You are listening to the USDN on the
DFPN.
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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.
Before there were cinematic universes,
before fandom was mainstream,
before comic culture filled convention
centers and streaming platforms,
there was a nine-year-old boy, bullied,
mocked, branded a social pariah.
His crime?
Loving comic books.
Then one night in the mid-sixties,
two figures crashed into America's living
room.
Batman, starring Adam West as Batman,
Burt Ward
as the lovable Robin.
And just like that, everything changed.
The bullying stopped.
The drawings in demand.
The outcast became the most popular kid at
Lincoln Elementary School.
But fame is fleeting.
TV shows end.
Families move.
Receptions fade,
and sometimes your favorite comic shop
gets replaced by a cornfield.
Until one day from out of a tree
steps the most important person you ever
will meet.
Tonight on the USDM podcast,
we sit down with Mark Dooley.
creator of the actual semi-true adventures
of Mark and Dee, and Mark and Dee,
genesis of a fanboy, a love story,
a fandom story, most importantly,
a life story.
The Council of Nerds is now in session
with the most wholesome story I will
probably ever have the opportunity to do
on this podcast.
Mark, welcome to the USDN, my friend.
Thank you very much for having me.
Well...
We're getting into way back machine.
Yeah, definitely.
Well, prior to, in nineteen sixty five,
comics was still being considered the the
hub of juvenile delinquency.
So and any time you brought up anything
like Superman or Batman or any of that,
you basically got a lot of feedback and
There were some bullies there that
absolutely had him for me because that was
a stupid thing for kids to be doing
comic books.
And they made life miserable for me for
a while.
But basically what happened is one
November night at a campsite,
at uh when i was with my my
grandparents and we were at a thanksgiving
camp out which wasn't much of a camp
out it was in a shelter all the
all the trailers were parked out back oh
yeah everybody wanted to be in that nice
warm shelter all my good friends in the
camping club are running around going
crazy my grandfather had said a little
bitty black and white tv set on the
uh
on the picnic table and I'm sitting there
doing my doodles.
My artwork wasn't much at that time.
It was like round heads, square bodies,
three fingers.
To the Simpsons.
Yeah, no thumbs, three fingers.
And I'm sitting there just doodling.
I'm doing diddling Batman and Superman and
whatever else is coming up in my head.
And some of the girls are coming over.
Oh,
can you draw me like a cartoon character?
Yeah, I guess I can, sir.
No problem.
Just as puberty starting to rear its ugly
head,
all of a sudden in the middle of
Rocky and Bullwinkle comes this ad.
Batman is coming.
And every kid in the entire shelter house
heard that, turned around, went, what?
And for the next thirty seconds,
we were enraptured.
Everybody just froze in place.
I'm sitting there just kind of,
oh my God.
And then when it came back,
And they all looked at me.
And I said, well, you guys won.
I want a picture of Batman.
I want a picture of Batman and Robin.
I want Superman.
And the twins that were there going,
we want the whole Justice League of
America.
I went, do you see the line?
Get in the back of it.
But that was just an amazing, crazy time.
And we were all waiting for the next
four weeks for that to pop up.
And when it did,
it was like nothing you ever saw until,
I guess, when Star Wars came out.
You could not walk downtown and shop at
any of the shops without...
You could throw a rock and hit something
with Batman and Robin on it.
So...
And I lived in a really great place
to get comics.
There was a Cummins bookstore.
I lived downtown in an upper apartment
over a barbershop run by an evil barber.
And, oh yeah, he was evil.
You should have seen the faces on this
guy that he made when he saw the
Beatles on Life magazine.
He was just excited because that's a lot
of hair for him to cut.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, he just hated it.
Those rotten people.
And my grandmother would be the one to
take me down there to get my hair
cut.
And I was just straight ski jump.
That was it.
the uh haircuts that were guaranteed to
make sure i never i would never get
near another woman as long as they just
had an evil pact okay so and uh
so but right down the road was uh
was uh cummins bookstore
And then the GC Murphy's was right across
the street.
And they had a nice little comic rack.
But what made them stand out is they
had a basement full of toys, models,
everything.
Just really cool stuff.
And then just two blocks down,
there was Nagel's Bookstore.
And if you couldn't find it at Nagel's,
nobody's printed it yet.
oh nice they they had three they had
two spinner racks and three wall racks
loaded with comics and of every type there
was dc there was these upstarts called
marvel did anything happen with them i
think they did okay i think they did
okay i keep hearing i i i i
met i met the marvel heroes in the
worst possible way i asked my grandparents
could you please get me uh like justice
league of america
And they said, okay, we'll do that.
And they brought me back the Avengers
issue number five.
It was the one right after Captain America
returned.
Okay.
And I'm looking at these.
These aren't the Justice League, Grandma.
And she goes, well,
they look like the Justice League.
And I said,
I don't know who these people are.
There's this guy with this red, white,
and blue trash can he keeps throwing at
people.
And there's this long-haired dude,
some tree-hugging hippie with a hammer
called Majolnir.
and here's a pituitary case with a teeny
weeny little wife and never mind the rich
guy with the iron lung i don't know
who these people are so it uh it
it took about another year after the they
started appearing on tv and the spider-man
show came on oh yeah and then
that just warmed me up to it right
away so and the fantastic ford which to
the hamburger version to me is the best
animated version ever done so they picked
the right people to do the voices the
animation but by it was designed by alex
tot um as close as you get could
get to jack kirby without throwing off his
schedule
And that was a busy man back in
those days.
And the perfect voice for the thing,
Paul Freese.
Oh, my God.
I still hear his voice when I'm reading
Fantastic Four books.
But anyway, but for those next two years,
the bullying stopped because they were
afraid, don't hurt him.
We may need him for playground stuff,
you know?
Yeah.
He knows all about the superheroes.
We got a question.
We don't want him having to bust his
mouth open or anything.
Just leave him alone.
And those two and a half years were
absolutely great until Batman got
canceled.
yes so the batman craze faded and the
bully in return how did that affect your
identity as both a fan and an artist
well because i mean you were the batman
guy uh well it was basically i the
plans were by my stepdad to move us
out to the country where there was very
little tv reception and i mean everything
was just fuzzy
And we were far away.
We were thirty miles out from anywhere
near a comic drug store that carried
comics or the downtown area and
everything.
And I was not happy about being moved
away from my grandparents.
my lovely little niche at the apartment
right downtown, the hub of commerce.
And so I kind of threw a fit.
And then one day we got new neighbors.
And my brothers talked me into doing hide
and seek with the three sisters and the
brother who were over there.
And one day I was, you know,
they got me into this and all of
a sudden there's a hand comes out of
the tree and goes, hey, up here.
And so she she just literally grabbed my
hand,
pulled me into that tree like I didn't
weigh a thing.
And I was about one hundred and sixty
pounds, pretty,
pretty big for a for a twelve year
old kid.
And that's where I saw her.
And it was like, Oh my Lord.
So, uh, and she was just, we,
we just absolutely struck.
I wouldn't say it was love at first
sight, but it, uh, it came a running.
So, and, uh,
we spent as much time as we could
until finally my mom finally kicked my
stepfather out of, uh,
out of the house,
and we went through a pretty rough night,
which I have depicted in our comic strip,
Genesis of a Farmer Boy.
And we eventually had to move back to
Columbus because there was no way mom
could afford on her own to keep that
house up.
so we had to break up for just
a little bit and we still we still
stayed in touch but uh eventually um she
came to in my senior year and uh
we were able to hook back up and
we had a couple of
So-so breakups over the years.
But finally, in eighty one,
we pretty much amended the deal.
And then eighty three,
I got down on the knee,
hold out the ring and I went,
do you want to?
And she went.
Let me see.
I guess I can make the time.
I love it.
but uh she's just she's just been
wonderful to me and uh flashed to about
twenty years later and i finally decided
you know we gotta make this story in
a comic book and uh that uh it
started it started off basically as uh
retaliating against my the job i did have
and uh uh because i i knew if
i if i could just get my head
into it we could do something really good
with this and uh and finally you know
i just decided i just wrote across the
top of the uh of the first page
the actual semi true adventures of mark
and d
and uh so we started off easy with
uh me and uh introducing everybody to me
and d and our our cat then samson
and uh going to movies and pretty much
doing a mystery science science theater
three thousand uh uh uh jennifer lopez
movie uh enough uh yeah bill campbell
I went J-Lo versus the Rocketeer.
Really?
He's going to have to go get more
guys.
So, but,
but we kind of did a little six
page riff on that.
And then I decided,
let's just go meet the characters at the
comic cave.
And so I based most of them on
my best friend, Michael.
He's, he's Mickey in this one.
And,
The Wookiee aka the Wookiee.
Yeah, the Wookiee.
Yeah,
he always wins So he was he was
with us the day we went to see
Empire Strikes Back We were all in the
car.
We're going to Bloomington to see it see
it there and I like an idiot got
the paperback like four days and
before the movie came out.
And I just said, you know what?
I'm just going to read the first chapter.
Just look at that.
Ooh, nice battle on planet Hoth.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then I say, okay,
I'm writing it down.
I got to see that battle with Luke
and Darth.
So I'm back there.
Oh, he lost his hand.
Yeah.
luke is what dark vader is who oh
god and that was that was it and
then i just knew i had just spoiled
the crap out of this oh yeah oh
and well on the way the guy that's
driving this said uh i heard you read
the book so you just keep it to
yourself
Not a problem there.
And my friend leaned over and went,
I know what happened.
You read the book.
No, I didn't.
How did you know?
And our guy driving says, don't you know?
The Wookiee always knows.
He always wins.
Anyway, but we also chronicled that story.
that day we went to see star the
star wars for the first time and the
comic strip uh which is going to be
part of our uh our next with the
kickstarter we just finished uh the
collection of the comic strips called
genesis of fanboy and i had to throw
that in there because that was an
adventure all on its own we had to
switch
cars back and forth because I was driving
my grandparents old beaten up old station
wagon that the back window had pretty much
been shot to pieces and there was no
way that car was going to make it
all the way up to Indianapolis and there
was only one theater running Star Wars
that summer of the Eastwood Theater
there will never be a theater like that
ever ever again because it has cinerama
screen i mean a curved stream dolby stereo
system stacked uh a floor high behind it
and when that music started up we were
clinging to the back of our seats trying
to hang on for dear life but uh
It was just an amazing experience.
And so we made as many trips as
we could to go see big science fiction
films at the East.
We saw Alien.
We saw Brainstorm, The Dark Crystal,
all kinds of stuff until they finally
closed around.
They finally shut down because they
couldn't compete with the multiplexes.
Yeah.
So Genesis spans the entirety of your
childhood through teenage years.
We're talking triumph, tragedy,
separations, physical struggles.
What was it like putting all that emotion
and life down onto page?
trying best to remember it in order so
trying to trying to remember okay this
happened this happened i almost moved
forward with something else oh wait a
minute we gotta put that in there yeah
so every now and then i had to
i had to to restructure things a little
bit sometimes throw out about three or
four three or four uh strips to uh
oh we gotta we gotta do this part
so
yeah the the the most difficult part was
trying to uh suss out from dana exactly
what was going on while we were broken
up before i we finally got back together
in because we we didn't see each other
for like a year and a half after
that last breakup and uh but uh she
uh she uh talked about
uh her time as a farm girl she
liked being around horses now she's never
really ridden a horse but i decide you
know for the sake of a good story
let's have you ride a horse okay and
she goes
So immediately I put her in a Lone
Ranger outfit and me as Tonto, of course.
Hey,
what's a Lone Ranger without his Tonto,
right?
Yeah, well,
this is where the actual semi-true part of
this comic book comes in.
But she would not be bad as a
Lone Ranger, no.
So I'd be a pretty piss poor Tonto,
though.
So I want to send a shout out
to Alfred over at Page One Comets.
Good people over there.
Writes a fantastic comic book.
He was just on the podcast a few,
I think maybe a week, no,
two weeks ago, two weeks ago.
So Dina faced some serious health
challenges in this timeframe as well.
How did that period kind of shape both
your bond and your storytelling voice?
Uh,
One of the things she went through was
she had scoliosis.
She had a curvature of the spine.
She had to spend almost three years in
a body brace to straighten that out.
Well, they had a choice.
They could either do a very difficult and
expensive operation.
And there was no guarantees there.
in either of these whether she went with
the operation or the body brace there
would be a there could have been a
chance that that would not do the trick
but this was her best shot so they
the only one they could really afford was
doing the body brace and uh it very
much pretty much brought to a halt she
wanted to be uh she wanted to be
a cheerleader in junior high and uh
She was certainly athletic.
I mean,
she was able to do cartwheels and
backflips and all kinds of stuff.
Pretty much put the tabash on all that.
Yeah.
But it was a difficult time for her.
Oh, I imagine so.
Not just her, but everybody.
All her loved ones were right there with
her going through it, too.
Yeah.
But the good thing is she got...
uh,
an early reprieve about half a year before
that thing was supposed to done the trick.
And the doctor said,
we're going to let you out of there
early.
So, uh, so they, uh,
they took the whole thing off and, uh,
and she never really had a problem with
it ever again.
So yeah.
So anyway, but it, uh,
it was a good story to do about
her and just all the things she's yeah
a lot of she put a lot of
faith in that she would get through this
with some help from above and oh yeah
and i'm not about to to step on
that at all so yeah no i don't
think that's the person you want to make
angry i i have seen too many weird
things in my life happen that i can't
explain
at all,
and I'm not even going to try.
Mr. Burdenton on Twitch says, yo.
What's up?
Hello.
Appreciate you stopping through.
So, let's... September the fourth.
What does that feel like now,
decades later,
to revisit that moment through comics?
Oh, it's crazy.
We had to do the build-up
to how that happened.
Cause we did have that breakup.
One of the things that happened was she
had a cousin.
I've renamed that, that character.
She's kind of like a combination of a
couple other people that were in her life.
And they pretty much,
she pretty much put an earwig in my
head saying,
what do you two have in common?
I mean, you're,
got your head in the clouds and stuff
and she's pretty solid so what what do
you have in common i don't see how
you guys can work you know you're gonna
work this out and and that i was
acceptable to people saying things like
that and getting me kind of depressed and
uh
I just started having doubts about whether
or not to, because I was ready to,
my grandmother had given me the ring,
her old engagement ring, and said, well,
if you think you can make it,
you do it,
and then I just kind of put it
away for a while,
and
It might have been good that we had
a couple of little breakups, you know,
so that we could learn to tolerate one
another.
I think that's the most important part
right there.
Yeah, yeah.
It's getting to tolerate them.
Absolutely make sure that this is what you
want to do.
So anyway, so eventually she wound up –
She wound up getting a decent job at
a diner.
She was kind of living in a halfway
house for a while because she was having
an out with her parents and some sort
of deal there.
Okay.
I think it's good.
All right.
Anyway.
And then eventually she gave me a call.
and said why don't we get get together
someplace so i met her down at the
library which was this is like early
summer it was just beautiful down there
and she showed up in this beautiful yellow
yellow dress uh and it didn't take long
for everything to start uh you know the
the sparks were flying and
It didn't take long for me to realize,
you know,
who else is going to put up with
you?
Who else is going to put up with
your stupid shit?
Come on.
She is a wonderful girl.
Let's just settle down and let's see how
things go.
It was like about a couple of months
later,
I finally brought the ring out and I
said,
Let's do this.
Nice.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I like it.
We had some delays.
Unfortunately,
we had my grandmother had passed away in
early eighty one.
And we were still my grandfather was going
through some illnesses and I was living
with him.
help him take care of him then he
started dating yeah he's he started dating
so then he he offered us uh to
take care of my great-grandmother who was
at the time and my brother and his
wife his then wife
were taking care of her in,
in a jet.
They were,
they had an adjacent apartment next to the
main part of the house where grandma Brown
lived.
And, uh, they were,
they were moving to their own place.
So he says, grandpa says,
could you take care of her?
And we went, yeah, no problem.
So, so we, uh,
took care of her and her,
and her crazy pomeranian dog buttons it
had to be a pomeranian you do crazy
in there yeah yeah he was he was
so much fun sadly he started getting ill
his kidneys were shut down and he was
literally blind his eyesight started going
so but uh we took care of grandma
brown for uh
for right up to about a later in
eighty four when she wound up broken,
breaking her hip and she had to be
moved to a to a nursing home.
Okay.
So she hung up for about another five
or six months and then she passed away.
So so they had to sell the said
had to sell the house.
And we moved to my mom's old place
on Waymire Street,
which brought me back full circle.
Right behind East High School again.
But we spent the next six or seven
years there until we got an offer to
move into another house up by Twenty
Second Street in Columbus.
And we spent a few years there.
Now we're in this nice little apartment
that's kind of compressed,
but it's really nice.
And I've got my – guys like Mark
Wade, Harlan Ellison,
and Mark Wolfman and all them guys have
always said, when you get your own office,
surround yourself.
all kinds with what you love.
By God, as you can see behind me.
Oh, yeah.
I was looking at those when you popped
in earlier.
I was like, I did.
So so anyway,
but so we did we did that.
And fortunately,
as I'm getting much older now,
we don't have to climb as many stairs.
That's always a good thing.
Well, we were living in a townhome,
and the bathrooms were on the top floor.
Now,
you come off of a long downtown walk,
and all of a sudden, uh-oh,
we got home.
And by the time we got home,
accidents happened.
Yeah.
So the good thing is we finally decided
let's move to some place where everything
is on one floor.
Yeah.
And I'll tell you what,
trying to move the stuff I had to
this apartment, we're never moving again.
I don't care how much they raise the
rent.
We're staying right here.
This is.
Yeah.
So I was telling him the other day,
I'm like, I have one more Amy.
And after that, I'm not doing it again.
yeah yeah it's it's pretty difficult try
try moving a a a twenty five thousand
piece comic collection from one place to
another oh yeah i can't i couldn't imagine
having to move mine there's there's an
albatross you never want around your neck
oh well i mean i'm dealing with it
now i mean yeah
I've got the remnants of it in, in,
in stacked up in our closet.
That's, but we,
we got rid of a lot of it
a few years ago and I'm not missing
that really.
So I kept all the stuff that I
really need to have so I can,
I can look at the art and
you know, get helpful hints and things.
But, uh, I, I,
I pretty much have stopped buying regular
pamphlet comics,
graphic novels work out just great or the
collections.
Oh yeah.
The Omni buses and stuff like that.
Yeah.
Oh man, this, this one they did.
DC was doing those, uh, those, uh,
Bray or, uh, showcase, uh,
book size things.
And, uh,
One of the things I lost during my
time out in New Berners,
I lost a lot of my classic Spider-Man,
Batman, Detective comics and stuff.
And here they all are in black and
white.
And that whole period of my life that
I just adored the work that was done
in those.
And now not only are they in black
and white, I can study the ink styles,
which is big time.
Oh yeah.
Color reproduction back in the seventies
and eighties was so bad.
And, uh,
cause it was done on cheap paper,
you know?
Yeah.
It was basically newspaper.
Yeah.
Basically.
And, uh,
And I always look forward to looking at,
you know,
as close to original artwork as I can.
That's why I'm so glad there's so many
of these volumes coming out with actually
reproducing the comics page.
Yeah, the Ashcan books.
We got a collection of Will Eisner's
Spirit that is absolutely brilliant.
drop-dead gorgeous looking there's a
reason why that man has an award named
after him oh yeah oh yeah so but
now if they could just make a decent
movie about that character now well we're
getting no that one that one's uh
I don't know if we'll get that one,
but maybe, maybe.
Yeah,
maybe one day when somebody stops fooling
around.
Maybe the same people who they turned this
over that were trying to handle a Doc
Savage adaptation.
It ain't going to happen.
No,
but let's talk about the actual semi-true
adventures of Mark and Dee.
So that shifts into contemporary
storytelling at the comic cave.
Why was it so important for you to
include in Spotlight a real comic shop
like that for yourself?
Well, sadly, it is no longer in existence.
It was turned into a...
little block of uh industrial i think
insurance companies and things like that
but that was just when i found out
that place existed i was just awestruck
and uh and the people there were super
super nice to me and i offered to
do paint uh paintings on their windows
uh and uh in exchange for store credit
so and we had some really great stuff
up there i did a lure the rings
pastiche uh big old spider-man battling
doc ock uh yeah we have one we
have one uh one small window on the
side of the place that had uh pikachu
and the bust of ben graham smoking a
stogie and
and him just going what the heck are
you and uh we did one one that
did survive that is owned by somebody else
now and yeah bless him if he knows
what to do with it that's why i
did a superman a golden age superman and
captain marvel
uh uh thing with uh clark coming out
of a phone booth and basically billy
yelling shazam you know and yeah and uh
that's the only painting i think that
survived the the uh tear down on the
uh on the old place but uh but
he kept it somebody did a story about
it in the paper and yeah so do
you ever want to try to get that
back as a
where am i going to put it let
him have it that's yeah so but uh
but it was a great place to be
i love i love doing a story about
we did the the uh holiday holiday special
which is almost entirely set in the comics
comic shop and uh the uh
And it's just about the people that I
just loved.
I wanted to do a little Christmas slash
Valentine thing to all those people.
And we came up with a really good
story.
And it's still...
I'm going through it again.
It just brings me to tears.
So you have said that that is one
of the best comics you ever made.
Yes, it was.
Because I was able to...
I put a lot of the kinds of
characters that I would want to hang out
with and would have my back if trouble
ever came.
And that certainly comes true for,
it doesn't even focus on me and Dee.
It's about Mickey, the Wookie Walton,
Jamal Farrowgood, Mickey's father,
future uh girlfriend uh tandy breckenridge
and uh uh and and a bunch of
street street thug and goons who uh should
never go up against a hungry wookie so
but it was uh it was and in
the end we also have a nice uh
uh splash page featuring all of my
all of our families, our friends,
some who are sadly no longer with us.
And it was just a good story to
do for Christmas.
And so the many comics I made of
it sold pretty well.
But eventually what I decided to do was
turn it into full color and do a
full size version of it.
Web are stupid cats.
so poor little snowflake i miss i miss
or siren that's siren it says so they
are gonna hate us for this forever and
they did oh i imagine oh they look
so adorable i don't know i kind of
like it so you also mentioned that steven
and toby
represent rpg culture and gen con energy
how important was tabletop gaming to to
yourself and d and in the friendship i
haven't done a lot with their characters
but i am going to i did okay
i did run a stretch of early comic
strips with them actually doing rpg and
imagining their characters who are of
course
far from from the uh scrawny and
heavyweight these the stan and ollie that
are in reality yeah they're they're like
you know uh trolls they're they're like
well-built trolls and robin hood
uh uh adventurers and stuff and uh but
we are going to do a full story
about them eventually okay probably with
our probably with our next issue we'll
we'll do like a backup feature just for
a warm-up but uh but they uh they're
they're fun because they kind of remind me
of monk and ham from doc doc savage
they will argue and bully each other and
yeah
And screw over each other.
But in the end,
they will lay down their lives for the
other.
That's why I love so much about those
characters.
But anyway,
we're going to do something with them big
time.
Let's talk about your Kickstarter, Mark.
So you have Genesis of a Fanboy,
Volume One.
That is going to collect ten years of
your comic strips.
Do you have that right now?
I do have it right now.
It's all set.
It's ready to send to the printer since
our funding comes in,
which should be this week.
And, you know, I can't wait.
I'm probably going to put a rush on
it because I really want to see these
books.
Yeah.
We send our stuff up to Comics Wellspring,
and they have done a phenomenal job with
our books.
The day they sent this to me,
we opened that box up and saw this,
and I just cried.
yeah this is exactly how i saw our
comics that just the way i wanted to
see him and uh it was just amazing
to see that and i just sent them
all kinds of you guys just made my
dreams come true so uh but uh we're
uh we're gonna we're working on the sixth
issue of it right now which is all
about our wedding day
so i'm glad you bring that up because
you just closed the campaign february and
now you're in the pre-launch stage for the
actual semi-true adventures of mark and d
volume one correct yeah and we have and
that's going to issue history right here
here we go i'm sorry there you go
oh no no no no that's that's even
better yeah which i did use this cover
when i was when i made the video
to announce this yeah
This collects the first five issues of our
book, plus the super special.
Now,
the reason this one isn't out there right
now is because there was a mistake made
by me.
We lost page six of the page.
Yeah, it was we lost one page of.
the book now it doesn't really screw up
continuity it's really one about our
little trip to the movies which isn't bad
but it's one of those things that when
it gets into my head i'm going i
can't see others because we gotta have
that page so so basically i'm giving it
to people who just want a little
introduction to our our stuff and um
And when we do this new one,
we will have, well,
of course we'll have all the pages in
it.
We will also have a backup feature with,
uh, some of my early comic strips.
Uh,
basically this one covers when I found out
I had type type two diabetes and how
that all build up.
Just basically me making bad eating
choices.
And, uh,
And then in the front of the book,
we are going to have what I did.
I did a six page introduction to send
to prospective publishers.
If I had not to do self-publishing,
send that.
It was a little like an introduction to
our characters, a little tour of Columbus.
Yeah, really cool to do.
all the architecture and stuff of our
major architectural wonders.
And then introduce everybody to some
future storylines.
And it was really cool.
It was just basically a little pamphlet
thing.
And I decided about a year ago,
let's turn it into color.
And then the new edition that we do.
So now there will be all that in
the front of the book to get everybody
warmed up on stuff.
And then we go full tilt with the
stores.
So when is this new campaign going to
start?
In about two weeks.
Okay.
I want to get things out of the
way with Genesis,
get those books shipped off.
And so I can spend time doing,
I do little videos and stuff.
If you're on Facebook page,
they're available on YouTube.
Just look up Mark and Dee and you'll
find them.
But I love doing those videos.
Okay.
I do find some good books.
non-royalty music that goes so well with
some of them um one thing i i
really would love to do if we run
into somebody who has more more money than
common sense some tv producer says you'd
make a tv show excuse me and uh
and i would uh i
There's one song that I would love to
approach this guy, Justin Hayward.
Do you know who he is?
I don't know.
The Moody Blues.
He was the lead singer.
Okay.
Now most of them are gone, sadly.
He's doing stuff on his own.
And he did this one song called Living
for Love.
And it's our story.
It's everything that we have gone through,
riding through this,
driving through the land we knew to find
that sacred ground.
And when I heard it, I went,
you know, if we can,
if through some miracle,
this should actually happen,
I will hop on a raft
And I will traverse the Atlantic Ocean,
get to London,
and I will knock on the door of
Justin Hayward and get on my knees to
get that song.
So, and I don't know,
I've heard some great things about him.
It could, like, what's her name say?
It could happen.
I mean, it could.
You never know.
I mean,
I've seen them make crazier shows out of
weirder shit.
Yeah, that's true.
That Pope who became Catholic one time.
Oh, yeah.
So, Mark,
for anybody who is discovering Mark and
Dee for the first time,
where do you think they should start?
Um, start with my Facebook page, uh,
cause I'm posting up there almost every
day.
It's a true story, y'all.
He really does.
Yeah.
Um,
if you want to see our archive stuff,
there is the boss one, uh, blogspot.com.
That's where I have very,
you might have to do a little searching,
but, uh, uh, in the files,
but they're all there.
Uh, as much, much as I've,
I try to keep up with it as
much as I can.
So, um, but, uh, there's that.
And, uh, I, I post on Instagram.
Uh, I don't,
I don't make a lot of use of,
uh, Instagram like I should, but, uh,
and you can also see our stuff on
YouTube.
Uh,
just do a search for Mark and D
and we're there.
And, uh, we, uh,
Um, and, uh, I would,
I would reactivate my Twitter account
until somebody else buys it and doesn't
turn it into, uh,
I'm a blue sky guy myself.
Yeah.
I do blue sky also.
I got blue sky.
I've got, uh, um,
if I can never figure out Reddit,
Reddit's, I don't know.
That's a mess.
Uh, but, uh, sub stack, I, I,
I've got an account on sub stack.
And I have a Patreon page.
So just look up Mark C. Dooley.
But anyway,
if anybody ever decides to turn X back
into Twitter, I'm all for it.
Until then, the floor is lava.
I like it, Mark.
I like it a lot.
Well, it's...
This is why I retired for so I
could completely focus on doing these
stories.
And I've got so many in my head
right now.
I'm pushing seventy.
So I couldn't tell if you told I
was where you were lying right now.
We're running out of time and I'm trying
to get as much stuff as I can
get and not throw a hip.
which i almost did coming up and down
that silly little hey that's why you got
rid of the stairs right yeah yeah really
you know that's i do have to go
up a little flight of stairs to get
to the thing but we're we're in the
basement uh we are super protected from
storms and
Tornadoes and crap.
We've gotten a lot of tornadoes around
here.
Now,
the good thing is Columbus is kind of
like in a pit when it comes to
tornadoes.
So we don't get a lot of touchdowns
outside on the outskirts of town.
We haven't seen one come through the city
for about fifty years now.
But anyway, so we are a
we're at a pretty protected area and
that's,
that's good because sometimes I have to
leave her, uh, here by herself.
And when storms come, it's kind of scary.
Oh, I imagine.
Yeah.
But anyway, before we let you go,
any parting shots for the people, uh,
buy our books.
I love it.
Buy our books.
Um, we'll, uh,
we're going to try to set up a
website eventually as soon as I can get
the money together for that.
Cause right now,
basically I'm living off of,
of me and hers, uh, uh, uh, retirement,
you know, our, our security.
So money comes kind of hard, but, um,
that's why we're doing the Kickstarter
thing.
Made me build up those funds and get
stuff.
Uh, right now my, my concern is,
I'm not looking for fame and fortune and
all that crap.
Yeah.
Uh,
I've just got these stories up here that
absolutely are screaming to get out.
And, uh, and, and that's what I want,
you know, as,
as if the thing can just pay for
itself, I'm perfectly happy.
So, uh, that, uh, this is,
this is why I retired for it.
So I could absolutely.
focus on doing these stories and entertain
people like you.
I appreciate it so much, Mark,
for you joining us.
Thank you.
I promise the people this would be the
most wholesome interview I ever do,
and I think we accomplished that, Mark.
With a few little cuss words here and
there.
I try not to do a whole lot
of that until somebody gets me.
I said the majority of them this time
around, so I will take that one.
Okay, great.
Hey,
it's a good thing I got my teeth
in today.
How about that?
This man is entertaining.
I love it.
But I'm going to bring it home,
and we'll close it out, Mark.
Okay, great.
Well,
thank you so much for having me on.
Yes, sir.
Absolutely.
So some heroes wear capes,
some wield gadgets,
some swing from the rooftops and some
draw.
They draw their pain.
They draw their love.
They draw their childhood.
They draw their community.
Mark didn't just survive fandom before it
was fashionable.
He documented it.
He honored it from comic shop laughter to
Kickstarter campaigns.
This is what Indie Comics is all about.
Real creators, real stories, real life,
panel by panel.
Mark, again,
thank you for sharing your world with the
council.
And to everyone at home watching or
listening later when it goes live on
podcasts and platforms,
if you believe in autobiographical
storytelling,
even if it is only semi-true,
if you believe in comics that can capture
love, loss, and loyalty,
if you believe fandom shapes who you
become, support this campaign for Mark.
Follow the journey.
And also...
Subscribe to Mark and subscribe to the
USDN while you're at it.
Because here, indie comments come to life.
Ladies and gentlemen,
the council is adjourned.
Y'all be safe out there and good luck
on your work week.
Y'all be safe.