Latest / 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast / With Great Power #329... 22 Panels with C. Spike Trotman

Transcript

With Great Power #329... 22 Panels with C. Spike Trotman · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:01
  Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. My guest today is one of my favorite people in comics.
• 0:09
  Spike: Oh!
• 0:10
  Tad Eggleston: Circus, see Spike Trotman, to talk about.
• 0:15
  Tad Eggleston: To talk about, the, the latest Kickstarter, which funded in 130 minutes!
• 0:22
  Spike: Yay!
• 0:23
  Tad Eggleston: Now, I do have to ask a thing from, like, a marketing side. What sounds better, funded in 130 minutes, or funded in about 2 hours?
• 0:33
  Spike: Basically, we go with minutes if we can, to the point where, like, it gets a little absurd if you start going past 200, but the way the human brain works, the same way your brain looks at a price that is $19.99 and goes, oh, it costs $19, not it costs $20,
• 0:51
  Spike: You look at 120 minutes, you think to yourself.
• 0:54
  Spike: Oh, wow, just… it funded in minutes, not, oh.
• 0:57
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 0:58
  Spike: in a little over 2 hours.
• 0:59
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:00
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:01
  Spike: Marketing!
• 1:02
  Tad Eggleston: In my head, about 2 hours meant that you could steal as many as 9 minutes.
• 1:09
  Spike: Thank you.
• 1:09
  Tad Eggleston: oh, about 2 hours, because about 2 hours, I… actually, you could steal as many as 40 minutes, because, like, if I saw about 2 hours, I'm like, you know, I would think anything between an hour 40 and…
• 1:20
  Tad Eggleston: And, and, and 220.
• 1:23
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 1:24
  Spike: There's a lot of… there's a lot of.
• 1:25
  Tad Eggleston: But I have a different mind from a lot of people.
• 1:28
  Spike: Yeah. There's a lot of subtleties when it comes to, like, Kickstarter stuff. Like, this is a thing that I think a lot of indie and small and micro-press folks are a little uncomfortable talking about, which is sort of, like, the marketing angle, because despite all evidence to the contrary in the last 10 or so years.
• 1:45
  Spike: We do not live in a meritocracy, and having a good idea is not enough to get something funded.
• 1:51
  Tad Eggleston: Which evidence are you referring to?
• 1:55
  Spike: But it's like, a lot of people kind of wish we lived in this world that they could make their comics.
• 2:01
  Tad Eggleston: And they put it on a kit?
• 2:03
  Spike: Put it on a Kickstarter page, and…
• 2:07
  Tad Eggleston: I know kleptocracy is maritime… like kleptocracy?
• 2:13
  Spike: If I'll… yeah. But.
• 2:15
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, wait, that's right, it's the word that kleptocrats use to feel better.
• 2:21
  Spike: Yeah, where they pretend they deserve it. But, they… you need to sell a book, and, like, part of what I've learned in my, like, 10 or so years on Kickstarter is
• 2:32
  Spike: what works and what doesn't when it comes to selling the book, and a lot of it is about language and framing, and how excited you sound, and how excited you can make other people, and quite frankly, Kickstarter does have an algorithm, and the more you know about that algorithm, the better off you are.
• 2:50
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely.
• 2:52
  Tad Eggleston: And this is actually one of the reasons I love having you on, because you have been doing this long enough that you know
• 3:01
  Tad Eggleston: they're… I'm willing to bet they're at the… at most, at most, 10 comics people who know as much about how to use Kickstarter as you do.
• 3:11
  Spike: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I find…
• 3:13
  Tad Eggleston: And frankly, I would have trouble naming all of them.
• 3:17
  Spike: I find what I…
• 3:18
  Tad Eggleston: I just like to assume that there might be.
• 3:20
  Spike: Bums, yeah. I tend to find that what I talk about kind of bums people out, though, because it feels very,
• 3:27
  Spike: very bloodless and mercenary when I have, like, my meetings with creators, and I'm like, okay, so here's what you're going to have to do during the course of the campaign, and we basically, at this point, it's, like, well-oiled machine, and I cannot take full credit for that. A lot of that is the people I work with at Iron Circus. Right. We are just, like, bam, bam, bam, bam, every two… every month and a half.
• 3:47
  Spike: we're making a Kickstarter, we're pushing it out the door, we're funding it, and we are basically putting the creator
• 3:54
  Spike: on the conveyor belt, and saying, okay, day one lunch, here's what you're gonna do. Day two lunch, here's what you're gonna do. When this happens, do this. Make sure to post to Blue Sky once a day about it. Make sure to post a new graphic, do this, do that. And a lot of people, I feel, if it's their first time working with Iron Circus.
• 4:13
  Spike: Like, they weren't kind of expecting, like.
• 4:17
  Spike: the cool alternative porn publishing comic company to, like, be this way.
• 4:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I get that. I'm gonna flip it over, and like, if they hadn't done it with Iron Circuit, if they tried to do it on their own without that level of expertise, or if they hadn't listened to you on this podcast to at least get some idea of the sort of thing you do, and try to do it
• 4:43
  Tad Eggleston: Possibly more so, because they don't have your backing, too, like, for their little thing that they're not ready to… well, that you won't take yet, because it's a little thing, or… you know what I mean? It's the stuff that, like…
• 4:57
  Tad Eggleston: I wish we lived in a world
• 4:59
  Tad Eggleston: Where comic artists could just be comic artists, and they had publicists that would take care of the shit that they don't…
• 5:06
  Tad Eggleston: care about, know how to do, wanna do, that sort of thing.
• 5:12
  Tad Eggleston: Somehow, those publicists get paid a lot more to…
• 5:17
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not certain to actually move the needle as much on much bigger things.
• 5:24
  Spike: Yeah, yeah, I mean, the… there's a… there's a drawing I saw on my Blue Sky feed a couple days ago, and it was a very girl-same moment, because it was a picture of, like, a puffed-up, hissing cat with, like, a puffed-up tail, and it had a pencil in its mouth.
• 5:41
  Spike: And it just said, in all caps around it, I don't want to make a video! I just want to draw!
• 5:47
  Spike: And it was just someone venting about how they felt they had to do self-promo on their feed all the time, when it's like, no, I got into this to draw my little pictures, I'm not interested in process vids, I'm not interested in talking about my inspirations on TikTok, I just want to draw the picture!
• 6:03
  Tad Eggleston: Meanwhile, how much do you think
• 6:06
  Tad Eggleston: Not including, like, the ad buys.
• 6:10
  Tad Eggleston: just, like, the talent buys, right? How much do you think that they spend on PR for a new Disney movie?
• 6:19
  Spike: Oh, God. Oh, I couldn't even tell ya. I know that… what I have heard, the lore, I have heard that if you see a big blockbuster movie of the summer type film.
• 6:31
  Spike: take what is on their, like, Wikipedia page as their budget, and just…
• 6:38
  Spike: take that again. So if the movie cost $200 million, it was probably $200 million more in promo.
• 6:45
  Tad Eggleston: So, so here's my… Question, though. I mean, again, ad buys aside, because, like.
• 6:52
  Tad Eggleston: Buying the space on the, on the, like…
• 6:55
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, how many Disney movies do you think they could have spent… they could have had one guy
• 7:03
  Tad Eggleston: spend one day cutting a trailer. They could use that literally as their only promotional material, but run it through the same ad buys.
• 7:14
  Tad Eggleston: And it would affect the number of people that hit the movie at the box office? Not at all.
• 7:20
  Spike: Yeah.
• 7:21
  Tad Eggleston: They have the level of name recognition, they have the level… I mean, this is why, even at the height of the Coke-Pepsi wars, like, Pepsi way outspent Coke.
• 7:33
  Tad Eggleston: Because they had to, and Coke's like, okay.
• 7:36
  Spike: Yeah.
• 7:38
  Spike: Whatever, we're Coke.
• 7:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean, for that matter, you know when you don't need to advertise, when you, like, the Amazon ad campaign right now is all about, like, we give our people health benefits. It's not about buy stuff from us, it's like.
• 7:54
  Tad Eggleston: Honest! We're not evil!
• 7:56
  Spike: Yeah. Yeah, the thing that kind of… like, the… here's the hard mode. Like, Iron Circus is perpetually in the hard mode of media, because what is going on right now, and this is going to sound… if you follow me on Blue Sky, you're gonna be like, oh god, here she goes again.
• 8:13
  Spike: Being in hard mode in media is basically marketing, creating, and selling original concepts by original creators, as opposed to
• 8:25
  Spike: you know, the fifth incarnation of Scooby-Doo, the third incarnation of the Powerpuff Girls, let's do…
• 8:32
  Tad Eggleston: only on the.
• 8:33
  Spike: King of the Hill again.
• 8:34
  Tad Eggleston: of the fence. Powerful girls.
• 8:37
  Spike: I'm just saying, It's been a long time.
• 8:39
  Tad Eggleston: I do?
• 8:40
  Spike: A long time ago, I stopped paying attention, but that's kind of where we're at right now.
• 8:45
  Tad Eggleston: I'm surprised we're not already on the third incarnation of K-Pop Demon Hunters.
• 8:49
  Spike: Yeah, I'm… it's coming, trust me.
• 8:52
  Tad Eggleston: Don't get me wrong, K-Pop Demon Hunter seems pretty cool, I still haven't watched it, but the people that I know that love it have pretty good taste. But, but, like, it's been around for a year, so it's time for a reboot, isn't it?
• 9:05
  Spike: Basically, alright, here's the thing. So…
• 9:10
  Spike: when I put a book on Kickstarter, or when I publish a book through Iron Circus, it is never not an uphill battle, because I am… like, when I put something out, it's usually the first time someone has heard of something.
• 9:25
  Spike: Iron Circus has been around for a very long time, decade plus, and, you know, there are still tons of people who have not heard of us. And that's just kind of how it's gonna be. There's not a lot you can do about that unless you are willing to hire
• 9:40
  Spike: Outrageously expensive publicists to mount a multi-year campaign to improve your name recognition.
• 9:48
  Spike: And that may pay dividends, but it also may not. And comics are still such a…
• 9:55
  Spike: infinitesimally tiny subset of media that it won't really move the needle at all. So what I'm better off doing is doing that thing where I find the people who are kind of maniacs for what I do simply by persisting.
• 10:14
  Spike: And slowly accruing that fan base.
• 10:16
  Spike: over the course of a decade plus, and eventually you get to a point where people kind of trust what you bring them, because you've built this relationship with folks who support your work. And I'll put a book on Kickstarter, and I have had people go, oh, this is weird, well, I trust you, and they'll buy it.
• 10:35
  Spike: And those are, like, that's where Iron Circus customers come from.
• 10:38
  Tad Eggleston: Totally, I totally fall into that category.
• 10:42
  Tad Eggleston: I said.
• 10:43
  Spike: And goblin fruit.
• 10:43
  Tad Eggleston: Finally put in my order for Goblin Throne.
• 10:46
  Spike: Goblin Throne is a perfect example of that, too, because it's a rea… like, by… by graphic novel standards in the United States, let's… let's qualify this, it's a really weird book, because it's an adult audience book. It's in a genre that kind of doesn't exist. We're calling it supernatural divorce horror.
• 11:07
  Spike: And it's about, you know, a kind of classic fairy tale trope, you know, the broken promise.
• 11:13
  Spike: But it's gender-swapped, and it's got, you know, some elements to it that are really grotesque and horrible, like, kind of…
• 11:22
  Spike: No, I shouldn't say this, but 15 years old, but… Oh!
• 11:26
  Tad Eggleston: Go ahead.
• 11:27
  Spike: as a, it's Omni-Man taking out the Guardians of the Globe vibes in some parts, you know, but also it has a romance aspect to it. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, sorry for ruining it for you.
• 11:40
  Tad Eggleston: What I was gonna say, though, is it's also, and this is the…
• 11:46
  Tad Eggleston: This is where I have to apologize to you, Spike, that I did… I did no prep. Oh, that's fine. I counted on you being able to prep.
• 11:56
  Tad Eggleston: And this is why I only finally now managed to order the book myself, because when it went live, I'd only read the description, and I went, this might be one that I pass on.
• 12:07
  Tad Eggleston: And now that I've finally looked at the art, I love the… the colored pencil on…
• 12:15
  Spike: Yeah.
• 12:16
  Tad Eggleston: on off-white paper style. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world that loves that. So, like, getting… I might be one of the few people that gets to the art, and that's the seller. And that said, it's beautiful, it's just not what people immediately think of for comic art.
• 12:35
  Spike: Oh, not at all, yeah.
• 12:36
  Tad Eggleston: It's… it's colored pencil on off-white paper.
• 12:40
  Spike: Yeah, Mel Gilman is honestly kind of like OG Iron Circus. Like, they have already published with us. They were kind of like the first, you know, air quotes, big Iron Circus book, As The Crow Flies, and that was Colored Pencil 2.
• 12:53
  Spike: And, they have brought Goblin Throne to us, and it is just, like, another banger, as far as I'm concerned, because it's… it's got that look, that really unique arresting style. You don't see a lot of real media in…
• 13:07
  Spike: like…
• 13:08
  Spike: American comics these days, where… and, you know what? I'm also fully digital at this point, it's just more convenient, so this is not me, you know, condemning that.
• 13:18
  Spike: But.
• 13:19
  Tad Eggleston: If anything, like, the reason we don't see real media is…
• 13:24
  Tad Eggleston: is only because of a mixture of expectations and a need for speed, because…
• 13:31
  Tad Eggleston: Because the biggest problem with digital is, like, when you lose original pages.
• 13:38
  Tad Eggleston: artists are, like, losing a major source of income. Yeah.
• 13:43
  Spike: Yeah, and the thing is, I love working in brush and ink on paper, but you know what I love more? The undo button.
• 13:53
  Spike: Right. So, that was my primary motivation.
• 13:56
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Well, but that has to do with speed. Or at least on some level. You know, when you've got a deadline.
• 14:04
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 14:04
  Spike: Yeah, for sure.
• 14:05
  Tad Eggleston: You don't have the option of redrawing a page.
• 14:08
  Tad Eggleston: There's only so much time you want to spend with whiteout. Whiteout has to dry.
• 14:14
  Spike: Right, right, and I have literally twice, twice, I have done that thing that you think only happens in bad movies or something, where you're sitting there with your inkwell, and you are painting on the page, and you just move your hand the wrong way, and the ink just goes…
• 14:30
  Spike: Right down the front of the page, and I, you know, the scream, I'm sure my neighbors heard.
• 14:35
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not certain I know anybody who… who… works…
• 14:43
  Tad Eggleston: With brush ink that hasn't had.
• 14:46
  Spike: Yeah.
• 14:47
  Tad Eggleston: At least one major catastrophe.
• 14:50
  Spike: And honestly, when you're.
• 14:51
  Tad Eggleston: Not a knocked over ink…
• 14:53
  Spike: Yeah.
• 14:53
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, like, splatter, or… and, and, you know, yeah.
• 14:57
  Spike: Yeah.
• 14:58
  Tad Eggleston: We're working in…
• 14:59
  Spike: analog… when you're lurking in analog, you have…
• 15:02
  Spike: like, quite frankly, you're kind of at the mercy of your suppliers in a lot of ways, too. Like, another element of me moving to fully digital was,
• 15:13
  Spike: There is a brush manufacturer called Windsor & Newton.
• 15:16
  Spike: And they have these brushes called Series 7, and I would exclusively use Series 7 sable brushes in sizes 0 and 00 for my inking of my analog comic pages. However, at some point, you know, there's no better way to describe it. They changed the formula.
• 15:36
  Spike: And they basically stopped using whatever animal hair that I preferred in those sable dresses. I'm assuming it was sable, I don't know for sure, because it's called a sable brush, but who knows these days. And there was a hoarding situation going on, and it was kind of comparable to a thing that was happening in the UK. This is very, sort of, beside the point, but I really…
• 16:00
  Spike: I was very, oh my god, same. When I heard about this… It's like nothing.
• 16:03
  Tad Eggleston: What's beside the point here.
• 16:06
  Spike: But Ardman Animation, the people who make Wallace and Gromit and Sean the Sheep.
• 16:10
  Spike: The clay manufacturing company that made the kind of clay they specifically work with.
• 16:18
  Spike: basically announced that they're either going out of business or changing the formula in a profound way, and Ardman's reaction was to literally buy actual tons of it while they.
• 16:32
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 16:32
  Spike: Because they had to plan for, like, the next 10 years of animation, and that sucks when you're a creator and you're beholden to a supplier in that way.
• 16:42
  Tad Eggleston: It's been long enough since this creator said it on my air that I'm not gonna… not gonna share the name, particularly because it involved… it involved, a particular type of ink that they used, literally becoming illegal in the United States. I forget what.
• 17:00
  Spike: This inning.
• 17:00
  Tad Eggleston: That made it not…
• 17:03
  Spike: Huh.
• 17:04
  Tad Eggleston: But it was still legal in Europe.
• 17:06
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 17:07
  Spike: Weird.
• 17:07
  Tad Eggleston: Anytime he's there.
• 17:13
  Tad Eggleston: It's a jug.
• 17:17
  Spike: Yeah, and he just hopes that the people at Customs have no clue what's going on.
• 17:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I think… I think… I think it's not, like, illegal to have. I think it's illegal to make stateside, something like that.
• 17:30
  Spike: Oh, wow.
• 17:31
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I forget the specific details. I don't think he's…
• 17:37
  Tad Eggleston: and I tried not to gender them, but I failed, so, like.
• 17:42
  Spike: Whoops!
• 17:43
  Tad Eggleston: It's hard to be… I don't think they're in any real fear of prosecution, but I don't remember well enough, which is why we're not using names.
• 17:54
  Spike: Right, right.
• 17:55
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, but, like, I remember that, like, the first time they talked to you, he's like, yeah, no, I've got a problem, because… and by jug, I mean, like, 5-gallon flash jug, right? Yeah, sure.
• 18:08
  Tad Eggleston: It's like, there's, like, a quarter of a gallon left, and he's like, yeah, pretty soon I'm gonna need a new one! Or go back to Europe.
• 18:19
  Spike: Yeah, gotta smuggle my ink from Europe.
• 18:23
  Spike: But yeah, I am… I am, one of the people who… I went digital before Clip Studio Paint, and that was back when it was called Manga Studio, when I switched over. But, I was… I taught myself to make comics in Photoshop, which…
• 18:38
  Spike: I mean, I wouldn't say it's hostile to making comics in it, but it is definitely not purpose-built for making comics in it, so I remember my process was just…
• 18:48
  Spike: a bunch of series of workarounds, and just, you know, compromises, and then I got Clip Studio Paint, and it was like, oh my god.
• 18:57
  Spike: that, like, what I would compare it to is, imagine you're, like, a teenage girl in high school who has never had a boyfriend, so you have no idea how you should be treated, and your first boyfriend
• 19:12
  Spike: Would do things like… you know…
• 19:15
  Spike: say your hair looks bad today, and not pick you up on time, and make you pay for him at the movies without asking if it was okay first, and forget your birthday, and forget Valentine's Day, but you don't know that's bad, because you've never had a boyfriend before. Right.
• 19:34
  Spike: Then, finally, you get Clip Studio Point Paint as your boyfriend, and you're like.
• 19:39
  Spike: Oh! I didn't know it could be this nice!
• 19:43
  Spike: Right. It's amazing. If anyone here is even, like, slightly skeptical, I have no idea why you might be, but if you are even slightly skeptical, give it a test drive. It fucking rules.
• 19:55
  Tad Eggleston: I… I am really glad that you brought it up, because I was visiting my cousin
• 20:01
  Tad Eggleston: on Wednesday in Duluth, and her daughter has gotten very into making comics.
• 20:08
  Spike: Yay!
• 20:10
  Tad Eggleston: But they didn't know the best digital
• 20:12
  Tad Eggleston: program, and I knew that there was one, and I was trying to remember the name, and I… I think I even, like.
• 20:23
  Tad Eggleston: Remembered the manga studio, but also knew that it had, like, changed names?
• 20:28
  Spike: Right, right. Yeah.
• 20:30
  Tad Eggleston: So I am literally… I'm texting my cousin right now with the… the, the website.
• 20:38
  Spike: Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. I'm sure anyone who is SO deep in.
• 20:44
  Tad Eggleston: No, I…
• 20:44
  Spike: on comics, they're listening to this podcast who knows all about it.
• 20:47
  Tad Eggleston: Again, like… I've talked programs and whatnot with… with…
• 20:55
  Tad Eggleston: many, many creators. And, like, some of them might use other things for specific things, like, I know some people that like to do some 3D modeling before they do their drawing. I know some people who are more likely to use Photoshop for inking and coloring.
• 21:11
  Tad Eggleston: You know, there are people who use multiple programs.
• 21:16
  Tad Eggleston: But I don't think I've had anybody talk to me about, like, the tools they use in…
• 21:24
  Tad Eggleston: In making digital comics, and not had Clip Studio Paint B… One of their primaries.
• 21:33
  Spike: Yeah, it's fantastic, I love it.
• 21:35
  Tad Eggleston: You know, what they use with it can change, but everybody's got…
• 21:40
  Spike: The thing that I'm absolutely feral for these days in the most recent update, it's had maquettes, it's had mannequins for a while, so that, for example, you're like, oh, I can't get this
• 21:51
  Spike: I can't get this angle right. I'm going to import this mannequin, and I'm going to pose it, and then I'm going to use that as a guide to draw over. Like, they've had that feature for a while, but they updated it recently, semi-recently, not super recently, but
• 22:05
  Spike: two things it does now, which, like, I'm in heaven, I love it. One is… if…
• 22:11
  Spike: For example, let's say you find somebody leaping on the back of a horse on Google Image Search, and you're like, oh wow, this is great, but the angle is wrong.
• 22:21
  Spike: you can literally feed that photo into Clip Studio Paint, and it will change the pose of the mannequin to imitate the pose of the person, but now you'll have it in 3D, so you can rotate it.
• 22:32
  Spike: And, like, get the angle you want, so that's fucking amazing. But the other thing is.
• 22:38
  Spike: If you have a mannequin, and let's say your character has a bunch of complicated tattoos, I don't know why you'd do that to yourself, but let's say they do.
• 22:48
  Spike: You can draw on the mannequin and save that as, like, a skin of the mannequin, so if, like, they have a big, you know.
• 22:54
  Spike: bald eagle on their chest with an American shield, and on their back they have a clipper, you know, or a whaling ship or something, and you can now know what that looks like from every angle, no matter how extreme or how ridiculous, because you can draw it directly on the mannequin.
• 23:12
  Spike: And then pose the mannequin, and then use that as a guide to draw their tattoo.
• 23:16
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 23:17
  Spike: It's great, I love it.
• 23:18
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, see, these are… these are beautiful, beautiful, beautiful things.
• 23:22
  Spike: Yeah!
• 23:22
  Tad Eggleston: And I literally, literally sent the text message out, as, as.
• 23:27
  Spike: That's what we're talking about.
• 23:28
  Tad Eggleston: Just say, hey!
• 23:29
  Tad Eggleston: This is what we were talking about.
• 23:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 23:34
  Tad Eggleston: it's a dual thing. Her daughter both has become passionate about it enough that, like, she's targeting a specific comic-making program for college in a year and a half.
• 23:46
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, like, the best one that's also close enough to home that she's not, like, Feeling like she's…
• 23:53
  Tad Eggleston: removing the net, essentially, is what she's looking at, right?
• 23:56
  Spike: May I be unhelpful in a terrible way?
• 24:01
  Tad Eggleston: Sure.
• 24:03
  Spike: If someone is going to go to college for comics…
• 24:09
  Spike: I think they need to absolutely break their neck getting scholarships.
• 24:15
  Spike: Or hopefully their parents have some kind of savings. If they can graduate debt-free, play on, player. Do it. Go nuts.
• 24:24
  Tad Eggleston: The, duh.
• 24:24
  Spike: Go to RISD, go to Pratt.
• 24:26
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely. That sort of thing is already part of what's… I mean, because her mom is a graphic designer, so, like, the family is not unaware of…
• 24:36
  Spike: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:37
  Tad Eggleston: What needs to be done to make a living as an artist?
• 24:42
  Spike: Right, right.
• 24:43
  Tad Eggleston: Which is why part of picking the school was not just that they had a comics program, but that they had animation, graphic design, all sorts of other programs that might be equally helpful in being able to make money doing this, rather than…
• 25:02
  Tad Eggleston: You know, because that was, like, the first question her mom asked her, is like, so, you need to start considering what are you willing to
• 25:11
  Tad Eggleston: 2…
• 25:13
  Spike: Yeah.
• 25:13
  Tad Eggleston: To have food on the table, to be able to do…
• 25:19
  Tad Eggleston: You know, what are you willing to do in terms of how tight you're willing to live? What are you willing to do in terms of what other jobs you do? Either
• 25:28
  Tad Eggleston: Non-creatively, 9 to 5, and then do your work
• 25:31
  Tad Eggleston: Afterwards, or… or creatively, but not interesting, you know, you go do ad work, or…
• 25:39
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Whatever, that maybe you don't like as much, but it pays the bills, because…
• 25:45
  Tad Eggleston: That's the life of an artist.
• 25:47
  Spike: I'm not… I'm not an extremist. I'm not going to come down on the side of.
• 25:52
  Spike: nobody should ever go to art school, period, because, I mean, I'm a realist.
• 25:57
  Spike: I know a lot of reasons to go to art school revolve around who you're going to meet there, and the kind of connections you're going to make while you're there, and those, in the long run, may prove more valuable than the technical skills you're taught. So art school does have its benefits, however, however.
• 26:16
  Spike: I think… Every, every sort of attempt, every…
• 26:21
  Spike: You need to do everything in your power.
• 26:24
  Spike: To try and graduate any, you know, higher education program you take a part in as debt-free as human.
• 26:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I don't care if it's… I don't care if it's art school or business school. I don't think there's a degree that you should be willing to be in debt for at this point.
• 26:43
  Spike: I mean, if you're gonna become a cardiac surgeon, you'll be fine.
• 26:48
  Tad Eggleston: Oh…
• 26:48
  Spike: If you're gonna become a petroleum engineer, you'll be okay.
• 26:54
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, cardiac surgeon, probably, but even if you get the necessary degrees, guaranteeing that you get that job is a different thing, because there's a limited number, and, like, the cardiac surgeon gets paid way better than the ER doctor.
• 27:11
  Spike: Oh, for sure.
• 27:13
  Tad Eggleston: Like, so, I mean, and a lot of times, if you're showing that potential, you can have your future employer
• 27:23
  Tad Eggleston: pay for.
• 27:24
  Spike: Pay your wife.
• 27:24
  Tad Eggleston: Cool while you're in it.
• 27:26
  Spike: Yeah. But, like, the arts are kind of… here's my thing about the arts and school loans, though. Like.
• 27:33
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 27:35
  Spike: so much…
• 27:36
  Spike: of surviving in the arts, in my experience, and I speak, I speak on this as someone who's on the other side of 45, as a person who came up with a lot of people. We were all young and hungry at 19, 20, 21, and we were all determined to make it.
• 27:55
  Spike: And a lot of us didn't, and I got to watch what was instrumental in this person made it and this person didn't, and the most important element is just refusing to go away.
• 28:09
  Spike: And becoming a fixture in the scene, and the thing that allows that
• 28:15
  Spike: is the absolute minimum of financial obligations. Yeah. Because…
• 28:22
  Spike: A lot of times, if you are a person who's trying to make a go of… maybe you launch a Patreon, and you're trying to make your webcomic or whatever, or you're trying to get a job penciling for Marvel, or you're trying to make your webtoon happen or something.
• 28:37
  Spike: like, that extra $300 a month that you need to pay towards student loans for the next 30 years, that has been make or break for people I know, where they're like, I can't do this, I have to go work the register, I can't do this, I have to go, you know, work for my parents, you know.
• 28:57
  Tad Eggleston: Right, and, and like…
• 28:59
  Spike: conference.
• 28:59
  Tad Eggleston: I'll toss out from, from the, the not strictly,
• 29:05
  Tad Eggleston: artistic perspective, and why I've become super wary of
• 29:13
  Tad Eggleston: taking the loans on to begin with, is I'm still paying loans, but I don't have a degree.
• 29:19
  Spike: Oh, that'll do it, yeah.
• 29:21
  Tad Eggleston: Because life happened, because…
• 29:24
  Tad Eggleston: I'm a brilliant guy, but I'm also autistic, and I'm bipolar, and the one thing I have failed miserably at multiple times now is college.
• 29:35
  Spike: Yeah…
• 29:36
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I have been wildly successful at 99% of the things that I've ever tried to do in my life.
• 29:43
  Tad Eggleston: At least by, you know, I mean… Most sets of standards.
• 29:49
  Tad Eggleston: Most people think this podcast is more successful than I do, because I can't get out of my head, like, successful's supposed to mean profitable, and, like.
• 29:58
  Spike: I'm American!
• 29:59
  Tad Eggleston: our patrons are all in my family, and they're going, no, successful is you've put out almost 900 episodes, and, like, you have friends that used to be cool people that you read about.
• 30:11
  Spike: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:13
  Tad Eggleston: And when I think of it that way, then yes, I've been wildly successful with this podcast, but, like…
• 30:18
  Tad Eggleston: I still have student loans to pay off, so I'm not always good at But, like…
• 30:24
  Tad Eggleston: The era where student loans were… were almost across the board not a bad idea was…
• 30:33
  Tad Eggleston: The 70s through maybe.
• 30:36
  Spike: Yeah.
• 30:36
  Tad Eggleston: early 90s.
• 30:38
  Spike: Yeah, yeah, we never saw it, yeah.
• 30:40
  Tad Eggleston: The price of college has raised so much, which means that the size of the loans has raised so much.
• 30:47
  Spike: Absolutely.
• 30:48
  Tad Eggleston: Grants available have shrunk so much.
• 30:52
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Even at, you know, like, the…
• 30:57
  Spike: Right on.
• 30:57
  Tad Eggleston: One thing I'll absolutely say is if you, I mean, like, across the board, and thank God I never did it.
• 31:04
  Tad Eggleston: One should never, ever.
• 31:07
  Tad Eggleston: ever take out a non-federally backed student loan. If you need to do that, then you're in… then it's time to… to rethink what college you're at, or what speed you go through college, or whatever.
• 31:21
  Spike: Right.
• 31:22
  Tad Eggleston: But you should be really, really wary of where the federal loans get to, because, like.
• 31:27
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you'll have them sold to you on, oh, you can do public service and get buyback, but that can change administration to administration, that can…
• 31:37
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 31:38
  Spike: 100%. Yeah, if I were, like, an 18, 19-year-old right now, if I was just finishing up high school, and I had just decided, like, I am going to be a comic artist, that's what I'm going to do, I've decided.
• 31:51
  Spike: I would straight up… my first move would not be art school, unless I had, like, an amazing scholarship or something. My first move would be
• 31:59
  Spike: seeing how feasible some kind of internship would be. Right. And seeing what that could get me before I would contemplate going $80,000, $90,000, $120,000 in debt to draw comics.
• 32:13
  Tad Eggleston: Right. And I think in, in, like, just because it's, it's how… How… how both…
• 32:19
  Tad Eggleston: of her parents' kind of work. I'm pretty certain, and therefore, I'm certain that the fact that they're excited for her, rather than, like, going, I can't believe she's making the decision, Tad, you know comics convince her that this isn't the route, means that financially, they both
• 32:38
  Tad Eggleston: I think that it's both viable, and that there are enough options in terms of…
• 32:45
  Tad Eggleston: What her degree can say, and what it will mean, that she won't be limited to
• 32:54
  Tad Eggleston: the degree being helpful to make comics. Does that make sense?
• 32:57
  Spike: Yeah, it does. I get that.
• 33:00
  Tad Eggleston: You know…
• 33:01
  Spike: But I am speaking to the wider audience.
• 33:03
  Tad Eggleston: No, we definitely need to speak to those other people who maybe don't have the parents that have that.
• 33:11
  Spike: Yeah.
• 33:12
  Tad Eggleston: grounding base, or… or don't have anybody other… I mean, like…
• 33:17
  Tad Eggleston: So many people have to bet on themselves, and like, we always hear it as a good thing to bet on yourself, and we always hear it like the only factor in betting on yourself is your will to move forward, and that's such incredible bullshit.
• 33:32
  Spike: Yeah, yeah, the way my husband and I refer to it is shounen manga thinking.
• 33:37
  Spike: Where it's like, this idea that all you need to succeed at whatever you endeavor is to just really want it super bad. Right. And it's like, no, you don't understand. Millions of people all over Earth want it super bad, and that's not enough.
• 33:55
  Tad Eggleston: Somebody still has to be a garbage collector.
• 33:57
  Spike: Right, you have, and, like, kind of that's what Iron Circus has evolved into, in my mind. I think Iron Circus addresses a lot of…
• 34:07
  Spike: really uncool, unfun practicalities when it comes to, I want to make a comic book, and I want to walk into Barnes & Noble, or I want to walk into the local library, and I want to see it on the shelf. It's like, cool, that's what we're for, we can do that.
• 34:22
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, honestly, let's, you know, just in terms of analyzing capitalism, capitalism is supposed to, like.
• 34:31
  Tad Eggleston: Pay based on both
• 34:33
  Tad Eggleston: the number of people that are capable of doing something, and the number of people that want to do something, that sort of thing. Like, so for garbage collectors to be so poorly paid.
• 34:44
  Tad Eggleston: In and of itself is probably an example that capitalism isn't working right.
• 34:49
  Spike: No, capitalism was inevitably doomed to fail. I'm gonna be very socialist, but capitalism was… from the outset, it could only ever end the way it's currently going, you know, and that's…
• 35:02
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I mean… well, I mean, I will make one minor caveat.
• 35:10
  Tad Eggleston: if… Money is considered the only scorecard.
• 35:15
  Spike: Right.
• 35:18
  Tad Eggleston: Now, capitalism doesn't preclude regulation. Capitalism doesn't preclude socialism.
• 35:25
  Spike: No.
• 35:26
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, so, what's absolutely doomed to fail is the newer thing of the myth of the market, where an open and unfettered market will solve all problems.
• 35:41
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. And no.
• 35:42
  Spike: It's never been true.
• 35:43
  Tad Eggleston: They won't solve all problems. They will solve any problem that can be…
• 35:47
  Tad Eggleston: Where the best solution can be counted in dollars and cents.
• 35:52
  Tad Eggleston: But, like, healthcare? The best solution isn't counted in dollars and cents, it's counted in, like, life expectancy, and quality of life, and all of these things that don't involve dollars and cents.
• 36:07
  Tad Eggleston: At least not for the people providing them.
• 36:11
  Spike: And quite honestly, like, I don't know, maybe I'm just being kind of Pollyanna about it, but I truly believe in my heart. I think that…
• 36:19
  Spike: you know, let this radicalize you is no longer just this cool thing people say on social media. I think a lot of people are really fucked up and angry about the last 5 to 10 years, and I think when the boom…
• 36:31
  Spike: when the boomer die-off starts hitting its peak, I think this country, just overall, except for certain pockets, is gonna swing
• 36:40
  Spike: hard towards socialism.
• 36:42
  Tad Eggleston: If democracy still exists at that time, yes.
• 36:46
  Spike: If, if, if, yeah, like, a lot of the unthinkable has been happening, true.
• 36:50
  Tad Eggleston: I think that one of the reasons you see democracy getting attacked so much.
• 36:57
  Spike: Is they know.
• 36:58
  Tad Eggleston: Right now, is they know.
• 37:00
  Spike: Yeah, they absolutely know that they are on borrowed time, there is a closing window for them to secure this for the long run, and I, like, again, anyone who follows me on Blue Sky is gonna be like, oh shit, here she goes again. But, like, that is why…
• 37:13
  Tad Eggleston: Everybody who listens to this podcast is saying the same thing about me, Spike.
• 37:17
  Spike: Yeah, it's like, that is why I go straight up teeny bopper bobby socks, or, like, with the saddle shoes and the poodle skirt. I am…
• 37:28
  Spike: I am, like, that teen girl that watched the Beatles touch down at LaGuardia, and they came off the plane, and I immediately screamed and passed out. That's how I feel about Zora and Mom Donnie.
• 37:41
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 37:41
  Spike: Part… part of that is… He is in a position
• 37:46
  Spike: where it is literally impossible to ignore him. He is the mayor of, you know… and I… I am just saying this because it's what they think of themselves, it's not what I think, of the most American of American cities. I think… I mean, between you and me, I think New York is extremely full of itself, but that's a completely different.
• 38:04
  Tad Eggleston: No, I honestly think…
• 38:06
  Tad Eggleston: Just because of the difference in suburbs and nearby rural areas, Chicago has the best argument.
• 38:17
  Spike: It's kind of… Chicago is the juice! I love Chicago!
• 38:21
  Tad Eggleston: Well, what I used to say about Chicago is, like, okay, we get called the second city, but, like, second and what?
• 38:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah! Sure, sure, Washington, D.C. has better museums, I'll give it that, but we're second.
• 38:35
  Spike: Yeah.
• 38:35
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, New York has a better theater scene, but we're second.
• 38:40
  Tad Eggleston: We might be third in terms of cities to film in behind LA and New York, but that's still, like, high, and this is only the first time another city has appeared on the list a second time.
• 38:53
  Tad Eggleston: Seattle at the time, LA now might have a better music scene.
• 38:58
  Tad Eggleston: But we're second.
• 39:01
  Spike: Debatable.
• 39:02
  Spike: But yeah, it's like… You know what I mean? I love this town and everything.
• 39:06
  Tad Eggleston: But most important, the cities that are in front of us, for one thing, are never in front of us for more than a couple of things. There is no.
• 39:16
  Spike: Yeah.
• 39:16
  Tad Eggleston: That is in front of us across all categories.
• 39:21
  Spike: Yeah, I'm envious of New York's food scene, and I'm envious of LA's art scene.
• 39:27
  Spike: But, like, I would still rather be here than either of those places. But here's the thing, as, you know, as a Chicagoan, I am obligated to shit on New York at every opportunity. I have tons of friends in New York, they know how I am. However, however, New York?
• 39:42
  Spike: as the sort of quintessential American city, the city everyone thinks of when they think of America, the mayor is now
• 39:49
  Spike: not… he's not cute about it. He's not sly about it, he's not quiet about it. He is an outspoken democratic socialist.
• 39:57
  Spike: platforming overtly democratic socialist policy and enacting it. And he is doing it in a way where it's like, yeah, I can tell your mom makes movies, bro, because he is all over social media.
• 40:10
  Spike: Demystifying the political process, telling people all about what he's doing, and promoting other democratic socialists with the same policies. He is
• 40:20
  Spike: posting to Blue Sky, talking about, hey, vote for this person if you like what I'm doing. Also, we are working on those grocery stores, we are working on those free buses, we are working on this, we are working on that. And the beautiful part, the beautiful part is.
• 40:33
  Spike: he is not qualified for the presidency, and while people will be like, why is that good? That is good because if he keeps
• 40:42
  Spike: on this pony, if he enacts the policies he says he's gonna enact, and he gets to be mayor of New York for the long term, if his tenure stretches into 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and we can see actual change being enacted in New York, which is, once again, literally unignorable.
• 41:04
  Spike: The thing is, New York is one of those, minority-majority cities, okay?
• 41:10
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 41:10
  Spike: It has more non-white people in it than white people. And if there is anything this country is caught up on and can't seem to extricate itself from.
• 41:22
  Spike: It's this idea that They need to deny any sort of dignity and service to non-white people, because…
• 41:31
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I'm.
• 41:31
  Spike: Any dignity and service?
• 41:33
  Tad Eggleston: Seriously.
• 41:33
  Spike: white people. Clearly, every…
• 41:35
  Tad Eggleston: Everything, everything they've got is just… it's affirmative action.
• 41:40
  Spike: And yeah, that's the thing, that's the thing, and…
• 41:42
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you know who got where they got on their merit, and you can tell by reading…
• 41:48
  Spike: Oh my god!
• 41:48
  Tad Eggleston: Reading his decisions because they're so well thought out, Brett Kavanaugh.
• 41:55
  Tad Eggleston: Really got there on his merit.
• 41:58
  Spike: But, like, the deal is…
• 42:00
  Tad Eggleston: Almost find a sentence with a flashlight.
• 42:03
  Spike: But, like, if people see… like, I firmly believe that if there was some way to make it white-only, we would have, single-payer healthcare already, but there is no white.
• 42:15
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 42:16
  Spike: Like, that's what sunk single pair, the idea that there… there are… were just enough white people in the country that didn't like the idea
• 42:26
  Spike: of their tax dollars going to non-white people who's going to get their flu shot, you know? Like, that was… Right, right. That's what sunk it. However, if New York City
• 42:35
  Spike: A minority-majority city.
• 42:37
  Spike: starts benefiting from socialist policy in a overt and visible way. If, you know, the shittiest people alive in America turn on…
• 42:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 42:50
  Spike: Fox News, and they see, you know.
• 42:53
  Spike: Government-owned grocery stores, and buses and so forth, full of people they hate, just gloriously benefiting, and there is literally no way for them to stop it
• 43:06
  Spike: It's more likely they themselves will adopt it, because they will feel, well, why do they get it and I don't?
• 43:12
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and this is awful.
• 43:13
  Spike: That's what I'm hoping for.
• 43:14
  Tad Eggleston: This is also the place where I'm gonna point out that what gets called progressivism is really just empiricism.
• 43:23
  Spike: Yeah.
• 43:24
  Spike: 100%.
• 43:25
  Tad Eggleston: Because, like, evidence shows over and over and over and over and over that, like…
• 43:34
  Tad Eggleston: If you maintain a minimal standard, of… of… Quality of life for everybody?
• 43:43
  Spike: Yeah.
• 43:46
  Tad Eggleston: The overall quality of life rises exponentially for everybody except the people whose quality of life is defined by being able to treat the people around them like shit.
• 43:57
  Spike: Yeah, a rising tide…
• 43:59
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if I care about their… I don't care about their quality of life. I don't care about the person who suddenly has to treat his maid like a human being because she can afford to quit.
• 44:10
  Spike: Yeah, the thing that I always talk about is, like.
• 44:14
  Spike: I do not have kids, because parenthood has never been a thing that interests me. Like, that was the plan from when I realized that was a thing my body could do. I did not want my body to do that. So, like, however, when I pay taxes.
• 44:31
  Spike: I do not bitch and moan about financing schools, because I understand I am better off living in the
• 44:40
  Spike: with educated children that I am.
• 44:43
  Tad Eggleston: You employ people. You don't want to have to… you don't want to have to educate all of your employees, or at least you want to know that they have a certain basis in how to…
• 44:57
  Spike: Yeah.
• 44:57
  Tad Eggleston: How to, like… Learn.
• 45:01
  Spike: Yeah, and so if I'm, like, at the ballot box, and there's a referendum on about, I don't know… I'm making this up, by the way, everyone, this is not a real referendum,
• 45:11
  Spike: would you approve a 5-cent increase in the tax on soda pop to fund Chicago schools? I'm not gonna go, well, I don't have chance, and vote no, I'm gonna vote yes, because…
• 45:24
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean…
• 45:24
  Spike: Better off with better educated children!
• 45:27
  Tad Eggleston: It hasn't been a real one in my district.
• 45:30
  Tad Eggleston: this year, but I've, I, many times in my life, lived in places that, that ask about things like, when you take up, like, 0.1%, or even a .5%, generally.
• 45:43
  Tad Eggleston: Very rarely much more than a 1% property tax hike.
• 45:49
  Tad Eggleston: To go to the schools.
• 45:51
  Spike: Right.
• 45:52
  Tad Eggleston: I have never in my life voted against one of those.
• 45:55
  Spike: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:57
  Spike: there was actually a story, I want to believe this is true. I read it somewhere. There was a story about a small town somewhere in a red state, and…
• 46:06
  Spike: they would, you know, the people there would vote, and it had kind of, like, standard small town in a red state demographics, if you know, you know. And every time the ballot box opened, there was a referendum on there that's like, here is a tax hike to support
• 46:24
  Spike: the costs of running the city, municipality, you know? And, people would vote against it every time, and it would fail every time. And after 5, 6, 7, 8 years of this, people, per usual, went to the ballot box, voted against it, it failed, went back home. And the start of the next year.
• 46:43
  Spike: Suddenly, there were no street lights. Just the streetlights stayed off throughout town.
• 46:49
  Spike: All night, and when people would call City Hall and ask about it, they'd be all like, look.
• 46:54
  Tad Eggleston: We don't have the money.
• 46:55
  Spike: told you what we needed the money for, and you voted no 8, 9, 10 years in a row, so we can't afford to keep the lights on anymore, and…
• 47:05
  Spike: That's why. However, if you would like the street lamp closest to your house turned on, we can come out and do that for several thousand dollars, plus a daily fee.
• 47:17
  Spike: And it's like, you have to understand, you are part of a society.
• 47:20
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, a more tragic… Version of this?
• 47:27
  Tad Eggleston: Remember the girls' camp in Texas that got flooded?
• 47:32
  Spike: Oh, God, yeah, yeah.
• 47:37
  Tad Eggleston: not… Only had they refused to build
• 47:43
  Tad Eggleston: The alert system that would have warned them of the storm.
• 47:50
  Tad Eggleston: They refused, in spite of the fact.
• 47:55
  Tad Eggleston: that they had been given the money by the Biden administration.
• 48:03
  Spike: Oh my god, I did not know that.
• 48:06
  Tad Eggleston: They… they took multiple votes on refusing to use the money because of who it came for… from.
• 48:15
  Spike: Oh, my… oh my god.
• 48:16
  Tad Eggleston: Might have saved lives.
• 48:19
  Spike: That's insane.
• 48:21
  Spike: That's insane.
• 48:23
  Spike: I had no idea about that element.
• 48:26
  Spike: horrible Of course, I'm sure they'll find a way to make it not their fault, but…
• 48:32
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah, no, they've already, like, gone out of their way and whatnot, but, like… Particularly because…
• 48:39
  Tad Eggleston: there was… there was one particular city council member that was immediately trying to blame the Biden administration. It became a story pretty quickly. It's like he voted… he introduced and voted for the bill that said this money that was sitting in their bank account to do this with…
• 48:59
  Spike: We couldn't.
• 49:00
  Tad Eggleston: to do this thing.
• 49:02
  Spike: That's insane.
• 49:04
  Spike: That is absolutely insane.
• 49:06
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's like Medicare expansion. I mean, first of all, like, when they did the Medicaid expansion, they had to go…
• 49:14
  Spike: Yeah.
• 49:14
  Tad Eggleston: They… the Supreme Court forced them to make it optional.
• 49:18
  Spike: Yeah.
• 49:19
  Tad Eggleston: And then there were… then even though, like, Medicaid expansion included 100% federal coverage.
• 49:29
  Tad Eggleston: How many states turned it down initially?
• 49:32
  Spike: Yeah. Yeah, it's… it's ins… it's… It's so bizarre.
• 49:37
  Spike: what people kind of… it's like, to me.
• 49:41
  Spike: I know they probably say the same thing about me, but to me, there's, like, so much… Irrationality involved.
• 49:49
  Tad Eggleston: Well, no, they just say you're an uppity black woman.
• 49:53
  Spike: Oh, well, that, I mean, please. They say.
• 49:54
  Tad Eggleston: I mean.
• 49:55
  Spike: One of my favorite.
• 49:55
  Tad Eggleston: managed to get to whether or not you're irrational, I mean…
• 49:58
  Spike: That's…
• 49:59
  Tad Eggleston: The uppity and black covered that.
• 50:02
  Spike: Yeah, well, here's the thing, it's like, I am aware my opinion doesn't mean anything to a specific subset of Americans, and they will literally never listen to me, no matter what I say. Like, you understand that very fast. But, I just…
• 50:16
  Tad Eggleston: Disgusting!
• 50:17
  Spike: No way.
• 50:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 50:18
  Spike: The thing that always comes to mind when we talk about stuff like this is… There are people
• 50:25
  Spike: who were vociferously anti-vaccine, right? And they're like, I… I don't need a vaccine, I have an immune system, or whatever it is they say. And I always think to myself, you definitely got a vaccine, you're my age. But what…
• 50:42
  Tad Eggleston: No, I mean…
• 50:43
  Spike: But what they're doing is they're denying…
• 50:45
  Tad Eggleston: mind is the ones that were vociferously anti-vax, and are now dead, and it still hasn't changed anybody's mind.
• 50:54
  Spike: Well, the thing that gets me is, like, and this is heartbreaking and horrible on the same level as the girls at the camp, but, there are people who are…
• 51:03
  Spike: very noisy about how they did not vaccinate their kids. Inevitably, they were also vacc… they were vaccinated as children by their own parents, but they refused to vaccinate their own kids, and then their kid inevitably.
• 51:14
  Tad Eggleston: It's me.
• 51:15
  Spike: catches something.
• 51:16
  Tad Eggleston: they're shocked.
• 51:16
  Spike: And sometimes, sometimes, it's devastating. Like, really terrible things can happen to kids who get things like whooping cough too young, or get… like, measles can literally kill you. A lot of people don't understand that.
• 51:30
  Tad Eggleston: And…
• 51:31
  Spike: There are people who have been interviewed by the paper after years of bragging about how they refuse to vaccinate their children.
• 51:39
  Spike: and their child dies of a preventable disease, and of course, of course, of course, they are asked, would you do anything differently? I have literally never seen a single one say no.
• 51:54
  Tad Eggleston: I have actually.
• 51:55
  Spike: You say yes, right.
• 51:56
  Tad Eggleston: Of course, sorry.
• 51:56
  Spike: Say yes.
• 51:57
  Tad Eggleston: I have seen worse. I have seen people say.
• 52:02
  Tad Eggleston: It's better that she's died of measles than had to live with autism.
• 52:05
  Spike: With autism, I knew that's where this was going!
• 52:08
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm sitting there going, I live with autism? Overall, it's pretty great, except for assholes like you.
• 52:15
  Spike: Yeah, the thing that I always tell people to envision, and I got this from a comic, there was a webcomic, I don't know if it's still updating, it was called The Oatmeal.
• 52:23
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I know they are.
• 52:23
  Spike: He made… yeah, he made…
• 52:26
  Spike: the absolute best kind of visual metaphor for belief systems ever, and it is a house. You have to picture just, like, a cartoon drawing, like something a grade schooler would do, you know, with the triangle roof and the square and the little chimney.
• 52:41
  Spike: The bottom line of that house, the foundation of that house, is foundational beliefs.
• 52:49
  Spike: And foundational beliefs do not change easily, the same way of a house.
• 52:55
  Tad Eggleston: I forgot, did you know that the guy that made the oatmeal also invented exploding kittens?
• 53:01
  Spike: I sure did. I thought.
• 53:03
  Tad Eggleston: On Kickstarter.
• 53:04
  Spike: But, oh yeah, we should talk about Kickstarter! But.
• 53:08
  Tad Eggleston: Get back to it.
• 53:09
  Spike: Yeah, the foundation…
• 53:10
  Spike: is, like, your brain doesn't want to be changed easily. That's not a good idea, just for your mental stability. So, changing a foundational belief is a Herculean effort, near impossible. And a foundational belief could be something like,
• 53:27
  Spike: Western medicine is poison. Like, that is a foundational belief people have. And therefore, their brain will do everything in its power, up to and including trying to find a way to excuse the death of their own child from a preventable disease, to avoid
• 53:44
  Spike: any threat to that foundation, because again.
• 53:47
  Spike: Foundational beliefs don't just sit there inert. They are holding up
• 53:52
  Spike: entire other fractally expanding networks of belief. If you believe this one foundational thing, it probably leads into your belief of 10, 15, 20 other things that are inspired by that foundational thing. Like, Western medicine doesn't work, therefore crystals are the answer, and also making sure my child is vegetarian. Like, those are…
• 54:14
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I…
• 54:14
  Spike: That… they are branched off of that. So, you can't.
• 54:17
  Tad Eggleston: He'll say…
• 54:18
  Spike: that foundation!
• 54:19
  Tad Eggleston: I will say that there is one famous, famous letter written about regret for not getting a vaccine.
• 54:28
  Tad Eggleston: The first smallpox vaccine.
• 54:31
  Tad Eggleston: Was roughly Revolutionary War era.
• 54:39
  Tad Eggleston: and… and Benjamin Franklin…
• 54:43
  Tad Eggleston: He wasn't against the vaccine as much as it was new enough and whatnot that he was still a little scared.
• 54:49
  Spike: It's suspended.
• 54:50
  Tad Eggleston: My child was young and whatnot.
• 54:52
  Tad Eggleston: And waited about 2 weeks too long to make the decision that his child should get the vaccine, and his child died of smallpox.
• 55:02
  Spike: Yeah, yeah.
• 55:03
  Tad Eggleston: And… and, like… Wrote some pretty moving statements about how, like.
• 55:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yes! Like, I mean, because… and, like, it made the rounds during some of the COVID stuff, because it's like.
• 55:17
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is when the vaccine was literally way more dangerous than now. They had much less ability to test things, that sort of thing. And yes, they were giving you a small amount of, like, actual smallpox to help inoculate you. You know, there were people that it went badly for.
• 55:34
  Spike: Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, what it was was cowpox?
• 55:38
  Tad Eggleston: Something like that, yeah.
• 55:39
  Spike: Yeah.
• 55:40
  Tad Eggleston: And for that matter, like… Like, you know, similarly.
• 55:46
  Tad Eggleston: one of the major reasons that, like, we actually won the Revolutionary War in the timeframe that we won it was in the winter, where it was
• 55:56
  Tad Eggleston: Going through, like, the whole region.
• 56:00
  Tad Eggleston: Washington mandated that troops got vaccines.
• 56:05
  Spike: Hmm.
• 56:06
  Tad Eggleston: And the British didn't have the same access to them, so we lost roughly a tenth of the number of soldiers.
• 56:15
  Tad Eggleston: That they lost that winter.
• 56:17
  Spike: Yeah, the 20th century was literally… the thing I always enjoy telling people, the 20th century was the first century in human history, you know, like, the thousands of years of human history, where during wartime.
• 56:29
  Spike: The majority of the deaths were combat-related, as opposed to illness-related.
• 56:36
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and like, World War II was the first war where that was true, and it was close.
• 56:43
  Spike: Right? But yeah, it's like…
• 56:46
  Tad Eggleston: The only reason the 20th century actually qualifies as a century is because of the wars after World War II, because World War II, I don't think it was close enough to outweigh the number of people who
• 56:57
  Tad Eggleston: died of Spanish flu during World War I.
• 57:01
  Spike: Which was only called Spanish flu, because of…
• 57:04
  Tad Eggleston: Of course, it started in the United States.
• 57:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah!
• 57:07
  Spike: For folks who didn't know that, yeah, it was called Spanish flu, because only the Spanish press was reporting on it, because there was censorship at home and abroad, because they did not want to panic the people.
• 57:17
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 57:20
  Spike: But anyway.
• 57:21
  Tad Eggleston: Anyway…
• 57:21
  Spike: Kickstarter, I'm here to talk about.
• 57:22
  Tad Eggleston: Let's talk… what we haven't done yet, amazingly, like, an hour into talking, is talk specifically about the Goblin Throne.
• 57:34
  Spike: Yes!
• 57:35
  Tad Eggleston: The front counter pitch for the gob… er, I'm sorry, yeah, the Goblin Throne. Beware the promises you make to the Goblin Queen, especially if you plan to break them.
• 57:43
  Spike: The Goblin Throne is available to read on Mel Gilman's website right now, so if you are on the fence, and you're all like, hmm, I don't
• 57:51
  Spike: this is for me! You can literally go to, I think it's Melgilman.com, spelled… no, it's Melanie Gilman… oh, is it Melanie Gilman? Hold on, let me… let me make sure I'm not…
• 58:01
  Tad Eggleston: It is, it is Melanie, M-E-L-A-N-I-E, Gilman, G-I-L-L-M-A-N dot com.
• 58:10
  Spike: However, I think that might be for as the crow flies.
• 58:14
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, it is. We've got crow flies there.
• 58:17
  Tad Eggleston: But…
• 58:19
  Spike: I think it's thegoblinthrone.com, maybe? Let me see… Yeah, it's www.thegoblinthrone.com, I think.
• 58:28
  Spike: Let me make sure, because that thing is, that's a common.
• 58:30
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and that's…
• 58:31
  Spike: That's it, that's it!
• 58:32
  Tad Eggleston: This is… this is something that you might want to talk to Mel about. there isn't a link that I'm finding to, to, to goblin throwing at, at, as the crow flies, and… and that, that's really kind of a…
• 58:47
  Tad Eggleston: a drop ball?
• 58:50
  Spike: Yeah, I will have to see if.
• 58:52
  Tad Eggleston: Like, not even on the links page. Other people's comics that inspire me, and other places to find me has Patreon, Tumblr, and Twitter, but not…
• 59:04
  Spike: Yeah, I will, I will have to speak to them, but everybody, everybody, take two. Go to thegoblinThrone.com, you can read the entirety of the comic as it updates daily, and like I said at the top of the show, we're kind of calling it, sapphic Divorce Horror.
• 59:24
  Spike: It is a fairy tale for grown-ups, and it is about a woman who makes a deal with the Goblin Queen, because she is being
• 59:34
  Spike: harassed by a man in her village, and she wants to be left alone. And the goblin queen says to her, okay, I will make sure he never bothers you again, but in exchange, I want your firstborn.
• 59:47
  Spike: And the woman says, deal. And the goblin queen upholds her end of the bargain.
• 59:53
  Spike: But then shows up to talk to the woman and go, okay, cool, I'm here for your firstborn.
• 1:00:00
  Spike: And she replies, it's been, like, 2 days. I don't… I don't have a firstborn. And the goblin queen goes, no, no, no, you misunderstand.
• 1:00:11
  Spike: When I say, I'll do it in exchange for your firstborn.
• 1:00:14
  Spike: I mean, I want to make you a firstborn, not wait for you to make a firstborn with someone else, and then come for the baby.
• 1:00:23
  Spike: I would like you to marry me, and come with me to the Goblin Kingdom under the ground. And the woman, thinking fast, goes, okay, yeah, I mean, if that's the deal, that's the deal, but…
• 1:00:35
  Spike: please give me a day to say goodbye to everyone topside, and then I'll join you. And the Goblin Queen goes, okay.
• 1:00:42
  Spike: But the woman, instead of keeping up her end of the bargain, runs away.
• 1:00:47
  Spike: And that is kind of the meat of the story. It's got a… what I love about Mel's execution of this.
• 1:00:53
  Spike: Is the format of it, where you see How the story goes
• 1:01:00
  Spike: from different perceptions. Like, the scene we see…
• 1:01:04
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:01:04
  Spike: Where the woman, who, you know, she doesn't have a name, she's just sort of the woman, promises her firstborn to the goblin queen.
• 1:01:13
  Spike: in exchange for being left alone. That scene, we see it from both her perspective.
• 1:01:18
  Spike: and the perspective of the Goblin Queen.
• 1:01:21
  Spike: and also the perspective of her son, who is being told this story secondhand. And of course, he is just imagining it, he wasn't there, you know? So, how he thinks it went versus how the Goblin Queen, who was there, knows it went, are contrasted, and I love it, because Mel has such a gift.
• 1:01:42
  Spike: For telling a story visually.
• 1:01:46
  Spike: without a ton of dialogue, like, you get the vibe immediately when somebody says something in a certain way, or something's depicted in a certain way, and that's what I love about their comics. I think their comics are just so fucking classic in that way. And we're publishing it in sort of a hardcover format, we're making it
• 1:02:05
  Spike: we're making it nice, we're making it collectible, we're making it something that is gonna last on your bookshelf, you know, you can put out on your coffee table, you can develop that reputation you may be after as the person who is a connoisseur of strange, unique media. And, you know, you can pull out this beautiful hardcover and show it to people and be like, yeah, this is Goblin Queen, it's a fairy tale for grown-ups, and it's about
• 1:02:28
  Spike: divorce horror, sapphic divorce horror. And that'll be the first… like, that's, you know, r slash brand new sentence, as they say on Reddit. You know, that's the first time a lot of people are going to hear something like that. And that's, again, that's kind of like what Iron Circus is for, making books like that. The hardest part about running this publisher
• 1:02:47
  Spike: is when I submit my books to my distributor, they ask for comps, and what comps are is.
• 1:02:53
  Spike: If this book is in the bookstore.
• 1:02:56
  Spike: what should it be on the shelf next to? Like, if you like this, will you like this?
• 1:03:02
  Spike: And if you are publishing more…
• 1:03:06
  Spike: I'm… how to say this without sounding insulting.
• 1:03:09
  Spike: commonplace, more pedestrian titles. It's easy to find…
• 1:03:14
  Tad Eggleston: I know where to put it.
• 1:03:14
  Spike: Because you…
• 1:03:16
  Spike: Exactly, you can say, oh, it's a horror story about a scary car, you know, its comp is Stephen King's Christine.
• 1:03:23
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:03:24
  Spike: I'm sitting there going.
• 1:03:25
  Tad Eggleston: Well…
• 1:03:26
  Spike: Yeah!
• 1:03:26
  Tad Eggleston: You could put it next to Game of Thrones, you could also put it next to the Hardy Boys. It might go well with…
• 1:03:35
  Spike: There is no supernatural sapphic divorce horror. We made that shit up. That's like a perpetual Iron Circus issue! There are no cops!
• 1:03:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, this is, like, my friend Sarah Gailey has, I think.
• 1:03:49
  Tad Eggleston: They've got 7 novels under their belt right now, and I don't think that more than 2 of them ever wind up next to each other in a bookstore.
• 1:03:59
  Spike: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:01
  Tad Eggleston: They wind up in horror, they wind up in sci-fi, they wind up in literature, they wind up in YA.
• 1:04:08
  Spike: Part of the, part of the issue…
• 1:04:12
  Spike: with publishing weird stuff is when you try and crowbar a place in sort of the production cycle of the mainstream for your weird stuff, it's harder than it might otherwise be, you know? And that's, again, that's kind of, like, one of the many services Iron Circus offers to creators. Well.
• 1:04:30
  Spike: We'll get your stuff a place in that… in that ecosystem.
• 1:04:35
  Spike: Because getting the kind of stuff we publish a place in that ecosystem can actually be pretty hard, you know?
• 1:04:41
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Right?
• 1:04:43
  Tad Eggleston: Right. And this, also, your answer there is, like, the perfect example of how you both
• 1:04:51
  Tad Eggleston: Know your audience, and have confidence in what you're…
• 1:04:56
  Tad Eggleston: You're selling them, because you gave an incredibly detailed subscription, or description, without, like, lots of…
• 1:05:05
  Tad Eggleston: you know, cliffhanger-y type stuff to try to suck people in, and told everybody where they could go read it for free, in confidence that if they did, they were gonna wanna be able to A hold a copy in their hands, or B, at the very, very least.
• 1:05:24
  Tad Eggleston: Give the creator some money.
• 1:05:27
  Spike: Yeah, and speaking of giving the creator money, I'm a big proponent of giving the creator money, one of the bonuses for the crowdfund right now on Kickstarter, if you just search Goblin Throne, I'm pretty sure will come up, Mel will be selling original art, original pages from…
• 1:05:45
  Tad Eggleston: $400 gets you an original page.
• 1:05:47
  Spike: Yeah, from an add… as an add-on. So, if you are a collector of original comic art, and you're just thinking to yourself, I don't own a single
• 1:05:55
  Spike: page of colored pencil comic art, you know? Right. Now's your chance to fix that. And the pages are… I mean, they're gorgeous, I love them. They are. Like, Chad said, they're on, sort of, off-white, maybe parchment-y col-colored paper.
• 1:06:11
  Tad Eggleston: Looks like it's.
• 1:06:11
  Spike: Probably heavier than most.
• 1:06:12
  Tad Eggleston: Most parchment paper.
• 1:06:15
  Spike: Yeah, yeah, it's definitely heavier, it's definitely…
• 1:06:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I'm… I'm des… I'm guessing it's, like, just, like.
• 1:06:23
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know how they weight paper, but, like, just a smidgen lighter than cardstock is what it looks like at a glance. Now, I'm looking at it on a digital screen and guessing, so you can correct me entirely.
• 1:06:38
  Tad Eggleston: But I'm betting that you could hold it up and it wouldn't automatically fold over.
• 1:06:43
  Spike: Yeah. If it is on what comics pages were on when I was still working analog, it's probably on some form of colored Bristol board, but…
• 1:06:53
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and that would be even more firm.
• 1:06:56
  Tad Eggleston: That would be even more firm.
• 1:06:58
  Tad Eggleston: But I, like, to me, it almost looks like it could have been done in a notebook, but that could also be the way she wanted to make it look.
• 1:07:05
  Spike: Yeah, yeah. But, folks, just as a note, the way we're selling the comic pages, it is first come, first serve. So if, like, 5 people have pledged to get a page before you have, those 5 people get their pick before you do. So if you like Mel's art.
• 1:07:22
  Tad Eggleston: So it's not random, either. You get to pick your page.
• 1:07:27
  Spike: Yep, you get to pick your page, but…
• 1:07:29
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 1:07:30
  Spike: People are already in… there are already people who have pledged for pages, so, you know, if you have your heart set on page 5, page 7, page 17,
• 1:07:39
  Spike: It's in your best interest to pledge as soon as possible.
• 1:07:43
  Tad Eggleston: Get your…
• 1:07:44
  Spike: Bottom line.
• 1:07:47
  Tad Eggleston: $400 is a very reasonable price for an original page of comic art, too.
• 1:07:53
  Spike: Yeah. Yeah, for something this beautiful, this artisanal, this labor-intensive, it is completely worth the price, and again, it's something you get to enjoy forever.
• 1:08:04
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm just thinking that almost anybody I know who sells pages for less than $400, I give them a hard time.
• 1:08:11
  Spike: Yeah, and you can charge.
• 1:08:13
  Tad Eggleston: more, right? Please charge more. I mean, don't get me wrong, let me buy one first, but then please charge more.
• 1:08:20
  Spike: Yeah. Hanging on my wall right now, I have originals by Benjamin Dewey, I have originals by Al Columbia, I have originals by Evan Dorkin, and they literally make my day better every single day, because I walk by, and I glance up, and I see them, and it's just like…
• 1:08:40
  Spike: That's mine.
• 1:08:42
  Tad Eggleston: I don't, I don't have quite as many originals, I have much more prints. I have an original page of, of,
• 1:08:50
  Tad Eggleston: of… of, david Lapham, and then I have…
• 1:08:58
  Tad Eggleston: original portraits from Mark Chiarello and Elsa Chardier.
• 1:09:04
  Spike: Oh, that's nice.
• 1:09:06
  Spike: Yeah, I actually… I actually have a, let me see if I can't find which it is.
• 1:09:15
  Spike: I'm searching something right now, everyone, so you'll have to… you'll have to… you'll have.
• 1:09:20
  Tad Eggleston: Doo, doo-do.
• 1:09:21
  Spike: But there's…
• 1:09:22
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, wait, no, I don't want to get sued. That's as far as we'll go. I'm pretty certain that's copyrighted material.
• 1:09:29
  Spike: Yeah, there's a creator, I fucking love him, he's amazing, he's awesome. His name is Rick Geary, and…
• 1:09:35
  Tad Eggleston: I love Rick Geary.
• 1:09:37
  Spike: He is very much.
• 1:09:38
  Tad Eggleston: One of my wife's favorite artists.
• 1:09:40
  Spike: Yeah, he has a series that I am utterly in love with called A Treasury of Victorian Murder, and also… That's exactly what.
• 1:09:48
  Tad Eggleston: Where my wife fell in love with him. Yep, yep, yep.
• 1:09:51
  Spike: And…
• 1:09:52
  Tad Eggleston: She's her favorite.
• 1:09:52
  Spike: We've had…
• 1:09:53
  Tad Eggleston: He's her favorite true crime comic.
• 1:09:56
  Spike: Yeah, and he had a Kickstarter a while back. This is my most treasured comic page. He had a Kickstarter a while back.
• 1:10:02
  Spike: Where, for something like…
• 1:10:05
  Spike: 200, 300, maybe 500? I don't remember how much it was, because quite literally, it doesn't matter, because it has produced something that means so much to me.
• 1:10:13
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it mattered for us. I'm pretty certain we were part of that Kickstarter, but we only got the book.
• 1:10:18
  Spike: Yeah, but I am… I am a cameo in that book, because I paid for a cameo spot! So there's this part where, like, all.
• 1:10:26
  Tad Eggleston: for it.
• 1:10:27
  Spike: Yeah, all these ladies are, like, kind of, like, looking at a… the main protagonist of the book, and, like, with… with, you know, heart eyes, basically, and I am one of them.
• 1:10:36
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, which book? Because we've kick-started a few things from him.
• 1:10:41
  Spike: Yeah, oh, I love him, he's so great. I used to, every time I would do San Diego Comic-Con, so you know how long ago this was, because I was still doing San Diego Comic-Con, I would make sure to stop by his table, and I would just, like, whatever's new, I'm buying it, because, like, it's by you, so I know I'm gonna like it.
• 1:10:58
  Tad Eggleston: Right?
• 1:10:59
  Spike: Let's see, I'm going to the Kickstarter right now.
• 1:11:03
  Spike: And… oop, can I scroll down, or will you not let me Kickstarter?
• 1:11:07
  Spike: Oh, wow. I need to reach out to him again.
• 1:11:09
  Tad Eggleston: We had them on ages ago. It's time to have them.
• 1:11:13
  Spike: Show more pledges, please. Wow, I forget that I've backed, like, 80 Kickstarters, so it takes a while to scroll through everything.
• 1:11:20
  Tad Eggleston: I think I have you beat.
• 1:11:22
  Spike: Oh, yeah?
• 1:11:27
  Spike: Sweet.
• 1:11:28
  Spike: Oh, wow, and I backed… I forgot.
• 1:11:29
  Tad Eggleston: I have backed 183 Kickstarters.
• 1:11:33
  Spike: What? Congrat- you're a patron of the arts!
• 1:11:36
  Tad Eggleston: I am.
• 1:11:38
  Spike: Let's see… I believe what I did… oh, wow.
• 1:11:43
  Spike: Oh, I missed the Benito City Tragedy, I have to get that one.
• 1:11:47
  Spike: Oh, wow, the Abom… oh!
• 1:11:50
  Spike: I believe it was the Elwell Enigma.
• 1:11:54
  Spike: That is what I… I backed, and I am in.
• 1:11:58
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:11:58
  Spike: So everyone, yeah, go and go and look at the Elwell enigma, I am in there.
• 1:12:04
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:12:06
  Tad Eggleston: I'll have to figure out if we have that.
• 1:12:08
  Spike: And buy Rick Geary's books, he's incredible!
• 1:12:11
  Tad Eggleston: Because Rick Geary comics are among the very, very small list of comics that don't live wherever I put them. They live where Kelly puts them.
• 1:12:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:12:24
  Spike: Honestly, straight up, if anyone here is all like, I feel like blowing a small fortune on a creator's entire bibliography, Rick Geary. Just get everything he's ever made.
• 1:12:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's not as massive of a fortune as you would expect, because.
• 1:12:42
  Spike: No, no.
• 1:12:42
  Tad Eggleston: A lot of them are still available from him, and sometimes at reasonable, or often at reasonable prices.
• 1:12:50
  Spike: Sometimes.
• 1:12:53
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, he knows when he's got a book that's harder to get.
• 1:12:56
  Spike: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:58
  Tad Eggleston: Y-you know.
• 1:12:59
  Spike: For real, I mean, y'all could start very pedestrian if you want to, just get the one about.
• 1:13:05
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't even know he'd done this.
• 1:13:07
  Spike: Check the referral.
• 1:13:08
  Tad Eggleston: This one looks like it would be hilarious. He did A is for Antichrist, the Obama Conspiracy Handbook.
• 1:13:16
  Spike: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I also, I even have his older stuff, like Housebound, that's just, like, a collection of one-offs he did.
• 1:13:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and here we go, the Elwell Enigma is available direct from Rick Geary for $14.95. So if you want to see Spike in a comic.
• 1:13:33
  Spike: There I am, yes.
• 1:13:35
  Tad Eggleston: He's got a collection from his lampoon years. He's got a collection of his early stories, as seen in Heavy Metal, Epic, Illustrated, Raw, and Dark Horse Presents.
• 1:13:44
  Spike: I personally strongly recommend his true crime series, and, like, my personal favorites are, Famous Players, which is about the murder of a man named William Desmond Taylor. It is a early Hollywood murder mystery, and again, this is all true crime, it all really happened.
• 1:14:04
  Tad Eggleston: The cover is available for $18.95.
• 1:14:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:14:08
  Spike: also…
• 1:14:08
  Tad Eggleston: dot com.
• 1:14:10
  Spike: Also, his book on the kidnapping of the Lindbergh child, because that is… So… Bonkers.
• 1:14:18
  Tad Eggleston: and… and…
• 1:14:19
  Spike: Are folks in…
• 1:14:21
  Tad Eggleston: Because this is what we've been talking about, you can commission an original 9x12.
• 1:14:31
  Tad Eggleston: Piece of artwork from him for $250.
• 1:14:36
  Spike: That is criminal. That is criminal. Y'all have to go give Nick… Nick, excuse me, Rick Geary a whole bunch of money, because that is.
• 1:14:44
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and… Bargain.
• 1:14:46
  Spike: impossible.
• 1:14:46
  Tad Eggleston: I think I have, like, literally figured out, like.
• 1:14:50
  Tad Eggleston: the next time that I'm actually in a position where I can spend more money on my wife for a birthday or Christmas or whatnot, then she's completely
• 1:15:02
  Tad Eggleston: comfortable with.
• 1:15:04
  Spike: I know.
• 1:15:04
  Tad Eggleston: what I'm doing.
• 1:15:05
  Spike: Right on.
• 1:15:06
  Tad Eggleston: actually.
• 1:15:08
  Spike: I might reward myself.
• 1:15:09
  Spike: a little something at the end of the year if, you know…
• 1:15:11
  Tad Eggleston: I just have to.
• 1:15:12
  Spike: Variously, like, just…
• 1:15:13
  Tad Eggleston: Just… because at the site, he's got a bunch of the commissions up, and, like, it's a mixture of, like.
• 1:15:21
  Tad Eggleston: there's… there are ones that, like, there's one that's… there's a Tesla, there's… there's a…
• 1:15:27
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, when that was smaller, I thought it was Groucho Marx, but now that I clicked on it, it's somebody else, but with a similar mustache. But there's also ones that are pretty clearly, like, somebody's pets.
• 1:15:40
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 1:15:40
  Spike: Oh, yeah, yeah. Couple of cats. Always popular with commissions.
• 1:15:43
  Tad Eggleston: Or, or actual portraits of… of people…
• 1:15:49
  Tad Eggleston: like, in a certain style, right?
• 1:15:52
  Spike: Huh.
• 1:15:52
  Tad Eggleston: So, it look… it looks like he'll do a lot of… different… Y-you know.
• 1:16:00
  Tad Eggleston: what he's… and a couple of their color. I hope he… I hope he charges more for the color, for that matter. There's one here that is…
• 1:16:09
  Tad Eggleston: is a, A recreation of one of the most famous crime suspense stories.
• 1:16:17
  Tad Eggleston: Because it's the one with the legs, and the bloody axe, and the…
• 1:16:23
  Tad Eggleston: the woman's head that Bill Gaines said in Congress, he didn't think it was in bad taste. Now, if the woman's head was a little bit higher, and you could see the blood dripping from her neck, now that would.
• 1:16:38
  Spike: to be in.
• 1:16:38
  Tad Eggleston: bad taste.
• 1:16:42
  Spike: But yeah, everyone, give my Kickstarter money, and then whatever money you have left over, give it to Rick Geary.
• 1:16:48
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that sounds about right. That sounds about right.
• 1:16:50
  Spike: That's your plan, that's your plan for the rest of the week.
• 1:16:53
  Tad Eggleston: Or at the… like, I love tons and tons of comics, so I could give…
• 1:17:01
  Tad Eggleston: a laundry list of people that I could… I could say the same thing. Give… give Spike some money, and then go give these people some money. So, really, what I'm saying is that's a completely acceptable set of choices from my perspective.
• 1:17:17
  Spike: Absolutely.
• 1:17:19
  Spike: So yeah, everyone, go to Kickstarter, back Goblin Throne, grab a page of Mel's original art. If you do it, well, by the time this goes live, so this won't be the case. But if whoever does it next will be backer number 600.
• 1:17:31
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, wow, that's true.
• 1:17:33
  Spike: You're at…
• 1:17:33
  Tad Eggleston: 19,089 with 599 backers. I almost feel like we should just stay on the air until you get to 600.
• 1:17:41
  Spike: And we, we have…
• 1:17:43
  Tad Eggleston: Refreshing our screens, are we there yet? Wait a minute, it went down to $5.98, what the fuck?
• 1:17:49
  Tad Eggleston: It did.
• 1:17:50
  Spike: We have, like, 24… 24, 25… 24 days to go. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:55
  Tad Eggleston: have this up by Monday at the latest, so by the time people are listening to this, it'll probably be, like, 22 days to go. But still…
• 1:18:02
  Spike: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:03
  Tad Eggleston: You have until Tuesday, June 30th, at 11pm Central Time. You have some time.
• 1:18:09
  Spike: Don't…
• 1:18:09
  Tad Eggleston: Don't waste that time, but you do have some time.
• 1:18:12
  Spike: And to close out my little pitch and everything, for folks who may be tempted to wait until they can get it off Amazon or Barnes & Noble or your local bookstop or whatever, that is also a valid way to support us, but when you buy direct like this, more money goes to the creator.
• 1:18:30
  Spike: A bigger… a larger percentage of the money goes to the creator.
• 1:18:34
  Spike: They get it, faster than you would get it… than they would get it if you bought via a third party like that.
• 1:18:42
  Spike: And, this is kind direct way you can support Iron Circus publishing weird shit, and weird creators.
• 1:18:50
  Tad Eggleston: and…
• 1:18:50
  Spike: Weird shift for us to publish.
• 1:18:53
  Tad Eggleston: And also, you get a PDF version.
• 1:18:56
  Spike: Also, yeah, yeah, yeah. We… this is the only time this happens. If you buy a hard copy, we also send you a digital copy, just… Right. Dure rigueur.
• 1:19:05
  Tad Eggleston: That's an $11 value.
• 1:19:07
  Spike: Yes, yes.
• 1:19:08
  Tad Eggleston: That's an $11 value, and if you want to still support your local bookshop, A, tell them that they need to get Goblin Throne, and then once you've… once you've enjoyed it and put it on your coffee table and started to figure out which of your friends like it, then you can go to your local comic shop and buy it from them for Christmas presents.
• 1:19:28
  Tad Eggleston: And then you support everyone.
• 1:19:29
  Spike: Everybody.
• 1:19:30
  Spike: Right, everybody wins.
• 1:19:31
  Tad Eggleston: See how I work, Spike? I try to make certain all the important people in the industry get paid.
• 1:19:38
  Spike: Right on.
• 1:19:39
  Tad Eggleston: I also said local comic shop, or local bookstore.
• 1:19:45
  Spike: Yeah.
• 1:19:46
  Spike: Either works.
• 1:19:47
  Tad Eggleston: Bookshop.org is acceptable, particularly if you pick out your local bookstore to also get paid.
• 1:19:56
  Spike: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:19:58
  Spike: Bookshop.com.
• 1:19:59
  Tad Eggleston: So they make more money.
• 1:20:00
  Spike: Oh, yeah.
• 1:20:01
  Tad Eggleston: They make more money if you buy it from them directly.
• 1:20:05
  Spike: Yes.
• 1:20:07
  Spike: either… you can… there are many ways you can support creators, but the thing I always tell people is.
• 1:20:14
  Spike: If part of it for you is directly supporting artists, the actual Kickstarter is the way to go.
• 1:20:22
  Tad Eggleston: Well, though, this is where I'm gonna be super, super, super nice to Mel, even though they didn't join us.
• 1:20:31
  Tad Eggleston: And say… that… that… that they also have a Patreon.
• 1:20:38
  Spike: They do. They do.
• 1:20:40
  Tad Eggleston: Patreon, slash… M. Gilman.
• 1:20:44
  Tad Eggleston: For Melanie Gilman, creating comics.
• 1:20:48
  Tad Eggleston: You can join for free, but there are also… there are also membership options from
• 1:20:54
  Tad Eggleston: From $1 a month to… To $2 a month.
• 1:20:59
  Spike: Yeah, and you get to…
• 1:21:01
  Tad Eggleston: I feel like there are options beyond $2 a month. It's $1 a month, or $2 a month.
• 1:21:09
  Tad Eggleston: If you want to support Mel directly.
• 1:21:13
  Spike: Yes, support, support Mel, and support Iron Circus, and support weird comics in this world of rapidly homogenizing media, and flattening, sort of.
• 1:21:25
  Tad Eggleston: And if you have any money left when you're done with that, I'm told that I'm supposed to say more regularly that you can go to patreon.com slash 22panels, and if you want, you can support us as well.
• 1:21:38
  Spike: Yeah, yeah, support the media you want to see in the world. Support the media you want to see in the world, because, like I was saying,
• 1:21:45
  Spike: Things are getting bought up.
• 1:21:47
  Tad Eggleston: J.
• 1:21:47
  Spike: Things are getting bought up and, like, amoeba-like, absorbed, and the breadth and length of what is available widely as media is constantly shrinking, because fewer and fewer people are owning the means of getting that media to large audiences.
• 1:22:05
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, thank God there are now… 3 other… Digital comic?
• 1:22:13
  Tad Eggleston: venues.
• 1:22:14
  Spike: Thank you for reminding me! Yeah, yeah, everybody, I guess this is as good a place to announce it as any, but, very recently, Iron Circus pulled…
• 1:22:25
  Spike: it's… it's a publishing catalog from Comixology, which I… in case you didn't know, everyone, it kind of doesn't really exist anymore in a meaningful way beyond comic…
• 1:22:36
  Tad Eggleston: I was gonna…
• 1:22:37
  Spike: on Amazon's…
• 1:22:38
  Tad Eggleston: But let's hear your announcement first.
• 1:22:40
  Spike: beyond Amazon's, sort of, label for original series. It doesn't really exist beyond that anymore. But, we have pulled the iron.
• 1:22:48
  Tad Eggleston: This summer.
• 1:22:48
  Spike: catalog.
• 1:22:49
  Tad Eggleston: As Amazon's original series, the Comixology original series, most of them are actually really good.
• 1:22:55
  Tad Eggleston: Which is why I'm glad that they're getting picked up for actual publication, too.
• 1:22:59
  Spike: But, we have transferred our catalog to Sweet Shop, and we are hoping that they will go live soon.
• 1:23:07
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:23:08
  Tad Eggleston: then you might be my first sweet purchase. I haven't made a sweet purchase yet. I do…
• 1:23:14
  Spike: I do have my.
• 1:23:15
  Tad Eggleston: data access, that sort of thing. Because I kind of feel like, like, I need to have some stuff at each of them to be able to, to, like, really critique.
• 1:23:25
  Tad Eggleston: But all the more so now, and this just frustrates me because of the size of my existing
• 1:23:31
  Tad Eggleston: Comixology Kindle catalog. The newest Kindle update, at least on Android.
• 1:23:38
  Tad Eggleston: Made it even harder to… to, like…
• 1:23:42
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Work through your own collection.
• 1:23:46
  Tad Eggleston: Much less find anything new.
• 1:23:49
  Spike: Yeah, yeah. So if you folks are interested in getting copies of Iron Circus titles in a format where you can kind of read it on your phone, read it on your tablet, read it however, wherever.
• 1:24:02
  Spike: everything should be live on Sweet Shop soon, and when they go live, I will definitely make an announcement on the Iron Cirkin mailing list, which you should join, and on my Blue Sky, which you should follow.
• 1:24:13
  Tad Eggleston: And Sweet Shop, I think, is still officially in beta, but they do have a list to be…
• 1:24:23
  Tad Eggleston: included in…
• 1:24:25
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I happen to be way early on that list, so I don't know how long you'd likely have to wait if you go on that list now, but I know that there are people that can play with it already.
• 1:24:37
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, at the, at the very least, go, go, go check out,
• 1:24:43
  Tad Eggleston: And, and again, I am, I am, like, so far, I am, I, I, there are, are pros and cons to all three of the new apps.
• 1:24:53
  Tad Eggleston: But I am not disappointed in any of them.
• 1:24:58
  Spike: Yeah.
• 1:24:58
  Tad Eggleston: what I'd still love to see happen, like, love to see happen, unfortunately, is this type of thing that won't happen without a lawsuit, and having lost one of them, I imagine that Amazon is positioned not to lose another. What I'd love to see happen is what happened with movie purchases.
• 1:25:17
  Tad Eggleston: You can purchase them on one platform, and you have them on any platform.
• 1:25:22
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:25:24
  Tad Eggleston: Because, like, again, as it becomes harder to…
• 1:25:28
  Tad Eggleston: read my comics well, or find my comics in my own catalog well. It's like, really?
• 1:25:37
  Tad Eggleston: Meow.
• 1:25:40
  Spike: Yeah, it's wild how hard…
• 1:25:42
  Tad Eggleston: Also, you can spend less money on software upkeep.
• 1:25:45
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I know enough…
• 1:25:46
  Spike: It's wild.
• 1:25:46
  Tad Eggleston: software that I can see how the changes are designed to make their end easier.
• 1:25:52
  Spike: Yeah. It's wild how hard we have to fight to have access to the things we own, you know?
• 1:25:59
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and now they go out of the way to make certain that you know that you're buying a license.
• 1:26:04
  Spike: Yeah, yeah, I… honestly, I think… I hope, I hope that the European Union comes to our… to our rescue eventually over that.
• 1:26:12
  Tad Eggleston: Possibly.
• 1:26:12
  Spike: Shuffle.
• 1:26:13
  Spike: Stuff over there is starting to become very active on that front.
• 1:26:18
  Tad Eggleston: it's so frustrating that there's so few things, like… like… I mean, even when I was looking at… at…
• 1:26:27
  Tad Eggleston: clip… clip studio paint, and I… and, like, I don't want to bash them, bash them, because this is… this is just the current model, right?
• 1:26:38
  Tad Eggleston: You can't buy Clip Studio Paint. You can get.
• 1:26:42
  Spike: You can, though.
• 1:26:43
  Tad Eggleston: plan, a month will… no. You can get an annual plan, a monthly plan, or a perpetual license.
• 1:26:53
  Spike: Okay, alright, yeah, perpetual license, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, yeah, that's what I have.
• 1:26:58
  Tad Eggleston: Which isn't quite the same…
• 1:27:01
  Spike: As buying it, yeah.
• 1:27:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:27:06
  Spike: But yeah, if anyone can afford it, I definitely recommend just getting the perpetual license, obviously.
• 1:27:12
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah, no, I mean, really, the Pro version 5 edition is $63, the… er…
• 1:27:20
  Tad Eggleston: The EX version 5 edition is 277.
• 1:27:25
  Tad Eggleston: But I can also say that…
• 1:27:29
  Spike: Yeah, a little secret from me to everyone who might be listening, some little insider info. Go ahead and find Clip Studio Paints
• 1:27:38
  Spike: like, publisher, or developer, or whatever they are, find them on Blue Sky.
• 1:27:44
  Spike: Because they very frequently have extreme deep discount sales.
• 1:27:49
  Tad Eggleston: There you go.
• 1:27:50
  Spike: perpetual license for the same price as, like, the $60 one on certain days. So, if you are not in, like, a big hurry to get going on Clip Studio Paint, you can wait until they have a deep discount sale, and, like, I've been buying Clip Studio Paint for years, I've never paid full price for it.
• 1:28:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right, right. But then the thing that's always… I mean, particularly once they go perpetual license, the thing that always becomes…
• 1:28:18
  Tad Eggleston: Problematic is, like, when they make it version 6,
• 1:28:23
  Tad Eggleston: sometimes they can choose to have your perpetual license. I mean, I don't know what their small… their small print looks like.
• 1:28:31
  Tad Eggleston: like… but the fact that they don't… don't specifically highlight all versions probably means this is a perpetual license for version 5, and if they make a version 6 and you want it, you're gonna have to pay again. Which isn't the same… it's… it's not different from when you had to buy the new…
• 1:28:49
  Tad Eggleston: Photoshop if you wanted it.
• 1:28:53
  Tad Eggleston: But still, like, they're just so… as soon as it's licensing, rather than you own this, there's so many ways…
• 1:29:01
  Tad Eggleston: to mess around.
• 1:29:03
  Spike: Yeah.
• 1:29:04
  Spike: Yeah.
• 1:29:04
  Spike: Not saying they're angels, But they're… they're good.
• 1:29:07
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I'm not certain that they're not either, but I'm also not certain that they won't eventually be given enough money that they sell out to somebody who isn't.
• 1:29:16
  Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean? Always the.
• 1:29:18
  Spike: danger, you know?
• 1:29:19
  Tad Eggleston: Nothing has ever been forever, but that's, like, a thousand times more true now than it was… even, like…
• 1:29:32
  Tad Eggleston: in the 90s.
• 1:29:34
  Tad Eggleston: My wife is pointing out that we were headed to a old-timey baseball game.
• 1:29:41
  Tad Eggleston: That's 20 minutes away and starts in 5 minutes. So I need to wrap up, and there are two closing questions that we need to get through quickly, and we're gonna get to the ballgame in the second or third inning, something like that. And I will apologize.
• 1:29:56
  Spike: Get me those questions!
• 1:29:58
  Tad Eggleston: So, the first one is, is new since the last time you were on,
• 1:30:04
  Tad Eggleston: I've been doing this for, like…
• 1:30:07
  Tad Eggleston: a little less than 5 years now, and I feel like I've entered the Twilight Zone. Like, the conversations that I get to have, the people who are my friends now, I mean, just the fact that I've made more friends in my 40s than I made in my teens.
• 1:30:21
  Spike: relatable.
• 1:30:21
  Tad Eggleston: People that I consider, like, friends' friends, right?
• 1:30:24
  Spike: Huh?
• 1:30:25
  Tad Eggleston: The things that I've gotten to do…
• 1:30:28
  Tad Eggleston: the places I've had an excuse to go to, you know, the number of parts of my life that if you had told me when I was 15, or even 35, hey.
• 1:30:40
  Tad Eggleston: You're gonna go to a baseball game with this person, or you're gonna regularly text with that person, or you're gonna have somebody come up to you in this place because they know who you are.
• 1:30:53
  Spike: Right, right.
• 1:30:54
  Spike: Related.
• 1:30:54
  Tad Eggleston: A number of parts of my life that are just, like, pinch-me moments, that, like, even when I remember them, it's like, did that happen, or did I dream that, is just…
• 1:31:05
  Tad Eggleston: Ridiculous. But that's true of everybody in comics. Really, everybody in, like, the arts. So I've started collecting people's moments. Tell me one of your surreal moments. Tell me one of your… oh my.
• 1:31:18
  Spike: Whoa!
• 1:31:18
  Tad Eggleston: How am I doing this?
• 1:31:21
  Spike: Okay, this is… this is real, it absolutely happened, and it is probably the most recent version of that. So, for folks who don't know.
• 1:31:33
  Spike: Jonan Vasquez, the creator of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Streams pretty regularly on Twitch.
• 1:31:41
  Spike: And one day, I noticed he was live, and my whole move is I have a two-monitor setup where I have work on the front monitor, and on the side monitor, I usually have some kind of entertainment going to keep.
• 1:31:53
  Tad Eggleston: Right?
• 1:31:53
  Spike: you know, all parts of my brain preoccupied and on task, and I was like, I'm going to go get that. I'm gonna totally watch Joan Invest's stream. That'll be my entertainment today.
• 1:32:04
  Spike: And I showed up in the stream, and I was quiet for a while. But then he said something, and I don't even remember what he said, but I, like, I commented.
• 1:32:13
  Spike: And I should note that my name on Twitch is The Iron Spike, all one word, because just Iron Spike was taken.
• 1:32:22
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:32:22
  Spike: And Jonan Vasquez saw my name, in the chat.
• 1:32:27
  Spike: And he literally stopped what he was doing, and he went, iron spike?
• 1:32:32
  Spike: Are you… THE Iron Spike?
• 1:32:36
  Tad Eggleston: Make some comments?
• 1:32:38
  Spike: And, like, little 17, 18-year-old me immediately screamed and passed out, and had that, you know, teeny bopper Bobby Soxy moment again. Right, right, right. Jesus fucking Christ, why do you know who I am! You know?
• 1:32:50
  Tad Eggleston: Sitting there going.
• 1:32:51
  Spike: that.
• 1:32:51
  Tad Eggleston: Have you ever seen the original Dana Carvey, HBO special? He talks about
• 1:32:56
  Tad Eggleston: Paul McCartney coming to visit him, or visit Lorne Michaels while he was still living at Lorne Michaels' mansion, like, right after moving to New York, and he was the one that answered the door, and he's like…
• 1:33:09
  Tad Eggleston: Beetle! Oh my god!
• 1:33:13
  Spike: But yeah, yeah, that is definitely the most recent edition of that.
• 1:33:17
  Spike: That I can talk about.
• 1:33:20
  Tad Eggleston: Amazing. That's amazing. All right, the standard closing question. Tell me something you love.
• 1:33:27
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't have rules. Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules, but something that you love, that not enough people around you have experienced, and you would like them to, so that you have more people to talk to them about it. And you already talked about Rick Geary all this time, so you're gonna have to.
• 1:33:45
  Spike: Yeah, so I can't… can't say that, can't say that.
• 1:33:48
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:33:48
  Spike: Okay, so if we're gonna keep it comet-focused…
• 1:33:52
  Spike: I think what I would recommend is a webcomic, not a webtoon, so don't go on Webtoon, it's not there, it has its own… it has its own, domain.
• 1:34:02
  Spike: And the full title of the comic is Ruin of the House of the Divine Visage.
• 1:34:10
  Spike: And it is at VisageComic.com, so V-I-S-A-G-E comic.com. Visage, like, ruin of the House of the Divine Visage.
• 1:34:22
  Spike: And it is a comic about a sort of fantasy… it's not, like, based on any religion that we would recognize.
• 1:34:32
  Spike: It is a fantasy comic about
• 1:34:35
  Spike: basically an abbey, but, you know, it's not gender-segregated. It is a house of devotion filled with devotionals who are ascetics, you know, they have clearly made various vows, and they live as a religious commune.
• 1:34:52
  Spike: And part of their religiosity, part of their faith, is they do not show their faces. So everybody wears these hooded robes that are very, sort of, form-hiding, and also.
• 1:35:07
  Spike: If you've ever seen what medieval beekeepers wear, they have this… they have this circle of woven straw
• 1:35:15
  Spike: that they basically put over their faces and kind of sew to their hoods to keep the bees out. That's what these people wear over their faces literally all the time. So, no one knows what anyone else looks like.
• 1:35:30
  Tad Eggleston: I'm looking at it right now, it looks… looks…
• 1:35:34
  Spike: Ain't it good?
• 1:35:36
  Tad Eggleston: Fire, green, wood.
• 1:35:38
  Spike: Yeah.
• 1:35:39
  Tad Eggleston: Perfect.
• 1:35:39
  Tad Eggleston: For those who wanted to know the Creator, Eve Inspire Greenwood, VisageComic.com.
• 1:35:46
  Tad Eggleston: Look at Spider.
• 1:35:48
  Tad Eggleston: Making it so you don't even have to spend money to read cool new comics.
• 1:35:52
  Spike: Well, this is where I came from, webcomics, you know?
• 1:35:54
  Tad Eggleston: I know.
• 1:35:55
  Spike: I love it.
• 1:35:55
  Tad Eggleston: Actually, like, I've thought about this a couple of times. At some point, Spike, and I know that this is gonna be, like, a pleasure thing, not a sell stuff thing, I need to have you come on just to talk web… webcomics with me. You need to, like, give me a…
• 1:36:09
  Spike: Oh, for sure!
• 1:36:10
  Tad Eggleston: a list of stuff that I should look at, and then we'll just do the webcomic Roundup, where we talk about some of the great webcomics, and if we enjoy it enough.
• 1:36:20
  Spike: On that…
• 1:36:22
  Tad Eggleston: Every once in a while.
• 1:36:22
  Spike: And on… and on that note, on that note, for folks who look at Ruin of the House of the Divine Visage, and they're like, oh, I like this, this scratches my itch, I'm picking up what this is laying down, if this is your vibe.
• 1:36:36
  Spike: If you scroll to the bottom, excuse me, of the, of the main page of the webcomic, you're going to see a link there that just says, Knife Beetle.
• 1:36:46
  Spike: For folks who are not a thousand years old like myself, there used to be these things called web rings, where basically a whole bunch of sites that had similar content would get together.
• 1:36:58
  Tad Eggleston: And linked to each other.
• 1:36:59
  Spike: rather round robin style. And what Knife Beetle is, is a curated, so there is a human in charge of it, a curated web ring for long-form narrative comics. And so, if you like Rune of the House of the Divine Visage, just click down on the Knife Beetle logo, and you will be taken to an entire
• 1:37:19
  Spike: page. Like, a gigantic, eternally scrolling page.
• 1:37:23
  Spike: of
• 1:37:24
  Spike: comics that are like it in that way, in that they're… they're long format, they're very story-driven, and they'll… it'll be divided up by… by genre, so there's a slice-of-life section, a sci-fi, a romance, a mystery, a horror. It's awesome if you are on the lookout for new comics to read.
• 1:37:42
  Spike: go to Knife Beetle and read them, but for right now, Rune of the House of the Divine Visage is…
• 1:37:47
  Spike: Good shit. Good shit.
• 1:37:53
  Spike: Yeah. Everybody should…
• 1:37:54
  Tad Eggleston: Recognizing a couple of names.
• 1:37:56
  Tad Eggleston: Are you part of this ring? Because we should quickly… just…
• 1:38:01
  Spike: Oh!
• 1:38:01
  Tad Eggleston: I know the reason so I can remember that you have a webcomic currently going.
• 1:38:05
  Spike: Okay, I am going to apply… yeah, I'm going to apply to be part of Knife Beetle when I start updating my webcomic again, but I've pledged to not update it until I have a 50-page backlog, and I will comment, I am making progress, but I am not updating it again.
• 1:38:22
  Spike: But my comic is called…
• 1:38:24
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't actually read it all, and I just keep forgetting to bookmark the page. Give me the link.
• 1:38:29
  Spike: Yeah, if you go to blicotta.com, B-L-I-K.
• 1:38:34
  Tad Eggleston: Hada?
• 1:38:34
  Spike: You will find the comic in its current state, which is old, and I'm sorry I haven't updated it in a while. But there are 58 pages up for you to read if you should choose to do so.
• 1:38:51
  Spike: And if you click the About page, it'll explain Blakata is an alternative history comic about a fictional race of alien sapiens with a technological level that crests at the equivalent of Earth's mid-late 19th century. And much like 19th century Earth, the technology is unequally distributed and experienced.
• 1:39:11
  Spike: The world contains multiple cultures, philosophies, and alignments, and this story is about what happens when those disparate positions foment revolution, particularly among those who do not understand it. Expect adults doing and saying things adults do and say, for good or ill.
• 1:39:27
  Tad Eggleston: Sounds fantastic.
• 1:39:30
  Spike: Yeah, and if you click over to characters, I should note I refer to the main characters of Blacada as Hansen, simply because there are three of them, and they are either boys or male presenting, and
• 1:39:41
  Spike: kind of what this culture would refer to as brothers, although that's not technically accurate, but I just… I think of them as Hansen. It just… it occurred to me one day, and not.
• 1:39:51
  Tad Eggleston: There you go.
• 1:39:51
  Spike: That's not what I call it. But yeah, Bettany, Eki, and Ta, there are little… little bios there, and their ages are estimated because they do not know how old they are.
• 1:40:03
  Tad Eggleston: I love it. I love it.
• 1:40:05
  Spike: So, yeah.
• 1:40:06
  Tad Eggleston: I… I am being reminded by my dog now, and can hear my wife in the background, so it is…
• 1:40:12
  Spike: Thank you, thank you for having me.
• 1:40:14
  Tad Eggleston: for me to start moving, but I love having you. We need to do it more.
• 1:40:19
  Spike: I loved being here!
• 1:40:21
  Tad Eggleston: spend time Not online, cause, like.
• 1:40:25
  Spike: Right.
• 1:40:26
  Tad Eggleston: We don't live that far apart.
• 1:40:28
  Spike: Yeah, sounds fake, but okay.
• 1:40:31
  Tad Eggleston: I know you're… I know your hermit comic maker girl?
• 1:40:35
  Spike: Yes, yes.
• 1:40:36
  Tad Eggleston: I swear to God that occasional sunlight and… and…
• 1:40:41
  Tad Eggleston: And or just air in a different building is good for you.
• 1:40:45
  Spike: Sounds fake, but okay.
• 1:40:48
  Tad Eggleston: I know it sounds…
• 1:40:49
  Spike: Thank you for having me.
• 1:40:51
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely. For Spike Trotman, this has been 22 Panels, and we will see you after the next page.