Collin Kelly x Jackson Lanzing

Welcome, Hivemind! Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing (Star Trek, Star Trek: The Last Starship) get deep about their writing partnership, going rogue, and the trap of 2nd issues.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, I am Colin Kelly, one half of The Hive Mind. Over here in IDW Land, we write Star Trek and Star Trek The Last Starship.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

I'm Jackson Lanzing, I'm the other half of The Hive Mind, and uh yeah, over at Marvel we write a lot of books, Guardians of the Galaxy, uh Kang the Conqueror, uh, Thunderbolts most recently, Captain America, and uh we also write uh Batman Beyond, uh, the sort of neo saga over at DC, uh, as well as outsiders over there, and a bunch of creator-owned books like uh Joyride and ZojaCon and some stuff that's well out of print. So yeah, I mean, we've been writing together for what, 15 years now, 16 years now? I believe it's 17 actually. 17 years.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

I just did the math the other day.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I'm ancient. My skin is falling off.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yes, we are both we are both skeletons. We are turning to ash.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah. Um somebody uh recently uh started posting a there was a I think Ross Ritchie, uh one of the founders at Boom, put out a thing uh last week where it was uh it was an image of us with Alyssa Milano, because it was our very first comic was a book called Hactivist with Alyssa Milano and Marcus Toe and Ian Herring and just a great squad of people. And uh we did a signing with her at San Diego Comic-Con. It was our first signing ever uh in like the back of the Arcaia booth.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

And I just want to like, I hope the audience out there understands, like, yes, you know us from these many books, which hopefully you like. Um, but you know, at one point we were, I mean, literally, we were barely, we were just, we were out of school by a few years, but we were so excited. It was one of our first signings ever, and we're signing at San Diego Comic-Con with Alyssa Milano, with like a line around the booth. I distinctly remembering, like, is this comics? Yeah. This is gonna be at every time. It's gonna be like this forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh spoiler alert. Uh, but no, I think that the fun thing about that was um obviously it it was a it was a great way to just sort of like dive in the deep end without the risk of doing a creator round, which I think would normally be the way you would try to do this. We had because we had made a bit of a name for ourselves in Hollywood before we came over to comics, we were able to kind of like move into this frame of doing an original that we didn't have to take the financial strain on, yeah, which was like a really lovely way to start. But it also meant that, yeah, it was kind of a false start for us because you you do that and you're like, oh, everyone, this book was a huge hit. Clearly that's because of us. And it's like, well, Alyssa Bellano's like on the cover and is like on CNN talking about the book. Right. That might be why the book's a hit. Uh and so then going and taking that team over to Joyride and doing our first creator round and learning how much we had to build that from scratch and build that up, um, I think was like a really great way to launch into the industry. Anyway, and just and to circle that story around. The reason why we actually I wasn't I was telling the story at all. That lovely photo has us from 17 years ago. Yeah, if you would like to compare these men to the men in that photo and see exactly what uh 17 years of comics will do to you.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I genuinely I think I think you look a lot like you do now. I think you're fit, I think you're glowing in a way. Oh that perhaps, you know, time has Time has removed my glow. Time has roughened you up in a swarthy uh lighthouse kind of way. Oh yeah, yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes. I think I look like a different person. I've been told that I look like uh the smaller version of me that lives inside of the current man I am. Like a Matrushka doll? Yeah, I'm it is my inner Matrushka. Um oh, so the jawline on that kid. I honestly crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

I had forgotten you ever looked like that. I was like, wow, it's a really different colin. But it's not just, it's not size, really. It's like, it's like it's the beard, it's the way your hair falls, it's the way, it's what you're dressed in, it's like how it's like the whole vibe is like, oh, younger 20s Colin had a he was he was rocking a different vibe.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Younger 20s Colin walked into every room like everyone had been expecting him, and then acted as if when he walked in, everyone cheered. Yeah. When in reality, that was not the case.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Most of the time.

unknown 3:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Sometimes you walk in. I'm gonna say sometimes you did. And maybe that's just me leaning into the vibe. I love it. But I think sometimes when you walked into a room, a person class.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

When you when you hey, when you wear a gold jacket and enter the room with a st with a twirl, if you don't get an applause, just man's an avatar of gold dragons. What are you gonna do? Um, so I think uh bringing us back to comics though. Yeah, yeah, totally. Actually, I think that's one of the interesting things that you bring up about how our career in comics started with the incredible high. Um, because as you mentioned, we came to that project with Alyssa Milano uh because we speak Hollywood. Yeah, right? We met back at USC in the USC film school.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, we met uh as little babies. Uh we were uh both carless individuals uh in our teen years. Yep. Uh and our uh our buddy David Server, uh who's now a manager of a lot of comic writers, probably people who've been on this podcast, um, and is is still a close friend of both of ours, uh, was your roommate at the time and uh was an acquaintance of mine. We met on a student film set, and he said the word Avengers, and I was like, ultimates, and we were best friends. He said the word hellboy, and I was like, Hellboy? Yeah, exactly. It was very easy. Uh, and so we had all met uh through David, and the reason why we all had to meet was because we all had to get together in his PT cruiser called The Beast. The Beast! Yep. It growled uh whenever it got on the freeway because the engine like could not get from zero to sixteen. Yeah, I think it was the only V in any less time than like 10 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

I think it was the only V1.5 that any engine that had ever been made.

unknown 5:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Uh and so we got in the car and we we would uh uh drive to the local comic book shop, uh, you and me and Dave and Dan, and we would all go and we would get our comics. And uh as we read them, we would fight and argue uh outside of either what, Golden Apple or Meltdown, uh, depending on the week uh or or where we were ending up landing up. Uh we would get pizza.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yep and uh you collectors out there, that's right. First editions being slathered over by little 19-year-old greasy pizza fingers.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Yeah, it turns out uh comics collection completely worthless. Not really are yeah, but um I think that was a really awesome way, obviously, to befriend a person. I think it's probably a lot of people who were listening to this have their friends in their lives who they befriended in in something in a quite similar way. Um, and often we get asked, well, oh, how do you find your writing partner? And I'm always like, that's not really how it works. Like what happened was we built a friendship and a trust as young men. And I learned what you liked and I learned what I liked, and I learned that those two things were similar sometimes and were dissimilar other times, and just loved arguing with you. You know what I mean? Uh and I did not love arguing.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I loved arguing with you in that, like, one day I will win. And I think you were arguing with me, like, this is fun. And I was like, I will, I will slay you, good sir. Uh I'm uh these big strong hands uh can never be slayed, man. Um I'm just uh I I was actually speaking to a bunch of high schoolers yesterday, uh, and I was trying to relate to them in a way that they understood. Um, and I pointed out uh that much like the characters from My Hero Academia, um a thing I cannot relate to at all, but let's go. Um, young Deku ha meets um Bakuko, and he uh his sweat is nitroglycerin. Cool. Yeah, it is actually very cool. That's a cool power. Um, but they hate each other, they're rivals absolutely deeply. And I think one of them and Deku is like, we're friends, and the other one's like, I will destroy you. That was a relationship. That was exactly what it was. Yeah, that was exactly what it was. Um that wore down. Much like those two, eventually you're like, oh wow, this this frission between us makes us both so much stronger. And even the things that you do that I would never do, I'm like, oh wow, I understand that and I see the value in it. Yeah, same.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

And I think I think that was it was it was interesting because when we started working together, obviously it was in Hollywood, we we sold a script to Fox like right out of college.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

And that was my circle being back around. Yeah, as the same way in that we graduated from high s uh from college, having kind of accidentally started writing together.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Uh we can get into that story if you guys like.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Uh but just uh go go on a six-day road trip uh across the uh world with nothing else to do but write, and you will end up writing something together. Yeah. If you're both writers and you're that bored, it just happens.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

It does, it does just happen. Uh uh, but that script got uh that script got set up uh at Fox. We're 21, we're 22 years old. We set up a script at Fox, it has this incredible director uh attached. Everybody's so excited about it. And once again, we're like, oh, well, this is how it'll be forever. Yeah right? Studios, directors, everyone fawning, you know, like loving your work and developing it. And of course, um that script, after a year of development, uh did go up on the worst possible weekend.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yep, something similar came out uh that weekend. So this that project, uh just a peek behind the curtain on that, was a um was a uh sort of samurai horror actioner. It was like 30 days of night, uh set in like feudal Japan. And um, it went up uh at the exact same time as like it literally went to Tom Rothman's office the week that Tom Rothman being the head of Fox at the time. Um it went up to Rothman's office the week that they opened Predators, a movie that had a dude with samurai sword fighting monsters in the jungle, and uh Predators didn't open uh very well. And as a result, uh both the Predator franchise got iced uh until uh they, you know, uh until what Shane Black brought it back, uh, which iced it again. Um, or uh and then we got iced because our thing was a little too similar to Predators. Uh and that was the end of that.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Because obviously, as everyone in Hollywood knows, uh, if something that is similar to your thing doesn't make money, then your thing certainly won't make money when it comes out in four years.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yes. Uh and that's just obvious. That's uh totally obvious. Uh and so that was the end of that. It was kind of a trip. Uh and I think that but but I think what's interesting about the Hollywood journey, and like, because then, I mean, at the same time, by the time that happened, we had projects set up at Universal and we had a project set up over here, we had projects set up over Lava Bear, and we were like, we were doing a lot of work as screenwriters, but none of it was being made. All of it was being put on shelves and trying to be sold. And as anybody who's a working screenwriter or who follows a working screenwriter on Twitter knows, um, a lot of the world is just you hyping yourself up and trying to make sure that you can write that next thing because no one can actually read your work. And that's a really awful psychological frame to be in for me. Uh, you know, I don't, I don't want to speak to other writers. I'm sure there's people who really love that again. Screenwriting Twitter seems to be a really thriving community for unhealthy, well-adjusted people who uh, you know, but like I just could not do it.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

It's a great point because I think one of the strengths that we always circle around to as a partnership is that you never have to suffer alone. Right? We our successes get to be shared. We get to you always have someone who will celebrate and know exactly how you're feeling. Sure. But that same experience is in the failures and when you're kicked in the chest.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Um, you have someone there to share the burden and to also get kicked in the chest with you. So it's not just uh I feel you, man. It's like, no, literally. Oh my god, that really sucked. Yeah, it's true. That's true, which makes it great, but then at the same time, I think your point about screenwriting is also correct because everyone you're going to be giving that script to is gonna be ideally best case scenario. I love this. Let's change a little bit. Right. Right? Everybody looks at your work, and even those you're who are your fans are gonna be critical of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Oh, and there well, and there's an inbuilt process within the industry, time tested and time approved, of bringing in another writer to rewrite you, and then another writer to rewrite that writer, and then another writer to be on set to rewrite that, right? It's very rare that you go all the way through the process with one writer and no one else coming in and trying to mess with your product. It's it's just very difficult. And no amount of guilds or or any of that is gonna really change that. And so I think that the the interesting thing about coming over into comics, and it was one of the reasons why I felt it uh it was such a vital move for us, was that it put the power back in our hands a little bit as writers, and because the the process is not one of, hey, you're gonna bring this in, and then you know, like uh Bendis is gonna write a book, and then Mark Mahler's gonna come in and rewrite that book, and then we're gonna hire uh Ryan North to come in and do a polish pass on that book, and then that book's gonna come out, and uh only Ryan's gonna end up getting credit because the uh original one got re- with the exception of that last beat. That sucks, but ah, that book would probably be cool. And this is why I'm not an editor. I would ruin the industry. All of my ideas would turn this into Hollywood, it would be terrible. Please don't let me ever do that. Um But I mean, I think that that's the the uh that is really the distinction.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

And I remember when our first when when when Hactivist actually came out, yeah, going from sitting down with Alyssa at a Panera Bread in I don't know, West Covina or something. Yeah, Thousand Oaks. A Thousand Oaks. Um, from that first meeting when we all started to realize how cool Alyssa Milano is, but also like her. She's awesome, guys. She's awesome. Yeah, she's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

We just ran into each other again. We might do something again together. I really like Alyssa. Yeah, she's great. Yeah, she reps.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Um but from that step to you know, like book on shelf was I mean, okay, probably like nine months or so, but still comparatively to anything else we'd ever done, especially from like when script turn in to book out was four months. Insane. And like that rush of the thing I like finally I can point my family to something that I did after just being like, I'm a writer for 11 years.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yep. It it really it was very, very impactful. I think we we graduated college in 2008. We had our first book out in 2012. So we had we had about four years of like Hollywood kicking around before we were like, what if we change this? And like that was You know, and in the meantime, I had done as a as I got sort of a footnote, I had done that book with Dave, uh Freak Show, which was newsflash. I was not Jackson's first writing partner. No, David Server, the guy who introduced us, uh, he and I wrote uh uh uh some Penguins of Madagascar comics together. I went away to study abroad, came back, and these two jabronies had started writing together. Yeah, we we wrote a uh we wrote uh Penguins of Madagascar and we wrote uh Freak Show. And uh and then it was sort of around that point that Dave was like, I I don't think I want to be a writer and like didn't want to operate at scale and and it just it wasn't the right uh vibe. But I think that you know freak show was such a and and so and freak show was so much like Dave's idea that was he'd been working on it since like middle school. That was really me coming in and saying, How do I make this thing awesome? And it was sort of an early edition of what I think we've become known for to a lot of people for good and ill, which is hey, I've got this thing that really doesn't work. Can you guys come in and make it work? Um, can you can you take this thing that has that seems to have a ceiling and blow the ceiling off of it? Uh and I think that that's we can talk uh uh more about that when we get past the origin, but that was my first time encountering that and realizing like, oh, that might be a talent of mine. Like that might be a thing that I'm I'm I'm okay at, which is that I I can come in and I can look at something from 30,000 feet and I can forget what's sacred about it. And I can just think about what is interesting about it, and then I can push towards what's interesting rather than what's sacred. And obviously that's gonna piss people off in the right context. Our Guardians of the Galaxy is, I think, a really great example of this, where there are people I know who say who will who will you know fight for it 100% and will say it's their favorite run on the characters and will we'll really you know understand what we were doing on that on that book. And then there's a whole part of the uh whole contingency of the fan base that will never forgive us. And I and I think that because we weren't writing the book that Al Ewing was writing, we were writing our book, and our book was not terribly concerned with keeping the sacred aspects of that thing. What it was very interested in was overturning the entire Apple cart temporarily and seeing what was underneath it.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

And I think the you know, the thing that fans, God bless all of you, um bless your heart. Yeah, I'm not this is not to knock the fan down. No, no, no, I don't mean I'm just saying like behind the scenes, I think the point there is well made because the point of us coming on there was them being like, Sirs, our our our bird is broken.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, yeah, Guardians are selling.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Guardians of the galaxy does not sell.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Even with some of the best creative teams in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Al Ewing's Guardians of the Galaxy, like, belove it as it is, and we loved it. It's a fucking run. Um, but if that couldn't make money, they needed to shift it up. So our mandate specifically was nuke this, come at it brand new and try something innovative and strange.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Yeah, we we couldn't do Al's book if we tried. There would be no there would be no ability to do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

And that's what I think is like I think that's an an interesting caveat of everyone being like, why is this so different? Why these guys change everything? It's like, because that's what we were hired to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah, it's I mean, but it's what I think is what we yeah, I would say that it's what we were hired to do and it's what we do.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, it's it's why we to create not exclusively why we get hired, but we get brought the really hard problems. A lot of times because people outsiders is another great example of this. How do you make a book featuring Batwing and Batwoman? What could that be that is really interesting and cool?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yep. And and you know, you you you work on an agents of the bat thing for a year or whatever and try to figure out how to make that a military fiction thing, and then at a certain point you hit a line where you go, I don't really want to write a military fiction. That's not really what we do. If we wanted to write the kind of thing we love to do, which is kind of esoterica and introspection and like big hard cosmic ideas smashed against like very squishy emotional problems. Star Trek. Pick up Star Trek, Blauroma. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's something we'd learned on Star Trek was we that was a specifically really where we like to live. We're like, if we were gonna write Star Trek at DC, how do you do that with these characters? And it became okay, well, that we make it a reflection of planetary and we build that version of the book. And I think Outsiders comes from a a sincere desire to tell a different kind of story at DC. And I'm I'm so thankful that they let us do it. I think that's the that's the uh the amazing thing is that that book was was allowed to happen and was allowed to take its risks and what I was allowed to run for 11 issues. It would have been 12 if not for absolute Batman. But then, you know, it I I guess you have to get off of their uh their date. I don't know why. Um I'm joking. I completely understand why. Uh I I think it was a really like brilliant experience. Um that and and guardians to sort of see like, look, when you're handed a uh a sort of wounded animal and they're like, you know, fix it up, get it running again. Uh and I say that as somebody who deeply loves rehabilitating wounded animals. I that's like my whole relationship with my cat.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

They have this little hummingbird, his wife and him, uh, that lives on their balcony in their lamp, and they were like, we're gonna remove the bulb of this lamp so the little hummingbird can have a nicer home.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

She's down on her second year of nesting in our lamp. It's uh extremely cute.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

There is no light on their balcony. It is very dark. But no, we have we have a light we can turn on, but the hummingbird is still a different light. The hummingbird is very happy.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Uh she is. Uh, we call her mama. She is having her third clutch of eggs right now that she's had in our uh in our little area. Um, but all that is to say, like, I think one of the things that we get um a lot and and for good and ill is are these things where people have have tried the obvious answers. Yes and the obvious answers haven't really worked.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

And they come to us to be like, guys, try something that isn't obvious. And I think our um over time, and I think this is this happened from Hactivist on. Really, that was kind of the point of Hactivist. Hactivist, other writers had tried to hit it and they tried to do more obvious stories. They tried to do more like Illuminati-based stories. I remember there was somebody who came in before us, I don't know who it was, who had done a whole base, whole build-out of this that was all about them discover uh these two guys who are running a social media network who discover the Illuminati. And the whole story was like, what do they do now that they've discovered the Illuminati? And we we were like, what if we look outside our window and talk about the Arab Spring, which was happening at that same time? What did you talk about what social media actually Yeah, what if you talk about the actual potentials and dangers of social media and really make this not a big um pulp story, but make this a story about like science fiction of five minutes from now? What if we only advance the the the genre stuff about five minutes? And that made that book come alive. And and I think of sp especially the second volume, where uh the first volume was well, we were all feeling very hopeful about social media.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

It was the b Twitter was just taking off. Everyone was using it to to post IP dresses around the world so that you could so that you could log in.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Like, was that when you thought that it was going to be signal? And you thought that it was gonna save the world. Like there was a real sense that that this was a that this was a a world-changing tool for the better. Yes. And then as it became clear that that tool was coming under the uh aegis of some like very dangerous and and very manipulative entities, the more that that the more that that happened, the more we had to write a sequel. Unfortunately, that book had been a hit, so we got to write Hactivist 2, which I still think is one of my favorite things we've ever written.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

It's been out of print, it's been out of print for years. It's very hard to find. Um, but yeah, no, the crazy thing is, and the space between Hactivist 1 and 2 was like a couple years. A couple years, and we went from this this that from Twitter is gonna save us all to uh predicting accurately that social media was gonna be be able to be manipulated in order to radicalize the least informed and weaponize them towards the abuses and like uh uh uh in order to militarize them in the streets to go all after the less fucking. Yeah, so what we're saying is Tol just a world, uh I guess. But it's also it's crazy that we did that. I mean, we we did that 10 years before I mean which isn't to say that we're Prussian, but that that shit that's happening now was planted at the very start.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Well, yeah, exactly. I I would say we weren't Prussian, we were listening to Prussian people. Like a big part of what we were doing on Hacktivist 2 was going to DEF CON and like learning about this stuff and trying to understand what people were saying and where they were going with this. I learned so much more about hacking operating on hack two than I did on the city.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

There was a cool, there was a cool kind of interesting and terrifying backlash from Hacktivist 1, which was that actual white hats and black hats in the community reaching out to say either, well, primarily you're bullshit, but then the answer was.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Some people actually some people not saying we were bullshit, which was very nice. Because we did have like the architect of Tor like help us on one. We didn't have like, it wasn't like we were like ignorant on one, but you're right.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

There were people I mean, like, you know, the design we'd be like, you know, ha that designer would whether it's hacking samples. Yeah, exactly. It was bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

But yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

And it was totally fine. But then in two, we really got to work with a lot of people because they were like, this is bullshit. We were like interesting. Say more.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Share your expertise. And a lot of that got poured into hacktivists too in an exciting way. But I think that was just, and that was you primarily. I don't engage with people on the internet. I don't it goes, it goes poorly. I don't I don't care for it. But you, at least at the time when it was a much more active ecosystem, were very engaging and really always willing to talk to someone about their opinions.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah, that was back in the day. I retreated from social media for for I think my health and the health of others, but uh it was it was good uh while it lasted.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

I thought that I mean it was and that was a sweet spot of of what the tool was able to do.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yeah, I I do love those days. Um but anyway, I think like uh that's a that's a big long rundown our origin and sort of like where where it it landed, but I do think the most robust version of our origin that we've spoken to in a while.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Probably.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Uh yeah. Let's uh love that.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Hey Jack, let's pivot.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Do you want to talk about craft a little bit? Sure. Yeah. I love it. Because we've been doing this for for a hot minute. We work in a bunch of different mediums, even uh now podcasts. Hopefully, we'll be able to talk soon about some other audio drama projects and really working on all sorts of stuff. Video games.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

We just had our first feature made uh after all these years in Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Yep. Um, what I'd like to talk, what I'd like you to kind of illuminate on is in the process of moving from Star Trek proper to Star Trek the last starship, I feel like we really something about our writing kind of started to tune and shift a little bit. And I think we are both um, along with uh One Bad Day Clayface, which I think was kind of a real taste of us sitting back and saying, whoa, this is there's an umami here that really feels good. It's not like the two of us each bringing our flavors to the table, but for once we're making the exact same soup and it was just so delicious. Um, and I think we brought some of that into Star Trek The Last Starship. 100%. Um, but could you illuminate a little bit on that and kind of highlight like what do you think happened there? Yeah, we did that. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

So I uh I generally agree that something has sort of been going on with our work in the last couple of years that started on One Bad Day Clayface. Uh and then it's it's it's sort of been like morphing as we go. And if I had to isolate why to bring it to bring people behind the scenes a little bit, one of the things that you and I do when we start a project is we figure out tone calibration. And this is something that most people don't need to do because they're single writers and they get to follow their internalized tone. We don't. Um, we have a different process than most writers, um, which again, for good or ill, I I can't tell you, man, but I write with you and you write with me. So this is what it is. Like uh, we stuck. So, given, like in the best possible way, we stuck. Yeah. So given that that's the case, what you and I have to do whenever we start a project is sit there and go, what kind of project is this? And in the shorthand, what we've done generally is said, is this a hacktivist or is this a joy writer? Is this a ZojaCon? Which are our three original creator-owned books, right? Hacktivist, Alyssa Milano, very real, very straightforward, very character-oriented, um, doesn't have a lot of goofball stuff, doesn't have a lot of like really weird stuff, is is generally based in like it's sort of how you would write a television show if you were writing a television show uh for like the widest possible audience. Uh Joyride is fun times. Joyride is like deeply influenced as influenced by, say, Nate Stevenson as it is by uh Warren Ellis, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

It's like it's it's a phonogram in there.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

A lot of Kieran Gillen, like a lot of the stuff that we uh uh grew up on. Um obviously a lot of uh Bendis uh sort of dialogue stuff, though I think that's everywhere with us. We just we are Bendis dialogue guys and we came up on that.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

We were meeting at the comic book shop.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

We were all reading Ultimate Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Because at the time Bendis was writing 90% of all comic books. So of course we we spent a lot of time being influenced and arguing about Bendis.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah, yeah. We've met him like twice ever, but uh secretly he was our sensei the whole time. Um but we had a a really interesting um you know, we had this sort of bifurcation of like we had the hacktivists, we had the joy rides, and then we had ZojaCons. And Zojcon was a was a book we did at Vault uh back when they were launching, that uh is the only one of our books that's been like, you know, translated into French as like a European edition.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

If you can find if y'all out there, all the Vault like international dresses and all of it's really nice, but like ZojaCon works.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

The ZojaCon International is in French.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

ZojaCon is so good.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Yeah, it's a very good book in French. Uh and so that was um that book is very surreal and very intellectual, uh, in a very like emotional way. It's not very intellectual on like a like a like a world-building basis, it's actually very poetic. Uh ZojaCon is like the least literal.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

It's just like Joy Right is vibe-based storytelling.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yep, Joyride is like somewhere between literal and and and and non-literal. Much more pop punk. And then, yes, and then Hactivist is very literal. And I think generally what we've done is we've tried to sort of keep those on three tracks.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

And really only do one at a time. Because when you combo them too much, things can get very confusing. One of the only books where we ever really comboed them up as uh like properly, I think, was Guardians. And I think that that's one of those places where you can see that can make it hard. Guardians can whiplash tone, guardians can feel very goofy in one second and extremely dark in the next and extremely poetic in the next. We're gonna do world building, but we're not gonna give you any maps, we're not gonna do any of that like Hickman-y stuff. Like it's gonna be very and then like and I think that book was was a was a chance for us to kind of like see how all these things synergize.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Very much to a point. I mean, the point in uh to you know, between with Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the watchwords that we had for it was that this is a Western. Yeah, but a Western is a uh a Western is an aesthetic, not a genre. So the Western can contain all these kinds of stories, yeah. And I think that's what we were really trying to deliver.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

Well, and so Star Trek was really interesting because we got onto Star Trek and we were like, this is a hacktivist. It's serious, it's grounded, it but then it's but then at the same time, it's a Star Trek. And something that we have learned over a long time of doing Star Trek is that we just have a mode for it. Um, we've been doing Star Trek together for almost eight years now. We really know this IP about as well as anything.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

In all fairness, that was before we started on writing Star Trek. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

We got because we were writing Star Trek when we were doing our Star Trek RPGs over a table tabletop with like 30 friends over a decade ago now. Like that was a long while back. This is relatively, I mean, you know, we started Star Trek uh year five, uh what, back in like 2018? So, like, I mean, it's been a minute, 2019. So we've been going along this path for a long time and learned that we have our own instincts for Star Trek and what that is and how it builds. Um, and so we stopped thinking of it as like, oh, it's a hacktivist, it's a joyride, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's whatever, it's a it's a ZojaCon. Like, no, it's a Star Trek. We kind of know what Star Trek is. And the deeper we got into that, the more we got to say, okay, this arc is a little more like this, or this arc is a little more like this. But it always felt like it was like calibrated into that tone. And I think people showed up as a result. I mean, yeah, that's that's thank you all. That's where the the again, you come in on a thing that feels like it has a ceiling, and then we blow the ceiling off. Now people can find a a whole ongoing series with all of their favorite characters that they can all dive into. You there's a touch point for any kind of Star Trek that you love, you can come into this.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

If you just watched Star Star Starfleet Academy and got that wonderful story about Ben Cisco, but you're wondering if there might be more to be.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

So the more that we got into that, I think the more that really taught us. And then at the same time, One Bad Day Clayface came in. And that was a uh 64-page one-shot with Germanico over at DC that was part of this one bad day thing where they took teams and they gave them um uh basically the ability to do a killing joke for any of the various DC characters. And we got to come in and do Clayface. And uh our initial instinct had been, hey, why us? We're not really horror writers. This is kind of like specifically his monster villain. Why are we not why are we doing this? This is an odd choice for us. And the editor said to us straightforward, he was like, because Clayface is an actor and you guys have been in Hollywood for uh, you know, 18 years or whatever, and you have a lot of, I'm sure, stuff to say about it. You cut a lot of pain. As we have already elucidated on this podcast, we have a lot of a lot of stories to tell. And we said, huh, okay. And so rather than being like, this is a hacktivist, this is a joy ride, this is a ZoeCon, what we did with Clayface was go like, this is us. This is a distillation of our experience. This is a distillation of our pain. This is a distillation of the difficulties and frustrations that we have had over our time. This is something very personal and very real. A lot of it's gonna come from our lives and um it's gonna require a little bit of looking at ourselves in the mirror and being like, what hurts us? What what feels vulnerable to me? Um, and I think a lot of that had been in Guardians too. I think Guardians is an extremely introspective book. Yes. It's just done through the lens of Guardians of the Galaxy, which is I think why sometimes it's impenetrable. And I think whereas this was like, and Kang was too. Kang's a story about our fathers. But ultimately, this was something really different. It was like a story about us, a very legitimate, like so much of that book is just actual experiences we had translated into something that had a genre framework. And so when we came over to when we started building Last Starship, and we were like, how can we plus Star Trek? We've been doing Star Trek now for seven years. How do we do Star Trek in a way that feels distinct and new and like the kind of the and and because it's the only book we're gonna be doing, because we've stepped back from Marvel and DC, because we've specifically uh decided to only do this book for a little bit while we focus on we have we have very big jobs in other mediums and we have to make sure that that has its time. And we also want to make sure that we have one great comic coming out. What are we gonna make sure that that Last Starship does? And in looking at that, one of the things I think we both talked about was how can we make sure that this book feels um vital and like right now, like a book you could only produce now. We've done seven years of Star Trek for for the fans, for people who love Star Trek from everywhere, who, you know, Star Trek that feels beholden to other people's expectations.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah, a Star Trek, yeah, really a Star Trek. We always really went out of our way to make sure that it was a touch point so that you could be welcomed in. And very much we were thinking of it like the Avengers of Star Trek.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Um, and that is a very welcoming and exciting place to be.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

And this was a thing where it's like, this is gonna be all new characters for the most part. The characters that aren't new are gonna be from shows you probably didn't watch. Or if if you watch them, then huzzah, you'll be a leg up. But ideally, this is for people who don't read Star Trek. How do we make this personal? How do we make this real? How do we make this vital for now? And I think again, we did what we did with Clayface. We looked at our lives and said, what are we going through? And how do we want to talk about the experience we're going through? Um, and I so I liken Last Starship uh to Clayface, really by saying it's the book where we took what we are going through as as people today in the year 2026. This is the way we talk about it utilizing Star Trek. This is how we explore the idea of feeling helpless against large-scale change, where we explore the idea of losing friends to ideological frameworks or borders or um uh uh or grief. Uh it's the story where we uh we look at a partnership that is extremely difficult and is uh really like pulling itself to one side or the other with Kirk and Sato. Uh we we sort of doing a book about um about a an impossible or very difficult partnership um that doesn't reflect ours, but I think we can write to because we've been through the ups and downs of that and really like know what that framework is like. Um I think it becomes a book where we and then and then on top of all of that, this is the other thing we did with Clayface that I think we're we're doing a lot on Less Starship, uh toning down the dialogue. Yes, and really trying to take text off the page and focus not on expressing every great little twist of dialogue that we come up with, which I think was very much what we were doing.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

As we previously stated, we're Ben disguised. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

And so I think there was a lot of that going on. And now I think between Last Starship and Clayface, both books have been about how do we say less. Yeah. And in saying less, ideally say more. Um, and so I think that's been a big part of what we've been doing.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, I think the it's funny because you know, write what you know. We don't know anything about being uh, you know, pop pop punk teenagers who run away to space. We do know something about running away from home when you're 16 and stealing the car and going to the next town over. Yeah. Um, I think that's something universal to a lot of people is you write what you know, but you take your experiences and funnel them into genre. Um, I think what we've been starting to doing, starting to do is not write like, not write what we know, but write what we feel. Um I think that's a much more vulnerable and interesting place to be creating from, especially when then you don't get all the words to explain yourself. Um, like you needed to be really brief while also being able to really explore kind of really painful places uh and being willing to let those exist kind of on the page without a pre-verification or the the glitz and glamour of some of our more clever bonmans of uh of dialogue. I think that's true.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Uh I I and I think it's it's gonna be an interesting frame for us because I think there's there's other projects that are unannounced this year that that are sort of on the creator-owned and on the licensed side that are are operating similarly, that are like, okay, we're we're gonna need to I think we found something we really like.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And I'd like to express that in a bunch of different spaces now and see how that plays, rather than asking ourselves on the next book, okay, is this a Oja Connor, is this a Joy Rogers, is this a Hactimus? You know what I mean? Like I think at this point, what we've calibrated into, and this is sort of our like, I would, I would really argue is the is the phase change we're going through in the over the last like maybe two years of our work, is going from phase one, which was we can do anything, and we are doing anything. We're doing a comedy book over here, and we're doing a dark book over here, and we're doing a sci-fi book over here, and we're doing a superhero book over here, and we're doing a Western over here. And really being like, for the next little phase, every book should feel like a hive mind book.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

That every book has something that we do. Um, and that ultimately what we do, if for for good or for ill, I'm saying that a lot, but I think that's true, uh, is we do stuff that is emotionally raw, that is like emotionally vulnerable, that is deeply concerned with big ideas, and how those big ideas interact with the actual emotional stakes of like real people. Yeah. And I think the more that we can try to take the to use the last starship as a framework, the I am a nanochine, nano machine construct of a 700-year-old man brought back to witness the death of my empire, and cross that with I don't know what my purpose in life is if I don't have a team and a partner. How do I live in that knowledge? Yes. And those two things are kirk. And one doesn't really work without the other. Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

They are the same thing. We have used different words here, but they are the same thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

And and and I think we're always looking to do that these days. Clayface is how do I, how do I know who I am if I spend my time constantly pretending to be other people? Um, but it is also uh big, big goop monster kill whole, uh, uh kill all of Hollywood in one day. Yeah. Right. And I think that that that ideally that's the thing we're we're operating on. We're always anchoring on something very emotional and very real and very true. And then we're adding this big giant science fiction mechanic or horror mechanic on top of that so that you can really experience that. And I think there's there's a there's a thing we can't talk about yet that's a sort of our other big license play. We're taking over something like we did with Star Trek, where we're coming in and kind of like it's so cool, we're so proud to announce that we're working on and you guys are gonna be so excited for it. Yeah. Um, but I mean, I think what we're as we come on to that, a big thing that we're gonna be uh, I think always figuring out how to do is maintain the promise we just made.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

I that it's such a while that we're coming back around to that because it's literally what I was working on this morning. And there is a character in this thing that is so infani. Yeah. Just absolute delicious. Every line is just dripping with incredible opportunities. Yeah. But he can so easily overwhelm that tone that it's going to be a little bit of a dance. Um, we uh for fans of Last Starship, we have this character named Zed. Dr. Zed. Yeah, Dr. Zed. Anthony Bourdain as a uh drug adult ha doctor. Yeah, for an uh and the opportunity for him to be so fucking funny on every single page was right there. And of course, you hang grab that low-hanging fruit. Yep, but one of the journeys that we had to go on with the character was like, he don't need jokes. He's gonna learn that the jokes are a defense mechanism. Yes. And we once again, it's not about writing funny Bendis dialogue because that's how we write, but writing funny dialogue, Bendis dialogue because sometimes that's what you use to keep yourself safe. Yes, exactly. Right? Every every every comic book writer was probably a dork at some point, and they realized that uh using jokes was better than getting your face punched.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

No, I think that that gets to a wider thing that I think is just a piece of advice I would give to writers in general. And I I wonder if you agree. Like the more that you are writing something and you get that that rush of like, ooh, this is fun, the more you have to watch. Ooh, great point. Yes. Because the more that you feel that excitement of like, ooh, this is fun, the less critical you are being about the reason why anyone is doing something, because they're doing it because the writer is having fun doing it. You are putting me on blast so hard right now.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

You are just absolutely shooting me in the heart. Um on camera. On camera.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Absolute public execution. 17 years of setup and I finally got the kill shot.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Yes, Jack, I do think that's a real problem that a lot of people have to work with. I do. No, it's a great, it's a great point. No, but genuinely, actually, it's you've never said that once. And I'm like, my I'm kind of coming up with it right now. Incredible, because it's so goddamn true. Yeah, you can get so high on your own supply. Once again, I'm writing this character right now. This just like everyone, I kept looking over the table at you, being like, this is so good. You're gonna love this. And he is gonna love it because it is it is so good.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

When we split up the issue, I was like, you need to take these scenes because I I need to read your version of this character.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

But at the same time, I specifically can get so excited about the work that I'm doing that sometimes I can turn pages in and you're like, this is wonderful. You have gone rogue. Yeah, it's not what we've outlined. It is not what we've outlined, not what we've outlined. Which can be really fun for an individual writer. Uh, there's a thing called uh you're a pantser or a planner, right? Whether or not you plan your stories or you write them by the seat of your pants. Um, or you know, vibes. Uh sometimes I lean into vibes writing and you let the scene go where it wants to go and find some beautiful moments, and that's a wonderful way to do things, which is very tricky when your scene needs to very specifically hand off to the next guy who has been meticulously following the outline.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Yeah, that is tricky, isn't it? No, uh it's funny. I am also a pantzer, I'm just a different kind of panther. Yeah. Um, I I am I am a person who really loves to plan, and then once I uh it's like no plan survives contact with the enemy, I'm the enemy. So when the when the plan I agree, I agree. Yeah, so when the plan hits me, my brain loves to go, oh well that doesn't work. But if you change this and change that and do this and adjust that, then it'll work. And so I change the color and look and feel of the puzzle piece, but I don't change where it goes. Yeah. That's like a big part of what I do. Sometimes you change where the puzzle piece goes, and you're like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

It's the right colors, like it's the right, it's still part of a bird's beak. But it's like, bruh, this is you've made this a corner piece and it is it's in the middle of the game. Yeah, you can't go over the corner. You can't go over it.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

I think that's that's part of the that's what we call a Jackson problem. Yeah, that's true. Um but that's that's part of calibration. Uh and I think it's it's uh again, what makes this fun and challenging and interesting is like it is all of our work is a conversation, and so it is never gonna be as sort of uh as I don't want to say pure because I I feel like that like downgrades the work. It but it but it is never going to be as instinctual a process as a single writer's process.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Whenever someone speaks of au tour theory, yeah, they almost never speak of a partnership. Yes, right? Cohen brothers have an auteur, are autours, yes, yes, right? But like it is it is definitely trickier. And I do think, though I think But they are the closest thing to us. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Not not in terms of talent metric, just because they're the Cohen brothers, they're legends, but uh in terms of how the actual operation works, uh what we do is joined at the hip in the way that what they do is joined at the hip. And like no slack off the Coens, but ever since they went solo, the work has suffered greatly because you're watching the work thinking to yourself, I am seeing a a dist and I'm glad I kind of glad they got to see this, but I hope they work together again because we kind of got to see this like distillation of oh, here's what Joel brings and here's what Ethan brings.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

And turns out, and I think within their framework, I'm the Joel and you're the Ethan. Take your word on that? By which I mean like if you put if you leave me alone, the books will not be fun. And if I like, and I want to say if I if I leave you alone, the books won't be sad, but that's not true. Your books will be funny and sad.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

I will claim it's a comedy, and then everyone will be like, this is the saddest thing I've ever read.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

Yeah, like I might not really know where I'm going with this, but I do think that at the end of the day, like they are they are showcasing their two flavors. I know what and our two flavors uh at this point are so enmeshed that I'm not sure what they are sold.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

It's much like when you go to Yogurt Land and you get a vanilla. Peanut butter swirl.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

A very timely re uh uh thing. Everybody goes to yogurt land still.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Everybody goes to Yogurt Landstill, but you can't tell. It's like it's the swirl itself, once it starts to melt, it just becomes vanilla vanilla goo.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

And we are the vanilla goo. That's what everybody wants. That's what everyone wants. Is vanilla goo. I feel like this metaphor might have shot us in the it might have, it might have flown off course, but I do want to circle back around because it's very interesting and dangerous to say, like, oh, if you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it wrong. That's true. Because I do want to point out, like, or there's something everybody, here's something I tell to high school students, I tell to all students, I tell to all young people, like tell to everybody, uh, work sucks. It's not good. We shouldn't have to work. Work is bad. And every morning you're gonna wake up and you're gonna say, Oh my god, it's another day of work, and that sucks. And it's gonna be hard, but you're gonna get up. I'm sure this is universal. Everyone feels this way. Same here. And then you sit down and you're like, wait a minute. I am writing Batman crashes in through the window, the window shatters in the shape of a bat. And it's like, if you don't think that's- And then Kelly Jones is gonna draw it. And then Kelly Jones draws it. And you're like, if you don't think that's fucking rad, like probably not the industry for you. Yeah. Right? I think you can get I think you can get so tangled up in your own work that you get so excited that you don't see its flaws or its edges. Yes. But at the same time, remembering that this is just one of the most incredible mediums to create in is an incredible fucking rush.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

I completely agree. I think I think it's always important to, when you are a creative professional, remind yourself on occasion how lucky you are to be in an industry that allows you to do this as a as a job. Um, does that mean the industry is perfect? No. Does that mean the industry has the right protections? No. Does that mean that capitalism is good? No. But it does mean that you have a ability to survive and help your family through the expression of your crazy ideas. Yes. And what a joy that is. You did not have to go into a diamond mine today. And like that is a that's a you know, a pretty, a pretty amazing. That's a diamond mind of my own creative soul. Exactly. Yes, which is just as hard. Yeah, uh obs. Um, and but and I think that's the point, is that it it's all it's all a spectrum, it's all scale. This is all working the way that it's gonna work. Yeah, you as a creator, uh obviously feel the way that you want to feel about the work. Um, it is, I think, important for one's own mindset to remind oneself on occasion, hey, that was cool. Yeah. And I'll and I'll admit, man, I'll be really honest. I am the worst at this. You are, you're right. I do not know how to be proud of something or how to enjoy a victory longer than about 10 minutes before my brain goes, great, what's the next problem? What's the way that that's gonna like like my brain is like a check, it's it's like a it's like a um uh checklist?

SPEAKER_01 46:48

A slack, a slack action item.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Yeah, a Trello board. Yeah, no, it's a checklist, but the minute that something gets checked off, it literally gets erased. So you're like, oh, that so, but what I will say is, and occasionally I do do this. We have a um spreadsheet that we have kept for 17 years that is our um uh our work project tracker. We still use it to this day.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Slash, just to you guys out there, future writers, future creators, um, get yourself a spreadsheet. That spreadsheet should be every single project that you're working on with the deadlines on it. Yep, organized by deadlines. If you miss deadlines, you are dead.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

And that was the bottom line. Don't do it. Uh we just turned in the first script we've turned in early in an age yesterday to Heather Antos on Last Starship, and I feel very proud and I hope that Heather gives me a cookie. So um we uh had a um uh where was I going with this? Oh, we have a spreadsheet. And the spreadsheet has a deadline uh column, and the deadline column is always what organizes the spreadsheet, right? So when something is done, the the deadline becomes finished, and then when it's out, the deadline becomes released. Uh every once in a while, if I'm feeling like I need a reminder that I haven't thrown my entire life into the void, I uh I go to that spreadsheet and I organize my deadline and I go down to the release section and I just see how much we've released. And ultimately, that's nice. And ultimately, the that that column is so large at this point. Like it's wild the amount of work that you and I have produced and released into the comic book industry over and and and work that I would argue is excellent. And people can that's not for me to argue. That's not that's I I will never be able to access the quality of our work. I will only be able to access whether or not I'm proud of it and whether or not I think it was good and whether or not I had a good time producing it.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

We have never once released any kind of product where we said, fuck. I don't this isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 48:38

I we released one, but you can guess what it was. We released one. We released one book that I that I I wish we had not done. Uh but other than that, and uh again, uh let people be the judge of that. I'll let the internet be the judge of what that book might be. Um but but I think that we are in a really good We're in a really good position um to be able to look back and say, hey, we did it. We walked away from comics right now. We did a we did a uh a short era at DC. We did a slightly longer era at Marvel and maybe more robust. We brought Star Trek back uh into comics and got at Eisner Noms. Yep. We and then we got to build our own crazy weird little Star Trek. If that was all, and then we got to do a few creator rounds along the way that made us happy. Yep. If that was the work that we had done in this world, I would be super proud. Um I think the thing that excites me is that all of that was the work of guys in their like mid-20s to mid-30s.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

That was what they did. And we have now grown as men. We are continuing to grow as men. You're a father now. I have a hummingbird that lives in my land. Um and we we're we're we're building experiences that get us to those next stages of being able to access our work.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

100%.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

What I'm really excited to look back on is like, okay, great. We we've we've we we sort of talk about like our first time at Marvel's like, that's our first Marvel phase or like whatever. Like, I'm really interested to see what our second phases look like because I think we're we're hitting a point now where the work is, I don't know, like get again, I can't access quality, so I'm not gonna say the work's getting better. The work's changing. The work's changing. The quality of the work is changing a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

I have sat down with our scripts more in the last year and a half, sat back and said, God damn.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

More often than I have in the past.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

Yeah, I'm feeling a general sense that like we're we're we're moving up an echelon a little bit in in the kind of in the way that we're telling story. And so I'm really excited to see, okay, what does that what does that mean for the work that we do in our 40s? And I and that that's a you know, we're we're just entering that era now. So we'll see what that looks like. Um But I think it's it's especially when you're when you write with a partner and you write so much. Because one of the things about us is that we have we've been pretty prolific, even on the scale of comics. We, you know, we were writing like five, six books at Marvel at a time. That's we were doing Bendis.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Well, and and as you know, we pointed out, we've been working together for 17 years, uh, only what like five of that full time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Exactly. Right. So much of that was done part-time and we were still producing.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

And um, we worked every Thursday night and every Sunday, all day Sunday for that entire time. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Um while holding down day jobs.

SPEAKER_01 51:17

While holding down day jobs. We had one, you know, people are like, oh, how'd you how'd you overnight success? It's like overnight success that took a decade, man. Like we were we had one day weekends for a decade. Yeah, because this was the grind and this was the hustle.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

Yep. And then at a certain point you look up at the Marvel logo and your Kamala Khan is in the middle of it, and you're like, oh wow, like like I I don't see that mountain anymore. Yeah. Like I don't remember what that was like. Like I do theoretically, but for me, it's like you show up and you see the thing and you go, whoa, that happened. But because I remember every grind point that got me to Kamala on that logo, right? There's very little part of me that goes like Kamala's on the logo, right? Like it's more, it just becomes like the problem of film school, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:01

As soon as you understand how the films get made, they become a little less magical and a little like you see the sausage. Yeah. But at the same time, I think a lot of our like knowing all of that and knowing what we're still able to achieve, even knowing that there are all the grunt, all the creative, all the voices, all the times that maybe the vision had to get diluted in order to achieve its goals. Still the level of quality of work that we've been able to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

Again, I I have no idea how to access that, but I'm gonna hope that that's true.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

I will I will like our work enough for both of us. But yeah, no problem, no problem. Yeah, everything we've talked about so far seems like obviously the writer is the most important person of the process.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Right, totally. Obviously, uh Rider's God, everybody else in comics uh can shove it. They have no uh no value uh whatsoever. Uh no, the whole point of this is to have a tribe of people put together like a really interesting bit of work. And everybody along that process uh is really gonna have their own um, not just their own say in the process, but have their own sort of moment in the sun to make some decisions that are gonna creatively affect the book. And I think it's really important to remember that as the writer, really what you are is an inspiration guide. You are there to inspire, to excite, to um uh provide an opportunity for great artists to do their work. And then your job is not to then tell the artist how to do their job. The art your job is to meet the artist where they live and find a way to make it the best possible version of the thing it is. Um, I think that if you are not a fan of the artist you are working with, you should not be working with that artist. Uh I think that way lies madness. I think the the thing that you really need to be doing is working with artists who uh whose work excites you, who you love, and who you can't wait to see do that next page. And I think that that we've had such luck, um, be it like working with Marcus Toe at the beginning of our career and who's become a constant collaborator. He came over and did um uh the third volume of Star Trek with us. Uh similarly, we've had a great experience with uh Carmen Carnero over in Captain America with Kev Walker on Guardians of the Galaxy.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Kevin Walker's a wild one because he's the only writer or only artist we've ever worked with who would send us back like uh script notes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would break down every page of the script and be like, here's what I think is great, here's what I think is bullshit. And in the British kind of way that was like just very matter-of-fact. He was in no way digging on us. Not at all. Which we did need to take a minute because we were like, this this gentleman's a little, and then we're like, oh no, he's just being so in love with this and so committed to it. He wants the work to be incredible. He wants the work to be incredible.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Yeah, and he wants it to be bulletproof.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

And I think that's the you know, we always say that like a a letter or the the script is a letter to the artist.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Yep. And I think it's important to remember that that's all it is.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

It is a it is a way to get the artist to do incredible work. The the the actual comic product is 90% art.

SPEAKER_02 54:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

People are buying art on paper. Your words are gonna go over that and help people contextualize that art, but the art is the thing. So if you are uh you are guiding that art, ideally so you can take the most words off. Yeah, and you can just let the art do the job because that's what the comic is.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

If you've done, if the if the team is working beautifully, the la the writer's last step is going to be cutting text.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

Yeah. Uh, and a great thing that uh art uh, you know, and then obviously the the colorist gets to come in and they get to enhance that and bring a whole new vibe. The letterer gets to come in and enhance that and bring a whole new vibe. Um, the editor is gonna have uh bits and pieces over the course of it, the cover artist, the logo artist, everybody, the like every person who touches a comic has some kind of creative input. And you as the writer are not gonna be the god of that creative input. Right. You are just the beginning of that creative input. So your goal really is just to keep, not to keep everything as close to your original idea as possible, but to see your seed grow and tend to it like a bonsai tree. But you don't have access to the the actual mechanics of that tree growing. You can just see the tree, know what's artistic, and know where to make a small trim or know where to like ask, which in this context is ask the artist for a small change, um, or uh ask the letterer to rewrite a line. Now, obviously, like I think we are probably notorious with our letterers at this point for um uh requiring them to do more work than they would normally do uh because we tend to rewrite our scripts after art pretty dramatically. Um this is something we're trying to get better at. Sorry to any of our letterers. 2026, less lettering passes, but you heard it from us. But we're really big on going, but this is part of our thing, though, is we want the book to be the best it can possibly be. We do not want somebody to pick it up, be picking up a piece of work that isn't meticulously approved by our quality control.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

And genuinely, I don't think I think there are probably writers out there that are like, these are my words, and my words must stand synchresanct.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

Yeah, that's not what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

That's not, and I think that comes from the collaboration where it's like we have never once gotten a script through the process with no touches, right? I'll write half, he writes half, we smash it together, we rewrite the shit out of each other until you get a script that is both of our voices. Yep, and neither one is uh neither one is more important than the other.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

A thousand percent.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

And I think that's the important thing with comics, especially if you're going to give your creative partners the space to to express themselves, uh, your artist to kind of find the space to bring it to the to the table. It's not then your job to walk in and say, hey, this wasn't matching what I do. It's your job to respond accordingly with like love and intention in your heart, see what they are doing, and then reflect the script accordingly.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

I feel like we have that with Eamon Winkle really well on uh on uh principles of Neck Rancy, uh, the book we did at Magma. And Eamon is such a um uh he's such a talent and he's he's such a uh a young talent that like what he is able to achieve uh and the imagination he's able to bring to it is still, I think, just getting started. Yeah. And so a lot of what we were there to do was be like, how do we push Eamon? How do we get him to do stuff he's never done before? And how do we like really build that out? And then when he does it, how are we there to say, Whoa, that's even better than I expected? Oh, that's so different than what I thought. Like, oh, I love that. Like, how do we really work collaboratively and hand in hand? And so, like on that book, we had weekly calls where we would just get on and share what we were doing. Um, we don't really do that with our artists most of the time. A lot of our artists don't speak English.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

So a lot of our artists don't speak English, but a lot of our artists are on absolutely insane deadlines.

SPEAKER_00 58:16

Yeah, so we we we try not to like get in touch with them as much that way. But that was the thing we did with with Aamon that I really loved. So I think if I was starting a creator owned as like a young guy right now, oh, I would be like all the time with my artists.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

If you've got the time, absolutely. You should be crafting everything souped to nuts with your artists. Yeah, I'm like, Well, as much as they're willing.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

You gotta get out of their spaces.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

You've got well, yes, you gotta get out of their spaces. But like I always say, you know, I talk to a lot of young folks and they're like, I have this, how do I find an artist? How do I have this script? I want to find the artist. And it's like, look, if you're young and you're trying to get eight pages, if you're trying to get a single issue done, you don't write the script and then find the artist. You find the artist and then write the script.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

Like find someone who you can tell the story together with because just as a writer, you don't have exclusive ownership of the vision. It's gonna take you a week to write that script, it's gonna take them a month to draw that comic if they're fucking fast. Right? Like, so it's like respect that time and respect that they are also a storyteller with ideas that are just as good as you, yeah, and synthesize that.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

It was a big part of the work with Kev. Yeah. Um was really understanding that he had ideas and that we were gonna incorporate those ideas.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

Uh I think even though one of his ideas was don't make me draw any more fucking trees, and we were like, I'm so sorry, my guy. This is a book about killer trees.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Yeah, I don't know what to tell you, but this book is quite literally about trees. So it's about this is a book about forest fires. You have to you you gotta draw some trees. Sorry, bud.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

Same with Marcus Toe. He was like, I love you guys when whenever we next work together, if you draw me after Hactivist.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Yeah, if you ever make me draw server farm again.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

I'm gonna absolutely cliff both of you.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um most of the time, artists tell you no more horses. Yeah, uh, our artists have to pick much weirder things to hate. Um, our uh I'm just waiting for the person that's like never making me draw a starship, and I'm like, we're fucked. I don't know what's I totally porked. Yeah, I don't know what to do about that. Um so here's another bit of process that I I think we were talking a lot about how the work's evolving right now that we're kind of in this phase change. And um, you know, while we're sitting here analyzing our own stuff, uh, which I'm sure is interesting to exactly two people when they're sitting in this room.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:19

I don't think I think I think specifics I hope it's useful to more people.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

Specifics are universalists uh let's talk about second issues.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

I think issue twos are the other place where I think that we have spent a lot of time evolving and thinking. I think issue twos are um in some ways the hardest thing to do in this industry. Yeah. And I don't think that we've been um uh guilt-free uh on finding the the the the bet or like in in creating versions of issue twos that aren't. I don't think that we have always done the best job at uh keeping the promise of issue one in issue two. I think we are very good at issue threes. And I think that beyond issue three, we tend to be able to tell a great story. But I think issue twos are so difficult because they are your second step down the line of your promise in issue one, and they feel like as a result, often a little bit of like connective tissue between the promises of issue three, four, and beyond. Uh, and they kind of end up feeling like uh like M-dashes in your story rather than feeling like big escalations. And if I've learned anything over the last few years, is that issue twos really need to feel much more like a direct escalation of your premise, of your idea. Um, I'm curious what you think about uh about this as a framework, because I know it's something that we we talk about internally a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

Yeah. I think um it's something I think maybe our background in Hollywood kind of gave us a disservice a little bit because you want, you know, after your pilot, which is gonna be your your you know, whatever the premise and the awesomeness of that show is, your second episode is often the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

You're starting there and then it's it's the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Or taking some time to breathe before a big new uppoint.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:54

Or taking some time to breathe, exactly. And I think that was kind of our intention of like, well, within issue two, we've you've picked up issue one, you've loved it, great, you're back for issue two, here's the meal. But I think in with 2020 hindsight, what we're realizing is that issue two is just part two of the meal. Yeah. Right? Like it's not about keeping you around after issue, it's it's not about having a successful issue two that will can tarry the rest of the series. It's about having an issue two that's just gonna help you pick up number three.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

Yeah, that's that's as exciting as one. It's exactly as invested as one, that has as much turnups as one. It's not just keeping the promise of one, it's making new promises. Yes, yes. I think that's a really good point. Um and I think one that we again, I think that we implement in Last Starship. I think last Starship is like a really interesting example of this where we we made sure that two felt like a real step up in every respect. Yeah. That it was going to feel more tense, that it was going to introduce new dynamics, that it was gonna feel more action-y, that it was gonna enter, that it was gonna take all of the things that we sort of promised in one. And rather than making you wait, we were gonna pay all of it off. Right. We were gonna immediately get you in front of those Klingons.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:59

We were immediately gonna get questions and then we're gonna ask more questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

We were gonna we were gonna spend two, getting to a point where we could put Kirk on that bridge. And at the end of one, he just came back to life. Like the pace of that could be much longer, but instead, we're gonna shove that pacing together. We're gonna make sure that it feels as as kinetic and um uh and forward-moving as it needs to. I think one of the things that I've been really impressed by the ultimate and absolute lines, right, over at over at Marvel and DC is their willingness to just jump right the fuck in and be like, oh, let's, let's, let's not wait. Let's get to this next cool thing. Like Ultimate Spider-Man's a great book because of its of the way that it establishes Peter's home life and the way that it establishes this new version, but it's also because it doesn't wait on introducing stuff. Oh, no. It moves quick to tell you all the stuff that can be in this frame, that can be in this world. It introduces new dynamics with Ben that you've never seen before. It introduces new dynamics with JJ that you've never seen before, introduces new dynamics with his kids and with villains and with ideas. It it builds itself out very rapidly in a way that I think is really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

So I'm I I I I also think there's a lot of there's something really interesting though, in like, you know, because you can hear someone could hear that and say, like, oh, so my issue two needs to be chalk a block full of rad shit and explosions and awesome kinetic stuff. And I think that's always important in comic books to have a certain amount of spectacle, right? We are a visual medium.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

But at the same time, for uh for better or for worse. My biggest, my biggest gripe with this industry is that there is a there is an inbuilt expectation of action. We are, we are, yes. This is I do understand why it's there, but it is my big it's it's a thing I wish comics didn't have.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Yes, uh, Western comics think yes, Western audiences think comics means superheroes, and the rest of the world means knows that comics is merely a medium. This is a different conversation that maybe we'll get into. But to which I say, to which my point is no, your second issue doesn't need to be chalk a block full of action. What it needs is to have a space of an ability to breathe.

unknown 1:04:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

And I think that's something that we we are able to kind of start to achieve is um audiences need decompressed storylines. They need a chance to breathe emotionally within the kind of context of these stories, second issue or not. Um but you can't take four issues to breathe. So finding a way within that tight issue where you are to be able to kind of tell those big action moments, but also giving the space to breathe, um, I think is a really interesting challenge.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:22

Yeah, I I it's funny. My uh I'm a little bit on the other side of this. I uh I think what uh the key to an uh to a second issue, I think, for me now, the more the more that I've I've been thinking about it and the more we've sort of gone back into it and been getting into it. I think it's less about like make sure it's chock a block with action or hey, make sure it can breathe. But I think what the cause because either of those things can work. I think the core is about escalation. I think it needs to be a direct escalation of the thing that you've established in one. Yes. It needs to feel like the this it's it like in a television show where uh the second episode is about. Telling you, hey, this can happen a hundred more times.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

At least an old television show. I think this is this is not saying, hey, we can do a hundred more of these. It's saying, hey, issue one was just the start. Look at how we're going to turn it up in issue two. Yes. Here's how this thing is going to get more serious, how it's going to get more dramatic, how it's going to get more dangerous. Not a repeat of the dynamics of one, but a turn up of the dynamics of one. Oh, did you lose Starfleet in issue one of Last Starship and start putting together a crew and build a ship? In issue two, that ship is immediately going like you know, halfway through that issue, that ship is going to go into uh uh into a fight with the Klingons and it is going to get its ass kicked. It's going to get on the very, very edge of things. People are going to start dying. We're going to start moving quick because we need to feel the consequence of the things that we've set up in one. What you don't want is to get to two and feel like two is about making you wait. You don't want to feel like there's hold music that suddenly started playing because by three or four or five, you're going to be getting to that good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

Find a way to escalate now. Don't try and tea don't try and get those that third issue sales because you've been teasing out the answer. Precisely.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Give them an answer and then have make sure that answer is asking a question that's going to get you to the next great thing. And I think like that that sustaining sense of how does issue two pull me in and keep me there and lock me in is something that I I'm very interested in as we move forward. I think it's one of the things that um we've done. I think we did like some on our Captain America. I think having issue twos are right.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

But I think it's specifically been like, how do we make this an issue two?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:38

I've always felt like our issue twos were were probably our weakest showings. And I and I and I just think, and not universally, but I think it's one of those thick places where you have a they are the least bound by the by the wider story you're telling.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:52

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

They they're the one place where you kind of get to divert. Sure. Because starting from three, you gotta start looking at six. And I think sometimes we've taken that opportunity to divert or to introduce entirely new things rather than trying to be like, hey, let's just pay off the thing we've built.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

Um, and I think that's a it's a it's a uh again, I think a thing to to uh I bring it up really as a caution to new writers. Sure. Yeah. Less to say, like, hey, this is a thing we're still figuring out. But I mean that to some degree I think it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:19

Well, and I think there's there's a certain amount of like, especially with the partnership, gassing each other up where your art, you know, we can be talking about something and then get like, well, that's so cool. Yeah. Similarly, like when you're on your own scripts and you can start getting kind of tangled up in how cool your own stuff is. Yeah. Sometimes, especially well, younger one, yeah. I don't think we've been to well, I can't speak to our work at the moment, I guess. But like speaking to once again, speaking to a lot of young people, young creators, right? World building can be a tr world building is incredibly important, but can it also be a trap because all world building does is ask questions that you then feel a need to answer. When in reality, world building should just be a world of questions that then let you answer in story.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

Um so when I think sometimes that in a need to make such a robust and exciting world, um, you can get distracted from the core story that you're trying to tell. Uh, and then once you're off that once you're off that journey, you can get into the weeds, and now the momentum is starting to shift and maybe you'll start shedding readers. Yeah, I get that. Um, which is you know, death in comics.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

Do you feel like uh in the current sort of the way the comics industry is functioning right now? Um, do you feel like obviously I think everyone's sort of looking at Hollywood right now and being like, wow, it sure seems like it's on fire. Like it sure seems like we're we're heading into a period of people having to do independent work and really like figure their own things out and you can't rely on these like big monk monoliths. Um, but obviously like comics is a is an industry that's designed on monolith, right? Like it's we have a literal thing called the big two that hold up the industry.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:51

An insane amount of the industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:53

Yeah. Um what is your feeling in terms of the like the future of comics? Like, do you feel like the or like even the now of comics? Like, uh do we feel like this is a because I think at the same at the same time as we're getting a I I would normally say like, man, it's it's always a great time to tell indie stories. There's always new creators coming in. I think one of the things I'm seeing at the big two right now, and frankly, at IDW and Dark Horse, is a a willingness to to to start cracking those rules open a little bit. Um I'm just curious what you think about the sea change we're in.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really interesting. Obviously, kind of from being inside of it, it's um we have a little bit more information in some ways, but also don't have the experience of the man on the ground. I don't know what it's like for a non-creator to walk into a comics shop. Yeah. But I actually just read a uh one of the leads of Comics Pro released a white paper with a bunch of findings. And it turns out that comic sales are up, are the highest they've been since the pandemic. Um, retailers are actually doing quite good right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:57

Um, and I do think that, and they all cite absolutely. Yeah, they all cite absolutely and and ultimates. Yeah. And it's because it's something kind of brand new and interesting and innovative that I don't know if the studios, the companies would have taken that chance. Um, yes, it is a new number one, but it's a new number one in such an exciting new direction that it's getting people in who weren't walking into comic shops. And I think as long as we can keep doing that, start making stuff that pulls people in, doesn't just retain who is um who is there, but rather is inviting different perspectives in. The other point that they were making was um the other massive shift. Obviously, we all remember the the saga wave when everyone was reading saga. Well, everyone reading saga was 50% of women are walking into a comic shop for the first time and picking up saga. And one of the things that they highlight is like there's not a lot of books that are getting women really exciting and into shops. That's 50% of the population that's not walking in and buying your product. Right. That's not good. Right. That's not right. Right. Um, so it's like finding ways to uh expose work. And I think the industry knowing that, knowing that there's money in them their diverse demographics, yeah, ideally we'll start having the kind of the capitalist, the capitalists will push the to take advantage of those underserviced markets, and thus we'll get a little bit more uh a creative full spectrum of work.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:18

I would hope so. And I mean, I think obviously you can look at some some really incredible work in the last few years. Um uh Marco Tamaki comes up in my mind sort of immediately um for like work that is playing to to clearly outside of this like gender spectrum. No, no, no, no, I get you. I just think it's interesting. No, no, no, no, I get it. I get it. I uh it's interesting that there hasn't been a sort of like saga style like original that's like really captured like that in a minute. I'm sure there will be. I'm sure one will come out of this vertigo wave, but like we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

One will come out of a new hive mind creative original.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:50

Uh that's uh that's your confidence for both of us. But I but I do think that there's a really interesting, like that is to me coupled with the fact that what they're doing on absolute is so specifically like um I don't want to say it's male, because that's gendering something that doesn't need to be gendered. Uh it is very punk. It's designed in an aesthetic that's designed to be a little crazier and a little weirder and a little bit more aggressive, a little spikier um in some in some in some. Well, no, that's that's that's design sense. But I mean like even just like from a pure style perspective, everything's like like Hayden Sherman is your is your mid ground. And Hayden is not a Hayden's kind of artist who like for years they would be like, hey, will you come on to Star Trek? And I always had a hard time selling Hayden Sherman onto Star Trek because the style of the book was too realist for what Hayden generally does. And it was only when we got to when the walls fell that we were like, hey, Hayden Sherman, you can finally come play. And by that point, we'd lost them to uh to to absolute wonder woman. Oops. Um, but like that's you know, but that's the that's how comics works, right? I think what's been really cool about seeing that is them being like, Nate, we can actually push our aesthetics at this company further. I think Marvel has done that less. I think the ultimate. The ultimate's line outside of Peach Momico still looks like Marvel. But the fact that they're making a Peach Momico X-Men book at length like that does say something. DC, the every absolute book is coming at the frame and saying, like, what if we like really pushed our artistic styles? Yeah. What if this felt fundamentally distinct? Uh maybe Superman less than the others, but I mean, uh, even there, they've they've they've got um what uh one on there now, so like you never know. I think there's a really I love seeing the idea that we can like break down these design barriers at the big two, and we can start really like making books that feel like beneath the trees. Like you can make interesting, weird indie books under the auspices of this. I want I and I and I hope that they continue to break that out. It seems like that's what they're doing. And I hope they do because some somewhere along the line, they're gonna find a book that appeals to women. Somewhere along the line, they're gonna find a book that appeals to a mass audience. They already are. I mean, I mean, fucking look at absolute Batman. Holy shit. Thank you. Thank you, absolute Batman. Like, like it's like Method Man's out there talking about this book now. Like, like things are happening with this in a mass market that uh otherwise didn't happen didn't happen. And that's you know, that's Scott applying 35 years or whatever of fucking Batman work to a I not don't say he's been working for 35 years, but like a long time, um, into the framework of this uh of this like totally new mechanism by which people can come to a thing that they sort of half know and be like, hey, how do how do I get to know that all the way? I mean, dude, on a very minor scale, we're doing this on Last Starship. Last Starship has better sales than any Star Trek book has. Our sales are going up with every issue. This is because the book can be approached by people who are not Star Trek fans. You don't need to know anything about Star Trek to pick up Last Starship one. It will explain its terms to you. It is disconnected from the shows. Come and play. Right. And that's we're we're we're inviting you in to do that. And I think the more that corporate comics can do that, the more that licensed comics can open up that space and say, hey, water's warm. You you know the idea of Batman. Now come experience your new version of it that's been like curated for you. The more we're gonna find that people of all types can come into these stores and can find the stories that they like and can find the uh can discover that comics is not a genre, it's a medium, and that it explores an enormous amount of things, and that you can get historical fiction and you can get slice of life, and you like that that a that an Adrian Tomine book can sit next to a Brian Bendis book, can sit next to a Dennis Camp book, can sit next to a Grant Morrison book, that that you know, that everybody's gonna have something that they're going to bring to this medium, right? And that all of it is going to be able to sit. Um and that all of it belongs at big two. And I think that's the thing that I'm I'm I'm hopeful for about this, is that this is showing the big two, hey, you can step outside of your comfort zone. And that in stepping outside of your comfort zone, you will be rewarded with the interest of the audience. Yes. Um, and that that's where you get capital to move. Uh uh, because it's so hard to move them based on like, isn't this interesting and cool?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:16

Right. Isn't this a great story? Isn't this creatively fulfilling?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

And we well know it's very hard to keep something interesting on table if people aren't buying it. Yeah. Um and so I think that's a that's a thing that I'm I'm uh excited about about this medium now. Yeah, so how do I feel? I feel really good.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:31

I feel like I feel like for a long time uh we were kind of in this image renaissance where image was just firing off banger after banger after banger. Uh and while image is still firing off plenty of bangers, um, the market feels we need the big two to be firing off bangers in order for the industry to be really healthy. And I feel like they are, I feel like both I feel like both of the studio, both of the book those guys are are are doing some great work right now, which is good for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:59

Well, and I think it's important to note that it's it's good for everybody because comics rocks. Because comics because comics is a medium that tends to get lambasted by people who don't read it. Um, people who read, people who write comics, there's nothing you hear more than, oh my god, they still make those. Um and the the the truth of the matter is not only do they still make them, but they're making them better than they ever did. Yeah. Comics is going through a um a sort of constant growth as a medium, just like any art. And we are in a generation now of people who are uh who are who were weaponized by by Grant Morrison, who were uh built different and are willing to come into this space and do interesting, uh obscure, creative, cool work at uh at the Big Two and beyond. Yeah. And that that work is utilizing comics, a medium that has its own incredibly unique storytelling sense, a medium that invites the reader to be a collaborator, that gives them control over time, that lets them uh explore uh the thing in a very collaborative, very um communicative, very intimate way. Uh there's nothing quite like comics. So much of it is going on in the reader's imagination, but also so much of it is a communication from a wider range art team. It's it's it's not as personal as a novel, but it's more interpretive.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:17

We like to say that it it's it's it's one of the few mediums that requires active participation.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:21

It really does. It requires the reader to like actually dive in and find their space inside of it and and and do that. Um they're the last member of the creative team. Yes. And I and I really think that there's so few mediums that have that kind of trust in their readership and that give the reader that kind of engagement. Um it's its closest uh extant analog is probably like interactive theater, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I and I think like interactive theater, it it then it thus very much struggles as an industry because the uh some people don't like to be told, hey, you're gonna have to do a lot more work. Right. Um, and I think what what what Absolute is doing, what Ultimate is doing, is making that work fun. And I and I hope that we can maintain that sense of, hey, come in, the water's warm, this is the best medium on the planet, it's filled with incredible writers and artists who want to do incredible work. Um, you can be a part of this too, and all you need to do is go to your local comic shop and find something that looks cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:13

Yeah, go in, ask for Absolute Batman, they'll give it to you, and then say, also, I love, I was gonna say, I love Riverdale. Is there a comic for me? Yeah, ding dong, there's a comic for you. But go in and just ask about other things you like, and the person behind the counter will be able to hand pick something that will blow your socks off and is gonna be just like that thing you love on TV.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:34

This is your this is your goal if you are a person who works at a comic book shop, ideally, is the conversion of the casual person who doesn't do this and comes into a comic shop and looks around of that person into somebody who understands that this is just like any medium. Yep. And that there is something awesome for them too. Um I'm not good at being in a comic book store because I'm too judgy. Uh, I I worked at a comic shop when I was when I was a very young man and and uh I worked there for one day because somebody tried to buy a book that I didn't like, and I was like, oh, keep finding that book. And they were like, you're fired. And I get it. Uh don't do that. Don't be that guy. Um, be the other side of that. Uh be the person who looks at that and goes, Oh my god, that's awesome. Do you like this? Your life journey has been going from that kid to this guy who can be like That is true. I went from being a very judgmental hipster boy to being a very open-minded, uh uh approachable dad with a mimic cue in his backyard. Approachable, yeah. I'm not dad, I'm a personality dad. You're uh you're the coolest uncle any of our circle. I'm the cool uncle, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:37

Um but no, I think it's it's it's able to accept that people have different perspectives and different opinions and allowing them to be wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:43

I I can't I I I don't know how I became this man. Uh what happened to my sharp knife edges. What the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:50

I sanded them down.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:52

Uh, you're the way you're the reason.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:54

I am this, I am this, I am the I am the sandpaper that de-sharpens your knife.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:59

Uh, that was your revenge all along. Yes. Well, look, it's been awesome uh talking to you. We never get to talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:05

It's been crazy. It's been so long since we've seen each other from literally 12 hours ago when we were at my table. Um but it's been so nice to be interviewing, uh interviewing you for this. Yeah. Um let's see, let's do one last uh one last question.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:20

Okay, I I have one on this list that I'll love to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:22

I was gonna make something up off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:25

No, no, you do that one and then and then I'll do mine. It's fine. We'll both get a chance.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:28

Uh two last questions. If you could only have one magical weapon, what would that magical weapon be?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:34

Ooh. I would like Thor's hammer. I would like a hammer that makes me fly. And that comes back to me when I uh ask it to come back to me. Oh, I was like summoning lightning, no good, but make you fly. Oh dang. Yeah. Oh dang. Hammer that make me fly. That's what I want. And that can transport me using the power of lightning, which I think the Thor can also do.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:55

I was gonna say lightsaber.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:57

I was also gonna say lightsaber, but then I thought better of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:59

No, Thor's way better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:00

Damn. Yeah, I think it might be the better weapon. Um, you win that round, Lanzing. Hell yeah, let's go. Um, so uh if so this this is like this is funny because uh it asks, if you could create a playlist to listen to whilst reading your story, what would the first three songs or artists be? Which is funny, I think, just because we always we have to put together playlists for all of our projects as to totally calibrate. Um, but what I was gonna ask you is if somebody had to listen to something, so last Starship, rather famously, uh has been written almost exclusively to the score to the brutalist by Daniel Bloomberg. So much so that Spotify believes that I am the like maybe number 14 Daniel Bloomberg fan in the world. My entire Spotify wrapped is just Daniel Bloomberg shit. Um we're we're blumheads over here, uh ghosty testament of Ann Lee. Uh but genuinely, if you had to pick something else, if somebody had to like, if somebody had to read something to get them in the in the fucking vibe or like listen to something on your starship, yeah, that would get them into the vibe of last starship, like something that you would want to put in in front of them. I'm curious what you would put down. Is that too hard a question?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:07

Am I asking you to pull?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:08

Am I asking you to pull to pull something out of your ass? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

That's okay. Um I would because this is actually a challenging question because I don't I can't stand the brutalist score. I gotta be honestly, I cannot stand that score. It's so oppressive. Yeah, but it really helps me. I know it's really fucking good. But I don't have another Star Trek. Um I don't have another good track for the last starship. What I primarily do is listen to the nemesis score.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:34

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:35

Um, it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

No, it's a good score.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:37

But it like pops you into Star Trek.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:38

Yeah, it pops me into Star Trek. Um, so I definitely I tend to like pull up a Star Trek playlist and then just listen to very specific Star Trek music. Uh it's the worst and most boring answer to what you were uh what you were looking for.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:51

But I think it does make sense. It is what happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:54

I think uh our playlist for uh Guardians of the Galaxy is easily one of the most banger playlists ever. It's just incredible no matter what. Everyone should uh our characters playlist.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:07

There's two. There's the characters playlist and then there's like the book playlist. Yeah. The character the book playlist is good. It's fine. It's like if you really want to listen to some like some dark western music, it's really good. If you want to listen to just a banger playlist, the character, the Guardians of the Galaxy character playlist, which has like five songs for each character that comes from our like first take on Guardians that Marvel didn't make. Yeah, that book, that that playlist rips.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:30

I love it. So everyone should start slamming you on Instagram to get a link to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:34

Yeah, I honestly just find like I am Jackson Lanzing on Spotify. Almost all my playlists are public. Just go to my playlist and grab them on Spotify. And you can um you can easily found.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:43

You can reach out to all of our socials at HiveMindActual on Instagram, on Blue Sky, or on X, uh, and you can ask for that playlist. And I'm sure uh our robust team over there might be able to get it to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:56

Yeah, we'll make that happen. Uh and yeah, in the meantime, look, it feels like we're wrapping up. So uh let's uh tell you where you can find us. Uh we our work right now is findable all throughout the trade paperback section of your local comic shop. As previously discussed, if you want to be interested in our Marvel work, you can find that out there. You want to find our DC work, you can find it out there. If you want to find our creator-owned, if it's still in print, you can find it out there. Joyride just went back to print. It's a nice 12-issue maxi.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:20

Awesome if you trade not if you didn't have not read Joyride. It is our first web back when we thought we would never get the chance to write Star Trek. It is our pop punk teenage Star Trek.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:29

Yeah, it's totally worth your time. Really, really proud of that book with Marcus Toe and Irma Kinivila uh and Jim Campbell. And then um, we uh now on our on your like local stands, week to week, month to month, you can find Star Trek The Last Starship, which is just going into its fifth issue uh right now. We are super proud of that book. Um, there is nothing but bangers coming on that for the next several months from you. I we've seen art up through uh up through like seven, and we just turned in the first parts of the script for 10. We are like well along on that book, and uh everything that we're seeing about it is uh just uh beyond our expectations. So um I hope that you'll check that one out. I think it's really worth your time. And the market seems to agree, uh, so you're not alone uh for once. Uh definitely check that out. I think it's a great one. Um and then there'll be some new stuff coming uh along the pipeline soon, uh, both from IDW and beyond.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:20

Keep your eyes open on free comic book day. We're gonna have an exciting little something something in this. Something's coming out on free comic book day, which is really cool. Maybe, baby. I want to thank all the retailers out there for all the good work you have been doing moving the last starship. Without you guys, um, this book would not be getting into the right hands.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:34

Seriously, it means the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:35

Uh and uh and as I said, you can find us on Hive Mind Actual across all the platforms. If you want to find me on Blue Sky, I'm Colin Kelly. Uh that's really the only place I post. And primarily it's about swords, cats, uh, and my hot takes on the latest television shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:50

Yeah, I'm at Found in the Wild on Instagram. You can do the same thing. You can find my travel photographs primarily. Uh and then really, uh, at the end of the day, I just hope you read some comics, even if it's not ours. Um, if you're listening to this and you're not a big comics person or you really like us but haven't read a lot of other comics, which I don't understand, but like, okay, uh, go read some comics. Go find a great book. Uh, and moreover, if you can, buy a comic for a friend. I feel like a lot of people have friends that just don't read comics, even people who read comics. I have so many friends who don't read comics. Every single birthday and Christmas they are getting comics from me. It's just it's too bad. Uh that's just just happening. Yeah. And I think it's it's important to remember that um everyone around you is waiting for that person to like get them into it. So get them into it. Get them into it. Get them into it. Who knows? You might find your calling.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:37

Hi. I hope you enjoyed listening as much as I did. If you want to explore more from these creators, go to your local comic shop or go to our website at idwpublishing.com.