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With Great Power #331... 22 Panels with Henry Barajas · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:00
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, be careful with that, Henry. Be careful with that. You tell me I can talk about whatever I want, I might start talking about… teaching you about the debt ceiling.
• 0:08
  Tad Eggleston: I apparently… I taught, like, a one-year-old about the debt ceiling once, and everybody was in awe, because I was using, like, real… they're like, everybody else is talking to them in, like, one-syllable things, and you're trying to explain the debt ceiling to him. And I'm like, well, really, I'm trying to explain it to everybody in the room, but he's the one that's listening.
• 0:27
  Henry Barajas: Yeah. No, for sure.
• 0:29
  Tad Eggleston: Welcome back to 22 Panels. My guest today is Henry Barajas. I know him first from La Vas de Mayo Tata Rambo, which is one of the
• 0:40
  Tad Eggleston: Great, great!
• 0:43
  Tad Eggleston: Nonfiction graphic novels of… The last 20 years.
• 0:48
  Tad Eggleston: And also has a wonderful reading guide at the end that I have used as a reference point for all sorts of things.
• 0:58
  Tad Eggleston: But also, we've talked a couple of times on the show already about the fact that you have
• 1:03
  Tad Eggleston: a collection of two comics from Civics for All.
• 1:07
  Tad Eggleston: the New York City… Public schools comic program.
• 1:14
  Henry Barajas: Yep.
• 1:14
  Tad Eggleston: Collected by… by Good Trouble coming up, so why don't you… Talk to us about those.
• 1:22
  Tad Eggleston: To start off.
• 1:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I mean, a big shout-out…
• 1:26
  Henry Barajas: A big shout out to, Civics for All, the New York Department of Education's
• 1:33
  Henry Barajas: group of educators there that value comics in classrooms, and they value comics in,
• 1:43
  Henry Barajas: like, the way we just, like, I… I mean…
• 1:47
  Henry Barajas: Persepolis was just a huge, inspiration, as well as Mouse, in me, and on me, in high school, I was never more engaged,
• 1:59
  Henry Barajas: When those, comics were in the classroom. So I've always wanted to give back to that experience. La Vosta Mayo was a love letter to those comics, so…
• 2:10
  Henry Barajas: Having the opportunity to really focus something that was for classrooms, and… And, And use my love.
• 2:19
  Henry Barajas: For the medium, and what it might do.
• 2:23
  Henry Barajas: For educating people.
• 2:25
  Henry Barajas: That was… that was a golden opportunity, and the first one was about the Loris Huerta, migrant farm workers and union organizers, mainly because I know
• 2:38
  Henry Barajas: A lot of the, accolades and accomplishments are…
• 2:43
  Henry Barajas: Attributed to Cesar Chavez. And, that's just back in 2024. Well, I started making it in 2023, into 2024, published in 2024.
• 2:55
  Henry Barajas: And, it was really an exciting moment for me to be like, hey, yeah, you know, Cesar Chavez did all these things as well, and it's nice to, like, you know, kind of share the recognition.
• 3:08
  Henry Barajas: Because that's the way it should have been at all times, and then just as…
• 3:12
  Henry Barajas: beginning of this year, we find out some very damaging allegations against Cesar Chavez, and…
• 3:18
  Henry Barajas: It is… and which… which also was a weird…
• 3:23
  Henry Barajas: circle moment for me and La Vos de Mayo, just to let people know, La Vos de Mayo thought the Rambo is a comic I made with Jay Gonzo, Bernardo Bryce, and Claire Napier.
• 3:34
  Henry Barajas: Originally Kickstarted, then, recollected for the mass market with Top Gal Productions. It was about my great-grandfather, who was a World War II veteran and Chicano activist who helped one of the last Native American tribes gain federal recognition.
• 3:49
  Henry Barajas: And… My great-grandfather, Ramon Haudiga, was very adamant against having any kind of recognition, which…
• 3:58
  Henry Barajas: Dwarfed all the… any accomplishments that the group had and the community had, and was, consolidated for the tribe.
• 4:08
  Henry Barajas: Which was, I think, a bit off, so that's why I wanted to kind of…
• 4:12
  Henry Barajas: Write that comic and kind of share another part of the history.
• 4:17
  Henry Barajas: But I guess in one of the main things about that comic is they talk about his infidelity with my great-grandmother.
• 4:26
  Henry Barajas: And I was writing that in 2015, at the height of the Me Too movement, so it felt disingenuous to write this glowing, you know, accomplishment comic about him, and not have those conversations. So I did get to kind of touch on some of the…
• 4:41
  Henry Barajas: un… lesser-known parts of Cesar Chavez, and the way he acted towards Dolores, and how she kept, you know, a lot of, she wrote a lot of letters of all the grievances she had.
• 4:55
  Henry Barajas: And to have this, to also mention that, like, yeah, he was someone who did some important things, but was also a human being and had his faults. Little did we know those faults would be, you know, maybe, I mean, the allegations point towards some really.
• 5:12
  Tad Eggleston: Possibly.
• 5:12
  Henry Barajas: even…
• 5:13
  Tad Eggleston: Bigger than we, would like them to be.
• 5:15
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, so, so it was nice to write that comic and to kind of help, strengthen the, accomplishments of Dolores, the Filipino farm workers, union organizers that were all a part of the journey in 1968.
• 5:31
  Henry Barajas: And then there was an opportunity to write another comic, with, Louis Chen, who's the artist on both.
• 5:38
  Henry Barajas: the Sal Castro and Dolores Huerta comic, and Gab Contreras, who's the colorist on both of those, and I'm the letterer for both of those projects as well.
• 5:47
  Henry Barajas: And, so I was like… I did one for me, that was something I wanted to do. What do you… what does the department want? And they wanted something on Sal Castro, and since I'm in Los Angeles, it was easy to get to East LA and actually go to his physical classroom in high school and experience it firsthand, and…
• 6:06
  Henry Barajas: And so when the allegations came out about Cesar Chavez, Andrew,
• 6:12
  Henry Barajas: Andrew Aiden, one of the co-founders of Good Trouble Comics, reached out.
• 6:16
  Henry Barajas: and said, hey, we should, you know, we should recollect these comics that you did. And with the permission and the grace of Civics for All, they were… we have an agreement that I get to recollect those as long as they get to do whatever they want, and educate with those pieces, so I'm very happy.
• 6:34
  Tad Eggleston: well.
• 6:34
  Henry Barajas: Harvest Food.
• 6:35
  Tad Eggleston: He seems to have some sort of relationship with them as well, because this is not the first time that Good Trouble has collected…
• 6:41
  Tad Eggleston: Civics for all.
• 6:43
  Henry Barajas: Yes.
• 6:46
  Henry Barajas: obviously, like, I don't under… I don't know the,
• 6:51
  Henry Barajas: I don't know the, the… the full ins and outs of what they do, but this is more of a…
• 6:59
  Henry Barajas: because I have this agreement with them, I can recollect the.
• 7:03
  Tad Eggleston: You can just say yes.
• 7:06
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, so…
• 7:07
  Tad Eggleston: Say yes, you don't need their permission.
• 7:09
  Henry Barajas: I mean, I did get their… I did, I did run it by them. I just wanted to make sure, that, like, hey, this is what I'm doing, are you okay with it? And they were super, I mean…
• 7:18
  Henry Barajas: one of the people there, I don't know if he likes… I know he's pretty shy, so I'm not gonna…
• 7:24
  Henry Barajas: I'm not gonna totally out, out, out him, but one of the person I deal with directly, is very, very awesome and very, supportive of the work that we've done, so…
• 7:37
  Tad Eggleston: One day, I will get over my own…
• 7:39
  Tad Eggleston: like, I have a weird… weird shyness, like, I'm… I'm… I'm much more shy outside of comics than inside of comics, and when I get shy inside of comics, it's not always for the…
• 7:53
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I'm less likely often to get shy because of somebody really famous than somebody who has done something that I am really impressed by and is still not known, and then I go… which means that they might just not be used to…
• 8:06
  Tad Eggleston: to people fawning over them, and I have to try to… to not do that, because I don't want to make them uncomfortable. But, like, these are amazing!
• 8:17
  Henry Barajas: No, I, I struggle with compliments a lot of the time, so I understand the,
• 8:22
  Henry Barajas: The balancing act of being able to accept people's enthusiasm while.
• 8:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I think the comics are also, like… Filled with neurodiverse… Introverts.
• 8:38
  Tad Eggleston: So, like… We like to talk.
• 8:42
  Tad Eggleston: But first, we have to feel safe, and then we have to know that you don't mind that we're weird.
• 8:48
  Henry Barajas: Sure, sure. No, I'm lucky to have had a life outside of comics, so…
• 8:54
  Henry Barajas: So that, I'm prepared to have these conversations, whether they be glowing or negative, you know, so…
• 9:02
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 9:03
  Henry Barajas: I mean… I'm very lucky in that respect.
• 9:06
  Tad Eggleston: I suppose I have a life outside of comics, but… but, but… but…
• 9:14
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I, I don't, I don't know what,
• 9:18
  Tad Eggleston: My life inside of comics is way more interesting, even though it's only existed for, like, 4 years.
• 9:24
  Henry Barajas: there is, like, a bounce… again, another… it's, to me, a balancing act of, like, having, you know, for this, as far as for me, comics is… is kind of a workplace, so I have to, like, treat it in a professional manner, and, like, kind of set guidelines for myself, and…
• 9:42
  Henry Barajas: And especially for other people, whether they be professionals, or the press, or collectors, or retailers.
• 9:49
  Henry Barajas: So I'm always trying to… to… to be… professional.
• 9:54
  Henry Barajas: And a lot of the times, like, there's a lot of people that view, like, oh, well, he was not as, like, forthcoming, or more… more, like, personable.
• 10:05
  Henry Barajas: So he must not like me, or he must be a jerk, and it's like, no, I… I just want to maintain this part of my life.
• 10:13
  Henry Barajas: and have the longevity that I really would like to have.
• 10:17
  Henry Barajas: Right. And sometimes that professionalism can be… Not as,
• 10:23
  Henry Barajas: A lot of people have expectations when they meet, like, me or.
• 10:26
  Tad Eggleston: Well, particularly because, at least, like, for my autistic brain,
• 10:32
  Tad Eggleston: Professionalism is one of the words that, like.
• 10:35
  Tad Eggleston: I get the least, because, like…
• 10:39
  Tad Eggleston: it seems so fluid from environment to environment, person to person.
• 10:45
  Tad Eggleston: like, I can feel like I'm acting completely professional, and somebody can say, that was completely unprofessional. I can sit there going… I can sit there going, this feels completely unprofessional to me, and, like, everybody will be going, what do you mean? This is the definition of professional. I'm like…
• 11:02
  Tad Eggleston: So… particularly because the word that seems to have nothing to do with professional is kindness. I don't understand how you can be unkind and still professional.
• 11:14
  Henry Barajas: I've perfected…
• 11:17
  Tad Eggleston: Kind and unprofessional.
• 11:19
  Henry Barajas: I can do kind…
• 11:21
  Tad Eggleston: to me?
• 11:22
  Henry Barajas: and professional, and I could do unkind and professional.
• 11:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 11:26
  Henry Barajas: Those are very easy for me.
• 11:30
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm certain they are to you, because you seem more thoughtful than a lot of people, but…
• 11:36
  Henry Barajas: I try to be, I really do, I really try.
• 11:39
  Henry Barajas: thoughtful.
• 11:40
  Tad Eggleston: We live in a world where not…
• 11:42
  Tad Eggleston: Everybody is thoughtful, and professionalism seems like a word that's often used to be, like, if you act like me, you're being right, and if you don't act like me, there's something wrong with you.
• 11:56
  Henry Barajas: Right.
• 11:56
  Tad Eggleston: not me.
• 11:58
  Henry Barajas: Yeah. That's a good… that's a good point.
• 12:00
  Tad Eggleston: Saying that that was how you used it.
• 12:03
  Tad Eggleston: Just saying that that's…
• 12:04
  Henry Barajas: No, no, I, I…
• 12:05
  Tad Eggleston: It's how my brain went off.
• 12:08
  Henry Barajas: 100%. I understand exactly what you're saying. I actually had this conversation with somebody before.
• 12:13
  Tad Eggleston: Right, because, I mean, the handful of listeners that I have know this already, but I should be clear with you. When I say my autistic brain, I am autistic. It's not, like, just me… Sure.
• 12:25
  Tad Eggleston: Like, saying, oh, that part of my brain that's… that's weird.
• 12:29
  Henry Barajas: I get it, I get it 100%. And in this business, you're… you're met with all kinds of personalities and people on the spectrum in so many different ways.
• 12:39
  Tad Eggleston: And because of that, this business is really comfortable to me. It's the rest of the world.
• 12:45
  Tad Eggleston: That is often.
• 12:47
  Henry Barajas: Sure.
• 12:49
  Henry Barajas: That makes sense. Sorry to, to sidetrack, but… but yeah.
• 12:54
  Tad Eggleston: I was, I was gonna bring it back, bring it back to, to,
• 12:59
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna go backwards. We'll talk to… I know the Dolores was the even more personal story to you, and that's one of the reasons I want to go backwards to it, because I want to make certain we get Sal in before we start running out of steam or anything.
• 13:15
  Tad Eggleston: Because I appreciate teacher stories.
• 13:18
  Henry Barajas: Oh, yeah. I appreciate t-shirts.
• 13:19
  Tad Eggleston: stories a lot.
• 13:21
  Henry Barajas: I wouldn't be where I am without some of the educators in my life, so I'm always.
• 13:26
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 13:27
  Henry Barajas: Trident.
• 13:27
  Tad Eggleston: And particularly in an era where there are more and more positions that teachers aren't supposed to take, where more and more things seem to fall into the realm of politics. And, oh, you can't take a political position, and it's like, well, but…
• 13:43
  Tad Eggleston: When did this become politics? How is everybody should eat politics?
• 13:48
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, and it is.
• 13:50
  Tad Eggleston: That's the thing.
• 13:52
  Henry Barajas: We shouldn't…
• 13:53
  Tad Eggleston: Shoot people at school. Politics.
• 13:57
  Henry Barajas: It was always politics, from the very beginning, you know?
• 14:00
  Tad Eggleston: It is, but, like, even in my time in teaching, it feels like there's an ever-growing list of things that you're not supposed to talk about. And it's almost always the…
• 14:14
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna put big air quotes up, not because I don't think that the word applies, but because I think that the word
• 14:23
  Tad Eggleston: doesn't apply enough. Progressive things.
• 14:26
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 14:26
  Tad Eggleston: Progressive now means anything that, like, isn't…
• 14:33
  Tad Eggleston: isn't 100% easy for affluent white males to sit with. Yeah. Which feels like it doesn't have to go very far left.
• 14:43
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, things that I actually think are regressive or… or…
• 14:48
  Tad Eggleston: or center-right often get labeled as progressive, and as soon as it's progressive, then it's political speech, and you need to avoid it. If it's conservative, and conservative seems to be almost reactionary now, and or magical thinking of a time that never quite existed.
• 15:08
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Tad Eggleston: Then it's okay to talk about. Nobody, like… nobody says, oh, get that political talk of…
• 15:19
  Tad Eggleston: That white guy who's kind of cool out of.
• 15:22
  Henry Barajas: My school.
• 15:25
  Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean? Yeah.
• 15:26
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's, you know, growing up, an hour from the border, did not get any, any information about the land that my family was indigenous to.
• 15:38
  Henry Barajas: The country it used to belong to.
• 15:42
  Henry Barajas: So it's always, I feel like making comics is my college, and I get to learn more about American history and world history.
• 15:51
  Henry Barajas: All the time. And to go back to Sal, it was… it was a very…
• 15:58
  Henry Barajas: upsetting to see how relevant it all is still today, from 1968, and the things that these kids were protesting for and marching out of their classrooms. It was the first time kids were protesting and leaving school, and the thought process behind that was, well.
• 16:17
  Henry Barajas: you know, we're seeing, at the time, we're seeing Vietnam protesters being assaulted, and civil rights activists, and…
• 16:24
  Henry Barajas: being assaulted, maybe the kids won't be assaulted by cops, and this will bring attention to the things that are happening in our community. While that was brilliant, and it wasn't always the case.
• 16:38
  Henry Barajas: But it was an interesting train of thought, and a lot of people say, was the birth of the Chicano movement.
• 16:48
  Tad Eggleston: And unfortunately, that's… Too often, the birth of so many movements is trying to figure out, like.
• 16:57
  Tad Eggleston: What way can we put ourselves in danger that… that… that hopefully will both minimize the danger and maximize the…
• 17:06
  Tad Eggleston: Amount that people who aren't in danger will… Pay attention.
• 17:18
  Tad Eggleston: Sorry, I spaced That's… that's just not… not… Yeah.
• 17:25
  Tad Eggleston: Anyway… Yeah, I enjoyed learning about Sal. It was nice to see the teacher that not only
• 17:36
  Tad Eggleston: Not only taught his kids, but… but encouraged them To organize, encourage them to… use their…
• 17:48
  Henry Barajas: school, go to college. Right.
• 17:51
  Tad Eggleston: go to school, go to college, but also walk out of class at times, you know, I mean…
• 17:56
  Henry Barajas: You exercise your First Amendment rights.
• 17:59
  Tad Eggleston: Right. To, to, to, like… so often.
• 18:09
  Tad Eggleston: So often, the discussion becomes about who's allowed to speak, regardless of
• 18:13
  Tad Eggleston: like, who's actually affected. Like, so to have… To have students speaking.
• 18:21
  Tad Eggleston: on student issues should be something that we treasure and value, but it's always, oh, well, they don't know. And it's like, well, I mean, they do, because they're living it. Maybe you have a different perspective, and maybe some of that is important.
• 18:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I don't know that we should let kids 100% guide their education, because they don't know what they're guiding towards, but you sure… certainly shouldn't be…
• 18:47
  Tad Eggleston: Discounting what they're saying to you.
• 18:51
  Tad Eggleston: Because they know their lives.
• 18:53
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, yes, you've been their age, but you were their age in a different era. And while some things absolutely stay the same, other things do not. This is why, like, we're going through an era where teachers want to blame everything on social media and smartphones.
• 19:08
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I'm old enough to remember when you could replace those words with just the internet.
• 19:14
  Tad Eggleston: I'm old enough to remember when you could replace the word internet with television.
• 19:18
  Tad Eggleston: Like, it's always the same argument. It's just, like, things were better when I was young, and what has changed since I was young.
• 19:27
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 19:29
  Tad Eggleston: That's so funny.
• 19:30
  Henry Barajas: 100%.
• 19:32
  Tad Eggleston: Because that must possibly… that must be the problem. Whatever has changed since I was young, must be the problem.
• 19:41
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, I appreciated that a lot. You talked some about…
• 19:47
  Tad Eggleston: Dolores Huerto already, and what was…
• 19:54
  Tad Eggleston: Important to you, both because of the previous work you'd done, For… for… for…
• 20:04
  Tad Eggleston: Levaz… I had it pulled up so that I would…
• 20:07
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, it's literally the last panel of the comic.
• 20:11
  Henry Barajas: And I say, the next thing I want to do.
• 20:13
  Henry Barajas: Very much a, like, Babe Ruth pointing to the… To the, you know…
• 20:18
  Henry Barajas: To the grass, across the plate.
• 20:22
  Henry Barajas: Right. And it's like, this is what I want to do next, and I'm putting it out there, I'm manifesting this, and…
• 20:26
  Henry Barajas: In a book that I did not know at the time would be so well received.
• 20:32
  Henry Barajas: And…
• 20:32
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 20:32
  Henry Barajas: It was definitely something that I… like a… exorcism of…
• 20:40
  Henry Barajas: My great-grandfather's memories out of my mind and bones.
• 20:45
  Henry Barajas: So, I was… I feel very fortunate that I've got… that I've got to tell a couple stories I really want to tell, in ways that I want to do it.
• 20:56
  Tad Eggleston: The, what is it that… Draws you to her story.
• 21:02
  Henry Barajas: It's just, I mean, you know, it's a real shame that we… that she was completely omitted from
• 21:09
  Henry Barajas: The very important work she did.
• 21:12
  Henry Barajas: You know, she put her life on the line, she put her children's childhoods on the line.
• 21:18
  Henry Barajas: She put her entire family, and as we're learning now, you know, she has made claims that Cesar Chavez…
• 21:26
  Henry Barajas: Had raped her, and she had…
• 21:31
  Henry Barajas: Taken two of his kids to term, according to the, you know, her confession recently.
• 21:38
  Henry Barajas: So we learn more about how difficult this all was, but now we see her in her, you know, 90s.
• 21:44
  Henry Barajas: Still out there.
• 21:46
  Henry Barajas: You know, being progressive and, and, and…
• 21:50
  Henry Barajas: Doing whatever she can to… to bring attention to important things that are going on in the world.
• 21:56
  Henry Barajas: And she never stopped, and that was the other thing about the comic, is like, yeah, 1968 was a very important year, and the years, you know, following that, but she, like, went into the 90s and the 2000s, and still…
• 22:10
  Henry Barajas: had impacts in the way migrant farm workers are treated and paid, and the way we eat. So, it was just an exciting opportunity to kind of
• 22:23
  Henry Barajas: Hopefully, brought in… what we learn about that particular time period in American history.
• 22:34
  Tad Eggleston: It was such a…
• 22:37
  Tad Eggleston: You say 68, and I'm in Chicago, so I immediately think the Democratic National Convention, it's obviously already the year that we lost King and the
• 22:46
  Tad Eggleston: And Bobby Kennedy Jr, would you toss on?
• 22:50
  Tad Eggleston: You put into the comic.
• 22:52
  Tad Eggleston: You know… just because I'm autistic. It's the last year before we lowered the mounds.
• 23:01
  Tad Eggleston: There were so many things… so many things that 68 represented.
• 23:05
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, 68 is an incredible year.
• 23:09
  Henry Barajas: So I'm lucky I get to kind of focus on such a particular point of American history.
• 23:15
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, and for that matter, it was one of the years I mean… When did… when did…
• 23:23
  Tad Eggleston: Sal, start teaching.
• 23:26
  Henry Barajas: It was, like, 66…
• 23:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I feel like 68 was part of his story, too.
• 23:31
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, no, it's in the comic, yeah, for sure. That's the year the walkouts happened, that's the year the FBI arrested him, you know, I mean, it's…
• 23:39
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 23:41
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, it's… it's like… and that was… and like, when I started riding La Voice de Mayo in 2015, that's when… like, I remember writing it, and I remember seeing Trump ascend on the escalator.
• 23:55
  Henry Barajas: And I remember just making this art.
• 23:58
  Henry Barajas: And being like, yeah, this has been, like, times have been bad.
• 24:04
  Henry Barajas: And then, like, making the lotus, and being in that kind of… post-Trump…
• 24:10
  Henry Barajas: early Biden cleanup, and then going back to Sal, and…
• 24:15
  Henry Barajas: Going back to, you know, the possibility of Trump.
• 24:19
  Henry Barajas: and just always having… and then making the death to Pacheco in 20… Starting in 2023, 2024,
• 24:29
  Henry Barajas: And just, like, having these,
• 24:32
  Henry Barajas: important moments in my life to be like, yeah, things are always bad. They always get worse. They can always be better. They are better.
• 24:41
  Henry Barajas: But there is just a nuance that you get to live in while making these kinds of comics, and you're like…
• 24:48
  Henry Barajas: They're… we're better… we're stronger than we could ever… hope for.
• 24:53
  Henry Barajas: And it's just… it takes a little time to realize that.
• 24:57
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I… I lean towards belief in… in King's…
• 25:02
  Tad Eggleston: broad arc of history, but I think where people often drop the ball is when he's talking the broad arc of history, he's talking, like, things are better now.
• 25:12
  Tad Eggleston: in terms of justice and whatnot than they were 300 years ago. And 300 years ago, they were better than 600 years ago.
• 25:21
  Henry Barajas: Which was…
• 25:21
  Tad Eggleston: Better than a thousand.
• 25:23
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:24
  Tad Eggleston: That doesn't mean that in the tighter span, you don't have a lot of… I mean, there aren't many places in the world where just because you were born a lord, you can choose to chop off somebody's head without consequence. That wasn't true a thousand years ago, so…
• 25:43
  Tad Eggleston: Good. That's good.
• 25:49
  Tad Eggleston: But, I mean, I think what… what… what…
• 25:54
  Tad Eggleston: Like, and as I talked to you, I realized that, like, a lot of my study of history lately has been the last 40 years, and, like.
• 26:05
  Tad Eggleston: dripping into the 10 years before that, right? But really, Reagan, my lifetime… my lifetime has seen, in a lot of ways, a slide
• 26:17
  Tad Eggleston: With occasional speed bumps.
• 26:19
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, I call it a… I always… some… I don't know where I heard this, but it's definitely a pendulum. I see it as a…
• 26:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 26:26
  Henry Barajas: Constantly swinging.
• 26:27
  Tad Eggleston: The pendulum has definitely been swinging in a direction that I don't like.
• 26:31
  Tad Eggleston: The more I… the more I think about it, the more I think that, like, 68 might actually be closer to that…
• 26:39
  Tad Eggleston: 60… somewhere between 60 and 68, you know? Because… because the thing is, like, economically.
• 26:48
  Tad Eggleston: You could have made the argument in 68 that the liberal view of economics had won.
• 26:56
  Henry Barajas: Depends on what side of the fence you're standing on, for sure.
• 27:00
  Tad Eggleston: But by 85, like, all of that was… was gone.
• 27:06
  Henry Barajas: For sure.
• 27:07
  Tad Eggleston: Right. It's always… We're well on our way back to the Gilded Age and beyond.
• 27:13
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, it's always a classism issue, it's always, you know, a racism issue, sexism, you know, depends on where you are and who you were born as.
• 27:24
  Tad Eggleston: And it's also clear that racism and sexism are one of the easier ways for… for people that really care the most about classism to get people who
• 27:34
  Tad Eggleston: Who their policies will… Hurt to be on their side.
• 27:39
  Henry Barajas: 100%, yeah, I mean…
• 27:40
  Tad Eggleston: Let's not talk about how this policy will hurt you, let's talk about how it will hurt that person you don't like, and maybe you won't think about how it won't hurt you.
• 27:51
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, no, it's, it's, and that's… yeah, and that was what was really exciting about…
• 27:57
  Henry Barajas: talking about Dolores, and talking about Sal, and… And hopefully.
• 28:03
  Henry Barajas: Making it engaging in a way, for a high school kid to understand what's happening, To appreciate the art.
• 28:09
  Henry Barajas: That has gone into this.
• 28:12
  Henry Barajas: And…
• 28:13
  Henry Barajas: you know, with comics, it's always a special choice of words, because the art is doing so much of the heavy lifting, so…
• 28:20
  Henry Barajas: They're dense books, they're dense comics, and thankfully, I'm working with Lauren Sankovich at Good Comics to kind of do a…
• 28:29
  Henry Barajas: a recollection and remastering of the comics, so I'm re-lettering and finding, more concise ways to tell the…
• 28:38
  Henry Barajas: to tell the story, so, I'm really, really excited for this, and Jay Gonzo.
• 28:44
  Henry Barajas: He's, the cover artist and someone who's really blown up in popularity since we've worked on.
• 28:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, he did one of, Bornstack P-Shit Shouts, horizon Project. Didn't he?
• 28:57
  Henry Barajas: No, he… I mean, he's… he's more on the cover artist side.
• 29:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I know he's done…
• 29:03
  Tad Eggleston: tons of cover art stuff, but I… I thought that…
• 29:08
  Tad Eggleston: I thought that Pornsock got him to do a…
• 29:10
  Henry Barajas: No. One of his… Oh, he might have done a cover.
• 29:13
  Tad Eggleston: common.
• 29:15
  Tad Eggleston: interiors.
• 29:17
  Tad Eggleston: For one of those.
• 29:18
  Henry Barajas: he, I know he did Godzilla, he wrote and drew that. Oh, okay.
• 29:25
  Tad Eggleston: Maybe that's what I saw him do.
• 29:26
  Henry Barajas: Recently.
• 29:27
  Henry Barajas: He did.
• 29:29
  Tad Eggleston: That's probably…
• 29:29
  Henry Barajas: Chong, I got him hooked up.
• 29:31
  Henry Barajas: to do Cheech and Chong artwork, interiors for that, I mean…
• 29:36
  Henry Barajas: you know, Gonzo and I are like,
• 29:39
  Henry Barajas: separated at birth brothers, like, he's, like, an older brother than me. Okay.
• 29:43
  Henry Barajas: And we both have a lot of sensibilities in comedy, and Cheech and Chong are some big…
• 29:48
  Henry Barajas: some big pillars in that. But yeah, so, like,
• 29:53
  Henry Barajas: I'm very lucky that Gonzo has an affinity for history the way I do, and he churned out some incredible covers for us. But we're using the Dolores cover for the, you know, for the book.
• 30:06
  Tad Eggleston: for the cover, as I said.
• 30:07
  Henry Barajas: It's so beautiful.
• 30:09
  Henry Barajas: But yeah, no, I'm really proud of it, and I'm really excited that it gets a second life in the mass market, hopefully.
• 30:17
  Henry Barajas: Comic book stores, are able to get a couple copies.
• 30:22
  Henry Barajas: And I'm hoping, I know.
• 30:23
  Tad Eggleston: I know the store that I'm involved in will be ordering.
• 30:27
  Tad Eggleston: If for no other reason than I'll twist his arm, but there are way more reasons than that.
• 30:34
  Henry Barajas: Thank you.
• 30:35
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 30:35
  Henry Barajas: I appreciate that.
• 30:36
  Tad Eggleston: the owner… the owner learned English from Captain America, so… so he's always looking for, for…
• 30:44
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, we're one of the handful of the stores in the area that goes out of its way to get any bilingual book, or, you know, will order new books in Spanish.
• 30:52
  Henry Barajas: Very cool.
• 30:52
  Tad Eggleston: That sort of thing. So, like…
• 30:54
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, and Death Paco's definitely in bilingual.
• 30:57
  Tad Eggleston: Well, Death to Pachuco, like, he was just coming home from a con when we set up our…
• 31:05
  Tad Eggleston: Or he was just headed out to a con that I don't even know for certain if he's home, but he's also a psychologist, so, like, the only reason Edgar isn't here is we scheduled
• 31:16
  Tad Eggleston: like…
• 31:18
  Tad Eggleston: quickly enough in terms of when we were going to be able to get together that I'm like, I don't want to add the pressure to his head. He needs to try to go read this book and squeeze it.
• 31:28
  Henry Barajas: Huh, yeah.
• 31:29
  Tad Eggleston: But you're gonna have to come back, because I know that Edgar will want to talk with you. Oh, for sure.
• 31:33
  Henry Barajas: Sure, yeah.
• 31:33
  Tad Eggleston: Because we love Death Pachuco, and that was where I was about to head, is talk to me about the difference, you know, because Death Pachuco is… we'll get into deep stuff on the book itself, but first, talk to me about the difference between writing history and writing historical fiction. Because Death Pachuco is…
• 31:54
  Tad Eggleston: is… Just a noir mystery, but it's also very, very centered in very accurate history of…
• 32:04
  Tad Eggleston: Los Angeles at the time. So talking about how…
• 32:08
  Henry Barajas: It's interesting, because, like, I love noir, and noir is always… Handling that balance of, like.
• 32:16
  Henry Barajas: you know, there is, gentrification, or natural resources, like Chinatown.
• 32:23
  Henry Barajas: I love Chinatown, I'm not, you know, I do have the 2020 vision of the problematic themes in that movie and story, but originally Chinatown is about
• 32:36
  Henry Barajas: who controls the water in a certain part of LA.
• 32:40
  Henry Barajas: And… no one's ever gonna look at Chinatown as a, well, this is an environmental issue story.
• 32:48
  Henry Barajas: So there is a lot of leniency when it's not…
• 32:53
  Henry Barajas: like, it's not a BIPOC kind of story, so when… so when I… the…
• 32:59
  Henry Barajas: the background of Death to Pacheco is a real murder, and a real event, racist event.
• 33:08
  Henry Barajas: Because it's tied to brown people, it becomes more of a…
• 33:13
  Henry Barajas: political thing, because no one will ever say Chinatown's a political movie, when it really is.
• 33:19
  Henry Barajas: Okay. And… So I knew that going into it, that because it's in bilingual, because it's focused on
• 33:31
  Henry Barajas: Black and brown people, it is going to be a political story. And to me, it was my chance to write a rated R story.
• 33:41
  Henry Barajas: I wanted to do something that
• 33:43
  Henry Barajas: I'm like, this isn't gonna be in classrooms. And cue to two weeks ago, I was literally in a high school classroom.
• 33:51
  Henry Barajas: The kids read it. Yeah.
• 33:53
  Tad Eggleston: Of course.
• 33:54
  Henry Barajas: And it was, like, you know, edited down, which I don't mind.
• 33:58
  Henry Barajas: But.
• 33:59
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, I'm actually a little surprised it was edited down. I've seen Watchmen taught in…
• 34:05
  Tad Eggleston: high school classrooms, and I don't know that.
• 34:10
  Henry Barajas: Well, I don't… I don't think… I mean, for me, I don't care.
• 34:14
  Tad Eggleston: go with it.
• 34:15
  Henry Barajas: The school got behind it, like, it's interesting to see how excited they were, and whatever
• 34:21
  Henry Barajas: degree of comfort that they needed to be… as you were saying, you know, now is, like, I'm sure a kid could have… because it is, like, every classroom I was in, I'm sure… there were… the minority were any… anyone else but Mexican.
• 34:37
  Henry Barajas: or brown students, so I'm sure if a kid brought a, you know, an English comic with, like, the curse words I did have in Spanish, I'm sure someone would have been upset about that, but I…
• 34:49
  Henry Barajas: But…
• 34:51
  Tad Eggleston: I think it depends a lot on the district.
• 34:53
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 34:54
  Tad Eggleston: I wish it depended less on the district, because… Words are words.
• 35:00
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, yeah, but it…
• 35:02
  Tad Eggleston: Learning context is important.
• 35:05
  Henry Barajas: I agree.
• 35:08
  Tad Eggleston: to know when not to use a word than to see it used and see the effect.
• 35:14
  Tad Eggleston: in fiction.
• 35:15
  Henry Barajas: I agree. And that's why I'm supr… you know, in Dolores Huerta, we… I talk about Operation Wetback, and that's nonsense. Right.
• 35:24
  Henry Barajas: You know? Right.
• 35:26
  Henry Barajas: So, for Debachuco, it was a chance to have the… to try to have the same grace.
• 35:34
  Henry Barajas: a Raymond Chandler has, or an Ed Brubaker has.
• 35:38
  Henry Barajas: You know, when they're writing about a very particular point in time.
• 35:43
  Henry Barajas: Where you're using racist and sexist… Because that was the norm.
• 35:50
  Henry Barajas: But it was a freedom of, like, I get to tell a story that I want to tell, and I don't have to worry about it being in a school.
• 35:58
  Tad Eggleston: I am always fascinated by when…
• 36:04
  Tad Eggleston: particularly when… and this is totally a white privilege type thing. Like, when Sherlock Holmes uses cocaine, nobody's like, oh, I'm fascinated that somebody took their white hero and made them flawed that way.
• 36:23
  Tad Eggleston: But… Because too much of the world has not
• 36:27
  Tad Eggleston: been willing to allow their BIPOC heroes not to be…
• 36:33
  Tad Eggleston: angels, because there was a certain…
• 36:36
  Tad Eggleston: section of the world that the… the second it turned out that
• 36:41
  Tad Eggleston: that, you know, Hugo Chavez was probably even worse… not… not Hugo Chavez, Cesar Chavez was probably even worse with women than we had already known, oh, oh, that means we should just discount everything.
• 36:59
  Tad Eggleston: It's a definite choice. I think a good choice, but a definite choice, and I would imagine a hard choice, to take one of your heroes in the story and make him an addict.
• 37:11
  Tad Eggleston: Talk to me about… Making those decisions.
• 37:17
  Henry Barajas: You know, for me, I love Sherlock Holmes, you know.
• 37:22
  Tad Eggleston: I do, too.
• 37:23
  Henry Barajas: I'm a huge fan of detective… Comics, in stories, in noir.
• 37:31
  Henry Barajas: And… It added more… It made him…
• 37:39
  Henry Barajas: less desirable to be like, I…
• 37:43
  Henry Barajas: You know, I loved that it kind of messed with the whole idea of this guy.
• 37:48
  Henry Barajas: And that it made him…
• 37:50
  Henry Barajas: There is an element of him that could be untrustworthy, or could challenge how you see this character.
• 37:57
  Henry Barajas: a real credit to Will Dennis, the editor, who was very good about reading the book and finding ways to
• 38:07
  Henry Barajas: Make it better. And, I'm very lucky, he worked with us, and…
• 38:14
  Henry Barajas: Was able to help us make this book shine.
• 38:18
  Henry Barajas: but it was very much a…
• 38:22
  Henry Barajas: what if, you know, what if I put the Holmes and Sherlock Holmes?
• 38:26
  Henry Barajas: And make him… without beating it over your head, and unless you're a real Sherlock Holmes fan.
• 38:34
  Henry Barajas: He is the Mexican Sherlock Holmes, basically.
• 38:40
  Henry Barajas: I mean…
• 38:40
  Tad Eggleston: Even as a…
• 38:41
  Henry Barajas: He lives on Bay Street.
• 38:42
  Tad Eggleston: Sherlock Holmes fan, he comes pretty close.
• 38:45
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, he lives on Baker Street, like, the real Sherlock Holmes, and there was a Baker Street…
• 38:50
  Tad Eggleston: he's mildly less autistic, and that's set as the guy that knows that the sentence mildly less autistic isn't really a sentence, because autism is a million different things, but, like.
• 39:03
  Tad Eggleston: Holmes is, like, the almost automaton type.
• 39:08
  Henry Barajas: 100%, yeah.
• 39:10
  Tad Eggleston: And… and… and he's… he's mildly more interested in people in general, whereas I think that… that's one of the places where… where…
• 39:21
  Tad Eggleston: Holmes' neurodiversity really comes out, like, like…
• 39:26
  Tad Eggleston: he's not very good at… I mean, I would actually argue that the places where he's least like Holmes, he's a better human being than Holmes. How about that?
• 39:38
  Henry Barajas: That's where I…
• 39:39
  Tad Eggleston: That's what I'm going for.
• 39:41
  Henry Barajas: That is… that was a thing I wanted to do, where, like, for me.
• 39:47
  Henry Barajas: You know, I wanted him to care about people.
• 39:51
  Henry Barajas: Right. And… That is important.
• 39:54
  Tad Eggleston: And it's not that Holmes…
• 39:56
  Tad Eggleston: Doesn't, but he's got a real… you know, because there are the times where he decides to play judge and jury mostly to show mercy.
• 40:04
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 40:04
  Tad Eggleston: When he doesn't believe that the system will.
• 40:07
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 40:07
  Tad Eggleston: But, like… Watson is literally the closest he ever gets to anybody, and… and…
• 40:16
  Tad Eggleston: Even him, he seems to keep it, like…
• 40:20
  Henry Barajas: 100%.
• 40:21
  Tad Eggleston: 6 feet.
• 40:22
  Tad Eggleston: And I…
• 40:23
  Henry Barajas: I love that. I love that part about that whole dynamic. And that was the other thing, was like,
• 40:30
  Henry Barajas: you know, I don't mind spoiling Death to Pachuco, In this… in this talk, But, like, the whole idea.
• 40:37
  Tad Eggleston: Hold on, hold on. John Lee's taught me to do this.
• 40:40
  Tad Eggleston: Spoiler alert, spoiler alert, if you haven't read Death to Pacheco, and you want to not have spoilers.
• 40:47
  Tad Eggleston: Pause the recording now. Go by and read the book.
• 40:51
  Tad Eggleston: You should go right by and read the book anyway, and then come back and hear the spoilers. So now, now, spoilers.
• 40:59
  Tad Eggleston: John Lee's taught me that, and I love it.
• 41:01
  Henry Barajas: No, that's smart, that's smart.
• 41:02
  Tad Eggleston: Because I just spoiled.
• 41:03
  Henry Barajas: the hell out of this book as any chance I can get without that… that warning.
• 41:07
  Tad Eggleston: I'm all for spoiling books. I like having spoilery conversations. That's why often I'll have people on the show right before the first issue, and then right after the trade paperback has come out.
• 41:18
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 41:19
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 41:20
  Henry Barajas: The idea, I love that, like, in noir… You never get a… satisfying ending.
• 41:27
  Henry Barajas: You know, and the… The thing that everybody wants is always just out of reach.
• 41:34
  Henry Barajas: And the way, you know, we kill Chuko Loco, or we shoot him, we don't know if he's dead.
• 41:41
  Henry Barajas: You know… So there is that open ending, and then you have the… The moment where they…
• 41:48
  Henry Barajas: You know, the way we sunset the character.
• 41:52
  Henry Barajas: Even though he didn't get the guy.
• 41:55
  Henry Barajas: And I… maybe, I don't know if you… you… you caught this, but you find out…
• 42:00
  Henry Barajas: That his mom's the server at the restaurant.
• 42:04
  Henry Barajas: And that he found his mom.
• 42:06
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 42:07
  Henry Barajas: And you want… and he still got something out of this whole… Right.
• 42:11
  Henry Barajas: Horrible moment in his life.
• 42:14
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 42:15
  Henry Barajas: so… And that's what I like about noir. It's even sadder…
• 42:21
  Henry Barajas: that his, like, drugged-out mom doesn't realize she's serving her own son every Friday at this Mexican restaurant, so…
• 42:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 42:30
  Henry Barajas: To have… to play with those themes, and to have those opportunities as a storyteller is…
• 42:37
  Henry Barajas: is all I could ask for.
• 42:43
  Tad Eggleston: as I go through, like, I pulled up League of Comic Geeks, because I often do during the show, and I see that you were involved in Perfect Crime Party, which I have a copy of sitting downstairs.
• 42:57
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:57
  Tad Eggleston: you were… you were involved in Won't Back Down, which I have a copy of Sitting Downstairs Project Crypted, which I have all of the issues. One of the downsides, at least for me.
• 43:08
  Tad Eggleston: reading as many comics as… as I read is… is… is sometimes I will… I will read stuff in anthologies and love it and not connect it to… to the writers and artists that I already also love. So, talk to me about working in anthologies, first of all.
• 43:25
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, but second, like.
• 43:28
  Tad Eggleston: what stories have you done in anthologies that you really enjoyed and want to plug? Because I'm all for plugging anthologies.
• 43:35
  Henry Barajas: Sure.
• 43:36
  Tad Eggleston: Bugging lots of people, rather than just yourself.
• 43:39
  Henry Barajas: I guess to answer your question about working in anthologies, that's how you get your start, if you're lucky. You know, if people are open to have you in a part of their ensemble, and to cut your teeth.
• 43:52
  Henry Barajas: With telling… stories, you realize comics are told in panels, not pages, so how you can maximize the…
• 44:01
  Henry Barajas: Allotted time you have.
• 44:04
  Henry Barajas: Right. Is a way to hone your skills, so I'm always happy to do something in a bite-sized way.
• 44:13
  Henry Barajas: Perfect Crime Party, Kel McDonald reached out, big fan of, Kel's work.
• 44:19
  Henry Barajas: And it was also an opportunity to do something That wasn't, like.
• 44:25
  Henry Barajas: bloody, and, and, you know, that had those creative, guardrails.
• 44:33
  Henry Barajas: And, when I heard… yeah, it's fun heist stuff, and when I thought.
• 44:39
  Henry Barajas: oh, like, maybe I could do a joke, and then I just was like, oh, joke thief, joke, you know, like…
• 44:44
  Henry Barajas: That is a thing, that people steal people's store… like, their jokes. And I was a stand-up comic for 4 years in Tucson.
• 44:53
  Henry Barajas: And I tried when I moved out to LA, but comics and publishing paid faster.
• 44:59
  Henry Barajas: To kind of just make-believe…
• 45:05
  Henry Barajas: a version of myself that was gonna steal stuff from people, but also kind of channel the weird, shady people that I had to interact with every week for 4 years.
• 45:16
  Henry Barajas: was fun, and to work with Kit Mills, who has worked on Gilthorpe.
• 45:21
  Henry Barajas: And we've worked on something else that, hopefully will be announced soon.
• 45:27
  Henry Barajas: And, yeah, so, so that was great. The cryptid, Sarah…
• 45:34
  Henry Barajas: is the editor on that, and someone who I've always wanted, Sarah Starlett, who I've… who you just follow on…
• 45:42
  Henry Barajas: on, on Tumblr, who's someone I've always known, and… Big fan of, so it was like,
• 45:52
  Henry Barajas: Hold on, sorry.
• 46:00
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, so it was just like, you know, like, to tell that story about… I actually… that story is about the Beast of Genoave, who was in France.
• 46:09
  Henry Barajas: And I learned that from puppet history.
• 46:14
  Henry Barajas: So… Okay.
• 46:16
  Tad Eggleston: I think I remember that story now.
• 46:17
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, and I got to work, with, an amazing artist there.
• 46:26
  Henry Barajas: I'm blanking on their name. They have a full… they have an internet name and a full name.
• 46:34
  Tad Eggleston: That's so often the case, isn't it?
• 46:37
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 46:38
  Tad Eggleston: Do you remember what issue it was?
• 46:40
  Henry Barajas: I don't remember what issue it was, but
• 46:44
  Henry Barajas: I can find it, I'm gonna find it. Here, yes, here we go…
• 46:56
  Henry Barajas: Where is it?
• 47:00
  Henry Barajas: Here we go, Somali Luce.
• 47:06
  Tad Eggleston: I know that name off the top of my head.
• 47:08
  Henry Barajas: Salome Luce Antoinette, and,
• 47:13
  Henry Barajas: That's someone who I worked with on Gila Girl.
• 47:17
  Henry Barajas: So, you know, and also, like, using these anthologies as a way to, like, work with artists that I'm a fan of.
• 47:24
  Henry Barajas: And, you know, we get to do something bite-sized and see if…
• 47:29
  Henry Barajas: that's something that we can, you know, keep doing together. So we worked on Gila Girl, and we worked on Project Crypted together, so…
• 47:37
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, you guys were in issue 4, and I'm just gonna say that, like…
• 47:42
  Tad Eggleston: Issue 4 was a particular,
• 47:51
  Tad Eggleston: bountiful issue, because the… the other story was… was Leanna Congas and Jaslyn Stone with… with Ted Brandt and Rose Stein, and then the… the…
• 48:03
  Tad Eggleston: the prose was by Carol Lay, with art from Rick Geary. So, like…
• 48:11
  Tad Eggleston: Even people who didn't read all of Project Crypted should go find Project Cryptid.
• 48:16
  Henry Barajas: 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:18
  Henry Barajas: Oh, and…
• 48:19
  Tad Eggleston: It's just a ridiculous amount of talent and.
• 48:22
  Henry Barajas: Sarah Lit. Sarah Lit. Yeah.
• 48:24
  Tad Eggleston: That's the, is the editor, yeah.
• 48:27
  Henry Barajas: But yeah, no, that's a fun issue, because I love Jaslyn Stone with all my heart, and Leanna King has always been someone who's been very supportive and kind, and I'm a big fan of her work.
• 48:39
  Tad Eggleston: Brant and Stein are, are, are, our big favorites at 22 Panels.
• 48:44
  Tad Eggleston: Rick Geary is a big favorite of 22Panels' wife, and art director of our Instagram account, and Carol Lay was a wonderful, wonderful guest on 22 Panels.
• 48:56
  Henry Barajas: Oh, cool.
• 48:56
  Tad Eggleston: like…
• 48:57
  Henry Barajas: I'll have to look for that.
• 48:58
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, the, the, the only people
• 49:01
  Tad Eggleston: from the featured… I haven't had Jaslyn Stone on, I haven't had Angelique Fonz on, and I haven't had Salome Luche Antoinette on.
• 49:11
  Tad Eggleston: All of the other featured creators on this issue have been on 22 panels at least once, and many of them 2 or 3 times.
• 49:20
  Henry Barajas: That's great. Yeah, no, I'm happy to.
• 49:23
  Tad Eggleston: As has Tom Pyre and Stuart Moore. So, like, we've got our Ahoy Bonafides here at.
• 49:31
  Henry Barajas: Two panels.
• 49:33
  Tad Eggleston: For sure.
• 49:36
  Henry Barajas: For sure, man. Thank you.
• 49:37
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. I did figure out the other Kickstarter years that I, that I, that I backed, Bandits of Batavia.
• 49:44
  Tad Eggleston: Talk to me about…
• 49:44
  Henry Barajas: And it's a Batavia is, yes, that is, like, Brian,
• 49:52
  Henry Barajas: is someone who I consider a very close friend. We worked on a really cool anthology together. I helped him, flesh out, Black Bull.
• 50:03
  Tad Eggleston: That would be…
• 50:04
  Tad Eggleston: Brian Valenza?
• 50:05
  Henry Barajas: Brian Valenza, and .
• 50:07
  Tad Eggleston: writer and colorist.
• 50:09
  Henry Barajas: writer and colorist. I co-wrote, and I co-kind of… he wants to be a writer, so it was an opportunity to help him.
• 50:17
  Henry Barajas: Figure out what that meant.
• 50:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 50:21
  Henry Barajas: So, we… yeah, no, I loved… that was basically my poor man's Frank Miller.
• 50:29
  Henry Barajas: Attempt, if you read that, it's very, dark.
• 50:33
  Tad Eggleston: I just reread Ronin, so, so that, that…
• 50:37
  Henry Barajas: It's…
• 50:37
  Tad Eggleston: that?
• 50:38
  Henry Barajas: Like, the emphasis on the, just, like, homage, and just kind of finding…
• 50:45
  Henry Barajas: The rhythms of how that character… how his character is.
• 50:49
  Tad Eggleston: Right?
• 50:49
  Henry Barajas: an internal monologue, and that's kind of what I was aiming for that.
• 50:53
  Henry Barajas: But yeah, so, Brian and I, I mean, he's gonna take that character to whatever direction he needs to take, and, I'm really excited to see what he does with it.
• 51:05
  Henry Barajas: But I will always be tied to it, whether he likes it or not. Right. Right.
• 51:12
  Tad Eggleston: Before we get into my favorite closing questions, I've got a pair of them, I do totally want to talk to you about. You're one of…
• 51:19
  Tad Eggleston: A handful of people that have, like.
• 51:24
  Tad Eggleston: Almost gone backwards in time, because you also became the writer on Gil Thorpe.
• 51:29
  Tad Eggleston: So talk to me about the difference between writing
• 51:34
  Tad Eggleston: 22-page comics, or 8-page short stories, and… and trying to… to get a story into…
• 51:41
  Tad Eggleston: 3 or 4 panels on a daily basis.
• 51:44
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, I'm very lucky. My good friend Alex Agora, was kind enough to…
• 51:51
  Tad Eggleston: 22 Panels alum.
• 51:53
  Henry Barajas: He, he was someone who reached out and said, I think you should take this over.
• 51:58
  Henry Barajas: I,
• 52:00
  Henry Barajas: basically said… And a great guy. I want to do Gil Thorpe, but Ted Lasso in high school.
• 52:06
  Henry Barajas: And, they were into it, and I got to work with Rod Wiggum, who's an incredible, incredible artist.
• 52:14
  Henry Barajas: And then I, I was able to fold in Rachel Merrill, the artist and co-creator of Death to Pachuco.
• 52:21
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, so I love… I mean, I grew up… I was a journalist, I love… I love reading newspaper comics, I love…
• 52:29
  Henry Barajas: When I was a kid, I used to chew Bazooka Joe just to read the comics.
• 52:34
  Henry Barajas: And… I get that. And have that, like, nonsensical, non-sequitur…
• 52:39
  Tad Eggleston: I was also the weird kid that chewed the baseball gum.
• 52:44
  Tad Eggleston: Baseball card goes? Yeah, yeah. Even when I was buying 10, 15, 30-year-old packs.
• 52:51
  Tad Eggleston: My wife won't let me chew any of the gum from packs now.
• 52:54
  Henry Barajas: That's.
• 52:55
  Tad Eggleston: way too old.
• 52:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that's true. I still want to anytime I'm opening a pack with gum, but she says I'm not allowed.
• 53:02
  Henry Barajas: Well… I'm very grateful she's around, today.
• 53:06
  Tad Eggleston: She takes care of my health way better than I ever did.
• 53:09
  Henry Barajas: Yeah. So, the beauty of GIL is, is, you get to see the forest through the trees and, and write something that…
• 53:19
  Henry Barajas: Is a newspaper… that lives in newspapers, so not everyone gets the newspaper, not everyone gets the newspaper every day.
• 53:27
  Henry Barajas: So there is a bit of a freedom to kind of…
• 53:31
  Tad Eggleston: At this point, not every newspaper carries the comics every day.
• 53:34
  Henry Barajas: Yes, that, that as well. So, I do have this sensibility of,
• 53:41
  Henry Barajas: of entering moments in Gil's life that, will… That have to… cue you from… Past…
• 53:53
  Henry Barajas: Moments present a new, question or problem.
• 53:58
  Henry Barajas: and then leave it open-ended enough that they hopefully will come back again. And…
• 54:03
  Henry Barajas: It is an art I am always trying to perfect. Sometimes I hit the mark, sometimes I miss it.
• 54:11
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I know… I mean, one of the reasons that we talked a little bit off-air, and I'm gonna bring up some of the stuff right now, because I know you're well-regarded, and I love your stuff in general, and I always had trouble wrapping my head around the Gil Thorpe.
• 54:26
  Tad Eggleston: Until you started talking to me about it, and I'm gonna share with the listeners where my issue was, so you can…
• 54:33
  Tad Eggleston: Kinda also share with them.
• 54:35
  Tad Eggleston: is I always felt like maybe I'd missed something. I'm, I'm, I'm…
• 54:40
  Tad Eggleston: I was… I was trying to look at, you know, and… and sometimes in com… in comic strips, you, like, get old…
• 54:46
  Tad Eggleston: Old Dick Tracy strips are like this, only they would… they would catch you up too much. Like, I always felt like an old Dick Tracy strip, it's like the first two panels were telling you what you read yesterday in case you missed yesterday.
• 54:57
  Henry Barajas: Yesterday.
• 54:58
  Tad Eggleston: And then you've got 2 or 3 new panels.
• 55:02
  Tad Eggleston: you know, Milk Kniff was better at actually being linear, but I, you know, I can also imagine how if, for whatever reason, you missed…
• 55:12
  Tad Eggleston: missed a Steve Canyon, or missed a, Terry and the Pirates, it could wind up being difficult, because it's like, oh, wait a minute.
• 55:22
  Tad Eggleston: what happened in that comic that I missed? You were… you were describing your… your approach to… to Gilthorpe to me, and it… and it made me want to go back and read it, so… so will you… will you share that with my mom and brother, and Britt, and John, and the handful of…
• 55:38
  Henry Barajas: other listeners.
• 55:39
  Tad Eggleston: I might have.
• 55:40
  Henry Barajas: Can you remind me of what I said? I…
• 55:43
  Tad Eggleston: You talked about how you only had 3 panels, so you would often jump in in the middle of the scene, because you knew… Yes.
• 55:49
  Tad Eggleston: You knew that somebody might be reading this for the first time and not have read the other stuff, or… so it seemed like you had a particular way that you were doing storytelling, where you maybe aren't giving us all of the moments, but trying to get to the essence of the characters.
• 56:07
  Henry Barajas: That is, yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. Again, it's not always a home run, and it's not always something that I accomplish, but to me…
• 56:18
  Tad Eggleston: Bunt single with the… with the error that gets you to second is equal.
• 56:22
  Henry Barajas: There you go.
• 56:23
  Tad Eggleston: edge.
• 56:24
  Henry Barajas: But my goal, a lot of the times, and why I reintroduce his kids, and why I've, I've tried to make it all come back to Gil, and everything's kind of…
• 56:35
  Henry Barajas: Circling around him, whether it be at home, whether it be in his work, or whether it be on the field, or any various sports, arena.
• 56:45
  Henry Barajas: But it's always something that affects him, or something that's going to affect him. So, I always hope at least, if you don't remember what happened, or it's your first time
• 56:56
  Henry Barajas: Reading, or your last time reading.
• 57:00
  Henry Barajas: it is centered around the titular character, so that's always been something I've really tried to focus on. Again, and what I… what you see with every character.
• 57:11
  Henry Barajas: and especially people writing characters for a long time, you start to create characters that seem more interesting, and that start to kind of live a bigger life, like Gil is going to be remarried to a character I created.
• 57:26
  Henry Barajas: And, I'm trying to flush her out as much as I can to… so that we can all understand why Gil wants to spend the rest of his life with someone.
• 57:36
  Henry Barajas: While making it about Gil, and it's always gonna be about Gil. So, I appreciate you letting me know that, you know, I don't mind people giving me, you know, feedback, and I always… I'm always open to it, so…
• 57:50
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and again, I always assumed that it was me, and I still assumed that it was me, not you.
• 57:56
  Henry Barajas: Oh, no.
• 57:57
  Henry Barajas: other people have told me that exact same thing, and it's not… it's not just you.
• 58:02
  Tad Eggleston: But, but I think, I think I will be looking… I mean, I don't promise, because I go back and forth on how much I'm reading new, new…
• 58:09
  Tad Eggleston: comic strips, so I don't promise that I'll get back to it anytime soon, but I know that I'll look at it through a different lens now.
• 58:15
  Tad Eggleston: Because I always had the problem, and this is another question I'm gonna ask for my handful of listeners, as much as for myself, is I always had the problem with, I know that Gilthorpe is this…
• 58:26
  Tad Eggleston: long-running character, blah blah blah, but… until you wrote Gilthorpe, I'd never read a Gilthorpe comic. I don't know who Gilthorpe is.
• 58:34
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, like, who is Gil Thorpe? That might actually unlock a lot of stuff, too, like, because that's the other thing, is, like, I'm like…
• 58:42
  Tad Eggleston: I like Henry's work. I don't know if I want to go read 50 years of God knows what quality of somebody else's work.
• 58:51
  Henry Barajas: Big year out.
• 58:52
  Tad Eggleston: to make it easier to read Henry's current work.
• 58:55
  Henry Barajas: Hi, hon.
• 58:56
  Tad Eggleston: So, sum up Gil Thorpe for me.
• 58:59
  Henry Barajas: Thorpe, to me, is the teacher that saw something in you that a lot of people didn't see.
• 59:05
  Henry Barajas: And gave you the chance to…
• 59:09
  Henry Barajas: And never yelled or was upset at you for failing
• 59:13
  Henry Barajas: While playing sports, because that is the essence of sports, in my opinion, like…
• 59:18
  Henry Barajas: I love it when my… you know, I'm a Clippers fan, so I love…
• 59:22
  Henry Barajas: I love the Clippers when they're winning or losing.
• 59:26
  Tad Eggleston: I was about to say, how long have you been a Clippers fan? I've been a Clippers fan for 10 years.
• 59:31
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, yeah, so…
• 59:32
  Tad Eggleston: I've been good for most of those 10 years.
• 59:34
  Henry Barajas: They have been, but they haven't been able to.
• 59:36
  Tad Eggleston: I guess I'm thinking Golden State is the team that got really, really good after.
• 59:40
  Henry Barajas: Oh, yeah, like, and that's the thing, like, you can name any team, you can name any team, and the highs and lows, and for me, that's what I.
• 59:48
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean…
• 59:49
  Henry Barajas: to the.
• 59:49
  Tad Eggleston: But let's be fair, I'm a Cubs fan, so…
• 59:52
  Henry Barajas: So, like, their songs…
• 59:55
  Tad Eggleston: finally get that high? Yes, there's fables of the Cubs.
• 59:59
  Henry Barajas: journey.
• 1:00:00
  Tad Eggleston: if you said that sentence. Yeah. I'd go, most of my highs also involved crushing heartbreak, Henry.
• 1:00:10
  Henry Barajas: And that's the thing that you want in Gill. You want kids to have crushes.
• 1:00:14
  Tad Eggleston: And much of my crushing heartbreak didn't involve any highs.
• 1:00:19
  Henry Barajas: And that's what you want to give, and so Gil is that guy that says, even if we win, and even if we lose, I'm proud of you. And that is, like, what I've tried to instill in the character, and basically…
• 1:00:34
  Tad Eggleston: So he never goes on any Lee Ilya rants.
• 1:00:37
  Henry Barajas: No, he does ha- he does rant, he does… he is human, and I try… and we're… we're… I'm really excited, there's gonna be a really cool moment.
• 1:00:46
  Henry Barajas: That is kind of a res… like what you just said, a lot of people don't know who Gil Thorpe is, and Marco Finnegan is the guest artist for this.
• 1:00:53
  Henry Barajas: And he gets to talk to his friend that he meets in 1958 in a dream, because this guy's dead. And he gets to explain what he's worried about, which you'll never see him talk about with other characters. You see an internal struggle of, like.
• 1:01:09
  Henry Barajas: Like, I'm gonna get remarried, and I'm afraid I'm gonna fail at this marriage. And this guy is like, hey, Gil, you never give up. And that's what we love about you. And I'm really… I really hope people see that, and see the, like, Gilthorpe that I see.
• 1:01:26
  Tad Eggleston: So, a couple of follow-up questions there. First, what does GIL teach?
• 1:01:33
  Henry Barajas: So, he is the athletics director, and he's based on,
• 1:01:38
  Henry Barajas: of Jim Thorpe. Am I saying that right?
• 1:01:41
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, Jim Thorpe.
• 1:01:42
  Henry Barajas: So, Jim Thorpe was a Native American, triathlon, like, he did every sport.
• 1:01:48
  Tad Eggleston: Is your league ballplayer, football player… Everything.
• 1:01:52
  Henry Barajas: So, that's Gil. So he does… he teaches every sport, and, okay.
• 1:01:58
  Tad Eggleston: He's the athletic director and coaches everything, but he doesn't teach class classes.
• 1:02:02
  Henry Barajas: So he substitutes… he does substitute teaching, and in my… in my tenure, he mainly substitutes… teaches the French class, which I think is very funny.
• 1:02:14
  Tad Eggleston: Does he speak French?
• 1:02:16
  Henry Barajas: He does… I mean… I mean, I have not said…
• 1:02:19
  Henry Barajas: But he has said a few things in French.
• 1:02:22
  Henry Barajas: So I've left that to the imagination of the reader. Because I did French class, and I was given passing grades because I was…
• 1:02:32
  Henry Barajas: So charming, and so funny, which…
• 1:02:35
  Tad Eggleston: I got passing grades… I got passing grades in Latin class, but…
• 1:02:40
  Tad Eggleston: But it's important to understand that in my Latin class, we played Scrabble on a semi-regular basis, and if you played in the Scrabble game with the teacher, you got extra credit points for every point that you were able to beat them by. If you were.
• 1:02:57
  Henry Barajas: Where you can be.
• 1:02:58
  Tad Eggleston: That's great. And I am a very, very, very good Scrabble player.
• 1:03:02
  Henry Barajas: I love that. I love that.
• 1:03:03
  Tad Eggleston: There was one… there was one semester in which I got a D.
• 1:03:09
  Henry Barajas: And then you went up to an A?
• 1:03:12
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I got a D,
• 1:03:15
  Tad Eggleston: despite the fact that, like, I think there were 1,100 points total available during the semester.
• 1:03:20
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 1:03:21
  Tad Eggleston: And away from the Scrabble board, I got 20 points.
• 1:03:26
  Henry Barajas: Wow.
• 1:03:26
  Tad Eggleston: All of the rest were the Scrabble board and the… the…
• 1:03:31
  Tad Eggleston: catapult contest. I'm a pretty.
• 1:03:33
  Henry Barajas: I love that.
• 1:03:35
  Tad Eggleston: So, so… and I just barely missed a C, with, like, no points from homework or, or…
• 1:03:42
  Tad Eggleston: or, like, tests and stuff. It was all from playing Scrabble, and I think we won in 3 out of the 4 categories with our catapult that year. That was the year that we decided to not even try for most authentic.
• 1:03:55
  Henry Barajas: We're just going…
• 1:03:57
  Tad Eggleston: for distance, accuracy, and… I forget what the third category was, but it was another one that had to do with how good your category… or how good your.
• 1:04:07
  Henry Barajas: I might steal that, and that's the cool thing about…
• 1:04:10
  Henry Barajas: talking to teachers and going to high schools, I've stole a lot of stories and experiences.
• 1:04:16
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I… I do remember, actually, one… one Friday afternoon.
• 1:04:22
  Tad Eggleston: I beat him, and mind you, like.
• 1:04:26
  Tad Eggleston: I guess Friday morning, because it was a morning class, always, because he taught at both high schools, and it was our high school in the morning.
• 1:04:32
  Tad Eggleston: not enough kids to take Latin for him to only teach at one high school.
• 1:04:36
  Henry Barajas: Not surprised.
• 1:04:39
  Tad Eggleston: He taught World History and Latin at both high schools.
• 1:04:44
  Tad Eggleston: But In one 40-minute game, I once racked up 120 extra credit points.
• 1:04:54
  Henry Barajas: Wow.
• 1:04:57
  Henry Barajas: Wow.
• 1:04:57
  Tad Eggleston: I dropped a couple of seven-letter words on him. One of them was on a triple…
• 1:05:02
  Tad Eggleston: He was a good Scrabble player.
• 1:05:04
  Tad Eggleston: Like, like, this had… this had started long before I was in…
• 1:05:10
  Tad Eggleston: And that semester, he would have to, like.
• 1:05:13
  Tad Eggleston: require that other people play in our games, because I was so good that nobody else wanted to play in the game, because they're like…
• 1:05:22
  Tad Eggleston: There's no chance that we're gonna beat him, because he's barely managing to beat you.
• 1:05:30
  Tad Eggleston: Using so many tiles that…
• 1:05:33
  Henry Barajas: You gotta, you know, you gotta, you gotta try. I don't know. Anyway, so you.
• 1:05:38
  Tad Eggleston: I've always…
• 1:05:38
  Henry Barajas: dildos.
• 1:05:39
  Tad Eggleston: though, I remember this summer that my mother
• 1:05:42
  Tad Eggleston: My brother was in swim lessons, so we were playing…
• 1:05:48
  Tad Eggleston: rummy every day while he was in swim lessons, and I lost so many games that eventually I said that I quit. And she said, I'll give you a nickel for every point you beat me by.
• 1:05:59
  Tad Eggleston: When you're playing 500 Rummy, and the next game, the one that I got a nickel for every point I beat her by, I beat her by 480 points.
• 1:06:07
  Henry Barajas: Let's see, wow.
• 1:06:08
  Tad Eggleston: I just went on a tear.
• 1:06:12
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, so, yeah, no, I, that's.
• 1:06:15
  Tad Eggleston: I'm a shark.
• 1:06:17
  Tad Eggleston: Really?
• 1:06:17
  Henry Barajas: Not really.
• 1:06:18
  Tad Eggleston: I just sometimes get really lucky. And I wasn't as bad at Rummy as I thought I was, just, like…
• 1:06:24
  Henry Barajas: You needed some motivation.
• 1:06:25
  Tad Eggleston: Well, no, Rummy and Scrabble are the two cutthroat games on that side of the family. There was no time in my life where anybody took it easy on me in those two games.
• 1:06:37
  Henry Barajas: Oh, wow.
• 1:06:39
  Tad Eggleston: you know, when I was playing as a 5-year-old, if, like.
• 1:06:43
  Tad Eggleston: If I got beat, I got beat, because that's how we play Rummy in this house.
• 1:06:47
  Henry Barajas: No, for sure. That makes sense.
• 1:06:49
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I think I was… I was… I was 9 the first time I won a Rummy game, I think I was 11 the first time I won a Scrabble game.
• 1:06:58
  Tad Eggleston: I've been playing them both.
• 1:07:00
  Tad Eggleston: I've been playing Rummy since I was 5, I've been playing Scrabble since I could spell. Wow. So, 5 or 6.
• 1:07:07
  Tad Eggleston: You know.
• 1:07:08
  Henry Barajas: That's great.
• 1:07:10
  Tad Eggleston: Sorry, that's the aside that's not about Henry.
• 1:07:15
  Tad Eggleston: They happen sometimes on TV.
• 1:07:16
  Henry Barajas: No, they have to. I mean, and that's the point of doing these things, you know, I try to have…
• 1:07:22
  Henry Barajas: I love talking about what I'm doing, but I also, I think there's a lot of value in sharing these kinds of stories.
• 1:07:31
  Tad Eggleston: So, does Gilthorpe get collected at all?
• 1:07:36
  Henry Barajas: So…
• 1:07:37
  Tad Eggleston: only.
• 1:07:38
  Henry Barajas: Where, it is, is currently, like, before me, and before everyone except for Jack Brill, that's the only time the original creator's work has been collected. I, I had a, a publisher in line, but the Diamond, bankruptcy,
• 1:07:57
  Henry Barajas: Kind of killed that.
• 1:07:59
  Tad Eggleston: That old diamond bankruptcy that…
• 1:08:01
  Henry Barajas: So, we're.
• 1:08:03
  Tad Eggleston: So much of the industry.
• 1:08:05
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, so we're hoping, we get to, find, we get to find another way to do that at some point. And, and one of the, one of the beautiful things about Gil is, is, like.
• 1:08:17
  Henry Barajas: get paid to do it, and I love him, but he's not mine, so I put all my resources and money
• 1:08:25
  Henry Barajas: Towards the stuff that I own, like Deta Pachuco, Helmbre Castle, and La Vosta Mayo, so… Right. Right, right. But yeah, no,
• 1:08:34
  Henry Barajas: hopefully someday, I look forward to being able to hold Gil. I do own my first strip that I got to write. Rod Wiggum was kind enough to send me the first strip that ran.
• 1:08:44
  Henry Barajas: July 11th, 2022.
• 1:08:46
  Tad Eggleston: Even among people that I've talked to who've done comic strip work, I think you're the first one I've talked to that writes, but doesn't draw them.
• 1:08:54
  Tad Eggleston: What's different between Writing.
• 1:08:58
  Tad Eggleston: For a comic strip versus writing.
• 1:09:01
  Tad Eggleston: for… I mean, because obviously you're not doing as much in terms of
• 1:09:05
  Tad Eggleston: directing, okay, this is gonna be a 4-panel page, and this is gonna be a 6-panel page, and this should be a splash page, because, no, they're all…
• 1:09:14
  Henry Barajas: The difference is very, very minimal. Sometimes it's four panels, but to keep it… to make it easier for the artist, because it's such a demanding schedule, we have a…
• 1:09:25
  Henry Barajas: a uniform three-panel structure. A lot of the times, I like to take the whole panel, like the whole strip, and make it one panel. That's something that I'll do. But it is…
• 1:09:36
  Tad Eggleston: Your artist likes it when you do that.
• 1:09:38
  Tad Eggleston: Request that.
• 1:09:39
  Henry Barajas: You know, Rachel is a pro, so she is, she… it's very rare I hear her complaint.
• 1:09:46
  Tad Eggleston: Pros are allowed to make requests. They're allowed to say, Henry, I've got a lot going on this week, I feel like we could do two or three one-panel comics.
• 1:09:56
  Henry Barajas: Right, I write it, and…
• 1:09:58
  Tad Eggleston: then I will be able to get my kids to school.
• 1:10:02
  Henry Barajas: started coloring, yeah, and I started coloring it, so… Oh, okay. I do everything but the inks, and so I'm much more conservative about what I'm doing with Gil, because I don't want to spend too much time coloring something.
• 1:10:15
  Henry Barajas: So, yeah, it's, did you…
• 1:10:17
  Tad Eggleston: learn to color with Gil, or is that…
• 1:10:19
  Henry Barajas: No, no, I mean, I took a… I mean, I'm lucky, when I was, you know, 5 years old.
• 1:10:27
  Henry Barajas: maybe even 4 years old, we had Macintosh,
• 1:10:32
  Henry Barajas: computers, so I've been… I've been messing with MS Paint, or Microsoft Paint, or whatever… Photoshop! I've been messing with Photoshop my entire life, so… One day I was just like, hey, let me, let me just pretend I'm in… in elementary school again.
• 1:10:48
  Henry Barajas: And then I realized, oh yeah, I know how to do this. And I'm not doing this at, like, a level that's, like.
• 1:10:53
  Henry Barajas: respectful in any way, but it is functional, and that's kind of the lettering style that we have with Gil anyway, so I feel lucky that I get to keep a certain level of continuity. Every character kind of has their own color scheme now.
• 1:11:08
  Henry Barajas: Right. But, it's very functional coloring.
• 1:11:13
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, let me… let me get into closing questions, just because I know that you have other stuff to do, and…
• 1:11:18
  Henry Barajas: Thank you.
• 1:11:18
  Tad Eggleston: I have some other stuff to do, but I've been enjoying myself, so…
• 1:11:22
  Henry Barajas: Insane.
• 1:11:23
  Tad Eggleston: Always tell me to shut up if I… if, like…
• 1:11:25
  Tad Eggleston: I should have made that clear much earlier. You know, every once in a while, somebody will be so polite that they'll, like, suddenly hold up a note that says, I need to go to the bathroom. I'm like, you could have just said that on the air. You could have said, Tad, you're too long-winded, I gotta go.
• 1:11:40
  Henry Barajas: Oh, no.
• 1:11:42
  Tad Eggleston: Because I care way more about you liking me enough to come back than getting the most out of this individual conversation.
• 1:11:49
  Henry Barajas: For sure, for sure.
• 1:11:52
  Tad Eggleston: So, so my, my, my, my new follow-up question, or my new closing question, I have two now, but the newer one is,
• 1:12:03
  Tad Eggleston: I'm in my fifth year doing this podcast, and I feel like I've entered the Twilight Zone.
• 1:12:07
  Tad Eggleston: The number of people that I consider friends that used to be names on paper.
• 1:12:13
  Tad Eggleston: the number of experiences that I've gotten to have that, like, if you told 10-year-old or even 35-year-old Tad, oh, yeah, you're just gonna hang out with this person after this con, or you're gonna… you're gonna moderate a panel at a major con, or…
• 1:12:30
  Tad Eggleston: And you're gonna have these people on it, or these people show up to it, or…
• 1:12:35
  Tad Eggleston: You're gonna have this person…
• 1:12:38
  Tad Eggleston: come up and say this thing to you afterwards, you know? Some of them big names, some of them not names, but, like, the things that they say are like, oh, wow, somebody just said that about me, that's…
• 1:12:50
  Tad Eggleston: That's amazing. How did that happen? But I've found that everybody in comics, really, everybody who makes
• 1:12:58
  Tad Eggleston: A life and living around the arts, but comics in particular.
• 1:13:03
  Tad Eggleston: Definitely seemed to have… just…
• 1:13:08
  Tad Eggleston: a catalog of events in their head that when they… when they think about them, they almost have to pinch themselves to go, did that… did that really happen to me? Was it… was it me that got to do that, hear that, experience that, whatever?
• 1:13:23
  Tad Eggleston: So I started collecting those stories. Tell me a story about a surreal moment.
• 1:13:30
  Tad Eggleston: That you wouldn't have had if it weren't for comics.
• 1:13:34
  Henry Barajas: Oh my gosh, that is, that… there is so many.
• 1:13:40
  Tad Eggleston: Your bike over the last 20 years.
• 1:13:44
  Henry Barajas: So many moments. It's like, you know, I grew up a poor kid from the city of South Tucson.
• 1:13:50
  Henry Barajas: who read about comics. It read about them through Comics Journal and Wizard Magazine, and the back of comics, and…
• 1:13:57
  Henry Barajas: and seeing these names and faces and art styles and writing styles that I get to admire, and…
• 1:14:04
  Henry Barajas: I get to enjoy… There's just so many to choose from, really, I… I guess something that…
• 1:14:12
  Tad Eggleston: More reason to come back more times.
• 1:14:14
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, something that… I guess one of the more…
• 1:14:18
  Henry Barajas: Like, I had Awakening… so, we talked about John Suncher's word balloon being a very…
• 1:14:23
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:14:24
  Henry Barajas: That, you know, pers… his… his podcast was so important to me. Kelly Sudakonic, talked about working at the same place I worked at.
• 1:14:35
  Henry Barajas: And having a similar job that I had, and having a typewriter on her desk.
• 1:14:41
  Henry Barajas: And, you know, saying to yourself, I'm… this isn't where I'm gonna spend the rest of my career, I'm gonna be a writer. So I kind of did something like that, too, like, I had, you know, I had a token.
• 1:14:53
  Henry Barajas: And I, I have… I've collected, I've started that, like, I… this is a,
• 1:14:57
  Henry Barajas: I guess this could be the other one. This is a, mummy doll.
• 1:15:02
  Henry Barajas: drawn, of the likeness of Anthony Bourdain, and I, and I won it at a Comic Book Legal Defense Fund auction.
• 1:15:10
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, wow.
• 1:15:10
  Henry Barajas: And he signed it and drew a steak knife with blood.
• 1:15:14
  Tad Eggleston: Wow.
• 1:15:14
  Henry Barajas: Falling off of it.
• 1:15:16
  Tad Eggleston: Steak knife was blood falling off of it on the back of his head.
• 1:15:20
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, and .
• 1:15:21
  Tad Eggleston: Let's not read in too much to that.
• 1:15:23
  Henry Barajas: And, I got to meet him at Comic-Con and thank him, and for his art, for his words, and
• 1:15:31
  Henry Barajas: And, you know, I've got to meet the late, great Congressman John Lewis, and… but then I got to thank Kelly Sue and say, you know, if it weren't for you…
• 1:15:40
  Henry Barajas: Sharing your experience.
• 1:15:42
  Henry Barajas: I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here, and .
• 1:15:46
  Tad Eggleston: First time I ever had a letter posted or printed in a comic was in FML.
• 1:15:51
  Henry Barajas: Yo, that's great.
• 1:15:52
  Tad Eggleston: supposed to be a letter to FML, it was just a letter to Kelly Sue, and a reminder that she hadn't… that we hadn't managed to schedule anything yet.
• 1:16:03
  Tad Eggleston: But they liked my sense of humor enough that they took the part of it that wasn't…
• 1:16:08
  Tad Eggleston: Wasn't strictly the…
• 1:16:10
  Henry Barajas: Sure.
• 1:16:10
  Tad Eggleston: Come be on the…
• 1:16:12
  Tad Eggleston: we still need to come on the podcast. She wound up being on the podcast before the letter ran, too, so, like.
• 1:16:18
  Henry Barajas: Oh, that's cool.
• 1:16:18
  Tad Eggleston: counts. Well, that's cool.
• 1:16:20
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, and being such a big fan of Brian Michael Bendis, and, you know, having a chance to have a personal phone call with him, and talk to him about, you know, he was very…
• 1:16:31
  Henry Barajas: kind about what Death Pachuco was, and, you know, David Lapham being my favorite cartoonist of all time, and drawing multiple covers for me.
• 1:16:41
  Tad Eggleston: He's the only person that I own an original page from.
• 1:16:45
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, no, and and taking, Katie Skelly and, and…
• 1:16:51
  Henry Barajas: and, and Jaime Hernandez to,
• 1:16:55
  Henry Barajas: to a Dodgers game, but, you know, like, also…
• 1:16:58
  Tad Eggleston: That's the one that I'm most jealous of, Henry.
• 1:17:00
  Henry Barajas: Also, just, Gonzo and I have really struggled in this business, and us going to…
• 1:17:06
  Henry Barajas: to Harrogate's UK, and tabling, and being able to celebrate the work that we've done together. I mean, I say comics are magic, and I… Yeah. And I believe that. I believe they've given me a life that I will always cherish for the rest of my life, and…
• 1:17:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and hopefully, making comics for the rest of your life.
• 1:17:27
  Henry Barajas: That is always… that, you know, everyone… now, the funny thing…
• 1:17:31
  Tad Eggleston: Let me rephrase. Making comics until you don't want to make comics anymore.
• 1:17:37
  Tad Eggleston: Like, if you reach an age or whatnot that you would prefer to retire, I would prefer that you not have to bang out comics just so you can keep a roof over your head.
• 1:17:48
  Henry Barajas: Not a bad way to make a living, but I'm very…
• 1:17:51
  Tad Eggleston: It isn't, but I spent a decade working in senior care, so, so I've changed the way I tell people that I hope they can do things for the rest of their life. Oh, for sure. You know, it's much more. I hope that you can do it as long as it's what you want to do. I hope it never gets taken away from you before
• 1:18:10
  Tad Eggleston: Before you're ready to stop.
• 1:18:12
  Tad Eggleston: Also, that if you're ever ready to stop, that's an option available to you.
• 1:18:17
  Henry Barajas: 100%, 100%, and thank you, thank you. So, I… there's so many more stories that I have, but…
• 1:18:25
  Henry Barajas: I think Kelly Hsu is one of the most important comic book creators in my life that.
• 1:18:29
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 1:18:30
  Henry Barajas: That gave me the confidence to push through and make.
• 1:18:33
  Tad Eggleston: Kelly Sue is so amazing. Period.
• 1:18:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Full stop.
• 1:18:37
  Tad Eggleston: And also part of good trouble.
• 1:18:40
  Henry Barajas: Yes, who is, you know.
• 1:18:43
  Tad Eggleston: Huh?
• 1:18:43
  Henry Barajas: Again, you just, the life of making comics is so beautiful, and you never know where it's gonna take you.
• 1:18:50
  Tad Eggleston: That's right. Alright, closing question. Tell me something you love.
• 1:18:56
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't really have rules. Oh, true. Preferably storytelling, but again, we don't really have rules.
• 1:19:03
  Henry Barajas: Yeah.
• 1:19:04
  Tad Eggleston: So it's something that you love, that not enough people around you have experienced, and you really like them to, so you have more people to talk about it with.
• 1:19:13
  Henry Barajas: So you prefer a comic?
• 1:19:17
  Tad Eggleston: Comics is preferred, but just… just… just so you know, actually, we can… we can… you mentioned Congressman Lewis. Just from… from the two people that I've had on the podcast multiple times who are friends of Congressman Lewis, I can give you, like, a full gamut of the answers. Andrew once said his tomato garden.
• 1:19:35
  Tad Eggleston: And Nate Powell once said.
• 1:19:39
  Tad Eggleston: Jonathan Hickman's X-Men. He said, I know that everybody's reading this, but, like, I just got back into Wednesday Comics, and I'm the indie comic guy. None of my friends are reading this!
• 1:19:49
  Henry Barajas: Right.
• 1:19:50
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, there's a lot of latitude.
• 1:19:54
  Tad Eggleston: I get movie recommendations, I get indie… I get… I… I get…
• 1:19:58
  Tad Eggleston: I get music recommendations, like… and for that matter, if you're having trouble keeping it to one.
• 1:20:05
  Tad Eggleston: Make as many as you want to throw out.
• 1:20:06
  Henry Barajas: Alright, yeah. I don't want.
• 1:20:08
  Tad Eggleston: I want it to be pressure.
• 1:20:09
  Henry Barajas: No, no, no.
• 1:20:10
  Tad Eggleston: It's my cooler way of giving me something unrated.
• 1:20:14
  Henry Barajas: Sure.
• 1:20:15
  Tad Eggleston: not underrated, underrated. It's my cooler way of saying underrated, so, so, because I hate the word underrated. Right.
• 1:20:23
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, like… You're just like…
• 1:20:24
  Henry Barajas: Looking for something to read, yeah.
• 1:20:26
  Tad Eggleston: It's always cool when it's something that I haven't read, and it's also sometimes cool when I can say, well, I can talk to you about that, that's amazing!
• 1:20:36
  Henry Barajas: You know, I think there is… if you ever get a chance, I would, if you can…
• 1:20:46
  Henry Barajas: go to Thought Bubble in Harrogate.
• 1:20:50
  Tad Eggleston: totally on my, my, my…
• 1:20:52
  Henry Barajas: Bucket list, I'm sure. Bucket list.
• 1:20:54
  Henry Barajas: Sarah Gordon's Vicious Creatures, something you don't have to go to Thought Bubble to get, you can get that from her, or however she's selling that comic. An incredible, incredible horror story, if you like horror.
• 1:21:09
  Henry Barajas: the thing I'm really, really excited about. I got my Blu-ray for Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie.
• 1:21:16
  Tad Eggleston: I have not yet, but did you also have it recommended to you by Brian Bendis when I had it recommended to you?
• 1:21:24
  Henry Barajas: Give me back.
• 1:21:24
  Tad Eggleston: Ryan Bendis.
• 1:21:25
  Henry Barajas: No, it was something my…
• 1:21:27
  Tad Eggleston: Or was it already…
• 1:21:28
  Henry Barajas: friend.
• 1:21:29
  Tad Eggleston: list of things to watch when he talked about it.
• 1:21:31
  Henry Barajas: So, like, I'm very lucky that I get to live in LA. A lot of people were buzzing about the movie.
• 1:21:39
  Henry Barajas: And then, my friend, she put it on here, and we watched it, and
• 1:21:46
  Henry Barajas: It is, the perfect movie to watch in the, constant hellscape
• 1:21:52
  Henry Barajas: That keeps developing, contracting. It is such a positive, incredible story. Very… one of the funniest things I've ever seen that led to me watching
• 1:22:04
  Henry Barajas: Nirvana, the band, the show…
• 1:22:07
  Tad Eggleston: I was about to ask, have you watched the show?
• 1:22:09
  Henry Barajas: I've seen the two seasons, I have not had the chance to watch the web show yet.
• 1:22:15
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't watched any of them yet, but… but… but now… but now I need to…
• 1:22:21
  Henry Barajas: I would say I'll watch the movie.
• 1:22:23
  Tad Eggleston: Harder, too. Movie first?
• 1:22:25
  Henry Barajas: The movie, if you want, it's on Amazon Prime. The show, Season 1, is by far my favorite of what they've done.
• 1:22:35
  Tad Eggleston: Season 1 of the show is your favorite.
• 1:22:37
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, the movie is incredible, and I would probably say it's my sixth favorite movie. I'm also on Letterboxd, I love film.
• 1:22:44
  Henry Barajas: So, my permanent fifth favorite movie is The Royal Tenenbaums. But Nirvana the band, the show, is always gonna be jockeying between, Junzo Aitami movies and,
• 1:22:59
  Henry Barajas: Probably, Perfect Blue. But yeah, no, I would say if you're looking to laugh and have a fun time.
• 1:23:08
  Henry Barajas: Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, is a… is a… I think…
• 1:23:11
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:23:12
  Henry Barajas: a gift.
• 1:23:14
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:23:15
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I, it just went even higher on my list.
• 1:23:19
  Tad Eggleston: It was… it was already on my list, and now it's… it's… it's higher on my list.
• 1:23:24
  Henry Barajas: Awesome.
• 1:23:25
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 1:23:26
  Tad Eggleston: Henry, it has been… Outstanding.
• 1:23:31
  Henry Barajas: Yeah, we could do this for hours, so thank you for.
• 1:23:34
  Tad Eggleston: I'm so glad to finally have made your acquaintance, and I hope that we,
• 1:23:42
  Tad Eggleston: I hope that we can do it again.
• 1:23:43
  Henry Barajas: I look forward to doing this again, for sure.
• 1:23:45
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:46
  Henry Barajas: I look forward to it.
• 1:23:48
  Tad Eggleston: So, for 22 panels, this has been Henry Barajas, and we will see you after the next page.