Tyrants Fall on The Corner Box S2Ep30

Team Tyrant Fall, Max Davenport and C. Brennan Knight, join hosts John and David to talk about all things comic book, how Brennan wrote a pro-level first comic, perfecting the writing process, building the world and characters, merging traditional and digital art, and Heavy Metal’s influence on Tyrant Fall. Also, John manages to get back into the U.S. after his vacation, and David discovers why he’s not a big DC guy (or is he?!)

Timestamp Segments

• [01:48] Brennan’s gateway comic.
• [06:17] Max’s Comfort Comic.
• [08:49] Absolute Wonder Woman.
• [11:32] What’s Tyrant Fall all about?
• [12:37] Character and world building.
• [21:42] Join the Kickstarter Campaign!
• [22:29] Brennan’s writing process.
• [25:36] John’s veteran writing process.
• [29:26] Where to start writing a story.
• [36:51] Brennan’s day job.
• [41:04] Digital vs traditional art.

Notable Quotes

• “When good story is married with great art, they’re always classics.”
• “The horniness of Heavy Metal Magazine is undeniable.”

Relevant Links

David's Fun Stuff!
Miss Mina VIP Launches Here!

John is at PugW!
Pug Worldwide

Support Great Comics!

Tyrant Fall Kickstarter is HERE!

C. Brennan Knight | Twitter | BlueSky.

Max Davenport | Instagram | Twitter | BlueSky | Cara | TikTok.

Books Mentioned

• Tyrant Fall, by C. Brennan Knight, Max Davenport, Roman Stevens, & Rob Jones.

-----------------------------------

• Absolute Batman, by Scott Snyder & Nick Dragotta.
• Absolute Superman, by Jason Aaron & Rafa Sandoval.
• Absolute Wonder Woman, by Kelly Thompson & Hayden Sherman.
• Akira, by Katsuhiro Otomo.
• Avengers (2012-2015).
• Batman (2011-2016).
• Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth, by Grant Morrison & Dave McKean.
• Birds of Prey.
• Black Lightning, by Brandon Thomas & Fico Ossio.
• Captain Marvel (2019-2023).

Transcript

Welcome to The Corner Box, where your hosts, David Hedgecock, and John Barber, lean into their decades of comic book industry experience, writing, drawing, editing, and publishing. They'll talk to fellow professionals, deep dive into influential, and overlooked works, and analyze the state of the art, and business of comics, and pop culture. Thanks for joining us on The Corner Box.

[00:28] John Barber: Hello, and welcome back to The corner box. I'm your returning regular host, most of the time, John Barber, and with me, as always, unless he's with somebody else on this podcast

[00:39] David Hedgecock: David Hedgecock. John, how was your vacation?

[00:42] John: It was very good. It was nice to get away.

[00:43] David: I thought you were expatriating.

[00:45] John: Oh, well, we managed to get back in.

[00:46] David: Okay, good. You were able to bring the kids back, as well.

[00:48] John: It’s funny that you mentioned that. I forgot them. Where's Kevin?

[00:52] David: Kevin? That's the first time you've ever mentioned that kid.

[00:56] Max Davenport: Always forget about them.

[00:58] David: John, we’ve got to be on our best behavior. We've got guests on the show.

[01:00] John: Exciting. We have two guests today. We rarely do it, but always with Max.

[01:04] David: It's true. Max seems to never want to talk to us by himself. So, yeah, welcome back to the show, Max Davenport. This time he brings with him, Brennan Knight, the creative team behind the wildly successful Kickstarter, Tyrant Fall.

[01:19] Max: Thanks for having us, guys.

[01:20] C. Brennan Knight: Does John have to stare off into the middle distance for a while before we start the interview?

[01:24] David: Usually, he doesn't start staring off at the computer, off into space, until the interview is well underway. So, this is new. This is a new thing that happened. Max, welcome back. Brennan, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you guys. There's a lot of stuff that we want to talk about, around Tyrant Fall. At least, I want to talk about it. I’m sure John does, too. Before we get into that, we always do a thing--and Max, we've done this with you. So, we're going to skip you this time, because you're just completely irrelevant--Brennan, we have a thing that we welcome our guests--So rude. That was not good. I should not say that. Brennan, we do this thing, where new people on the show, where we ask about their comic book origins. So, what was the thing that—if there was a thing—turned you from a passing reader of comic books to a true fan fanatic? Was there a thing like that? Was there an individual thing, or was it over time?

[02:14] Brennan: That's actually a question I've asked myself, because there's always a new memory that surfaces. So, it’s like, “wait a minute. No, it wasn't that graphic novel. You read another graphic novel 2 years before that.” So, it always changes. There's two big catalyst moments, one of which is--well, I'll just say three--the first one is a big primer, for me. All the DC animated stuff, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans--that set the foundation for my love for comics that would soon come about. Picking up the Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on a Serious Earth—I think it was the 25th anniversary collection, or something, but it had the script in the back, and it was one of those things where I had always known that people were writing these things, but then it was like, “someone wrote this thing,” and it really clicked then, and that's when I started just doodling down little scenes, and stuff--nothing worth talking about, further than this sentence, but the third thing that really got me into comics--it's just a big timing thing. It was The New 52, and then, Marvel NOW! Those really got me into regularly buying and collecting, reading comics. Before that, I made it a habit, every time I went to the movie theater with my friends for a midnight release, if we had a long wait ahead of us, I would go to the bookstore, buy a graphic novel, and then read that in the line before the movie started. So, The New 52, and then Marvel NOW! were big jumping-on points, for me. I'm one of those people that it had actually worked for. That's why they do those initiatives. They got me.

[04:03] David: Do you remember what you were sampling from The New 52?

[04:05] Brennan: Well, one of the big things--Green Lantern, I really liked, because it was still Geoff Johns, at that point. I picked up all the Batmans except Scott Snyder's Batman, when it was first starting, and I'll admit it, the first cover, the cover for Issue #1, did nothing for me. So, I was like, “I'll pass on that one,” and then lo and behold, 14 issues later, I’m like, “I’ve got to get this first 13 issues. Oh, God.” Another big one was Frankenstein, Agent of Shade. That one was so good. What's it, the Seven Soldiers of Victory 4-Volume set--Love that to death. I still semi-regularly re-read it. It's just good comics. Saw Frankenstein there, took it with me, and kept it going. Then the Marvel NOW! stuff came, and I picked up Avengers by Jonathan Hickman. That was a little mind blowing. I was like, “whoa, wait a minute. This is different than other superhero stuff--The approach, the presentation. So, that was a really big moment. That’s pretty much my origin, and then I started dabbling in writing. After college, I wrote a couple short pieces, and then eventually, ended up working with Max on what eventually became Tyrant Fall.

[05:21] David: Oh, was Tyrant Fall your first comic book?

[05:22] Brennan: So, I had another one that I published through ComiXology back in the day, self-published, called Mental Cases, which was--I always call it Sherlock Holmes meets X-Files, but then later, I was like, “wait. X-Files is just Sherlock Holmes, but conspiracy theory stuff.” It’s a little redundant, if you know. So, I still say it to people, when I pitch it to them. If they're in the know, then it’s just redundant. It's just a redundant statement, but it's a world of conspiracy theories, and the main character is a detective, who is a psychic, but refuses to use his psychic powers. So, he has to solve it in a very Sherlock Holmes-ian way, all these mysteries that he investigates. After that, a couple more little shorts I wrote for myself, and then, it was on to what became Tyrant Fall.

[06:17] David: Max, I was joking when I said I didn't have any questions for you. Recently, John and I were talking about comfort food comics, comic books that--the world's a little crazy right now--the go-to comics that we recommend for people to read, just pure escapism. At least, that was my take on it. Not to put you on the spot, or anything. Do you have a comfort comic that is your go-to, the thing that you read every year, or something that you read when you need something to pick you up? Anything like that?

[06:43] Max: I do go back and read stuff. I wouldn't say that I ever go through and read all of it. I'll dip in until I've sated my need for that comfort, and it's Watchmen. I have a big hardcover of The Incal that Humanoids published. I'll dip into that, every so often.

[07:04] David: That's not surprising, at all, given your art style.

[07:09] John: I’ve got Epic Editions right there.

[07:11] David: Nice.

[07:13] Max: Oh, yeah. Very cool. I’ll do the same thing with other stuff. Beyond that, it’s mostly project based. So, the goal with Tyrant Fall, The Incal lines up with that aesthetic impulse, but I have another book that I work on, when I'm not doing Tyrant Fall, it's all cyberpunk. So, I'll go, and flip through Akira. Yeah, mostly that method. It's not a comfort food thing, but just recently, I had the same experience that Brennan had, with the Scott Snyder Batman run. I wasn't enthralled with it when it first dropped. It was the DC Absolute stuff that just relaunched. I don't pay attention to news, or anything—comic news. So, my touchstone for “am I interested in this?” is “does it look good?” I could not connect with the Absolute Batman reimagining. I was like, “I know the point is that it's a different Batman, but this isn't landing, for me.” So, I just was like, “maybe, I'll pick this up another time,” and then it exploded, and then I realized they were doing this with Wonder Woman, Superman, and all that stuff. So, I recently just scoured the Internet for as much of the runs as I could. So far, I've been able to find—which was much harder than I expected, because again, I had no idea how much these books have exploded, but I did finally manage to get my hands on, at least, Issues #1 through #4 of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, and I've been slowly making my way through those, and very pleased with my decision to finally jump in. I think that answers the question, I hope.

[08:48] David: Yeah, for sure. John and I have been talking a lot about Absolute Wonder Woman. I think that's a favorite of mine, for sure. I'm still really enjoying it.

[08:56] Max: I think that was my favorite of the three.

[08:58] David: Hayden Sherman just crushing the art on it. Love his stuff so much. The writer’s name escapes me. Is it Kelly Thompson? She seems to be on a tear, the last--I don't know—18/24 months. I don't know. It just seems like she leveled up, somehow, recently, where her stuff is just--everything I read of hers, lately, I just really like.

[09:23] John: She started off on Jem and the Holograms. So, I knew her from that, but I liked her Marvel stuff well enough. She was doing Captain Marvel, and “there's a Captain Marvel movie coming out. So, here's the version of Captain Marvel that's not 1,000,000 miles away from the movie, but it's still good stories, and takes you different places,” and the DC stuff just seems to be that it’s not tethered to anything like that. I don't know if that is what did it, or what it is, but the Birds of Prey has been great, and then Wonder Woman is just astounding. This is my favorite Wonder Woman since George Perez, and that was a huge one, for me, when I was a kid, and I like a lot of people that did other ones in between. I don't mean that those are the only two good ones. 

[10:03] David: I can't remember buying four issues of a Wonder Woman comic, ever. So, it's certainly got me hooked, in a way that I've never been hooked on the character before. I've just never been a big--I don't think I'm a big DC guy.

[10:14] John: Yeah, well, it's hard for you, because it's a woman character. So, it's […] your misogyny.

[10:20] David: Ah, thank you. We are definitely 80-plus episodes into this podcast.

[10:32] Max: Absolute Wonder was probably my favorite, as well, of the three, so far. They're all good, and I've been pleasantly surprised. Because I was initially turned off from the Absolute Batman covers, I was so surprised that I really loved the interior pages that Dragotta was doing. I don't think I've ever had that experience, where for some reason, the cover that the artist did wasn't connecting, but the interiors really. I don't know. It's a weird thing, for me. I usually am not surprised like that, but yeah, Hayden Sherman is absolutely killing it, and I mean, not to toot my own horn, but I look at Absolute Wonder Woman, and it's of a piece with Tyrant Fall, if I may be so bold. I think there's a lot of similar influences, and stuff, going on. I look at that Wonder Woman character, that design, and I'm like, “she would fit right in, in Tyrant Fall. Badass lady with a giant sword? Hard to go wrong,” and also, just well-written, besides.

[11:32] John: So, what's this Tyrant Fall you're talking about?

[11:34] Brennan: Tyrant fall is this really cool--if I toot my own horn--Kung Fu fantasy action comic that follows this rebel warrior who is seeking revenge against this superhuman tyrant. She fails, but the fallout from that inadvertently reignites this ancient war that been long-dormant, and just now is starting to spark back up again.

[12:00] David: I was surprised to hear you say that this was one of the first things you've written for comics, Brennan, because I thought for Tyrant Fall Issue #1, you’ve got a really rock-solid cold-open for this series. The way you set things up, it's interesting, exciting, and really pulls the reader right in, and you deliver a lot of information, without it feeling like a lot of information, right away. So, it was a really great pro-level intro to the series. Given the fact that you haven't done a lot of this, I mean, it's top-notch. I really like it. I think anybody that reads the first 6 pages gets a really good sense of what they're getting into, in a really cool way. Tell us a little bit about the main character. How did she come about for you? What were the influences and pieces that were coming together when you were putting this character together?

[12:44] Brennan: Yeah. So, the main character, Myrta--it goes back to the 8 pages that you mentioned, and I just want to thank you, again, for being so complimentary towards them, and you hit all the things that I was trying to do, because those first 8 pages were--me and Max, we did that for an online comics competition--Platform Comics, their short comics competition that they did, and actually, I had reached out to Max, for our first communication, and I was like, “hey. There's this competition. I would love to work with you on it, and then we can collab on this,” and the first thing Max said was, “I'm surprised anyone is hiring,” because this was the middle of Covid. So, yeah, I was like, “yeah, well, I'm not doing anything right now. So, we can knock this out,” but the whole point of the original short, when I went into it, was I wanted to do a lot of world-building--just so much world-building in such a limited space, but make it very organic and easy to read. So, the fact that you mentioned that there is a lot of information, but there's such an easy pace to it, and it's this world that feels very lived-in, even though you only have those first 8 pages, originally, to explore it. So, we made the first 8 pages, we entered into the competition, we were runner-ups--We didn't win, unfortunately.

[14:13] David: Yeah, but where are the winners now, Brennan? Where are the winners now?

[14:17] Brennan: I don't know. I'll have to Google them. Maybe they're doing so much better, and we don't realize.

[14:23] David: We don't know who they are. So, obviously, they haven't done as well as you.

[14:28] John: Timothée Chalamet—

[14:34] Brennan: A little guy named Alan Moore. So, we did the short, entered it in the competition, we got the results back, and then I was like, “okay, cool. Thank you, Max. Thank you, Roman. Thank you, Rob”--Roman Stevens and Rob Jones, the colorist and the letterer—"I'll be in touch if I have anything else for this,” and then it was, I think, a year later that I finally got back to Max, and was like, “I think I've cracked this. I think I know what to do.” It wasn't even something I was actively working on. I had the notebook at my desk, but it wasn’t something I was constantly like, “what are we going to do with this story? What's it going to be?” I was re-reading all of Dragon Ball, and I was noting some similarities between Dragon Ball and some of the stories I'd been reading in Heavy Metal, and I was talking to myself, like, “it's very interesting. In another universe, Dragon Ball could have been published in Heavy Metal Magazine, because it's this fantasy world with weird science. There's dinosaurs at the farmland. Here's a little capsule that can become a car that flies,” and you're like, “yeah, that makes sense,” but then as I was saying that to myself, I was like, “It’s almost like Dragon Ball Z could be published in Heavy Metal Magazine,” and I took a beat, and I was like, “what if Dragon Ball Z was published in Heavy Metal Magazine?” and I was like, “Oh, my God. I know exactly what to do for this book.”

So, I started to get into the story, expanding it, and stuff, and then that's when I reached out to Max, and was like, “hey, here's my pitch round 2 for this thing.” Getting back to the original question, the main character, Myrta, her central motivation is revenge, because the first 8 pages, the short story ends with, basically, her grandfather dead, at the hands of the main antagonist, and her house blown up. She was completely powerless to do anything. She was just a kid. So, it built from there--8 pages. It's done. We jump into the new stuff, years later, and she's come back, and it's time to get her revenge. So, it's that, and beyond that, I wanted to explore, “well, what does revenge mean? What is her role, as part of this rebellion?” It becomes a little bit of an exploration of “how effective is revenge in this world, and what good can it do, and what bad can it do?” That's all stuff we get into, actually, a little bit more in the newest issue, Issue #3.

[17:11] John: So, even having read, in the end of the first issue, the e-mail that you sent to Max about it, I just assumed you guys didn't do that 8-page story. It never occurred to me that 8-page story was the opening sequence. It really fits together in there. It's amazing. While you were saying it, I was over here, looking at it, and I’m like, “yeah, that would be a satisfying 8-page story.” The match cut that you do after that makes it so you can't ever not think about that that wasn't what it was planned out to be, but yeah, that was well done. Actually, I appreciated the storytelling later-on, when you guys introduce all of the other rebels in that issue, and you have little captions introducing them. I feel like, a few years ago, that was old-school comic book-y, but it's a tool in the toolbox of comics to do that, and it reminded me--I just finished reading the book Chain-Gang All-Stars, and it does a vaguely similar thing when characters get killed, and it has a footnote, and it gives you their history about them, where it's just ancillary characters, and I was like, “yeah, that's smart. That's cool. It sets everybody up. You know enough about them that when they get into the fight, it’s interesting.”

[18:17] David: So, our main character, when we first encounter her, she's a young girl, 8/9/10 years old, somewhere around there, it seems--visually, that's about what I'm guessing--and yeah, her whole family basically gets blown--well, most of her family’s already been killed by the Red Dragon, who is the antagonist of the first issue, and the Red Dragon is one of the few people who has powerful magic in this world, and that magic is being held back, is being kept to those who are in power. People who are not in power have the ability to practice magic, but are not allowed to, and if they try it, they get killed, and we learn that right away. So, yeah, just like John, never would have thought that those things were done a year apart, because we jump-cut right into 15 years later. She's a young adult now, and the thing that I liked about it is that we jump right into--she's got her posse, her crew that she's gathered together, and they're going to get that revenge on the Red Dragon, but you take the time to describe and give a little personality to the rest of the people that are in her group. Spoilers--when you brutally kill all of them, very quickly, it's like, “oh, wow. I did not see that coming.” I thought that Shnalak was going to be around for a lot longer than the five pages he was around, and what a great character he is, by the way. The Blue Region is a region I can't wait for you to get into.

[19:45] Brennan: The development of her posse, again, was an exercise of “how much world-building and establishing of these characters can we do in a very short time?” because they were always intended to die, which hurt Max, because when I was like, “so, you're going to have this character, and this one describing them,” and he started to get into them. The character Quatre, he was like, “does he have to die?” and I was like, “yes, he has to die. I’m sorry to say this. They all have to die,” and he was like, “oh, but he's so cool,” and I was like, “sorry. It’s what the plan always was.” I think the 2 pages, where they're first introduced, and they're talking back and forth, that was one of the harder sections to do, because, again, it was like, “I need to make people care about these guys before they just go and die.” So, it was a little bit of a struggle.

[20:42] David: The other thing that I liked about that particular sequence, those 2 pages--you introduce characters, but you're doing more than just introducing the characters. You're doing some interesting world-building on that. So, even though we don't stay with those characters for very long, we do care about them a little bit. It was a good chance to tell us about the world, as well. So, really nice set-up. This whole first issue, I thought, was really good. Really enjoyed it, and not just because my name’s in the back of it, somewhere. This is a really great package, in that you also give a lot of back-matter, which is really some really cool back-matter, in the back of the book. So, you get a really satisfying read, and then some really fun extra bits in the back. Definitely felt like, when I got this one—originally, I don't know, when did the first issue’s Kickstarter come out? When was that?

[21:34] Brennan: Three years ago.

[21:35] David: I remember getting the print copy in the mail, and thinking it was a really satisfying read, across the board.

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[22:29] David: So, Brennan, what is your process for creating? How do you get to finished script?

[22:35] Brennan: So, going back to where I had just had the epiphany about what Tyrant Fall—I didn't have the name yet—what it was going to be, and I sat down, and I wrote out this whole story by issue-by-issue basis. I think it was a page, or whatever, notebook I was using--Each page was the full issue, or it was about the same length for every issue. Maybe a page, maybe a page and half. Each one, I would write out, basically, the plot summary, and I did that for 30-something issues, and then I came back to Max, and I was like, “So, I know we just did 8 pages, but what about 30-something issues of a book?” and he was game for it.

[23:23] Max: Hell, yes.

[23:25] Brennan: There are plenty of times where I'll mention something in Issue #28, and Max is like, “I'm only focused on the first 5 issues. So, that's where I stopped reading,” and I’m like, “that's okay. This stuff is already still stuck in my head. So, I don't blame you.” So, my process, in general--that is part of it. If I'm working on new pitches now, what I'll do is I'll just blind write out the plot of the story. So, I'll sit down, and I'll be like, “okay, I'll start writing,” and at a certain point, I go, “okay, this is about where Issue #1 would end.” So, then, put a line-break in my notebook, and then just start writing what happens next, and like, “okay, this is about where Issue #2 ends,” and then go, and go, and then after I've written it once in the notebook, or in one notebook, which is my first drafts one, I then write it again in another notebook. That way, I'm redoing it, I'm re-seeing everything I've written, and reprocessing it. So, then I start taking notes, like “okay, well, this makes more sense if we do this theme, or something.” So, then I'll have written it out, and then I go explore the characters, and the world, and stuff, and then I rewrite it a third time, but this time, almost completely fresh, where I’m approaching it with all this new knowledge. Tyrant Fall is the prototype of that method, where I've written it once, I went back, and I did shorter descriptions, shorter plot breakdowns for each issue, and then just going into the issue itself. Then, that's when I get to scripting.

[25:02] David: For Tyrant Fall, you said you've got upwards of 30 potential issues of this thing. Do you have story breaks in it? Not too many people get to 30 issues. Do you have story breaks in it, where you can have satisfying break points, worst-case scenario, you never get to do it again, sort of thing? Or are you just […] for success, and you're just like, “30 issues. That's what we're doing?”

[25:22] Brennan: Issue #5 is the last clean cut, and then after that, it’s all-or-nothing. We either do just 5, or we do the 32-something issues.

[25:33] David: There you go. I like it. John, what's your process for writing? I asked, because in some ways, I feel like you're on the other end of it, a well-seasoned veteran of licensed comics and comic books, and writing comics, in general. What is your process these days, when you do write?

[25:51] John: Usually, I'll have written some notes down on something. I use my phone for that. That was something I started, I think, before I was even at IDW. I just learned from riding in the New York subway, I can write something on my phone, and then just copy it onto a document, and then I don't have that blank document staring at me, being intimidating. So, I'll put those things together, and then sometimes, the blank page is what you want, though, right? So, you do need that sometimes, and just write down the thing--the same thing, I write the story out, and just make breaks where I think issues are, and hope it flows together, or breaks, or if it's shorter than that, just breaks on “here's a page, or this is the thing that needs a splash, or this needs whatever.” Just keep chipping away at it, and I don't know--is there another way to do it? I don’t really know.

[26:39] David: I don't know. I think I'm more on Brennan's side of things, but it's certainly like sculpture, for me. I get a big block of stone, I barf a bunch of stuff onto a piece of paper, and then I slowly just chip away at that thing until whatever I'm making is made. I don't know that there's another way. I feel like some people probably just sit down, and start, and write “page one, panel one,” and then just write the whole thing, but if anybody in this room would have been to that point, I would have assumed it was you, John, because you've written so--I know that at certain points in your career, you were writing two or three books a week. So, you were writing a book a week, at a certain point, when we were at IDW. I do remember that.

[27:23] John: Yeah. I’ve fallen quite a bit since then. No, I would never do anything like that. I would never be able to sit there, and write “page one, panel one.” I mean, I will write dialogue in there, and my thing now is, I'll write placeholder dialogue that is just explaining what they're saying, like “she says something convincing,” and again, it's nicer to come back to that when I'm putting in the dialogue than it is to have it just be blank, and me trying to remember, or trying to figure out dialogue as I'm writing panel descriptions, and it's nice to be able to go into modes, where I can write a bunch of dialogue because I have my panel descriptions, maybe, or my panels may be broken down, but not actually written where any human being other than myself would know what I meant by “Five. Line,” or something like that. What? “Building.” Is that an action, or a thing?

[28:21] Max: I'm probably, I think, by far, the least seasoned writer of all four of us. So, I don't have a ton to contribute to the writing conversation, but I did see this thing recently, from Jordan Peele--I don't know how much it made its way around the Internet, but as a teacher, I love a good, snappy little thing that could communicate a lot of information, and he said something like, when he writes, he has to remind himself that the first draft, all the rough stuff, is just like loading sand into the sandbox, and he just does it, and he shovels, and shovels, and shovels. He doesn't care what it looks like. He doesn't care what shape the sand takes, but it's not until it's full that he can actually start making sandcastles. I thought that was a really good visual aid. I don't write professionally, but I do have projects in my head that I try to chip away at, every so often. Just listening to you guys just now, for instance, was really helpful for thinking about how to approach it, because the thing that I struggle with the most is just starting. Actually, if I had a question for any of you, I would ask, when you start to write, if you have to distill it down to “what is the most common way you start?” do you usually start somewhere in the middle? Do you start with the most exciting thing about the story, while it's vague in your head, like “I know I want a scene about a shootout. So, I'm going to start with that,” and then you build out from there? Do you have an idea of a character? Is there any commonality to the way you start writing?

[29:55] John: If I come up with the scene that I really, I will write it down, and I'll write it down in as much detail as I can. With this thing I was saying, the reason I would do it on my phone is that is saving me the time of having to rewrite it, and just having it all where I could just send it over, and edit it. That was the thing that was an issue, when you're writing scripts real fast, and you need to get them to the artist. What I've found, lately, is just focusing on writing a pitch for it, which never turns into what the pitch is. It always turns into writing an outline, for me, but focusing on “how would I tell somebody about what this is?” I'm going to tell them what the cool part is first, and I'm going to writing that down as conversationally as I can write down what I'm thinking, not trying to get into any of the formal stuff.

I was helping my daughter with an essay last night, and a frustrating part, for me, there, was just, “Do you think something about this? Just write down that. Write down what you think,” and she tries to make it into middle-grade English class wordings for it. They have a list of the transition words they’re supposed to use. I go, “just write down what you're thinking. Your teacher won't care. That stuff’s for the people that can't write. Most of the kids are not going to be good at this.” I don't know. What about you, though, Brennan?

[31:02] Brennan: I always, when I approach a draft, I guess it's a little bit of everything. It's “how do I set the mood for the issue? How do I do something exciting, and what information do I need to introduce now?” It's just this weird balancing. I mean Page 1 of Tyrant Fall #1, it's scene-setting, it's showing you “hey, look. There's a rural village, but there's this crazy motorcycle that's approaching it, and look, she just killed a guy in the middle of the street, and then she's interrogating everyone for information.” Other scripts than that, it is a combination. It's all that stuff, and it always comes back. The beginning is going to get rewritten anyway, because by the time I've reached page 28 of the draft, I’m like, “okay, well, now I have to go condense this down into 24 pages, or 20 pages”--Whatever I'm doing. You're resetting the pace a little bit. You're, again, figuring out “what information do I need to establish on Page 1, so that’s it's ready to go by Page 13? and I can't believe there's only 11 pages in between those two. I need at least 20 more, or something.” That's a weird balancing act of what you want to do.

[32:16] John: The order of information is the thing that's really important, to me. That's the thing I think about a lot, is “what are you telling everybody in every panel? What's getting revealed to them?” When you're opening up in page one of the whole universe, it’s super clear all the time, but just in general, “how are you letting them know the things that are happening? Is the location important, or is it the mission that's important, and then you can find the other stuff out, or is it the feeling that somebody has, or is it the reason behind that feeling, or any of those things?” I don't know.

[32:47] David: I really see, that particular line of thinking, I really see that strongly in Signa, which is a new world that you're building. So, that makes sense, but the order of how you're providing the information was really cool.

[33:01] John: In the scripting process, we moved pages around. That wasn't the order that that was written in. We went back and moved stuff around at the end. So, it was very much on our minds.

[33:10] David: I thought it was really well executed, as well. I'm anxious to get my book.

[33:12] John: They all got checked in and counted, by hand, by Nate. So, he had to go in and--did I tell you? Was that where we were last week? He had to be there, and count. Yeah, they had to be hand-counted as they were receiving stuff from another warehouse.

[33:25] David: Oh, wow. That sounds like a lot of work. For me, Max, I was an artist, coming up in the industry. So, I was drawing stuff. I was similar to you. Somebody handed me a script, and then I was always thinking visually. I think I do think, visually, a lot. Just a cool image gets in my head, and then I’m like, “okay. How do I put 20 pages around this, so I can show that image?” I'm definitely from the Rob Liefeld Extreme Studios school of thought—"make the coolest-looking thing possible, and then write a story around that.” So, I do a lot of that. It's funny to hear Brennan talk about struggling to condense everything down, and fit everything in, because I'm the opposite, like, “man, I’ve got to think of something else to put in here, because all I’ve got is this 4 double-page spreads, which are super cool, man. I can't wait for people to see them,” but that's where I'm at. For me, comic books are such a visual medium. The story is certainly important, and when good story is married with great art, they're always classics, but I do think that the art comes first. The art is king. So, I'm always thinking about “how do I set the artist up for success on every single page? How do I blow the reader's mind, visually, on every single page? What are the things that I can do to make them excited about just seeing the next page of art?”

The other side of that, really digging into it, I like to think that my plots are pretty cool and fun. I do think I'm more of a character writer. I think a lot more of the characters than the plot, in a lot of ways. I know a lot about the characters that I'm writing, and they tell me what's going to happen next, more than I tell them. So, yeah. I think that's me.

[35:20] Max: Very much the same, when I try to do my little story noodlings. The thing that prompted the question was this story I have in my head, where I have a great intro sequence, visually. This is something I’ve been thinking about for probably, at least, 10 years now. I know where it ends, and I have a great intro, as far as I can tell, but now I have that same problem of “how do I build it out to get there?” Like every one of you guys said, it's the worst thing in the world to start with “Page one, panel one,” but that's where my freaking intro starts. So, it's one of these things where--I'm not a writer. It's not my chief concern. I'm happy if I don't do anything meaningful with it for another 10 years, as long as it comes out right, but I am trying to soak up as many little bits of writing know-how as I can. David, you said one thing there about really great story marrying with really great art, and I thought that was just a great segue to get back to Tyrant Fall.

[36:16] John: The art is breathtaking in this comic. I mean I've known your art since you guys were doing D&D, but it's incredible. The coloring's great on it. Just the storytelling, the detail, the world-building, all that stuff in the art just comes together.

[36:29] David: You can really see a maturity--his style maturing between Issue #1 and the Issue #3 samples we got. It’s definitely a more sure hand in the Issue #3 samples, compared to the Issue #1 stuff. Yeah, I agree, John. I've always liked Max’s stuff. That's why we always keep bringing him back, and talking to him. Hey, Max. We know that your day job is teaching, right?

[36:54] John: Yes.

[36:55] David: But Brennan, nobody makes a living at comic books. What do you do for a living?

[36:59] Brennan: I'm a production editor at the Naval Institute Press. So, I'm the guy who makes sure that, when you read a book, that it at least looks good, to look at, and that there's no weird line breaks, or words are misspelled, or anything. I help, basically, get a book from acquisition, all the way to the press.

[37:20] David: That's cool. So, you're in publishing?

[37:21] Brennan: Yeah.

[37:22] Max: I’ve got to say, I've seen several comic strips at this point, and Brennan’s scripts are always flawlessly formatted and edited. It's crazy how clean everything is. You can definitely see the editor.

[37:37] David: Do you have a preferred style of script that you work from, Max? Some artists like to work Marvel-style, some work from a loose plot, some like to have everything spelled out for them. Have you found something that you feel you're more successful with than other?

[37:51] Max: Another I don't want to glaze him up too hard, but I mean, the way Brennan writes is perfectly in sync with what I'm looking for. It’s half-and-half Marvel method, with a more structured thing. If we continue the sandbox analogy--I love barriers. “You can go this far. This is the bounds of our story. This is the bounds of what I want you to work in.” I'm sure you guys have heard this before, but that gives me more certainty in where we're going. If it's too open, I can get a paralysis of choice. So, I appreciate a loose breakdown of panels, and Brennan is--the way you write, Brennan, everything is 5 to 6 panels per page. Sometimes, you go a little bit more. Sometimes, you get a little bit less, which is awesome. You have an ability to like, “this is what's happening. We should probably see this or that.” There's always a very clear breakdown of how much dialogue, what special effects we're looking at. I can tell that you're thinking visually. It feels like somebody who's been directing movies is supplying the script. When I send you our layouts back, it seems like there's a lot of moments, where we're both, like I said, in sync on what imagery we want, and every so often, I’ll have an alternative panel layout, and there's always a productive conversation about whether or not we should do that, but yeah, I think, as far as style of script, something that has a very clear direction and intention to it, but not so much that I don't feel like I have a freedom to improvise a little bit, here and there--a clear goalpost, at the end, that we can aim for.

[39:36] David: John, do you ever provide roughs with your script--thumbnails?

[39:41] John: I never have, no. I'm working on a thing right now--right before we got on here, I was working on this thing, and it's for an artist who hasn't done a lot of stuff. He's done some stuff. Not an experienced artist, or something, and I'm trying to do some unusual things, and I'm actually wondering, “would any of that be useful?” On Signa, I don't think about it. As much as that is such a driving force, for me, in wanting to make comics, and a thing I think about, I intentionally don't think about that, because I know Andrew is going to do the stuff he's going to do when he's drawing it, and I just try to tell him what's going on, and we talk about all that stuff, and everything, but I'm not thinking, “this panel would go all the way across.” I'm just intentionally not thinking of that, but this other thing, I'm really thinking, “the big panel here, and then you have a bunch of little panels over here,” and I'll describe it in the script, but I'll see what we need to do, but no. Short answer--no. There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, it depends on what you were trying to do, I guess. I don’t think there’s anything wrong, as long as the artist and writer are happy with the way it was working out.

[40:37] David: Yeah, I was just curious. Because I think visually a lot, every once in a while, I've got such a clear picture in my head that I will, basically, just draw it out. I'll just draw it, and say, “you don't have to do this, but this is what's in my head.” I try to hold that action back, as much as I can, because it is a collaboration, and the artist is the artist, right? So, I try not to do it too much, unless I just really have a strong opinion. Max, what tools are you using for your art these days?

[41:07] Max: Tyrant Fall #3 is all Clip Studio. We're 100% digital this time around. The cover itself—it is an audio podcast, but I can at least show you guys--The cover itself is physical. […]. Everything else is digital. It allows me to work a little bit more efficiently. Brennan was very gracious, in working with me, to allow me to do digital this time. There is a weird double-edged sword, where the greater range of options with digital art—Although, it is all faster, motion-to-motion, and more efficient, because I can do so much more, and there's so much more freedom to experiment--it can actually, ironically, end up taking a little bit longer, sometimes. So, I'm still learning that balance, but yeah, 100% digital for this one. I would have liked to continue doing traditional, but I feel like the biggest reason to go traditional, these days, is for the aftermarket, which somebody--at my level, unfortunately, there's just no real aftermarket, at this point. Maybe if I get to the point where people are like, “I can't wait to get an original from him,” maybe I'll go back, but right now, it's just a little bit more feasible to work digitally.

[42:21] David: Yeah, I don't think you're alone in that. I think tons of people are working digital, these days. Some of the best in the industry, right now, are strictly digital. I do think, though, that keeping your hands in it, and doing covers, and things like that, more traditionally is a really smart idea, because, exactly as you say, at some point, when you're drawing Spider-Man, those originals are going to be worth something that’s an additional source of income for you. Fico Ossio, who is currently the artist for Black Lightning over at DC, when I started working with Fico, he was working traditionally, and now he works almost exclusively digitally, but I have managed, over the course of the last year and a half, or so, to hammer it into him to do, at least, his covers, or if there's a new character introduced, he does those traditionally, and he’s such a talented guy that you can't tell the difference between his digital work and his pen-and-ink work. He's managed to marry the styles so that you can't tell the difference. He's incredible that way, and he's done a lot of work to get there, but I think it was really smart of him to spend that extra time to do that. So, it's nice to see that you're taking that into consideration a little bit there.

[43:33] Max: Yeah, I think, if you're going to switch from traditional to digital, it's really important to work in a way that doesn't look super different. I make very intentional limitations to my own workflow, where I'm not using crazy special effects that are possible, because I still want to feel like what I do looks like the traditional work, and I also don't want to reach a point where I go back to working traditionally, and I've gotten all these things that I'm used to doing, at this point, but I can't because the tool that I learned to do it with was on a computer, but I like the idea of remembering “this is a first appearance, when we do this traditionally. Maybe I should have done the page with all the booties, in Issue #3, traditionally.”

[44:20] David: Issue #3’s a lot hornier than Issue #1, that's for sure.

[44:23] Brennan: That's on Max.

[44:26] Max: I'll take it.

[44:27] Brennan: Yeah. I was debating. I was like, “I know this is inspired by Heavy Metal Magazine,” Tyrant Fall, and I was like, “the horniness of Heavy Metal Magazine is undeniable,” and I was going back and forth. So, I wrote the scene in, and Max just was like, “I'm glad you did that, because that is definitely a Heavy Metal staple. We need to do that.”

[44:50] David: Yeah, it's totally tasteful. You're not showing anything, but it definitely has a little extra edge to it, exactly the way you would see in a Heavy Metal Magazine. I think the Heavy Metal Magazine that everybody thinks about, that 80s/early-90s version of Heavy Metal, it's definitely got that feel. My only criticism of Issue #3, so far, is that the cover is fantastic, but the coloring is really--you’ve got to get some more separation between foreground and background. She should be wearing a different color outfit, or something, to make her pop off that, because she's really getting lost in the image, just FYI. […] on your Issue #3 cover. The covers for #1 and #2 are so vibrant, and everything pops, and everything’s separated really nicely, and just lose out a little bit on it in Issue #3. Brennan, Max, thanks so much for joining us. So, where can people find Tyrant Fall Issues #1, #2, and #3?

[45:47] Brennan: Right now, we have the Kickstarter going, as we've been talking about. You can get all three issues digitally, or physically, through the Kickstarter. I personally don't have an e-shop, yet.

[45:58] David: How do they get to the Kickstarter?

[45:59] Brennan: You can go to Kickstarter, and search for Tyrant Fall. It's the only one there, luckily. We’ve got that in the bag. You can also, if you just visit--I know, my social media, I've been posting about it, so much so, I got blocked from Twitter, because I was posting too much, and they thought I was a spam account. Thanks. So, yeah, my Twitter, I'm @vanitasknight, but if you don't want to do that, you can just go on over to BlueSky, and I'm CBrennanKnight, and I post about Tyrant Fall there, all the time.

[46:39] David: If you are posting so much about your project that Twitter blocks you, then you're doing it right. I'm constantly blown away by the fact that I feel like I’m talking about whatever project I'm promoting way too much. I feel like, “Oh, my God,” and then people will come up to me, who are friends, and they're like, “hey, when's your new project coming out?” I’m like, “are you kidding? I have done nothing but talk about that thing for 3 weeks, and you haven't seen any of that?” So, you can never do it too much.

[47:06] Brennan: I remember, the thing that got me posting a lot more was, I had this very same thing, where someone--not a friend, necessarily, but an artist I follow closely. I love their work--and then, just one day, it was like, “Oh, yeah. I have a Kickstarter. It's ending in three days,” and I was like, “what happened? How did I miss this?” So, every time, I think about how much I'm posting, I'm like, “just remember, the algorithm is burying you, sometimes. So, just keep talking about it, and just hope that someone new sees it, one of those times.

[47:41] David: Smart. Well, you've had two successful campaigns. So, doing something right. Max, where can we find you online?

[47:49] Max: So, I'm @MaxDavenportYo on everything. My name, with the Y-O, at the end. Twitter, Facebook—I’m barely on Facebook, but technically, I am--Instagram, BlueSky, Cara, TikTok, even. My website, which you should not go to for Tyrant Fall, but you can go to for stickers, and prints, and things that is MaxDavenportYo.com.

[48:15] David: Nice. Consistent. Thanks, guys, for coming. Everybody, please go check out Tyrant Fall on Kickstarter right now. It ends, I believe, May 1st, 2025, for those who are listening to this podcast some other time than when we post it. John, I think we did a good business.

[48:29] John: Yeah. I'm excited. The book’s super good, really enjoying it, and I can't wait to see all of Issue #3. I'm excited to see where the story goes. So, thanks for joining us, and talking about it.

[48:37] David: That was a really good practice run. I think we should go ahead, and start recording. John, what do you think?

[48:43] John: We'll be back next week with something new. I don’t know. Bye.

[48:47] David: Bye.

Thanks for joining us, and please subscribe, rate, and tell your friends about us. You can find updates, and links at www.thecornerbox.club, and we’ll be back next week with more from David, and John, here at The Corner Box.