it was very dialogue heavy because I also
love dialogue.
But that's not what you want in the
comic book world.
I would say the dialogue was drastically
reduced as it went from
screenplay to comic book format and it's
never even fully written until after i get
the pages from antonio and then i go
in there and sort of marvel method it
if you will um yeah and uh you
know sometimes you know maybe i gave too
many panels on a page or
something else got switched around and,
you know,
a single line of dialogue like fixes
everything and,
and or sums up the massive paragraph I
originally had.
Because, you know, you, people,
They want to read,
but they don't want to read a whole
lot.
You definitely don't want to cover up the
beautiful art.
I just follow the flow at that moment.
Then I know that in the comic book
world,
the art comes first and the writer is
the bass player.
Whether you like it or not.
No, it's a hard truth.
And I say it all the time is
the art tells the story and the words
are basically your adjectives to the story
of the art.
Yeah.
I mean, my favorite,
there's been a lot of talk because I
guess there was like a big sort of
argument.
I guess Todd McFarlane said that story
like wasn't that important and that he
could sell whatever just with images.
And I mean,
there's truth to that to an extent,
but like,
the art gets them in the door,
but the story keeps them there.
And I mean, I think like a, uh,
an awesome sort of, um,
example of that is like, of course the,
when image launched all their books,
you know, sold like gangbusters,
but a lot of the writing wasn't really
there to keep people around for a while.
And then you sell off to DC.
What's up?
Not until much later.
Yeah, right.
That's when they got Alan Moore on and
Joe Casey and people who could really...
Because I imagine those guys...
And I love Image and the Image revolution
and all that,
but I imagine those guys were so full
of themselves,
they just thought they could do everything
back then.
I mean, shit.
You look at Jim Lee.
He's now the president of DC Comics.
So, I mean...
You look at why... Well,
a lot of the stuff Todd did before
Image was, I mean,
he gave us a good Wolverine,
and he gave us the best weapon ever
from Spider-Man.
Sure, sure, sure.
I mean, one of those...
And a good Batman, too.
Yeah, I mean, but who...
when Jim Lee is drawing Batman or
Superman, he's not writing it though.
They got someone.
No, no, absolutely not.
And Jim's at the point now where he
just does, he'll do covers.
He will go in and do some art
on some of the books.
And, um, I mean,
that guy probably never has to work again
in his entire life.
No, no, none of them probably do.
Um, but, uh, but yeah, I mean,
but yeah, anyway, it's like,
If you take Greg Capullo and Todd
McFarlane,
just let them run with something.
Money every single time, though.
Sure.
And like the same.
I mean,
look at what's going on with Kirkman these
days.
All the rock star writers want to work
with him because he's proven himself as an
amazing writer.
And so everyone's like, oh, well, if I.
work with him then that means uh buku
bucks for me and probably yeah but he
only works with like a handful of people
he has like this many people he works
with like that he does all his stuff
with yeah but he's been going through him
i mean now that he's established i mean
he's got what he had the david finch
book the uh skin breaker and then his
upcoming terminal book it's got like art
adams on it yeah um a couple of
other rock star right like
i mean i mean why wouldn't you want
to breaker is really good by the way
i don't know if you're reading that skin
breaker yeah uh i i read chapter issue
one um it didn't really grab me uh
really yeah i mean i thought the art
was amazing it just wasn't just the story
i was looking for i'm just like yeah
uh but you know maybe if i stuck
around maybe it would have won me over
uh and you know there's still i don't
have a lot of time to read these
days um i know exactly how you feel
there yeah i mean you're like i literally
just inventoried the last two months of
comic books over the last like two days
because they were just sitting back there
and you know bads i finally got those
inventory i separated out the ones i
wanted to read so they're under a box
or under my desk and a box just
waiting for me to pick them out and
read so usually what ends up happening is
as on the clips are doing their thing
i'm sitting here i'll pick one out and
i'll start reading
nice nice yeah so but yeah i try
to read as much as humanly possible plus
what people send me i try to read
those and there's always the bathroom
breaks hey you gotta go you gotta go
man i'm getting older so when i got
this office yeah i made sure the bathroom
was right across the hall nice nice so
you can just grab a book run in
there take care exactly exactly
Boy,
this interview has gone to the toilet.
It leads us to,
I'm going to attempt to pronounce her
name.
I'm going to pronounce it how I pronounced
it.
Ika.
That's her name.
That's it.
Why can't you tell us about her role
in the story?
Oh, well, I mean, of course,
I guess like most creators, you know,
wanted to have uh like she's almost like
the opposite of uh of adam like uh
adam is basically you know your typical
thief he's uh he's good at running
although he does fight as well where she
is very uh strong-willed um like
hard-headed to a point um she's uh very
uh empathetic i mean she's
you know uh she can talk to and
control dinosaurs basically um and that
was where we were going and then when
uh you know adam shows up of course
he's you know scared to death of dinosaurs
which i mean you should be unless you
control them yeah um so you know they
basically just sort of have to learn from
each other um you know if after they
they meet and um
So yeah,
she's more strong-willed and grounded.
He's figuring out how to live or exist
without being eaten on this planet.
So he has no choice but to trust
her and take her advice.
Otherwise...
he's he's dead um so uh so yeah
you could just tell that dinosaur to eat
him like I'm done dealing with this BS
today just eat him exactly um but
Yeah, I mean,
the term strong female is thrown around a
lot, but I mean, she definitely is.
I mean,
she was raised on prehistoric Earth,
you know, by dinosaurs.
There's no other humans around there.
And there's answers to all these things,
why there's no other humans around.
And yeah,
so of course she's going to be strong
and also maybe not so trusting.
of a random dude who crash land onto
her planet.
And yeah,
so they basically just have to learn how
to work together from there to fight
against the bad guys.
No, it's really cool.
I mean,
I know we use that term a lot,
but
think every good story now at this point
should have that strong female type lead
co-lead that isn't just there to be saved
by the dude here she is saving the
dude and to me that's just yeah i
mean flip the roles you know but in
this situation you you make it work like
really well because this dude would be
done without her and i mean the same
time when
you know, when the arc guy shows up,
like she doesn't know anything about them.
So she has to learn from him basically
how to fight that.
And yeah,
so it's basically a give and take between
the two.
And, and yeah,
and there's sort of a relationship kind of
I don't want to say blossoms because it's
definitely more of a roller coaster than a
blossoming.
And yeah,
and then it just goes out from there.
So you do really well at balancing like
the action in this and the storytelling.
Thank you.
How did you manage to like,
because it could teeter, right?
but it's hard to get everything to balance
out the proper way.
How did you get that to balance out
that way?
Oh man, that, I mean,
that was definitely part of the sort of
growing pains going from a screenplay to
comic.
And I mean,
the one thing I wanted there to be
is like,
stuff happening in each issue and by that
i mean action of some kind mostly you
know physicality and fighting or running
from dinosaurs or whatever like the days
remember in the early two thousands when
everyone was obsessed with decompressed
storytelling and everything where
characters just like sat around and talked
for an entire issue it's like i mean
that's not gonna fly in the kickstarter
world um no and that's not gonna get
me coming back for issue two or issue
three
Right.
And at the same time,
I don't want to do
full-on extreme rob liefeld where
characters are fighting for six issues and
then there's no character development yeah
and neither one of them die in neither
one of them die right right and i
you know and i say that with love
because i mean i think like what the
first like six issues of young blood
they're like fighting in an airport or
something but whatever check it out for
yourself uh and so yeah i mean i
was just and and once again i like
dialogue and characters interacting with
each other so
I just try to keep that to a
minimal, like have fun,
like snappy dialogue and then bam,
like there's a threat and something has to
happen.
And of course,
like you gotta have that cliffhanger at
the end of the issue in hopes that
people will come back.
But man, like,
I don't even know if like,
and I would just wonder if your other
guests have thought this way,
you know,
serialized comics for Kickstarter is the
way to go.
Because, I mean,
when I'm at conventions and I'm like
trying to pitch to people,
most of them say they're just going to
wait for the trade.
They would rather come back.
I mean,
it could be an excuse not to buy
anything.
But I understand it at the same time,
too, because, you know,
it's hard to to make indie comics and
have them come out.
And I know a lot almost there's been
a lot of people here lately who will
do the first four issues and then produce
a trade.
then kick start for the trade as well
as you know hopefully make enough to get
started on you know five as well and
that is my plan but uh i think
for the next book whatever it might be
like uh maybe it'll be like a a
giant size one shot or something like that
like i said with whatever book it's going
to be yes i say i'm a big
fan of one shots as well
Cause it's one and done, right?
Yeah.
You don't have to wait around.
And like, I feel like,
like when I'm looking at the numbers of,
um, uh, like the last four Kickstarters,
uh, it's, you know,
obviously there was a lot of people who
jumped on for number one and then,
you know, for whatever reason,
maybe people just forgot and like never,
you know,
never checked their email or they gave
like a alternate email or something and
just didn't hear about it.
Uh,
So, yeah, I mean,
I definitely see it that way as far
as having, like,
as far as doing the whole one and
done thing.
I see other creators, they don't...
like you can tell that the that there's
a congruent story going from issue to
issue but they don't treat it like typical
you know monthly comics um and maybe
that's the way to go i don't know
only only the future will hold it it's
it's difficult right because the the
market itself is such a finicky thing and
the market itself is predicted by a bunch
of goobs
Bunch of what now?
Goobs.
Are you going to get us cancelled?
What?
Huh?
it is it's just a bunch of dudes
sitting on a podcast talking about oh okay
i said goobs g-o-o-b-s oh i gotcha okay
and there's nothing with wrong with those
goobs they're great people i enjoy
listening to not listening to them but
seeing what they have to say about the
market of comic books but however what
they say so many people take as face
value and then i'll watch people rush out
buy that
It jumps that book for the time being.
But then they go,
this book wasn't that great and I'm not
going to buy it no more.
Right.
So that's what I when I say that
and because it's literally people will
rush out and buy stuff or like, oh,
we noticed these ten books were spiking in
sales recently.
But these are,
but this is more of like the mainstream
that you're talking about, right?
Yes, yes.
But it's from a Kickstarter perspective,
I feel people want
A, consistency.
You close out book four,
you immediately start providing updates on
number five.
You know what I'm saying?
It keeps their interest there.
Like, hey,
here's some early stills of issue five.
Or, hey,
here's a quick glimpse of what's coming in
issue five from a writing perspective.
And you just...
you just provide them that small glimpse.
It could be kind of blurry just so
they can see a little bit of it.
It just shows that people are working on
it and you're working on it because that's
what I like to see.
Sure.
When I am on the Kickstarter, you know,
the launch page or whatever,
and I'm scrolling down and, you know,
if it's an issue four of a five
part series, issue four is talking about,
hey, you know, we're already, you know,
a quarter of the way into issue number
five right now.
So I'm like, OK, cool.
I like to follow the person.
I want to be notified on the launch,
but I follow the person on Kickstarter
because whenever they then do an update,
for whatever reason,
I get that notification like, hey,
Steve just posted an update to his
Kickstarter.
Or, hey,
Steve just made this notification on this.
I like that because it keeps me interested
and it keeps me
glued to what you're doing.
And that's one of the big things I
like on Kickstarter and how I,
people can keep my interest on Kickstarter
is by just providing updates on a normal
basis.
Like you're getting ready to launch issue
five and you go to your issue four
book, like, Hey,
issue five is getting ready to drop.
Here's the link to the new one.
And you can hop on and follow that.
Sure.
You start making those updates to it.
And then people are like, Oh,
we see it's,
it's here and it's here and it's here
you take them on the journey through the
book right of course yeah no absolutely
interest yeah i mean i i definitely follow
a bunch of other uh creators for sure
on um kickstarter yeah the weird the weird
thing about kickstarter though is when
like the sort of uh normies kind of
like enter the equation like random like
you know dude bros who i work with
And I sort of, like, mention offhand that,
you know,
I have my own comic that I created.
And then they're interested because,
you know, I mean,
I assume that unless you're into comics,
you're not going to be interested.
But I think the way it kind of
works is... No, you would be surprised.
No, no, yeah,
that's what I'm going to say is, like,
but the truth is they probably haven't met
anyone else in real life who actually
makes a comic so they're like oh this
is cool this dude standing right in front
of me uh makes comics like you know
let me grab one and you know you
never know maybe it'll be worth money
sometime like i noticed uh like they're
like they don't have a kickstarter and
some of them don't even know how to
work it.
I got some aunts and uncles who wanted
to support me on Kickstarter,
and they couldn't figure out how to work
it, basically.
It can be a little confusing because the
main thing is in the middle,
but then the support thing is on the
same... It's right there together,
just off to the side.
It can be a little confusing.
It's not like Kickstarter provides a, hey,
this is how we work.
I wish they did.
That would be kind of cool if Kickstarter
created it.
Kickstarter, if you're listening,
a lot of people friends and family of
people want to back a book to support
their friend and family however they can't
figure it out such as steve's aunts and
uncles help them out by creating a start
here or hey if you're looking to support
somebody this is how you do it in
just a quick video of how to do
it or walk them through it i think
that would go a long way too
And while you're there, Kickstarter,
I'd really like Escape Tour of Number Five
to be one of those projects that we
love.
Come on.
Don't make me come down there.
I'll come down there.
You know how that happens, right?
You get a bunch of people to follow
you on the prelaunch.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I had no idea.
Whose palm do you have to grease?
Quick, give me some knee pads.
You know Backerkit?
oh yeah yeah yeah yeah i think backer
kit has plays a role in that as
well oh bro this is like payola like
back in the radio radio dj days like
paying people to play your song ah this
is corruption we just we just blew the
lid off of it here chairman we're taking
kickstarter down nah we gotta leave them
around because i'm trying to get sponsored
by them too spots oh should i allegedly
allegedly
chairman didn't say anything bad about it
i want the kickstarter logo i need that
kickstarter logo at the bottom and then
the grease my palms to have more
kickstarters on here which i already do
i'm already doing a kickstarter kick me a
couple of shillings yeah well i mean we
should definitely follow each other a
little coin for the witcher over here come
on for sure but no i really like
the platform to me it it's easy to
use once you figure it out
sure however is like when you're in
somebody's like you're looking to you're
scrolling through and you're like oh i
like that option right there let me get
that option or when like for years and
for instance i've haven't i don't own the
first four volumes so i'm going to want
to do a
a ketchup, you know?
Oh, yes.
And then in my head,
I have to remind myself that wasn't
digital, was it?
Because I don't want the digital version
of it.
I want the hardcover or just the this
the floppies.
For those who wonder why I'm saying
floppy,
it's a single issue is a floppy because
it flops.
Don't you don't you hate calling it that,
though?
It sounds like I really do.
It sounds so weird.
It sounds like a erectile dysfunction,
basically.
It's like if you're buying a floppy,
you're not going to be able to satisfy
a woman when you get her in bed.
Or an old three point five,
which also sounds weird,
but an old three point five floppy.
All right.
I have a sick mind.
Chairman has a tech mind.
That's why I said this is going to
sound weird,
but an old three point five and I'm
all like doing this.
I'm like, shit, that also isn't right.
Three point five floppy.
Okay.
I just outed myself as a big time
gooner.
Sorry, everyone.
I'm sorry.
I mean, you live in L.A., dude.
I think that's just like one of those.
Isn't that an L.A.
thing?
Oh, sure,
they're all having orgies out here,
and I'm sleeping my way to the top.
Watch out,
I'm going to be in the next Star
Wars movie.
I've seen old school, okay?
I've seen old school.
What happened in old school?
I barely remember that.
Someone knocks at the door.
Here for the gangbang?
Oh, yeah.
Well,
they used to go out to this island,
but that's old news.
I think that got shut down.
I'm pretty sure that got shut down.
Yeah, pretty sure.
Maybe.
We're blowing off the lid of another
conspiracy here, Chairman.
This is what we do here.
This is what we do.
We're so off the fucking rails that I
don't even know where we are.
We're jumping into issue number five now.
We're here.
Issue five.
Final issue, supposedly.
When did you know the story would be
here?
Well, the question really says,
when did you know this story would end
here?
But we all know how end here is.
It means you're probably, this is arc one,
and you're going to go prepare for arc
number two with issue number six.
So words mean things.
You told me final issue.
That's what I'm running with.
Oh, good, good.
I mean,
it's definitely the final issue of this
arc.
And, I mean,
basically just looking at the screenplay
and just sort of extrapolating floppies
from it,
I was sort of made my way to,
you know, pass number four.
And I was like, okay, what's after this?
And I'm like, oh, it's the big battle.
And we should probably wrap it up.
Although I admit while writing it,
It probably could have been six issues,
but I think five is a good round
number,
especially for the trade when I eventually
do one for graphic novel,
if you want to be fancy about it.
And there's always room for stuff after
that.
But I know I like being,
as I was saying before, you know,
I like making it lean and easy to
read.
So basically,
I reduced the battle down as much as
possible into the into the fifth issue.
And then also, I mean,
that's when all the big reveals of like
the questions that are asked in the first
issue,
like where why are they the only humans?
You know, why do they
Even why did Adam even end up on
Earth to begin with?
Like all those questions and in the
massive battle all happen in number five.
And yeah,
and then that's that's it basically.
See,
I like the fact that you're doing five
issues and then committing to a trade
paperback.
And he called it a trade paperback because
to me,
a graphic novel is a it was always
intended to be that way.
A seventy to seventy two page.
graphic novel thank you because i'm going
back and forth on the story that i'm
writing on whether or not i just want
to do boom and be done right or
do like in uh what's her name what's
her name what's her name um eb and
jess silvetti who shadowlight they do
shock headed peter they did a three volume
graphic novel and they called it that and
I loved it because and then I know
people who like to do oh I'm doing
four issues and then I'm going to do
a graphic novel on those four issues like
no you're doing a trade paperback stuff
let's not call it a graphic novel okay
right right I get it I a hundred
percent get where you're coming from but
that is called a trade paperback right I
always hated at the beginning of the
Walking Dead TV show when they were like
based on the graphic novels by Robert
Kirkman.
It's like, no, it is a comic book.
Stop trying to sound fancy.
Take the wine glass out of your hand.
It's called a comic book.
Some people call it a floppy.
It's kind of wild, right?
Because I loved The Walking Dead when it
first came out.
The comic or the show?
We're going to get to that.
Okay.
i loved it and i'm like i know
this is a comic book and i went
out and got the first trade paperback old
man carl arc right loved where it was
going and it went and then these had
the nerve to kill carl i'm like carl
is telling the damn story yeah you can't
kill the man telling the story to his
grandchildren
That's one of the many reasons why I
stopped watching it as well.
To me, the comic was basically perfect,
and the show went into too many ridiculous
directions, and then they had all these...
side shows and stuff.
I can't even, I remember,
I think I watched up until maybe a
season or two after like Negan showed up,
which I mean,
Jeffrey Dean Morgan is Negan was great.
Phenomenal.
Yeah.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan in anything is really
to be good.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Um, I mean,
he is not in Dean Winchester's father.
Okay.
Yeah.
And what, in the Snyderverse,
he's Thomas Wayne too, right?
In the credits?
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, you put him in anything,
it's a win, I think.
But yeah.
yeah uh and also i i can't really
watch the invincible cartoon either
because again i thought that that my
daughter just realized that she's like
dude the comic book is excellent she's
like she's like this enemy and the cartoon
feels so cheap and it's not the right
story dad yeah amazon prime shovels in a
bunch of stuff that they think i guess
the
modern they also have to tone it way
down as well sure sure yeah like i
don't think we're ever gonna see in it
do you think they're gonna do an animated
version when uh when mark is sexually
assaulted by the one ultramite lady yeah
no they're not and that's that's why oh
no i gooned again sorry that would yeah
they are not gonna show that on tv
And I'm just like, man, no.
I mean,
they showed this dude literally getting
the shit beat out of him.
There's no sexual assault in Escape to
Earth.
It's sexual assault free.
Hey, that's a spoiler right there.
Because my next question is,
without spoilers,
what kind of ending are readers getting?
I know you said we're going to get
some questions from issue one finally
answered.
But is it also like,
do you give us the setup for the
next arc?
No.
Set up for the next arc because yeah
As far as the sequel is concerned.
I mean I have ideas But what I
would really like to do but more my
ideas mostly are for solo series and or
a prequel especially of I mean,
I know what I would like to see
I don't really know what my audience would
like to see but I'd like to see
a
uh, Adam's adventures on Iden,
like the planet that he comes,
that he was raised on as the zero
thief, you know, this sort of like, uh,
Mad Max,
the dystopian almost sort of cyberpunk
style comic or what, but very pulpy,
you know, him wearing his mask,
doing jobs, stealing stuff.
And then like leading up to the events,
uh, of what, um, you know,
ended up becoming escape to work,
like the job that he took,
that he failed and then him ending up
you know on prehistoric earth like that's
the one i'm thinking about the most you
could do is uh you could do a
split prequel with ika's side story and um
his side story oh you'd like a flip
book or like maybe like either like a
flip book would be really dope oh yeah
like i mean ika's early days on planet
on planet earth
I mean, it doesn't really, I mean,
I do have a few ideas,
but that doesn't really grab me as much
as I have an idea for like after
the story or after Escape to Earth where
she and the other female members of the
Escape to Earth cast get kidnapped and put
on a floating island that they have to
fight their way off of.
And it's kind of an allegory to a
very...
very messed up story that you and I
have already talked about earlier or made
jokes about earlier.
Do you get what I'm saying?
An island...
yeah yeah strong female get to massacre a
bunch of evil pieces of trash like yeah
i'd want to read that book i mean
best is me dude yeah so i've actually
read i think last year there was like
two or three books like that that come
out and they were like phenomenal comic
books because they were just like strong
female leads who just slay everybody
without like oh you wronged me cool i'm
about to flay you
I mean,
is it an allegory to that aforementioned
real life story?
I don't know if it is or not.
I just know that it is a bloody,
violent,
good read where the female lead just takes
zero shits.
And like somebody looked at the character
wrong and she was just like,
done.
I got you.
She's like, yes, I'm beautiful,
but I'm not your beautiful.
And just like pop the dude.
I was like, sure.
Yeah, there's a lot of that going on.
I was like, you know,
this is post-apocalyptic worlds and that
kind of stuff.
And I was just like, all right, cool.
That sounds very Roger Corman,
which is definitely for me.
There's a lot of stories out there with
some Roger Corman in them.
Well, there should be.
a hundred percent a hundred percent so
where are we where are we where yeah
we're talking about the end you are a
a tangent leading guy man i like you
see i i mean i shouldn't do i
shouldn't lead us away from talking about
the book but but um i don't know
i actually actually scrolled down too so i
mean i scrolled back up or something but
um
So closure or transformation we just
talked about.
Emotionally,
what do you want people to take away
from this from an emotional standpoint?
I mean, that's a tough one.
I mean, of course,
I want it to be on the surface.
It's fun and action packed.
But then also,
these are characters that are flawed and
relatable.
You know, there are, I mean,
Ika is no Mary Sue,
for lack of a better term.
Are you reading Mary Sue?
No, is that a book?
Yes.
The movie or the book?
The book, the comic book.
It's currently ongoing right now.
That's pretty good.
Really good.
Yes, it is very, it's ongoing.
Oh, yeah.
very over the top or what what company
i think it's boom okay okay uh i
mean let's see and uh oh yeah so
on the surface you've got high action
adventure fun and hopefully like fun
snappy dialogue yes flawed characters
that hopefully you can relate to uh two
characters whose relationship that
hopefully you uh you care about and don't
like roll your eyes and be like oh
this is a sappy like BS um and
uh and yeah and then at the end
of the day it will be a fun
ride that you will hopefully want to see
more of
I didn't want to give you bad info.
He's vomiting.
Boom Studios.
It is boom.
Okay.
All right.
And they are on issue number five.
All right.
I will look it up.
Very over the top, Mary Sue.
You'll enjoy it.
So let's talk about the Kickstarter, man.
When does the Kickstarter go live?
it will it will go live um next
month um the uh the what is it
april so may it'll go live uh the
first first tuesday in may okay are you
doing a full kickstarter run are you doing
like a short in the wind what are
you planning on doing there oh full full
Um, like always, um, or I mean,
some people like to do short ones.
I'm like, dude, you could get,
there's so much potential there for you to
get more out of this.
So why not just run the full.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
I don't have a,
I don't have a big enough audience to
do like a short little, you know,
one week or something like that.
So,
and there's like people I have to reach
out to who are like,
who are never on social media and stuff.
And I have to like,
send it through their actual like texts
and the phone.
Like, like I said,
the dude bros I work with who like
are rarely online.
I'm like, Hey, look,
I'm having another Kickstarter.
You want to see what happens in the
final issue?
And, uh, you know,
hopefully they click on it or not.
Uh, so yeah, I, uh,
take my time with it even though uh
thirty days still doesn't feel like enough
sometimes yeah I mean you can always run
it longer you know but no I don't
want to uh I mean I it's been
my experience you get a big bump at
the beginning nothing in the middle and
then a big bump at the end so
why draw it out no I feel you
I feel you on that one I know
some people who they're like oh I'm gonna
run the um
the extra on the end and then they
come back and go, no, no,
we're not gonna do it.
They're like,
there's too much risk and more people
dropping out.
So just end it now and call it
good.
Right.
And plus, I mean,
and I was gonna even forget to bring
this up.
Like if someone misses it, I mean,
I've got my own old school website where
you can go right now and buy digital
and physical copies of escape to earth.
So if you're one of those people who
like want to read the first four issues
now,
you can go over to reptilianmedia.com and
I will send them to you and you
can be all caught up for the Kickstarter
on May.
Link in the description.
Link in the description.
Yes.
Yes.
Thank you for that.
So what are they getting on this
Kickstarter campaign exactly?
Oh, I mean, I mean,
outside of the book.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we've got T-shirts and,
We've got copies of all of the past
issues as well as most of the variant
covers.
The variant cover that I posted or the
cover for issue four that I posted on
Facebook that I hope you saw is another
Sean Forney.
I guess that will be the standard cover.
And I've got another variant cover that's
currently in the works.
And aside from that,
There's a few other things I'm working on.
Let me ask you this, Chairman.
Would you buy a fake NES cart of
your favorite indie comic to display on
the wall?
a nes what cartridge a nintendo a nintendo
cartridge so there i was just at a
con and somebody was selling those like
the of different things like it was just
a a a three d printed nes cartridge
with a um i don't know if it
was a final print or what it was
of like
different comic books and different kind
of comic characters.
I think they're really cool.
Would I buy one?
It would just depend.
Like it would have to be a very
selective,
like how fire is that cover that is
going to be.
Well, I mean,
I was thinking about doing one,
at least for like the issue one cover
of a worth maybe on just,
You know,
I was just going to three print out
a couple of them and they're there.
Interesting.
If anyone wants them.
Yeah, no, it would definitely be.
It would be definitely be cool for what's
in the box.
You know what I'm saying?
What what's in the box?
Yeah.
What do you mean by that?
that's my uh i try to do one
monthly but it's just your unboxing video
yeah my unboxing video oh yeah okay okay
you know because i got to do the
the brad pitt what's in the box i
was gonna say on the final episode you
open it up and gwyneth paltrow's head is
in there hey her head has had a
lot of success in multiple movies
Oh,
and now she's got her own line of,
like, vagina crystals.
I mean,
she's had – That's cool and all,
but her gory,
bloody head from Seven has been in, like,
I think three, four, five movies.
And that's including the fact that he got
lost for, like, ten or fifteen years.
The Harlem Globetrotters were using it as
a basketball.
Yeah,
it literally went missing for like ten or
fifteen years.
And then some prop guy found it in
the back of a studio.
And it's like, oh, cool.
Gwyneth Paltrow said,
let's use that in a horror movie over
here.
And then he did a layup with it.
It was amazing.
Most likely.
I mean, if he was smart, he did.
Sure.
But no,
that would definitely be something
interesting to unbox on watching the box
for me, from my perspective,
because I like fun,
quirky stuff like that.
Cool.
Cool.
Yeah.
So yeah,
that's one of the sort of more random
tiers, but that is a, oh,
and I've got a reptilian media stickers.
People usually buy those.
And I don't know if you get a
chance to watch the cinematic trailer for
escape to earth,
but the music and the background,
was composed by my friend who is a
synthwave artist by the name of Drew
Knight.
And people will actually buy the MP-III
and or it's bundled in with like the
full Brontosaurus bundle is what I call
it,
where basically you can just get
everything in like one bundle.
So yeah.
And also, like I said,
their last Kickstarter for the first time
I did a digital deluxe, which...
It was basically a digital version of
issue four with the comic book script as
well as and please don't anybody like
throw any digital tomatoes at me.
But I mess around a lot with A.I.
just to make sort of like fun little
social media like images and stuff.
And like I,
I dubbed it as like the A.I.
slop gallery and slapped it onto the back
of the digital deluxe and, you know,
just to look at it for fun.
You know, nobody's losing any money.
It's wild, right?
Because, I mean,
it could be a great tool.
And if you're not hurting anybody,
then I don't care.
I know you're a fan.
I know you're a fan.
But, yeah,
there's some people who they've made it
their entire mission.
For me, it's a tool, right?
It is a tool.
That literally any and every YouTuber out
there is fucking using it.
Right.
I'm so sick of people.
As long as it's not touching the comic
book, don't care.
I'm not going to take away a job
from somebody.
Yeah, we're one man shows.
Like, I mean,
I assume the other members of the council
don't show up to help you make your
podcast.
It's just you.
And they are right.
And there's no other members.
There's one sleeping on the job.
Right.
And I don't know where the other one
went, but she was asleep right there.
The other members of reptilian media
include my son and my wife.
And they, uh,
They just look at the pictures every now
and then.
They don't help me write.
All the other work is done by me.
I also do the lettering and the logo
designs and stuff.
No one's going to help me out for
free, but except for maybe a couple of...
a little bit of feedback from ChatGPT
every now and again.
It's a freaking tool.
As long as you're not using it to
try to make money off of other people's
shit, I don't care.
That's just...
where the world's going people that's
right that's right either get on the ai
train or get out is that what you're
saying chairman is that what you're saying
i'm not saying that i'm just saying is
it's one of those where we it's a
tool yeah it's not different from my
hammer my screwdriver my drills my saws
The car I drive to work in,
the gun I hunt with,
the bow and arrow I hunt with,
those are all tools.
The analog synthesizer.
This PC sitting over here, just tools.
Wait, wait.
Use tools for good, not bad.
You're on a computer right now?
Oh, I'm so mad.
You're on a computer right now?
I'm so mad.
So I'm quick.
I am.
Done.
I also have two screens.
Oh,
let me know when you get a third
one.
Then you'll be like full-on nineties
hacker.
No,
I do want a third just so I
have the TIE Fighter set up.
Ah, there you go.
Now you're talking.
Star Wars.
Use it to destroy Kathleen Kennedy's
house.
Nah,
let's let Dave Filoni run with it and
see what we're going to get out of
it.
We're not going to get anything out of
it.
We'll see.
Yes, yeah.
I mean, we'll literally see next month.
I think what is the end of this
month?
We got the Mandalorian Grogu coming out.
But I'll be there.
I'll go see it.
Well,
I'm interested to hear your thoughts
because unless my son wants to go,
it ain't going to happen.
He'll go.
Just take him.
I'll let you come by and pick him
up.
Son,
this guy with a big beard that you
never met before is going to take you
to a movie.
Uncle Chairman.
Uncle Chairman is taking you to the
movies.
Uncle Chairman.
Oh, that's cute.
I like that.
I like that.
Well, Grunkle is taken by Stan.
Let's see.
Grunkle Stan?
I don't know what that is, but Gesundheit.
What's the name of the cartoon?
I can't remember.
It's a cartoon my daughter used to watch,
but they had a girl to stand.
I see.
So let's start wrapping this up, man.
Otherwise,
we're going to sit here and bullshit all
day, which would be entertaining for us,
but probably not so many others.
So for anybody who wanted to jump in
and do a comic book and maybe go
back in or finish a comic book like
you are about to do,
what advice would you give them?
I mean,
before you decide to sink your own money
into this thing, I mean,
and if you're a writer, artist, I mean,
I envy you because then you're, you know,
you don't really have the financial burden
that us writers do.
So if you're in the writer,
like sort of packed the way that myself
and the chairman are,
you might want to do your best to
build up an audience beforehand.
I mean,
you're basically doing it with this
podcast.
I tried to do it with my previous
podcast,
but they weren't real – I feel like
they weren't real comic-specific enough.
So a lot of that audience just didn't
translate over.
I mean – That's going to be interesting
to see because –
I want to hopefully by the end of
this year do the first book.
And it's going to be interesting to see
how what I do here will translate over
there from a follower perspective.
And how much have I actually learned from
talking about tons of kit starters at this
point to be able to reapply
for my own so it's going to be
interesting to see and to me in my
head this is a experiment to just to
see hey so that's how i looked at
it as well i was like but i
did promise myself to complete the story
because i mean i don't know about you
and i don't mean to get on another
tangent here because i mean when i started
attending cons like back in the i loved
artist alley like the more obscure the
book the better plus i was a big
dollar and quarter bin diver.
I mean,
I discovered like stuff that I had never
heard of before,
like the Badger and like Nexus.
I mean,
there wasn't as much Nexus in there,
but there was tons of Badger and I
could like basically get the whole run for
like my first Howard the Duck comic book
come out of a dollar bin.
and those book those original howard the
ducks by steve gerber are awesome way
better than absolutely amazing yeah it is
wild to think about and steve gerber is
one of my favorites i mean but it
it's sad that howard the ducks sort of
got uh sidelined by that movie and
everyone just sort of treated them like a
joke but he came back though he was
in um he was just in what if
and it was a dude i loved it
like just having howard
yeah oh uh like yeah he was did
he look like he did in guardians of
the galaxy or how did he how did
it look it was the animated version of
howard the duck and he he had the
fun quirky just like off-center like
personality straight out of the comic yeah
it very much felt like it it was
just really fun like just to have him
on the screen and his love interest of
course he he's a swab duck so he's
gonna have a love interest right and it's
uh the girl from um thor's wife's friend
I can't remember her name.
I'm sorry.
Kat Dennings?
Yeah, Kat Dennings.
Her animated character is his.
I don't find her funny at all,
but I'll give it a shot just because
you recommended it.
The show, though, is funny.
I liked it, too.
They introduced a new character and
everything.
To me, it was a lot of fun.
I like the what-ifs because it's exactly
that.
It's a what-if.
so but yeah yeah definitely it was howard
the duck i mean i love you with
the duck and do your best to finish
your story build up an audience and
hopefully you'll be okay there you go yeah
dude that's solid man did you learn
anything along the way i mean
I don't think I build up a big
enough audience.
And as I said before,
just because you think that you know how
to write a screenplay doesn't mean you
know how to write a comic.
There's a big transformation between the
two, especially in terms of pacing.
Dictating the pace is really important.
And I feel like a lot of first-time
comic book
writers or creators or whatever they don't
really know how to do it you should
probably read that scott mcleod book
understanding comics because like it
wasn't until after i started i saw it
spelled out like
in pictures, basically,
how to dictate the pace between panels.
And I was like, oh, man,
I should have read this more.
I think I perused it before I started.
I should have read the whole thing first
before I jumped into it.
I got notebooks full of just notes on
my story.
I'm at the point now where I can
start taking those notes and putting the
story, actual story together.
But it's like,
I'm still learning and wanting to learn
more about putting this actual story
together on the paper and to give my
artists
Because that's the key.
My words and my stuff have to give
my artist the direction to go.
What way does my character look?
What is this and that?
Are they in a forest, a city?
What does that kind of stuff look like?
That's all these considerations to take
into account that you may not think about
as you're writing your story.
And that leads me to another point.
And this definitely helped me a lot.
I mean, it's kind of a no brainer,
like hire someone who has more experience
than you.
Antonio has like maybe ten years on me.
And so, yeah,
he's and I even told him like straight
up, I was like,
this is my first book, like so.
Is that okay?
Be surprised how many people will just be
like, okay,
as long as you can pay them,
they will get you along the way.
You got to have the cold hard cash
and then anything's possible.
Exactly.
You can have your own island with infinite
parties.
We're leaving that one there.
That's the last stop.
I'm sorry.
I don't know why I keep bringing that
up.
all right anyway yeah i think that uh
i think that answers your question i hope
no absolutely man won't you tell everybody
where they can find you and reptilian
media and it better not be a goddamn
island i'm never coming back on this show
am i oh you're back you're too fun
oh thanks man uh but no as i
said before reptilianmedia.com if you want
to buy books um
and other merch uh but if you want
to keep up with our social i mean
i'm basically reptilian media on
everything uh x instagram even though i
don't really check the x very much but
instagram is the best place to go um
i mean you can follow me on facebook
uh as uh steven honeycutt the other one
is my dad you don't you don't want
to follow him um
And I mean,
but then you're just going to see like
pictures of my family and stuff.
So but I but I do update about
the comic there as well.
So Facebook, Instagram website.
There you go.
But yeah,
all that he just said is right now
in the description of this video and will
also be on this video on the podcast
side and on the YouTube site again later
on.
It will all be there for you all
to check out and to make sure you
click the Kickstarter page,
hit notify me on launch because again,
we're launching the second Tuesday in the
month of May,
which is coming up really freaking fast.
First Tuesday.
First Tuesday.
First Tuesday.
It's the fifth.
The fifth.
There we go.
May the fifth.
May the fifth be with you.
Rome Dave, hey, you were close.
That's Revenge of the Fifth.
Right, right, right.
Come on, man.
If you're going to freaking parody Star
Wars.
May the force be with you.
All right,
let's kick this guy out of here.
Security.
Security.
I'll never work in Indie Comics again.
I'm done.
I'm done.
No, you're coming back, DJ.
Even if it is just a bullshit,
I don't care.
We'll do like an hour of bullshit.
But let's wrap it up.
So y'all know where to find Steve.
So make sure you hit that notify launch
button for the Kickstarter because this is
going to be a fun one.
He's wrapping it up, so to speak,
of issue number five.
But if you're a fan of sci-fi,
if you're a fan of dinosaurs,
if you're a fan of indie comics pushing
the creative boundaries,
This is when you need to be paying
attention to.
Make sure you check out Escape to Earth,
number five, the final issue,
live the first Tuesday in May.
Support indie creators,
support original stories,
and help bring these stories to life.
Make sure you like, comment,
and subscribe.
And as always,
this has been the USDN Podcast,
where indie comics come to life.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the Council of Nerds is adjourned.