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USDN podcast is run by the USDN_Chairman and the Council of Nerds. We strive to bring you the all the latest news and rumors from the World of Nerds and consolidate it right here at USDN. USDN is for the people, by the people and of the people.
You are listening to the USDN on the DFPN.
Thanks for watching!
what is up everybody it's
the chairman of the united
states department of nerds
where we are for the people
by the people and of the
people and tonight we are
doing it big and we're
going hard for fight's
grace as he gets ready to
release issue number four
of zip his comic
that is a little about disabilities,
but it's a great and fantastic read.
I will swear on that.
It is a fantastic read.
Mike, how are you doing?
I know we had you on not that long ago,
and you were still working
through some stuff to get this book live.
And now we're about to go live.
How's that?
How's that feeling?
It sounds great.
And thank you for saying
that it's a great read.
It is, dude.
I really enjoyed this one.
It was good.
Yeah, well, launch party!
Wait,
did I just kill the conversation by
doing that?
I had asked,
now that you've got through
all the stuff and everything,
how does it feel to finally be here,
getting ready to launch
this issue finally?
I know it was a little bit
of a struggle there as you
were trying to figure out dates.
Now we're here.
You're releasing tomorrow on Kickstarter.
How we feeling, man?
Yeah, dates are always tricky.
I mean, I feel good, but, you know, I mean,
it's my fourth Kickstarter,
so really things are...
you know, going to go fine.
But Kickstarter is always,
there's so much to think about.
And, you know,
it's sort of like a kind of
thing where the next month
of my life is just going to
be nothing but Kickstarter, Kickstarter,
Kickstarter.
And that can be a bit daunting.
It's thirty days.
So I know a lot of people
don't really understand that.
It's thirty days to get the book funded,
start to finish.
then after that there's
usually um some type of
they have like reach goals
I don't know if you're are
you doing reach goals on
this one or I think you
might be so well they are
so I think you might be if
you're talking about after
the campaign ends yeah yeah
yeah so if you end early
and then there's certain
other goals that you can oh
okay all right so see I
thought you were talking
about late pledges for a
second there there's like pledges as well
All right.
So no, no.
So the campaign,
if the if the campaign meets its goal,
it doesn't technically end.
It continues until the thirty days are up.
But yeah,
some people will do stretch goals
where they will do a set of goals that
uh you can unlock by going
above the um the target
goal um I generally don't
tend to do stretch goals
myself because if you
actually look into
kickstarter's official
advice they advise against
doing stretch goals um it's basically
because stretch goals incur
like additional costs um
and essentially like I mean
if you've pledged to a
kickstarter that has made
its goal you're still going
to get rewards uh and
you're still going to
support the project that's
being funded um so it's you
know I mean you're just
gonna get the rewards that
you pledged for I mean if I
if we went massively over the um
uh the goal amount I have
had you know ideas about
things we may do for that
but generally speaking I
haven't done stretch goals
in the past just because
they're they can be a bit
more um logistically uh
difficult to pull off than
you might imagine uh and I
wouldn't want to let anyone
down so I try to keep
things realistic as to what
I can actually fulfill
Gotcha.
So real quick,
let's go back to your beginning.
I know we talked about this
a little bit when we had you on last time,
but just real quick,
what got you into writing comics?
Well, I mean, a number of things, really.
The one and only.
I've always been a writer
ever since I was small.
When I was very, very young, I would ask,
how do you make a book?
And my parents would explain
it to me in terms of binding a book.
They didn't realize I was
asking how you write one.
I learned that you could be
creative for a living from my dad,
who was working for a
company called CMTB at the time.
They were a studio who made
a British TV show called The Trap Door.
And they did a few other things,
but The Trap Door is what
people know them for the most.
And he went from that studio
to a few other studios
and eventually ended up
working for Artman Animations.
He was a model reg
technician for a long time.
That is because it's stop
motion and they're working with models.
Anytime the model leaves the
ground or has maybe like a
position they're in where
it's difficult to keep them balanced,
they would need to build
like a rig to hold the model up.
And my dad was in charge of
building those rigs.
And the other thing was that
you would have to try and
hide them from the camera
as much as possible.
Because, yeah,
the more you hide them from the camera,
the less they have to take
them out in post.
So he worked on Chicken Run.
He worked on the Wallace and
Gromit feature film.
He worked on Pirates and Adventure.
Wallace and Gromit is
probably hands down one of
the best ones ever done.
I still need to watch the new one.
I know there's a new one.
It was delayed a couple of
years because they couldn't
get the correct modeling
clay during COVID.
Oh, yeah.
So I know it's out now.
I just need to sit down and watch it.
But Wallace and Gromit's
always been one of my
favorite stop motions.
That's out, period.
Outside of some of the other things,
you know, but...
If you watch Curse of the
Were-Rabbit and A Matter of
Life and Death,
you'll see my dad's name in the credits.
Curse of the Were-Rabbit is
probably one of my favorite
Wallace and Gromits.
I actually did work
experience on that myself.
That's really dope.
I'm not in the credits,
but I shot some animatics on it.
That's really cool, man.
My dad taught me that it was
possible to create things for a living.
That's basically how I ended up
you know,
wanting to write things and
essentially just the
natural progression followed from there,
really.
That's really cool, dude.
Kelvin, appreciate you, man.
Kickstarter interviews are
probably one of my favorite
interviews to do.
And the fact that we're
getting to follow up with
Mike the day before the
release is something really
special for me.
And it's awesome that he
asked to come back and kick
this off the proper way and kind of
Bring something new, man.
It's really dope.
So do you have any characters or moment or,
like,
did you base any of your characters
from Zip on real people that you knew or,
like, seen on TV?
Like, how did you go about that?
Yeah, I mean,
it's like you kind of have to
base your characters on –
something um so if you look
at uh I mean a lot of the
moments in the comic are
inspired by things that
have really happened to me
um like if you look at in
the second issue when mr
untouchable is talking as a
child uh talking to his
like head teacher um about
you know his bullying and
stuff and the head teacher
doesn't believe him there's
a moment where um mr
untouchable says will you look at me
And I based that on the fact
that a lot of times when
I'm out with my partner or
I'm out with somebody and I
mentioned that like I'm visually impaired,
the moment they hear that,
they'll start talking to
the other person instead of me,
as if I can't, you know,
as if I'm not intelligent
enough to understand, you know,
what's going on.
And so I wrote that in
because you often find like
as a disabled person,
that people will treat the
person you're with as like
a carer automatically even
if they're not you know um
so that's one thing I kind
of based that on real life
experiences but speaking
about mr untouchable I mean
he's the premise of him is
that he's a martial artist
who's so good at martial
arts that um as long as he
sees an attack coming he
can always evade or counter it
I kind of base that a little
bit on a friend of mine who
I used to do martial arts
with who wasn't very good
at taking a punch, so he just got very,
very good at avoiding them.
Hey,
that's the best way to do it right there.
Yeah.
That is the best way.
He was like, I don't know,
like some kind of like a
pigeon or something.
You know,
there's no way you can sneak up on them.
Hey, you don't want to get punched.
That's the best way to do it.
Yeah, ideally.
Ideally.
Real quick, Mike,
for new readers who are
just now be discovering Zip,
what's the quick elevator pitch for Zip?
Sell it to everybody.
Well,
Zip is a comic about imperfect
superhumans.
Or is it because there is an
outside chance that it
might secretly be about disability?
So it uses superhumans as an
analogy for disabilities.
So it takes a look at the
human body and the delicate balance
that allows the human belly to function.
And it's like when you take
one thing and change it,
that balance gets thrown out of whack.
And that counts even when
those things are superpowers.
So our main character, Zip,
she has super speed,
but she also has super
reflexes because you need
super reflexes to cope with it.
And it means that the entire
rest of the world is moving
in slow motion from her perspective.
So everybody else sounds like this,
making it very difficult
for her to have a
conversation with anyone.
She's also got an accelerated heart rate,
which gives her the energy
she would need to be super fast.
And that essentially just
means that her heart is
working on borrowed time.
She's got like a reduced lifespan.
She's only going to live to around fifty.
And all kinds of things like
that and every superhuman
in this world has
complications Based on
their powers that kind of
make their powers as much
of disability as it is a
power It's kind of
basically like if you've
ever played that game with
your friends where somebody
suggests a superpower And
then somebody else finds a
way to mess it up Yes,
well I made a comic out of that game
So real quick, Kelvin asks,
how have you been able to
use your disability as a strength?
Well, I mean, I think that...
Being blind, and when I say blind,
I mean most people don't
realize that the majority
of blind people have some vision.
Not every blind person is totally blind.
We typically have some useful vision.
The way I have found it is
basically because I look at
things differently,
I can kind of see things
visually and come up with
ideas that maybe other
people wouldn't just
because I have to get
closer to things to see them,
to read and things like that.
And I may kind of like...
You know, I mean,
I'm not as susceptible to
optical illusions as other people are,
for one thing, because, you know,
I just don't... I'm looking
at them closer,
and I'm not looking at them
at the right distance to be
caught out from the optical illusions.
Oh, and the other thing is,
I don't have any irises.
I have a condition called aniridia,
so I was born with irises.
I just have giant pupils.
No colour in my eye whatsoever.
Still wild.
Yeah, so essentially I have, like,
my vision is twice as
bright as everyone else's,
so I have better low light
vision than anyone you've ever met.
The man is seeing like a cat
walking into a dark room.
Yeah, well, it's a very rare condition.
So unless you've met someone
else with Aniridia that
doesn't have any irises,
some people with Aniridia
have small irises, but some leftover,
but I don't have any at all.
So unless you've met anyone
else who doesn't have any irises,
you probably haven't met
anyone in your life.
I personally have not until I met you,
good sir.
And I'm happy to have met
you and happy that you're
here and sharing Zip with us.
So without spoilers,
how does issues one through
three set the stage for
what's coming up next?
I think that at the moment,
the arc we're on is kind of
openings it up to other people.
When we meet her in the comics,
she is kind of very
insulated in her own world.
The reason being that the
world wasn't designed for superhumans.
And so she kind of has her
own little safe space that she lives in,
like a comfort space where
everything is kind of...
know set up her way um you
know she she has she takes
these jobs that uh you know
she tries to muddle through
um because she needs money
to live but essentially you
know any other time she can
she's out doing the
superhero thing because in
this world you know doing
the superhero thing is what
makes people with
superpowers feel like they have a purpose
um but as time goes on in
the comic she's going to
find she's finding herself
uh kind of running into
people and meeting people
and kind of coming out of
that comfort space and
possibly finding that um
that there may be a place
for her outside of this
comfort space as well.
However,
there are dangers to her leaving that
you know, leaving her comfort zone.
And they come in a very
literal way in the form of
Pinstripe and Dog's Body,
the two mysterious lab
technicians who have been stalking her,
but possibly some
metaphorical ways as well.
Now, Zip is gaining something to lose.
So, well, time will tell if she loses it.
I'll say that.
I enjoyed issue four.
Actually, I've enjoyed reading all four.
Thank you.
So what's something that
readers often miss on the
first read-through that you
wish they would have caught?
Oh, I don't really know.
I mean –
That's a good question.
I actually I did see a
review I did see a review
that that's that said So
that summarized the plot
and then they said
something very interesting about what?
Spin-striping dog's body
were after and I'm not sure
if I can really mention it
because It might give away spoilers,
but basically this reviews
might give spoilers.
I
Well,
I'll say it because I don't think it
will give away too much.
But what I will say is that
I spread a review that said
that Pinstripe and Dog's
Body are looking for Zip
because they are after her power.
They're looking for Zip
because they're after her power.
And I sat there and go, ah, there you are.
I wonder if that is true.
We do see that.
Interesting interpretation.
You do see that.
We do see that, yeah.
Do you, though?
As good as I can.
That's as much as I'm going to say.
You know, I have the E version.
I have to zoom it in to like
one twenty five to read script.
So you may you may see that,
but it may be that I am
leading you down the garden path.
I don't know if you have
that expression on in America,
but that may be a bit of a misdirection.
Okay.
I like it.
I like it.
So, you know,
pay attention and stay on
your toes because that
might be a little red herring.
I do like a good swerve in a comic book.
So let's continue on with this.
So disability in fiction
often falls into these harmful tropes.
What are some of the key
things that you didn't want to do in Zip?
Oh, with the disabilities.
Yeah,
so you know how sometimes in
television and comics,
sometimes they're created,
they fall into this,
like you were saying earlier,
where people, instead of talking to you,
they talk to your partner.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
So what are some of the
things that you didn't want to do in Zip?
Like some of the things that
you kind of avoided because
you didn't want that in your book.
Right, yeah.
I mean, there are a few.
As a kid, I often noticed, like, you know,
Whenever a disabled
character would come up in
a TV show or something,
it was always a pay party
and that kind of annoyed me.
There is something that a lot of
I find a lot of fiction and
TV shows and movies do with
disabled characters.
And it's funny because we've
now unfortunately come to
the part of the show where
I am forced to praise the
Big Bang Theory because
there was actually a funny
bit that I had to give credit for.
There was a bit...
Big Bang deserves all the
credit in the world.
That's one of my favorite shows.
Okay, well, fair enough.
I know that it's not very
popular these days,
but there's one bit where
Penny goes... There was one
bit in the show where Penny goes, oh,
she's got... I think she
might have actually said
the word handicapped.
I think she said, oh, she's handicapped.
She must be nice.
And I thought that was
really funny because there
is often this weird...
um assumption that like
disabled people just
automatically just like
angelic can do no wrong and
you know that we're all
just I've met a few rude
ones oh yeah no I know but
like it's just weird that
that I I see that trope in
a lot of um yeah movies you
know it's one of those like
it's penny being penny
Yeah, no, but I did... The earlier seasons,
Penny, like in the later series,
Penny was more mature and grown up.
Well, sure.
I don't remember where it was,
but I thought it was funny
that they pointed out that
that was a trope because I
haven't really seen anyone
else point that out.
That's a good one.
It just happened to reference one of my
my all-time faves okay wow
okay um and uh yeah I mean
that that kind of thing
just like um and then
there's also just sort of
the ones where I was on
another podcast talking
about daredevil recently
where um you know kind of
like sometimes they'll give
a character a disability
and then they won't really
give them that disability
um the character will just kind of have
Disabilities sort of like an
almost a specific thing,
but it won't really affect anything.
Yeah,
which daredevil were you talking about?
Oh the the two thousand and
free one I'm terrible at
remembering actors.
Yeah I'm more like current stuff.
I haven't really dived back
into any of the early two
thousand stuff yet however,
I did just to finish
reading the Daredevil which one was it?
All right shite
I am very out of the loop
with mainstream Marvel stuff.
Yeah, and I'm brain farting.
But it was another one of
those where Elektra picked
up the mantle of the
Daredevil because the real Daredevil,
he couldn't get out of his
own way to be Daredevil, basically.
Right.
But the writer, the artists,
everybody was just spot on on that one.
But...
So you're still going,
Mercosia is still your publisher.
Yeah.
And how's the relationship with them and,
and using Kickstarter to
like to fund the comic.
And so how, how, what,
like what's that relationship like?
Cause I know you're published by them,
but in terms of like the
Kickstarter and stuff like that, how,
how does that work with them?
Yeah,
Marcosia will help us to advertise
the Kickstarters intermittently.
We'll send off maybe a design,
because now that we're published by them,
previously our merchandise
didn't really have
uh their logo on it because
it was before we were
published by them but now
it is so um for continuity
reasons you know I've been
adding the marcosia logo to
our merch uh so I've needed
to contact them just to
make sure that they're okay
with the way that I've used
it um and essentially I mean
I mostly handle everything myself.
They will advertise when I
send an important link their way.
But once the comic's
fulfilled and we get the
backers their comic,
I'll send it off to Marcosia.
I do always make sure that
our backers get their
digital copy before I send
it off to Marcosia so
they've got it first.
And then Marcosia puts it on
their various e-reader
marketplaces and we go from there.
Eventually,
we are building towards a
volume one trade paperback.
But that's in the future.
I don't exactly know how
that's going to work just
yet because we haven't done it.
Yeah.
Okay.
So for this one, what can...
fans that spent in issue
four I've read it I know
there's some cool twists
coming and some tone shift
I know there's we get to
introduce to some of the
new superheroes that that
are kind of a part of this
big superhero teams I guess
that you could say they
were teams well I'd say
it's more of a community really yeah yeah
mean uh we are we learn
about a like a bar like a
superhero bar yeah I really
like that scene in that
issue I saw I've met you
know kind of wrote in the
script that this place is a
little bit like a gay bar
um kind of tucked away um
uh like like a gay bar may
have been uh you know in
like the seventies and things when
you know, it was, you know,
illegal to be gay.
And so, you know,
they were usually quite hidden away.
But that's,
this is all part of the whole
breaking zip out of her comfort zone,
having her meet people.
So that's one aspect of the plot.
Another aspect of the plot
is like a time travel, kind of.
Yeah, that little section was really cool.
Oh, yeah.
Well,
the story with time travel is
actually based upon the
real-life testimonies of an
ex-con who served a life
sentence for stabbing
someone as a teenage boy.
So all of the stuff that the
characters talk about in
the comic related to that
is essentially like,
based on notes that I made
from this news article I
read about this ex-con.
So it's all kind of like
authentically kind of
researched from what this
ex-con was saying.
And, of course,
Pinstripe and Dog's Body are back.
They're the ones that
spearhead the whole time
travel science fiction
aspect of the story.
So you've got essentially
three aspects of Pinstripe
and Dog's Body and them
having kind of like a
little bit of trouble in
paradise where Pinstripe
feels like he's moving up
in the world and
Dog's body's getting fed up with him.
And them going off and doing
their time travel experiment.
Zip breaking out of her
comfort zone and finding a
community in the superhero
bar known as The Lair.
And this teenage boy
who's... I like that name.
It's perfect.
The Lair.
Yeah, I know.
I was quite pleased with that one.
If I don't say so myself.
Actually,
the one I was really pleased with myself,
I thought I...
there would be you know
because obviously like how
do all these superheroes
now how to sew costumes and
how do they know how to do
this and that and so I was
like wouldn't it be funny
if if there were like a
like a zine that they all
circulated amongst
themselves and this is how
they learn all this stuff
they got their own end now
Yeah.
The Incredibles had Edna in
the sense that she was like
a fashion designer,
but they're all doing it at home.
But the way that they
distribute information on
how to do all this stuff is
through just like a zine,
like a newsletter.
And I called the zine in
this world the Caped News Aider.
Oh, I like it.
I was really pleased with that one.
I forgot I think I was
saying oh yeah well I was
just capping off to say
like you know the the third
element of this story is
zip breaking out of her
comfort zone and meeting
this community I like it I
love a good pun on anything
so given this is going to
be your fourth kit starter
that you're launching how
did you use lessons learned
from the third one other
from the first three going
into this fourth one
Yeah, I mean,
I think that when it comes to
our reward tier for getting
your name into the comic,
that can always be a bit of
a tricky thing when we're
doing fulfillment,
because if we don't catch
our letter of Theron when
he has some free time,
it can actually take quite
a while to get the whole
thing fulfilled after the
campaign's over.
Um,
so I always try and make sure to get as
much work completed with him before, um,
as possible so that, um,
we can kind of trying to
breeze through that, um, uh,
when the campaign's over.
I am kind of debating maybe
whether we should continue
doing that reward.
I mean, I'm doing it for this one.
I'm not going to change
things so close to lunch date.
Yeah,
but I think I want to get people's
opinion on this as to whether, you know,
they really want it to
continue or if they'd
rather we let you do a poll on it.
Yeah, well,
maybe there's something for us
to talk about once the campaign's over,
because if we talk about it
while it's live, it's almost kind of like,
oh, it's poo-pooing our own reward.
Yeah, you don't want to do that.
I mean, I love doing the reward.
It's just that I do wonder
about the fact that it does
mean that we have to
delay part of making the
comic until the Kickstarter
campaign's over,
which does slow down fulfillment.
Yeah, especially when you've got to
know a penciler or a letter
that's busy in other work
as well yeah so that could
be something that uh we
might need to think about
going forward but uh I I've
uh taken on your feedback
actually from the last time
we spoke you mentioned that
you'd be interested in a
t-shirt and uh I know I've
seen that dude that was I
love that like the the
picture on the t-shirt
that was really dope that is
uh francesco tomaselli's uh
cover art for our third
issue uh and that was
really great uh we put that
on quite a lot of stuff
because it was really uh
she's a brilliant brilliant artist too
Yeah, he is a brilliant idea.
Francesco is,
I think you may have heard Francesca,
but no, Francesco.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Yeah, he's great.
So, I mean, yeah, so I mean,
basically you mentioned
that you'd be interested in
a t-shirt and one of my
personal friends said that
they might be interested in a t-shirt.
And, I mean,
I've never really had people
coming to me with specific
requests before.
You know, I always tend to be the one.
That's what I do.
I just toss ideas out.
Some stick, some don't.
yeah well I mean so we've
got the t-shirt um and
because it's kickstarter we
can kind of like um ask
people what sizes they want
and then you know print
whatever sizes are in
demand so we don't have to
like guess what sizes yeah
we don't have to guess what
sizes it'd be kind of cool
to take those to
conventions with you as well
Yeah.
Well, I mean,
it's a little bit of a shame really,
because we're doing a
convention while the
campaign's in process, uh, progress and,
um,
we won't have the t-shirts ready for them,
but hopefully by the next, uh,
convention we do, we'll,
we'll have t-shirts and we
can actually wear them
while we're at the store.
Nice bit of advertisement for us.
That's why I rock my, my,
my chairman t-shirts everywhere.
Yeah.
I don't go out in public often,
but when I do go out in public,
I'm rocking a USDN chairman shirt.
Yeah.
Shout out to Khan's Custom
Creations for the hookup.
But, see, let's remind everybody,
the Kickstarter starts tomorrow.
The sixteenth of September, everybody,
the sixteenth.
Add that to your calendars.
Make yourself a note.
I've added that link to the
Kickstarter prelaunch,
which will become the
launch under all my ads
I've done for this interview tonight.
So if you just go click on
any of my social media posts,
go down to the Kickstarter link.
Create an account if you got
to and make sure you're
back in this book because it's a really,
really good one to back.
Thank you.
Go on, Onets.
I think I asked you this last time, but...
What's your writing workflow like?
Do you like to do your full
script and then art,
or do you like to
collaborate all at the same
time with your writer?
You don't use colors, not your writer,
but your artist and your
letter and that kind of stuff,
or you just write it out and send it off?
I mean,
I write a script to begin with from
start to finish,
but then we'll send it off.
We've got an editor who will
typically give me a few little notes
we'll polish after that.
And then we'll send it off to our artists.
Oh,
and we've also added a sensitivity
reader now too.
So there is that stage as well.
Question coming up because I
was gonna because that's
how you you want things to be right.
And you want them to be
proper when you're talking
about disabilities and that
kind of stuff.
And you do have somebody
that sensitivity chats all that now.
Yeah, well, I mean,
I know it sounds a little bit, you know,
some people may have an
average reaction to it.
But essentially, I mean, you know,
I'm only one disabled person.
So I can't speak for everybody.
So I think that just having
another perspective is a
good thing to have.
uh and I think that's it's
really helped the uh
quality of this issue uh a
lot uh so yeah from from
this point I'll do my
script to send it off to
the sensitivity reader then
we'll get the editor in uh
then it'll go to san san
typically is just very very
accommodating it doesn't
really make any changes uh
I mean you know great
artist too man well yeah of course
and black and white so for
those who haven't read or
checked it out it is a
hundred percent black gray
white scale beautiful og
style comic which I really
absolutely love that there
is no color whatsoever all
the tones and the blends
are and everything like
that are done through the
art and it's very hard to
do but sand pulls it off amazingly
Yeah,
I'm a huge fan of the original Mirage
Comics Ninja Turtles run.
That's a perfect choice right there.
Yeah, well,
they were always in black and white.
And also there's just sort
of like a tradition in
British comics of black and
white comics as well, you know,
like at two thousand AD and all that.
And so I just thought, you know,
it seemed right,
especially with how good
Sans art style is in black and white.
I mean, I did consider
get in color,
but sans art style just looks so good, uh,
in black and white, you know, some,
some of these issues,
there are these like little
introspective moments that
really look great, uh,
in black and white and the
black and white makes them
feel more introspective.
no I I really like it and
you you brought up two
thousand a.d I have a
couple of issues sitting in
one of my short boxes down
in my storage and um I
never realized they were
british I just enjoyed them
because I love the
scientific sci-fi you know
that kind of stuff has
always been phenomenal but
no that's really cool I
didn't know that they were
british so but to this moment or
No, I just, I have a couple, like I said,
I have a couple of, you know,
two thousand AD comic books.
Oh, no, no.
Two thousand AD is the British comic book.
Like if you ask.
I had no idea.
No, no, it's very much is.
Yeah.
Well, I mean,
like Judge Dredd is like was
written as like how a
British person views America.
When you when you like look
at what it how it is.
Yeah.
It's where you kind of,
it's kind of a big parody
of American culture because
it's all about, you know,
cops who have just like the
right to just do anything they want,
where they could just go up
and shoot someone and
decide that they're going
to execute someone.
Well, yeah, but I mean,
you can understand that
when you're looking at what
happens in the US from outside.
Yeah.
You could have an idea like that.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah.
Let's not dive too deep into that.
I don't want to, you know.
Well, yeah, I know,
but I'm just trying to
explain what the
inspiration for it was
because you can kind of see
how someone looking outside.
Yeah, I can a hundred percent see that.
Yeah.
Given everything.
Yeah, I can see that.
Um, let's see.
Ah.
So this is your fourth issue
you've written of Zip.
Have you had like just the
scene that was like
emotionally difficult or
just kind of was like,
do I really want to write
this like this or anything like that?
Because I can't remember
anything that kind of just
jumped out and just said, oh, like.
Like, you know?
But... Well, I mean,
if you look at the first issue, you know,
obviously there's... Yeah,
that was the one issue I
was thinking that might have had, like,
a scene that was kind of, like,
a little emotional, you know?
Yeah, well, I mean,
the whole idea of Zip going
to train tracks to kill herself, I mean,
I live near a set of train tracks,
and there have been periods
of my life where
Every morning when I went to work,
I would cross the bridge
and look at the train tracks and think,
actually,
maybe I'd rather just sneak onto
those instead of going to
work today and just kind of lie down.
We are very happy that you
never made that choice, bud.
Yeah.
So that's kind of where that decision,
that story beat came from.
Okay.
Especially, you know,
explicitly being train tracks as well.
Well, you did ask.
You were correct.
I did ask.
So real quick,
we're going to jump into a
real quick lightning round.
And we'll go favorite
British comic of all time.
Oh,
that would have to be Fleetway's Sonic
the comic.
When they inspired Zip.
it did uh you know I mean
that was the comic that I
read yeah that was my first
comic um and it was
essentially for some
reasons uh sega decided to
commission a comic book in
the uk as well as in the us
um and the uk writers over
here just decided to go
completely wild with it and um
mean they did at the time
they really only had like
you know some mega drives
games to go on that didn't
really have you know they
didn't have voice cut
scenes so there wasn't you
know like a huge wealth of
um you know explicit story
to go on and so um but even
still they kind of just
made it their own and really
I mean, in that comic,
the transformation that
Sonic goes through when he
gets all the Chaos Emeralds, Super Sonic,
is not just a power boost.
It's this crazy wild card
that Sonic becomes when he
gets too stressed or if he
gets exposed to Chaos Radiation.
And he essentially just
becomes this unstoppable demon who
has powers very similar to Superman,
but he is not... Yeah, he's... I mean,
he just wants to destroy everything.
He wants to kill and destroy everything.
And the only way that...
And the only way that you
can survive him is
basically he loves to toy
with his victims before he finishes them.
So you can only hope to
stall him until he turns
back into regular Sonic.
He goes from Sonic the
Hedgehog to Art the Clown.
Yeah, pretty much.
And because this character
can come out at any moment,
he comes out when Sonic
becomes his most stressed.
So typically,
whenever they had a story
where the stakes were really high,
Super Sonic always had a
chance of coming out and
making the story's stakes even higher.
It was great.
Love it, dude.
Sonic the Hedgehog is so good.
Yeah, well, I mean,
the British comics is quite
different to a lot of the
interpretations you might have heard.
Sonic in that is kind of an ass.
He's a brave person that fights evil,
but he's also not like...
he's not particularly polite
about it um basically um
rich nigel kitchen with the
writer his ethos was that
just because you're like a
brave confident person does
not necessarily mean that
you're particularly nice
you know if you think about
all of the popular people
you've ever met in your
life they're not
necessarily you know the
most agreeable people yeah
um and so yeah he typically
does like berate his
friends for you know not
being as hot as he is and
um you know he's he's very
kind of like oh whatever
I'm the best and everything
he's very very vain and um
but but he is the one who's
you know skilled enough in
a lot of cases to fight
you know, the tyrants and things.
So he gets the job done,
but he doesn't necessarily
do it in a way that you're going to,
you know,
be happy with him for dealing
with you afterwards.
Yeah.
All right.
Next one up.
Most underrated disabled
character in fiction.
Oh my god, there was this,
I don't know if you've ever heard of it,
but there was a cartoon in
the nineties that was an
offshoot of Ghostbusters
called The Extreme Ghostbusters.
And one of the characters in
that was in a wheelchair,
but they were kind of like a daredevil,
like a, you know, like a thrill seeker.
I remember.
And it's interesting to go
back and watch that show
because I completely forgot
that that character was
even in a wheelchair.
They were like a complete
character unto themselves.
Good reference.
We got a good friend, Rob.
He's all about the Ghostbusters, man.
He loves some Ghostbusters.
Yeah.
I guarantee he would know
their name and everything.
Yeah,
I forgot What's on your playlist when
you write or do you like it quiet?
Um,
well for this issue Like a lot of time
travel type stuff.
So like Huey Newt Lewis and
the news like that,
you know back to the future
soundtrack and Great
soundtrack the original one
Yeah, well, I mean, all of them, really.
I'm kind of a defender of the third movie,
to be honest with you.
I'm a huge fan of the eighties, man.
The eighties rock.
Yeah.
Back to the Future came out.
yeah well I mean the third
one was early nineties at
that point there wasn't a
long gap between the first
one and the second one but
like yeah the original
score uh by uh alistair uh
sylvester I want to say uh
yeah I think so uh
And, you know,
just the popular music was
in the movies as well, like ZZ Types,
Double Back, you know,
Back in Time by Huey Lewis,
and obviously The Power of Love, you know,
Michael Jackson, all that kind of stuff.
I like it.
All right, so if Zip becomes a TV series,
who gets to play Zip and
why is it not me?
I mean, you can try it if you want.
Hey, let's get the comic open.
Read a few lines.
Let's see your audition.
I don't think Zip was bearded, but hey,
we can make an exception.
I mean, if it's animated,
you can get away with it.
If that is my back hurts right now,
it'd be me playing Zip with a walker.
Well,
I mean like if say for example if it
was an animated show or
just who who would you I
just interested to know now
Who would you want to play yourself?
Who would play me?
Oh, well,
who would you want to play if you
if you had a chance to?
Either I would go Timothy
Oliphant Or what's his name?
The dude that plays
opposite of him uh or and
what's that cv series shit
I can't even think of it
but the guy who put he was
in um fallout he plays the
um the guy with no nose I
can't I'm brain farting
today muscle relaxers are
getting me man um oh yeah
walter coggins I think is
his name I can see one of
those two guys playing me oh yeah
Well, I mean,
you asked me this question last time,
and I really should have
gone away and thought about it.
But I would say that... You
don't get time to think about it.
It just pops in your head.
Yeah.
Well, I mean,
I would say that although I
don't have any names in
mind for Zip herself,
I would cast Dog's Body as Timothy Spall.
Okay.
Do you remember Timothy Spall?
I think I know who you're talking about.
He was... I mean, I think the...
Character the most people
are gonna know him for is
Peter Pettigrew from the
Harry Potter films.
Yes You know, yeah,
you'd know him from a lot
more if you Really watched
like British TV and movies.
I mean he was the have you
ever seen any box?
I don't have Brit box.
I Thought about it was the
original British office Okay.
Have you ever seen any red dwarf?
I have not, no.
I really recommend Red Dwarf.
It's a great show.
I'll track it down.
So imagine if, like,
so the premise of Red Dwarf
is take the starship
Enterprise and imagine if, like,
everyone on the crew got wiped out,
just killed,
except a bunch of hatless redshirts.
And they're just, like,
a bunch of space slobs.
But redshirts are only there to die.
Yes,
but these guys are just the rank and
file.
They're the lowest rank on the ship.
They're the plebes.
Yeah,
and they're just... There's one guy
who aspires to rise in ranks,
but he's kind of just inept
at everything.
And there's another guy
who's just there to make a little living.
But he's just a massive slob.
And
due to shenanigans basically
they end up getting frozen
in time for three million
years um and they're just
like lost in space drifting
around trying to find their
way back home um but yeah I
mean it's it's like imagine
if everyone on the starship
enterprise died except for some hapless
slobs.
It's really funny.
But I was going to say that
Peter Pettigrew, not Peter Pettigrew,
Timothy Spall is in Red Dwarf.
And the thing that I know
him from is him doing a
really thick Birmingham accent going,
it's a plain clue, isn't it?
But that means nothing to
you if you haven't seen this show.
It doesn't.
I'm going to have to track
it down and give it a watch.
I really recommend Red Dwarf.
It's one of my favorite.
How about you?
We've got to catch some of
those hot moments from the show.
Oh, yeah.
It's one of my favorite shows of all time.
I'm definitely going to
check that one out.
All right.
We're going to bring it home, man.
All right, Mike.
Where can everybody find you
and your work?
Yeah,
so the website for Zip is zipcomic.co.uk.
Obviously,
the Kickstarter is linked by the
United States Department of Nerds.
But I mean,
I've got a bunch of short links
for the Kickstarter.
So if you're viewing this on Facebook,
you could, for example, type
kface.zipcomic.uk and you'll
get the Kickstarter comment for that.
But yeah, check us out on Kickstarter.
I believe that if you put
zip Kickstarter in Google,
we're actually... Yeah,
if you just Google Kickstarter,
go to Kickstarter,
you type in zip under the
comic book category,
I think it's like the first
one that pops up.
yeah we often do have pretty
good uh seo in that
department which I do work
quite hard I do have all I
have the kickstarter linked
underneath all my social
media that I did for you
coming on so multitudes of
ways for people to find
find you you're on threads you're on um
Instagram, Facebook,
and I swear if you just go
to all of them and type in Zip Comic Book,
you're going to find it.
You cannot miss it.
The easiest way is to go to
our website and link us to
all of our socials.
Zipcomic.co.uk There you go.
Cannot miss it.
And reminder, it goes live tomorrow,
the sixteenth of September.
Before I let you go,
and before we close it out officially,
I want to give you this sentence again,
Mike.
Zip is the kind of comic
that... Zip is the kind of
comic that you should
pledge to tomorrow when it
goes live at six p.m.
British Standard Time for one p.m.
Eastern Standard Time.
Love it.
That is the best answer, dude.
That seals it.
Dude, that was perfect.
Huge thanks to you, Mike,
for coming back through and
talking to us once again about Zip.
And again, it goes live tomorrow.
And if you're listening to this,
go read issues one through three.
You can find them on Amazon
or DriveThru Comics.
And again,
don't miss the launch tomorrow
on Kickstarter
It will be phenomenal.
And this issue will be live next Wednesday,
wherever you find your podcast.
And it will still be there in the show.
So everybody who listens
next week will get another
reminder that this is still live.
It'll be live for the next thirty days.
So it will go until October
sixteenth will be the
closeout of this Kickstarter.
It is a fantastic read.
I cannot encourage you
enough to get out there and support Mike,
support the comic book, support Zip,
And that's all I got for Mike.
Coming up for me,
I have... Let's see who I got coming up.
Let me go to my email.
Let's see here.
I have... Ben Lacey coming
up on the twentieth with
Shark Award number nine,
followed by... I have...
See Ethan Coogan and Jessica
Silvetti coming up with
shock headed Peter on the twenty fourth.
So I'll be quick turning shows that week.
It has been a fantastic
month of interviews.
I love it.
I can't wait for it.
I'm telling you right now.
Keep them coming.
I love talking to everybody
with Kickstarters and just
about their work in general.
So, Mike, once again, you, sir,
in Zip Comic is USDN approved.
And with that, everybody,
enjoy and see you on the next one.
See ya.