Hey, everybody, Welcome back time again for word Balloon, the Comic book conversation show.

John suntris with you.

Tony Flace back on word Balloon to talk about Ferrell.

What's going on in his Image comic book series there.

He just racked up Uncanny Valley for Boom.

We talk about that, but we're also talking about his Marvel stuff.

He is part of the New X Men Age of Revelation event and is doing this very cool book called Omega Kids.

We talk about that, kind of a new spin on a new group of mutants, New Mutons, did you say yes?

Certainly inspired by that group, and in fact their leader is a former New Mutant himself, Quinton.

We'll talk about that, and we talk about the Thing mini series that Tony did this year for Marvel.

And also he and Tim Seeley work together on the Winter Break special that is out for Winter in Marvel coming up in the next couple of weeks.

He also has one of the new DC books that were teased at New York Comic Con, so a little bit of detail on that.

Not much though they're not release what title Tony's working on.

But it's always great to catch up with my good friend Tony Fleees, so we're going to do that on today's word Balloon.

Word Balloon is brought to you by Alex Ross Art dot com, the home for stunning, realistic artwork of the legendary painter Alex Ross.

Check out limited edition prints, sketchbooks, and exclusive pieces featuring the world's greatest heroes.

Whether you're a lifelong fan or a new collector, there's no better place to see the artistry that's defined modern comics.

Visit Alex Ross Art dot com and bring the heroes home and don't forget.

If you're in the Chicago area, you could see Alex Ross's exhibit Heroes and Villains at the dun Museum in Suburban Chicago in Libertyville, Illinois, through February of twenty twenty six.

Word Balloon is also brought to you by the League of Word Balloon Listeners my supporters via Patreon Patreon dot com slash word Balloon.

For just three dollars or more a month, it gives you some great premiums, including a Word Balloon e magazine, which transcribes some of my best interviews for you to enjoy a magazine format, and then also you get entrance to the Word Balloon Book Club.

That's where myself and Brian Michael Bendis discuss a book every month.

That's all happening.

If you're a Patreon subscriber at patreon dot com slash word Balloon, thank you for your support.

League of word Balloon listeners, Welcome back everybody time again for word Balloon the comput Conversation Show.

John cuntrists here one of my longtime buddies, Tony Fleece, joining us today our Word Balloon.

Good to see him.

I'm met, Hey, John, happy to be back.

You're certainly having a moment.

It's been a couple of years of a moment.

But I'm proud of you, ton I'm so happy that people are discovering the work and you're doing great stuff for Marvel.

But really, you know, the image stuff and the pexploitation genre.

That's right.

Did you coin that phrase tone?

I think I did.

Yeah.

I didn't hear anybody say it before me, but I had I had to figure out something other than you know, cute animals in danger, So something that sounds a little more syllable than the ones where dogs die.

You know, started with straight odds and continues in Feral and Interesting Turn and volume three.

Yeah, you know, I'm excited.

How long before the next start?

Not to you know, already run through the first three.

The new issue comes out on Wednesday.

We're the So the last issue that came out was sixteen, so we're two issues into the next dark So it's yeah, it basically goes, we do five issues and then we take a month for the trade, and then we do another five so we're we're steady.

We're ten issues a year.

I apologize, Tony.

I loved where things ended, and I have to grab those two issues, but I did catch up.

With the other stuff.

That just makes me happy.

Absolutely, you know, in general tone, Straight Doggs really kind of was a big, pleasant surprise and really give you a trish Forrester.

Obviously some great attention moving forward now because obviously things are going great with Ferrell.

Is it added pressure or what I mean?

People don't people don't have I would imagine any sort of expectation because this really is a new idea, so anything can happen, and you've already proven that in the three volumes that you've given us so far.

But yeah, do you feel any sort of extra pressure or anything.

We always feel pressure, like I'm trying to surprise people with every issue, So so yeah, I mean the just having it like we're sort of past the first issue coming in.

Initially there was pressure of people just going like, oh, we like Straight Doggs, we don't like this.

And now we're a couple of years in so we've sort of found our audience at least our hardcorees that are going to stick around, and then every time we put out of trade is sort of like an opportunity to hopefully widen the audience and bring in more people.

Yeah, the initially that because it was like two years in between the end of Straight Dogs and Feral coming out, and a lot of that was figuring out like how do we figure out something that we could do that's not repeating ourselves but also fits into that same sort of niche, and how do we do something that that's completely different and then also we could do for a long time.

So it took us a while to figure that out.

But once we sort of like got into it and sort of got comfortable in there, the pressure is all internal.

It's not really coming from external sources, except for the part where we always wanted to sell, you know, like that that external thing we're not really in control of, but beyond just doing, you know, making it so people can't wait to read the next issue.

What kind of feedback again from the convention world.

You just came back from New York a couple of weeks ago.

Were you in and were you in Baltimore as well?

Yeah?

I was in Baltimore, not in New York.

Yeah, we did.

I did that.

That's okay.

I did that one because that's where Trish lives.

And so we did the show.

They set us up next to each other and we get to see all kinds of you know, Faral and Straight Dogs, readers and a lot there because it's sort of like Trish living there is sort of built a I always think of like different towns as like different Straight Dogs or Faral franchises or whatever comic you make, you know, like wherever you go the most.

Like I'll go places with Sealy and we'll go to like Hackslash towns, you know where it's just like, oh, we used to come here a ton in the early two thousands.

This is a big Hackslash town.

So Baltimore is a big Faral town.

Yeah.

The response has been good, Like I'm always interested in here, like who people like, who they hate, you know, like what they think is going to happen.

And so I was able to sort of get some feedback like that from Baltimore.

I'm I like the fact that you're very comfortable doing group character books.

We'll talk more about a couple of other group characters books and stuff, but yeah, is it in you know, geez Town.

Years ago, when I was still in school, I remember taking a small communications class and they really kind of broke down the roles of like a leader and a lieutenant and a central negative figure, and they used to use the Poseidon Adventure as like a great example of Gene Hackman, the leader and artist FORG nine, was the center of the negative Roddy McDowell was one of the lieutenants.

And it was really interesting.

Do you are you aware of that kind of hierarchy or do you think it just comes natural in terms of the roles that you give the cat sent Ferrell.

I think it sort of comes naturally, but also because of the like the way we set up the book.

It's basically like everybody thinks they're a certain thing, and then it's about them figuring out what they actually are or maybe this thing that they think they are isn't right for the world that we're in now or the dynamic there now.

So yeah, I think about it in that way, not so much as like if we have a story, it needs to have these parts.

It's more about like, these are these characters, this is what they all like.

You know, Elsie wants this thing, Lord wants this kind of thing.

Gigi just wants to protect your kids, and and so it's about like figuring out what's the situation to put those characters in where like they get to test those things and then also see whether or not the thing they want is actually the thing.

Right.

Does that make sense?

I'm with you.

No, absolutely it does.

Is tris co plotting as well as you know, drawing and stuff.

Uh No, I mean I wouldn't say co plotting.

We really we sort of get on when we get together in person, especially, we'll sort of like have like idea jam sessions and stuff.

But I tend to come up with the plots mostly myself.

We have an editor on the book, Dennis Culver, who's also a comic writer.

He did Doom Patrol last year and he did a book called Chrome that I really love but will so basically how it works is all have of my notebook or like my Google doc or whatever, where it's sort of like all the stuff that's gonna happen in this issue, and we'll get together and we'll do like break it down page by page like here, you know, just sort of like to to help me keep that part rolling.

He comes through and we do it in person like olden time people used to do, or we sit together in a room and go like all right, page one page, you know, break it all the way down.

But the plotting of it, for the most part, I feel like I come up with most of that on my own.

The whole team, though we'll often say things that sort of like unlock a whole big thing.

Like like tone early on was like what if one of these cats was declawed?

Like that's that's the thing people do and and that would be a real nightmare in this situation, So like that was huge, Like it sort of like opened up a thing.

Tricia said some stuff.

Dennis I think one time, said like once one of these cats had a dog, and that was like, you know, like really eye opening where we're always trying to figure out how to get to the point where we explain cats don't know how to talk to dogs.

But it's just like figuring out how to, you know, to get there.

And so yeah, it's it's a it's a real collaborative book.

But I feel like I do most of the plotting.

I definitely do all the writing and that stuff.

That's cool.

I didn't know Dennis was editing.

That's that's great.

And I want didn't he Uh did you do that Monkey Brain book with with Chris Robertson back in.

The day million years ago?

Yeah, and they that one they plotted.

Yeah, Edison Rex, that's.

Right, Gradison Rex.

Excuse me.

Yeah, I was reading off this driver's license.

That's why I had it wrung.

No, that's great, that's and yeah, I loved I love to do a patrol run.

I think that Dennis is a good storyteller.

So that's that's interesting to learn.

Do you because this is a great for people who aren't caught up on Farrell.

You've got this group of cats that are basically trying to survive post zombie apocalypse, and you know, we and I love that you're really kind of almost combined the idea of Rabies, which has always been a kind of trope in the zombie world.

Do you avoid other zombie books while you're writing this.

Do you feel like you know enough and don't want to be influenced by other things?

Does it not matter because you're dealing with kats as opposed to people.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I sort of do.

I remember Kirkman always used to say that he hadn't read World War Z, like he stayed away from all that stuff while he was doing Walking Dead.

And similarly, like I read up until the point in Walking Dead where I read and then I never finished it.

But I'm just like, we'll wait until, you know, five years from now whatever, we're done with this, and I'll get to the end of it.

So I guess I sort of I'm not like intentionally avoiding.

I'll still watch Zombie.

There's a new Romero Romero Family zombie movie that I'm gonna check out for sure that feels like it's like a left turn, way different.

But yeah, I do, especially this time of year, like they put out all DVDs and stuff, all the all the new Blu rays come out, and so I'm crazy about horror movies and I'll watch anything that comes across the you know, comes across my screen.

But yeah, I guess I haven't been seeking out any sort of zombie stories.

I read the Tate Brombo one.

I like that a bunch everything dead and dying.

So and that's another one that's like a completely different take, like it's like a zombie world that that just somebody has moved past the the the running and the nightmare partners just trying to survive like a normal person the world.

So yeah, yes, and no, Honestly, the collaboration with Trisha is great and has has anyone already come up with the poll quote what if Blumhouse bought Disney?

Because that sounded like what you guys do together is basically hold.

On, I'm gonna write that down.

We're we're very uh we need all quotes like crazy, because we put one on the back of it.

There you go, money, there's you see at least I could do for you.

You've been quoted, my friend.

There you go.

What if?

Uh?

It's yeah, what if mouth Disney?

That's that's the vibe.

It's it's great.

Now was it's funny?

I you know, of course is the season and uh, I've got cousins who have a seventh grader and a fifth grader, and I'm like, I don't you know, I kind of think the seventh grader would be old enough for do you ever you know, where would you put an age rate for the stuff?

I always tell people if their kids watch Stranger Things, which the that uh, that reference is now probably too old for you know, like things old now.

So I got to figure out, like what some new like entry level horror is.

You know, if this was the eighties, it would be like if you if your kid's old enough to watch Ghostbusters or you know, Goonies, this is probably okay, it's got a couple of words.

It's violent, yeah, but but yeah it's I mean, I guess it just sort of.

I always tell people that like depends on the kid.

You know, if your kids seems like he could he could take it.

If your kids, you know, looks like a cat getting hurt would ruin their whole life, like keep them away from this.

But if the if they're the kind that chases cats around and picks them up by the tails like my little brother used to do, they'll probably do.

Okay, what.

I lost my TRAINMP thought for a secondlet's once again threw up an image of Farrell.

There you God, did you want someone like Trish from the start?

Did you want this kind of style to tell this kind of horror story?

Yeah, that was I had the idea for straight dogs in like twenty eighteen, twenty seventeen, something like that.

So it's something that took a little while to put together.

But the initial idea was it was just I had the idea about the killer, and it was there's a guy that murders people into their dogs as trophies.

And it didn't become a thing that I was excited about until I sort of ran through the possibilities of like how you tell that story, and I thought like, is it told from the perspective of cops that are chasing these you know, looking for these dogs, or is it told from like a victim's who's been like captured by this guy or And then I thought like, I just had this vision of Oliver and Company, And I was like, what if it's Oliver and Company, but it's instead of their thieves or whatever, it's their kidnap victims that are you know, that don't know they've been captured by this guy, and that's when it really clicked or I got really excited about it.

But then the idea of having it look exactly like a nineteen nineties eighties disney Don Blue type thing was was it felt so essential to this, to the idea, like it had to look like that because of it.

If the dogs look too real, then it starts to it's harder to put emotion on them.

But also sort of like you need a little bit of like you need to remove from reality a little bit to be able to buy that these dogs talk and that they and all the stuff that we're going to make you believe about dog personalities and dog memories and stuff like that.

You needed to have a little bit of separation from reality.

And then I found Trish.

She we had met through ponies, like she worked on My Little Pony, and I saw a drawing of a dog that she had done in like a sketchbook, and and then I just I texted her before we were going to a pony convention together and I said, hey, I want to I've got an idea I want to sit with you and talk about.

And she came to my booth and I just sat her down and I was like, this is my idea for this thing, and I basically told her like the first issue of Straight Dogs, and she was like, I'm absolutely in and she since that day has just been in, you know, like she does the she just hustles and does the work.

And she's not like at that time, she has never drawn any comics besides covers, and so it was like it was like incredible that it worked out as well as it did.

Like she's just a hard worker and she's fucking genius.

You know, she's incredible at drawing these cartoons.

And the collaboration that we have on Farrell now is because we have a very interesting sort of like assembly line way to make these books where I do thumbnails for every page and then Ton Rodriguez on Straight Dogs would do like tighten them up into what we called layouts on that book, but it was basically like he was drawing all the background stuff and doing the perspective right and making it all work together.

And then on Straight Doggs, Trish would draw the dogs in there and then ink over everything because he was doing the background just in pencil like on paper.

And then what we do on Farrell now, his tone is like the full co artist, and so he does all the backgrounds.

I still do the thumbnails.

Tone does all the backgrounds.

And that's why when you especially when you get into like the pet City arc that we're in right now, it's just constant.

Every panel has a background, and every panel is just like, you know, a million boxes on a shell.

He's just drawn his a little hard out and then Trisha, you know, can just go in there and draw these you know, cats having these big emotional conflicts and these big, you know, Nightmarre situations.

It's a it's a real weird.

I don't know anybody else that make comics like this, but it's sort of work for us, and it's been working pretty good so far.

That's excellent.

I know you and Ton have been a long time friends as well, and it's great that they you guys who work so closely on both projects.

What where things were left off?

And find three the cats run into a bunch of cats that are eating babies, eating very young yeah s, fureaking around and everything.

So so where without spoiling too much, where are we now in the new story?

Well, we're trying to lean fully into baby eating.

We're just like if people will come for us putting cats in these terrible situations.

Let's give them the just the worst possible.

Eating the dogs, eating the cats trumps love your book.

That's that tastic.

I don't think he's a big reader.

I don't think he reads it.

He's like a guy for sure that.

It's a pretty clean nightstand.

He's that I don't, yeah, I don't.

I don't see any books next to the other man.

No, no, maybe a three Stooges DVD.

That's about it.

Go ahead, he's still on DVD.

He's like, I don't know, blu ray, I don't know straight.

I don't know what that straight.

I don't have a paddle.

I don't want to.

I don't want to paddle.

That's all right, Well where are we going?

Oh so we're still in the story.

That's all right, we got we got distracted.

We're still in pet City.

That's we sort of like wanted this to be like a longer art because it's basically like our Dawn of the Dead, you know, like they go find them all up and fantastic.

Absolutely, but the cats that are inside the pet City you'll enjoy was they were sort of more My idea for them was that they're like the mutants from beneath the Planet of the Apes, you know, like he go to this place, you find these people and they seem like they've got it all figure out and they but then they have these weird customs and then then further you get into it, you're like.

Oh no, oh geez, like this is not okay.

And so the baby's a sort of our version of Adam Baum, right, Like it's like this is a bridge too far.

It's a thing that cats really do, but for our cats, it's just like, come, we're not doing We're not going here, you know.

And so that's what the is about right now.

Yeah, well it plays into the title man feral Yeah, absolutely, no feral cats man.

When they when they have no choice, you know, it's not like it's not like their paws can open you know, use can openers.

And I'm sure there's a pet smart or something in that mall, but they're probably not you know, other than gnawing at the bags.

You know, I'm sure they already went through all that stuff.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, that's we uh you know, we get to the cat food can I think in seventeen maybe eighteen, but yeah, we you know, we're sort of going through all that stuff.

We're dealing with.

All this you would find inside of a pet superstore that hopefully they could live on, but what they've actually fallen into is sort of like you know, the road or one of these you know, post apocalyptic horror situations are like, these people are worse than we even even imagine.

But yeah, that's all that all wraps up in the We sort of move on to another situation after issue twenty, which is sort of like we close out the year with the end of this first arc.

I think twenty comes out maybe in January, and then or this fourth arc and then Arc five, which we're doing covers for and sort of starting to like turn stuff in for right now is probably one of the most exciting things we've done.

I'm pretty excited about it.

But it starts with the Silent issue.

It's issue twenty one, which is what the G I.

Joe Silent issue was, also issue twenty one, and so but we have this character named Ghost who's there's a new character.

He's deaf, and so we do an issue that's all told from his POV.

We did a POV issue with Patch as he was turning into a zombie basically, and so now we're doing another POV issue.

We like to mix it up and do something like that every so often.

Will you guys ever go back to any Straight Dog one shots like you were doing.

Maybe we're gonna do a hardcover this year.

Awesome, we're gonna do a hardcover this year.

And we had always said in Straight Dog's Dog Days, we did short stories about each one of the dogs from the original series, except we didn't do Rusty, and so we're sort of figuring like if we could do we could figure out what the story is for Rusty.

Maybe we do a new story for the hardcover and then it'll also have all the behind the scenes stuff and a million covers and it'll be a big, fat, you know, big giant book.

That's excellent, man, that's great.

No, truly, ton I am thrilled for you both, all three of you, really, and the fact that we have this pet'sploitation.

I mean, have you talked to any of the other creators that are out there doing the same thing.

I mean, it was differently, but I know, you know, Tom King and I talked about his, uh, the dogs that were that were in the in the Pounder or the pet store that were locked up in Everything.

Animal and the sequel to Animals.

Yeah, of course I saw Tom at Baltimore.

I told him that I haven't read his because I can't handle it when animals are in danger.

Uh.

But yeah, I talked to a bunch of these guys.

I Uh, I'm friends with porn Sack.

He did that Man's Best at Boom.

Yes, absolutely, I had portsac on talking about Man's Best.

Sure.

So yeah, I'm I'm excited that there seems to be like a bunch of you know, in the DC, there's a Norton just did that Crypto book, and me and him did a super Pet story there last year too that was like a sort of bite wing focused.

Uh.

So yeah, I'm excited that there's more dogs and and more cats.

Got to get finishing, I'm sorry, I was.

The more I do stuff at Marvel and DC, the more I'm I'm trying to slowly get them to move towards me, like the serious pet Avengers or the serious superpets, you know, like I want to do like the this one's not for yucks, Like here's a here's a serious situation that happens with these goods.

So we would that be great?

You know.

Yeah, And it's interesting tone because you're right and I forgot of course, you know, you could say we three in some ways might be a granddaddy to what you guys are all doing.

Certainly, yes, Sarah Bran gave on absolutely deep of bagdad.

But you know, and there were these efforts in the past to do I mean, I love the kids stuff that already did with Capstone super Pet books, things like that, Like you said, Norton's doing a great job with Crypto, but yeah, you know, there have been these starting stops over the years with pet Avengers and things.

I'd like to see do the Silver Age Legion of super Pets and everything, get comment and BEPO and uh in there and everything, you know, the weird the weird pets and everything.

For sure, I'll have to get you a copy of my Superman Norton superpetbook because we did there's a like a splash page in it where we tried to cram as many different DC pets from over the years in there, so I'm sure you would have a good time picking them out of It's like where's Walden.

That's great, Well, you're involved in the current big X Men event.

Yeah, and let's talk about Omegga kids.

We'll switch, we'll come back, don't worry.

An undiscovered country, we'll definitely talk about that as well.

But I am curious because obviously it's just dropped last week, your first issue and Age of Revelation, and this is cool, you know, my ignorance when it comes to the X Men world tone, I will deny it.

But a really good story, and uh, it feels like kind of a new Mutants team for this status quo.

It's in the future, obviously, correct.

For sure.

Yeah, it's X years in the future, ten years in the future, and they're sort of like living under this seemingly fascist rule of this new character, Revelation, who's not a new character.

He's Doug from the from the New Mutants, and but Quentin Choir from the X Men is sort of a true believer in the idea of mutant liberation and mutant supremacy.

And so when Revelation comes through and decides like this is what we're doing, Mutants are on top and everybody else is sort of underneath us.

Quentin's like, all right, I feel like this is the this is the team I want to be on and so it was sort of like an interesting All of that was sort of set when when they offered me the book, and so it was like, oh, this is an interesting opportunity to figure out, like how do I wrap my head around writing a character who is maybe not I mean definitely not you know, in the on the right side of something, you know, like, uh, this is a this is a guy whose heart's in the right place, who has the absolute best of intentions and also is like a super genius.

So he has to be a little bit like I mean not super gen he's like a Omega level psychic, you know, like he knows what people think, he knows how people work, and so he has to sort of decide for himself like like have a hierarchy of like what's more important, you know, everybody's freedom or mutant's survival, you know, and so that's that's where always that.

But you're right, it isn't a New Mutants as thing, which is my I feel like I said it on here probably twenty years ago, but like the only thing I care about doing in in like mainstream comics is a new Mutant's comic.

Like I I've always said, like the like I love like like teenager movies.

I love New Mutants comics specifically, I love that team.

I love those characters.

So I'm always like trying to figure out ways to if I'm not figuring out ways to like cram animals into something, I'm trying to figure out ways to, like how can I get this to be, you know, to feel like a spunky, like a like a New Muton's comic.

And this was a great opportunity for that because they wanted, you know, Quentin to have a team of of little teenage spies, and so I got to create those characters with Andrea Schennelt and uh and sort of come up with like a cool little team with a dynamic and how they fit together and how they sort of like bounce against against Quentin's whatever his ideas are, you know, like how they how they what their conflict is.

Like, yeah, they they're they're obviously being thrown into the intelligence world by Quintin, but it seems like, specially the way that first issue winds up, that they've got their own agenda as well, and you know it's, yeah, all boats are that point in the same direction.

Obviously, right, exactly.

And it's like, you know, I thought a lot about or like COVID kids, and you know, like kids who you know, people that are my age and you know, even ten, ten fifteen years younger than me sort of like have had a different like a different life expectancy than than like COVID generation kids, where they're just like, this is how we came up.

We missed these formative years, and so like what do they even want?

You know, like it's not like they're space aliens, but they they just they definitely don't have like the same you know.

Yeah.

It's like I'm always like, oh, if you just work hard and go after it, you'll get it.

And they're just like not necessarily, you know, like that's nothing is really problem.

We've seen everything, you know, and so that's sort of like this the a little bit of nihilism in these in these young kids more than just the regular teenage nihilism.

And Emma's that's Emma in the book, right, that is talking to quintin You're close.

Uh, that's Phoebe Cuckoo there.

She's like a clone of Emma.

There's there's these Cuckoo sisters, and she's one of them.

But they're all sort of okay, so your your your eyes did not deceive you.

But yeah, she's there's a long history of Quinton in the long and complicated history of of Quintin and the Cuckoo Sisters, and Phoebe uh dated him at one point, and she's sort of the one that we think is going to check on in in this one, but it turns out, uh it's spoilers at the end of the issue, she's not even really there.

That's cool, that's really cool.

No, I I again, I think, uh, interesting dynamic on this uh this team that actually the you know, is kind of working against their leader.

Yeah, so yeah, that should be great.

We're marching orders from McKay and company as far as any sort of general direction, K and I don't want sports, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, I know that he had a big a bunch of big documents to sort of like it was crazy just to look at it and think, like, man, if you're running at one of these events, all the stuff you have to go through and sort of id eight and think about and yeah, you know, I'm not stupid, but I do feel, you know, like less than sometimes and I'm like, I just I'm have a hard enough time coming up with my one story.

You know, like he's he's going like then Cloak and Dagger could be doing this, Spider Man's probably doing this.

You know, all these little ideas that that are fertile enough to go like, oh, this could be everyone.

Am I to turn into like a little three issue mini series.

You know, here's where these characters are, Here's who's this, Here's what that.

So yeah, they they gave me a bunch of documents and it was sort of like, you know, yes, Baxter, my dog's getting excited.

To the docks.

Absolutely, man, that's good.

That's you should be doing that.

That's all right.

He'll be cracking around now for the for the remainder of the interview.

That's all right, buddy.

You know that my favorite thing is when a catter a dog just walks across the camera and stuff exactly, it's.

Like he walk maybe it will be a disaster.

You can make noise gave gave Hartman's Doug seat always has a loud collar that he's shaking and stuff.

That's all right, nice, But anyway, I I swear and you know, I'm not a big X Men reader, I'm intrigued by some of these side things like your book, and hell, I think I might have to talk to Jason lew about X Avengers.

Oh yeah, that looked.

So.

I always like those little tie in books, not just for even even if I'm not reading the whole thing, but usually when I'm reading the whole thing, but it always feels like, and this is happening for me right now, but it's like they'll put somebody on there that you're like, oh, I've been meaning to try out there thing, you know, like and so I remember, I remember when Jason Aaron did Black Panther in Secret Event or Secret Invasion.

Yeah, oh secret Sure, it was like.

The Scrolls Black Panther thing, And I can't if I had read Scouted at that point.

But oftentimes it'll be like, I know they have a thing, but I know it's like a big investment for me to buy the whole trade and check out that thing.

I can just buy one issue and see, like if I vibe what this person's writing, and so hopefully, you know, I'm always always describe it as like I have a small business where I make image comic books, and then when I go do stuff like this.

It's like me advertising for my small business.

I'm like, we're over here, absolutely stop buy you know, Tom, We've seen it with our friends.

I mean, come on, remember Bend.

It saw these guys that once they get the big job and stuff, that one of the big too.

It's like, oh, by the way, if you like the way I write, you know, here's a library of my image stuff that you haven't had a chance to check out.

So yeah, man, I think that's that's the ambition.

I remember when I want to say, Nick Spencer did Cloak and Dagger for Spider Verse, the big Spider Verse event, and that's you know, I'm like, oh, that's you know.

I mean I was already aware of nixt stuff.

But no, it is sometimes Lancing and Kelly when they've done their little spin offs of big events and stuff, is this your first event that you've been involved in.

Me and Seely did Venom Wore last year together.

We did this Wolverine book for Venomore where it was like we basically they didn't need Wolverine to be a part of the main action in Venomore, but they wanted there to be a Wolverine book, so we just got to basically take him out of the city, put him far away, but just sort of dealing with symbiotes.

And it was a similar situation where they gave us a document that said, like, here's the stuff that happens in the thing, and then on that one it was a lot more sort of like things would change and move around as the event got closer.

I remember it was like we had designed or concepted these all these Symbia zombies to be like this one's like a Lizzie Bordon type and this one's like, you know, another kind of serial killer guy.

And then then we got to note that it was just like, well, they can't make any sort of sounds or talk, so we're just like, oh, they're just they'll just look interesting.

Then they're not gonna you wouldn't know their personality, you know, from them for them being semi Yeah.

Uh.

That was my first That was my first Marble book besides doing covers or whatever, but that that was my first Marbles period.

And then me and Celia have continued to work together on We did Local Man and Image, but we're doing the swimsuit issues at Marble now.

We did one in the summer which was like the number one, number two book of the summer for them, and so they quickly got a winter version in the in production.

And that's I think, I don't know if that FOC's right now, but we're just seeing artwork come in for that one.

Nick, are you not allowed to say what pin ups you did for it?

Oh?

I didn't do the Like it's got story pages.

Both of them have like fifteen pages of story, and the story basically as if you needed context for it.

The story gives you context for what the pin ups are there for.

You know, how why are there?

They're just like, why on earth are these superheroes all in these swimsuits.

We have finally explained it for you, not once but now twice in the in the New Winter one.

So yeah, but Seely, we didn't need that any star.

We just wanted to rub one out, you know, looking at it like basically, frankly, if I could be thirty, first we did.

We asked that seely be uh, they should get Celly to do a pin up because that's like what he's great at.

And so he did.

He did a tiger in the in the New Winter one.

That's a that's a breaking news.

I was I said, I didn't know if you were allowed to say when you drew in everything.

I'm sure they don't, but that's cool, but you did so basically you did a tiger story in the in the Winter edition.

I don't even know.

I don't think she's even in the story, just Sealy drew her in the like.

So it's like there will be pages of of sequential pages, and then it will set up a reason for why there would be pin ups, Like there's a photographer with them and they're taking they're sort of like documenting what's going on, and so they'll take these these pin up pictures.

But yeah, yeah, the the Winter one is about it's a sort of like a rogue centric like a Savage Land rogue centric story.

Oh there, Well, he he did all of a job writing that rogue story a while ago.

Yeah, was it was it rogue?

I forget who it was, Rogan Casar.

Obviously, Yeah, it was last year.

I think he did that story Savage Lane Rogue.

Yeah, Yeah, that was a cool story.

I liked it.

It was it was rogue, wasn't it.

Yeah.

They they've given him a couple of these now where they take like a real specific sort of like moment in a character's history and then decide to do like a tell a mini series that fits in between these rain drops, and they just he's doing a Silock one and the internet apparently just ate his ass up.

They just the Internet was like absolutely not, we do not hilarious I'm looking for right now.

They're very excited about the new Silock direction one on and all that stuff, so they didn't want to hear about Tim Wright and old timey Silock.

So we'll see how it goes.

I'm sure it'll sell, get some you replenced, Prince and Jim leearwork on that.

Yeah, I think he'll be all right.

That's all right.

No, I love again, I love the passion of the X fans and they are hard to please, So again here's here.

It's helping all the best for you with with Omega kids fingers cross.

Absolutely, they're being pretty nice so far.

But I do I always worry about like right now, it's just Quinton basically, and any other characters I bring in.

It's just you're just like tiptoe and like, oh I hope they like how I did this one.

You know, I can't imagine doing like a full team of characters where everybody has a specific idea about how that character, you know, like you were talking before, like everybody fits into a certain role, and X fans have a very very specific idea about how, you know, based on forty years of proof and context.

Right.

But these are these are new kids, right, these are all new kids.

Yeah, so I can do whatever I want with them.

Yeah, I know that's right man.

Yeah, well that'll make it easier.

And yeah, hopefully you know, they'll they'll attract you.

It's the way the Runaways did twenty years ago, twenty five years ago.

So yeah, here's hoping that's that's great.

I felt like a bad friend because I didn't realize that you were dicking around with the.

Thing that was dicking around is exactly what I was doing.

I was.

Yeah, that was That was my first like Marvel solo Marvel Marvel book that just wrapped up at a point couple months ago.

Yeah, did you read it?

When's it?

I loved it?

When's it?

When is the trade?

Out?

Comes out in February?

Okay, it's called The Thing the King of Yante Street, I think is the subtitle, but it might just say the Thing on the spine who knows what it's going to look like, but yeah, it comes out in February.

Me on nodding, Justin Mason on artwork, colors by the great Alex Sinclair and as you can see, covers by Nick Bradshaw and Michelle Rosenberg.

Always happy to see the Masters of Evil, you know, on a new spin on them and everything, and yeah, I thought, no, it's a lot of fun, and you know the ffs there, but you know Ben Spen's take in front set.

Hey, I'm an a Marvel two on one, but a guy a long time.

I years ago when they were putting out the essential official Marvel handbooks, you know, they put out like probably ten volumes, ten phone book sized volumes of those official Marvel handbooks or ohatmu as I like to call them.

And I bought them at the time, being nowhere near ever writing for Marvel, but I bought them as if like here's an important thing I'll need to have, like there wasn't an internet, you know, I just I'll need to have this for my work someday.

And when I was born on that they they bought like the premise of it was that it was supposed to be set like in John byrne Era Fantastic four basically, like that's what they think of as like Evergreen Fantastic four times.

So they wanted it to be set sort of back then, and so I got to go to my shelf and pull those books down and like flip through and just sort of like refreshment, just go like, oh, it would be great to have this care Let's get hate Monger in here.

Let's see if we can get you know, Madame Viper in here, like all these serving society you know, just sort of going through and figuring out like who would I want to see in a book like this, And then also like if it's John byrne Era Fantastic four days, that makes it sort of like Frank Miller Daredevil Days.

So we got the Kingpin in there and and Turks in there, and Josie and sort of like all these sort of like street level Marvel characters too.

So yeah, it was super fun that book, and it sort of there was like a little bit of it was my first because I did Army of Darkness a couple of years ago, and that was my first working for a publisher on a thing that's that's not mine, where I felt like, oh, I'll come up against you know, structure and they'll be like you can't do this, and you can't you know, like and they didn't ever tell me anything.

They were just like, do whatever you want, you know, like MGM doesn't care, we don't care, you know, And so I just I didn't.

I had a great time on that book, but it was just like a creator own book basically, you know, like I was like, hire my friend justin let's get my friend popped, you know.

But on this one was much more like, here's how we do this.

And we did run up against a couple of like where tom Breebort's continuity brain would kick in and be like, oh, that character is dead right now, or that character is friends with the thing right now, you know.

And so.

That was as close to like I wouldn't even call it interference.

It was more just sort of like having somebody a referee there to be like out of bounds, you know.

And so I was real happy with how that from like pitch to final issue coming out, like all the beats that I wanted to be in there were sort of like almost exactly where I wanted him to be, and very happy that we sort of got to give context for what clobbering time is.

I think that's sort of like the you know, like for for marvel Heads.

You know, like if I could add anything to the mid those, you know, like years from now, they'll be like, oh, you know what he means when he says that, you know, he's had it up to here.

Finally it's clobbering time.

You know.

I like what Suit said the first issue too, for Coe you Oh yeah, absolutely, no, that's great.

I certainly hope that beyond the winter issue.

It's not called a winter swim shoot issue.

That's kind of an oxymoron.

Or is it called the winter swimsuit issue?

It's called the Winter break special.

I think something like that.

Okay, you know, like when you get into a hot tub in your swimsuit, like and it's snowing outside.

Vibe.

You know, I respect that.

That's all right, that's Hilariousah yeah, you know, I know you're in your Dakota's or in Montana where Yeah, I get it, I get it.

That's that is cracking me up to that they feel that you actually have a story wrapped around the pin ups.

I mean, we so too, but we love money and notoriety.

So we said yes, you know, we were just like, you shouldn't have a story in here, but if you're gonna have one, I wouldn't want anyone else to do.

It, outstanding man.

And And is that is that out in November or December?

That I don't know for sure, but the summertime moon is out now you can find that anywhere, and then the winter one, Uh, probably December, I would guess based on how much of the art is done right now.

Okay, that's great, you know.

I you're right about Ceay doing great pen ups and stuff because, uh, his character dumb Bunny, and I forget mister the Skeleton character that.

Was love Bunny and mister hell.

Love Bunny, because yeah, dumb Bunny is inferior.

Five Love Bunny is ceiling.

And yeah.

One of my one of my best friends from college, came with me one year to a convention and he's like, I gotta get a love Bunny from Tim.

Seely, I'm like, I've never even heard of that here.

It's great And he's like, oh my god, he's great.

He goes, Tim really knows how to draw a beautiful and I'm like, well that I know from hack Slash of course, so you know, but that's great.

Those two show up and tell your friend those two show up in Local Man all the time.

Because Tim, he's like on the side building his sort of like uh, you know, seiy cinematic universe.

Everything fits together, where like I'll be like, we need a bunch of the Local Man characters on this because we drew it together.

And I would just send him like a sketch and be like, draw superheroes here, you know, and then he would always fucking draw Love Bunny or mister Hell in there too.

He's mister Hale.

I think he's on the cover of the Local Man hardcover, like the big giant omnibus, on the almost on the thirteenth issue, the last like regular issue of Local Man.

He's just in the mix on the cover with all these bad guys.

Seely just always he's really got that guy on the brain.

That's great And honestly, again, Local Hero, are you gonna get get back to Local Hero?

Forgive me if you've wrapped up Local Hero.

I don't remember.

Local Man, although everybody somebody that works draws covers for it also thinks it's called Local Hero.

Yeah, that is.

We call it on indefinite hiatus right now.

But like like a classic Image series, it's not canceled.

It's just there's no issue coming out right now.

Me and sim are doing a different book that'll come out next year and then well we'll get back to Local Man in Yeah, that's all right.

It's just getting If he starts humping, we're going to take a quick pause.

Now he's just laying down.

He's just making a little nest for himself.

Had a boy.

What's that, Baxter, Baxter had a boy.

Just getting comfortable.

Uh, we're doing me and Tim we're doing a different book next year and then and then hoping to figure out how to do some more Local Man stuff in probably twenty twenty seven.

There's a big hardcover out now that collects the whole thing, and then it's if you're not a hardcover guy, there's three volumes of it or you can you know, track it down in back issue bits.

Much like Local Man.

You had a lot of guest stars or you know, against Cypher's in the Oncanny Valley.

Yeah, and that wrapped up nicely, thank you.

Yeah, that's our Ben.

You you read all the work, you did the homework.

I love that I tried.

I tried, oh, and it's great.

Honestly, it's like, you know, for people who don't know, a wonderful coming of age story that's kind of wrapped in a Who Framed Roger Rabbit sort of way, and that you could tell even from this cover that I'm showing that it's a much more normally drawn boys surrounded by extreme animated characters and without spoiling.

I really appreciated some of the cameos in some of the final big moments scenes and yeah, man, that's so no much.

And again, in the case the local town, you could do some a lot of established characters, but clearly there are ciphers to establish guys.

You know, your main character's grandfather.

Of course, that's that Yosemite Sam looking guy right there to his right.

So yeah, no, it's not nice.

Yeah that Dave Whacter and I did that book at Boom Tennis Shoes.

The last issue came out early this year, I think maybe right oh, right before Comic Con, but yeah, it was.

It was one of.

Those things that had that, you know, was like this sweet little coming of age story idea that I had had these big you know, like you said, like once you get to the end, it's like giant vistas and big crazy, you know, cavalry shots and like all this sort of like I always think of, like you know, when the roll hear them show up and Lord of the Rings or like when the you know, the buffalo come running over that hill and the Lion King, like I love those sort of like you know, giant like avalanche of characters.

But yeah, you know, that was just an idea that I've had for over a decade, for sure, And it was basically like I loved Roger Rabbit.

It came out when I was like nine years old, and I love cartoons so much, and when I saw that movie, I was like, this is how everything should be, you know, like I figured like, okay, we have this, and then next year they'll do a different thing like that, and then they'll keep doing it, and then they just never they did Space Jam like fucking ten years later, and it was it's just like, where's how come this isn't a thing.

So you know, I wanted there to be like you know, horror movies like that and dramas like that, and you know, like I thought like that now that we have this technology.

They should do this with every different kind of thing.

So this was like my sort of like amble in Coming of age story version of a Roger Rabbit.

You know, like you've got all these cartoon characters and all these they fit into sort of like different like archetypes, and you know, having this story that's about a kid, you know, trying to figure out how he fits into the world and then finding out that like he's actually fits into a whole different world.

And and then just have it be about real serious you know, family stuff and family issues, and then but just wrap it in the adventure of having these you know, these cartoon characters, you know, either chasing them or helping them out or and then Dave Wactor, who you've known, you know for as long as I've known you, probably a genius artist, you know, like has always done this sort of like incredible grounded realistic stuff.

And when we were looking for an artist on this thing, I'd asked him years before, like if he would be interested in drawing just the realistic stuff.

And then having like you know, one of the Ponymisters two artists, you know, Jay Foskett or something draw all the cartoon characters and he was like, that sounds boring.

It sounds like you want me to just do the boring part of a of a cool idea.

And then when we were actually putting it together and I realized that Boom wasn't going to pay for two artists to draw the same book, I just asked him like, hey, could you do you think you can do the cartooning part too, and he was like, yeah, of course, and and then he did it.

And then I told this story a bunch of times, but you know, as the like we were working on like the fourth or fifth issue or something, and I was like, this is crazy, man, you really can draw the shit out of these cartoons.

I had no idea you could do that.

And he's like, yeah, me either.

I was just bluffing.

I just I just made that up.

So yeah, he just it's great.

Yeah, well you had him stretch.

I mean, that's that's terrific.

And yeah, I gotta remember that next time.

I talked to David and everything, and you're right, literally one of the very first professionals I got to know back in two thousand and five when I'm starting word blown and everything.

Yea, and yeah, he was he was living here in Chicago at the time.

But no, honestly, I mean, I've always appreciated Dave's work, and I really think his work continues to evolve.

In god I mean, the Godzilla stuff he was doing at id W was just mind blowing.

And again, you really, you really got in a stretch because he did a great job with you know what they call bigfoot cartooning, which is your kind of cartoonist, you know, you know, the the classic cartoon style and everything as supposed to more realistic style like superheroes.

That's a little feet we should get in for the audice.

Should point out the should point out that artwork that you're showing is not Dave.

That's the Dan Morra, which is one of the one of the bonuses that you get when you make a book at Boom Studios is they apparently just Dan Mora just draws covers for every one of those books, and it really draws them beautifully.

So that was cool.

And that tiger in the background is based on like the original sketch we had of the villain and the thing, which sort of evolved and changed after that when a certain character went into the public domain and we realized we could use that character instead, so spoilers.

That's cool, that's a happy accident.

But yeah, I apologize to whactor and more for a misidentifying this cover.

Well you didn't, but I feel like I just wanted the people at home to not be confused.

You didn't.

You didn't want to say this is my Dave Whackter.

I just you know, we're right.

But I was using it as an example for the video audience.

So that's all right, though I'm happy.

I'm always happy to be corrected.

Then we want the right information out there, So that's okay.

What else, tone, what have you have you had time to watch anything?

Have you?

I mean beyond the obvious?

Obviously the thing was meant to come out around the time of the Fantastic Four movie.

And is there any sort of scheduling or whatever that kind of delayed or whatever?

That was Well, the original artist on it was Leonard Kirk, and then he had health complications and had to had to not do it.

Luckily, I feel like he's doing okay now he's back to work.

He's working on the hoy book.

But yeah, so it came out like two months after it was sort of coming out when the movie came out, which was cool, but I feel like they wanted it to be like a Trey paperback they could sell when when the movie came out.

But yeah, I saw that movie.

I liked it just fine, you know, it was I liked that.

Remember when they were first doing a Fantastic Four movie.

I remember Any Cool News had like this big story about how Peyton Reid was going to do like the sixties version Fantastic Four and it would be like a you know, like a period piece throwback sort of.

He did that movie Down with Love with Renee Eelwinger.

Yes, Yes, And I was so excited about that, and it was nice.

It felt like as many things have gone horribly wrong in between twenty years ago and now for one thing to finally shake out, you know, and they did the thing they said they were going to do twenty years ago.

It'd be like if Edgar Wright made an ant Man movie just all of a sudden, you're like, oh, son, I bet you did do that.

Nice.

But yeah, I saw that.

I saw Frankenstein, the Del Toro, the Netflix one.

I saw that twice.

It's fucking great, Like, okay, I spot the first time.

Me and Pornsac Pornsach got me into like a w g A screening where like del Toro was there and did like a little Q and A but just sort of like a little talk afterwards, and that was good.

But then I really I have this.

I'm like a real movie theater.

I like to see something in a theater.

I like to get enveloped by the movie.

And it was shown an IMAX at the Chinese so I went earlier today to see that, and man, it was even crazy, Like it hit me much harder when it was crazy that.

It's just they just projected bigger and it affected me more.

But but it really it really got to me.

I love obviously, like all people, I love Frankenstein and I and I feel like del Toro obviously has always been very sympathetic to monsters, and so this is sort of like feels like like the mountaintop, right, like it's like here's here's what I really have to say about this, you know, here's after all that after you know, hell Boy in Shape of Water and Pains Labyrinth, and you know it's always like this isn't the monster.

This is right, Like you see every one of those movies and there's like a creature who's misunderstood, and then there's awful monster and we just you know, it's definitely like a theme in his work, and I feel like I have there's some of that shows up in my stuff too, not not as I'm not as talented, but you know, like I recognize, like what's charming about that that?

You know, you see these creepy monsters and you go like, that's who we like, you know, So yeah, really good Jacob A.

Lordie is Frankenstein looks just like Bernie Wrights and Frankenstein, you know.

And Mia Goth's in it and she's like a I love her in those I like ex and Pearl like a ton and she's super good in this too.

She's like a she's so weird.

She's sort of like Shelley Duvall.

You know, She's just like this interesting she makes these interesting choices and just fascinating to watch that.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I started watching this documentary too.

Have you watched that yet?

No?

But that's so funny.

Both films Frankenston and Scorsese have been recommended to me in the last couple of days.

Alison Baker, who says, hello, uh, tell me how great the uh, the Scorsese thing, but also my old buddy Kaz from college.

It's like, dude, I gotta tell you, Frankenstein's amazing.

I'm like, okay, I don't know.

Is it Is it streaming as well as in the theaters or is it just in the theaters?

First, I think it's I think right now they're doing a limited limited run out here.

I think it goes to streaming on like the seventh or something.

But it would would make sense for it to be out on Halloween.

So don't quote me on the but but yeah, we we sot it, like I said, at a Writer's Guild screening, and then and then it's in limited release out here.

That's one of the best part about you know, that's why we pay the exorbitant prices out here, is because when a movie comes out, you can usually find it somewhere around here.

I am so envious of all you people in l A and the not only those kind of screenings, but also the retro screenings.

And I forget.

I think it was probably Gabe Hardman that saw Allman's Long Goodbye and saw Elliott goul you know, doing a Q and A for it stuff and it's like we get it, we get it, we get it a little bit and more so the new art movies and stuffing.

I even got involved with the Alex Ross documentary and our big not not the Chinese theater but basically our art house Marquee Place, the Music Box screening there and I got to be Ben Menkowitzen and talk to the director and the producer and stuff and do a Q and A with them.

But and you know, like I said, you know, Eddie, Eddie Muller brings the Noir Festival there to us and everything, which is a lot of fun.

So no, but yeah, you're right.

I am absolutely envious of that kind of fun that the La people get to have.

And go to Giallo January every winter in January obviously in January, and I always see that there's like it's also happening at the music Box, like they have different movies and different you know, different people introducing them and stuff like that.

But yeah, I know, you guys got a cool scene out there.

I saw the new Paul Thomas Anderson at the Vista in VistaVision, and it was one of those things where they're like you can only see this in VistaVision and like three three real theaters and then one like on a studio lot if you can get in on the studio a lot and go watch it there.

So that felt again like a like a Los Angeles thing where you're like, yeah, this is worth it.

This fucking rules.

That's great tone.

I'm really glad as far as the timing given your back for horror.

And we're only a couple of days from Halloween.

Well kind of Halloween plans you got.

I was just talking about today, I got to go buy some M and ms and I'll sit here and I'll give out candy, and I'm doing another podcast where it's like I recommend your favorite you know, like horror comics, and so I'm gonna be reading up, you know, in the days leading up to that.

I'm gonna give a quick reread to this big giant stack of of horror books that I love.

Usually this has been an interesting year because usually I'll be drawing, like if i'm drawing Local Man, or if I'm working on covers or whatever, I'll just go put on Like I'm sort of working my way through my stacks and stacks of you know, severin blu rays and vinegar syndrome, blu rays and where it's just like stuff that they'll have like a sale every year, and I'll just be like, well, I should have all this stuff in my house just in case, and then it takes me, you know, years to work through it.

So usually that's what I'm doing, is I'm going through like the the full Horror box set or the you know, Nunsplitation box set or whatever.

But because I've been writing war this year and not drawing, uh, it's just sitting there and I'll try and I'll try, and like I'll get to the end of my work day, which will be at like, you know, midnight, and then I'll go like, wow, I should go watch TV like a normal person does at the end of the day, and then I'll sit down and put one of those on and I'll just conquer it out.

Or like I'm watching the Scorsese documentary and I woke up at the end of the first episode and I was like, shit, I gotta I gotta rewind and see what see what he has to say about Boxcar Bertha.

So yes, please, my uh it's not great.

He's uh, he's still on that sort of like it's a bad movie, which I disagree with.

All of his snooty filmmaker friends were like, you made a piece of ship, and uh, and uh, I think it.

I think it's good.

But I was I was talking to Allison about about scort Sac and Thelma Shoemaker and everything and his wonderful editor and uh, she's great, and yeah, I'm looking forward to what she says about him, because apparently she's like, oh, you know, he's already got everything mapped out.

And it's like, yeah, because he came from that Corman era of all right, here's you know, fifty thousand dollars make a movie.

So he has to Doway's shooting because of the limited budget and everything.

And I think that's which he served him, as he's been able to go on to big budgets and bigger ideas.

I'm excited for you to see this because I think it will sort of like explain your ideas about this, because that's what I thought too.

But then you see it, and even Corman was like, oh, this guy's different.

Like this guy he showed up to Corman more prepared than than anybody was, even you know, like he he made that like he was making uh, like you know, like he was making mean streets or like he was making raging bowl or whatever, like he put the same.

Everything's just as important.

Oh what's up already?

Arty's watching U Sar Balfazar everybody, which is always a nice thankty.

Saw Franco and oh yeah, guys at Baltimore.

But no, already conspicuously absent.

I hear there's a rift.

No, everything's fine.

Are are you getting seriously man?

Aretie me h, Franco, our friend Scott McMahon, Scoot McMahon, and our our friend Skochy Spidey as we like to call him.

We're on a we're on a text chain, and honestly, I am peppered all day with images from Lady and Franco and Scoot and and Skuk and everything.

It's it's very funny.

I don't I don't dip in that much, but every now and then I'll contribute.

But it's always funny.

Oh there you go, man, he knows all about facial hair and he's telling you then looks good, Thank you very.

It's getting a little rabbitical.

Yeah, I gotta go get it taken care of.

I usually have it a little shorter, but I haven't had a convention in a couple of weeks.

Usually that's how I have to go get a haircut.

Is it.

I'm gonna go to a convention that weekend, so I'll go get cleaned up.

Well, I don't want to steal the other podcast, Thunder, but what give me a shorthand list of some of your favorite horror comics.

I'll tell you a couple of them that are on there.

There's one that I feel like people enough, people people don't know about enough called Beautiful Darkness.

It's from I think Drawn and Quarterly and it's a I believe a French comic that's translated, but it basically it's sort of like The Littles or the box Car Children.

It's a story about these fairies that live out in the woods.

But what we find out, like in the first ten pages or whatever, is that they don't.

They're not living in like a hollowed out tree or like you know, inside the walls of a house, living inside the body of a little girl that fell over and died.

And so it's like they have this whole society that lives inside of this dead kid, and it's just super but super.

In the same way that like Del Toro does like dark and beautiful at the same time, like definitely that type of vibe.

That's interesting.

Yeah, crazy, Oh I'm so telling.

I'm I'm literally Ron's Age, Tales of the Unexpected, you know too, Madracula of course, you know.

Yeah, man, I'm uh yeah.

That they didn't have dead children in those they were.

Yeah, really was living.

They were just so happy that the comics code eased up, and it's like we could use vampires and wolfman yay, Yeah, they could say horror again, yes, exactly man, and that was fine.

I I mean, come on, as you know, you mentioned Brittie Wright said Frankenstein earlier and stuff.

You know, God, those truly, I'm really glad I got to I didn't get to hang out with them a lot, but I got a few significant moments just hanging out at conventions with Bernie because he was good friends with Tim Bradstreet and I knew and I knew Tim from our college years and stuff, so yeah, that that meant a lot to me.

I didn't know, I didn't know him super well, but I was set up next to him one time.

Him and his wife were the nicest and then I smoked back then, so you could always get in like some good burning time if you smoked at a convention, because he'd be out there.

You know, there's like a few of those who are like key, you know not also no longer with those comic creators that you could you could run into you.

Yeah, Darwin was like that too.

Yeah yeah, yeah, right about that shooter I had cigarettes with.

Okay we lost yeah yeah, yeah, man, bub Laton not shoot.

I'm sorry.

Oh okay, Well, Bob's still with us.

At least it seems like Pop's a little healthier these days.

Yeah, that's good for his choice.

Yeah, I got too old to smoke.

I I don't know how old, like how my grandfather did it.

He was in his like seventies still smoking.

And I'm so glad you quit, surely because because honestly it's I I think I was telling Alison, I go in my head because especially you know, you're wonderful work in the pony world and stuff that my my bitch ones, even though you never did this, but my my dream situation is you sitting at you know, at one of your convention tables.

All right, kid, well you want picky pie, all right?

Let me, let me fucking draw Picky Pie for you, all right, no problem?

That was yeah, that was me drawing them in the early days for sure, but not not at the conventions.

I would.

I remember being at and like having to find someplace to sneak out and smoke because I didn't want these sweet pony fans to see me, you know.

Uh yeah, being a bad guy, being.

A no no, you gotta yeah, you gotta you know.

On ponylike.

Yeah, man, So continue continuing work for the ponies, uh or not enough time?

I definitely no, it's been recently there.

I currently have cards coming out from I think I told you on the phone, like they're uh.

China recently got my little pony license and went crazy with it, and apparently like the ponies are in like if you go into a convenience store, they'll be just like on rolls of toothpaste and you know, saran wrap and stuff.

But they have these very ornate, very detailed trading cards that they put out and they hired all of the original pony comic artists to be like the Chase cards, you know, like where you if you buy a whole case, you're guaranteed to get one of these you know cards by the by the original guys, and so yeah, I did some work for those and they and like I said, they got all the other Andy Price and Sarah Richard and Brenda Hickey and all these other pony luminaries to do to do pony job.

Amy Beverson my favorite.

I was doing that.

And then before that, I wrote for the for the Netflix TV show for the Ponies, which was like a real score.

Like I felt like I wasn't gonna do better than that because that one you get health insurance and it pays great.

The only problem was they stopped making that show.

If that kept up, I'd be I'd have my insurance paid for this very day.

Is that Is that still on Netflix?

Is that stuff still on Netflix?

You can still watch it?

Yeah?

I wrote I wrote three episodes that got on.

I think I wrote five five and a half basically one five four episodes in one.

It was like a giant size like special.

But the last two didn't get They got canceled before they actually produced them.

But yeah, that was that was cool.

My IMDb is very bizarre.

You know.

It's like you'll see like news items like straight Dogs gets optioned and then it's also like, wrote this my Little Pony thing, and then you know, like fifteen years ago, like co starred in this short film.

You know, just have a very one of those ones where you're like, I don't know what this guy's I mean, I guess sort of like my comics career, right like lettered this book, drew My Little Pony for fifty issues.

You know, I wrote the Marvel swimsuit issue.

But it's subtle an tone, and I think that's wonderful, truly, And I'm glad that both the indie side of your career and the stuff you're doing with Marvel right now is working out.

Might we see more without spoiling Well, I know there is a big two project that at least are you able to say, you don't have to say specifically what you're working on, but there is I know there is a big two project coming up next to you.

Yeah, I've got I've got more Marble stuff on the horizon too, but that's that's it's a ways off.

And then they announced at New York Comic Con, Scott Snyder and Josh Williamson sort of announced what was coming up after KO at d C and they're doing a thing that's called next Level.

I think that is a bunch of the way they described it as sort of like absolute ethos, but in the regular DC continuity, right, take these sort of like Martings and put them to work on, you know, the sort of like b list characters.

Right.

I think the character I'm working on is an a list character, but you know, for however they organize things.

But yeah, I can't say who it is.

But they brought Greg Rucca back and him and Danny are doing uh, Batwoman, and Josh Williamson's gonna do a Legion book in there.

And then they had they sort of had like a list of oh and Scott A.

Young and uh and Jorge Corona are doing Lobo and so they had this list of all these other Firestorm and the Death Stroke and uh, back Girl and Shadow of the Bat and uh, it's not it's not back Girls like this Barbara Gordon titled thing.

But yeah, so I'm doing I'm doing one of those.

And they're sort of like rolling out the announcements, you know, at their leisure that I'm hopefully they're trying to pinpoint them and make them when they're the most impactful.

But that's that's what I'm working on right now.

I was actually writing character description stuff for the artist, and I'm working on getting the script for the first issue.

At least a draft of it hammered out this week, so I'm doing that, and then I'm doing an outline for for just like a one shot thing that I got hired for too.

So yeah, okay, that's excellent.

Well, I mean again, if things like Ferrell and you know, Uncanny we're not big enough to talk about.

Certainly, we've got some great stuff coming up currently though.

Omega Kids just dropped, so if you're enjoying an age of revolution, make sure that you're tying in.

But again, hey, I didn't read Jet's books, so I haven't read literally Tone's the only book that I read.

It's very readable, it's very approachable, So if this conversation intrigues you, you will not be disappointed.

And it's the start of a very cool little teen surveillance sespion I sort of book, and we find out what Aquentin's up to, but also what the kids are up to in spite of Quentin's plans, and we'll see how that all hashes out.

And then you know, you can either read it on Marvel Unlimited.

I think it's all out or wait for the Trade coming up in February Films great work on the Thing, so very great.

Very big month for trades.

It's a new Faral Trade comes up this current volume Farreal comes out and trade in February, The Thing comes out on Kenny Valley, Volume two comes out.

I think Army of Darkness Volume two finally comes out because that's sort of gotten stuck in the sort of like Dynamite Diamond France.

It bumps me.

You know, Berucci has always been a cheerleader for me, and that really means a lot.

And Joe Joe's been a good Rye Band's been a good guy to me as well.

And I really, I mean, I feel for everyone that got screwed over on the Diamond Debacle, but really especially Nicky and I know a god, I've been dying to have him on word Balloon for like years and he's been so sweet.

Every now and then he pops up in the chat and we'll even surely go, hey, come on, let's get those like numbers or you contribute to a Patreon and it's like, oh, that's really nice.

Dicky.

I'm like come on the show and he's like, dude, I'm hip deep in this dim and shit stuff.

And I'm like, all right, so I do understand.

It's it sucks, it really.

Sucks thing to hear him talk about it.

Once it's all sort of like said and done.

I feel like it's still probably a couple of years out, you know, from I'm sure there's gonna be litigation and stuff, but.

I yeah, I mean, I know, I know other comic publisher Chapter eleven situations that are still being resolved, so I can appreciate that definitely.

Man, well, yeah, what are you going to do?

All right?

Well, in the meantime, Tony and I will both talk on the air and off the era as we do.

Hey man, man, seriously, nineteen twenty years of friendship in this metal lot.

It's crazy that it's been that long.

I was telling somebody else.

I was telling else again.

You know, I talked to Allison all the time.

I'm like, no, Tony and I were like Benness Boord guys man, like, you know, when we're both getting started with our bullshit and everything, and now look what we're doing.

So that's that's great.

Joe Henderson like that too, you know.

Lucifer boy like whactor as well?

Was was David was there?

Yeah yeah, Nick Spencer Bendis board.

But I always think about there's there's like the far more successful Warren Ellis Forum.

Uh like those guys sort of got out like out of a cannon.

That's like Brian Lee, O'Malley and my fraction, Kelly Sue and Kiaran and uh true and then and then the Vennics board.

It took us a little while to find our bearing, but I feel like we're gonna have real staying power feare.

Yeah, Clay's Clays, you know, getting some good opportunities in the recent months and everything, and I think he's everything's out track for him.

But yeah, no, man, it's fun.

No Joe I saw it, uh uh Fan Expo Chicago in August, and uh man, I'm just like, Joe, look at this man.

Twenty years ago you would just breaking in with your you know, yeah.

Joe, Huge Newsweek, they're doing that.

He's doing that so like Skybound Enter John Universe cartoon show.

That's huge, huge stuff.

Yeah, proud of that guy.

I saw him probably a few months ago at Kyle Higgins's birthday.

There you go, I think Higgins was a Bennisport guy.

I could be wrong.

I think he might have to ask Alex if he whether or not he was a Bendess Bort.

Yet Alex Chung, who I can't believe, hasn't popped up one of my classic Bendess border.

Ben Simpson, who works at Bad Idea Comics, now a Bendisbord moderator.

Yes.

Yeah, we bet we've got a crew that.

Like when I first moved out here to LA that was sort of all my original comic book friends were all Bendessbord.

We'd have like Bendessborg get togethers and stuff like that.

And Joe was one of those guys, and Alex and Simpson, and then there were a few others that sort of sort of like moved away.

Bald Steve was one of them, and citizens.

Yeah, that's awesome, man, No, I hear you.

It's it's crazy.

And and again I we blink and here we are twenty years later, but we're still there and we're still fighting, and I think we're winning the fight.

I think the tide is turning in our favor.

Man.

Yeah, we'll get those Warren Elis.

We'll get those Warren Ellis for him, folks.

Sooner or later, damn you engine exactly.

I just needed to succeed so wildly that they're not.

They don't have time to make a lot of comics.

Fraction coming back and doing Batman is a real that really fucks up my plans.

But we'll get them sooner or later.

I'll do my best tone before the next time we talked to if not, if not the Apes at least watched that Adam the Kid from Adam Brody.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's right, Detective.

Yeah, Adam Brody and the guy who made it apparently I don't know if he's in movie jail or maybe it's just because it was like a COVID movie.

Hasn't done anything else.

He did that movie The Dirties years ago that like Kevin Smith produced.

It was like a school shooting movie.

And then no, I don't know the other guy from that ended up being he did like the BlackBerry movie and he did Nirvana the Band.

I love that movie.

Yeah, and he did the one where it was like they faked the moon landing.

I can't remember what it was called.

Yes, that was a good one too.

I saw that movie that was a great movie.

Yeah, that guy's great.

But apparently the other guy who wrote the Dirties with him just did this one thing, The Kid Detective, which is very, very clever and watchable.

Ibraheim mustaff.

A mutual friend recommended it to me.

I think, like in COVID times, and when we were talking the other night and I was like, oh, I can't believe you haven't seen I mean I can.

I'd never heard anyone talk about it.

But that's that's a wreck for this one.

Watch the Scorsese documentary and watch The Kid Detective, and when it comes on Netflix, watch Frankenstein.

All good recommends from Tony Fleece and.

I think we can we cannot recommend Star Trek Strage New Worlds right that we don't have to talk about it.

Well again, there have been thirty episodes.

I've liked nine of them, okay, and that's not bad.

That's certainly more than the Discovery episodes I've liked.

Let's hope that they are soon the producer, the current producers of Star Trek have said what they have to say and go away.

Time to get new people in.

You've had ten years, including the planning year that I'm like, yeah, I think that's enough.

I think it's time to leave the stage and let new pa.

And I'd say the same thing, by the way about Doctor Who.

And I like Russell Davies, but I have to admit I wasn't crazy about the gat Was seasons and nothing much like Jody Whitaker before him and the chipnel era.

I just feel like the writing wasn't there.

I wanted to let you get it, and I saw you you were like like you know, Roger Rabbit when he was shaving a hair but shaving a hair cut too.

It's like, I know you didn't get to mention it old episode, but I wanted before we wrap it up, I wanted to at least a little bit.

No.

No, I watched.

I listened to the latest episode of Star Trek Gun, which I do like that review is coming up on Friday.

You know, it's a big Halloween week for me.

Tone I got Jeremy Han was supposed to come on last night.

He's gonna come on Thursday.

And also I like to do a weird Halloween things and I did a I did a year hold on with Zuman.

What do you got there?

Come with Jeremy Han, right guess today There.

We Go Murder podcast is exactly what me and An are gonna be talking about, and his whole edition comics initiative that he and Phillips Saplikin Company have put together.

Clay and I talked about his book, but we'll get more information from Jeremy on Thursday.

And of course Jeremy's a big horror guy.

But I'm also going to release a top five list of old time radio sci fi shows.

Years ago, I did my favorite horror half hours, but I'll do sci fi this year and and and also last night instead of me talking to Han, have I told you about these weird co star albums that I've been buying.

Co star albums?

Yeah, I'll tell you about it, Okay.

Roulette Records nineteen fifty eight, back when there were a lot more spoken word record albums.

Yes, in the older than me, you know.

Recently I'm looking at up.

They made fifteen of these albums, and they are celebrities acting in scenes and they do half the scene.

And you also, when you buy the album, you would get a script and you could do the other part of the scene.

And there are man woman scenes, and there are man man scenes and women, women's scenes.

But it's all these interesting celebrities and like the highlights are.

There's a Caesar Romero album, there's a Vincent Price album, although Vincent Price no horror on the Vincent Price album very disappointing.

And Basil Raton did one, but he only does scenes from the Brothers Karamazov.

But the I'll tell you off.

There this list of like amazing celebrities.

But I did a for for Yesterday in the most recent podcast, I did a five minute scene with Dona Michi Cocoon and trading places where we're two with gangsters and we're talking in a pool hall.

It's pretty funny.

I got it right here.

Let's see we're balloon theater that one.

No oh, you looked up the album?

Yeah, yeah, no.

We did, we did.

Uh, it's a it's a pool hall scene.

I forget what the title of the track was on on the album itself with Amichi.

You know, it's funny.

On YouTube you can find uh the Vincent Price album.

And Tallula Bankhead did an album Black Widow, of course from Batman, from Batman sixty six, of course, Lifeboat, the Hitchcock movie, her biggest movie.

But they're fun.

They're really fun, and there's a lot of like noir scenes.

There's a women's prison break out scene that is hilarious that Elison's like, yeah, I want to do.

I'm like absolutely, So that's gonna be a fun little work Balon project.

But I figured I can't dress I could dress up, but rather than do that for an episode, I'm like, well, you know, it's mostly an audio podcast.

Let me let me release one of these and there so that's me kind of audibly in costume as one of these gangsters.

Yeah, it'll be fun watch that.

Well you should look.

Yeah, feel free.

They're on YouTube and they're on They're on the speaker platform or wherever you get your audio podcasts, as everyone knows.

So that's a little tease of what to expect this week.

And also I'm bringing back a couple of my reviews that I did with Gabe Hartman about our Limits episodes.

We did the Architectures of Architects of Fear over the weekend, and we also released the sixth Finger, the David McCallum episode.

But I think we're gonna do I'll represent the Harlan Ellis Harlan Ellison episodes that he wrote Soldier and Demon with a Glasshand, because those are classics.

As far as next time you see Kate tell him.

I said, hello, I haven't seen that guy since COVID Probably I.

Don't, Hey, Tony, you know, I mean, we do old movies all the time, and in fact, the last movie we did was Gargoyles from the early seventies with Scott Glenn and Bernie Casey and the great Cornell Wild.

But yeah, so I don't know if i'll let you know.

We'd love to have you on obviously, and then you know I do it.

I geared towards the West Coast.

I'm always happy to do these things to kind of fit everybody's schedule and stuff.

So yeah, man, if you want, I'll let you know.

We're talking.

I don't know if you'd be interested.

I don't know if we're going to do it or not.

But we figured, given that it's the holiday season soon, we would do Burl Lives, and of course we'll acknowledge Rudolph, but we want to do his western as well, the big Country that he did with Gregory Peck and very young Chuck Conners.

Pretty cool fifties, so Western.

You want to ask burl Ives won an oscar for it.

Wow.

I mean, so it's on too me.

You're right, I don't want to come do that one, but I definitely would like to come by and and you know, shoot me a list of the movies you're going to do, and I will definitely pop in if nothing else, just to hang out with you and Gate.

It'd be great.

No, I'll let Gabe know you say hello.

That's fantastic.

Allay, Well, there you go.

Thanks.

Thanks for hanging up for the commercial there, Tony for the last twenty minutes.

But I appreciate you.

Know, I care about what you get up to.

I like to hear what you're doing.

As I do you, Tony, I'm really proud of you, honestly.

Way to go and continued success.

As always, You're doing great stuff.

Man, for sure.

Thanks for helping me get the word out there.

Thank you word listening checking out my.

Books, Tony.

Please, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for watching, Thanks for listening.

Stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy,