The United States Department of Nerds Podcast

Vitalerium Unveiled: World-Building, Adaptation, and the Journey from Page to Panel | Podcast Interview

Join us for an in-depth conversation exploring the making of Vitalerium: Descent Into the Void, a sci-fi epic that bridges the gap between prose and sequential storytelling. In this episode, we dive into the origins of the Vitalerium universe, the transition from novel to comic book, and the creative challenges and victories that shaped its evolution.

Whether you're a fan of sci-fi world-building, indie comics, or creative storytelling, this interview offers a behind-the-scenes look at the inspiration, adaptation, and artistic collaboration that brought Vitalerium to life.

🔍 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

What inspired Vitalerium: Descent Into the Void
How personal, political, and philosophical themes shape the story
The process of adapting a novel into a comic
Creative collaboration with artists and visual storytelling
Future plans for the Vitalerium universe — and what’s coming next
Reflections on storytelling, genre, and reader impact

🎨 Topics Covered:

Sci-Fi World-Building & Real-World Parallels
From Novel to Comic: Narrative & Visual Adaptation
Writing vs. Collaboration: What Changes in the Comic Medium
The Future of the Series: Ongoing Plans & Spin-Offs
Audience Reflections and Creative Insights

📢 Who Should Watch:
Writers, indie comic creators, sci-fi lovers, and anyone curious about storytelling across formats.

👇 Follow & Support the Creator:

Website: https://vitaleriumseries.com/
Amazon: https://a.co/d/hoqTawe

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Vitalerium-Descent-into-the-Void-Audiobook/B0DKL8YR1R?source_code=ASSGB149080119000H&share_location=pdp

IG: https://www.instagram.com/vitaleriumseries/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@vitaleriumseries
X: https://x.com/vitalerium
FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61553020843285
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@VitaleriumVentures
Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideVitalerium?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

What is The United States Department of Nerds Podcast?

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.

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 on tonight's

episode I got a very

special guest but first we

got to play that very

special theme song you are

listening to the usbn on the dfpn

Bye.

All right, ladies and gentlemen,

let's get into it and bring

on our special guest for tonight.

Ladies and gentlemen,

this is Nicholas Keaton Casparo.

Did I get it?

You had it the first time, yeah.

I had it the first time, all right.

So we're going to call him Nick tonight.

Nick is good, yeah.

It's nice to see you, man.

How are you?

Good to see you, too.

I'm good.

How's everything going on your side?

It's good.

Busy as hell.

You're in California, right?

Say that again?

You're in California?

No, I'm in Florida.

Oh, what part?

Right now in Bradenton.

Okay.

Yeah.

Down in the southern part.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

I spent a lot of time in the Panhandle,

so.

Oh, nice.

You know what?

I mean, it's such a big state.

I really haven't spent a

whole lot of time in the Panhandle.

I've been meaning to, like,

make a trip up there.

I got some friends who

really love that area

you're good dude I enjoyed

it I I really did I I was I

was stationed out there so

I really enjoyed it a lot

and I got to be there with

my family so that was

always a that was always a

good thing so always a good

thing to be with family

yeah so I got I got my family

downstairs and we actually

had to give the

two-year-old a bath early

today to make sure she

wasn't making too much

noise next to this room

because right next to my

office is the bathroom where we usually,

you know,

we get her ready for the night

and she can,

she's almost two and she's

starting to get real vocal.

Uh-huh.

I got a very vocal

two-year-old next door to me,

but it's a four-legged kind

and it's a cat that my

daughter just brought home, so...

Yeah.

We've got loud family members.

Hey, we're surrounded by the good people,

right?

That's right.

Whether they're furry or not.

That's right.

I got a couple of dogs, too.

I got some furry guys downstairs.

I got two downstairs that are chilling.

And then right now,

my daughter is in

quarantine until we can get

him to the vet tomorrow.

So...

She brings some strange animals whenever.

Gotta love it.

And she's home for college, so I'm like,

you know what?

It's yours.

You take care of it.

Hey, that's fair, though.

That's fair.

Yup.

But let's dive into it, man.

Let's...

How did you come up with the concept of,

I'm hoping I'm gonna pronounce this right,

is Vita Taylor?

I'm stuttering tonight.

Vitilarium.

All right, I was close.

Most people say it that way

the first time.

It's a stigma I may be

forever working to break, but...

Hey, we'll get it there.

We will get it there.

So yeah,

Videlarium started as a book and

then graduated to a comic book series.

And I don't plan to stop there.

I'm already trying to work

on turning it into a short animated film,

or at least create a short

animated film based on one

of the chapters in the book,

somewhere between like

eight to twelve minutes long.

More for, like,

proof of concept and to

give people a little bit of

a teaser of what I really

plan to do with this series.

But, I mean,

I'm describing it as a budding

franchise because, like I said,

I'm looking to penetrate

essentially all outlets of

media with Videlarium.

And, like I said, I started with the book.

I'm approved for seven now

with the publisher.

Oh, nice.

So, are we talking seven, like...

books are we talking how the

comic books oh yes seven

full books like okay and

that's the novel series

that's that's what I spend

you know a good majority of

the time on and then book series and

For instance,

the first comic book that I

think I sent you,

just one chapter from the

book of which there are

thirty one chapters.

So I did start diving into

the book the last couple of days.

I didn't get very far

because I actually got busy

at work today.

But I was like what I when

it's not often you see sci

fi books or any books

really turned into a comic book.

So this was a first for me,

and I was really happy to get both.

That way I can kind of put

them side by side and kind of go, okay,

where did the comic book

pick up versus the book?

It wasn't quite that far

into the book when you picked up.

Because in the comic book, Roman,

your main character is Roman.

But in the book, he's a younger kid,

if I'm not mistaken.

yeah yeah so he's he's um in

the book I really I wanted

to make a note of um or

make a point of I guess

really building out that

character and showing how

he was built um giving the

backstory going into detail

about you know what type of

scenarios would actually form this

kind of hardened freelancer,

basically a mercenary for

hire that you meet when

he's an adult and that you

follow for the vast majority of the book.

And to be able to create a human like that,

it's gonna take a pretty dark story,

a pretty dark backstory.

I'm not sure how far into it

you've gotten so far,

but it- I gotta feel it,

I'm right there on the cusp

of getting into that.

So, yeah,

but I don't want to spoil it for

myself either.

So I will refrain from

giving out any spoilers today, I promise.

But but yeah, so the comic book,

I wanted to follow him

starting as an adult,

at least in the beginning,

because I feel like I chose

that chapter because that's

literally chapter six right

from the book.

I chose that chapter because

it's a good indicator for

what's to come in the series.

It shows you who he is, what he's about,

the world that he's living in,

and the types of characters

that he's having to deal with.

And I felt like it was a

good chapter to really

bring that to life and give

people just a snapshot of

what this series is going

to be all about.

No, that first book was done very,

very well.

I was talking to your artist, Francisco,

a little bit about it.

The way he did it had that

Borderlands vibe to it.

I was like it kind of was

like it started out like

boom he's back from a

mission and you could tell

he has like this no

nonsense type of attitude

he's like you're gonna pay

me or you're gonna face

your consequences of not

paying me yeah so it was

like a big bang and I like

when a book one does that

big bang it does that big

introduction of the

character and then you know

The next book,

you can kind of mellow him

out and see who he really

is when he's not this this

hard cut character.

Yeah,

you'll you'll see a lot of different

sides of Roman because, like I said,

the second one,

the second comic that I have,

which actually comes out

this coming week.

We're going to get there.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.

I know it was in production.

It was a production.

So I know you talked to Francisco.

Big shout out to Francisco Nilo,

who's my illustrator, and my colorist,

Chandran Panusamy.

Both phenomenally talented.

They've been a dream to work with,

and I made sure to contract

with them for at least the

next five issues to make

sure that I could grab their time.

Yeah, you want to lock them down.

Exactly, exactly.

And like I said,

they've been amazing to work with.

It's a very collaborative

process between the three of us.

And we actually just

recently planned out the

canon for the entire series.

So there will be,

when you're dropped in in the first comic,

you're basically following

Roman as an adult through the, I guess,

the storyline that he goes

through in the book.

There's going to be a time

before the book where I

follow him as an adult before all of this,

which is going to allow me

to basically send him on

lots of different missions

and just explore the world,

have him meet different

characters so that the

reader of the comic book can

discover different parts of the,

the worlds.

I can really flesh out some

of the world building, um,

some of the interesting

elements that you run into on planet Dior,

which is the planet that

this entire comic book takes place on.

And, uh,

then I'm going to have a time when

he's a teenager and that's

going to be a little bit closer to,

you know, when, uh,

when you're first

introduced to Roman and,

In the book, the novel, the novel.

So,

and then I also have an opportunity to

basically take,

because it is a multi-narrative book.

So you are following

multiple different

characters from all walks of life.

So you, once again,

my goal was to give

everyone a feel for

basically how much effort I

put into the world building in this,

because I designed everything from,

you know,

the factions that are kind of the

big players.

I did like the way you did on the book.

When you, like, as you're, you know,

you start to scroll and you

do have the different

factions and then you kind

of get to like the intro with NASA,

which I thought was really

cool because you didn't

just throw us into a book.

You kind of gave us a little

background of the different

factions and that kind of stuff.

And then we get how we came about this.

the source of power or energy,

I should say.

And then we get into who, you know,

Roman as a child or a teenager,

And to me, I was like,

that's how you do it.

You kind of lay a simple

foundation like that.

That way,

as you start getting into the actual book,

you're not going like,

who the hell is this organization?

You gave all that up front.

You didn't have to send the

reader through another

chapter or skip ahead a few pages to go,

oh, that's who they are.

So I really enjoyed that

aspect of how you started that book.

Yeah,

I wanted to give readers and fans and

people something that they

could really immerse themselves in.

And to be able to do that,

you need to just be endlessly building.

And that's literally what

I've been doing for the

past three and a half years

is just continuing to build

this whole universe.

It's funny,

I started basically planning

out the universe after I

started writing the first book.

Because because the book

that I don't know if you

picked up on this,

but the whole book was

written at thirty six thousand feet.

So in my last position,

like my last day job was on

a plane three to five days a week.

So I was.

Yeah.

So that's a lot of plane time.

You eventually get to a

point where you've

basically beaten Netflix.

You got to the end of Netflix.

Exactly.

So I was just kind of wasting my time.

And I was like, all right, well,

what can I do with this?

So I had a few ideas that I

wanted to try and flesh out.

And so I said, you know what?

Let's give it a shot.

So I sat down on a long

flight from Miami to Hawaii.

And when I got off the plane,

I was on flight number four.

And I was like, all right.

Whoa,

like it poured out of me at that point,

because I mean,

that was the first time I'd

really written anything

other than a professional

email in over a decade.

So I basically said, all right, well,

I'm really enjoying this,

but if I want to do it right,

I'm going to have to make sure that I am,

you know,

bringing people into the world.

I had all these questions

about a world that I was writing about.

And I said, well, all right, well,

let's start answering them.

So I sat down.

I basically opened up an

Excel spreadsheet.

And I started with the

themes I wanted to talk about.

And that eventually led me

to the factions.

Who are the factions that we

want to explore?

Who are the characters?

What's their back story?

What do they represent in the story?

all the way to what's the

flora and fauna look like

on planet Deorum.

Let's make a whole slew of

different species that I

can basically pull from,

be able to use in the book.

What does the government

structure look like?

What do the other planets look like?

Because Deorum,

where the story takes place,

it's the seventh colonized human planet.

so what do those planets

look like how many moons do

they have uh what language

do they speak what's their

government structure like

what are people like there

and I just kept answering

all these questions and I

still find even today as

I'm thinking about and

beginning to you know get

through the second book and

think about books three through seven um

I'm still coming up with

questions of things I need to answer.

So it's been an absolute blast.

I actually usually take like

a day a week to just sit,

sit down and answer

questions that I have about

my own world and just start to,

it really gives me an

opportunity to kind of flex

that creative muscle.

So it's a lot of fun.

I can tell you're having,

you're oozing the passion

for your project and I love it.

And shout out to CJ here,

says a seven book deal is amazing.

Sending you a big congrats on that.

CJ runs Nightmares and Nerdscapes,

another podcast here on the

DFPN network that I am a part of.

Shout out to everybody.

Everybody's had a fantastic

twenty twenty five right now.

So thank you, CJ.

We touched on it a little bit.

If you were going to

describe the world that

you're building to someone new,

how would you describe the world of.

You got it.

Yeah.

So I would describe it as it is a gritty,

dark.

street-level view of a

cyberpunk dystopian future.

And not just the cyberpunk

that... It's not just about

bionic limbs and things like that.

It's a gritty dystopian future.

You're on a planet with an

authoritarian government

that is now going through

some kind of change that you

will learn about in the book.

I don't want to give away any spoilers.

But they're basically

beginning to grab even more

power and more resources,

and it's for a specific reason.

So there is an element of

mystery about the book as

the events begin to kind of

unfold what's to come.

There's, I mean,

you get a little bit of

everything with this.

You get your mystery, you get action,

you get tons of action.

It's a sci-fi, right?

Boom, right into it.

Right off the bat.

You get elements of hard sci-fi.

I take the time to try and

explain the technologies in

a way that's engaging and

it's not like just reading a textbook.

uh I try and explain a lot

of things about the world

through the conversations

of the characters you're

gonna get your conspiracy

elements you know there's

there's it's you get to see

how the politicians act

when they're kind of in

front of the cameras but

then you also get to follow

them when they're kind of

having their backroom

meetings and seeing really

what they're uh

what their true intentions

are and what the true

motives are behind all of

the different steps they're

taking politically.

So you get your political intrigue.

You get a little bit of romance.

I put the protagonist Roman through hell.

I had to give him a little something.

There are moments of comedy,

but generally speaking,

it is not your cozy fireside read.

I mean, it is a dark story.

The idea,

I wanted people to feel like they

were on the edge of their

seat while they're reading this book.

No,

I think you accomplished that very well.

And that translated very

well into the very first comic book,

because as soon as

you kind of knew as soon as

he pulls up in front of the,

I guess it's a bar.

Yep.

You kind of just knew like,

we're about to get some

shit go down right here.

And it's sure enough, you know,

two or three pages later, you're like,

there it is.

Yeah.

And he's, he's not exactly a Roman,

the protagonist.

He's not exactly the, the ideal employee,

so to speak.

He's, he's,

He's kind of when you first meet him.

And if you read the book, you know why.

I mean,

he's got such a traumatic past that

it's scarred him immensely.

You know,

he's kind of a lost soul when you

first meet him.

I mean, he's just, in the book,

he's basically spending

money on booze and whores,

just floating through life

without any real purpose.

So in a way, the story is,

it's a number of things.

It's a conversation about...

authoritarian governments

and some of the tools that they utilize,

like bringing some stuff to light,

some of the tools they

utilize to basically assert

that control and get what they want.

It's a story about

personal growth and

rediscovery of purpose for

the protagonist.

It's a story about leadership.

There are some leadership

qualities that are buried

pretty deep in Roman.

And like I said,

he's basically just

floating through life

trying to reconnect with those.

And certain circumstances

will basically force those to resurface.

And it is a story that has a

lot of philosophical themes

that are explored.

I mean, essentially the whole story arc,

you're basically watching

the emergence of a future

mythological hero.

Basically the person who

becomes the most important

person in future history.

from the very ground floor.

You get to meet him

throughout his traumatic experiences.

You get to see what life was like before,

just a little snippet of it.

You get to see what that turns him into.

And then you get to see his

path as certain

circumstances basically

force him into just an entirely new life,

an entirely new responsibility.

So you have this book.

At what point or what was it that said,

you know what?

I'm going to make this into a comic book.

That's a good question.

Was that always the plan?

It wasn't.

At one point,

I was writing this book and I was like,

this is cathartic.

I don't care if this turns into anything.

And then it got to a point

where I got a publisher.

and they were interested in

it and I was like okay this

is the only thing I care

about right now just it was

like obviously other than

family and things like that

but um aside from family

and you know you know just

uh important personal

things this is like the

only thing I think about

nowadays so um eventually

it graduated to a point

where I had the first book

done it was in the editing process

And I'm having some beta

readers read this and they were like, wow,

man, I this is this was a good book.

Like,

I really hope this gets turned into a

movie one day.

And I was like, shit,

I hope this gets turned

into a movie one day, too.

And then I was like,

how am I going to make that happen?

And the first thought that

came to my mind was, well,

I need a pictorial

representation of what's

happening in the book.

Let's take those words and

really bring them to life

on a piece of paper.

And the next logical step

was to turn that into

either a comic or a graphic novel.

And the comics seemed like a

more financially feasible

option at the time.

And that was the route I went.

And now it actually,

I like that I took that

route because it allows me

to release things in, like I said, issues,

segments.

I like the idea of,

like I remember the days of

like waiting for like

albums to come out on CD.

Like it takes, oh, you gotta wait for it.

Like there's an anticipation.

There's something about that

that just makes, it makes it more fun.

When you cut out the anticipation portion,

it's just not quite the same experience.

And I know I'm having a blast doing it.

I hope other people are

having a blast with the

comic and the book.

The feedback has been great so far,

which I'm very grateful for.

And I'm just trying to keep

this train rolling now.

I'm just looking forward to the next one.

You're nailing it, dude.

I...

For me,

it was one of those where I got the

comic first and then Eve

sent over the book.

I was like, perfect.

And then as I'm reading through, I'm like,

okay, so the comic book,

it picks up a little later

in the story of the book.

And I'm like, okay, I can get,

I like that.

And then I just so happened

to be talking to Francisco and he's like,

oh yeah, you know,

issue two is getting ready

to hit the press.

Is what I,

is he either through with the

press or is it ready to be distributed?

Issue two of the comic book?

Yes.

Issue two of the comic book

will be ready to be sent

out to be pressed.

Okay.

So right now we're just

waiting on the final colored pages.

Gotcha.

Throw that into a PDF after we, you know,

with the digital art, you know,

there's like layers on it.

So we remove the text layers

so that we can color the –

or the Chandra can color

the entire thing.

Then we replace those layers.

We put it all into a PDF.

And, you know,

then I send it off for print.

And typically I release –

and this is kind of a new

thing because it's a new platform for me.

But I just started Patreon.

And I release –

the digital version of the

comic book first on my Patreon.

Okay.

And I release it, um,

on my website and in print form.

So I, I like, I like making sure that,

you know,

the supporters of the Patreon get,

you know, a little something,

something a little bit

earlier because you got to

take care of the people who

take care of you and put

the food on the table.

A hundred percent.

And it keeps that ball rolling.

Yeah.

And it keeps me, um,

it keeps me on task.

I feel like, you know, cause, um, you know,

if I'm not kind of

producing content and producing something,

it's, you know, what am I doing?

I'm, uh,

I'm watching star Wars cause I'm behind.

What's that?

I said,

I'm watching star Wars because I'm

behind.

Anytime I'm not doing content,

I'm catching up.

I got to finish Andor.

Yeah, man.

See, I, I am way far behind right now.

Um,

The last sci-fi movie I saw,

I actually saw it in theaters,

was Dune II.

Oh, no, that's a lie.

I saw the new Alien more recently.

But other than that,

I still have not seen the

final episode of Star Wars.

Which one is that one?

That's not Rogue.

Ahsoka?

Or we have... I'm talking about the films.

Oh, shoot.

Yeah.

Man, I'm brain farting on that one.

I know, I'm brain farting too,

but I still haven't seen it

because I've just been...

Are you talking about The

Rise of Skywalker?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, the newest trilogy.

The newest one.

My mind immediately goes to

the original and then the second trilogy.

No, I've seen those.

I've seen those.

I just, you know,

I've been putting so much

time into this that I've kind of,

I don't know,

I've just been out of the

loop a little bit,

which kind of sucks because

I kind of do miss it.

But it's also,

it's so much time that I

would need to take to kind

of sit down and catch up on

all the things that I've wanted to see.

yeah so how um how are you

translating the book to the

comic book like are you are

you taking the like

liberties with the comic

book to kind of fill in

some more gaps with the

book are you doing trying

to do a one for one and one

for one is always tough um

I would say it's close,

but it's definitely an abridged version.

Actually,

I don't even know if I'd call it

an abridged version, because in the book,

I take a lot of time to, you know,

the descriptive writing,

the world building portion.

You know,

we're basically just relaying

that through the images.

You know, it's just, it's there.

That's more of a discussion between,

you know, me and Francisco and Chandra,

just to make sure that, you know,

it's kind of matching what I'm going for.

But as far as the script, it's very,

it's dialogue heavy, I would say.

It's a lot of, you know,

dialogue between the characters that are,

you know, kind of the main characters.

And so I had to cut that

down a lot to make sure that,

You know, because it would just be a book.

Otherwise,

it would just be a whole page of

text and you wouldn't be

able to see the pictures.

I've seen a few comic books

that way and it was horrible.

Yeah, that's it.

It needs to be an enjoyable experience,

right?

One that flows nicely.

And it really does.

Everything melds together really nicely.

I read a lot of comic books.

I don't know if you can see it, but...

That's this week's comic books.

Granted, it was a huge week.

Exquisite corpses from tiny

onion and image come out this week.

So James Tinian drops a new book.

I'm all over it.

Nice.

So there's a lot of variant

covers in there for that one book alone,

because I'm like, Oh,

this artist did a cover.

Yeah.

I'm going to have to get that.

You know, I'm that guy.

And I, I'm, it's, I'm unashamed by it.

No, why would you be?

That's fine.

Exactly.

I respect that.

Since I've kind of entered

the comic book game,

I've been trying to step up

my game a little bit.

And I'm starting to visit a

lot of the indie comic book

authors and creators at

their booths whenever I get

a second to run away from my booth.

Usually when they're helping me,

it's either my wife or my brother.

I've got a couple of friends

that have helped me in the past as well.

It's always good to have a

second hand at these big

conventions because they can get hectic.

And yeah,

those are also a ton of fun

because you get to interact

with everyone.

But yeah, as far as the comic book,

cutting down the dialogue

has been the one thing I'd

say Francisco has had to

like get on me for.

Like, hey, man,

this is a lot of text for this.

Like,

you want me to fit this into two screens?

And I'm like, shit, yeah.

So I got to figure out how

to make it work while still

relaying the message and

still maintaining the feel

of that conversation.

I've always loved, like,

I love movies with, like,

meaningful dialogue.

Like, I love Quentin Tarantino's movies,

like, because there's always, like,

those big dialogue scenes

that are just impactful.

And I wanted to...

affect that a little bit.

You know, I like those types of scenes.

And so that's why, you know,

basically that this first

comic takes place in this gritty,

cyberpunk, subterranean bar.

And there will be other, you know,

in future comics, I also,

it will be a little bit more dynamic.

I actually just sent,

I don't know if Francisco

told you about the Comic Zero comic,

Yeah.

We're going to get there.

But since you brought it up,

you are doing so.

And I love the fact you're doing this.

You're doing a boom, boom,

taking a step back and

giving us issue zero,

a prequel to what we're currently seeing,

which to me is.

Yeah, dude.

Yeah.

Sometimes you got to do that.

And I think you're doing it

early enough to where it will be.

Yeah.

I, it was,

it was an idea that I had after

a discussion I had with Fran and I,

I basically was like, all right, well,

I already know where the book is going,

where that storyline goes.

Right.

So I'm going to keep that in

kind of chronological order,

but I did want to do a

segment before the book

while he's still an adult and sometime,

you know, in between and,

and that is is stuff that I

don't talk about as much in

the book uh so anything

that basically happens in

the book and on is going to

go forward in chronological

order and anything that

happens before that is

going to go backward so

it's going to be so like

the next episode after zero

going backward in

chronological order will be

episode zero x one

And then episode zero X two.

I love that concept, man.

I really do.

It's just a really dope

concept because that one I

haven't seen before.

So it's very different and

it's very unique to what

you're about to do.

And that's good to know.

So,

so we'll basically have the timeline

going in two different directions is,

is the, is basically how I thought of it.

No, that's,

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And that's definitely going

to require some some intricate planning.

But, you know,

it's nothing I haven't done

before at this point.

It's you know,

it's the stuff I've been

doing for the last three

and a half years.

So you plan on doing the

same thing with the book or

is the book just going to

continue to go forward?

Or will you take a step back

to do a book zero too?

That kind of encompasses

like the entire zero at one type of feel.

So one of the things that I

have contemplated is offshoot series,

which it's,

very early to be

contemplating anything like

that when I still have, you know,

five and a half books to write,

basically.

I'm about halfway through book two now.

I actually just finished

another chapter today.

So what I think I'm going to

do is I'd like to have

a couple of different

characters in the focus for

like an offshoot series following their,

their origin story.

And then I know you read the,

the history portion of it, which was,

you know,

at the very beginning where I

explained how we basically got there.

Well, in that history section,

I described the hundred years war.

Which is basically the war

over planet Deorum,

which is the closest

habitable planet to the

source of Videlarian.

Which I do want to talk

about more because I feel

like I don't talk about that enough,

what Videlarian is.

Because you touched on it in

the beginning of the book.

Yes.

And we know it's an energy

source that was discovered

by a probe that NASA sent out.

And then the probe got lost,

or it just kind of disappeared for, what,

thirty years, I think, is in the book?

Yes.

And then it magically one

day crash lands in Egypt,

which I thought was cool, but that's me.

And then it has this power

source just kind of lodged into it.

Yep.

Which, again, really dope that

just genius, dude.

And then it,

it kicks off the story

basically from there.

Right.

And, um,

I definitely want to do a

series on that war that

ends up getting fought over Videlarium.

Because I feel like that

would be an awesome,

that could be another

really fun story to follow.

And once again, that would be six planets,

each with their own special characters,

different factions within

the government that are

kind of going back and forth,

making deals, breaking alliances,

things like that.

Um, but yeah, but it's all,

it's all for vitilarium, man.

And, uh, I described vitilarium as, uh,

basically like a blue

crystalline element.

Um,

it emits this strange kind of ominous

blue glow and it almost

looks like there's smoke

kind of swirling within the translucent,

uh, I guess, casing of the, the element.

Um,

And it doesn't just act as the fuel source,

but it's also the mechanism

by which we achieve true,

faster than light travel so

to speak now technically

you cannot travel faster

than light but it has

basically the idea is that

if you apply the right

force to this element it

creates a field around it

that essentially allows it

to bend space time and uh

basically shorten space so

that someone can travel

and basically negate the

laws of relativity in terms of, you know,

it would take, you know,

how long for us to travel one light year.

And, you know,

just the time differentiation that is,

I guess,

involved in like traveling long

distance like that at those speeds.

You know, time passes differently for you.

Like you're there,

you're traveling at that

speed for two years,

but like fifty years has

passed back on Earth.

It's it's something that I wanted to make.

Part of it is like my own want.

my own like desire to be

able to go out there and explore space.

But I don't know if I'm

going to live to that.

So I just figured I'd build

a world where I could

create a plausible scenario

that is based in some, you know,

modern physics theory.

I mean,

I based this kind of mechanism on

the Alcubierre drive.

which is, that was Miguel Ocubierre.

He's a physicist who basically,

he's the one who basically

came up with the theory of the,

like a warp drive.

Like a working theory of a warp drive.

Growing up watching Star

Wars and Star Trek,

that's kind of like always

the dream in the back of your head, like,

that would be so cool, you know?

Exactly.

And that's yeah.

So this was me kind of

finding a way to fulfill my

own fantasies a little bit.

But like I said,

it's the vitilarium is so

important because it's not

just the power source.

It's the mechanism by which

interstellar travel is made possible.

widely available for

everyone yeah I mean you

mentioned in the beginning

there when it's discovered

that a small piece has

enabled uh time travel that

way or not time travel but like

you know, interstellar space travel.

Yeah.

Is the word.

I think I,

cause I know exactly the part

you're talking about.

So the way I described it was a,

basically a chunk of vitilarium,

the size of your fist could

be used to power a spacefaring vessel.

That's the size of a football field.

Yes.

That's like the exact line.

How'd you do that?

Yes.

I, I mean, you wrote the book,

but still just to be able

to recall the entire,

just read it like yesterday and I'm like,

oh damn,

he just almost quoted that word for word.

Well,

I went through a pretty rigorous

editing process.

So I went through two rounds

of editing and four rounds

of proofreading.

And that was after I did my

own first round of

proofreading before

submitting it to publishers.

So I almost got to a point

where I was like, man,

if I have to read my own book again,

like I'm...

When you've put this much

effort into creating something like this,

it tends to stick with you, I've noticed.

mean we we're basically like

I wrote this nice long well

not nice long you know you

know list of questions and

like like no as we're

sitting here having this

conversation you're kind of

answering them as we go

it's just like we're

leaving each other into the

next one but I'll ask you

this you said that you're

talking to different people

at cons and stuff like that

who are some of the artists

or writers that you have

talked to and kind of like

pulled you in a little bit and said, Hey,

you know, here's some good advice.

Like who are some of the

ones that you have spoken to?

So I've spoken to a couple of them.

So, uh, there's a guy named, uh, Bowden,

uh, Sarah.

Oh man.

I don't want to butcher his last name.

I butcher last names left and right, man.

Yeah.

But I'll find it for you in a minute.

But he's definitely someone.

He's got a number of comics.

Martin from Cosmic Times.

He's been very helpful.

He's local to the South Florida area.

A lot of people in the South

Florida area have been very

gracious and generous.

very open with it's,

it's a really cool community, man,

because you, if, if you just ask, I mean,

people are happy to share

information with you.

It's a very, it's very much like it's,

it's a feast mentality,

not a famine mentality.

Like, Oh, Hey,

I did this and this worked for me.

Like you should do that too.

Like it,

I think I've gotten back

into comic books and doing

this weekly comic book show

where I drop my recommendations, you know,

as I posted different

covers and the short bids

and stuff like that.

And I like,

I tagged the artists and the writers, uh,

the guys who do the

lettering because to me,

lettering is one of the, you can have the,

the sexiest comic book in the world,

but if the lettering is all

over the place and hot garbage, uh,

just killed the whole book

you know so I I I show them

appreciation by tagging

them in my post and you'd

be surprised how many reach

out and just go hey dude

I'm glad you enjoyed you

know this he's like I'm

just a letter we don't get

a lot of people who reach

out I'm like dude lettering

meets the book you know yeah

it's all about placement.

Like,

are you really going to stick that

box over that dude's face?

Come on.

And I've seen it.

I've seen it.

You know, it's, it's important,

which is why I have so much

respect for the guys who are, you know,

who are doing it right.

Like it's,

I can't tell you how thankful I

am that I found Francisco and Chandra.

Nathan Zerdy lives down there.

He's down in your area.

Nathan Zerdy.

I don't know him.

He does a lot of covers for

DC and a few others.

He's really, in the last two years,

he's all over the place doing some really,

really nice covers.

I'll have to keep an eye out for him.

I do think he's down in the Tampa area.

He'll probably be at Tampa Bay Comic Con,

which I'm going to.

More than likely, yep.

Yeah.

Nathan Zerdy, you said, right?

Yep.

S-Z-E-R-D-Y.

Gotcha.

Okay.

All right.

I'll keep an eye out for him.

So...

Is Francisco doing your covers as well?

Is he just doing your art?

He does my covers as well.

Cool.

Yeah.

Do you mind if I bring up the cover?

Oh, a hundred percent.

Yeah.

Let's let me see if I can

get this to work.

I always like to hear other

people's feedback on it too.

I want to hear what's, what's cool,

what works, what you like,

what stands out, all that kind of stuff.

Here we go.

Of course,

it's just going to bring... You

know what?

It's irritating.

Because now I've got to

figure out what page it's on.

Here we go.

Hey, there it is.

There it is.

I hate the fact that it came up this way.

I thought I had it pulled up

separately already, but I guess not.

But that's it.

really really dope cover I

mean as soon as you see the

cover you have these full

cyberpunk vibes and the

dude just looks like a

complete badass walking

through the middle of town

with the gun on his back

that says hard ass

everything about it yeah

and you can you can tell in

the comic that he's he

really doesn't give a

The very first book, I will attest,

the very first book says he

doesn't give a shit.

He doesn't have time for this shit.

He literally told a guy he

was going to blow his

finger off and feed it to him.

did it yeah yeah that's um I

I saw that cover when at

first basically when it was

in black and white form and

I was like oh this is

exactly what I was looking

for um we I've I've got a

good like I said kind of

working relationship now at

this point with the uh my

illustrator and my colorist

to the point where I feel

like I can explain things

to them on like a fairly

cursory level and they know

exactly what I'm going for.

It's like they're pulling it

out of my brain now at this

point with the help of the script.

And yeah, they've done just an amazing job,

so.

um would you be okay if I

scrolled a couple of pages

yeah yeah you can scroll I

don't want to give a whole

lot away because I do

honestly want people to go

and actually purchase the

book or and read the book

because I thought it was

fantastic and um but I just

wanted to give people that

idea that cyberpunk slash a

borderlands type of feel

that you get like right

there that's like

borderlands everything

about that screams

borderlands the video game

It's funny you say that

because I was trying to

find a way to relay what I

wanted at the beginning.

And I listened to,

I don't know what kind of

music you're into,

but I listened to a lot of metal,

metalcore, dark electronic.

And this is all the stuff

that I was listening to.

That's my gym music.

That's my go-to gym music is

that right there.

Hell yeah, man.

And I'll listen to Taylor

Swift in the car.

I have no shame.

I will listen to Taylor

Swift in the car on the drive home.

Hey, whatever gets you through traffic,

buddy.

And I will sing it loud.

I have no shame.

With the windows down and the top off.

Don't care.

My voice is horrible.

I'm from Alabama.

Yeah, so.

All right.

I don't want to give too

much of this away.

We're going to stop sharing.

All right.

It's all right.

I mean, a little teaser is all right.

You know.

We'll do one more page.

One more page.

The helmet was dope.

I love the concept of the helmet.

Yeah.

That came out really,

really cool in the comic book version.

Yeah.

And I love the pops of colors.

The way he did pops of

colors on the suit was amazing.

Yep.

All right.

We're going to stop.

I don't want to give too much away.

Well, like I said,

I was trying to figure out

a way to describe what I

wanted it to look like.

And I basically said,

I want the cyberpunk elements,

but I want it to be almost

geared toward like a more

metal kind of future.

That was what he came back with.

I think you get to see it

even more so in some of the

upcoming comics.

That is the music I

literally listened to when

I wrote the thing.

I listened to Sleep Token

and Parkway Drive and all

these white noise in my ears.

Then I'm just left with that

feeling as I'm writing.

I know you listened to the new album.

Oh, I know.

I listened to the new album.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I listened to it.

I was listening to it at the gym today.

Emergence is still my

favorite song on that album.

I was listening to it while I was...

like thinking of stuff I

want to ask and do all that.

So I'm very simple.

I'll write out my questions

and I will drop it into

ChatGPT and be like, hey,

clean it up for me.

And ChatGPT cleans it up, you know?

Fair enough.

And I'm like,

less brain cells used that I

can put forth towards something else.

There's only so much time, right?

Exactly.

So I know you have...

Francisco in your art.

Yep.

And then you have another

person doing the color.

And what was his name?

Chandran Panusamy.

Oh,

I'm not even going to attempt that one.

My Alabama education will

not allow me to butcher that.

But shout out to him because the colors.

Yeah.

Amazing.

So how did you get in

contact with these guys?

Like,

how did these two individuals become

your guys?

Funny enough, I kind of got lucky.

I was talking to a friend

who had a friend who had

basically tried to create

this comic website at one point.

So I said, well,

can you connect me with him?

Because it was someone who I

had met kind of in passing, you know,

at a party once or twice

back in the day when I was

still living in Boston.

And I connected with him.

Boston, that's the accent.

Yeah.

What's that?

That's the accent is the Boston.

You're about another half a

shot away from being in full Boston.

Oh, yeah.

It starts coming out after these.

That's why I quit drinking

because I would speak so Southern.

Nobody could understand me

except my folks back home.

It's even worse when I'm

around some of my friends

from back that way.

It's like I just fall right back into it.

Yes.

Yeah.

I go home to visit my folks

for a couple of weeks.

I come back to work and they're like,

slow it down.

What the hell are you saying?

Like, oh yeah,

I just got back from Alabama.

Hang on.

He fits that for you.

That's the hometown resurfacing.

That's what it does.

But but yeah, anyway,

so I met up with this dude and I said,

you know, I'm trying to get this done.

Do you know any comic book artists?

He said, yeah, I know this.

I know a couple,

but I know this one guy I

used to work with.

He's out of Argentina.

He's fantastic.

And he connected me with him.

And that was that was Fran Francisco.

And then Francisco was the

one who actually introduced

me to Chandran because I

guess they had worked

together in the past previously.

Because he basically said, look, you know,

I'm an illustrator at heart.

Like, that's what I do best.

I can do the coloring.

But I know people who could

really bring this to, like, the maximum.

And that's everything that I put out.

my goal is like I want this

to be the best looking

thing it can possibly be

I'm not trying to skimp on

I'm not trying to cut

corners to try and make it

more profitable I'm not

trying to do any of that I

want to make the best

content possible so are you

printing on cardstock

covers and then like the

normal like really nice

pages are you doing like

the actual paper style

Oh, no, no, no.

I'm printing it on the nice paper.

I got to send you a physical copy,

by the way.

Yeah, I sent Eve my address.

Yeah, I'll get you a physical copy.

Once the new comic is out,

I already have a virgin

variant cover planned for the first one.

You knew where I was going.

I was walking you into it.

Oh, dude,

I'm going to have variant covers.

I'm going to have CGC-graded comics.

That's a new thing.

I actually just opened up my

artist account.

Perfect.

So I'm going to have lots of

different things available

for basically anyone who wants anything.

Yeah, so when Eve contacted me,

the interview that she

watched was the one with,

I think it was Bruno.

I think.

And Bruno has worked with

the same couple of guys on all his books.

And they're very good with

colors like your guy is.

Because some of his books

were about in outer space as well.

And the way he built the

artists and the colors and

stuff did these worlds.

You gotta know how to do the colors.

And your guy, dude.

He's the man.

He can blend the colors perfectly and

Like I said,

that's one of those make it or

break it types of things

with the lettering.

When everything goes well together,

it produces a good book.

And your first book, top notch,

up there with some of the

bigger stuff that I read on

a daily basis.

Even though I'm an indie guy at heart,

a hundred percent indie guy,

there's some guys out there

that do work for Marvel and DC that,

you know, Jim Lee, for instance,

like to me, Jim Lee's, you know,

little jesus of dc yeah so

I've I've I listened to a

few of your podcasts before

this one I heard that name

thrown around a couple of

times yeah huge fan of of

him um I've been thinking

about putting my comic book

recommendations on um

spotify and everywhere else

as well just that'd be cool

just to see how well

they'll do I don't really

know I normally keep it to

youtube and then I chop it

up and I share it everywhere else

But it's one of those where I'm like,

you know what?

I may start doing that just

to see how well they'll do

on the streaming side of things.

So I don't know how familiar

you are with other artists

and that kind of stuff.

If there was an artist that

you would want to work with,

like if somebody just said, hey,

pick your artist and you can have them,

who would you go with?

I know you don't want to cheat on your guy,

Francisco, because he is amazing, but...

I don't, and he's my dude for sure.

I don't know.

Like I said, I'm a little newer.

I think I mentioned this earlier.

I'm a little newer to the book game,

and I'm trying now to start

really getting into it.

So I'm not as familiar with

all of the names as some of

the guys who have been

reading comics for a while.

But right now,

it's all about discovery for me.

Going out there and seeing

what's out there and seeing who is who.

If I may.

Oh, yeah.

If I may.

ghost machine which is a

substitute of so you have

image who does a lot of

indie publishing under

their umbrella then you

have jeff johns who does

ghost machine they have

geiger um junkyard joe the

rocket fellers they have a

whole list of titles all

done by the same team of guys

And they're phenomenal,

phenomenal work anything by

James teeny and as well in

his tiny onion company.

They do House of Slaughter,

something is killing the children.

exquisite corpses that just

come out yesterday.

Just so many titles like I

sit here and name but I

know if I'm at the shop,

and it has their name on it.

You're getting

notch quality with the writing, the colors,

the lettering, you name it.

Those are my guys.

Right, right, right.

Well, that's it, man.

I wish I had my notebook with me.

I'd be writing names down right now.

I can send you whatever you want.

Any recommendation you want,

I'll shoot them to you.

We'll talk.

Definitely, definitely.

But, yeah,

so my short answer to your

question is I don't know yet.

I need to do some research,

and I need to just explore

a little bit more.

And I'm going to continue that.

I mean, I'm going to, like,

twenty Comic-Cons this year.

Holy shit.

Oof.

Yeah, I'm not fucking kidding, man.

I'm trying to make waves, man.

That's a schedule.

That is a schedule, for sure.

And I literally just...

maybe February opened up my

own medical device distributorship.

So I'm running two businesses now.

So it's been busy.

It's been busy,

but I'm still- I was gonna

ask if you had like a

regular nine to five, man.

Yeah, so I was in medical devices for like,

eleven years.

And I was traveling all over the country.

My specialty,

was the traumatic burn injury,

which is kind of a subsect

of wound healing,

like advanced wound healing.

And it's a very small community,

but all of these burn centers,

they're not just like right

next to each other.

I mean, usually,

uh they could be pulling

from like a tri-state area

so I'd have to fly out to

like augusta georgia or uh

columbus beautiful area or

to you know like all over

the place so I was

traveling the country

that's why I was on a plane

so much and so I just I had

met people all over the

place and it just got to a point where um

I was getting kind of sick of, you know,

working the corporate nine to five.

I wasn't I didn't have as

much freedom and as much

time to be able to fill it

right here on this.

I definitely feel that.

Yeah, I hear you.

So I just said, you know what?

I have the contacts.

I know what I'm doing now.

I know what the process is.

I know the protocols.

I can do this on my own and

maybe even make more money.

We'll see.

We're still building the

business right now,

so we haven't gotten quite

to that point yet, but it's going well.

Good, good.

It's always...

anytime you can take that

step back and focus on

something that you really

want to focus on that, you know,

is still going to provide

for what you're really

wanting to focus on.

That's always a good thing.

A hundred percent.

This is, this is my, I'm,

this is me trying to write

my way out of my day job.

Eventually.

I feel it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So one day, one day I'll get there,

but I'm,

I'm just running around like a maniac.

That's the way to do it, though.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's been good.

It's been a good run so far.

So, when it came to, like,

the character designs for the comic book,

did you, like,

how involved were you with that?

Like, Roman has to look a certain way.

These characters have to

look a certain way.

Or did you go...

Francisco, this is what I think,

and then he just run with it.

So I already had basically

all of the characters fully

rendered in three-D.

Okay.

I have a phenomenal graphic designer.

His name's Ahmed Gittar.

He's actually in Egypt.

And he... We were just

talking about Egypt.

I know.

I want to go visit Egypt at some point,

man.

I got to see those pyramids.

Pyramids are on my list.

Coming out lately?

Yeah,

the pyramids are definitely on my list.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I want to get down into those caverns

beneath.

I want to see what's going

on with those pillars.

Yeah.

I read the same article.

I know there's tons of articles.

It's been all over the news.

But yeah, so I had basically,

I'd been working with this

guy to get my book covers made.

And so I already really had

a feel for what I wanted

Roman to look like.

And I already had worked

extensively with Ahmed to

basically get it fully

completed for all the characters.

And I did that for a very specific reason.

I mean, I'm a huge gamer.

I love- Assassin's Creed?

Hell yeah.

your book cover, your,

I think it was your audio

book cover that was sent over.

Yeah.

That's what I thought.

Like the moment I seen it, like,

cause his back is to us and

it kind of looks like the snow almost.

I mean, I know it's not snow,

but I was like, it's funny.

You draw that, uh, comparison.

Cause that's,

it's really not what I was thinking of,

but, but yeah,

it kind of does a little bit.

Um, but yeah, uh,

I basically said, hey,

I want all of these

characters fully rendered

in three day full three

sixty degree views,

because eventually this is

something I'd like to turn

into a video game.

So that would be dope, actually.

Yeah.

Give me a few years on that,

but I promise you,

if I have anything to do with it,

it's going to come to fruition.

But yeah,

so when I pull up the audio book cover.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let me see if I can get it

to come up the first try.

And the audiobook cover is

the same as the regular book cover.

Okay.

There's also the limited

edition book cover,

which I might... There we go.

Oh, yeah.

That gave me Assassin's Creed vibes,

like hard Assassin's Creed vibes.

Yeah.

Yep.

And you'll actually

recognize that scene later

on once you get to a

certain point in the book.

Okay, bet.

Yeah, I'm actually,

as we talk about it more, I'm like,

I know what I'm doing the

rest of the weekend besides

catching up on Star Wars.

In between, I'm reading.

Yeah.

Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it, man.

But, yeah, so, like I said,

I already had a basis for

what I wanted all the

characters to look like.

And I basically just sent those to Fran.

And I said,

this is kind of the vibe I'm going for.

We made some tweaks, you know,

just conversations between us.

Like,

I want his armor to look a little

different here.

You know, little small things.

So, is he wearing armor?

Is that like a full exosuit?

Or has he actually got

biomechanical as well?

No.

So,

he doesn't have any biomech because

he's basically...

You can't afford it.

And on planet Deorum,

normal citizens are

restricted to basically

only medically necessary bionic implants.

It's like, once again,

authoritarian government,

lots of restrictions,

lots of regulations.

And unless you're kind of

some high-flying business

mogul or a politician or

something like that,

you're not getting access

to the higher end.

Or you're...

you know, in the underworld,

basically paying for it

under the table and getting it illegally.

Gotcha.

So that's kind of the,

that seems to be kind of the, the,

the result of these like

big authoritarian, um, um,

like massive regulation

type government is,

it always creates a space

for like an underworld.

Just like, I mean, anytime you have, um,

prohibition of anything.

I mean,

look at prohibition with alcohol here,

created a whole underworld

of crime around alcohol as

an illegal business.

And so that's kind of the

world that you're in.

That's, that's, and that's not a,

that's not a new theme either.

That's what, I mean, William Gibson,

who is like the father of cyberpunk, he's,

he,

I'm actually rereading his book,

Neuromancer, right now,

which is basically the book

that the cyberpunk game was

based on loosely.

Because like I said,

he's the one who created

that cyberpunk kind of feel.

And he was an author.

He wrote a book series.

So I'm rereading those books

right now just on audiobook

whenever I have a little time.

But it's a gritty, dark future.

And it's not pretty.

You know, you have all this technology,

but it's not evenly dispersed.

And it creates like these

kind of pockets of crime.

And it's not pretty.

You know, the neon lights,

that whole look is

basically to kind of mask the, I guess,

the filth of the surroundings, really.

That's kind of what the cyberpunk vibe is.

And yeah,

it's one that I was always

fascinated with.

So I wanted to affect that a

little bit in my writing as well.

But I also plan to explore a

lot of different types of idol makeups,

especially as we start to

go to other planets in future books.

Because once again,

there are six other planets

that have yet to be explored.

in the book series.

So we're gonna take trips to

each of those planets at some point,

and we're gonna get to see

what their society looks

like on that planet.

You know, like there's one planet,

it's gonna be basically

like a complete corporatocracy,

because it's called Planet Ventura,

and Planet Ventura is

basically completely owned

and operated by two corporations.

The Cyrenos, no,

the Cyreax Corporation and

Grazix Industries.

And they are going to be

like kind of the main power

players on that planet.

And we're going to get to

explore that planet a little bit.

That's actually going to be

a fun one to write.

I've already been kind of messing around.

I've already sold on it.

I've been messing around

with a little bit of a

chapter breakdown on that one already.

And I have one of the

characters modeled after

one of my good friends, John Alvarez.

And he's going to be a wild

trip of a character.

That's a great thing about

having your own world

within this book is you can just be like,

hey, my friend John over here,

he'd be perfect for this one character.

And that's kind of like the

character you put in is like,

like you pull pieces from him and go, yep,

that's perfect.

You know, it's funny.

I, I, I basically,

I jumped into this knowing

nothing about the writing world,

the comic book world.

Like I just, I,

this was a completely like

one hundred and eighty

degree turn from what I was

doing on a daily basis.

And, uh,

The thing I'd always heard was, you know,

write what you know.

Right.

And I was like, well, I know these people.

And so I started this

practice of kind of basing

a lot of the characters in

the book on people that I

knew because it allowed me

to kind of breathe life

into that character.

And it allowed me to write

from that character's

perspective more

effectively because I was like, oh,

that's based on this person.

I know what they would do in

that scenario.

Yeah.

Let's see where that takes us.

And I try and keep the

writing fluid because it

allows me to keep the

character interactions and

basically the storyline

feeling more real.

Nothing feels forced.

At least my goal is to have

nothing feel forced.

From what I've read, like I said,

I just started digging into the book.

I love the flow of it.

Like I said,

the way you started with

introducing the different

factions and then you start

into Roman's backstory,

it all just kind of like... Dude,

it's everything you want.

So far,

there's not been a single point

where it's like, you're here.

Oh, wait, we're over here.

You know?

You're like, wait,

how did I get over there?

And that's one of the things

about some books that will

drive you crazy is you're here,

but then all of a sudden you're like,

boop.

Yeah.

And then you're back, and you're like,

wait, no, what?

No, this – what's going on right now?

And then they'll do it throughout the book,

and sometimes you can make it make sense.

But for the most part,

when it just jumps oddly, like, no.

Yeah.

Who approved this?

Yeah.

Well,

thankfully I went through all those

rounds of editing.

So hopefully all that stuff

got scrapped early on, but I, yeah, I, I,

I have major events and,

and thank you for, for,

for the kind words, by the way,

I couldn't be happier to hear that.

You know, I wouldn't,

I wouldn't be SEO on that one.

That's, that's genuine from me.

I've,

from what I've gotten to enjoy of it,

I've thoroughly enjoyed of

it from the comic book and

then digging into starting

to dig into the book.

Yeah.

That's what I look for.

Hell yeah, man.

And it's not overly complicated book.

You're not trying hard to

put big words in places

where big words don't

belong outside of trying to pronounce it.

Right.

Once you have it in your head, you're like,

okay, that's, that's pretty easy.

Right.

But I was like,

I like books that flow well.

They're easy to read.

The writer didn't try to

confuse his readers by

throwing in like big made up words.

Like why?

I feel like some people can

get obsessed with trying to

sound like they're smart by trying to,

and that's not the purpose of,

Especially in any kind of fiction.

It's for enjoyment, right?

You got to... Entertain me.

It's entertainment.

Entertain me with the words.

Yeah.

I know exactly what it is.

Yeah.

So... I'm sorry.

From a creative process,

what has been the one thing

that you've enjoyed the most?

The writing, editing, design...

collaborating building this

amazing world that you're

building what has been your

favorite part so far of

this process uh probably

the uh the world building

and the character building

has been the most how big

is that spreadsheet by the

way like forty fucking tabs dude

it's not it's not I had to I

had to create a religion in

the book what does religion

look like seven hundred

years from now so I had to

write out the tenets of

this religion so that I

could you know put that

into their faction and

everything else and I like

everything from a to z I've

I've tried to think and I'm

pretty sure it's still growing

It's literally weekly, it grows.

I'm changing things, adding things,

you know.

How's your computer set up?

Like,

do you have the big screen and then

another big screen over

here and then another screen over here?

I got a big old widescreen.

It's like,

I can't even show you with my...

I usually have like

multiple different things open.

So I'll have a spreadsheet

open on one side and I'll have my...

my, uh,

the page in the center that I'm writing,

you know, the word document, you know,

like a thesaurus tab open,

just in case I feel like

I'm using words too frequently.

Um, and that's it.

That's, that's,

that's typically my writing process,

unless I'm on the plane and

then it's just the, I don't,

I don't have that.

I actually, it's,

it's nice to be on the

writing on the plane is

nice because I disconnect.

Yeah.

have any of the distractions.

I don't go, oh, did they email me back?

Let me check.

No,

I've got just the music and the writing.

Yes, exactly.

And that's that's probably

why the the writing portion

of the first book went

probably a little a little faster.

But it was the world

building part because I had

I hadn't built it yet at that point.

That was that contributed to

basically it taking two years to

to get the first novel completed.

That's still a really good

time to crank a book out

and build a world around it.

Yeah.

yeah um it's it's because

it's not a shorty it's not

a shorty but but it reads

you know you you your book

though is like the perfect

amount of pages though it's

not obsessive it's not

short it's not like why is

there a thousand pages in

this book right you know

it's perfect like that I

think it was like five

thirty six I've seen or

five eighty six something

like that yeah yeah yeah

and I was like dude that's

like to me that's like

the perfect amount of pages, you know?

Yeah.

Solid, solid number.

It really is.

It's like you pick a number

and you're like, it's five thirty six,

but I was close, you know?

Exactly.

So, yeah.

So I forgot what we were talking about.

What were we talking about?

Oh,

we were just like your favorite part of

the book.

Yeah.

yeah def definitely the like

I said getting to ask

questions like you know

what all right this is

let's let's say one planet

I I have one planet that's

going to be like a water

planet you got to have a

water planet yeah you

cannot cannot have a water

planet and it just it

started to get me thinking like all right

What are the cities going to

look like in this water planet?

What are the creatures that

they're going to find?

What are their exports?

Well, it's a water planet,

so water is going to be one.

And probably, you know,

fishing industry and all

these different things.

And then what are some of

their energy sources going to look like?

Because even though

vitilarium is used as kind

of the major energy source,

it's kind of like the

fossil fuels of today.

I want there to be, you know,

it's that's that's kind of

a one dimensional look at, you know,

a real type of society.

You know,

there's going to be all sorts of

different types of energy sources.

So I basically I found this

recently where it was a it was it was.

not a theory but it was like

a schematic for a potential

uh power source that was

basically powered by wave

movement and it's basically

like these panels from

japan yeah yeah yeah put on

the water and every time

they're just constantly

going like this with the

waves and it's creating

energy and I was like I'm

gonna come they're actually

using one of those in japan right now

Oh,

it's a full prototype built already in

Japan, and it's actually operational.

Perfect.

We're going to have an

updated version of those on that planet.

We're going to have all sorts of stuff.

Fun stuff like that.

When I'm literally like... I

always liked...

Do you remember, like, SimCity and, like,

or even just, like, The Sims?

You know the mode where you're, like,

building all the stuff?

That was part of those video

games because I was like, oh,

I get to decide how this

goes and where this goes.

I would do that for hours and hours.

I would forget all about the

other portions of the game.

I'd find the cheat codes so

I could just jack up my

cash supply so I could just

build the craziest thing I could possibly,

you know, fathom.

Asking mom in the grocery

store for a pin so you can

write down the cheat codes

from the Game Informer.

Yeah, yeah.

Nice.

That was a good move.

I should have taken that move.

I...

uh but uh what was it for

for the sims it was rosebud

colon semicolon yeah yep I

remember that one yeah um

but anyway yeah the

building portion has always

been like since I was a kid

that that seemed to

manifest in uh obviously

that kind of uh rudimentary

way but like here now I get to

really just free reign over

what I get to build.

And I fucking love that, man.

There's something about that.

Were you ever on the plane

and just leaned over to the

person that's sitting next

to you and like turned your

computer and be like, hey,

can you read this?

Does it make sense?

Did you ever do that?

No, I never did that.

I've had some people, you know,

like as I'm kind of typing

away with my headphones and

like nudge me and be like,

what's this you're working on?

Because they probably saw me

start a new chapter or something,

and then start typing.

They're like, hey,

what's this you're writing?

So I've had some

conversations with people about it.

But I'm relatively

protective over the alpha version.

As you should be.

And just because I don't...

It's not ready.

The first draft of everything is shit.

And I forget who said that.

It's somewhat prominent.

Somebody important said it.

Yeah, but that's my point.

I try not to show it to

anyone until I feel like

I'm comfortable with it.

And I have a high standard

in terms of comfort.

I'm a little perfectionist

when it comes to that.

Like, even my wife,

who is probably... She's

usually my first beta

reader and probably my

toughest... Biggest artist critic.

Yeah.

Not afraid to tell me if

something reads like shit and she'll...

Tell me just like that.

She's a keeper.

Yeah.

All right.

She's great.

I mean, you need things.

You need that, right?

You need honesty.

You really do.

And the honesty is good.

And I appreciate that from her.

And she's awesome.

She's a rock star.

But I didn't give her any of

my chapters until I had

gotten more than halfway

through the first book.

And I write a chapter.

I start the next chapter,

I'll write the first paragraph,

and then I leave it.

And then I'll go back and

edit the first chapter.

Okay.

And once that's fully edited

and I basically have kind

of I've had time to sit on

how I started the chapter,

then I go back to that chapter.

And sometimes I'm like,

I like the way I started that.

That's the way that it's

going to flow best.

And then other times I'm like, actually,

I want to start this

chapter this way and I change it.

And maybe I move what I

wrote down further or I

things around a little bit.

Get ahead of yourself a

little bit and have to pull it back.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And that happens when you're

kind of collecting.

You're basically collecting

your thoughts as you're

writing to put them on the page.

And that's why when you

first write something,

it's probably not the best it could be.

You need time to be able to go through it.

So at that point,

I had already edited those

chapters probably twice through.

Mm-hmm.

And I got to a point where I was like,

all right, I'll share this with you.

And she read it and she was like, oh,

you can actually like, you can write.

I was like, yeah, thanks.

Now that's something,

like my wife will watch me

build something or watch me

tear apart something and

put it back together.

And she's like, oh,

you actually know how to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Did you doubt me?

Like, come on, I said I could do it.

With a comic book, how far do you see it?

How many issues do you see

with the prequels and

potentially spinoffs?

Do you see it being very

much like the book,

covering all seven books as well,

plus prequels?

How big do you see the comic

book itself getting?

I'm going to keep making

them for as long as I'm

writing the books.

Like I said,

that comic book that you have,

That first issue is just one

chapter from the first book.

Yeah, you said chapter six, correct?

Chapter six.

The first book is thirty one chapters.

So I have and then I've got

six more books after that.

And that's a daunting task

on how like which chapters

do you want to pull and

make into a comic?

Because you can't do them all.

Ah, yeah, yeah, you're probably right.

But I mean, you can, you can kind of take,

okay,

I like this part of this one book

that goes into this,

this chapter in this

chapter kind of go hand in hand.

So I can kind of split and

do a twenty four issue or sorry,

twenty four page book or

comic book or thirty two page comic book.

Those are more pages you get

the more expensive things

get when it comes to print and stapling.

It can get messy.

Yeah.

So, I mean, there's ways to do it.

And that was my curiosity is like,

are you going to attempt to do that?

Because, I mean,

that's thirty one comic book issues.

Plus the prequels just from

one book alone.

So, so here's what,

here's how I'm doing it.

And that's, that's a good point.

So yeah,

some chapters probably aren't

going to translate well,

or maybe parts of some

chapters could be taken.

And like, for instance, the next,

the next one that's about

to come out is a

combination of two chapters.

And I took kind of the best, most kind of,

I guess the most

interesting parts of both.

and was able to kind of combine them.

And so, yeah,

so it's not going to be a

perfect one-to-one like I

mentioned before,

but as far as what's happening,

that's going to stay relatively true.

Yeah.

At least for now.

Because right now what's

going to happen is the

comic book as it stands is

going to follow only the protagonist.

However, the book is multi-narrative.

So you are going to end up

following other characters

who you'll meet later on in the book.

And what I plan to do is I

plan to do all of Romans.

And then I plan to basically

start doing some of the

other characters and have

him and then be able to

maybe even go back a little

further and explore some of

their backstory that I

don't include in the book.

And so...

I don't know if you're familiar with Spawn,

right?

Oh, yeah.

The movie from Todd

McFarlane in the nineties.

So we're three hundred plus

issues deep into the comic

book right now.

And what he's done the last

two years is some of the

characters that he like,

he introduced new things to us finally.

So we got the Scorched,

which is a team of Spawns.

We got Gunslinger Spawn,

Medieval Spawn just came out.

We have the Book of Nits,

which is someone who's

helped him before in the past.

She's been an enemy.

She's been a friend.

And he just recently did The Violator,

which got a seven book spinoff.

So they went back and kind

of told a history story of

like different cultural and

world events that The Violator caused,

like the plague in Europe.

You know what I'm saying?

That is a dope concept to

grasp into and go, hey,

I'm going to go and do this

five-issue character

spinoff for this one

particular character.

And that's kind of what Todd McFarlane,

the team over at Image and

the Spawn Universe is

currently doing right now.

I love that concept.

So just tossing one up for you.

It's a dope concept to explore.

And I definitely want to do

something like that, because like I said,

I want to make this immersive.

I want to make it expansive.

I want this to be something

people can sink their teeth into.

And this is even though

we're kind of at the ground floor,

like I just I want anyone

who's out there who's maybe

looking for something new

or looking to check out

some some cool sci fi stuff like this.

I'm not stopping anytime soon.

I've got a lot of big plans

for this and I'm going to keep going.

And even if I have to finance, you know,

all of it.

That leads to my next

question is how are you

currently financing the

comic book version of this?

Just myself.

Okay.

That's it.

I don't know if you're using

Kickstarter or something like that.

I haven't yet.

I've been toying around with

the idea of doing a Kickstarter.

If you ever want to do one, let me know.

I know a guy who wrote a

whole basic how-to guide on

how to run a Kickstarter campaign.

Okay.

it's really good I've read

through it even though I

don't have a plan to do a

kickstarter anytime soon

but he sent it to me out of

the goodness of his heart

said hey if anybody ever

wants to know how I did

this and my lessons learned

you get past this to them

so shout out to bruno

catarino who I've had the

pleasure of talking to

twice now who's both his

books got funded recently

which I thought was really

dope I'm always happy to

see people who come on

secede because that's

ultimately at the end of

the day what I want to see

is them secede right and I

got to play my tiny part in

that you know that's you

know you always celebrate

your friend's successes

yeah yeah and so I if

you're ever interested in

it I can shoot that over to

you that's yeah not an

issue I could even put you

in contact with bruno and

he could send it to you and

you could ask him questions

if you ever wanted to

I'd be interested in something like that.

This journey has taken me

down kind of like a whole new,

just a whole new world

where I'm just like,

I'm more interested now

than I ever have been in

like learning new skills

and like learning how

different things work.

And it's just, it's ignited like this.

this new passion for

learning and exploration and, um,

Listening to you talk about it.

You can feel that, you know,

like you could tell how

passionate you are about

what it is that you're

doing and what you're

trying to give to people.

And it, to me,

it shows in the work as well.

So hats off to you cause

you're nailing it and you can feel that.

Thanks man.

Appreciate it.

Appreciate that.

Yeah, I just, I don't know, man.

I'm basically just kind of

learning on the fly as I'm

doing everything now with this.

And it's a free,

there's definitely a freedom to it.

It's definitely freeing in

some aspects and it's kind

of scary in others.

Like, you know, I don't know.

I couldn't imagine like, kind of like, A,

you stepped away from your nine to five.

You started your own company, two of them.

Yeah.

And then you're like, hey,

I'm going to write a book

and I'm going to spin that

off into this big world.

And we're also going to have comic books.

And, dude, that's like.

I don't even know how to describe that.

Like, that's just that's a leap of faith,

if I've ever seen one, dude,

and putting the faith in

what you what you're doing.

Yeah.

I said, Jesus,

take the will moment for sure.

That's a, yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

I'm just, like I said, I feel like as,

you know, part of me wants to say like,

oh man, I hope it works out.

But then the other part,

there's like a part of me that's like,

just focus on the content,

just focus on the body of work.

Like you have so much,

planned like you you have so

many things if you can just

focus on making sure that

you bring it to fruition in

the best possible form that

it could be um it it it'll

work out and um one piece

at a time that's all you

can do exactly exactly so

I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna

keep grinding away

A couple of more for you.

Looking back,

is there anything that you've

learned during this project

that made you kind of

change how you think about

storytelling as a whole?

About storytelling as a whole.

I've definitely learned, I feel like,

what works and what doesn't work.

Mostly through my beta readers.

They've been immensely helpful.

Just making sure that I have,

and my editor, my editor, John Smith,

most generic name in the

world but great guy um he's

a professor up in uh I

forget where but uh he he

was that was a very

collaborative um scenario

and one of the things that

he told me was like he's

like you've got this big

story in your head and

When I gave him the book,

it had already been through

a few of my beta readers, my own, my own,

you know, perfectionist bullshit.

And he was like,

I see this as like

basically ninety percent done.

And I was like, all right, well,

that's good to hear.

It was not what I was

expecting because I had been basically,

you know,

I'd heard horror stories of like,

you've got to change this.

You've got to change that.

You guys.

And it wasn't that at all.

He could tell I kind of came

to the table prepared and he was like,

look,

some parts need more elaboration and

some parts you're just a

little too wordy.

And for me,

I'd say the biggest thing for me was,

especially in the book,

I probably cut off about

fifty pages throughout the

editing process, which was mostly just me

cutting down the wordiness

of certain areas because I

my goal with this was to

try and put you in the

front seat so that you

could see everything that

was going on with the

characters in every single

scenario almost like you

were I wanted it to be

almost like a cinematic

event through text right oh

yeah yeah no that once I

got to where we started

learning about young roman

You get that feel from it, though.

So you accomplish that wholeheartedly.

That's that's good to hear

because that's the way you

lay your details with the story.

And you can almost in your head,

you get your reading,

but your your brain is

playing it for you.

You know what I'm saying?

Yes.

Yeah.

No,

you know that you definitely know that.

That's that's good to hear.

And yeah,

just making sure that... And a

lot of times it's just kind

of like tedious tweaks and

things like that.

Like I could...

know shorten it by you know

just rewording it this way

and that kind of stuff

that's that was definitely

my my one biggest flaw when

I when I was first writing

and then there were other

parts where you know I've

got it's all up here like I

know exactly what I want to

portray I know exactly

what's going on in the

scene I know you already

have your indian planned oh

what's that do you have

your indian planned

My ending?

Oh, my ending.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Like book seven,

you know exactly how you

want the story to close.

I know exactly how it ends.

Because I've always,

other writers I've talked to,

whether it's a comic book

artist or just people that

I've met at cons who write, you know,

sci-fi novels and that kind of stuff.

They're like, oh, I wrote my ending.

that last chapter of that

book was done before I even

got into the beginning.

Cause that's what come to me

first is how cool would a

book be if it ended this way?

And I wrote that.

And then I went back and wrote the rest.

I was like, dude, that's insane to me.

I get it.

Yeah.

Cause you want that perfect ending.

And I know a lot of people are like,

if you're writing something,

you know where you want to

take it and how you want to end it.

It's just getting to that point.

Exactly.

Like I said,

remember when I said I like to

keep the writing fluid?

Yes.

There are certain things

that are hardwired.

Like, for instance,

the first two books are

going to be on a planetary basis,

happening on planet Deorum.

The next set of books are

going to happen on a galactic basis,

so with all of the

different colonized planets.

which is going to be fun

because we're going to

explore some other planets.

And then in the third segment,

we're going to start getting weird.

And I already know exactly

how I want it to end.

I love weird.

Aside from small details

that may shift and change throughout,

but everything else in between,

I try and keep it fluid,

but keep it moving toward those major,

major events.

So I'm guessing you already

have it stacked and laid out on...

book two I need x y and z to

happen book three abc will

happen and so forth and so

on there's certain events

that have to happen in

certain books and you're

just kind of like writing

the details of those events

to get there I'm connecting

the dots essentially so

yeah yeah that's the that's

the that's what I said kind

of that's exactly what you said

You read my mind.

It was a picture book.

Yeah.

And so.

So, yeah.

So I know how it ends.

And like I said,

it's I've always enjoyed

like philosophy and

especially the philosophy

of like advanced civilization.

And, you know,

as things begin to expand

and what happens.

And I love sci fi for the

fact that it allows us to

explore like potential ways

that we can fuck it up.

But also because it's a

guarantee we're going to do that.

Yeah.

And it's, it's like,

it's a good way for us to

identify pitfalls, you know, as,

as a society,

like there's value to sci-fi

in that respect.

And then it also allows us

to come up with potential

solutions or ways to, you know,

frame a solution,

just different mindsets that could,

you know,

help us get through certain hardships.

And I love doing that,

and so I wanted the ending

to be very meaningful.

And so we're going to

explore a lot of things in

this series arc.

We're going to explore...

I'm going to try to explore

the crux at which...

simulation theory the big

bang theory religion and

kind of like a theory of

everything meat okay so

that's where we're and it's

and it's not it's not going

to be like overt it's going

to be more so like kind of

in this in the subtext uh

but all of the different

all of the different

theories just a way that

they kind of coincided to one okay so

Let me ask this.

I know in the first issue of

the comic book,

Roman was out getting an artifact.

Is that going to be a common

theme throughout the comic

book in the actual story, the book?

It is an important detail.

You'll see more instances of that.

It's not going to be all him.

One of the

One of the things about

Roman is that he's especially skilled in,

you know,

knowledge of the untamed

wilderness of Deorum.

Just kind of the jungles, the forest,

the mountainous regions,

the desert regions.

I have the whole planet mapped out.

essentially he's he's just

he's he has these like

weird kind of like savant

elements where he's just

like oh that's that

creature that's you this is

how you do you know okay

creature this is it because

um one of the things that

you find out in the first

chapter is his father used

to quiz him on the fauna

diorum books which is all

like the animals of the

planet and like all the

different things so and it's a cut throat

kind of planet in terms of

the species that exist

there I mean they are there

are fucking monsters on

this planet um so there

there are elements of that

certainly kind of scattered

throughout um and I I part

of that I I definitely

think I I pull from my love

for the witcher series um I

am a huge fan of that and

yes so this is your do you

uh do you play video games

I do.

When I have opportunities,

I sneak in and get me a

game in for a couple hours.

So this is like if you took Mass Effect,

Cyberpunk, and The Witcher,

and you mashed them together.

That's the kind of game that

this would be like,

and that's exactly what I

want this to feel like,

even when you're just reading it.

So that's kind of where, I guess,

a little bit of my inspiration came from.

That's three classics right there,

and they're all one of

those games where you can

just go back and just play it.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

And I love those.

I love a game with a good,

a good campaign storyline,

like a really good, I love,

I love going on and like

put me on the road for a

fucking adventure.

Like that's, that's what I, I,

I will play story mode all day on stuff.

Like everybody's running around GTA,

you know, just killing the NPCs.

I'm like, nah, dude,

I'm in the story mode.

Yeah.

I'm playing the story

through and then I'm going

to go have the fun and run

over people and do all that stuff.

But the story's got to be complete.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good.

I'm the same way.

I love the story.

And I feel like I also love

games where you get.

like an option to kind of choose,

or you get the opportunity

to make choices within the

game that have an actual

effect on the outcome of things.

Later on in the game, yep.

Yeah,

I think that adds a nice element

because there's value to

your autonomy there, right?

And I think that's

definitely a cool... Our

Cry was really good at that.

Far Cry.

I haven't played the last two Far Cries.

Oh, no?

Yeah, I wouldn't.

Oh, okay.

How do I say it?

What they had in part three, I think,

was perfect.

But then with four and five,

I think it's four and five,

They kept adding more and

more and more and more.

And then you would spend

hours trying to kill some

animals that are hard to

find just to be able to

upgrade your equipment to

where you needed to be to

go into this last mission.

And it got really bad like that.

And then you could talk to animals.

It got way too much.

It got really weird.

It just became way too much

and overbearing to where...

The story was good,

but it wasn't enjoyable

because of all the shit you had to do.

Yeah.

So you could skip the last couple.

All right.

Fair enough.

The one I'm still playing right now,

which I only play very

sporadically because I

don't have any fucking time anymore,

is I've been playing Starfield.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's been a fun one.

I love the sci-fi game.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I love sci-fi in general,

man, ever since I was a kid.

Anything sci-fi.

The first sci-fi game I

actually ever really got

into was a game called Freelancer.

Okay.

It was an old one.

Okay, yeah.

My father,

this was back when I was in like

middle school,

my father was the one who

basically bought the game

because he was a police

officer and he retired

after twenty three years.

And, you know, he had all this free time.

So he was either, you know,

bothering me at track practice or he was,

you know, finding other stuff to do.

So he started getting into video games.

He started buying like nice

systems and things like that.

And he wasn't particularly tech savvy.

So he'd have me play with him.

And in this game, Freelancer,

you're flying a spaceship around,

you know, basically doing contract work.

And he could never find the

button for the missile or

for the nanobots to repair the ship.

So we'd be playing together

and he'd be like, all right, nanobots,

all right, hit the nanobot.

Missile, we need the missile.

Randy,

you got some great bonding time with

your father, you know?

Yeah.

So that was kind of a fun thing.

And then I started playing it myself,

and I was way better than him.

But that was kind of what

really got me started.

That and XCOM.

XCOM was dope.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

The XCOM games were dope.

All right.

Nick, I'd love to continue all night,

but let's bring it home.

Let's give a fun one to the people.

What are you reading or

watching right now?

I know you said you're

reading something right now,

but are you having time to

actually sit down with the wife,

watch some TV?

What are you watching?

We're watching the show

on... It was a show that she found.

I think it's called The Terror.

I've heard of that.

It's about this.

I love...

I nerd out with conspiracy

theories a little bit.

There's a comic book called

The Department of Truth.

What's that?

The Department of Truth.

What's that?

It's a comic book.

The Department of Truth.

Yeah.

If you love conspiracies,

go pick up the trade

paperback of one through

five and give it a read.

You'll love it.

I'll check that out for sure.

But yeah, so I like that stuff,

not in a crazy way,

but more in like some of

this might be true way and some of this.

And then this show is about

this ship in like the,

I think like the seventeen

hundreds or something like

that as they're crossing

through the Arctic and they

get stuck in the Arctic

trying to find this pass

and all this weird stuff

starts happening.

Um, so I love, and,

and I've always been like, you know, I, I,

I've gone down, you know,

some rabbit holes with, uh,

the polls and everything like that.

And, you know, the,

the research facilities and

Antarctica and all that stuff.

And, uh, that's it.

So this was immediate.

Immediately.

I was like, all right, I'll, I'll,

this one I'll watch with you.

So we've been watching that

and that's been fun.

I like anything horror.

Like I loved it.

There are some cosmic horror

elements to the book, too.

I forgot to mention that,

but you probably haven't

come across that yet, but that's... CJ,

who was on here earlier,

giving you the shout-out on

the seven-book deal, big horror guy.

That's what he does.

That's his neck of the woods,

and I'll let him know, like, hey,

you need to pick this up, too,

because it's got horror

elements mixed into it as well,

especially on the sci-fi side.

I love sci-fi horror.

Aliens?

The new Predator about to come out.

It's going to be a good

twenty twenty five for that

kind of stuff.

It's a good year for sci fi all over.

It really is.

So let's close it out, man.

Tell everybody where they can find you at.

Absolutely.

How they can connect with you.

So you can you can get the book on Amazon.

The audio book is on Audible.

It's called Vidalarium

Descent into the Void.

You can find me on my website, Vidalarium.

That's V-I-T-A-L-E-R-I-U-M series dot com.

That's where you can get the comic books,

the limited edition books,

any of the limited edition stuff, merch,

etc.

um I'm on social media

basically every social

media that exists um at

vitalarium series and I

have a patreon called

inside vitalarium where

once again you get inside

access to the whole

creation process um limited

edition stuff you get early

access to everything

including the books and the

comic books and uh yeah

thank you everyone for

their support sounds great so

When you have a chance,

if you could shoot me all that stuff,

that way when I push this

out to Spotify and then I

put it out on YouTube again,

if you can include all those,

shoot me an email with those links in it,

I will make sure all that's

included and how they can

find you on across everything.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'll make sure everybody has

access to the link.

But with that, everybody.

We're going to close it out.

If you came out and rocked

with us for a little bit,

we appreciate you stopping in.

This show will go live next

Wednesday on YouTube, Spotify,

you name it.

They'll get it.

I'll have all the links that

Nick just mentioned below

the description on YouTube.

As always, Nick,

welcome to the Council of Nerds.

Invitalarium is USDN approved.

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