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"Madcaps" with special guest Ray Jamison | Zombie Book Club Ep 91
In this episode of Zombie Book Club, we welcome Canadian comic creator Ray Jamison to discuss his fantasy-horror comic series, The Madcaps. Born from a decade-long Dungeons & Dragons campaign, The Madcaps follows four unconventional heroes—Sarlac, Drak, Chasgo, and Dunnan—as they reunite in their hometown of Ivywood to confront a zombie outbreak linked to a mysterious drug known as "Weave." Ray shares insights into the characters' unique abilities and the themes of identity and belonging that permeate the narrative.
We delve into the creative process behind adapting a tabletop RPG into a comic, the collaborative efforts with industry veterans like colorist Dan Kemp, and the ongoing Kickstarter campaign for Issue 2. Whether you're a fan of fantasy, comics, or tabletop gaming, this episode offers a compelling look at storytelling across mediums.
Guest & Project Links:
- Ray Jamison on Instagram: @raymondthedm
- The Madcaps Issue #2 Kickstarter: Issue #2
- Philbo Publishing: Kickstarter Creator Profile
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Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club where the book is a comic book and the comic book is inspired by a D&D campaign, and, honestly, that's where so many of us start telling stories. I'm Dan, and when I'm not rolling polyhedral dice, I'm writing a book that absolutely has character sheets for everyone in it.
Speaker 2:And I'm Leah, and today we are chatting with my fellow Canadian and comic book creator, ray Jamison.
Speaker 1:And Leah is still sick with the flu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Dan's going to read Ray's bio and then we'll get started.
Speaker 1:Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Ray Jameson is the comic creator and writer whose storytelling is influenced by his role as a DM for Dungeons Dragons. His current project is the Madcaps comic book series, which is what we're talking about today. Welcome to the show, Ray.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me Looking forward to discussing this.
Speaker 1:Me too. I love all the D&Ds, I love the dices, so I think this is going to be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dan was immediately excited when he started reading about that. Yeah, and it shows in the story.
Speaker 1:We have some rapid fire questions. We will judge you by your answers. Um so no pressure right on. Uh first question your choice fast or slow zombies um, uh, fast zombies are scarier.
Speaker 3:One-on-one slow zombies are scarier because, uh, in groups there's no way to stop them, just it's like a slow torture of watching them coming slowly ripping your flesh apart.
Speaker 2:Zombies are scarier because in groups there's no way to stop them.
Speaker 3:It's like a slow torture of watching them coming Slowly ripping your flesh apart. Love those scenes If they get to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, recently somebody has pointed out that the question should be strong or weak zombies, and I never thought about that before, because we're always thinking about fast or slow, but strong would be definitely really scary if they're just strong.
Speaker 3:Strong would be very scary. The one thing I like about putting in these type of dynamics is having some type of balance. So if you have something that's really scary, there should be some type of out. And having that out isn't necessarily an easy solution, but a potential one. So if you have really strong zombies that are fast, well, having them in smaller numbers, there's at least a chance, yeah. But in larger groups, if they're a little bit slower or weaker, again there's a chance, but your odds are still not in your favor.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm curious how this one will work, because your universe takes place in like a medieval fantasy environment. But, uh, you have a choice, a choice you will make for all humankind, whether or not you want to work a 40-hour week or, uh, be in a zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 3:So choose carefully well, it's kind of funny because many people feel like they are a zombie in a 40 hour a week job, um, with that said, um, um, one of the things about having structure and having the being so fortunate as to be working a job is you the devil, you know, as they say, is better than the devil. You don't know, if you're in the middle of an apocalypse, you're going to be very, very frustrated with things, that which include, I don't know, soap, um, dental hygiene, um, there's a lot of things you'll be sacrificing just so you don't have to work a job where you can buy all these things you want in the first place, that you would not have in an apocalypse. I think an apocalypse is a very scary thing. That, um, I'm a parent, I have children. I would, I, I choose to work and make sure that they can eat as much sugar as they want, as long as they can brush their teeth at the end of the day I've noticed a trend that parents often do not want the zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 3:It says kidless people who are like yeah all for ourselves and it's funny you mentioned that like I don't, um, I don't want to take away challenges for my kids, but I do want to stop them from having what I would call unnecessary challenges. So, uh, going out and finding a job and finishing high school and and all the things that they should do, which, at the times they cross those thresholds, they're arguably the most stressful things in their lives. I I like that's tough enough for a kid and I want to be there and make sure that they get through it without taking the challenge away. But I don't want to add on top of that some type of like reanimated cannibal that's trying to eat them so that feels how it is sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah I think next time your kids are ungrateful for something you could tell them. You know, I chose the 40-hour work week for you. I'm not going to subject you to cannibals.
Speaker 1:I do wonder if our generation gravitates towards the zombie apocalypse just because our entire time growing up as life was throwing us all these challenges, these milestones that we're expected to go to college, get a job. They're also like and there's a housing crisis and the economy's crashing and there's no jobs. So, yeah, well, that's that's another interesting part.
Speaker 3:I mean, what we go through now, the challenges us and and people younger than us go through now, is very different from, say, 1960 or something like that. The most important thing is, uh and this is something I'm telling my kids when they start hitting the teenage years you, you've got a, you got a stiff upper. It's a tough one to say because I don't want to just slap it with a cliche and be like there, I've it, there's your solution solved. But at the end of the day, 20 years from now, when you look back, these things aren't going to be that tough because you have a hindsight. But the most important thing is to ride through that roller coaster. Instead of getting off, you have to stay on it and bear down and do the tough stuff. Some of the things in life aren't tough, but again, this definitely beats trying to find gas to get your vehicle going and finding preserved foods at an abandoned grocery store while cannibals try to eat you.
Speaker 2:I think I would love if you were my dad. Ray but I'm pretty sure we're in the same age range.
Speaker 3:Well, I was born in the Orwellian year of 1984.
Speaker 2:Me too. I knew it, so you definitely can't be my dad. Yeah, twinning 2002. 2002. Class of 2000.
Speaker 3:Some short Canadian talk here, where you were eligible to take oac yes, I was. You were the last year yep, I, I did not take oac. I graduated in grade 12 in 2002. You were 2003 I was.
Speaker 2:I went to college in 2003, yeah, okay, a little bit of explanation for people who are not from canada. Our generation from 1984 babies were the last kids in Ontario that had the option to do this extra year called Ontario academic credits in Ontario. So it was up to five years of high school.
Speaker 2:Um, so it was, it was a very dramatic time and actually, speaking of like things that were seen as really hard, there was all this stuff around, like around, like it's gonna get to be so hard to find a job and to get into college because everybody's doing things at the same time instead of a little bit at a time. So that was my zombie apocalypse in 2002 was deciding when to graduate yeah, and you know what I?
Speaker 3:I really like how you put that. Everybody's going through some type of in their mind it's an apocalypse, and then, when you live through it, you look back it wasn't that bad and this is actually something I'll be telling my children when they get older. Um, yeah it. It feels tough, but the the most important thing you have to do is is try something. When you finish high school, you have to try something, for whatever reason. My age, everybody my age and younger, and probably before whatever I pick, pick next after high school. I'm going to be doing that until I'm 65. So don't mess up. Pick the right thing, and that's not how it works yeah.
Speaker 3:You got to try something and you'll get some world exposure to the working world, and that's huge, as opposed to the snow's melting. You know what? I'm not going to school this September, and then the next time the snow melts, the same thing. And you to september, and then the next time the snow melts, the same thing, and you've lost all those critical years. In reality, uh, I heard once the. The definition of bravery is to uh, um, do the thing while you crap your pants. That's true bravery, but, yes, apocalypse. If that were to happen, you would, in turn, have to rise to the occasion and do what you need to do to live and keep people safe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you actually mentioned trying to find a shelf-stable food item if you're in the apocalypse, so that'd be something your kids would have to do. Yes, and that's our second last rapid fire question for you. So unfortunately, you didn't get your choice. It is a zombie apocalypse and you have found a warehouse of a limitless, almost like lifetime supply for you and your family, of one unlimited shelf stable food item.
Speaker 3:What do you choose If you could, if you could wave a wand that's in that warehouse wave a wand off the top of my head anything that's high in calories, because calories is what keeps you alive. I mean protein's a good one, don't get me wrong, but you can find animals. You can't keep a field safe with crops in it, um, so I would probably choose something that was easily edible but um, uh, well-preserved, so like mice and stuff couldn't get into it. And, uh, I wouldn't be picky as long as it was highly caloric and not too tough on the teeth tough on the teeth.
Speaker 3:Peanut butter would be a good one.
Speaker 1:Peanut butter I'm choosing butter because it's got protein in it too peanut butter is a fan favorite.
Speaker 2:It is yeah, is it. It's on my own. I'm choosing peanut butter yes, yeah, peanut butter.
Speaker 1:You get a lot of things. You get the protein, you get the calories, you get the fats. There's a lot of uh, a lot of minerals in there as well.
Speaker 3:It's tasty, it's tasty yeah, the only thing you're not getting is uh, uh citrus to keep your. I always talk about teeth, of course, but citrus is good, so you're not getting scurvy and stuff. Yeah, but uh, that would be where you're looking for the tang and the super stores and stuff yeah tang, the best source of vitamin c okay, we have one bonus rapid fire question for you, because we're both canadians here.
Speaker 2:So you yes, you grew up in ontario, but you live in winnipeg, manitoba, and I'm from a small town north of toronto, so we have to talk hockey. Who would be more likely to survive a zombie apocalypse as a team the winnipeg jets or the toronto maple leafs?
Speaker 3:um the philadelphia flyers from the 1970s. That's my answer. I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 2:I like it the jets are the leaves.
Speaker 3:You said, yeah, the jets are the leaves. That's a tough one, um, I um, gee, I don't know, man, that's tough, I would say. Whoever was a bigger fan of the 1970s philadelphia, that'd be my fan I did not expect that answer.
Speaker 1:I love it yeah I mean I'm gonna go with the smaller city oh, just because of the location of winnipeg gonna go with the location. They both probably have a pretty equal chance, but you know winnipeg is a smaller city than toronto, right, yes?
Speaker 3:you have an influence on my answer. Winnipeg, it isn't even the size of the city. It's more like a large town than it is a small city. But the thing that's cool about Winnipeg is the further you leave, the less population there is. So sure you've got places like Portageville, prairie and Headingley and other places, but there's a lot of wilderness. So I would say culturally, especially if you consider dynamics like the Métis population, the French-Canadian population, consider dynamics like the metis population, the french canadian population, um, there's a lot of culturally inherited um resiliency where the fur trader era winnipeg was the hub of canada. And I mean to live in conditions where it's uh. In in the summer you can get as high as plus 40 celsius and in uh in the winter you can get as just a little bit lower than minus 40 Celsius. So minus 40 is 40 degrees below zero. But culturally I think there'll be a lot of inherited resiliency for survival there. I'm going to go with Winnipeg jets just off of that.
Speaker 2:I think you're totally right. One of my favorite people in the world, leona, actually lives in in man. Yeah, do you know Leona?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Leona, From the border right. She has two eyes and a nose. She does. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, she lives north of Brandon.
Speaker 1:I told you, I knew her. She lives north of Brandon, she's Métis.
Speaker 2:But anyway she's got some great land and it's part of my backup plan. She has an open offer to us that at any point, we need to get the fuck out of here. We're going to go live with Leona in Manitoba.
Speaker 3:Get the hell out of Dodge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Winnipeg is a really interesting area because there's a lot going on that's non-city, and I think you always watch any type of zombie related movie. It's always people living in the small towns or away from everything that are doing well, be it the stereotype redneck prepper or farmers that don't really go into cities in the first place, or many other types of things. I think there's a lot to be said about lack of surroundings and having basically a settlement that is more reliant on itself. I think that's an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 2:I agree, manitoba's got a ton of great resources and you have to be resilient to live there, as you pointed out already, because of the extreme temperatures. Also, just how early the sun comes up in the summertime, oh that was a treat for me.
Speaker 1:Sky pretty much a 100 degree or 180 degree sweep rather yeah, the sun coming off the horizon plus the uh, the prairie, you know, being able to see a zombie coming from four or five miles away the flattest prairie in in canada, saskatchewan, and I heard fabled um.
Speaker 3:I lived in saskatchewan for almost four years. Um, I've tested this. It's true. If you stand on a stool, you can see the back of your head it's true.
Speaker 2:Oh, take that. Flat earthers ray has proven that the world is indeed round. Let's talk about the madcaps. Uh, we're really excited, we, we both read the comic, the first issue, the second issue, when this episode is out, there's going to be a kickstarter for it, so go check that out immediately. But could you, for those of us, uh, who are listening, who have not heard of the madcaps before, can you tell us a little bit about it and what inspired you to create this?
Speaker 3:story. So the Mad Caps is a three-issue miniseries and the whole thing takes place over one night. It's based off of a D&D campaign that I made over a decade ago. The whole purpose for me making this campaign originally was I moved across country and I didn't get to see family and friends nearly as much as I wanted to. So eventually I came up with this idea of why not play D&D via webcam? It's an excuse to hang out. And because it was my idea, I had to be the dungeon master. And because I was a tad overambitious, I made everything homebrew. There was no modules, no references. So that means all of the lore, the non-person characters, all of the history, the creatures it was all made up by me.
Speaker 3:Uh, fortunately, after going to make a comic book after this, there's no copyright infringement, of course, but, um, my friends really enjoyed playing like this world I made up. I had multiple different campaigns that took place in that reality and because of that, all my friends helped me sculpt all the lore and history of this place. And the only main difference for this comic book is I took the characters that my friends were playing as book is. I took the characters that my friends were playing as, and I injected my own characters, ironically based off of the players. So, um, basically the whole theme behind this. Of course there's zombies in it, that's why I'm on this podcast.
Speaker 3:Um, the main theme is it's as uh, I'm sure you've kind of figured this out already everybody has friends that they don't get to see as much as they want to. Especially the older you get, there's responsibilities, whether you move or you've got work or various other things. Maybe a friend moved and you're still in your hometown. Anytime you get to see a friend, even if it's for just 15 minutes at a coffee shop. When you leave, there's a piece of you that says to yourself you know what I really, really needed, that it like it like feeds your inner child, and this book is supposed to be an homage to that level of camaraderie.
Speaker 3:So this, this entire thing over the course of one night. You will see, you've seen it in issue one. Each issue acts like a different act, essentially, um, you will see how they interact with each other, how they get along, how they work well with each other, how they get on each other's nerves and a very important thing is how they will act in front of their friends. So if you've got a loved one and something bad happens, okay, let's get away to safety. If you're with your friends and you might be a decade younger, okay, let's see where this rabbit hole goes. It's a completely different approach.
Speaker 1:The same scenario and, uh, this homage, it's just told through a medieval fantasy theme, uh, using the medium of a comic book yeah, I really love that um, I mean, I've I've played so many different campaigns and like, especially when I was younger and I hadn't quite grasped the that there's like a pattern to storytelling. You know, I'd play these characters and then I'm like this is like a movie. I could just I could just write what happened and people would want to read that and it's like it's like tabletop RPG playing. It's like opens a different part of your brain that lets you know that this is possible.
Speaker 3:One of the best things I love about tabletop RPGs, unlike a video game. A video game. If I want to pull a pipe off the wall and use as a weapon, if it's not programmed in the game, I can't do that. Yeah, in a tabletop RPG, sky's the limit. You can. Even you can attempt to push a building over. Your chances are ridiculously low, but you can. In a game, you. You can walk into a building and just be that polygon walking on the spot facing a building, but you can actually do these different actions and reactions and interactions and all these lovely little dynamics. Um, one of my favorite uh, my favorite times rather, are when the players outthink me and they bring in a new dynamic. I did not foresee. That's one of my favorite things. And if it's a design video game, those unique thoughts wouldn't happen. They wouldn't play out, they would just be thoughts. Man, I really wish I could do this in this game.
Speaker 1:But tabletop RPG you think you most likely at least have the chance to attempt it and maybe even be successful at it I I love when people try like successfully break a game using its own rules, both in video games and in tabletop games, like I've.
Speaker 3:I've broken so many video games, it kind of became my thing for a while um well, in japan, that's a culture, yeah, a whole culture of taking pride in exploiting a bug or finding something yeah, oh wow, have you I?
Speaker 1:I forget what it's called and it's in. It's in dnd. I think it's called the peasant railgun. Have you heard of this? Yes, oh yes, I know that one go ahead explain it, I love it I don't know the exact rules so I'm just kind of paraphrasing, but basically a character can hand somebody an item as a free action, and during a round of combat it's like three to five seconds typically.
Speaker 3:Six.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if you were able to recruit like 2,000 peasants I forget what the max is. There's like a maximum number that you can recruit to do a simple task for you. If one of them is holding like a rock and they all stand in a big long line with their arms at the maximum length that they could pass something off to each other, technically you could tell your peasants with a free action to hand each other that rock. And because there's physics rules in Dungeons Dragons, there is like a rate of acceleration and a velocity for this item being passed between peasants during this six second interval. So it's crossing an area of like a couple miles within a few seconds. So it's actually like breaking the speed of sound, oh, wow. And then the last peasant just kind of like throws it, yeah, and that'll destroy pretty much any monster in the game wow, yeah, I
Speaker 2:wish that was that would be a super efficient weapon in real life peasants who knew what one of my favorite builds is.
Speaker 3:If you take a half giant, half giants although they're considered medium in size, their lifting capability is like they're large and then you give them the grappler feet, grappler allows them to pick up one size larger of what they are. Um. So instead of being a medium creature grabbing things, they now act like a uh one size, one size above large, and that way you can like walk up to like a pit fiend and throw them off a cliff. No problem, giant monsters, pick them up. Be a zangie from street fighter spinning pile driver if you want lots of good stuff um, so you have.
Speaker 1:You have some zombies in your comic book I do called deadheads. Um, what? What makes them stand out from like a typical zombie that you would see in other other things?
Speaker 3:well, uh, to clarify, they're he only, they're only referred to as undead, with the exception of dunnan, who calls them deadheads. That's just him, he. He does a lot of like name calling. For example, um, the only person that calls madrakus drac is him. It's kind of his own little way of uh, uh labeling the world around him. So they're not the undead. He calls them deadheads, but uh, with that said, one of the interesting things about these creatures is they're, um, they're very much wanting to, just as all zombies do.
Speaker 3:They want or sorry, most zombies are hungry and they go to eat and, as a byproduct to that, they can can turn others into zombies. These ones, their goal is to make zombies, so they'll go up, they'll try and knock something down, sink their teeth into it and move on, and that's the whole thing about them. It's a little more terrifying when you know imagine an individual with a poison knife and you know it's poison they're trying to touch you with it. It's very scary, as opposed to somebody who wants to eat you. Well, I'll just, I'll hit you in the head or something and incapacitate you, but there's this looming threat of I want to infect you.
Speaker 2:That's their whole thing and do they only infect through bites or if they scratch you, can you get sick? Okay?
Speaker 1:uh no, it's just through saliva you know I've thought about that quite a bit too is like you know, you have hungry, ravenous zombies. They would probably tend to consume more people than they actually infect. So it's actually not that efficient and like it would make sense that something that's infected with something would want to spread that infection outward instead of, like, destroy it in in regards to the zombies that want to eat as opposed to spread their virus.
Speaker 3:Um, ground zero is always very fascinating to me, because the average person you see somebody bite somebody else. Well, maybe it's somebody who's mentally ill. That person's already bit me. I'm gonna go to the hospital. Well, there's a bunch of people that can't get away one zombie. If they bite a couple people, they can't eat all of them. So it makes sense at lower levels for that virus to spread, but at the larger levels it flips and it's just people getting consumed as opposed to adding to the zombie horde.
Speaker 2:Yeah, were zombies a part of your campaign? Um, or how did the? How did? They come into play.
Speaker 3:They are a focal. They are a byproduct of a focal point of the story, so they're Dude. I wish I could tell you more, but I'd be spoiling the story. But issue one has been out for a bit. I have no problem talking about it.
Speaker 3:So these four friends get back together in their hometown and, before they can really catch up or reminisce, this outbreak starts. They're able to help the local guard stave off this outbreak, but nobody knows what happened of it. In city policy, they have to burn the bodies. These are infectious diseases. These are infectious diseases. So as the guards are rounding up the bodies, sarlacc the dwarf. He examines one of the bodies. He says I recognize this one individual and he doesn't have any bite marks on him.
Speaker 3:So it's inferred that there's something to do with this local drug and this zombie outbreak. But the kicker is out. Of the three individuals that Sarlacc recognized, only one of them was slain. The other two were back at his church. He sent them away. Um, out of those two, only one of them had turned, the other one didn't. So they're actually not exactly sure what this, where this outbreak started. Um, they don't even know if they've come across patient zero or not, and so they decide to to um, after speaking to the one individual that didn't turn, who was? He opened up saying he was selling the stuff. They uh were able to convince him, to put it nicely, that uh to find where this, uh where their supplier was, and uh, by the end of the issue we have some individual.
Speaker 3:The four protagonists are, uh, in the end of the issue, the four protagonists are in the midst of interrogating some of these bandits that were transporting some of this drug. So it's really unknown, although there's something going on between this drug and the undead. That that's, that's what's being inferred. It's not actually known, so it could be completely coincidental and at that point, going into issue two, it's not confirmed. There's a couple of things that are incongruent and uh, basically without having anything else to know about this undead outbreak. Okay, let's see where the this uh, this drug takes us is this a fun drug?
Speaker 3:um, weave is um. One of the byproducts of it is, if it's ingested too much, your organs should start to shut down, so you have a hard. It's paralytic, so you can uh. Your heart and your lungs will actually start having a tough time functioning. You could suffocate or die from a heart attack.
Speaker 3:In regards to fun drugs, it's not actually spoken about what is so quote unquote fun about it. It doesn't talk about the sensation so much. It does say that it is highly addictive. So, regardless of whether it's fun or not, you want to keep going. One thing I I did want to say first um, and this is a disclaimer this this is a comic book that happens to have drugs in it. It's not pro or anti-drug, it just happens to be part of the story. One thing I try really hard to do is my political beliefs or my religious beliefs or anything else. I try not to cudgel people with them. So in this case it it the whole reason it's fictional is to separate that much more from reality to avoid. I hate stories that are preachy and I try not to do that yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1:I mean, this drug sounds like a good sleep aid yeah, I can see that yeah I mean I've after after having the flu, I feel like I've had a couple nights like this, where it's just like you're so tired that your organs shut down yeah, uh, it's almost like we took the weave when we had the flu.
Speaker 2:It was pretty close I was definitely contemplating my mortality, but you have. So you said you have four main protagonists and they're all really fleshed out characters. You mentioned that your characters are inspired by the actual people who have played with you this campaign, and I want to start with Sarlacc the swamp trudger, because they have this devotion to helping people who are struggling with the weave, and so I'm curious what influenced or inspired his character and what you're going to say with his character?
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I'll just do a breakdown with Sarlacc Sarlacc, his clan, the swamp trudgers. They actually hail from a group of dwarves that left the mountain mining life and decided to start farming. Um, of course, dwarves being as stubborn as they are, they decided to farm and terraform the inside of a swampland. So, being a fantasy setting, being a fantasy setting, that would, of course, prove to be challenging. There's creatures and whatnot. Um, over generations, they've been able to essentially terraform outward from where they're farming and and start make draining out and cleaning up the swamplands. Uh, a cool byproduct to this, just like we were talking about with winnipeg and its resiliency, with its different inherited skills, culturally, these dwarves, the swamp trudgers, are, uh, culturally, they're very good at, uh, tracking down and pacifying things that go bump in the night.
Speaker 3:Um, if I had to compare that to dnd, he's actually two classes. So the first one, which reflects what we're just talking about, is a ranger. Um, I really like the cool idea of an axe wielding dwarf in the wild killing monsters. I think that's kind of neat. Not fully armored, he's got a cloak, he has some like he's got some scale mail on one of his shoulders and stuff, but I, I, I like the idea of someone, that an individual like a dwarf that doesn't live under rock and embraces the sky and and it is in his element in not often walked upon trails and he worships a thing, something known as the divine and the divine. He is so compelled to be a good example.
Speaker 3:The short way to put this is he wanted to move into Ivyywood and be a good example for those less fortunate.
Speaker 3:So you mentioned weave and and other individuals that are in in tough positions. I'm sure we've all seen or related to or knows somebody that that are going through tough times right now and he is an individual that he built this humble church and he, he doesn't want to uh, talk about what he believes and he wants to show it. So at the beginning of this comic, during what's called a harvest gala, he's there giving out food to people and he, he, uh, because of his heavy devotion to this deity, he actually has some blessings because of it. Some of it you see in the first issue, but you're definitely going to be seeing more as issue two and three play out, and that would be again D&D the second class there would be like a cleric equivalent. So you have this axe-wielding wild holy man out in the woods killing monsters. It's something I wanted to do where, um, there there's a stigma of people that are really good that they're they're not capable I don't know how else to put that.
Speaker 3:Yeah I wanted to show this capable individual that did things for a better good, and I mean some. Very seldom do you see that very successfully portrayed in. In my opinion, a first one that comes to mind that is successful, of course, would be Steve Rogers. Another one would be Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But I wanted an individual that could do cool stuff. It didn't matter if he was so good-natured, he would be able to do some stuff. He would definitely appreciate, I'm sure, if anybody's ever played any sports and there was an individual that was really to themselves and not very social and you didn't see them outside of the sport you were playing. You might not have anything in common with them, but when they're on your team, oh, thank goodness, this person's on our team.
Speaker 3:I wanted to portray that type of an individual. Yeah, and I'm really happy with the outcome. I was. I didn't know if I wanted to go the stereotype route with the scottish accent, but I ended up doing that kind of love it and uh, yeah, I I like. Another thing I really like about sarlacc is he downplays his accomplishments and his abilities, and a good example of that. The first issue is he's just in regular clothes. He's not a show-off um madrakis we haven't spoken about yet.
Speaker 3:When he first sees sarlacc, he says you look a little underdressed, making fun of him wearing clothes and sarlacc saying unlike, unlike you, I, I don't need to stand out in the crowd, and I think that's a really important thing that, uh, I think lots of people can draw from nowadays it's it's to a fault. A lot of people celebrate their wins and I think there's a lot of strength and a lot of statement for people that downplay. And it's really neat when you hear about somebody doing a task and you've known them all these years and they never talked about that. I think there's a lot of strength of character that reflects things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, humility is an underrated quality and I think connects makes a lot of sense with a character like Sarlacc, because they're very strong and they know what they're capable of and they're also able to defend themselves, but they don't have to show it. So I agree with you that that is a really beautiful quality. All four protagonists are lovable in their own ways and scary in their own ways, because there's a lot of action in this, uh, first issue. And sarlacc, you know he might be a beacon of light for the people of ivywood. He is also going to kick your ass, you know I would not mess with him, with his, because he has his two. He has two axes.
Speaker 3:If I remember correctly, he's got like a regular axe well, when, when that outbreak starts, he's just in civilian clothes, but he he has a hatchet tucked behind him. So, uh, at one point after madrakas is trying to tease him when the outbreak starts, another fellow who we haven't talked yet about, dunnan, says to sarlacc, do you feel underdressed now? And he says you never leave home without a good axe, as he's smacking down another zombie into pieces.
Speaker 1:I mean that is, that's good that's good life advice, yeah definitely good zone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now I kind of want an axe. I've never wanted one really before. Yeah, let's get an axe. I've never wanted one really before. Yeah, let's get an axe. Yeah, now I'm like I want a really rad one.
Speaker 1:We have one in the garage, yeah, but it's not cool like Sarlacc's.
Speaker 2:I need a cool axe. So did an actual person. Would you say that, like one of your friends is a lot like Sarlacc, or is it sort of a combination of people that you know and admire that helped you create him?
Speaker 3:Well, every character is based off of people I know and the people who they're, the people who they are based off of, they know, but I haven't told anybody else. I'll put it that way.
Speaker 2:I'm curious what their reactions are when they, when they get to like, see themselves in this mythological character.
Speaker 3:I haven't heard anything negative yet oh well they're.
Speaker 2:I mean you, you are portraying them in really like a kind light. So it's not like you, and I'm sure that's why you tell them too. It's not like you've trashed your friends in these characters.
Speaker 3:It's funny. It's funny you mentioned that. Um, one of the best things I like about um being able to dive into this and reflect these individuals is you get to play up their strengths, which I've obviously done, but I've also played up their flaws. And, um, sarlacc, you don't get to see too much of that yet and, uh, we'll see. Like this is a mini series when it plays out. There's actually some deep stories about these individuals, but, um, one of the things about having flaws with characters is the stakes are higher that way. Um, a really great example during the outbreak, three of them almost get killed and, um, it's, it's almost in an embarrassing way, and the reason I say that is having three individuals that are saved by guards is the equivalent of like having captain picard saved by a red shirt. It doesn't feel right, you know, yeah, and I really wanted to highlight how these individuals are not the mightiest in the realm, and there's something very interesting when you hear about somebody who has survived through this terrible thing and you find out the person is. I'll give you a good example.
Speaker 3:You're fans of zombies. I assume you've watched the walking dead. Yes, when, uh, in the, in the, the tv show. Uh, not to be confused with the comic, they're slightly different. But in the tv show, um, when negan finds out where rick and his crew actually infiltrated this prison and cleaned it out and there and he finds out, a how many of them there are and b how deep they're into that zombie territory, he's like how did that happen? Like how did those people get to that point? Where they got there?
Speaker 3:I want to know that story and that is something I think is very important. Where here's these people? They almost got killed in the first issue already, and there's three issues to go um, by the end of it they're able to ambush some bandits. So they had some things on their advantage, but it wasn't a one-on-one fight, it was a, a sneak, a sneak attack or ambush, as I already said.
Speaker 3:So, okay, well, I I as the writer, intend for every issue to build upon the other and be better than the last. So, if that's where it is, we've had, as you pointed out, action, we've had a close call, we've had some essentially these four kind of bumbling. They're a couple of steps behind what's actually going on. So when they catch up, are they going to bite off more than they can chew All these questions I think are very important in storytelling in order for a person to be like, okay, this is going to be tough, I now want to root for them. If they're, if they're not supposed to win here and they do I, I want to root for that, and that is something I really wanted the reader to feel reading it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when, when we're talking about, um, like a zombie apocalypse story, regardless of the setting, of course, it's uh, I, I feel like a uh. There's a rule that I that I believe in, which is that if you make your character too powerful, that takes a lot out of your story, because the only way that you can, that you can match your overly powered character, is just throwing more zombies at them. So like, at some point it's just like well, he fought a million zombies in the last episode. Does he fight two million zombies on this one? Like it kind of loses its meaning.
Speaker 3:So like, having these flawed characters one million, but he's missing an arm now.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, that would be a way to do it. But if, if you have characters like you're, describing that, like they're not the toughest in the world, they're not the most prepared, but like and they and like you see that they almost fail you, you begin to think are they going to fail in the next one? Are we going to lose people? Which one's my favorite? Are they going to die?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, they could. The, the, the chances and the gravity are very real. So I don't have to skip a book for a couple of issues, knowing they're going to be fine. This is a three-issue mini sort mini series rather it is. I don't know if I'll write another one. This is my first time writing a comic. I just wanted to express the story and get it out of my system. I don't, uh, I don't know if I'll be doing anything after this. I definitely am open to it, but it's up to the readers and if I have any type of following. But my goal was, it would be very arrogant of me to say I'm going to do a monthly ongoing comic and everybody's going to love it, and then, uh, um, it's up to the readers to just say, hey, uh, I like this story, or hey, I didn't, and, uh, I'll gauge where I go from there. But with that said, it's only three issues. If I'm not planning to do anymore. Yeah, we, we could have some losses here, you don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no idea I mean, the good thing about that is you're not, you're not going to leave this unfinished. You know, like, regardless of the reception of it, like hopefully you get like an incredible reception and you know they, they have you drawn comics for the next 25 years and then AMC calls you up and it's a bidding war between them and prime prime wants to animate it, amc wants to make a live action and you got to make a choice.
Speaker 2:I'm team animation I don't know where you land, Ray but'm team animation.
Speaker 1:but like you know, having this, this limited run, like you, you know you're going to get to the end of the story, so you're not going to leave anybody hanging I like, I like that approach.
Speaker 2:I don't like when people choose to just drag something on because they want to keep dragging it on, yeah, like it can be its complete thing, no matter what you decide to do.
Speaker 3:If I do something after this mini series, I think I'm going to just keep on doing them in clusters of mini series. Yeah, I think that's going to be my plan yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's smart because, like it, if you just keep on adding shorter, like they can all add up to something bigger, but like you know, uh, as long as, as long as you have have a solid arc, like people aren't going to be left, um, disappointed traumatized, like season 11 of the walking dead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you're not going to do that to us I appreciate you, ray yeah, one thing I I try really hard to do is I, when you, when you're a bigger company, like the big two, dc or marvel, um, there are times they'll a and B. It's very obvious when you read an issue that it's a filler issue because they need an issue for that month but critical parts can't happen until the following month for various reasons. Being a network of other characters and stories, mine is these three. This originally we'll put it this way I wanted this to be two issues, but I couldn't condense the story enough without ruining it, so I made it three. So it's the opposite. I've actually added to it because all the cool stuff I couldn't, I couldn't fit it all in. I didn't stretch it out. I actually condensed it as much as I could, but then I had to like stretch it out a bit just to fit on all the awesome had to like stretch it out a bit just to fit on all the awesome.
Speaker 2:That's really, really cool. To have that intentionality, I think, goes a long way in terms of having readers that are going to appreciate the story because you can feel it when you read it and you can feel, even in just issue one, you can feel the depth of the characters with a little bit, that you get to know about them right off the bat, like madrakis. The one I want to talk about next with you, um, is a I I know he's a descendant of the great storm worm, is that right? Yes, uh, that's correct. The way that I look at him as sort of like a humanoid dragon, ish, lizard, I don't know where you would basically you know what I made him vague on purpose?
Speaker 3:um, the great storm worm is essentially a giant kaiju electric eel that lives out in the oceans wow and madrakis is basically a descendant of that and because of that he's, uh, obviously a very hardy specimen.
Speaker 3:He's over six and a half feet tall. His body weight clears 350 pounds, but also he's able to store lightning in his gizzard and vomit it out and it's amounts just like a snake with its venom. He can't do it all the time and he was raised by humans. He was hatched as an egg but he doesn't know too much about his kind. Anything he can grab culturally he tries to, but it's very limited. That armor he wears is actually ceremonial. It's based off of the limited what he knows about his species, the species, the name.
Speaker 3:When you look at Madraka's mouth it would be hard for him to speak a human language. And the reason when you see any of his dialogue, the first time you look at it it's hard to grasp, and then your eyes adjust and you can hear it quote-unquote, hear it just fine, and I wanted to have a realistic approach like that. But even the pronunciation of his kind it's hard for humans to pronounce. It's spelled W-I-R and the closest humans can pronounce it properly is weir, but it doesn't sound right. I wanted it to sound like it didn't fit in in a sentence On top of all of that.
Speaker 3:He's not a skilled fighter. Many would confuse him for a mercenary. He can swing a sword hard. Don't get me wrong. You don't want to be on the business end of something like that. But just because you can hit something really hard doesn't mean you can do it well of something like that. But he, just because you can hit something really hard doesn't mean you can do it Well. It doesn't mean you're good at footwork or parrying or anything like that.
Speaker 3:And the most dangerous thing about him is actually his brain. He is a amateur mage. He dabbles in the arcane. He doesn't get to study too much, but it is one of his passions. He's highly intelligent. Um, one thing I hate about large individuals is the fact that they're always dumb and they're always meat shields and nothing else. And I wanted to just turn. I wanted to completely turn that on its head. Um, another thing about madrakas is, as he grew up, he actually had some challenges in Ivywood and you see, at the start of the issue he references a couple of times not wanting to be in Ivywood in the first place. He doesn't have his memories, are not fond of Ivywood, and one of the first things. You see he talks about wanting to be somewhere with his nose in a book, or when his name is mentioned. As they're entering Ivywood for the first time, the guards are ready for a conflict and Madrakas reminds them that Ivywood's charges against him were dropped. I don't give any details to that, but you definitely get a lot of feeling of depth.
Speaker 3:One of the things I really wanted for this mini series is I wanted it to feel like the world existed before and little examples like that with madrakas and then when, by the time all three issues are done, I wanted to feel like the world existed prior. But I also wanted the world to feel like it's going on outside of the story, that we're focused on things like the harvest, gala and and other things that you'll come across later on. But madrakrakis, much like Sarlacc Sarlacc, as I mentioned I forgot to say about Sarlacc is he's a dwarf. In a town that's predominantly human, he shrugs off anything, any type of issues where people could bug him about being a dwarf, madrakis, he can't hide who he is, so the armor that he wears is an example of him just embracing that. He looks different, so he just goes full throttle into it.
Speaker 3:Um, you'll. You'll actually notice that all four characters there is a theme of who am I in it and where they fit in in the world, and it's all expressed very differently. I, I, I very, I'm very worried, or rather, I was very worried originally when I was making these characters. I didn't I wanted them to have commonalities, but I didn't want them to be clones of each other. So they all have flaws in different ways and they all have, um, their sense of belonging or lack thereof is there established, but they're they're different in in their own respects as well. For madrakas, he stands out, he wants to be left alone. People consider him a big, hardy, uh influence if you have larger individuals. There are some orcs that live in ivywood. They're not shown too much, but they look as madrakas as a litmus test of how tough one could be. So madrakas, although he just he wears this armor for cultural reasons, um, he ironically doesn't want the attention either he can't help it because of who he is.
Speaker 2:Right like right, he can't. There's another character who hides who they are chasco madrakas can't do that.
Speaker 2:Um, but I, I hear you because there really is that theme of belonging and who am I? And like it's a fantasy world with fantasy creatures, but there's this diversity inside of it. Uh, that feels very human and very real for what it's just like to be alive and feel a little bit different. And there are people like madrax who stand out. They can't, they can't hide who they are, even if they might want to. And then there's others who can and have to navigate it.
Speaker 3:Sorry, the word madcap just means eccentric person. Oh so none of them are human, so the name just felt fitting yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, it feels true to life too. If, if you're designing a character and an archetype, like you know, if you're designing a big, burly fighter with low intelligence, like you're like, yeah, he's big, he's a big guy. But if you, if you go in the real world and you're like I need somebody to fix this fucking printer problem. I keep happening, keep having, uh, you know, you go the IT office, you find somebody that looks like me, you know, like like shoulders as wide as the doorframe, big burly beard, and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I got to, I got to go update your drivers. I think.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:And, like like I, what I'm hearing is like this that, like you're, you can't help who you're born. As you know, he was born as always that you would assume a lot of things about him. But he's like yeah, but I, you know, I just want to read some books.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can kind of imagine who your friend is based on um madrakas's character and physicality, because it's definitely a dan like. Dan walks around and people see him incredibly differently from who he is on the inside, like, yes, you are very strong and you could kick some ass if you wanted to. But the thing that I love the most about this guy sorry, I have to. I have to get at least one reason I love dan, in every episode, that's okay, at least one contractual.
Speaker 1:I'll give you, uh, twenty dollars later is his mind like I.
Speaker 2:That's what I fell in love with, and so Madrakas feels very relatable, and the fact that he was raised by a species that's not his own and had to figure out how to navigate that, and that his like, even though he's speaking the same language, it sounds different. No matter what he does, like there's just, there's something about him that I find really, really endearing and I think something about him that I find really, really endearing.
Speaker 1:Um, and I think I think that might be like your joking nickname now is drac, because you remind me a lot of him it kind of reminds me a little bit of um beast from x-men, like where you expected to be, like this, yes, animalistic character he's like actually very intellectual one of the things about Beast is he's had the opportunity to pursue education and obviously Madrakas has the potential of making some really great things in life through studies.
Speaker 3:He hasn't had that opportunity, at least as of yet. And on top of that, unlike Beast, madrakas went more so through the school of hard knocks. So, because of his size, a lot of his solutions usually come to violence. But usually, if if he's put in a place of violence, it's it's never a good feeling when it's done, and one of the repercussions which is inferred upon is he's had some issues with authorities in the past. When he says to the guards, ivy woods, charges against me were dropped, you don't really know, but you get a feeling that this guy has a bit of a rougher history and not necessarily because of his own accord. Yeah, beast. Beast more so is a little more happier. Uh, he's had the opportunity to uh dive deeper into his studies and things that he loves, even though, yes, beast has had his fill of ridicule for what he looks like and various other reasons. But I understand the uh the uh comparison.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense yeah, um, I want to talk about chas go next, because chas go is, in my mind, like I said, sort of the opposite of madrakis in one way, which is that he can hide and he's intentionally hiding who he really is. Can you tell us a little bit about him?
Speaker 3:yeah, so jasko chasco, rather, is a, uh, a very specific variant of elf, um, his version of elves that refer to as argors. They live out in a mountain range that is predominantly riddled by silver deposits. Now, in real life I don't know if you guys ever seen this before there are individuals in the world if they eat enough silver, it actually tattoos their skin blue. Oh, you ever heard of this?
Speaker 2:no, the one guy on oprah.
Speaker 3:Apparently it shortens your lifespan. Studies are showing One of the cool things about silver at the atomic level. With atoms, when things bond together they share electrons, like they'll hitch together their outside shell. The one thing about silver is it only has on its outside shell one electron. So if you bond silver with something, nothing else can bond with it. That's why it's so resistant to everything.
Speaker 3:So the cool thing about chas go is, uh, just like humans in real life, he's exposed to all of the silver his entire life. He is a blue-skinned elf, but because it's a medieval fantasy, uh, all of that silver running through his veins also gives him high resistance to magic. His type of people. They would be considered xenophobic. They're very primitive. People steer clear of those mountain ranges, something like mages and mercenaries. They want nothing to do with that area. Because you're dealing with highly magic resistant, violent, fast, quick, scary elves. It's not something uh worth traveling near. Um, these individuals are the type of these are the type of elves that kids make scary bedtime stories off of um chas go, viewed as people, as very dysfunctional. He was approached by an individual known as Annette. Annette gave him an option of leaving the mountain range and giving other Argors the option through his actions eventually of if they wanted to leave the mountain, they could. So, chazgo, he was given this rook. It's a chess piece. If he has that, he actually has access to some magical abilities. So he isn't just resistant to magic, he can also cast certain things uh, through this individual and that, um, one of the interesting things about being resistant to magic is people would say, well, how does that work? It's the best way to describe it. Just like how the venom symbiote was able to bypass peter parker's spider sense, uh, when it bonded with him. It's kind of a similar thing. She's able to bypass the silver um, this, this rook, he fashions as a necklace. If you go through the comic again, you'll see the, the rook piece necklace, uh, around his neck.
Speaker 3:Um, he entered ivy woody dawned, a human persona known as zeno or farron, and you actually see him in the comic the first time as a human. And um, over time he's worked his way up as a noble, uh, representative, and it's kind of funny to me because he's always dancing really close to danger. If he was ever exploited, especially if there was guards around a noble and this happened, he would probably be killed on sight, and so one of his end games that people are speculating as they've read the story and bounced back to me their ideas. They think chas go is trying to get a? Uh close enough to this noble and develop a far enough relationship that he can reveal who he is without a hostile uh reaction and just say like uh, this is who I am. To begin a grounds of doing what annette had suggested to him originally Using magic and keeping himself concealed. I think a lot of people can relate to that.
Speaker 3:There's many different things that make one human a human being and nobody's going to introduce themselves and just completely spill out everything about them. They're going to hold back things. So if I said I shot skeet and I knitted, I'm probably not going to use that as my opening statement to the average person because that comes across as really quirky. Most people want to fit in. Hey, my name is Ray and I do this and I work here and maybe I'll talk about I like writing.
Speaker 3:I might write comic books, but unless you really have a good gauge for the person, you might turn them off right away. Not everybody likes comic books, for example, and Chazgo, I think, is a really good example of knowing how to fit in, regardless of whether that should be the reality that we live in or not and I'll just say he's good at playing the game. So, other than hit the three other individuals in the story, nobody knows who he is, except for a couple of surprises, as you've seen one scene where he uses his appearance to actually, uh, get some information out of an individual.
Speaker 2:I like his original appearance. It's pretty rad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's. It's supposed to be reminiscent of the phrase you don't judge a book by its cover yeah, so when you see the concept art at the back of the book, the person who did all the concept art on their bios is Jay Sloan, who's doing a cover for number two of Jazzco. Ironically, I think, jay Sloan I usually don't play favorites with who portrays who, but I can say with conviction that jay sloan does the best portrayal of jazz go. So when you see his face it's almost like a resting, miserable face. It's not intended to be intimidating, but you see him and you know nothing about him.
Speaker 2:You would veer towards staying away from him just upon his neutral expression alone, let alone everything else about the guy yeah, he's the one I related to the most on a couple of levels, like one, um, some of the culture where I grew up, I think, was not so great without getting into it a lot right now and it's, and I wasn't part of a group that was like discriminated against in the way that it sounds like. Is it an Arger or Arger? How do you say the type of Arger?
Speaker 3:A side note, I don't think I've said this to anybody, but the periodic table of elements silver is A-G and that's where his name comes from.
Speaker 2:Oh cool, you heard it here first on Zombie Book Club. But Arger, I think, is an example of the fact that you can come from a difficult place or a culture that has challenges, and it's how do I say this Like you start to get painted with the same brush as everybody else and he's made different choices and you can make different choices. You don't have to be exactly like everybody else in your culture. And then on the other piece of him that really resonates for me is this idea that maybe he's waiting to show who he really is, when he feels like people will see him for who he is because they know more about him.
Speaker 2:Like when I used to teach anthropology as a professor in the south, I would deliberately wait to tell my um students that I was in a same-sex marriage, obviously divorced and not as happy as my current one. Right, but nothing to do with the gender, the people I would. I would wait until about halfway through the semester to even mention that, because I knew that at that point folks had a perception of me, whether they liked me or they didn't like me, but that wasn't the first thing. They were learning about me and so his art feels very relatable.
Speaker 3:One thing I've said to people that I worked with when you're you have a bunch of people of different, it's like a platoon. You have a bunch of people from different corners of the country all working together. You win them over after a while. You can open up a bit and the individuals just see you differently. A great example of this is I would be classed as Christian. There's lots of bad Christians out there, and I'll be the first to admit it. So when you have individuals that can talk about the flaws with their own groups, everybody else around just relaxes a lot. And Chazgo, he's not there yet, but he's setting up opportunities, or at least trying to be in those scenarios.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and thank you for sharing that. It reminds me. Actually I think all my favorite Christians are Canadian. I think I've said this story on the podcast before so I'll be brief, but one of the departments that I worked for when I first went there, it was led by a woman who was really vocally homophobic and so I had to hide my identity completely and then she was replaced. She left and it was a Japanese Canadian man who came and ran the department and very Christian man and really, really wonderful, and that was when I decided to come out and I think it's a good example of like. Like you said, there can be images of different kinds of people or belief systems, but they don't reflect who everybody is and it's important to not make an assessment just based on somebody's religion, who they are and what they believe, just as much as their sexuality.
Speaker 3:You can be a good person about a person in between yeah, one thing I really like about chas go is most people don't have this opportunity, but he's in a really prime position where, if he does have an ear that will listen to him, he actually is able to call out the snakes in his own grass and, if somebody listens to him, speak right away. Okay, this guy doesn't line up with the stereotypes. Let's listen to what he has to say. I think that's a very powerful thing to say. I think that's a very powerful thing and, um, I look forward to assuming I get the opportunity, of course.
Speaker 2:Uh, diving into that more in the story, me too. We can't. We can't have this conversation without talking about dunnan. The last of the main four protagonists tell us about dunnan okay, so dunnan is.
Speaker 3:Uh, he has a dwarf dad and a gnome mom. Uh, some people refer to him as a dwarf mutt. He's a little bit shorter than your average dwarf, definitely taller than a gn dad and a no mom. Uh, some people refer to him as a dwarf mutt. He's a little bit shorter than your average dwarf, definitely taller than a gnome, and he can't grow a beard. Um, he draws from. He draws from both uh, bloodlines, but he has a hard time fitting in with either culture um, just like how his gnomish mother has an odd ball or not odd ball, she has a a magical influence on nature around her, as many gnomes do. He is discovered in it's not explained how, but he's discovered how he can has a similar influence, but instead of on nature, it's on metal and and crystalline structures such as glass and gems and whatnot, because this is a very unique set of abilities. He doesn't understand it that well and he's kind of kind of figured it out on his own. One of the weirdest things he's done is he's made this contraption, made from a telescope which hangs over his shoulder, which can blast raw magic out of it. It's not refined, it's just this concussive blast. Um, he's able to heat up steel. He carries with him a buckler shield. He's a little guy but he's tough like a dwarf. So he isn't about running and hiding per se, although he's very agile for being a little guy. Um, he he's versed in combat as well. Um, because he decided to uh study as a metalsmith. He obviously he carries a hammer with him, but through his magic abilities he can actually uh do things metalsmiths can't.
Speaker 3:Um dundon is the type of individual because again, this is another another take on who am I? Because he, he uh doesn't quite fit in with family as deeply as anybody else would. Um, he has a bond just as strong to a friend as he would a family member and he's referred to in the trailer for issue number one. He's referred to as a social facilitator and, as it showed at the start of this book, he's quote-unquote getting the band back together because he, he wants to get them together for a job, some employment. But before he can even really elaborate, this outbreak happens. So you don't even get to know what it is. But, um, he is kind of um, he is more or less the facilitator.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't really say if there's a leader among the group, they all have good influences for their own respect for making decisions, but his best, one of his best social qualities, is combining efforts and aligning viewpoints and getting things done, putting things in people's best interest, and one of his greatest strengths is his belief in others. One of his greatest strengths is his belief in others. One could argue, although he isn't playing music or anything like that in D&D, he'd be somewhere between a bard and an artificer, if you will. Artificer makes a lot of sense, but for bard, his real, genuine want to will an individual to do better you can really see that shine through and even that. You just saw the trailer for issue number two and he's just speaking to the person they're about to interrogate. You have two options you pick who you're going to speak to or I'm going to pick for you. It's really good at simplifying wants and means that again, aligning goals to make a really cool end result, whatever that thing is.
Speaker 2:That's really.
Speaker 1:He's a great character too so you've mentioned this hometown of ivywood, like is this, is this based on, like your hometown or is this just like, uh, something completely different?
Speaker 3:um, it's based off of a handful of different settlements in the real world, not one specifically. So ivywood, in a nutshell it's its beginnings uh start with a settlement between humans and orcs. It doesn't work a hundred percent, in fact, when, when you uh read issue one, you don't see any orcs at all. There's a reason for that. I haven't dived deep into it. Um, with that said, um, there's educational opportunities in Ivywood that some will flock towards to capitalize on, and you'll see a lot of youthful individuals gather in that area from surrounding places. There's bigger cities way far away, but Ivywood is a decent option if you live close by, and because of that, you have these four individuals that more or less uh didn't quite grow up together per se, but they had a lot of experiences in their youth together.
Speaker 3:Um, again, madcap just means eccentric, so because they're not quite human or because they're not quite orc or something, they well, I guess we're together kind of thing, and I know there's lots of people that can relate to that kind of thing. Yeah, um, ivywood is uh, in a nutshell, it's um. Coincidentally, I've described winnipeg like this, but I'm not saying it's winnipeg um, it is like a large town, more so than it is a small city so there's well-established, there's a surrounding wall protecting the city. For example, I already mentioned, there's a noble. These are things that you wouldn't find in super, super small towns. So it is an established settlement. It's been around for a while, but it is not the largest of cities either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like I've lived in a lot of places like that yeah, augusta, georgia, where we used to live.
Speaker 2:It feels like that, like a large town less than a small city. Yeah, because you, you can't go anywhere without running into someone like it's. It's honestly awful. I'm like I just want to go to the grocery store in my pajamas, but if I do, I will run into my colleague, so I.
Speaker 1:I've I've lived in, I've lived in towns that were technically called cities. I guess they like were grandfathered into being called a city, but they like had like 26,000 people in it, so it was like not a city. Well, it's a city when you go to their state office building, oh well, but it's it's very much it's very much like a large town, but, um, but it's has the name of being a city lies?
Speaker 2:do you know where um the city of kortha lakes is ray in ontario, like peterborough? What's in here, peterborough, I know yeah, yeah, just briefly, like a little town that I grew up in woodville, ontario, is part of this thing called the city of kortha lakes, and it's like I don't even know, maybe like a two-hour drive and spam. It's just a bunch of tiny little towns I decided to call city, so I get you it's like that's not.
Speaker 3:That reminds me of that, reminds me of uh in k in ontario, our cambridge, with like two smaller settlements, galt, and I forget the other one, but yeah, a similar thing yeah, they just people call things what they call it.
Speaker 2:But ivywood looks like a cool place and I would be down with going to the harvest gala if it wasn't for the zombie outbreak. That part doesn't sound so fun. I wanted to hear from you about, like what um is, the origin story of the team behind the madcaps um, so you're talking about all the talent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, um, I wrote this story and originally uh for issue one my interior artist, evan quiring. He lives here in winnipeg as well, and big shout out to evan quiring. Uh, you can see some of his own stuff uh, murder city devil, which is a modern take on spring heel Jack as an anti-hero, um, fighting lots of cool different cryptid characters such as the moth man and other stuff Really really cool stuff. Um, you could also find, uh, he has another one called Lucha mysteries, which is it is quite an eclectic combination of, like Mexican wrestlers fighting aliens and like a whole bunch of other stuff going down. It's pretty wild. Yeah, um, once I had Evan inquiring on board, he did all the interiors for me, all the pencil and ink, and, uh, I was.
Speaker 3:I was just very lucky to get ahold of the guy and eventually I needed a colorist. So I looked online on social media and I found a couple of colorist options on that. I was friends with One of them. I didn't know this until after I asked him, or no, until I looked at his stuff. I was looking at Dan Kemp. He's the man who's colored Spider-Man during the Civil War era, late 90s, early 2000s, daredevil. But one of his biggest crown jewels is he's colored over 100 issues of Spawn, from 50 to 150. Wow, this guy's literally colored the art of Todd McFarlane, greg Capolo and many other art. John Ramada Jr for Spider-, spider-man like, really, really like a cool portfolio. And so when you, when you see the color in that, the the biggest compliment I get in the art it's always the color is so vibrant and it's bright, but it isn't corny, bright, it works and this man is definitely an international caliber colorist.
Speaker 3:Uh, for my letter, um, and here's the thing, I asked people on social media. I did get a lot of no's, but I was flattered to get somebody who the last person I mentioned, dan kemp, there he said, sure, why not? Really, yeah, okay, cool, that's awesome. So, um, uh, micah myers was the fella I got for lettering and, um, he was really great to work with as well. I really I think there were two amendments in the letters that he put down on my work are on the other people's work on these pages, but he, he really knew what I was looking for. I described certain things something like madrakis. I wanted it to seem a little off. I wanted to look like something you wouldn't quite get. Another thing with chasco when he's speaking normally I want him to have a deep, eerily smooth voice, so he inverted the colors, which I felt worked great.
Speaker 3:Very, very, uh, very smart man. You could tell he's very experienced. I I'd cover artists. So, uh, for the first issue I had, let's see. Uh, chas goes cover was done by erica hollis. She lives out in chicago. Uh, the painterly one of dun and eny where he's blasting away the tree or it's after the blasting he's looking at the stump, kind of shocked that it worked. Um, that was done by jenna stark in a painterly style, a digital, uh, uh, digital media. She did a terrific job.
Speaker 3:Um, the main cover of all four which is in the, the digital copy I sent you, that's jimbo salgado. He's drawn for like batman unhinged and like various others. Like he is, he's really good at drawing covers. Um, there was a mistake on that end where he didn't leave enough uh room at the top for the title, but I I like how it looked at by the end of it. The title at the feet yeah, I think it looks really good. Um, that one was colored by dan kemp as well, and then the last two artists. There's the uh you guys ever play. I assume you've played on nintendo nes yeah, yes, even I've played nintendo.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I said that again.
Speaker 2:Right, shinobi, you've played on nintendo nes. Yeah, yes, even I played nintendo, sorry I said that again.
Speaker 1:Right, shinobi, you've played that game for nintendo you know, I think I have, but it's been a really long time so it's not stored in my memory I definitely have not.
Speaker 2:I was just a mario player all good.
Speaker 3:So shinobi is like mario, except you're throwing ninja stars. Essentially, yeah, okay, the the cartridge art for that game. John zelesnik, I got him to make a cover for, uh, issue one, a variant cover, hand painted, of madrakas. It's. It's beautiful piece of work. I'll send it to you guys later. Um, I'm beside myself, that's.
Speaker 3:That's somebody who's had a passive influence on me since I was just a child, and the last one, the first comic book I ever collected as much as possible back issues, every issue, and follow the storyline, was, uh, the second volume of ghost rider and the person who drew the first year of that run, where dan ketch was the writer, I was harv salteras and I asked him and he did a cover for me and, uh, his cover is the one of sarlacc. If you go through my social media, you'll see sarlacc holding the head of a slain monster. That's harv salter. That's the guy who drew ghostwriter. A cool side note um, when you saw the not so great nicholas cage ghostwriter yeah, he plays Johnny blaze, but he's not wearing the Johnny blaze persona of ghostwriter. He's actually wearing the Dan catch ghostwriter garb. So when you see, if you ever watch that, he's wearing that, that outfit with the spikes on the shoulders and stuff. The guy who designed that outfit is the guy who made that cover for me. Wow, and for me, and for me and I've said this, another podcast. This is like having elvis presley perform a song that you've written. It's just. These are these thoughts in my head and these guys, like, made it a reality on paper. It's just so cool, man.
Speaker 3:Um, for issue two um, interior artist is victor medina. Um, at the end of issue or at the end of the trailer for issue two, you'll see, uh, victor medina's work with dan kemp coloring it. Um, again, I have five different covers. The first one of the entire group is done by kenny calderon. Kenny is uh, um, he did a great job. And again, of course, dan kemp colored that. Um, it shows them.
Speaker 3:Here's a cool thing I tried to do with all of my covers I try to have some type of relevance to the story that's going on. So in that main cover you'll see them walking in. It looks like a pathway with a lot of overgrowth and that's supposed to allude that they're going somewhere. Basically, they found this doesn't spoil anything, but they've found the home base of the distributor. So they're walking in on this uncharted territory and it's supposed to give a level of severity. You can see all the mildly different expressions on their face, how they would react to this.
Speaker 3:And then four other covers. They're all of each character. So Dunnan was done by Russ Leach in the UK. He's got something out right now called the Atlantean, and the Atlantean is one of the old stories that inspired that of stories like Conan the Barbarian. It's about a prisoner who becomes king. It's really cool. But he did one of Dunnan where he's right in the middle of an undead horde and his telescope is blasting off the arm of one of the monsters and he's knocking the jaw off the other. It's really wild. There's, after Dunnan, there's Sarlacc. Sarlacc is a unique one. It's going to be limited edition. It's drawn by Jenna Stark, colored by Dave Kemp. That's Dan's brother. It's done in a glass, stained glass depiction and we're going to be making it metal foil, which is really going to make that stained glass pop. Oh nice. So that one's going to be limited edition. It's definitely worth picking up. It's a really beautiful piece. Even the title the madcaps is treated like. It's part of the stained glass design.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 3:And that bloom in the logo actually is extended out as part of the stained glass. Look, you can check that out after. And also Dunnan Sarlacc. And then who have I missed here? Madrakas? Madrakas was drawn by Rod Ramos Rodolfo, from Brazil, colored by, of course, dan Kemp, and it shows a depiction of madrakas pulling earth upward without touching it a little bit of a sneak peek into some more arcane abilities that he has. And then the last one is of chasco, drawn by jane's jay sloan.
Speaker 3:He's the fellow that did all the concept work in the back of issue number one. Um, it shows him, uh, in a position of solitude, just milling about his thoughts. And he has. He has a pet. It hasn't been shown yet. So this issue, but it's sitting on his shoulder. It's a three-eyed albino crow. Oh my god, that's cool. It is. It's, uh, it's a very interesting. The thing's name is emmix. It's a very interesting uh, creature. The reason I had this cover was just because we haven't seen emmix yet. So it it was fitting that I had that cover made, and it's all of them are just beautiful pieces of art.
Speaker 3:Um, on top of all of that, the covers from issue one and issue two will be available in regards to different mediums, not just comic books. So, um, we have plush tapestries for this kickstarter. We call them tapestries. They're actually blankets, but anything that looked like a painting be it the one of madrakas by john zelesnik or or other ones um, they're going to be shown in blanket format so you could actually hang it on your wall or hang it on yourself if you're cold, of course. But we also have t-shirts of images that look more like the comic book style and, um, those will all be available on kickstarter. Uh, by the time this uh podcast launches. It's all of april, so you can check it out right now. Um, there's even and I'm sure you like this one, dan there's dnd character sheets of all four characters. That's fun, yeah, level five. So, um, there's lots of cool stuff on there.
Speaker 3:There's a map. It was a stretch goal in the first one in in in this uh second kickstarter for issue two. You can buy the map, so it's uh, it generally shows everything that, or the real estate of where all three comics take place, so it's well put together, as silly as it sounds. Some people say, oh, it's a map, is a map, but it's actually a beautiful, lot of detail. It was drawn by Storm Wickham and then, of course, dan put his own flair on it. It looks like something that was not made yesterday. It looks like it's was not made yesterday. It looks like it's got some age to it. It's got the right conservative amount of inks to give you that flair that it is a well put together map. There's so much stuff on there and I know I'm going to forget a bunch, but one of the things while we're recording this this is just before april. It is torture not being able to talk about half this stuff like I already I already have the script done and three covers three covers already done for issue number three.
Speaker 3:They are going to be silenced to the world for like what feels is going to be forever for months and I can't say a word about them. But by the time this comes out, you can look through all of issue two's campaign. You can get issue one, of course. You can get the physical copies, digital copies. You can get issue one, of course. You get the physical copies, digital copies. There is a lot of cool stuff on there. One thing I try to do is make the add-ons worthwhile as opposed to just filler fluff add-ons. Buy this for an extra buck, okay, I don't like doing that. I just want stuff that people would actually want to use like a blanket. For a canadian like myself, that's a big deal vermont with, uh, something like a t-shirt.
Speaker 3:You go to Comic-Con. Everybody loves wearing t-shirts like that. Well, why not wear one of mine, drawn by like pros that really know what they're doing? There's lots of cool options there.
Speaker 2:I'm really looking forward to backing this campaign, and I personally am a big lover of maps. I think that they add so much context, oh yeah, and would look super cool on our zombie bunker walls, because that's one of the things we're collecting is um awesome art from folks like you who are pulling these things together, so cannot wait to see the kickstarter and for those of you who are listening, it's out uh, go into the show notes, you will see the link. We'll post it on social media as well, please, so many campaign. I cannot wait, yeah, to read the next issue you really like, uh, dynamic zombie images.
Speaker 3:Uh, there's a pinup poster on there by sean langley, colored by dan kemp, and it shows all four in the middle and there's like dozens in a horde surrounding them amazing, coming in and closing in. Um. It's also one of the plush tapestries, so you can have it like we'll call it, fun sized that sounds incredible.
Speaker 2:I I think that our house will just one day be all really, really amazing zombie art and, uh, you know, I have to ask this question of you, of course, which is where can people find you, ray?
Speaker 3:so, um, there are some links. I'll say the one that's most important and um, it's that kickstarter link. Have a look, even if you're not a fan, it's worth having a look and just seeing all of that awesome art. So by all means, go on there. But with that said, um, you can find me on facebook as dm ray, better known DM is just Dungeon Master. You can find the Madcaps Facebook page. Of course, it's a page, not a group. You can find me on Instagram and what I like to call Twixter, as Raymond the DM. Unfortunately, dm Ray was taken, and that covers all the socials that I'm utilizing right now. I'm going to look into expanding. For video's sake, I think I'm going to be opening a YouTube channel. We'll see. But all in all, facebook, dm Ray, facebook, mad Caps page, instagram and Twixters, raymond the DM, and I believe that covers all of them.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure We'll have all of those in the description down and, uh, I believe that covers all of them. I'm pretty sure we'll have all of those in the description down below yeah, I have one more question for you.
Speaker 2:Can I ask it? Do you have like one more?
Speaker 3:yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, I should say no and see a reaction well, I I am a little blown away by all of the people that you have brought together for this uh story that you're telling, and I just wanted to hear a little bit from you about, like, what the comic community means to you, because we got in touch with you through laurie calcaterra, uh, creator of path of the rider, and I think that it sounds like you've really created a community of your own too.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, well, one of the things is uh, as I said to you in the green screen before we started, I'm, I'm very much an extrovert. I am, I'm not a fan of here's. The best, the best way to put it is the world needs a lot more ted lasso's. We'll put it like that.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you've ever watched ted lasso I haven't, but I've heard everybody loves him, so I believe it one of the best things about ted lasso is, if you hate soccer, it makes fun of everything that you could hate about soccer. You'll like it for that. If you love soccer, you will love the show, because it it it raises up and cherishes and celebrates all the good things about soccer too, everything that is good and bad about that sport, the culture, everything. It just it embraces the whole dang thing. And um, um, this coach, um, in one of the episodes he makes fun of himself. He says I'm like ned flanders, trying to cosplay as ned flanders, and he chooses. He chooses to get along.
Speaker 3:And doing good things is not a natural thing. A lot of people in hit just internalize that it's something you just do. It's not, it's a choice. And it's actually tough to choose to do good things, especially if people aren't nice originally. But one thing I found that if you're nice to people long enough, they just look bad if they're not nice to you. That's true In regards to collaborating with other people. One thing I try really hard to do is just celebrate the other people's wins. Lori Calcaterra is a great example that you brought her up. Um, her story, path of the pale rider. I just love the, the really unique take on it's zombies. But it's not like, okay, if, if, in her world, if I got shot through the chest right now with a shotgun, my heart would stop beating but I'm still functioning. Like that's a wild concept and I'm really happy to celebrate those things and talk about them.
Speaker 3:Sometimes, depending on different industries, there are individuals that treat everybody as competition and I think it's a form of weakness when people think that it's.
Speaker 3:It's a level of insecurity. But if that same insecure individual, if you have a handful of individuals, they're like, hey, that's awesome or you did very good. Well, they relax a little bit, they don't see at least that handful of individuals as competition. So I'm not saying that I have been the tenth lasso on everybody that I've spoken to in the comic industry, but something I really try hard to do is give them the credit that it's due and any time that I can help them, or vice versa. The reciprocation is a lot more natural and healthy and comes from a good place. A good example of this is I do comic reviews. I've reviewed two of Laurie's. The first two issues of Path of the Pale Rider I have over. I've surpassed episode 30 on my reviews, but I'm a big fan of just talking about cool stuff, and if you buy into things that are that are really great and not competitive, people tend to want to buy into.
Speaker 2:That's uh, I guess the short version of it I agree, and it's really truly a pleasure to get the chance to talk to you. I still kind of want you to be my dad, even though it's it's biologically not possible.
Speaker 3:I don't think I can adopt you. You live too far away I don't think I can apply to get a mail order. Daughter, I don't think I can adopt you. You live too far away.
Speaker 2:I don't think I can apply to get a mail order daughter. I don't think that's possible. Well, if the zombie apocalypse happens and I end up moving to live with Leona, I'll be coming to say hi, yeah, we'll be over for dinner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Awesome Done. We'll invite ourselves and we'll bring all of our laundry.
Speaker 3:All of your laundry. Oh boy, oh boy, are you? You do sound like a child. You do sound like one of my kids now, not that I have kids but yeah, toothpaste, toothbrushes, a pillow and a blanket, no mattress. We're here to have a good time, not be comfortable yeah, exactly somewhere, exactly, exactly. Brad Boyk level responsibilities.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for joining us in this episode. I can't wait to see what more comes from Mad Caps and everybody who's listening. You should go check out the Kickstarter, support it, especially if you get a chance to support it in the first couple days, because that helps when you get a lot all in the beginning.
Speaker 2:This is coming out in the middle of the campaign, but we will promote it before that. Go back in time.
Speaker 3:You know what? The middle of the campaign is critical because no matter how long or short your campaign is, there's a dead zone in the middle. So you were you. Talking about this in the middle of time is actually very beneficial.
Speaker 2:Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, laurie mentioned something similar. Yeah, the the the horrible middle part. But thanks everybody for listening. If you want to, if you want to give us some support, leave a rating or review, either one. Um, you can also send us a voicemail up to three minutes at 614-699-0006. You know we also have a uh a newsletter. Sign up for that, because we live in a fucking fascist nightmare and, uh, we don't know how long uh we'll have the ability to use our free speech, don't?
Speaker 1:forget to get the ham radio, to get a ham radio communicating yeah, that's the resistance will be reaching out to you on ham radio go full ham. We're going going full ham, uh, full ham. You also follow us on instagram at zombie book club podcast. Um, also, we have a a discord. All the links are in the description. Um, thanks, thanks for listening everyone yeah, and thank you again, ray.
Speaker 2:The end is nigh, baby, bye, bye, bye, don't die thanks for coming talk soon, bye, bye.
