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The Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze Episode (Tatiana King Interviews DJ Benhameen) · For All Nerds Show

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You are now listening to four All Nerds Show, a podcast about geek and
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dot com. Slash for All Nerds. Welcome the show them and What's up
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y'all, and welcome to another episode of Nerds Show, The Voice of the
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Urban Geek, the podcast where we discussed geek and pop culture from the perspective
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of people. Love Hallore and as always, in the Captain's chair, it's
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your boy, DJ Benna, I mean a k A backgaunsh Cortest is biggest
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fan Aka to Dem Baka writer akah Ubaka, con Lando, Californiaation, the
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Real sky Walker, Slade Trilson, Bit, Dick Grayson Energy. So That's
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how I'm feeling today. There's a lot going on here in the spaceship tonight
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and it's always sir, I'm joined by my partner in crime, Satiana King
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d Granted is a tech also known as Luanda Vision aka Doc Hocky aka Doctor
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doing Something Strange for a Little Change aka the Ting of the North aka the
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Lical mermaid In aka Mulatto High Tower one more kaa flex Luthor. And yes,
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it is a glorious day. Indeed, you're gonna tell him, tell
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him wisla glorious? I mean I might as well, you know, let's
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just get right into it. Thank you for joining us here on for all
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nerds, you know, like I said, the podcasts a geek and pop
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culture twitched ot TV slash for all nerds all the better and great different podcast
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platforms that you might be listening on. And for people who have been listening
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for a little bit, you know, last year or so, we've been
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teasing a very big, very big announcement, very big, so big little
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bit to buy a new hat on the show for a long time now.
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Every other Winthrop House sounding right there. Yeah, that's a little reference,
2:44
a little safe Negro podcast reference. That's a little third little safe Negro and
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a little third based reference for those who know gas face. Shout out to
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my brother combat Jack, rest in peace. But yeah, we do have
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an announcement that we've been teasing for a long time, and that was made
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earlier today today, much to my surprise. Honestly, I did not know.
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I knew it was coming soon, but you know, we've been waiting
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on this for so long that I did not know even what is today,
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So I can remember this day of infamy or from May seventeenth May, in
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the year of our Lord twenty twenty three. Yes, Lord, and I
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did not know that this announcement was going to be made, but today,
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let me just get it out of the way. It was made. Titan
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Comics is publishing Jimmy Hendricks Purple Haze, a space opera black ass afrofuturistic tale
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graphic novel by Mellow Brown, your boy DJ Ben, I mean, with
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art by the motherfucking legend Tom man Drake and of me shout out my color
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artist Justin Pokovich who's doing the ill colors. And I want to say Jim
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Campbell is our letterer, but I'm not one hundred percent sure on that last
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one. I do know the first uh four of us are confirmed and yeah,
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it was announced today in conjunction with the Jimmy Hendricks and State. Shout
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out to Janie Hendricks. But I've been means is a loss for words because
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yeah, man, this has been my mental obviously, this has technically been
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years in the making. Yeah, and I just for y'all six months in
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the making. But this is this is incredible, beyond measure. But I
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mean, and you should be incredibly proud of yourself. I will say it
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again, I will continue to say this. I am exceptionally proud of you.
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I love you dearly and so happy that you get to see the fruits
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of your labor. Bro Like, and I got make sure people understand.
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Benhaman and Mellow Brown, two people, two black men, wrote a graphic
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novel about the Jimmy Hendricks and they have a legendary artist, Tom and Rick
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doing the art. Let that stick to like grits for a while. Let
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that stick, my nigga, because that's a big fucking deal. It really
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is. Like the Hendricks State is notoriously tight with his likeness, with everything
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about him, and we dealt directly with him. We spoke with Jamie Hendrix,
5:38
who is his sister and that alone. I mean, this whole thing
5:44
is still like it's surreal, you know, and like in the illest way
5:48
possible because it's a whole lot. I mean, I'll get into more about
5:53
it on you know, the stuff about you know, how Hendricks have been
5:56
a part of my life. How even like what we're covering in this book
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is like related to my life and was like the first era of Hendrix that
6:03
I really got into and what Hendrix means to me as a black man and
6:09
as like a rock god. And what we were attempting to do with this
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book, which is represent blackness and really established like Jimmy as that rock god,
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you know, like where we wanted to use all the visuals and imagery
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of what you normally is to say, associate whiteness with rock music, like
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the side of vans, you know, the painted airbrush imagery on the side
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of vans, like even stranger themes where dude standing on the top of the
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van plane get guitar. You know, I wanted all that type of imagery
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with an afrofuturistic I mean, it's it's so fucking wild man. This book
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is something else though, Like let me interview for you for a minute,
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like what what tools or like method as you used to draw inspiration as you
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were writing this book, this graphic novel. It started well, well,
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first I did as much research as I could in the time I had about
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Hindricks, Like I knew a lot about him, but I read some autobiographies,
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a couple of books of his, one that was taken from a lot
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of notes from him, so it was like directly in his voice kind of
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and like his own diaries and things like that. So that was really dope.
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And I just immersed myself. And I don't know black music, but
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I'm always doing that all the time. I have a playlist that I put
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out. I have like a few playlists that we're kind of my inspiration.
7:35
As I wrote, I kept adding more songs to it. Oh man,
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I don't know offhand. It was a lot like I started. I just
7:43
went into title and typed in black rock and then they like I grabbed this
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like black rock playlists of all new black rock acts, and then I mixed
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it in with a lot of Hendricks and a lot of old rock that I
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love, and then I was just adding to it and letting titles algorithm just
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determine what was coming nets and then Okay, I like that joint and I'm
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throwing it in there. I like that joint. I'm throwing it in there.
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But I can say that, yeah, I guess I can say this.
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A lot of the all book is centered around the band of gyps Gypsies.
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I know the word. It is controversial, and we don't where you
8:13
use that word anymore. But Hendricks formed an album, I mean, created
8:20
this one album later on in his career, and the story is kind of
8:24
told around that album. It's very I should know these words, right,
8:33
I was like, yeah, allegorical, Yeah, allegorical. It's a it's
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a space opera story, that's the thing. It is not. It does
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not take place on Earth at all. It is not. It is involving
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the character Hendricks, you know who is. I don't want to give too
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much away, but it's Jimmy and Space trying to you know, like jim
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Space with a mix as you said earlier, after futurism, fantasy, Yeah,
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sci fi, sci fi. I mean the name that in the Ellipses
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says Jimmy Hendricks Ellipses purple hate. Yeah, so very madgative and lea yeah,
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even in the description that's been given by Titan Comics, it involves Hendricks
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battling against an intergalactic empire to free a planet of people who have been oppressed
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by this empire. And so there's a lot of politics and a lot of
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real world things mixed into this. People were asking me today, you know,
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does it start off with Jimmy jumping out of a plane because Jimmy was
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a parachuter in the Air Force for a bit before he became a famous guitarist.
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And we're like, well, no, but we definitely took a lot
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of inspiration from his time in the military and how he felt about the military
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afterwards. So that's a lot of this too. Yeah, that was that
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makes me think, like, how much of Jimmy's legacy, or his real
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world legacy did you weave throughout this story, right, Like, yes,
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obviously it's it's a world of fiction, but it's built off a real person,
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a real man, right a lot, I would say, I think,
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I mean we did. There's a lot of things from like Jimmy's art,
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where Jimmy himself as an artist and a painter that we drew inspiration from
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that turns up in tim Mandred's art to just Jimmy's politics, how Jimmy felt
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about life, how Jimmy felt about war. A large part of this book
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is centered around an intergalastic war, and so how Jimmy would have felt about
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any war it, you know, informs a large part of this and this
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story that we're telling, and like, how no, go ahead, please
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continue, Okay. I was trying to say, also, how I feel
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about black music and personally informs a big part of this story, and like
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how I feel about my role and musicians role in general in black music informs
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a big part of the story. And I'm really super proud of that because
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it was its ideas that I've carried around pretty much all my life, or
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especially since I really became heavily involved in music, and since then it was
11:16
like, Okay, I started to see things in a certain way, and
11:18
I'm definitely not going to give that away yet because that's a big part of
11:20
my story and a real big part that I really loved. But how I
11:26
saw things I got to express directly in the story, and that was something
11:30
that i'm really it's sceptantly proud of, and I'm just exceptantly proud of what
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me and Mellow did with this book because it just feels like we accomplished all
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the goals that we set out that we started with, which was to tell
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a futuristic afrofuturistic story where features people of color in the future in space,
11:52
using magical and other ways to battle enemies that are oppressive, like a giant,
12:00
you know, oppressive thing, but to offer hope to the people,
12:03
to bring hope to not just the characters in the book, but also the
12:07
people reading it, and to inspire people, and to bring black music and
12:11
put Jimmy's place in black music and the pantheon of like black musical gods,
12:18
you know, made sure that people understand where he fits into this. I'm
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glad you mentioned about music itself and your role in music because being at you're
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a DJ and you're a producer, obviously that's going to inform your approach to
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different things, right, like how you express music within the confines I don't
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even want to say confines within the framework of a graphic novel, right,
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especially someone like this, and how important it is. Right, How then
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did you translate that with the art right, because you had Tom Mandrake doing
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this right, So did you have direct input on the art, did you
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have? Okay? And how how did that process work? All Right,
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that's just first of all, that's like, like you see, I get
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speeches right like Tom man Drake. Y'all can google them right now, And
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I had to. I'll be thousand percent honest, right because I especially for
13:15
our eras when Tom man Drake's an older artists, he's been in the game
13:18
for a minute, like and for the era when I grew up reading comics,
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he was heavy DC and I wasn't DC at that time, Like I
13:28
knew their characters, but I just wasn't reading the week to week, month
13:31
to month, so I didn't know Tom like that. So even when they're
13:35
like, yo, Tom man Drake, who's doing the art, I'm like,
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okay, who you know? All right, that's cool? Who's that?
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And you know, I went to Google and I'm like, oh,
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shit's my fuck control? You know? And then I kept doing my Google
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and I'm like, Yo, this motherfucker really fucking troll. And then I
13:50
started googling and googling, and then I you know, see his legacy and
13:54
the people he's worked with as an artist and the things he's done and I'm
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like, Yo, this is my fucker, here's a legend. You know.
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The first thing you did was get familiar with Tom oh first thing,
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immediately with everything he had done as much as I could, because I needed
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to understand certain things, you know, and I needed to notice before I
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talked to him. And that was something that I really loved, and it
14:15
was one of the first things I distrusted with him. But I found a
14:18
page from his Swamp thing, I think it was from the late eighties,
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and it had it was a splash page where it was the hood and it
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featured a bunch of black people, but all of them looked distinct, but
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all of them looked very black, and all of them had different hairstyles.
14:33
One at the afro went at a flat top with the you know, like
14:37
three cuts on the side, like bid Daddy came and so I was like,
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Oh, he'd been paying attention for it, like he's a white man,
14:43
you know. But I've been like, oh, Tom been on his
14:45
game since the eighties, So I don't have to worry about the first thing
14:50
that I was worried about. You know, can you draw black people?
14:54
Can you give them the respect that they deserved? So I didn't. Yeah,
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I didn't have to worry about that. So that was, you know,
15:00
the first thing I discovered. And then I you know, like I
15:01
said, it's just it goes beyond that. Like this motherfucker he's one of
15:05
those like he's an old school classical comic book artist, you know. So
15:11
he's one of these people whose storytelling is just second nature to him. And
15:16
that's a kind of not a lost art, but not as many people do
15:20
that. This thing. It's like, especially from the nineties, there was
15:22
a big emphasis on splash pages and stuff. Now it's changed now people gotting
15:26
back into the game and you know, really doing storytelling and you know,
15:31
angles and knowing all that. But for someone like Tom, this is a
15:33
second nature ship to him. You know, that's just how he does it.
15:37
And so I already knew that going in. I'm like, okay,
15:41
let's dude, anything I throw it and needs to be able to handle.
15:43
But how much collaborations were the No, But you're you're telling the story,
15:50
right, So you did collaborate and as again you got familiar with him,
15:54
you recognize that he could translate your vision. But how exactly did you collaborate?
16:00
Like, did you did you give him from the writing and say,
16:03
hey, make right, you know, draw what I wrote? Like,
16:06
how did that work? From the jump, it was like, I think
16:10
the first thing he saw was our pitch, right, because we pitched this
16:14
to Janie Hendricks and to tighten publishing, we went through several rounds with her,
16:18
going back and forth distrussing different things about the concept that we had,
16:22
you know, the characters, the story arcs, all these things that were
16:26
still pretty rough then. But at the same time, we pretty much from
16:29
the beginning we had this story that we were going to tell, and it's
16:32
pretty much what ended up on page and that's another thing I'm super proud of.
16:34
But with Tom, so he'd seen that pitch, and I think the
16:37
first thing we did was me mellow and Tom got on the zoom. Yeah,
16:44
we got on the zoom. After by then we'd written issue one.
16:48
I think by the first time we talked to him, where we were into
16:52
writing issue one one and the other. So we get on with him and
16:57
we start distrussing certain things, and I think even from before that I hit
17:00
them on the email might have said this, but one of the first things
17:03
like that I wanted to talk about was one, Okay, I got it.
17:07
You can do black people, We're good. Boom. You can do
17:08
people of all kind of different races for that matter, you know, of
17:11
all kind of ethnicities. I don't even like using race, you know.
17:15
And you can do the storytelling and you can do the action, so boom,
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we're good on all that. All right. But I was like,
17:22
now, this music, right and how it's depicted in comic books is very
17:26
important to me. And that was another bit of my hard, poor research
17:30
I did when I first dropped the gig, was I googled immediately how is
17:34
music depicted in comic books? And I was like, okay, how do
17:38
I not want to do this? And how do I want to do this?
17:41
And which ways to inspire me? And which ways do I was like,
17:45
okay, well that's inspiring in a different way where I don't do it
17:48
that way. And one thing I knew I didn't want to do, and
17:51
that's far I was broogling it to see other ways of doing it, was
17:53
I didn't want the little musical notes with the little wavy you know, where
17:57
they're like the musical notes are way when that I cannot deal with it.
18:00
That shit's tired man, like, it's just not you know, it's it's
18:04
a trope at this point, you know, and so you gotta find a
18:08
way to do it differently. If you're gonna do notes on the page,
18:11
you know, even then let's figure out a way not you know, to
18:15
make it different, you know. But I wanted to avoid that unless it
18:19
was intentional, like Doctor Strange fighting with notes or in Legion they did this
18:25
ill thing where they had the notes across the screen and then like to do
18:27
Paul's time, it was like flicking with the notes and said that was ill.
18:32
But I didn't see that in comics with notes. I just didn't want
18:34
to see them, you know, somebody playing the horn and the notes coming
18:37
out. Yeah, yeah, I didn't want to see that. So that
18:41
was one thing I googled. And I won't Wally, you know, tell
18:45
you exactly how we ended up describing music on the page. But I think
18:48
we do our own different way, and I think it's a very well done.
18:52
And I will say one of the well two of the big inspirations were
18:55
the Wicked and Divine and then Wildly. There's a gym in the Hologram series
19:02
from a few years back that's fucking incredible and does some of the best work
19:07
I've ever seen in music on the page. So that was one of my
19:11
big inspirations, but also just you know, basically from you know, me
19:15
and Mellow's mind, and we felt that music should dictate the way the scene,
19:19
like the way the song is depicted should be to the way to convey
19:26
the emotion of the song and the emotion of the scene. Okay, okay.
19:30
What was the most challenging part of building this project? Balancing telling the
19:45
story that we wanted to tell and talk. I think that's always the most
19:51
challenging project part of any project for me, and I'm just happy we managed
19:53
to pull it off in this one. Is balancing talking about the things that
19:57
I want to talk about with tell a good story, because I usually we'll
20:03
talk about the things I want to talk about much more than tell a good
20:06
story, and that could be a problem obviously, because you got to tell
20:07
a good story. I think we balanced that very well, and I think
20:14
Mellow is just very helpful for me in terms of like balancing some of my
20:18
more wilder impulses, you know, in terms of storytelling. But I'm just
20:26
like and I think the original pitching portion was also one of the more difficult
20:32
parts because it was convincing the Hendrickson state, who is judging as they should
20:41
be, you know, over this property which is near and dear to them,
20:45
but convincing them that we were to write people for this job. Because
20:49
this project has drawn through many multiple iterations and it's a long time even before
20:56
we came onto it to print, and so it's being out, like I
21:00
always talk about this, how you know, any movie book, anything like
21:03
that in this modern day and age being out as a miracle. But having
21:07
seen what took for this to come out, I really feel this is a
21:11
bit of a miracle. What was your most favorite part of this project?
21:17
Oh my god, seeing Tom Mandred's art come back to me. Well,
21:19
the two I mean, the elaborating with Mellow, because that's my fucking brother,
21:23
Like me and him, will you know, we'll be like, all
21:26
right, we're gonna do this zoom call eight o'clock tonight, and because he's
21:30
in California and I'm in New York. So that's pretty much how this whole
21:33
thing was conceived was over zoom calls, and we started eight and beyond to
21:37
like midnight. Sometimes one maybe, and I'd say an hour and fifteen minutes
21:42
of that was talking about Hindreds and the rest of that was just us just
21:45
you know, fucking talk about everything else which would lead into this book,
21:51
you know, because this That's what I'm also very proud about, is how
21:56
much this book. I'm proud and also a bit worried because there's so many
22:00
reference. There's so many references to me in it and where I see them
22:06
directly. Some of them are very direct and some of them are oblique,
22:08
and so people won't get them, but I see them all because obviously I
22:12
made them so but you know, I'm really proud of that. And like
22:15
I say, with black music in general, it's not just Hindred's portion,
22:19
it's just like about black music and the whole from be not Yeah, I
22:26
mean, I would say beginning to you know now, it just encompasses all
22:30
of that, and so especially now, it has so much things that can
22:33
relate to people who are creators and creatives of right now. And that's another
22:40
thing. It's messaging in there that I wanted to give out to the world
22:44
right now, and I feel like it's so current and so needed. But
22:48
back to what was my favorite parts of it was sitting there saying was some
22:53
some of my favorite parts was sitting talking about and then I just wanted to
22:56
talk about Tom Mandrick's art for a second, because yeah, that was the
23:00
thing, Like you said, how did this collaboration go? And I didn't
23:03
really get to that as much I'd like to. We we had the zoom
23:07
calls and then from there it became Tom would start working and he first sent
23:14
us like he had done some stretches of Jimmy and everything, so he was
23:18
sending that, and he sent me one where Jimmy was that when I posted
23:22
on my Instagram where it's like you see the music coming out of the guitar,
23:26
and he's like, this is one of the ways I wanted to do
23:27
it. I was like, Okay, that's dope. Let's you know good.
23:30
We're you know me and you are on the same page. And it
23:32
was funny when I first talked to him, he was like, yo,
23:34
I'm so happy you said that because I didn't ever want to see any squiddly
23:37
notes on my ship. And I was like, yo, bro, we
23:40
all you know me and you we you know we're here, we're here,
23:42
we see each other. Yeah, And I told him, I was like,
23:45
I needed to talk to you because I saw that small theme page and
23:48
I know what you can do with black people. So we're good on that,
23:52
you know, because I've got these characters in my head right now and
23:55
I need them a little a certain way. Doe Do, Doude, and
23:57
you know, I'm describing them. One of them, Um Vesper. You
24:02
see, she's on the cover of the book that was released today, and
24:03
Vesper is one of my fucking favorite characters I've ever created in life. Like,
24:08
She's the heart and soul of this book. She drives so much of
24:11
the story. She has her whole other arc in her end of herself and
24:15
I'm just so proud of her and I love her. And so I was
24:19
like, yo, you know, she gotta be you know, and he
24:22
got it right away. And so when I first saw the sketch of of
24:26
Vesper, I was like, oh my god, like and then this is
24:30
one of my favorite moments in life, you know, beyond this book is
24:33
when Tom emailed me and Mellow and he told us that he was super inspired
24:38
by what we'd written. You know, like, yeah, because Tom is
24:44
this legend who has worked with every name I can ever think of, all
24:48
the people I aspire to be. Yes, been doing this and with nothing
24:55
but legends. You know. He had legendary runs on swamp thing, on
24:59
Sue sib squad, on this book, on that book. You know,
25:03
since I've started telling the few people who I've told about this before today when
25:07
I told them, especially comic book, you know, business people, insiders.
25:11
Shout out to my brother Joe Illige, I told about it. When
25:15
I told him Tom Mandrake was doing the artist, jaw dropped, you know,
25:18
like jaw dropped to the floor. He's like, what you know?
25:23
Well, I told Dmitri at anyone, what you know. It's the same
25:26
look I've gotten from everyone every time I tell people Tom Mandrake, Isaac.
25:32
When I told Isaac good artist, Yeah, say what? Everyone gets the
25:34
same what you know? It is my first book ever, you know,
25:38
like I've written all kinds of things, but this is my first drafting novel,
25:41
first time. I'm learning the whole structure, the style of it.
25:45
I've read millions of things on the Shout out to my brother Kieran Gillen,
25:48
who is you know, He's always been a teacher about the style and structure
25:52
of comic books. But it's so much things you're learning as you're doing,
25:56
and you know, I'm still gonna be learning, and there's things I wish
25:59
I could have done this way that way. So when Tom is like,
26:02
Yo, I'm inspired by what you're written, I'm like, you've you've had
26:06
words from all the greats, You've been there and done it. You do
26:10
know that your experiences and everything you've gone through in life has built up to
26:15
this is one of your MANYX nexus moments, right, Yes, Like this
26:18
is a fucking nexus point. Yeah, that's what I mean. Because it's
26:22
Tom Mandrake and this dude is sitting there doing this art and I'm like,
26:27
every time I'm sending him scripts, I'm like, oh my god, please,
26:30
you know. And then like even our editors coming back and like,
26:33
yo, this is great, you know. And like I say, at
26:36
first, the Hendricks Organization and the State, they had so much to say,
26:40
and then as the scripts kept coming in, they kept being like less
26:42
and less notes. You know, they're like, oh, you're getting it,
26:45
You're getting all this stuff. It's just telling me. Because even to
26:48
this day, like having finished it, and I'm really proud of it.
26:52
I'm still like, oh my god, people are gonna read this in a
26:53
few months, and like that's something I know. This is our mental health
26:59
awareness mouth, right, And we talked about this all the time on the
27:00
show and imposter syndrome and all that, and I had that all through this.
27:06
Motherfucker. Did you feel like they made the right decision picking you?
27:10
Yes? Hell fuck it? I feel like I mean, I always felt
27:14
like that. I felt like I'm the best player on the court, you
27:15
know what I mean, Like, so, why did you have imposter syndrome?
27:19
Because it's still okay one, because this is my first book, right,
27:23
and so because I know people like hearing Goodland, because they've become friends
27:29
of mine over the years, you know, and because I'm such fans of
27:32
there as first, people are like Damon Lindeloft, you know, I know
27:36
they're going to read this, you know. And it's just like when I
27:40
was working on American Guys and I was like, oh my god, these
27:41
episodes are gonna come out, and then they didn't, so I ain't have
27:44
to worry about it. And I was like, oh, you know,
27:47
I was mad, Well you're afraid of this, Well you're afraid of this
27:49
being real than I mean, yes, no, No, I was excited.
27:56
I was much more excited than afraid because I knew we'd put in the
28:00
work. You know, I knew me and Mellow had done the work,
28:04
and I knew Tom Mandrake was fucking doing the work, like you know.
28:10
But I knew me and Mellow had done the work, like I knew.
28:12
Like I said, I've been a comic reader since before I can remember.
28:15
It's one of the earliest things in my life, you know. And I've
28:18
been a reader since even before that, Like I was reading at a very
28:22
advanced level since I was a very little kid. And so I've read tens
28:27
of thousands of comics. I can't tell you. I was just reading all
28:30
of Peter David's houlk Run again. That was you know, It's like hundreds
28:34
of pages I just read through in a few days like that. You know,
28:37
I just chew through these ships. You know, it is what it
28:38
is. I read comics, you know. I read trouble new ones today,
28:41
like I just read absorbed them. Shits, No, you know,
28:45
no problem. So having done that, I've read a lot of greats and
28:49
a lot of bad ones. And I knew from the jump, especially once
28:55
we turned it in and once I really said and you know, I've reread
28:57
it a million times, you know, I edited it down, and I'm
29:00
like, oh, we really told it the last story in these four issues.
29:03
You know, it's about four issues longer, So it's about eighty eight
29:07
ninety one hundreds something page, you know, around that pages of art,
29:11
you know, a story. How much the art is going to be I'm
29:14
not sure because you know, Tom is going a little bit overboard with some
29:17
pagesn't doing all kinds of masterful shit. So I'm not exactly sure how long
29:22
it's going to be in the end. But what we wrote was like,
29:26
it's a lot in these pages. You know, there's a lot of story,
29:30
and there's a lot of story that's told in that, plus a lot
29:33
of bad story that's established, a lot of stuff that's set up for future
29:37
adventurous if possible. I gotta pause you for a second, because you said
29:42
you did the work, You said you really dug deep, you said you
29:48
knew it was ill, you believed in yourself you were the guy. So
29:53
what were you so afraid of reactions from people? And knowing that sure the
30:00
guy doesn't mean you're above. Criticism doesn't mean that anything should be flawless and
30:03
it needs to be perfect. And because of that, I know that people
30:07
are gonna, you know, there's gonna be people like, oh, this
30:10
sucks, you know, and I've got to deal with that. Excuse me.
30:15
And that's something that I on that level have not had to deal with
30:18
yet. Okay, there it is. That's what I want to know.
30:22
Yeah, Like, you know, we've done this show for years. I've
30:25
been a DJ for longer than that. You know, I've lived in the
30:26
public eye for most you know, longer than I haven't, and I've dealt
30:32
with positive and negative criticism all through it, and I all know, for
30:34
most of it there are two sides of the same coin. But it's certain
30:40
people who I want to impress, you know. That's more what your feedback
30:45
is important to you. Yeah, it's like we were I think we were
30:48
talking about this on the panel that we're that will be part of this show.
30:52
But I was taught. I think I was. I think it was
30:56
that emiself, But I've mentioned it recently, like I always think of Too
30:57
Short and how he talked about when he making an album. He made it
31:02
for the two short fans. So he's like, I'm trying to make the
31:03
best album for that one person. And yeah, it wasn't on the panel
31:07
where I was like, I'm trying to reach that one farmer person, you
31:11
know, when I was talking about the people who used to email us or
31:12
still email us with personal, you know, heartfelt messages. So I'm like,
31:17
I'm trying to reach them, yea, every week, that one motherfucker,
31:21
because I know if I reached them like that, I'm gonna reach everyone.
31:23
So that's how it felt when I'm writing this. I'm like, I'm
31:26
trying to impress the motherfucker's who impressed meat, you know what I mean.
31:30
That's how like I'm like, Yo, I want to fuck their heads up,
31:33
like people like Joe Willage. I'll be honest, you know I wanted
31:36
to fuck Joe hell. I think you think you succeeded before you ever read
31:41
it, you succeeded. Yeah, but I wanted to fuck his head up
31:44
because I know he's read it, you know, if probably way more comics
31:48
than me. And so it's like in the art form of comics and something
31:52
too. Like I tweeted this a few weeks ago before we made announcement and
31:56
I'm gonna retweet it now. It's like I said my first I wrote it
32:00
in a way that if you translated into film, it will cost hundreds of
32:04
millions of dollars. That's not impossible, yeah, because that's how you want
32:07
to get rid of, you know. But Blood Guardens of the Galaxy was
32:09
allegedly impossible, and we have three so different and I see, I'll be
32:14
out. But Gardens of the Gallasy also cost over one hundred million dollars.
32:16
And this is one hundred million dollars. In this world, we can make
32:20
it. This is three hundred million easily, and we could. But that's
32:23
why I wrote it like this, because I didn't write it for it to
32:28
be translated to a movie. I wrote it to be the illest fucking comic
32:31
book because like, that's that's what I wanted to do, because there are
32:36
certain things that you can only do in comic books, and you have no
32:39
budget. In a comic book, you know, your only budgeted, like
32:44
Karen had this whole essay about Karen gillen ahole essay about your budget is limited
32:49
by what your artists can draw, and so how much you want to stress
32:52
them out per page. Basically, it's what your budget is, and so
32:57
like to that limit, I couldn't like have time like draw do this,
33:00
you know, but but you have that anyway, Yeah, who does a
33:05
lot anyway? Anyway, the second and third page of this shit is I
33:14
there. Maybe I wrote those pages there, maybe like less than a paragraph
33:20
of description, you know, I said blah blah blah blah blah when I
33:24
got back those two pages. To this day, I've spent hours just on
33:30
those two pages. Yeah, hours on those two pages, just sitting there
33:34
like, I mean, right now, I'm just as I'm saying it,
33:37
that pop into my head. I'm like, yeah, I'm just like those
33:39
two pages. And so when you talk about we're back to that, you
33:44
know what was my favorite part of working on this book? That was like
33:46
again and again, I still got pages I'm waiting on, you know,
33:51
pages right now, and it's like I can't wait, you know. Every
33:55
time, you like, like when we got like about halfway through it,
33:58
I was like, oh my god, we haven't even gotten to you know,
34:00
one of my favorite characters, and they're about to come up. So
34:02
I'm finally going to see how Tom is going to interpret this and then he
34:07
gets to it in the first like you would get and it's been such an
34:08
ill process. He'll send us the pencils, you know, which are the
34:12
raw pencils. So I see the raw and I'm like, oh when I'm
34:15
picking out all these little details, and then when you see Tom's inks over
34:20
it, it's just like, like that is. I can't. I've never
34:28
had this sperience, you know. I've never had someone take my words and
34:31
translate them into another medium other than I've written plays and seen them act it
34:36
out. You know, I've done that, but I've never had someone you
34:39
know, I've never had to finish anything I've written before I shot the film.
34:44
I directed it. Things like that, short films like that, so
34:47
I didn't get to see someone else translate. You know. It was akin
34:52
to when I made a production and I let this dude mix it. And
34:54
I've had two people mix two different tracks now, and both times when I
34:59
get them back, I'm like, oh shit, you know wow, you
35:01
know, but this is even crazier because it's like a whole different medium.
35:06
You know. Yeah, it's like they took words and made it into art.
35:09
Yes, yes, yes, yes, that shit is It's so crazy
35:15
though, because it's like, no, I mean, he's so talented,
35:19
that's one thing, but his style, like it wouldn't matter to me,
35:22
you know, it's different styles. I can't wait to do this more and
35:25
more because it's like to see, you know, your work translated into different
35:30
styles is to be so ill to me too. But Tom has such a
35:34
clean and beautiful and just very story, very expressive, very expressive emotions on
35:44
every minor character in every page. You can just feel a whole story like
35:50
it. As a kid, I used to look at art and I would
35:52
just if it didn't have a story behind it, I would just make up
35:54
a whole story for that page, like it was some painting. I would
35:58
make up the whole story in my head about what happened before after that.
36:01
And seeing this his art is like fucked me up so much. Tres like,
36:06
I want to write about every character on every page, every side character,
36:09
I want to write the whole story on them. I would think you
36:12
were finding joy in the surprises because it's translating words, which is one type
36:20
of art, into another form of art, but then translating shit that you
36:23
didn't we maybe not intending to translate or didn't think that could be translated,
36:28
and he did it. There's like, um, the very first page again,
36:32
like I I was trying to slide if I wanted to say, what
36:39
was the inspiration? And I don't so, but I was there was one.
36:45
I had it. I was going to completely jack the visual style of
36:51
something for this first page. You know. That was what was in my
36:54
head. Was ill, once it comes out, I'll probably get back to
36:59
that and explaining some of the inspirations and all that, but I want to
37:01
wait on that. So I had that in my head. I was like,
37:04
okay, just trying to look like this, this and this and this,
37:07
you know, when he sends me this art back and that's how I
37:08
described it, this this and this motherfucker you know, he said, okay
37:13
boys, and then and and this is very early in our process and this
37:19
was something. This was like like you talked about how did this collaborator process
37:22
work? Because I had it like directed this page to a t you know,
37:25
this shot, this shot, this shot, this shot. No.
37:29
On the page two, I've written it like that you did, okay,
37:31
direction, I've written like, you know, these panels should be shaped like
37:35
this, you know, I want them to look like this on this page,
37:38
because it was a motion and a rhythm we're going for and I wanted
37:42
to be like this. I get that page back in its nothing like a
37:47
cool story, bro, And let me show you who I am. It's
37:51
still but in. I mean dog. When I talk about another page that
37:54
I've stared at forever and ever, it is that very first page. And
37:59
when I say it expressed everything to a t about what I was expressing,
38:06
but it did not look at all what I had thought of. Sam,
38:16
that's surprised that joy, like, that's that joy and that and that's when
38:21
I emailed him back from and I was a little tom. I don't give
38:23
a shit what I wrote them stripped from now Like, if you have a
38:28
different way of seeing things in the way I did it, you do whatever
38:30
you want and I'll put them because we still will do the change words.
38:37
Yeah, we're not doing it exactly like the Marvel method, which is more
38:40
like you just describe the scene and then they draw it and then you fill
38:44
in the blanks. We have a full script, you know, Like I
38:46
said, sometimes I had panel directions, you know, because I adventured a
38:51
certain way and I need certain things to happen on you know, even like
38:54
especially that first page. There's a lot of musical references and things like that
38:58
in this book. So it's like certain things I wanted to happen a certain
39:00
way, but it's still worked out perfectly. It's all I can say about
39:04
that first page, you know. And but then after that I was much
39:07
more loose with it, even like by the you know, as I'm turning
39:10
into last pages. To him, it's a lot less direction. It's more
39:14
like describing what is on the page and then you know, panel by panel
39:17
basically. But even Daddy's changed, you know, in ways, and I
39:22
don't give a shit because yeah, like I and what happened. What we're
39:25
still about to do now is the lettering paths where we will actually take our
39:30
words and be like, Okay, do we need to lessen them out of
39:32
words on this page? Do we need more you know, etcetera, etcetera,
39:36
things like that. But for the most part, I'm not looking to
39:40
change too much of that. I feel like, you know, we've done
39:43
like so many edits to this. It's more just about like to fit with
39:46
his art, like do we need so much or can his art tell this?
39:51
You know? Art the characters saying too much, but as far as
39:52
like the general just what they're saying and like the words, I'm good because
39:57
I feel like we we did that work. Man. It's you know,
40:00
yeah, you've poured you're being yourself, your your your soul into this.
40:05
I mean, I know that's kind of cliche to saying that, but it
40:07
really is really evident to me just in how you're speaking and how you express
40:10
explaining the process. How much of yourself and of course a mello has been
40:15
poured into here and what you've went through, all the mental gymnastics you had
40:21
to go through to like, you know, recognize where you were in this
40:23
whole ecosystem, right, but also how important your contributions are, Like you're
40:29
one of the authors of this, right, and there was nobody else to
40:30
lean on, right. And you mentioned having messages and things that you want
40:36
to get out, you know, particularly music and the African American community and
40:39
what we stand for when it comes to music and our contribution and blackness overall.
40:46
Like, yeah, what do you hope people get out of this after
40:50
reading the graphic novel? Oh? Man, Well, the first thing is
40:54
the very first thing is what I established what I pitched the Hendricks have stayed
41:01
on was the fact that, like me personally, my first god of guitar
41:07
is Prince and then it's Hendricks. And I really don't care what order you
41:10
put them in, but you better put those two and then you can put
41:14
anybody else after that. And so that's pretty much what I wanted. That
41:17
was the first thing I wanted to establish, like, Hendricks is one of
41:22
the greatest musicians of all time, and he's a black man, and he
41:27
knew he was a black man, and he knew what that meant in this
41:30
world, and he always represented that through his music, and I do not
41:34
feel like that's represented nearly enough. And so that's what that was. The
41:37
very first thing I wanted to get across was how much Hendricks is part of
41:44
black culture. And that was the very first thing that I hope people take
41:47
away from it. And then the second thing was that people get this fucking
41:52
awesome, dope ass sci fi opera Star Wars. This inspired you know,
42:00
fable grand tale with a real human story in the middle of it. Obviously,
42:09
I mean, you gotta have human stories, and you know, any
42:12
great story, and seeing black people do magic and space ship and space ship,
42:21
you know what I mean. Yeah, and just all the things that
42:24
I grew up on. Seeing It's one of those things where I felt like
42:28
I took everything that ever influenced me and put it into this book. You
42:31
know, Like there's brand action, you know, inspired by martial arts and
42:37
anime and you know, gunfo and all that type of thing, and then
42:43
music just being a central part of it. And then weirdness. You know.
42:47
That was something I just tried to do on every page as much as
42:52
possible, was to just, like I said, do things that I feel
42:54
like I could only really get away with in a comic book because it would
42:58
just cost too much in the movie week and somebody would be like, nah,
43:00
we can do it this way for cheaper, you know. So it's
43:04
like, fucking how weird can we make everything on every page? Who?
43:07
Who would you say this book is dedicated to? In your efforts to bring
43:12
this alive? Oh man, I don't know that. Um, I'd probably
43:21
say, like most things in my life are, you know, in some
43:23
way dedicated to like my mother, you know, rest in Piece and to
43:27
combat Jack rest in Piece, you know, because those are two of the
43:30
biggest influences of my life, we will pass away. And I'd also say
43:36
to black music musicians worldwide, you know, like that's really who I feel
43:42
like this is, you know, a love letter too, Yeah, because
43:45
it is like it is directly a love letter to every black musician and even
43:52
you know, just musicians, you know, because I don't want to be
43:54
like, you know, just the black people. But you know, it's
43:57
really about how black music is at the core or of American culture. You
44:01
know. That's the first thing. And so that is what I wanted.
44:06
That's another thing I wanted to express through this, and I feel like we
44:07
do express that. You know, it takes place in space. It's obviously,
44:12
like we say, very allgorical, where you know, talking about things
44:15
that happen on earth. Yeah, what you want to do when people start
44:19
cosplaying as these characters? Oh shit like that and um and like seeing people
44:27
do fan art and shit is like that's the next level, you know what
44:30
I mean. Like the Tom Mandrid thing was one thing. But I'm hoping
44:35
and I pray and I just feel, you know, in my heart that
44:37
these characters are going to resonate. I feel like Raina and Vesper, two
44:42
of my favorite characters, are going to be people's favorite characters for various reasons.
44:47
And I just think that we're going to see a god willing a lot
44:52
of them. Of Foxy, another character who I love of, Hindreds himself,
44:59
and variation of Hendricks, because Hendricks is a you know, the character
45:02
Hendricks is not exactly Jimmy Hendricks, so you will see different styles and all
45:08
kinds of flavor. Tom Brady put his heart into the designs and the characters
45:13
and the fashion of what they're wearing. You know, that was a large
45:16
part of our destruction and how everything is stylizing, how things draw inspiration from
45:22
both his Hendricks's real life and from all these other things that you know,
45:27
we were throwing into the mix. So yeah, the Coplay sit, I
45:31
can't even you know, that's I can't imagine. Man, Like I remember
45:36
I was with Hearing Gillan and Jamie mccolby one time when I'm sending there talking
45:40
to somebody who's cosplaying is one of the Wicken and divine as the Morgan,
45:45
and they walked up, you know, and so she was losing her ship
45:49
and they're just like, yo, you know, you're and she was really
45:52
dope. You know it's not the Morgan, it's the three the Morgan's girlfriend.
45:57
No, that is the Margan, right Morgan, but with the Ns
46:00
and yeah, yep, so yeah, she was at the Morgan and they
46:05
were like bigging her up and stuff. So I can't imagine that type of
46:07
moment for me or Mellow or Tom you know, like to see this stuff,
46:12
you know, another translation, another art translation, and more that it
46:16
struck a chord with them that much, you know what I mean, where
46:21
it strikes a chord with people that much, where they put the time and
46:23
effort into cosplaying, is your creations thought, Like, I can't, Like,
46:29
I know, Mellow's already seen that with his Blade Runner book, which
46:30
is fantastic Blade Runner origins. Pick it up if you haven't from Titan Publishing
46:35
as well. It's really fucking great and it's black. It's fucked as well.
46:39
And mellows like me where he throws in every reference from everything that he's
46:44
ever grown up with into his book. So that's another thing I loved about
46:46
the Blade Runner book. It's got a lot of ill references and shit.
46:51
But he's seen that, you know, I know, he's seen people cosplaying
46:53
as his territters and stuff, so he's been through that a bit already,
46:58
and this is like that something like That's like we haven't already talked about that
47:01
as much. It's like, this is Jimmy Hendricks. Like today, Jimmy
47:06
Hendricks's Instagram account with a million people following posting this shit, and I was
47:10
just reading through the comments and you know, seeing people's feeling about Jimmy Hendricks
47:14
and his music in the state of where he's at right now, and to
47:17
know what this book is trying to represent to fans of his. That's that
47:22
was another super scary part. Yeah, you know, yeah, because I'm
47:27
a big fan of his, but I know, like it's just like I'm
47:30
a like, no, not even close. Like I know a lot of
47:32
Princess music, and I don't feel like I know shit. You know,
47:35
I don't know shit about Jimmy Hendricks when it really comes down to it,
47:37
you know what I mean. I know what I know, and I know
47:39
what I love, and I've learned as much as I can. But I
47:43
know there are people who, you know, study this man every day of
47:45
their lives, you know, and so those are the people I wanted to
47:50
impress. I take a breath. You could take a breath, take a
47:58
deep breathman, I mean, I mean you deserve it, right, Like,
48:02
no, this is this is the man, I mean episode because I'm
48:07
you know, I you know, I might be privy. There's some stuff
48:08
that other people may not be. There's still every question I ask you was
48:13
my questions because I want to understand like how this whole, the whole thing
48:19
developed, right, and how it affects you. Like you mentioned earlier,
48:22
there's being in mental health Awareness month, and like, especially as a creative,
48:27
this stuff affects deeply on so many different levels. Right, Yes,
48:31
you're tapping, you're tapping into yourself, your own imagination, but then your
48:37
own experiences, and then you're pulling that out and putting it to paper and
48:40
then being vulnerable in that way. And then people that you love or respect
48:46
get to read it, and then people who you don't know from a can
48:49
of beans get to read it, and people will pass judgment and it's like,
48:52
so how do you deal? I don't know yet? That part.
48:54
I don't know yet, Like honestly, that's okay, Yeah, I don't
48:58
I don't I don't know that part yet. Like like I said, it's
49:02
it was mainly just like this, like today was one of my biggest not
49:10
fears, but like more like you know, I don't like, Yeah,
49:17
it was fear in a way, you know, an anticipation and just like
49:22
I just didn't know, and it's just not over yet, you know,
49:24
because I still haven't seen everyone. Yeah, I haven't seen so many reactions
49:30
to like even just an announcement from people who I know that I want to
49:35
see, you know, like Joe hit me. Joel lettit me and we
49:37
were talking about it and he was like, YO, proud of you,
49:39
you know, and so that was really doping. But mean, you know
49:42
he's seen stuff because i'd already you know, I've been distressing with him.
49:45
I told him a lot of things about it, so he knows a lot
49:46
of it inside just like you do. So there are people I'm still waiting
49:51
on reaction from just this and then the reading of it, the actual when
49:57
people get it in their hands. That's I have no idea. I don't
50:00
know how I'm gonna feel when I get in my hands. Like I said,
50:02
I still don't even seen so much. There's still so much work to
50:07
be done on it. Like the colorist shout out to Justin. You know,
50:10
they're working on it now. Tom is pretty much almost finished with the
50:15
art, so I'm about to get the final pages and see that and see
50:19
the ending and like how it ends is like a really fucking heartfelt, beautiful
50:24
moment for me. Like I've asked people who've read before, you know,
50:29
the whole thing, and when they finished it, I was like, did
50:31
did you start winning the cry right here? And they were like yeah,
50:35
man, and that I was like, Yo, that's fucking crazy, because
50:37
you know, like yeah, because when I've reread it, especially when it
50:44
took like when I took a few months off from it and then I reread
50:46
it, it almost got me, you know. It was I was like,
50:50
Okay, we really did something here. You know, there's something here,
50:52
like this shit is special. You know. Talent would say, it's
50:57
so that I can't imagine even seeing those pages. And then when Justin starts
51:01
giving me the colored pages, you know, and then the letter, you
51:06
know, when they turn in their work, and then when it's physically bound,
51:10
and you know, Tom Andred did this wraparound cover, which is one
51:15
of my favorite things in comic books to have wrap around coverage. You know,
51:17
and so to see it on the shelves when I walk into bookstores and
51:22
ship and there's all these moments that I'm not you know, I don't know.
51:25
How do you feel a little bit like he who remains where it's like,
51:30
you know what's gonna happen if you don't know quite how it's gonna happen,
51:34
or you know, up to a certain point, and it's like now
51:37
you don't know what happens after yourself. Yeah, everything after this is like
51:42
I don't know what's gonna happen, and I'm so excited. Like comic dot
51:45
Com, Yeah, it's yeah, it's gonna drop after New York Comic Con
51:52
this year, but like next year, twenty twenty four, we're gonna be
51:55
it, you know, probably every con, you know. So that's gonna
51:59
be a whole different thing that I'm not ready for it. Forbidden Planet,
52:01
I mean, yeah, I google the name of the title and just to
52:07
see what will pop up, and it's it's it's already insane. When is
52:12
the When is the official drop date? November seventh, November Day? And
52:16
people can pre order now? Yeah, people can pre order now. You
52:21
can you know, go to your local Comet Shop. You can call them
52:23
up. You can call any bookstore if you have to. You can use
52:27
Amazon if you don't have any of the above in your area. You know
52:30
it's available everywhere. You can go straight to Titan's website and I think pre
52:35
order it there. And yeah, so November seventh, and it's okay to
52:42
feel it, Ben, I mean you can feel feel the power, feel
52:44
the purple haze, feel it, Ben, I mean, just drink it
52:47
all in this an end as I can't alluding to. This is very very
52:52
early on in the process. Yeah, super early on in the process,
52:58
Like this is the first day, and this is the first time I'm even
53:00
talking about this. And like I say, because I know other people involved,
53:06
like because of Mellow Mellow's name, rings Bells in the world are comic
53:08
books now, and because of Tom Mandrakes who named Range just Bells, and
53:15
because of Hendricks. You know, this is doing to reach a lot of
53:17
areas that I can't even foresee. Like even the first announcement was made on
53:22
like some rock website today where I'm like, you know, that's dope,
53:27
but yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's not who I would
53:30
expect it to be talking about this already? Yeah, when with this,
53:36
like obviously there are things to prep for, like obviously you're gonna be doing
53:38
interviews, You're gonna be going places, signings, this and that. Like
53:43
what what do you I don't know if it's too early to tell, but
53:46
maybe you have something in mind? What's next? Right? Like do you
53:51
then parlay this into doing another Hendricks story? Obviously you don't have this,
53:57
it's not your decision, but would you like to? Would you do you
54:00
think you want to try something else? Like what is your thoughts here?
54:04
You are? You like, yo, I'm making graphic novels. So the
54:06
day I die now where I definitely want to do more comics. I knew
54:10
that from the moment I started writing this one. I was like, oh,
54:14
this is awesome. You know that, like I said, it because
54:16
of having worked in Hollywood for a bit, you know know, in different
54:20
sides of it, and I just really and like I said, going back
54:23
to that no budget ship, that shit just gets me. You know.
54:25
It's like anything you write, they can just draw it and there it is,
54:30
you know, And so it's like that is you know, there's no
54:34
limits, you know, there's nobody We're like, yo, I don't know
54:36
how to create this in CGI, you know, or you know, or
54:38
when you see it in CGI, looks terrible, you know, if you'd
54:42
be like, oh your CDI you know. No, it's like, you
54:45
know, Tom drew some shit, Like I mean, there's some super weird
54:47
shit in this book, and Tom drew it, and it's like it looks
54:52
logical, you know, as weird as it is, and it just works
54:54
and it's like wow, you know. And then there's biggest mansive i'm AT's
55:00
type action in this shit, you know, like even on the cover you
55:05
can see this lying dragon looking thing, you know. And I won't say
55:10
too much more about that because that's a big part of our storyline. But
55:15
that alone is one of these, you know, fantastical things that would cost
55:19
so much. So that type of stuff is like yeah. And so when
55:22
I first started writing it and realizing because I heard people say that all the
55:28
time, but realizing what they meant, and then wanting to really like because
55:31
I feel like i've i mean obviously barely even scratched the surface of Comma books,
55:37
Like I don't even know if there's anything in this that I don't want
55:47
to say groundbreaking, could do. There's some groundbreaking shit, because there's definitely
55:51
shit in this book I've never seen done in a Comma book, and I've
55:53
asked people about it, you know, I like, have you ever seen
55:55
this type of shit done in a Coma book? Like? Nah, I'm
55:58
like, all right, well, I know we got that, you know.
56:00
But as far as like the whole form of Comma books, there's so
56:06
many things I would love to explore and weirdness that I didn't get to attempting
56:08
this yet that I would love to, you know, just because of space
56:13
or it just wouldn't fit the style of what we were doing here. There's
56:15
so much more I would love to do, So yeah, more common books.
56:19
Um, I'm working on something else right now, Like I got an
56:22
idea in my head now that I've been formulating that I think it's gone to
56:25
be my next thing, and that might just be something that I might pitch
56:29
it to some companies or I might just see about crowdfunding it and just doing
56:34
it, you know, myself. So motivated, Yeah, because yeah,
56:37
I'm like, I'm super motivated, and yes, I and I you know,
56:43
I have on my vision board and then my plans to like do you
56:45
know work and write the characters that I grew up loving. And you know,
56:50
also because I love people like you know, Kirkman and Karen Gillen and
56:57
people with jamal, people who create their own you know. That's why even
57:01
though Hendricks is obviously something we even in this story we created. I mean,
57:07
there is so much world building, you know, in these in this
57:10
Graphord novel, So that is something like I felt like, like you said,
57:16
could I tell more? I could tell dozens of more stories from this
57:21
book. Man, there's so anyone could you know? Could There's so much
57:24
story and so much world building. There's so much characters that we created who
57:29
are full and living. Like i'd say, rand In Vesper just be knocking
57:31
in my head all day, you know, like to this day. You
57:35
know, I can't get them out of my head. So I would love
57:37
to write more of them. M Yeah, wow, I want to give
57:45
you a chance. Like like I said, it's it's you're you're communicating this
57:50
as it's happening. I can tell everything's happening in real time right now.
57:52
So yeah, I just want to say that I appreciate that. I know
57:58
you weren't prepared to this when I was like Noah, he's gonna talk about
58:00
this to me. So this is your episode, Ben, Okay, this
58:04
is your episode. This is the Purple Haze, this is the Jimi Hendricks
58:07
episode. Because I just want people to understand what it's like to be in
58:14
the Maelstrom. You know what I mean like to be in it. We
58:16
interview creatives all the time. Everybody knows that you love the questions we ask
58:21
them all this, but when it's one of us going through it, like,
58:24
it hits a little bit different. So, um, I'm gonna let
58:29
you get some peace. This is definitely the craziest thing since American guys,
58:35
you know, like, yeah, that I've personally been involved in, because
58:38
yeah, it's been and even because it's so even so crazier than American guys.
58:45
It is because I now I know it's coming out, you know,
58:46
like as of today May seventeenth, I know the date, November seven,
58:51
It's real, like and there the fan famier with you, Yeah, are
58:55
with you. I already see you know, and I And that was one
58:59
thing, you know, you said, the huge remains. That was one
59:01
thing I could anticipate, you know, I knew the support from the fan
59:06
fan was to be there. You know, I knew that right away,
59:08
and man, like we always say this, but thank y'all, you know
59:14
what I mean. Like when I saw people already be like, Yo,
59:15
already pre ordered boom, Yo, I need my sign copy boo. Yeah,
59:19
shout out to my bro maids, you know what I mean? He
59:21
was like, Yo, it's coming to day after my birthday, you know,
59:23
I mean down the line though you know, people have just been hitting
59:27
me y'are already pre ordered yo. Yo. Somebody was like, oh man,
59:30
you know it's not coming out for NYCC, but I was like,
59:32
Yo, it'll be out for anyone comment signing though you know I'll probably be
59:37
a forbidden you know as well. Like so that I knew, you know,
59:40
and that was great to see the immediate you know, sight unseen word
59:45
Like, it's funny too because the blurbs that are out right now describing the
59:50
story are so you know, they're good blurbs, but it it's just barely
59:54
scratching the fucking surface of this book. And that's what's so hilarious to because
1:00:00
like one write up was like, which all sounds perfectly reasonable. Was there
1:00:05
summation after you know, it's sarcastically because it doesn't sound reasonable because even the
1:00:08
short blurb, you know, there's a lot of redgulation happenue. And I
1:00:13
was like, yo, that's not even the tip of the iceberg. And
1:00:17
I don't and you know this isn't this is just the tip. I don't
1:00:22
even think it is the iceberg yet for you when it comes to what happens
1:00:24
in the future for you, right, Yes, obviously I mean this,
1:00:29
this is an instance in life and it's opening more doors and more paths for
1:00:35
you, right, and you will have the opportunity to walk through them even
1:00:40
much more so now. Yeah, and like I know we're wrapping up,
1:00:45
but this is like one thing that we were talking about this on which I
1:00:47
guess will not be a part of this episode anymore, getting this too the
1:00:51
long but we were talking about this on or UCLA panel, which will be
1:00:53
another episode. It will be another episode. Yes, I'm glad you were
1:00:57
with me now, but welcome to the end of the timeline. Yeah.
1:01:01
So on the panel UCLA, we talked about how not just with imposters syndrome,
1:01:09
but about how one of the biggest lessons that I learned in my life
1:01:14
recently and I'm still learning every day is about how what is for you it
1:01:19
is for you. And like me and Mello and this is you know,
1:01:23
when I get into the super hotest part of the shop. Like me and
1:01:27
Mello worked on American Gods together and then I pretty much trying to left Hollywood
1:01:31
due to the personal reasons and having to deal with a lot of stuff in
1:01:34
my life. And he kept working and now he's like producer on Station nineteen
1:01:38
and doing this and that, you know, and popping, you know,
1:01:42
and I'm like, for a while, me and him, even we're like
1:01:45
had kind of fallen out, you know a little bit, because we were
1:01:47
just like, you know, in different places, and I wasn't really accepting
1:01:51
of that lesson that I needed to learn, you know, and that lesson
1:01:53
is that what's for you is for you. And then Mello reached out to
1:01:57
me, you know, he got Blade Runner popping with tight End and then
1:02:00
they asked him to do this and he reached out to me. It was
1:02:01
like, yo, you want to pitch this with me because I know you
1:02:05
got music, you know, and I know you can fucking write, and
1:02:07
you know you need to be writing, and so that was really big.
1:02:10
You know, and that like brought our friendship. But you know, we're
1:02:14
fucking brothers, you know. That's the thing, Like we are really brothers.
1:02:16
Like our life intertwines in so many ways that it's weird sometimes, you
1:02:22
know. And like he's a person I met much later in my life who
1:02:24
became one of my best friends. Like I'd known him since I was a
1:02:28
you know, two year old. So it brought us back together. And
1:02:32
that's something that I'm super grateful for this book for doing. And it taught
1:02:37
me that lesson that, you know, because when I was like, oh
1:02:42
man, he's doing all this shit and they're doing all this shit, and
1:02:44
I was like, but that's not really what I want from my life either.
1:02:46
You know. What I want from my life is shit like this,
1:02:50
you know. And that's what the universe provided me, was shit like this.
1:02:53
And then it's also provided me with like another big thing I've been doing
1:02:58
is my own music and how that's turning now, and it's like that's what
1:03:00
I wanted it, you know, And I had to realize that, and
1:03:02
I had to realize that what it's for you is for you, and that's
1:03:07
something that I think it's even expressing this book, because yeah, it's so
1:03:10
weird how things that you're going through just turn into the stuff that you're curating,
1:03:15
because that's something that even Hindris learns in this book, you know.
1:03:17
And so yeah, well, I mean, so so so soul, infinitely
1:03:23
proud of you, and I'm like I said, I'm going to wrap it
1:03:29
up there. I think you you've expressed the heart and soul of what is
1:03:35
what has occurred, and I'm just looking forward to all the winds on this
1:03:39
and all the future wins and all the future lessons and everything in between.
1:03:44
I'm just so grateful for this opportunity for you. So congratulations, thank you.
1:03:49
It was so ill seeing that cover today and seeing like Mellow Brown DJ
1:03:53
been, I mean, and I told him I wanted DJ on my name,
1:03:57
you know me because I always wanted to carry in with me, you
1:04:00
know, like wherever I go, like because that that, you know what
1:04:03
inspired a lot of this. It's because I am a DJ, you know,
1:04:10
so I was like, even as a writer, I want that to
1:04:12
always be known, you know DJ, because I want DJ's to get you
1:04:15
know, just how I feel hinderous to serve respect. I want DJ's to
1:04:18
get their respects so big. To see that and then to see Tom motherfucking
1:04:23
man Drake, you know what I mean, to see those three names on
1:04:26
a cover and I was like, Yo, that's to be nets, you
1:04:29
know, like X Men, DJ Ben, I mean, you know what
1:04:30
I mean. Like now that I saw that, I was like, oh,
1:04:33
okay, you got dream big man. Yeah, no, bro,
1:04:36
that's that's coming fan. I you know, I'm I'm I'm determined, you
1:04:40
know, I dream man. I'm determined because you know, no, man,
1:04:43
I want to write X men. You know, one of them spent
1:04:46
off books something with some new incident. You know, Incredible Hulk, I
1:04:49
love it, and now Incredible whole would be one of the ones. I
1:04:54
don't know, because I mean, that's when you're walking on you're standing on
1:04:57
the shoulder. No matter what you're doing, you're standing on the shoulders giants.
1:05:00
So like anything, you gotta represent. And that's just how I feel
1:05:02
about comments. And that's that's what I you know, that was what I
1:05:05
mean. Like it it's not just like it don't give a ship that this
1:05:09
ain't X Men. It's still a fucking comic book, you know. So
1:05:12
it's like I wanted it to be the best fucking Comma book ever, you
1:05:15
know, and it's yours. It's yours and Melos yours alone. Yeah,
1:05:20
yeah, congratulations been I mean, y'all. As Ben said, make sure
1:05:26
you cop this is the comments I cop too, technically the comments like this
1:05:31
is the commons I copped episode. But make sure you're picking up Hendrick's purple
1:05:39
haze. This ship is dropping, you said after com Console November seventh,
1:05:44
November November seventh, we're gonna be talking about this, the Smith talking about
1:05:51
and they mentioned it in the blurb. I was like, yes, and
1:05:55
it's out and I was going to talk about once again. I didn't know
1:05:58
when this was fucking coming out, y'all, so I didn't you after after,
1:06:02
I know, so it'll be to big it up and by then,
1:06:04
you know, we'll be to talk much more about the story. There will
1:06:06
be a lot more about it, you know, art will be out,
1:06:09
there will be a lot more going on with it by then then. I
1:06:11
mean, thank you for letting for oll Nerds be the first exclusive worldwide premiere
1:06:17
Burm Burm burn burn flex Bomb. I mean, where else would I go?
1:06:21
You know, where else would you be but at home? Right?
1:06:25
Yeah? Thank you for pouring your heart and telling the truth to the fan
1:06:31
fam and for foreign nerds like definitely appreciate you. You talking through everything and
1:06:35
again going through every emotion in real time. That takes a lot of courage,
1:06:39
So thank you, um as. Always make sure y'all are locked into
1:06:44
Feill Nerds on your favorite podcast platform. Support us. Make sure you buy
1:06:47
DJ ben Hamen and Melow Brown's graphic novel. Make sure you're on foreill nerds
1:06:55
dot com that you can get dope shit like the T shirt mister Hendrick himself
1:06:59
up there as that's a child and friend's shirt. Also, you can hit
1:07:02
up and grab my Man the Lorian Gucci Man the Lorian shirt, as well
1:07:06
as an amazing variety of other designs. Hit up our Patreon Patreon dot com
1:07:12
slash for all Nerds. You see the vibes, you know the fucking vibes.
1:07:17
You see what your love and your support is turning into. It has
1:07:21
already turned into, but look how much further it's gone. This is because
1:07:27
y'all have supported us from listening and sharing and giving us money and all this
1:07:32
other stuff in between. Because everything you've done has poured back into this vehicle,
1:07:38
back into fore ow nerds is poured back into you. All is poured
1:07:41
into facilitating opportunities to put in more amazing shit into the world that you enjoy.
1:07:47
So first and foremost, as always, thank you to the fan fam.
1:07:50
Appreciate you, love you than I mean you did that. Thank you.
1:07:57
Thank you to Mellow Brown, my brother, Mellow Markers. Thank you,
1:08:00
Mellow you did that. Yeah, I love you for like, thank
1:08:02
you, Tom Man Drake. You gotta come on the show. Mellow yeah,
1:08:05
meow yeah. We'll all be back. You know, we're definitely doing
1:08:10
a signing together like that. I said, we're planning that already to anyone
1:08:12
comments all three of us. Thank you to Justin Prokovic, our colorist,
1:08:16
and like I said, they're gonna say the source of awards you again just
1:08:19
be thank you everybody. Man, I got that shit. Thank God,
1:08:27
thank God. Yeah, thank you Luna for putting up with us as always,
1:08:31
but no, thank you again to everyone, like we said, thank
1:08:34
you to the fan fan, thank you to everyone listening. Thank you for
1:08:38
everyone who listened to this. I did not you know we were planning to
1:08:40
do like it quit twenty minutes and then get into some other stuff that we
1:08:44
have already recorded, but Tatiana obviously had other plans and tricked me to burying
1:08:49
my soul on this episode. So thank you very much. Man. I'm
1:08:54
like I said, and that's the funniest ship. Through all this, we
1:08:58
barely, i mean not even stratched the service of what's in this book,
1:09:02
man. So that's the joy for everybody who's gonna read it. I know,
1:09:06
I don't want to know. I want you. You've never even read
1:09:11
the scrips, right, I have not? No, because yeah, you
1:09:13
wouldn't want it. Yep, you wanted to be I want to be fresh
1:09:15
off the boat on this one, like I want to see it from the
1:09:19
beginning. I can't wait to see these last pages come in. I'm still
1:09:23
like, yeah, shit here. Thank y'all for listening. Appreciate y'all.
1:09:28
Love y'all, I love you. Pros