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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.
Thank you.
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.
Behind every finished comic is a story the
reader never sees.
The late nights, the production deadlines,
the risk, the campaigns that secede.
the lessons learned when they don't and
that constant challenge of turning a
creative vision into something built to
last for frederick littles that journey
has grown beyond creating comments it has
become about building wise acre comics
creating new worlds expanding original
characters beyond the printed page and
laying the foundation for what comes next
ladies and gentlemen the council of nerds
is now in session frederick
Welcome to the council, my friend.
appreciate you for having everything first
and foremost that potter is one of the
best intros i have seen to a video
podcast everything ever appreciate it
appreciate it and it's going away before
here before long unfortunately i am going
to transition like everything over to the
indie comic world that way it matches
actually what i do and as i have
transitioned away from the pop culture
stuff
God, almost eighteen months ago now,
I think so.
But yeah, the transition's got to happen.
The new the new logos and stuff are
being drawn.
I have one of them already finished and
it's dope.
The new silver approval is going to be
amazing when it goes live,
when the rest of the stuff goes live.
So I'm excited for that.
It's just I got to let my boy
cook over there while he does my designs.
So.
But I know we're a few minutes late,
and that's because we learned that we have
followed the same path throughout life to
get to where we are today,
which was really cool.
And we're not going to dive into that
at all for y'all because we don't want
to pour nobody to death.
But we were reminiscing about some old
times and the paths that our lives have
intertwined for twenty five years now to
lead to this moment right here.
which is really dope,
and it's a story for another time.
We may come back and just do that
story for y'all,
because that would be a really dope
conversation for us anyway.
Nice, nice.
But before we get into it and dive
into everything happening with Wise Acres
today, let's start with you, man.
What originally kind of pulled you into
storytelling,
and when did creating comics evolve into
building an actual independent publishing
company?
So I will tell you the truth from
everything.
I kind of fell out of love with
comics back in my high school years.
I used to love art, you know,
to like, you know, playing in the band,
going to the music and everything,
going to Jackson University,
playing in the Center Boom in the South.
That was kind of my focus point.
And then I joined the Air Force and
stuff like that too.
But I will tell you,
when I came back to this space,
it was two periods in my life that
happened that transcended, you know,
my time.
Uh,
two thousand and eighteen were two key
moments.
Uh,
I lost my mom in two thousand and
eighteen to cancer in December.
Hey, I'm sorry to hear that, dude.
No problem.
No problem at all.
I appreciate it and everything.
Uh,
but it was definitely a stepping stone to
launching Wise Acre Comics.
And then the movie Black Panther came out.
They're really, really, you know,
centralized my focus on telling stories,
everything for from a BIPOC lens and
everything.
Right.
And so when I did it,
I wanted to pay tribute and give a
legacy piece of everything to my mom.
And she was really big on family.
And so I figured the best way to
do it was to go out there and
do some research and everything.
It led me to Africa.
And the more and more I did my
research and everything, too, on it,
I wanted that mythology embedded into my
story.
So it led me to your mythology.
So I was able to get those African
deities, like the Orisha,
involved or anything into the story I
wanted to tell.
And so I set out to create this
flagship title called Magnus Shakuta.
So in my years,
I was a huge Milestone fan growing up
and everything.
So I love what Dwayne McDuffie was doing.
And so I always knew that, hey,
Milestone had Static.
They had Icon.
They had hardware.
But Static was really,
really well known at that point in time.
So I figured, you know what?
If I'm going to do this thing,
I have to have a flagship character,
a flagship title.
And that's how I started my journey.
I didn't know...
You know, three and a half,
four years and everything from now, uh,
that would be where I met today as
a full-fledged public publisher, uh,
that has an imprint called a house of
wise and publishing the other crazy thing
out there too, at the same time.
And that's how we actually met is through
one of your other creators,
putting us in contact with each other to
make this show happen.
So shout out Parker.
in the demons which phenomenal phenomenal
read the story the title isn't the story
you think it is trust me i learned
the hard way but the story itself is
dope as hell so we all learned the
hard way yeah y'all that went out that
one is amazing as well
But we were talking beforehand,
and we've shared a lot of these same
experiences in life.
How has those experiences shaped the kinds
of stories and characters you want
Wiseacre Comics to bring into the world?
So every convention I go to and
everything,
I get this question quite a bit.
And I always tell them that every story,
every book that you read,
is I'm giving a piece of myself to
you.
So every character and everything that I
have created and everything is a piece of
my family.
So for example,
Magnus Cood and everything,
all of those characters and stuff,
they're my dad, my mom, my brothers,
my sister, my niece, my nephews, my wife,
my daughters, my son,
my aunties and uncles.
They're all encompassed in some kind of
way.
So when they read a book and everything,
they're like, are you talking about me?
And I'll be like,
did you pick that up?
know nice extension so i'm at the
convention stuff i feel more comfortable
talking about characters everything these
stories everything to them because they
represent who i am as a person dude
that's dope man and it's cool that you
you you did it and then they were
like oh wait are you talking about us
at least it was good right it's not
like you were talking about them in a
comic book
I don't know.
And they loved it.
I think that's one of the reasons why
a lot of people,
when they read Magnus for the first time,
they relate to a person that's grounded.
That's one of the best things and stuff
when you come to indie.
I always say the handcuffs are off.
They're off right.
And you're not limited or restricted on
what you can say, what you can do.
You can take the story anywhere you want
to go with it.
And people will relate to it.
And so, you know,
I'm using my imagination.
I'm trying to create these scripts and
everything.
I don't sit back and say,
you know what?
I can't put that in a script.
I can't put that in a story.
Watch me.
I'm going to do it.
That's what's so great about indie, man.
And I say this constantly.
Like, why can't you do in indie?
There's nobody to stop you.
It's up to your own conscious and how
far you're willing to push that envelope.
Yeah,
there's no limitations and everything,
right?
And I always ask the five whys,
the who, the what, the how, the why,
and everything at the same time,
especially with writing and everything,
too.
How am I writing to impact people?
What would they get out of everything,
too, at the same time?
I try to utilize some motivational things
and stuff as well in there because I
want the story to have a profound impact
on a person.
So when they put the book down,
they take a moment to sit back and
say, what did I just read?
I need to read that again.
Those moments and stuff are very special
because when I'm at those conventions and
stuff and a person walk up to me
and say, you know what?
I have read issues one, two, and three.
I've been waiting to see you in person
to pick up issues four and five because
I just need to talk to you about
your story.
Give me the why.
Why did you create this, right?
And to be able to share that with
another person and everything,
to share your journey, I say, you know,
it's very impactful not only to the
member, but also to myself.
Dude, I like it, man.
I know you just got back from Houston
doing a convention.
So you're in that that turndown mode right
now, man,
because you got to recover from that
stuff.
And I'm definitely glad that you joined us
tonight to to talk to us about Wiseacre
and what y'all got coming up.
But you've grown.
Wiseacre has grown beyond a single
character or a series into multiple
properties.
and creative ventures what is the larger
vision behind wise acre comments and
everything you're building under the house
of house of wise so you know i
had i had two i put two different
circles on a piece of paper everything
right i put image and i put milestone
in the middle was wise acre comics and
i wanted to figure out a way forth
on how to map
this process going forward right to see
the pros and cons uh the the successes
and failures everything in both companies
and stuff and find my own way along
this path and i told myself at the
top of the paper was family that was
the heading and i told him if i
do this
I'm gonna build it on an ecosystem of
family.
Everyone has a seat at the table.
Their ideals will be respected and
everything to the same time.
Their opinions and everything will matter.
And their stories,
they will have a voice to be able
to speak and tell it to everyone that's
open to be receiving their stories, right?
So to create an infrastructure that's
built on that notion to where a person
coming through that door and say,
you know what,
I have a story to tell,
I just don't know how to tell it.
Then if I have the resources to make
that happen, to sit them down,
put a creative team or anything around
them,
and then go out there and now publish
that book,
and then also now put that book on
store shelves, you know,
I've done my part within this space.
My goal is to try to elevate this
space, not to bring it down,
but to continue to elevate it to open
up more doors going forward.
I like it.
And that's right along the same lines of
what I try to do each time I
have a new creator on is not just
bring them up,
but bring everything else up with them.
But with that,
with multiple projects in development,
how do you decide which stories are
receiving the time, the resources,
and that opportunity to hit the store
shelves and to move forward?
Because I'm sure you get just a plethora
of people hitting you up on probably a
daily basis.
Yeah, well, first I started myself, right,
because I have so many stories in the
pipeline that I've written, you know,
for the last five years now.
And I'm ciphering through trying to figure
out, okay,
which one goes to the top,
which one gets made now,
which one continues,
which one gets scrapped and everything,
right?
That process still goes through a pretty
tame lens.
So I have my editor-in-chiefs and
everything to kind of review my scripts or
whatnot.
We have the art director and everything,
Louis Azanza,
who comes in to look at the art
style,
uh to see you know if it's color
it's everything a mesh the aesthetic and
everything of the pages and stuff we're
looking for from a story standpoint uh so
we do submissions at least two rounds of
it twice a year we get six sixty
to some eighty submissions every year
right and we go every single one
and i take a lot of notes right
if i say hey this this story has
great potential but this person really
needs an editor i'll make a mental note
and i put a remark say i like
the submission but it would be contingent
on if they needed you know if they
wanted to take and accept the editor to
be attached to it uh because i want
to get the again the tools to get
this book on starship
Because a lot of stories,
everything you write,
even the shooters and stuff are very
selective when it comes to your first
impression is your last impression.
I'm still fighting that notion because you
just can't put anything on a shelf.
They just won't let you do that.
So I tell everybody, you know,
why is Acre Comics logo goes on front
of a book?
is because it's been vetted,
the team has looked at everything,
and the creative team itself as a whole
has embraced the notion of they want a
great first impression.
And so you get a great product at
the end of the day because we want
to make sure the customers come back.
and go to the store and everything again,
pick up the next issue and issue after
that as well.
So it's a very tedious process.
All books do not make it through the
queue and everything is very rigorous,
but we have a great team in place
that makes it happen.
I love to hear it, dude.
And I love the fact that you actually
go through all of them.
I know some companies that, no,
they might go through a third
and the rest are going back into the
trash bin or recycling or belief or
however it's done.
We try to respond to everybody and
everything.
Even in the packages and stuff,
I tell them, hey,
if I don't respond to you,
feel free to reach out to me and
ask me directly if you made a cut
or not.
If you didn't,
I will go back through and take notes
and stuff.
We have a two-third vote out of three
that has to get it through the queue.
Yes,
I get the final say-so if I really,
really like it,
but sometimes I get voted down.
We love your enthusiasm for this right
here, but no.
And so that happens often, right?
But like I said,
there are certain stories of everything
I'm very passionate about.
And maybe because I'm passionate about the
creator.
I've listened to their story and they have
a personal story that really resonates
everything with me.
And I would tell the students, look,
my vote
is a bigger vote.
So I would say yes to this and
I'm going to do it because I love
what this person brings to the table.
And oftentimes I can say, you know,
I see a lot of myself in that
person and I feel like, you know what,
I can come out to get to where
they want to go in life as well.
So I use those tools and stuff,
like I said,
at the end of the day,
my experiences in the military and my life
really pour into this company I'm
building.
so we grew up with being told that
flexibility is the key to air power right
exactly so and that's what i had to
do last night because when we when i
shut that final email off you're like hey
can we flex and discuss this right here
i was like stay no more that's easy
enough so we're now going to dive in
to dark sentinels origins to the price of
vengeance that's that's wrapping up
correct
Yeah, so that one's wrapping up.
We're still in late places for them right
there.
That campaign was successful.
Mark Glaive is a writer and creator on
that series.
I call him one of the OGs for
the House of Wise imprint.
He's one of the first four that we
actually signed to the House of Wise and
everything.
He has a great series, a great story.
I won't just shed and everything,
but there will be a little tease of
a spinoff and everything that comes with
his character as well.
on behind the scenes called Aftermath.
That's for a future day.
But as soon as, you know,
we'll talk a little bit more about that.
But again, we're in late places right now.
You can still get, you know,
a couple of the tiers.
But Mark is working on like the last
two pages of inks,
the last three pages of colors.
And we're going to wrap that book up
and it's going to letters.
And then we get that book hopefully off
in the beginning of August time frame,
you know, mid-August,
late August time frame, early September.
So but anybody who's just now like this
the first time they're hearing about Dark
Sentinel,
who is Dark Sentinel and kind of like,
what is that?
Like, what's his story?
Like,
kind of give us the quick down and
dirty the two minute pitch, if you will.
So when Mark created this sort of thing,
this mission he sent me,
it was basically during the era of George
Floyd.
There was instant everything that happened
with a younger kid.
His parents ended up getting killed.
And then from a grief standpoint,
we tell a person,
you don't know how this grief is going
to set in and what's going to come
of it.
And that's what happened with Dark
Sentinel.
I get this question often.
Is Dark Sentinel a good guy or a
bad guy?
If I tell you that he's a leader,
he falls in between,
there will probably be your basis of the
story and everything else, right?
He's a dark person that's going on a
dark path that's spiraling out of control
and no one can control him at all.
There is no help for him.
His mental state is completely shot.
OG Punisher.
That's what I just heard.
It's the OG Punisher before...
Like he kind of learned to deal with
the PTSD, the emotion.
I mean, he's still, you know,
depending on how he's rebooted,
whenever he's rebooted, you know,
we may see that return.
But no, that's really dope.
I like those kind of characters where you
just don't know.
so depending on how far he goes down
his hole if he if if he ever
comes back to reality and everything of
himself or who he capable to be and
everything like that at the same time and
then mark has created you know different
things and stuff factions and stuff that
you will see within his story different
other characters everything too uh there
is a detective that's actually on the the
tail of dark sim everything chasing him
pretty much trying to figure out you know
who he is and how to stop him
but he's always a step behind right so
we see that character side as well also
uh but yeah it's a great team on
it um a great a great book uh
i think mark went a little bit overboard
you know in a way to give uh
i think the readers a little bit more
depth yeah story so this will be a
We're edging right down to the graphic
novel territory.
Yes.
So I'll tell you about it if you've
ever read Dark Side of the Moon.
One,
definitely go back and read it and
everything because this is going to bring
you to a point in the story that's
going to be very pivotal in everything
going forth for what's to come in the
future for the series.
Let's go.
Let's go.
That's what I'm talking about.
So let's dive into a little bit behind
the production of what you do at
Wiseacres.
And so readers often just see the finished
comic,
but they rarely see everything required to
actually produce one.
Take us behind the scenes.
What does the production pipeline for
Wiseacres look like?
Or pipeline for a Wiseacre comics project
look like from the initial concept to the
finished book?
so i know every creator has their own
different process for me uh my first
process everything is i'm old school i
take a piece of paper and a pen
and everything and i start crafting the
outline
I put everything of, you know,
first I get one big paragraph of what
I want the story to be.
At that point, I outline the beat sheet.
I like to call it everything.
So if it can be twenty,
twenty four pages, there'll be twenty,
twenty one items, numbers,
everything on the page.
And I create a beat,
a single line of text,
pretty much a basic sentence, right?
What that page would consist of.
And then once I have that,
I would actually send it over to my
editor and say, hey,
what do you think of this story and
be like throw that in the trash that's
not gonna work right uh and then
oftentimes say you know what i love what
you're doing but here are some additional
notes and everything to consider but keep
cool with give me some more and so
i will go back to the table and
everything right and take those notes and
stuff make my revisions
Send it back to me.
Press forward with the story.
I think it would be great.
And then at that point,
I would start scripting the actual story.
So it was pretty much a twenty to
twenty four page script.
Once the script and everything is
finished,
the only way I do everything is I
send the first five pages over to my
artists.
to give me a look at everything of
it as well.
And that's give me five pages of layout
so I could see the vision.
So I could visualize if this is exactly
what I want the story and everything to
be.
Then once that happens,
I would send those five pages of layouts,
everything,
and the script and everything I wrote back
to the editor to say, OK,
give me the thumbs up to go full
lead everything.
with full production of the story.
Once that happens, everything right,
once we go to full production,
we're going to like councils,
we do layouts first,
all the layouts first.
then we're going to refine like rough
pencils and then we'll try to you know
make sure we bump the script towards rough
pencils and then once we make those final
tweaks and stuff to it i go into
final pencils and then inks once inks
comes off everything right that's why i
tell everybody your script is going to
change no matter what because we need to
cut some you have to cut some very
important dialogue off sometimes
If there's moments for a quiet beat to
happen,
I just don't need a dialogue within it
because I don't want to cover up the
artwork because the artwork is just
beautiful.
I'd rather you see it and use your
senses and everything to figure out that
panel and digest it yourself later versus
me telling you and go overboard with
exposition and everything for that to
happen.
So no matter what happens after we've done
that part,
we send it over to the editor for
a final review.
If the editor and everything is good,
we go with letters.
Back to the editor one last time to
review the final letters and everything to
make sure there's no errors and stuff on
it.
The book and everything is packaged.
It's ready to go.
I mean, we got pencil, inks, colors,
letters, editor review and everything.
And then I do one final review.
I will get a simple copy of the
book in hand, in the mail, to me,
and I'll do a QC on it to
make sure it looks the part and the
customer's going to be happy.
Once I QC it,
I go into full print production,
and then that book's ready to go into
people's hands at conventions or online.
That's pretty much my process.
To summarize that for everybody listening
out there later,
it's like when you fix that plate at
Thanksgiving and some of those fits-ins on
there,
sometimes you got to pull a little bit
of those off so it ain't falling off
the plate.
That's what my man just said.
So as a creative writer sometimes,
this is why I say editor is very
important.
It's a second set of eyes.
And two,
they bring you back down to earth
sometimes because my scripts and
everything can be so much in-depth and
light.
Fred, we really don't need that.
I know you want it,
but you don't need it.
You know,
especially when it comes to dialogue,
right?
Let the art breathe.
Let the art tell the story of everything
to its same time.
And let the reader and everything embrace
what you're just trying to get across to
them.
And they'll pick it up on everything,
right?
Are you a dialogue-heavy guy?
Early on, I am,
but mainly because I want to be able
to get everything out of my head onto
paper.
What else am I thinking everything to?
And I want to be able to give
the editor a chance to get in my
head space.
So that way we're on the same page
and we're kind of coming to understand
everything.
Because usually editors are going to go
with what you want to do,
but they're going to read you in just
a little bit to make sure that the
flow, the pace and everything reads well.
Right.
And so.
This creative team, like I said,
especially this year,
I took a chance where I took another
step.
And I started bringing the editor in a
little bit earlier than I normally would.
And there's two projects I'm working on
right now, Tolo and Tambu.
And with this new process,
I'm seeing the fruits of my labor.
With going through the process of the
editor being earlier in the process versus
later in the process,
the things are
Magnificent.
When they say you need to create a
team to produce a comic book, yes,
you need to create a team.
Everybody's an important part of this
process.
I can't tell you enough how many times
I've heard on here somebody say,
get yourself an editor who will be honest
with you.
And what does that mean?
That means they're going to tell you.
They're not going to sugarcoat it.
They're just going to tell you, hey,
hold it back.
Reign it in.
That page right there is shit.
We don't need that page.
So,
and I hear it quite often and to
a point where I'm like, all right,
I know when I start, you know,
doing mine,
first thing I'm doing is I'm finding the
editor.
I have Andrea right now.
I just sent him a script for Razaar,
which is the next zero shot of the
theme for Tom Boo, obviously her story,
for one shot.
And I gave him my outline.
He read it and everything.
He said, Fred, you know,
there was one segment and everything in
there that I really,
really wanted in the story to write.
Because I just fit Tom Boo's story and
everything was also.
And he came and said, you know,
I read the notes and I was like,
hey, you know, I read it.
I do agree.
But I really, really, he said, but Fred,
you don't need that.
He said,
think about the bigger picture here.
He said,
this is a small problem that you're trying
to solve.
But if you're world-winning,
if you're going to build a world out
with a small problem,
your story's going to be minute.
It's going to be very centralized to where
you can grow it.
He said,
but if you go to a bigger problem,
which is what you have right here,
get rid of this other piece and focus
on this right here, the bigger picture,
you have a whole story to tell.
And as soon as I looked at it
and everything, I said, OK,
this is the reason why I hired an
editor.
okay you know and the more and more
i started writing it it made a lot
more sense with that direction everything
versus me getting the smaller picture
because i couldn't see the bigger picture
at first yeah and then once he painted
that picture thing for me for me to
see take a step back to digest and
everything to visualize it the sky was the
limit now i'm just right i'm like easy
easy okay let's do it
So when you say that,
were you trying to make like a tertiary
storyline into it,
like the primary storyline?
Is that what he was saying with that
or like a subplot of a subplot?
Is that where you were trying to?
Yeah.
In a way,
there was a there was a segment of
everything in the previous the previous
issue of another character.
Right.
They have this this other character that's
going to have their own.
zero issue gotcha i wanted to bridge both
of those stories together and everything
and doing my bridge he was like you
know we really don't need that career i
saw it happen in this story so why
duplicate it gotcha give that person their
own identity
their own personality and make the reader
hate that person,
despise them for what they're doing,
everything,
but also love them because of what they're
doing,
because what they're doing is actually
right.
It's about the way of getting it done.
And I was like, OK,
is having that person in your ear when
those things have happened, everything.
That's a lot of sense.
And I love that, dude,
because I've seen that
excuse me I've seen that in mainstream
comic books where I'm like why is this
plot here like in the like why is
this here like this makes no sense to
the whole story I've read through eight
issues now we're almost to issue ten and
this is only a ten issue series like
why is this whole issue about a sub
point that was squashed back in issue
three or four you know and it's kind
of like
you're a big two what are you doing
here like this made it through editing
yeah it's it's uh like I said I'm
very picky on editors and everything right
uh because I want them to I want
them to push me I want them to
push my writing uh I'm working with both
uh Toshi on Aftermath uh Brittany on
Harlem
Andrea on Tambu and Tolo,
they have pushed me to write better.
Andrea, what's her last name?
Andrea is a, what's Andrea's last name?
Andrea is a heat.
Okay.
Let me.
There was somebody else recently on here
and their editor's name was Andrea.
Andrea more than that.
Might be the same one, actually.
Andrea Molinari.
I met Andrea.
I can't remember who it is.
If they were male or female.
So I apologize to Andrea.
I didn't mean any offense by that.
But this is what he does, right?
He teaches courses and stuff at the
collegiate level.
He has a PhD and everything at the
same time.
And so we sit down,
we have our discussions about storytelling
aspects of it.
and we think of different ideals,
that conversation tends to spark and go
further and further than everything to
where your imaginations go wild.
He'll make recommendations and everything
to you.
Hey,
you need to read this before you start
this portion of the story, the script,
everything, right?
I'm going to sit there.
OK, I got my homework assignment.
I got to read this now.
And so Andrea and everything has done a
great job for me.
I think it's going to do great going
forward.
or a lot more stories everything in the
future uh you know him and Brittany are
kind of a little bit opposite in a
way because Brittany is more I would say
tactful when she comes to her points to
where she wants to see what I want
to say about it first yeah she'll probe
a little bit and she should you know
you don't have to do this but you
know this is the way so she's more
structured or everything right yeah and so
she's really really good because she
opened up my third eye to allow me
to see some things and stuff from an
imaginative standpoint to where while i'm
looking for a big explosive page say look
let's have that go to the turn page
let's shock the reader versus right now
because they see it but their eye is
going to look at this on this right
page right here they won't focus on the
left page because the right page is really
really good so
let's take that beat and make it a
turn page instead.
And I was like,
I didn't think about that.
Okay.
There's nothing better than you're on that
right page reading down and you're like,
Oh damn, this is good.
And then you do that flip.
It's like the pivotal splash page.
You know what I'm saying?
You're like,
Oh, buddy.
It's those moments and stuff and
everything, right?
I enjoy it now as a writer because
even me, when I'm writing everything,
I want to get to that next page
now.
I'm like, I know it's right there.
And it makes me so excited to get
to the turn page that I'm going to
go big with this page to really hit
the reading and everything in the good.
And so, you know,
if you're not having fun
writing the comic book writing the story
you know you're probably in the wrong
business uh because business should be fun
it should never be boring at all oh
yeah no i i agree and i know
you you just walked me through how your
creative process and like kind of how you
do business on that and i don't know
how much time you're actually getting to
write because as wise acres is grown
How much of your role is still creative
compared to managing teams, budgets,
schedules, marketing, production?
Because, I mean,
you get to enjoy some time and write
some books and create stories.
But how much of that time are you
actually getting to do that versus the
business side of things?
yeah i find myself having a hard time
balancing making time to write because uh
uh from my conventions and i said you
know reading reading different submissions
and stuff uh doing a lot of interviews
uh working with the artists and creators
everything too on their projects and stuff
too at the same time reviewing their pages
you know like i'm making today he was
like hey fred i got the the script
ready to go all of the color pages
everything i am can you bump the script
everything for me uh one last time before
we set up the letters i'm like
Let me look at my calendar real quick,
Amiga.
I'm going to put it on my docket,
right?
There's not enough time in the day.
And so I had to find ways to
balance family.
I had to find ways to balance business.
I had to find ways to find time
to write.
And one of the things I take from
Kobe,
his mentality and everything was the Kobe
mantra, the Mamba mantra and everything.
You have to burn the midnight oil
sometimes to get to where you want to
go.
And so the final hour before I go
to bed, I can be a vampire thing,
right?
I'm sitting there, stand up, saying,
you know what?
I don't want to do it,
but I have not got two pages today.
And I knock them out.
And so it's a little bit of a
sacrifice to make it happen.
But I found myself doing more business
stuff more so than ever now than I
had when I was a creator to where
I had more time to write.
And so a lot of stories that I
pushed out early on won't get a second
issue because I just don't have enough
time to get back to it.
And those are decisions that you have to
make as a publisher,
running the imprint and everything,
and also trying to create your own stories
at the same time,
that you just don't have enough time in
your day to make that happen.
Dude, I get it, man.
Trust me.
I get many of one o'clock, two o'clock,
sometimes three a.m.
I want to get this one episode off
my desk, get it scheduled,
get the email sent to the creator saying,
hey,
You are now scheduled.
Here is the shorts from this video.
Here is this.
Everything is scheduled.
You'll start seeing everything roll out
across social media within a day or two
because sometimes it's not going to be the
very next day normally,
especially right now.
It's going to be maybe two or three
days.
And then for the longer form content that
I do, it may be two weeks.
But what it does when it does that,
though, is now it's evergreen content.
It's that content from two weeks from now
when somebody sees that roll out and they
go, oh, yeah,
let me go check that out.
And now it's that kind of a circle
moment where you get the initial push and
then like a week, two weeks later,
you get that circle back moment for people
tuning in to watch that particular short,
whether it's about Kickstarters or
whatever process it is.
they go oh damn that's a good one
let me go check that out again and
check out this creator while i'm at it
so but yeah no those two three o'clock
in the morning sometimes sometimes you
just gotta do it well you have to
i i think this year i found more
so uh doing a lot more collaborations with
other crazy everything too right uh so
let's bring it up you know i picture
i didn't say you know what i had
an idea that was going to work by
myself but
How about we partner up,
and we co-write this thing,
co-create this thing,
and we split costs and everything into it
at the same time to get this thing
produced right?
And then have work,
because now I don't have to focus on
all of the writing.
I can focus on our ideas and everything,
too.
We merge those things.
We bring everything into it at the same
time.
They can look at it and say,
what you thought of everything?
They're like, hold on.
We love this.
This is good.
We find ourselves producing stuff faster
at a faster clip.
versus going at it alone by yourself.
And so there will be projects that you'll
see that will probably come out in the
near future where you have two co-writers
on a book.
I do a lot of those, man.
I have a lot of those types of
creators online.
You have to.
You have to be able to adapt and
overcome, especially in this space,
everything relevant.
Because the one time you stop and pause,
when you lose you you lose that momentum
capturing and going everything to where
now you're not the back burner and people
have forgotten about you yeah dude yeah a
hundred percent that's why my release
schedule is the way it is is daily
you're going to get a taste of the
usdn on a daily basis one way or
the other even if i have to go
into the archive of stuff that
Well,
before I learned what the hell I was
doing,
when I was just kind of figuring shit
out,
I have like probably a thousand hours
worth of content that I could reach back
to and re-release on a different scale now
that I know and I've learned new ways
of doing business.
Right.
And it's good to have that,
that maternity thing.
Right.
Because one thing I learned, uh,
ethnic conventions and stuff, you know,
I'd be walking to the table that meet
me for the first time.
And the first thing has been like, Hey,
I saw your content on Instagram or Ted
talk, you know, on YouTube.
I'm like, really?
I'm thinking my stuff is not even getting
out there.
Okay, great.
That's awesome to hear.
Uh,
oftentimes it's recycled material that
utilize.
Back when I first started and everything,
I just stayed with people.
They enjoyed everything already.
They found me for the first time.
I'm not afraid to utilize that old
material and everything.
Cause that's the material that started
this journey.
And that's what got you to where you
are and everything now.
No, I got,
when I was doing new comic book day
and I had tagged the artists who had
done a cover for a book.
On the Keen Spot, actually.
And I was giving them hella praise.
Like, hey,
I really like what they're doing.
Their covers are amazing.
They have this really cool art thing
they're doing in New York.
They're doing this and that.
And then, like, here we are, like,
almost a year later.
ago i did that and then earlier no
late last week they were like hey thanks
for this i'm for some reason just now
seeing this thank you so much i was
like i had to go back myself and
look at the date on it i was
like damn that was like a year ago
i'm like hey cool yeah no worries man
i meant every word of it you know
keep doing what you're doing i love to
see what you're doing and um so i
was like that was odd and cool all
at the same time awesome
That's awesome to see, man.
It's awesome to hear everything, too.
Like I said,
at the end of the day, those,
I like to call them motivational moments,
lessons learned.
You can see how far you've come.
know going back and looking at the
beginning stages everything right with the
content and even improving upon you can
say you know i was here not a
benchmark everything is here and you
continue to elevate your game as you
continue to go forth everything too and so
even as a creator as a writer everything
at the same time create comic books always
try to find ways to improve
I never stayed to the point where I
was like, you know what?
I'm there.
I have arrived.
No, I'm never going to be there.
There's always a moment for me to improve
my craft.
And I try to do it each and
every time.
I always say you have to learn something
new every day.
Doesn't matter what it is,
just as long as you learn something new.
every day in the creator I am today
is not the same creator I was yesterday
or the day prior to that.
I just had Kyle and Aaron Valley on
of Big Squid Productions to talk about
their new horror movie Autonomous.
What I learned from their first appearance
when I when they did Zombie Con Volume
one almost in December of twenty twenty
five is when they were on the podcast.
And then the creator I am,
like when I interviewed them just two
weeks ago or a week ago, they're like,
dude, you've grown like exponentially.
Like you took some of the,
like the small things that we taught you
when we were first on, cause they did,
they were like, Hey,
instead of doing this, this way,
how about you try this way in this
way to do this?
And I was like, okay, perfect.
Let me write this down nuggets to learn.
And, you know,
and they literally just sent me like,
you know, hey, try this, try that,
try this, try that.
And I tried every single one of them
and I adapted every single one of them
into the process that I still do today.
It's just now I've learned and I've
tweaked that,
I've modified that and improved upon that.
And you have to learn every day.
You have to.
But what part of producing independent
comics do you believe creators
underestimate the most?
I'm going to say this because this is
my Achilles heel.
This is my kryptonite in a way, right?
Marketing.
Marketing.
We focus so much on getting the story
ready to go.
that we failed to be the marketing machine
that we need to get this thing out.
And that's probably one of my biggest
issues.
Because one, I'm very antisocial.
I hate being in front of a camera.
I hate talking to people.
I hate being around people in big crowds
and everything.
It's something I just had at a younger
age and I cannot get out of it,
right?
But I forced- It's not given what we
did for a living.
And I forced myself to be uncomfortable in
those moments and everything.
But I still get the word,
the hair raised on the back of your
neck and everything to where, okay,
do I belong here in this space?
And so marketing has become a crutch and
everything in a way to where you love
what you do.
You love looking at it like, oh,
this is great.
But you're afraid to put it in somebody
else's hands and speak to them about it.
and be your number one salesman in a
way to where we forget about how important
marketing everything is and that's where i
know for me i have to get better
uh and i'll probably you know the crazy
everything out there probably going to
test this everything too that marketing is
especially for indie comics is one of the
number one things that you know we try
to strive to do better okay you know
that's a hundred percent and i
Dude,
if I had a dollar for every creator
that has said marketing,
I would have a whole hundred bucks.
Because almost every single one of them
has said it.
And I know I try to do the
best I can for each creator that comes
on,
whether it's their lead up to and after.
And I do what I can.
And I always tell people, I'm like...
hey i can only do this so far
you also have to step in and do
some yourself i do the initial push you
have to follow up with that and uh
because i do i consider what i do
marketing no but at the end of the
day i am still doing marketing for you
myself and everything connected to us now
so
But yeah, that's one of those things.
Every single creator will say it,
marketing.
I will say marketing because I could do
better, but marketing, a hundred percent.
Yeah, definitely in this digital age,
right?
And I heard this a lot this past
weekend was you have to meet
your future customer where they are.
You have to get out in front of
them.
And sometimes it takes going to
conventions, putting yourself out there.
Yes, it is a small investment in yourself,
yes.
But again,
you look at the big ways and stuff,
how they started and whatnot.
They started at a very small level.
I use Seb from Stranger Comics,
for example.
I remember his photo with Seb and
everything where he was at a six foot
table.
one chair,
one seat behind the table and everything.
It was just him.
And then I told him, I told him,
I told him this story.
I use it as motivation because when I
go to Phoenix Fan Fusion,
I see that he has a pretty much
a huge space where it's pretty much a
full square of tables and stuff with a
mark to the books for the owner.
And he has two banners on each side
that has his logo, his brand.
i accept you know your growth has been
profound and but when you look at silver
though seo can pretty much sell you the
logo the decadent thing on the back of
a peanut can't have you paying a hundred
dollars for a penny that cost me it's
wild man he can market that you know
what i don't have a
Everybody I take when I say, hey, look,
I'll tell you about Stranger Comics, yes.
But I want you to see what he
has been doing.
You probably go in a purchase or something
for him because self service that you're
going to sell it to you more going
to realize you're going to walk away
spending money and not realize you bought
the way spending money.
I tell myself every time, Hey,
I'm not buying anything from some booth
right day, right?
Not today.
Not today.
Can't do it.
What I do about all of this stuff
and I'll get his signatures and everything
because he had tiny tiny four, you know,
there at the convention, everything too.
I'm like,
I have to get Tony's for a book.
And you,
and you walk away and you're like, wait,
what?
What just happened?
What?
We're talking about this because marketing
goes hand in hand with what we're about
to talk about.
And that's crowdfunding.
Crowdfunding has become probably the
biggest major part of independent
publishing.
But launching a campaign is only part of
that process.
Why have you learned about crowdfunding
and fulfillment that you couldn't have
understood before running your first
campaign?
I wish I'd been educated more on
crowdfunding, the platform.
And it's something I had to really dig
into the weeds of it myself and learn
the ins and outs of everything of it.
And a lot of it came by trial
by error.
Just go out there and try it,
see what happens, right?
And take those notes and everything and
come back,
streamline it to where it gets better.
Trying to figure out the platform to
where, hey,
a lot of times we do ads on
Facebook.
It doesn't feed into the Kickstarter
platform because that platform,
which is like Kickstarter and everything,
Facebook, Instagram,
they have their own algorithm to where it
reads and sees certain things.
trying to figure out a way to direct
traffic to Kickstarter takes not only
educating people about the platform and
how they actually sign up for it and
everything,
but also when it comes to a trusting
relationship to where rewards and
everything are being sent out in a timely
fashion to fight that right.
This platform is a vehicle for,
especially for indie creators and
everything out there.
And it takes a village because Kickstarter
has created this platform to where
that allow you to actually come out there
and showcase your works,
but also build a community of readers,
new readers that enjoy indie comics.
And this is why I say,
There is,
I don't have a competitive bone in my
body, right?
I don't see things as a competition.
I see it as continue to find ways
to lift everyone up in this space.
So I see other projects and stuff that
come across everything in the Iowa court.
I'd say if you're a super bagger,
you know,
you want those individuals and stuff
constantly, you know,
figuring out what you're offering them.
Collectors and everything out there,
you want to direct traffic and everything
to them to get your eyes on a
collectible piece that they might enjoy.
They're not collectors and stuff.
They probably won't enjoy it as much.
But crowdfunding is definitely something
that expanded their reader's base and
expanded our visibility when it wasn't
there at first.
That's one of those where I have
considered
like getting a group together and just
having, we'll call it a Kickstarter,
like one-on-one, right?
Just kind of like our lessons learned and
things that we've seen and we've noticed
while a,
as a backer B as a person who
has spoken to a lot of people running
a lot of campaigns over the years and
just kind of like,
just make one big super show of like
just good information about kickstarter
and running campaigns and marketing
campaigns and doing that kind of stuff
backer kit you know what is the backer
kit you know but it's gonna have to
be a while on that one because right
now i just ain't got the time but
it's something i do want to do later
on in the future probably
and slow down some in november december
that would probably be a great show to
do in that time frame where there aren't
a lot of uh kickstarters and that kind
of stuff being produced so i definitely
slowed down around that time frame so it'd
definitely be one of those where i could
do it in there so if i hit
you up again
We'll run it back.
We'll talk about Kickstarter and other
stuff like that.
Probably put together a panel is probably
what I would do for that.
That's a good idea right there.
Yeah.
Because I know a lot of you guys
at this point,
and I would love to have you all
back just to be in the same channel
together.
And just like everybody's picking each
other's brain and just talking about that
kind of stuff.
So that would be like, to me,
a Mondo show that I can then go
and promote after the fact, you know,
and try to get it as in front
of as many eyes as possible.
Nice.
Nice.
It's one of those things where I have
no issues,
like putting a little bit of money to
promote something,
especially something like that.
And, um,
Mental note on that one.
But you're wrapping up one campaign.
Another one's preparing to step into the
spotlight.
How important is earning enough trust that
backers continue returning to support the
next Wiseacre Comics project?
You know,
we have built a small community on
Kickstarter and everything, right?
So yes, everyone have lofty goals.
They want to make twenty,
forty thousand dollars, everything on it,
right?
that's always a goal that we have everyone
you know aspire to try to you know
reach uh but our goal is always modest
uh mainly because we want affordability uh
we want to be able to put the
books everything in in people hands and we
understand the market everything too that
people got to decide hey look
Can I afford this book today?
Or can I go out and make sure
I got groceries and everything, right?
And we understand all these.
And so the one thing often, you know,
we look at,
I understand that any market as well,
right?
When it comes to print, you know,
we can't print oftentimes in bulk to where
it's cheaper to print a thousand copies.
We only have to print maybe a hundred
copies at one point in time.
you know and it might cost us from
only pennies so we're looking at margins
and everything you know we're trying to
figure out how we can cover print costs
your book and everything might be a little
bit higher price than it would be on
kickstarter campaign versus go to the
bookstore and get a three four dollar five
dollar book uh and so one of the
things and stuff i say we you you
have to be able to sell the message
to your community
Get that button in.
That's very important.
And they continue to communicate with
them.
So if we don't weekly updates and letting
them know about the process and
everything, and I'm telling backers,
you know, I mentioned on the Magnus No.
followers and readers and backers from
previous campaigns, I updated them.
Oh, hey, this is what's coming.
The book is finished, folks.
I'm going to show you the first four
pages.
Follow the pre-launch everything.
You see that for free.
They trust it because they're able to see
what it looks like.
And then they come back on board,
and they follow the campaign.
And so I know going in and everything,
it's going to be a successful campaign or
not.
I'm OK to go in and listen.
What comes with it?
Great.
You know, goals can be modest.
I said, my goal to find your books.
I don't really need much because the book
is already printed.
It's ready to go.
I just want to get this book into
my backers hands to say,
thank you for supporting.
Now on a flip note,
it can be the way around for the
crazy and everything.
They might, they might have a, a,
a book to where they need funding.
So we had to finish printing or colors
or shipping and those stuff helped you out
in that aspect as well.
Yeah.
Which this is the perfect segue.
And every now and then I hit this
perfectly.
from one question to the next segment into
the next question and that's the next
segment.
Thurston Sentinel, wrapping up.
Magnus is next.
For members of the Council of Nerds
discovering Magnus for the very first
time,
introduce us to the character in the world
that you've built around him.
Yeah, so again,
this is a very personal story.
I mean, it has to be.
You're on issue six, dude.
Very few indie comics.
Well, I say very few.
I know quite a few now that are
issue ten,
but it's always special when you hit that
fourth, fifth, sixth mark.
So I'm going to take you through a
little story on how we got started.
This was through everything in itself.
Like I said,
back in two thousand and eighteen,
there was two pivotal moments in my life.
I lost my mom to cancer in December
of eighteen,
and then Black Panther came out in the
movie theaters and everything.
And during that time frame, you know,
I'm coming back on a plane back to
Arizona from Mississippi.
I had a napkin sitting on my little
tray there.
And I'm looking out the window trying to
figure out, get in my thoughts.
I just couldn't get in my thoughts at
all.
And I just drew a circle on a
napkin.
And a name came to me at that
point in time, and it was just Magnus.
And I put that on the paper.
Once I landed,
and I showed this graphic often and
everything,
I had the entire universe already mapped
out for what I wanted to write.
I wrote a single word, you know,
script wise or anything as we hit.
I was still processing my mom's death.
I didn't know how to grieve at that
point in time.
And so I started going into a spiral
of depression.
That night, about a week later,
I woke up in the morning, cold sweat,
got my phone,
and I typed out two stories.
Full stories, outlines and everything.
Magnuson one, I settled on.
And I was like, you know what?
Through my research and everything,
two at the same time,
it led me to Africa.
I wanted to see if there was a
story or anything out there that,
you know,
really focuses on African mythology that
focuses on the Orisha.
It wasn't special for the indie space or
in the big two.
I wanted to bring it to the forefront.
And so in doing so,
I wanted my first story to really be
about family because my mom was really big
on family.
And so the best way for me to
tell this story was to tell her life
in a way.
And so I wanted to create these characters
and stuff based off my mom, my dad,
my brothers, my sisters, my wife,
my daughters, my son.
My son is really the main protagonist of
everything in the story because we had
this love-hate type of relationship with
him as father and son.
Yeah.
So I think, you know,
why not make it about us?
And that's why I did.
Now, we wrote the first script,
everything myself.
I pitched it to Devin or Scott because
I feel like there's just too much for
me to handle myself,
especially going through this moment of
depression and grief.
I didn't know how long it was going
to take me to write everything.
So I created the outline.
We mapped out four to sixteen issues at
first.
I pitched it to Devin because Devin really
loved Thor.
I love X-Men.
I love Black Panther.
I love the Grey Lantern and everything.
I wanted that cosmic aesthetic and
everything to the story as well.
And I feel like Devin was a great
match for me.
He set the eyes.
So when I gave him the outline,
he was like, hey, Fred, man,
you got something special here.
Let's do it.
So I created all of the actual character
concepts,
got my concept artist who's based in
Africa.
And I said, hey, look,
I want authentic African characters that
look the part.
We're going to build it around this right
here.
And then once I found my artist,
Bruno Abdias, he was a huge X-Men fan.
And I said, hey, Bruno,
we have to have a first and lasting
impression.
Give me your best artwork.
And that's what he did.
He delivered a masterpiece for issues one
through four.
So I always tell people, if you love,
again, Static, Black Panther, X-Men,
Invincible, this is a high-octane series.
But this is not your standard
superhero-based series.
This is a story-driven series that really
focuses on a family coming together and
everything.
Because Magnus doesn't know he hasn't met
his father yet.
He doesn't even have a sister.
He's encountered by this alien species and
everything from a different planet,
from planet Nuya, that comes to Earth,
given a task by the goddess Olukun,
that he must deliver a message to Magnus,
that he must find his father at all
costs, because his other uncle,
Lord Arnik,
who is hell-bent on coming to Earth
himself, to find him, to kill him,
and destroy the entire bloodline.
That ends with pretty much everything,
right?
Dude, that shit is wild.
I love every second of that.
We laced you two parallel stories of a
young man,
but we also laced Arisha because they have
their own story of things as part of
their own story at the same time too.
And I always say this,
I always give this,
I don't give this away,
but I just give you a hint.
The name of the title is very important.
Dude.
Okay.
I got to get my hands on it,
first of all.
But how has it evolved?
How has Magnus evolved from the original
vision to where we are now in issue
six?
I got a chance to read this one
right here.
This just came in, right?
I got a chance to read this.
You've shown me that three times,
and every time you show it to me,
I'm like,
you ain't doing me a lot of favors,
man.
You got to get it in my hands,
too.
I got it...
A full circle moment because, uh,
when I started this journey,
it came from a seed of grief.
came from a seed of a mother's love
for her son, her family, everything,
to the same time.
It was one of the toughest moments of
my life.
I tell people this often.
I try to choke up everything when I
tell people this.
But I had the hardest task of a
son, a child,
to watch my mom pass away.
to have the Apple Watch on her arm,
that I still carry to this day,
still have it, still wear the same watch,
and watch her heartbeat just go.
And then to tell my father and my
auntie that she's gone.
And then to give the time of death
to the nurse.
And then to see a glow on my
mom to where there wasn't death but a
light that I saw.
And a lasting image of me standing at
the hearse and everything to where I
reached out to her,
where I felt like her life force was
just still there in the present moment,
that she was still be connected and
everything to me was the greatest gift my
mom gave me in that moment of life.
I didn't witness death.
I witnessed a life celebrated.
And the best way for me to tell
everything was to celebrate her life in
this way.
And so I sat back and did everything.
To be able to see this number six
issue and be able to put it in
my hands and open it up and read
it and everything was a full circle
moment.
Because the first time I saw the entire
family,
Together,
this is the first time you see the
entire family together all in one unit.
Um, there was a very special moment.
Uh,
I always just say number one was my
best issue might be my greatest issue.
It's just, uh,
you got me a little choked up too,
dude.
Cause I, when I lost my grandma,
I was.
on my second tour in korea and we
knew she was going and um i called
my aunt the morning i got i was
like on the airplane like hey in route
and um i landed and my grandma was
gone the only the last thing she asked
is is he on the way and then
she let go
she made sure my ass was on that
flight before she let go and um that
was uh and you've made that flight several
times from korea back to the states twelve
hours of just emotional roller coaster and
i'm not talking about turbulence either
just laughing about good times you had
been crying
laughing about something funny that,
you know,
she may have whipped your ass with us.
Cause she,
she was notorious for throwing a shoe and,
uh, just those little things like,
just like, man,
I felt bad for the lady sitting next
to me on the flight.
Cause she's like,
hell is wrong with this dude.
He's laughing one minute.
He's crying the next he's on his like
third whiskey Coke.
And.
But definitely emotional.
Uh, I remember, uh,
This one led me to the Orisha Rite.
There's a connective tissue and everything
to where, spiritually wise,
you're able to go into that realm of
being able to talk to your ancestors in
a way.
My mom,
for the week of Christmas and everything,
my mom didn't speak.
She was bedridden and everything.
She was unable to speak.
And I remember the phone call of my
dad.
She's like, Fred, you didn't get home.
We don't know how long she has.
I said, put her on the phone.
Put the phone to the air.
I want to speak to her.
And I spoke to her.
To her, I love her and everything.
And the words come out of her mouth
was, I love you too, baby.
That was the last time she spoke to
anyone.
The last word she spoke.
I knew then that she was going to
hold on.
She was going to be strong enough for
everything for me to get home.
To see her.
transition and she was waiting for me to
come home.
And, you know, in that moment, you know,
I,
I felt like I had a heavy burden
to, to, to make my way to the,
to the, to Mississippi and everything,
no matter what, because I'm like,
how many levels I had to get there
and everything, you know,
I was going to get there and be
there before she transitioned.
And so, you know,
When you see these characters and
everything in the story,
I know a lot of people got mad
at me and everything for killing off one
of the characters and stuff early on.
Those are moments and stuff I want people
to be able to feel the weight of
loss in that moment.
And that's to me,
just getting to the weeds of storytelling,
being able to give people your moment to
share with the world and say, man,
where are you coming from?
And relate to them because a lot of
people have felt this loss before, too.
Yeah.
No.
I'm right there.
I'm emotional with you on that one.
And we got to get out of this
before we both start tearing up.
But let's suspend this universe, dude.
Magnus is one of those properties you're
expanding beyond comics and into the world
of collectibles.
What made you believe Magnus could become
something larger than a comic book
character?
I mean,
I think you've already given us like an
hour of this talk to where we know
now why it is.
But what was it for you?
I grew up, you know,
my dad and my mom are thing for
Christmas and stuff.
Right.
One of the, one of the,
the biggest thing is always give the
action figures.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it didn't matter what Christmas and
stuff we was having transformers.
Yeah.
Joe's done the cats across the board and
everything.
Right.
Uh, uh, we'll be the action figure.
And I often told myself that when I
walk into a store with you today,
I can imagine Magnus being on the shelf,
and a kid of color coming up to
see himself and everything on the shelf,
representation-wise.
would be another legacy piece that I leave
to this world on my part that,
you know,
he can stand next to sit next to
Superman or the likes of a Batman or,
you know, in those moments and stuff,
sit next to Black Panther and stand with
these legends within the comic book lore,
Spider-Man across the board,
then why not me?
So, you know, I feel like, you know,
I had this universe I've created and
everything.
The characters are very unique and
everything in their own light,
in their own way.
Me being a fan of action figures and
collectibles and everything too at the
same time,
I can only imagine and envision how far
I can go with this.
and see me in this legacy piece of
everything by offering a action figure or
a toy, you know, to young kids.
Even young adults and even older adults
and everything, too,
have reached out to us and said,
this is awesome.
Hey, dude, tell me how to get one,
too.
Because I grew up, we're the same age.
I mean, we established that earlier.
But no.
There's nothing better than going with
your mom on a Friday afternoon or Saturday
morning to Kmart and getting whatever
fresh discounted action figure it was,
whether it was Transformers, Ninja Turtle,
Spawn, G.I.
Joe.
The moment they were trying to get rid
of the old stuff that had been sitting
on the shelf for a while,
and you could get those bad boys for
like three bucks.
exactly because i ain't getting a full
price it better be on sale those are
the moments everything right uh uh there's
always i always say there's always a kid
inside of you but person to date
everything are missing that uh those
moments and stuff that we really enjoy
through that time frame
And I feel like I can be a
piece of the equation to where we can
bring,
we can go back to where kids have
a childhood to where they enjoy sitting
down with their friends and everything,
sharing those action figures and stuff,
you know, just having a moment,
a space to be comfortable with everything
in and building that long lasting
friendship.
I remember, you know,
these are the moments and stuff when I
was coming up and everything, too.
You know,
he's probably going to laugh when he sees
this video.
I used to call him Little Frank, right?
He was one of my neighbors and stuff.
He would come over.
And that's what we would do.
It was comics.
Sports cars, action figures, video games,
everything, right?
That's what we did.
And then we'd bike through the
neighborhoods and everything.
There was a ton of stuff that were
neighbors and stuff for neighbors.
We'd go over everything without any issue,
no sort of pain.
Yeah, just bust into the house, you know,
just no knocking, no nothing, just...
No knocking, no nothing, right.
Yeah,
just walk right in the front door and
be like...
He played until the light came on.
You know you can be back home and
everything.
If you're not,
you can be at the other house and
be like, hey, Mom and Dad,
I'm going to spend the night over here.
All those things and stuff,
those are the moments and everything to
where I feel like we have lost this
space we can get back to with this
new generation.
There's a gap.
There's my dad generation that passed it
on to us.
We have to be willing to pass it
on to the next generation to carry it
on.
that's that's where the fight continues
everything to where these books and stuff
have to get into their hands and so
i wanted to have that that hard alone
fight to make that happen everything but
that's that's part of the equation oh a
hundred percent dude a hundred percent so
what was that like moving from or what
has moving into action figure production
taught you about manufacturing and
expanding your ips beyond comics
Be ready to believe in your IP.
If you believe in it,
that mindset that you're going to need
going into it and everything, right,
will pretty much push you toward the
lengths that you need to go.
Because when you start looking at the
financial piece and everything of it,
that can become a distraction to where you
don't do it, right?
So you have to have the bigger goal
in mind.
the long road in mind when doing these
things and so we only think about the
money aspect of it then if you let
that lead you've already lost so you have
to believe in what you're creating you
have to believe in your brain to believe
in your ip to believe in your character
everything the foremost
That has to be the foremost point in
your mind to where you always fall back
on it, no matter what.
Because like I said,
at the end of the day,
when you start seeing those figures and
everything come out,
you start getting those quotes and
everything come in.
Yes,
people are going to want to work with
you because they love what you're doing.
But you're in the business of making money
too, right?
And so those costs and everything,
like a molding fee to produce a mold,
are not cheap.
And a lot of times,
that's what set people and everything
back.
But always back to this notion of your
first impression is your lasting
impression.
Do it right.
Save the money.
If you don't have it right now, crowdfund,
if you need to and everything, right.
First time.
I've seen some of the craziest things
crowdfunded for and get funded.
So what's adding an action figure mold to
a Zoop or a Kickstarter or what other
platform is out there?
I mean, like I said,
I've seen crazier shit get crowdfunded on
Kickstarter.
Yep.
And so going into everything, I say no.
This is what we're going in phases.
We're going to create the IP.
We're going to create the books and
everything.
First and foremost,
we're going to create the merch.
And then the action figure will be next.
Let's continue to pitch it.
Let's continue to grow it and everything.
Let's continue to work with several
different manufacturers and whatnot to
where we get this right.
The last one,
I got to request everything and say, hey,
I'm going to do a three point seven
five inch.
They're like, hey, we love that idea,
but that might be a little bit too
small.
Can you go six inches?
Can you go one twelve scale?
I'm like, that costs money, but OK.
But being able to talk and negotiate with
these manufacturers and everything too,
that's the other side of the business,
everything, right?
You need to communicate and let them know,
Hey, you're serious about this,
but you're serious also about making sure
it's affordable for people to purchase.
And also to make it affordable for you
to continue to go back and probably do
another action figure, right?
So you're creating those business
relationships that's often missing,
especially with young publishers and
everything out there.
I love it, dude.
Everything you're doing is spot on, man.
Knowing how we grew up and seeing you
now being on the second part of our
lives, I guess you could say.
Our restart, I should say.
If you want to call it that.
I'm loving it, dude.
Everything you're doing over there.
I'm all in with you, man.
And it's amazing to see.
I know we talked extensively beforehand.
We are packed in life,
crossed multiple times.
We never met each other until tonight.
And it's just really cool to see where
I know we come from to where you
are right now.
and what you're doing, and what I'm doing.
The vision when I retired wasn't there,
but here I am doing this,
and getting to talk to people like you,
to me,
is one of the most fulfilling things in
the world.
Watching and knowing how we came up.
People will hear me say, grow up.
I don't really consider, yeah, I grew up.
I turned eighteen.
We got out of the house,
but I didn't grow up.
Until I got to my first place,
the first base I ever went to.
And I feel like you grow up with
that first people you meet in the
military.
You really develop your personalities and
who you're going to be.
But you're still going to grow.
You're going to evolve.
We do it for every time we move,
we grow, we evolve to the job,
whatever it may be.
And we are the twilights of our careers,
right?
And to be still evolving, you know,
it's just so dope, man.
Like, yeah, man,
I can get a little emotional talking about
that because it's cool as hell to meet
somebody who walked that path as you and
to be doing cool shit like this.
And then just randomly on a Tuesday night
in July meeting you, you know,
it's just wild to me, dude.
Like literally multiple basis over a
course of twenty years,
just crisscrossing each other's paths,
but never meeting until we're both sitting
down to talk about what?
Indie comics, brother.
I always say it's a small world, right?
It is a small, small world,
but like how, how, how,
how we zigzagging cross,
like literally like we were the first two
duty stations, same as that time.
And then, you know,
we crisscrossed missed each other at
certain points, but to land on July,
fourteenth, twenty, twenty six,
both of us retired.
And we're talking about indie comics on a
Tuesday.
Yeah,
but I look at it like this too,
right?
We've done the work.
We've served our country and everything
for plus years, some change.
We did our time.
And now we're doing things we love to
do.
know and oftentimes you don't you don't
get that you'll get that chance to have
the you know luxury to do things you
enjoy doing uh i i for one i
told myself you know once i took uniform
everything off that going forth and
everything too i'm going to spend time
with the family but so i'm gonna do
what i love doing i love art i
love telling stories i love you know
Just putting things in front of people
that they enjoy to bring laughter and
smile to their face,
to humanize a moment to where they feel
something inside of their worth of value.
Those moments are things to where I want
to be able to have a lasting impact
on a person because once I'm gone for
this world, I tell people this often,
once you're gone for this world,
what can you say you have left this
world?
And that's your story.
Everyone can remember your story if you
leave it.
What the thing is,
it's up to you to decide.
And I feel like, you know,
if I'm able to write these stories,
everything,
these books will be here until long after
I'm gone.
My grandkids will be able to read these
books and say, you know what, Pawpaw,
you know,
wrote this story thing and this is for
me.
He wrote, he probably don't know this,
but he wrote this for me.
And what they do with that and who
they become in life transcends all things.
And it's cool because we're literally on
the same level with that because I do
this to tell the stories of the creators
and what they are bringing and doing into
the community that we love.
And it's cool.
And it's awe-inspiring to the humble
beginnings of where we grew up and where
we come from.
to now be sitting here and just having
the ability just to do what we wanted
to do from the beginning, probably.
I mean,
not necessarily like what I do here.
This evolved,
but it's still the funnest job I ever
had.
Like getting to tell the stories of the
creators who are telling the stories.
Such an amazing ride, dude.
But I know we're getting short.
We got to start bringing this home and
that's what we're about to start doing.
So there's a point when creating comments
and running a comic book company become
two separate jobs.
What has been the biggest challenge you
faced in trying to grow Wiseacre comments
while continuing to produce that quality
content you want to produce?
You know,
the biggest thing that I face today in
Everything is Right is giving all creators
equal time.
You know,
being able to share in the moment
everything with everyone and to give them
all of the resources,
everything that they deserve.
And, you know,
because we have an expanding roster of
creators who can come aboard for the House
of Wise in print.
And we continue to expand,
continue to grow and everything too.
We've got even more announcements coming
up in the future.
But it's just finding time of the day
to give them my time and be in
the moment with them and be sure in
the moment.
And one of the things we did,
you know,
to solve that issue was to conduct house
calls.
You know,
bring it through a centralized platform
like Zoom to have house call and
everything to where we all come together
in fellowship and we discuss things and
stuff, you know,
amongst each other and everything.
Again,
it goes back to that kitchen table moment
where you were family.
that my mom often did everything too with
my friends and stuff.
I feel like, you know what,
this is an opportunity for me to do
so here at the House of Wise Family.
And so just getting my time and keeping
that time, you know,
to work
It's important to be present,
to be able to take a step back
and be able to listen,
to be able to talk about everything,
right?
And so it's just not enough time in
the day to make that happen.
And so we tried to do multiple house
calls.
And even that's a stretch because the
conventions and everything took the same
time.
And then trying to find, you know,
find time to film and everything took the
same time as well.
So it was just a balance.
It's a life-work balance that I felt like,
you know,
I had a good life-work balance in the
Air Force.
then you have to find that good life
work balance and everything and been
creating everything to the same time.
Dude, we're going to bring it home, man.
When you look at everything,
you're building the comics, the campaigns,
the characters,
the expansion beyond the printed page.
What do you ultimately want Wiseacre
comics to become?
It's a great question.
Uh,
I want this to be a community from
all walks of life or people coming
together and everything to where they
enjoy.
the art form, creativity,
and just being with joy and being amongst
each other and being able to have a
good discussion about what they have read,
what they have seen and to walk away
with something that resonated with them.
That's what I want Wise Acre Comets to
be.
All right.
Last thing before I let you go,
tell everybody where they can find Wise
Acre Comets
Go ahead.
You can find us across all social media.
The handle is always the same,
at Wise Acre Comics.
They're all linked down below, too.
And then our new website is out of
beta.
But you can go find all the physical
copies and digital copies of everything,
of our main books and stuff,
at wiseacrecomics.com.
And then for the House of Wise imprint,
if you get your hands on copies like
City of Demons,
Neon Ghosts, Dire Straits Dolls,
Dark Sentinel, and many, many more books,
you can go to wiseacre.us.
All of it linked down in the description
below this video.
I promise you it's there,
and if you see it's not there,
you're a liar.
Because it's all there, I put it there.
Frederick, dude, small, small world,
brother.
Small world, small world.
But thank you for joining us.
Oh, actually,
I want to give you one last heart
and shots.
Anything you want to say before I close
this out?
Definitely go follow the Kickstarter
thing.
soon as possible because it could be a
short kick start everything pretty much
for magnet shakuta number six and yes the
chairman once i get his middle address
everything he's gonna get all six issues
and i hopefully hopefully to extend the
invite and everything because i love this
show uh the the rest of the house
members everything to the same time
I hope we can probably have an entire
house called everything here.
Love the trade.
Say when, bro,
say when we'll make it happen.
It'd be good to catch up with Parker.
I like Parker a lot.
His book, city of demons.
Absolutely amazing.
And if y'all go find that episode on
the podcast, on the YouTube page,
is there the links to his books are
in that description as well.
And I know he's right down the road
from me, but yeah,
Frederick, again, dude,
thank you so much for joining us,
giving the Council of Nerds a look behind
Dark Sentinel,
the production process of Wiseacre Comics,
and the larger vision behind everything
that you're building.
Independent comics don't happen simply
because someone has a great idea.
They happen because creators are willing
to build the teams, manage the production,
overcome the setbacks,
earn the trust of their audience,
and continue pushing their stories forward
and wiseacre comments is working to prove
just how far those stories can go beyond
the comic book page to everyone watching
and listening make sure you support
independent creators check out his latest
kickstarter which when i will update the
link below to the new one and follow
wiseacre comments to see everything coming
from the house of wise
Frederick, again, dude, small world.
I love it.
You had me emotional.
Thank you for joining the council,
my friend.
And with that, ladies and gentlemen,
the Council of Nerds is now adjourned.
This has been the USDM Podcast,
where indie comments come to life.
Y'all stay safe out there.