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With Great Power #358... 22 Panels with Elliott Mondry & Alicia Madden · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. My guests today, returning, are Elliot Mondria and Alicia… it's Alicia, right?
• 0:10
  Alicia MADDEN: Right.
• 0:11
  Tad Eggleston: Alicia Madden, I thought I had it right, and then as I said it, I'm like, wait a minute.
• 0:17
  Tad Eggleston: Did Edgar pronounce it that way? And it is actually supposed to be Alicia, not Alicia, so I'm glad that I got it right. Good job. Alicia Madden.
• 0:26
  Tad Eggleston: You know, normally I clear that off the air, but you know, I say normally, but I think the record actually shows that I clear it on the air off… almost as often as I clear it off the air.
• 0:37
  Alicia MADDEN: What's important is that you asked.
• 0:40
  Tad Eggleston: Right, that's the thing about actually recording this thing, that I can say normally, and if somebody cares, they can go back through the 900-some-odd episodes and go, no, I have, like, 300 occurrences of you asking on-air how to pronounce something.
• 0:56
  Elliott Mondry: record, it's fine.
• 1:00
  Tad Eggleston: You never know, Issue 2 is… is… funding on Kickstarter now, actually FUNDED on Kickstarter, with 24 days to go.
• 1:11
  Tad Eggleston: Issue 1 is available, again, too, among the rewards.
• 1:17
  Tad Eggleston: those of you who need to catch up, you can get 1 and 2 for $18. The whopping, whopping $18, that's a really good price for Kickstarter.
• 1:29
  Tad Eggleston: Or just issue… or just issue 2 for 10 bucks. As long as you're paying Alicia well, I'm all for…
• 1:37
  Tad Eggleston: It being a really good price for Kickstarter.
• 1:41
  Tad Eggleston: I just, like, I haven't figured out all of the financials of Kickstarter, but, like, I know that the reason so many of us are willing to pay $15 to $20 for a single issue or whatnot is we sit back and we go.
• 1:55
  Tad Eggleston: No, that seems about right, to actually have them be paid. I mean.
• 2:02
  Elliott Mondry: the pricing, we can go on at nauseam about the pricing. We've had meetings about it where, what are we willing to pay for.
• 2:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 2:10
  Elliott Mondry: And we wouldn't want to charge more than what we're willing to charge for a single issue, obviously.
• 2:15
  Tad Eggleston: Though, I mean, I totally tell creators all the time, you need to actually just look at what's successful on Kickstarter and, like, stop selling yourself short, because the number of people who go nuts
• 2:29
  Tad Eggleston: to keep their thing at, like, $5 to $7, because that's all that they'd be willing to pay, and I'm sitting there going, but there's all this evidence that
• 2:39
  Tad Eggleston: Massive amounts of the Kickstarter community are willing to pay 20.
• 2:44
  Tad Eggleston: Because they…
• 2:45
  Elliott Mondry: Kickstarter premium.
• 2:46
  Tad Eggleston: They're… they're not buying… A single issue with the comic shop.
• 2:53
  Tad Eggleston: they're supporting you actually getting to make the comic. They don't even care if they paid 20 for it, and then it's in their comic shop for $5.
• 3:05
  Elliott Mondry: Right, because.
• 3:06
  Tad Eggleston: Because that's not what they're… they're paying because they want the thing to exist.
• 3:13
  Elliott Mondry: Because you're not just paying the single issue, you're paying for the entire production, you're paying for the printing costs, you're paying for the art costs, you're paying for all the legal work that goes behind everything, so it's not just $8 or $10 for a single issue, you're paying $8 or $10 towards the creation of an entire story.
• 3:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right, and I think most people who buy much on Kickstarter are…
• 3:36
  Tad Eggleston: are aware of that. I think there are people like me who also spend way too much on Substack and Patreon, and don't actually care
• 3:45
  Tad Eggleston: if they're getting
• 3:46
  Tad Eggleston: Like, the number of times I will specifically tell people that I'm a patron of to stop apologizing for not putting up posh.
• 3:55
  Tad Eggleston: I'm like, I assume that that means you're busy at work, continue to take my money, because…
• 4:01
  Tad Eggleston: my money is coming to you because I want, like, work from you, not… not work from you that comes to me. I'm looking forward to the next comic that hits the shelves because you were able to feed yourself.
• 4:15
  Elliott Mondry: I mean, that's…
• 4:16
  Elliott Mondry: that's what's so great about Kickstarter, is you're able to support these creators and these other crowdfunding sites, you're able to support the creators and their endeavors.
• 4:25
  Elliott Mondry: Even without, you know.
• 4:27
  Elliott Mondry: even if it doesn't come out right away, you're still supporting the process, and every dollar that gets put back into an independent creator's story gets put back right into the reader. And I think that's what's so great about independent works and independent creators and crowdfunding, because
• 4:45
  Elliott Mondry: You're not just supporting a giant company, you're supporting people like you and me, who are just trying to live their dream and make a comic book.
• 4:51
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 4:52
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So, give me the, quick front counter pitch for You Never Know issue 2, possibly starting with a synopsis of Issue 1.
• 5:02
  Tad Eggleston: Just for the handful of listeners that may have started listening since the last time you were on.
• 5:08
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, my mom and brother clearly committed the last… the last episode to memory, so they probably don't need this part, but… but Mom, Adam, just suffer through it. There might be another listener out there somewhere.
• 5:22
  Elliott Mondry: Alicia, do you want me to take it from here, or do you wanna… do you want me to do one you do too?
• 5:27
  Elliott Mondry: Or…
• 5:29
  Alicia MADDEN: You know what, I should do number one, because it's… you're the… you're the writer, you know how you want to talk about number two, so, issue number one…
• 5:37
  Tad Eggleston: I must say.
• 5:39
  Elliott Mondry: Where does number 2 work for?
• 5:43
  Alicia MADDEN: It's true.
• 5:44
  Elliott Mondry: Austin Powers, everybody.
• 5:46
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I…
• 5:48
  Alicia MADDEN: So, you know, you never know, deals with the concept that you never really know what another person is going through behind closed doors, or how strong of a hold anxiety can really have on somebody.
• 5:59
  Alicia MADDEN: Elliot wrote the, he wrote the entire story while he was in therapy to understand what he was going through. In the first issue, we have the modern storyline opening up, and we meet Jason, our main character. And,
• 6:16
  Alicia MADDEN: there's a… A scene that basically sets us up for, oh, this person has panic attacks, and
• 6:25
  Alicia MADDEN: Then, in Issue 2, We progress to this.
• 6:30
  Elliott Mondry: So, issue two, we start to actually take the story… we move forward by bringing the story back. So, this is gonna be the first issue where we actually get backstories to who Jason is as a kid.
• 6:42
  Elliott Mondry: And start to get glimpses as to why he's feeling this way, why… where this anxiety starts coming from, and the impact it had on him as a child, so that way we start to learn how it impacts him as an adult.
• 6:52
  Elliott Mondry: So the series is ultimately going to be told in alternating storylines, where you will see how it's affecting him today, and then how it came to be that he started developing, this anxiety. So it's more of a deep dive into the character and learning where… not necessarily where it started, but where it's coming from.
• 7:11
  Alicia MADDEN: You're harnessing the power of flashbacks.
• 7:14
  Elliott Mondry: Precisely.
• 7:16
  Tad Eggleston: flashbacks are a good thing. I mean…
• 7:19
  Tad Eggleston: Anybody who has spent any amount of time in therapy knows that y-you don't…
• 7:29
  Tad Eggleston: You don't move forward without looking
• 7:32
  Tad Eggleston: back. How far back? Depends… depends.
• 7:35
  Alicia MADDEN: I've heard in therapy that if you live in the… if you live in the past, that's depression.
• 7:40
  Alicia MADDEN: If you try to live in the future, that's anxiety, and, like, living in the present is kind of, like, where you're supposed to be.
• 7:48
  Tad Eggleston: No, that's totally where you're going, but I think your sessions are often…
• 7:53
  Tad Eggleston: You're gonna have to do some looking back. You're gonna have to… to… to reframe how you look forward.
• 8:01
  Tad Eggleston: to allow yourself to… to live in that… that present point. So… so it makes a lot of sense that, like, once we… we learn the…
• 8:12
  Tad Eggleston: The level of anxiety and whatnot.
• 8:16
  Tad Eggleston: that… that we would start going, okay, where did… where did this anxiety come from? Because it probably didn't come from…
• 8:24
  Tad Eggleston: From, like, him getting the wrong lunch order today, and that set off the entire… never been prone to anxiety before, no panic attacks, but…
• 8:34
  Tad Eggleston: Damn it, there was… there was tomato on his burger, and he said no tomato, and it's just been sitting with him since then.
• 8:43
  Elliott Mondry: I mean, depending on how hungry you are, that would set me off.
• 8:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but, but, but, but, like…
• 8:50
  Tad Eggleston: probably already when you deal with anxiety and whatnot. If you were completely anxiety-free, it'd be like, oh, I'm gonna go up and ask for a burger without a tomato.
• 9:06
  Elliott Mondry: I think if… I think we can all agree, if the first sign of somebody having anxiety is getting a lunch order wrong, and then you just go from 0 to 100, there's a lot that we needed to discuss.
• 9:18
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right. That's what I'm saying.
• 9:25
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I mean, I've known people that manage to be anxiety-free until the wrong job in adulthood, or a traumatic experience, like, so it's not always a lifelong buildup.
• 9:40
  Tad Eggleston: But lifelong buildup seems like the average way that it works.
• 9:46
  Elliott Mondry: I would… I mean, I can't really speak to that, because I'm not a psychologist.
• 9:50
  Tad Eggleston: I guess that's where it does.
• 9:51
  Elliott Mondry: We're darn.
• 9:51
  Tad Eggleston: psychologist.
• 9:52
  Elliott Mondry: That's what we would need Dr. Ramos and Associates.
• 9:54
  Tad Eggleston: Unprofessional.
• 9:55
  Alicia MADDEN: Should answer.
• 9:57
  Tad Eggleston: This is from reading, from teaching, from being in therapy groups.
• 10:04
  Tad Eggleston: And from having been a parent, and knowing that there's, like, absolutely…
• 10:11
  Tad Eggleston: no manual? So I'm pretty certain that even the absolute best of us find some way to fuck up our kids.
• 10:21
  Elliott Mondry: As my mom always says, you need to have something to talk about in therapy.
• 10:25
  Tad Eggleston: There you go! And, like, that is actually a really healthy…
• 10:33
  Tad Eggleston: That's a way more healthy perspective than, like, what are you talking about? I do everything right. It's your fault.
• 10:40
  Elliott Mondry: Like, no, stuff happens.
• 10:42
  Tad Eggleston: Good luck.
• 10:42
  Elliott Mondry: Otherwise, it's the circle of life.
• 10:47
  Tad Eggleston: No, that's… that's why my son thought that… that… that Matthew Broderick shouldn't have killed all the baby Godzillas and… and…
• 10:56
  Tad Eggleston: Madison Square Garden.
• 10:59
  Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry.
• 11:00
  Tad Eggleston: I associate Circuit of Life with Godzilla, not with… with The Lion King, because… And I, I…
• 11:09
  Tad Eggleston: I might have… like, when stories get stuck in my head, they get told multiple times in a short period of time on 22 Panels. I think this story has come up at least once this week.
• 11:19
  Tad Eggleston: But you guys don't know it, so yeah, no. When my son was like, Five.
• 11:25
  Tad Eggleston: We're watching the Matthew Broderick Godzilla at my dad's house, and when it gets to the end scene, where they've got all the Godzilla eggs.
• 11:33
  Tad Eggleston: at, at…
• 11:34
  Tad Eggleston: Madison Square Garden, and the people are, like, shooting the eggs, or shooting the babies coming out of them, or whatnot, he is screaming at the television. You don't shoot Godzilla! Godzilla eats you!
• 11:48
  Tad Eggleston: And my 8-year-old daughter is just smiling, going, it's the circle of life.
• 11:55
  Alicia MADDEN: Wow, that's a mature way to look at it.
• 12:00
  Tad Eggleston: They also rooted for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.
• 12:05
  Alicia MADDEN: I get that.
• 12:07
  Elliott Mondry: I mean, you know, forget…
• 12:08
  Alicia MADDEN: power.
• 12:09
  Elliott Mondry: Something to talk about in therapy.
• 12:13
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, so… So, yeah, so we start going… going… going back for the character here.
• 12:23
  Tad Eggleston: I don't remember if I asked the last time you were on, Elliott, I mean, you were doing this in… in therapy. How…
• 12:33
  Tad Eggleston: How fictional versus… versus… Biographical… is it?
• 12:41
  Tad Eggleston: And talk to me about the differences between
• 12:44
  Tad Eggleston: Writing issue one, where you're kind of identifying the problem.
• 12:49
  Tad Eggleston: Versus Issue 2, when you're having to, to… Revisit the things that… that…
• 12:58
  Tad Eggleston: Were the roots of the problem.
• 13:01
  Elliott Mondry: That's actually a great… that is a great question. So, when I originally wrote the story, I wrote it all in, in full. I didn't write issue one, and then wrote issue two, then wrote issue three. I wrote everything at once, but as we said, there's two storylines. I wrote the modern storyline based off of what I was feeling at the time in therapy.
• 13:20
  Elliott Mondry: And then, after going over it with our editor, I rewrote the alternate storyline as well, or the second storyline, to give context to the first storyline. So, it was an interesting process of having to now go back in time and think, okay, how does this character feel? How did I feel when I was younger?
• 13:39
  Elliott Mondry: And, it's definitely a challenge.
• 13:43
  Elliott Mondry: But it was a very introspective exercise, I'd say, and really let me analyze things from when I was younger. As far as what was true versus autobiographical versus fiction.
• 13:56
  Elliott Mondry: everything is based on things that have happened to me in the story, and especially in the modern storyline, for the most part, a lot of things are pretty, accurate. Obviously, with a few things changed for my own sake, but I wouldn't say anything in the story isn't something that's happened to me to an extent in school, or in…
• 14:15
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 14:16
  Elliott Mondry: life, and obviously the younger parts, some of them were taken, I took liberties with, and…
• 14:23
  Elliott Mondry: fictionalized a little bit, the whole… the concept as a whole, and the character is essentially based on my lived experiences. So… and I took a lot of… a big thing that I really wanted to emphasize with this story was I didn't want any
• 14:36
  Elliott Mondry: not only did I not want fiction in it too much, other than obviously artistic liberties, but I didn't want there to be any, like, monsters, any,
• 14:45
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 14:45
  Elliott Mondry: Like, horror genre or anything like that to when there could be some sort of, like, fictitious creatures or anything.
• 14:53
  Elliott Mondry: I wanted it to be very real and very, something that anybody could actually experience, because I didn't want someone to think, oh, it's anxiety, oh, it's just in his head, and it's just manifestations of this and this, and oh, it's just a monster, and blah blah blah.
• 15:06
  Elliott Mondry: I wanted to, the entire way through, for it to be very realistic and a very slice-of-life story, to be able for readers to not only relate to it, but to be able to experience it in their own way, and relate to themselves.
• 15:18
  Elliott Mondry: So that was always a big, thing that I had in mind when I was writing the series as well.
• 15:25
  Tad Eggleston: So,
• 15:27
  Tad Eggleston: there's… there's almost, well, it's not almost. There… there's… there's a subgenre of comics now that… that's… that… that they'll also often call it graphic medicine, or… or in…
• 15:39
  Tad Eggleston: this sort of book, More Graphic Psychology, And, like… the people…
• 15:51
  Tad Eggleston: Most of these books are, are, are, are…
• 15:55
  Tad Eggleston: written and drawn by the same person. And most of the time, when I talk to people who trough…
• 16:03
  Tad Eggleston: write or draw fiction that's drawn from their life, but, like, very much separated from their life. It's because they can't imagine sitting with
• 16:13
  Tad Eggleston: The…
• 16:16
  Tad Eggleston: personal experiences long enough to draw them, and they're kind of awestruck of the people. So you managed to have created a situation where these are your experiences, but you get to hand off the time-consuming part to Alicia.
• 16:32
  Tad Eggleston: Alicia, what's it like to…
• 16:36
  Tad Eggleston: have this script that you know is very real to Elliot.
• 16:45
  Tad Eggleston: but not necessarily real to you. I mean.
• 16:48
  Tad Eggleston: Probably… may resonate with you, but they're not your lived experiences, and to try to bring them to life.
• 16:57
  Alicia MADDEN: I would call it, like, a very… a very rewarding challenge, because I didn't, live his exact experience, so there is, like.
• 17:05
  Alicia MADDEN: there are things in there, like, oh, I hope I get this correct, kind of thing, and it is such a pleasure when he does tell me, like, this is exactly what it looks like in my head. That's what I strive for with every single, like, decision I make.
• 17:19
  Alicia MADDEN: And he's there every step of the way. Like, yeah, I have lots of liberty with the drawing portion, but…
• 17:27
  Alicia MADDEN: like, everything goes to him first. It's not like, I'll show him a page and be like, this is how it looks. You know, every step of the way, he's like, I'm like, can I do this or this? And how does it communicate? Because he's also…
• 17:41
  Alicia MADDEN: like, I have the script, but I also have the fact that he's just well-read in comics, and we talk about how to use visual language and everything, and I'm currently, like, studying Will Eisner's books, just to really hone in on.
• 17:55
  Tad Eggleston: Great, great books.
• 17:57
  Alicia MADDEN: Yeah, yeah, they are. And, you know, the two of us just want to improve, no matter what, and so with the script writing and with the art.
• 18:06
  Alicia MADDEN: The goal is to improve, to be authentic.
• 18:10
  Alicia MADDEN: And I like that you brought up the fact that there isn't, there isn't a fantastical explanation for things in these comics, because that was always my favorite.
• 18:20
  Alicia MADDEN: That was my favorite, like, sub… sub-thread or through-line in comics, is when they are just down-to-earth, gritty, and…
• 18:31
  Alicia MADDEN: There's no… there's… there's a lot of imagination in it.
• 18:34
  Alicia MADDEN: But, no fantasy. Because… That's real life, shoot.
• 18:41
  Elliott Mondry: And we've had discussions about where, you know, certain
• 18:46
  Elliott Mondry: like, with other stories we've worked on together, where there's fantasy elements, and our whole thing as Calamity Comics, is to tell mental health-driven stories and real stories for people suffering in silence. And I've almost always struck it down to say.
• 19:03
  Elliott Mondry: Did I just do a thumbs-up thing on the…
• 19:05
  Tad Eggleston: It looks like you did. Yeah, yeah.
• 19:07
  Elliott Mondry: All those listening at home, with the thumbs up on the screen.
• 19:12
  Elliott Mondry: See, it was already approving my sentence.
• 19:15
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:16
  Elliott Mondry: Where we would strike down almost any fantasy element, because…
• 19:21
  Elliott Mondry: to me, it doesn't feel that fantasy… fantasy elements to a story that deals with such a strong topic can almost cheapen the experience for the reader, in my opinion. Obviously, anybody is free to disagree, but when you're telling these types of raw, gritty, and very real stories.
• 19:40
  Elliott Mondry: tell them with real stories, don't tell them with fantasy. And that's something that we've stressed so much in not only the writing, but in the artwork as well, and that Alicia's done an amazing job at being able to convey in the artwork.
• 19:54
  Tad Eggleston: I think it can definitely work both ways, but…
• 19:58
  Tad Eggleston: But they're different stories, depending on the direction that you…
• 20:01
  Elliott Mondry: Agreed, agreed.
• 20:02
  Alicia MADDEN: There's gotta be someone out there who's doing a great job using fantasy and, like, anthropology.
• 20:06
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, we…
• 20:07
  Alicia MADDEN: element.
• 20:08
  Elliott Mondry: Oh, without a doubt.
• 20:08
  Alicia MADDEN: Yeah, I was, I was about to…
• 20:10
  Tad Eggleston: See, buddy.
• 20:10
  Alicia MADDEN: Like, us, we are… that is not us. We want to be down to earth.
• 20:16
  Tad Eggleston: We, we've talked to, to,
• 20:19
  Tad Eggleston: to… to… Joe Kelly and… and… and, Ken Nimira about I Kill Giants, which… has… just ate.
• 20:30
  Tad Eggleston: Thread of a fantasy thing going through what's essentially a… a coming-of-age loss story.
• 20:41
  Tad Eggleston: that… That makes it work, because…
• 20:46
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, and I'm trying to… because Edgar was in on that, and we have also talked about that one with Sam. Where it can work especially is when
• 20:56
  Tad Eggleston: When you're looking at characters,
• 21:01
  Tad Eggleston: And it's used as the device that they use for their coping.
• 21:05
  Elliott Mondry: Yes, 100%, and I mean, I know I've talked.
• 21:08
  Tad Eggleston: And you're pretty much aware of that all along, so you know that this fantasy part is… is not… the fantasy part is not real. It is fantasy. It's just part of what's…
• 21:20
  Tad Eggleston: Helping this person… Make sense of their world.
• 21:25
  Elliott Mondry: But if that's… as long as it's addressed early, if it's, like, four issues in, and all of a sudden there's a winged beast coming out, it's like, no, you messed up.
• 21:33
  Tad Eggleston: That's like… that's the… that's like the, it was all a dream ending.
• 21:37
  Elliott Mondry: Right.
• 21:38
  Elliott Mondry: And, I mean, fantasy can be…
• 21:40
  Elliott Mondry: I've talked about this before, I think on the first podcast we were on, where my favorite movie of all time is Machia, When the Promised Flower Blooms, and it deals with, a…
• 21:49
  Elliott Mondry: mother and child, where the mother doesn't age, and she adopts a human child. And it's about that concept, and I think that is such a fantastic idea for the relationships of mothers and sons. And…
• 22:02
  Elliott Mondry: It's just, for me personally, I am not a fantasy writer. I don't necessarily know how to write.
• 22:08
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and…
• 22:08
  Elliott Mondry: that style. So for me, I know how to write in my… through my own experiences of lived life and gritty and emotional.
• 22:16
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 22:17
  Elliott Mondry: stories, so those are the type of stories I tell the best, and that Alicia seems to resonate the best with in terms of her artwork.
• 22:24
  Alicia MADDEN: Yes, that… that literally just reminded me, we were talking to our neighbors at GalaxyCon, and…
• 22:30
  Alicia MADDEN: He looked at me and just asked me about artwork, and he's a fantasy novelist, and he's like.
• 22:37
  Alicia MADDEN: Would you be interested in, I don't know, talking about… artwork, and I was like.
• 22:43
  Elliott Mondry: Like, character lines, I believe.
• 22:44
  Alicia MADDEN: design. I was like, you know.
• 22:47
  Alicia MADDEN: I think your concept is fantastic, and I love looking at fantasy art, but I'm like, I know it's not my style. It would be such a forced, like, experiment, because there are some people who just flourish doing fantasy.
• 23:02
  Alicia MADDEN: And I'm not one of them. Like, I found the right writer to work with, and I, like, mean that because it's like, we operate on the same, like, oh, this is what the world looks like.
• 23:13
  Tad Eggleston: Makes sense.
• 23:14
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I, I,
• 23:20
  Tad Eggleston: trying to… trying to figure out how to… how to phrase this follow-up, because… because I both like…
• 23:28
  Tad Eggleston: Artists, writers, you know, peop… People doing artistic pursuits who are, like, aware of their strengths.
• 23:36
  Tad Eggleston: And I love it when they choose to… to push themselves into areas that aren't their strengths. So I guess where I'm going with this is…
• 23:49
  Tad Eggleston: is that a… I mean, in terms of the answer, it seems like it would be, this isn't my forte, so I'm not necessarily the right person to consult with, but when you think of your career as an artist, do you see yourself
• 24:03
  Tad Eggleston: Staying and just fine-tuning and becoming expert in one area, or do you see yourself at times wanting to try something different?
• 24:14
  Alicia MADDEN: I know for a fact that I can draw different things, like, I…
• 24:19
  Alicia MADDEN: I know in the past, I've drawn, like, manga, and I've drawn, like, other really stylistic styles, just because I like the artist, I was like, oh, I'm gonna try to draw, like, Jonan Vasquez, like, I can. But…
• 24:32
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 24:34
  Alicia MADDEN: here's the thing, the thing I am best at is really feeling my way through a piece, and… Okay. If I… it's like I can't fake it. I can't fake it, so it's like…
• 24:45
  Alicia MADDEN: I have to really enjoy what I'm doing to give 100%, and when I do give 100%, it really shows the piece. So, yes, I know the mechanics behind a beautiful piece of fantasy artwork, or manga, or something.
• 24:59
  Alicia MADDEN: But, to me, when I look back at something that, like, didn't have my heart and soul in it, it looks soulless.
• 25:06
  Alicia MADDEN: And the things that, like, Y&K, I feel every single little panel and every detail in the panel, it comes out, and I've seen with my own eyes people at our, like, tables looking at the artwork.
• 25:21
  Alicia MADDEN: connecting with it in a different way than with the other artwork in the entire convention, because you've got… you've got
• 25:29
  Alicia MADDEN: You've got pop culture and things that they recognize already, and it's done really well, and it's like, wow, beautiful, all that, and then you come to mind, and they get this, like.
• 25:40
  Alicia MADDEN: whoa, this is here? What? Where did this come from? And I love that, because…
• 25:46
  Alicia MADDEN: Yeah, I mean, every artist is unique, and that's how people should react to my artwork, that's how I feel.
• 25:52
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, no, it, like, again, I was trying to ask the question carefully, because it wasn't one that was supposed to imply an answer. Like, I've found that they're just different creative styles. There are people… I mean.
• 26:06
  Tad Eggleston: Sounds like…
• 26:09
  Tad Eggleston: again, you've tried other stuff. It's not that you don't know the mechanics of it, and I wasn't trying to imply that you might not know the mechanics of it, but I've known different creator types. It's like, okay, I'm known for this.
• 26:21
  Tad Eggleston: I want to do something outside of that, and that, I mean, it brings their passion to do something new. And I've known creative types that's like, this is what I do, I want to be the
• 26:32
  Tad Eggleston: best in the world at what I do. And it seems like you, at least at this moment, fall into that second category of…
• 26:41
  Tad Eggleston: this is what I do, like, my creative journey is towards improving this, and that's super cool.
• 26:49
  Elliott Mondry: If I could interject for a moment, this kind of reminds me of an interview I listened to a while ago with Neil Gaiman, where they were asking about his writing style, and he was pointing out different… I don't remember the exact question that was asked, but the gist of it was, he said.
• 27:05
  Elliott Mondry: Game of Thrones is a phenomenal series. I can't write Game of Thrones, just like George R.R. Martin can't write American Gods or Sandman. And I think that each creative writer, artist, what have you.
• 27:18
  Elliott Mondry: we all have our affinities for certain types of styles and certain genres we like working in and telling. It's not that, you know, we couldn't tell… you know, it's not like the Neo Gaiman can't write Game of Thrones, George R. Martin can't write Sandman.
• 27:31
  Elliott Mondry: But the strength lies in what they're able to most connect with. And I think that where Alicia and I both strive is when we connect with what we're working in, then the other can, flourish with that. And I think that's where the relationship works so well for us.
• 27:47
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 27:48
  Tad Eggleston: So you're… I mean, I was gonna ask the follow-up question to you, with you and your writing, like, when this is done, will it be more autobio-type comics, or, like, what are your thoughts?
• 28:02
  Tad Eggleston: On where you want to go as a writer.
• 28:05
  Elliott Mondry: So, we've had discussions about this, and I'm pretty sure we've talked about this off the air as well, little, but, you know, obviously with You Never Know, there's four friend groups, so I'm working on writing… four friends in the story, so I'm working on writing the stories for all of them, because as we know in the series, you never know what people are going through.
• 28:21
  Elliott Mondry: And Jason's story is very autobiographical, but every story after that, I'm in completely new territory with characters that I don't know as well as, myself.
• 28:32
  Elliott Mondry: So it's a push as a.
• 28:34
  Tad Eggleston: Are you going and interviewing their, their, their, real-world counterparts, or are you just making.
• 28:40
  Elliott Mondry: I hit up.
• 28:40
  Tad Eggleston: for them.
• 28:41
  Elliott Mondry: No, to an extent, a little bit of both, but for example, the second… the… obviously, we can't talk about specifics of the story, but…
• 28:48
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 28:48
  Elliott Mondry: one of the characters, I had to learn how to write in a different voice, in a different tone, and I had to interview people who had experienced these,
• 29:00
  Elliott Mondry: traumas in life to understand it better, because I personally don't understand it, because I've never experienced it. Right. So those…
• 29:07
  Elliott Mondry: you know, that was probably the hardest thing I've had to do, was learning how to write in a different voice than my own, and different ages, and all that stuff.
• 29:16
  Elliott Mondry: And…
• 29:18
  Elliott Mondry: In that sense, it's not autobiographical, but it's just as… but to me, it's important to be able to tell other people's stories.
• 29:25
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 29:26
  Elliott Mondry: compassion.
• 29:26
  Tad Eggleston: unit, and real estate.
• 29:27
  Elliott Mondry: way.
• 29:28
  Tad Eggleston: It's biographical rather than autobiographical, and I forget who it was that said that the real truth is in fiction anyway.
• 29:36
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 29:37
  Tad Eggleston: Pete, because, I mean… A… The world just isn't clean enough to easily… Tell strictly true stories without…
• 29:55
  Tad Eggleston: Artistically.
• 29:56
  Elliott Mondry: is.
• 29:57
  Tad Eggleston: Well, well, that actually, like, pull together and put out the messages you want, but B, like…
• 30:05
  Tad Eggleston: There's no way to know anybody's thoughts or emotions beyond your own.
• 30:11
  Alicia MADDEN: That's where the art comes in. Like, in college, I learned, like, in my first semester, we learned about, like.
• 30:17
  Alicia MADDEN: Truth, with a capital T, and Little Truth.
• 30:22
  Tad Eggleston: Right. And it's like…
• 30:22
  Alicia MADDEN: the big truth, capital T, is… is… it's true, like, if somebody went missing.
• 30:29
  Alicia MADDEN: we don't know what really happened to them, but something did. Something truly did happen to Amelia Earhart, for example. Something happened to her. But everything we have right now is little t. We just, like, we have evidence of this, we don't have evidence of that.
• 30:42
  Alicia MADDEN: And I think, like, we can tell human stories and educate people and connect with people the same way. There's a capital T, like, this is what acceptance looks like, this is grief, this is that, this is that. And then little t.
• 30:56
  Alicia MADDEN: truth is how we approach each of those things. Like, maybe somebody is afraid of talking about their emotions, that they express themselves this way, kind of thing, so it's like, there's so many… there's so many stories there, and, like, we just want to approach the big T with our own little Ts. That's calamity.
• 31:15
  Elliott Mondry: All of this to say, you know, I'm always open to writing other stories, but when I hadn't created meetings with our editor and our team, you know, I'll throw out ideas for stories, but it all comes back to the same root question of why? Why do we want to tell this story? And if I can't answer that why, then it's not worth exploring.
• 31:35
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 31:35
  Elliott Mondry: Our goal is to always tell stories that matter, and the worst thing to me as a writer is to write a story that has no meaning.
• 31:42
  Elliott Mondry: So, if it…
• 31:44
  Elliott Mondry: I can do that. I have done that. I've written a story about somebody ordering hot chocolate at a cafe, which was hilarious, but there was no purpose to it other than for it to be funny. But…
• 31:54
  Tad Eggleston: And that's not purpose. Why?
• 31:57
  Elliott Mondry: I wrote it with… for the sake of humor, but our whole thing is… which is a purpose, but as far as our purpose, like, for me, when I write a story, I like to write full-out.
• 32:11
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I understand. I wasn't talking about your purpose. You said there was no purpose to it, and I said that laughter is a purpose. It might not be the purpose of Calamity Comics, that's it.
• 32:23
  Alicia MADDEN: According to our.
• 32:24
  Tad Eggleston: question.
• 32:25
  Alicia MADDEN: It doesn't apply.
• 32:26
  Elliott Mondry: to our company.
• 32:27
  Alicia MADDEN: Correct.
• 32:28
  Elliott Mondry: Stop it in the Molded Calamity comic.
• 32:29
  Tad Eggleston: See, this is… this is the autistic brain. I'm breaking down what you said.
• 32:35
  Elliott Mondry: You're correct, you're correct on that. No, so the purpose can still be human.
• 32:38
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, and the biggest reason I… yeah, the biggest reason I'll say this sort of thing is, like.
• 32:45
  Tad Eggleston: Humor comics have often been incredibly valuable as an escape for me in my own mental health journey, so I'm goddamn happy that somebody thinks just making me laugh is a purposeful thing, Elliot. Doesn't have to be you, but don't you go knocking it!
• 33:04
  Elliott Mondry: Hey, I love a good com… I love a good comedy. Some of my favorite books are just… why am I blanking on some of the names? But who doesn't like picking up a book to just smile and laugh? There's nothing wrong with that.
• 33:14
  Tad Eggleston: And some of them have deep meaning, too, but, I mean, one of the beauties of comics is, like, particularly with the one or two page, sometimes…
• 33:22
  Tad Eggleston: The point… I mean, they're like a one-liner joke.
• 33:26
  Elliott Mondry: Hell yeah.
• 33:26
  Tad Eggleston: really is just… the laugh.
• 33:29
  Elliott Mondry: Agreed. And… but I know as far as our mission goes.
• 33:34
  Tad Eggleston: And that's, that's a whole…
• 33:35
  Elliott Mondry: It's a different thing.
• 33:36
  Tad Eggleston: I'm not saying…
• 33:37
  Tad Eggleston: the story. But maybe give it to a different artist for an anthology or something, if it's that funny. You guys are both laughing at it, and you…
• 33:45
  Elliott Mondry: Oh, no, I think I sent it to Alicia, and she's like, what the hell is this? I'm like, and it's great, but it's like, what is this? Like, it's just fun! We're like, yeah, I guess. So, like, we can always do, like, short little… short little.
• 33:55
  Tad Eggleston: Bonus pages in the collected edition?
• 33:59
  Elliott Mondry: Okay, this is gonna be the… Alicia this will probably be the backstory of, something at the cafe. The Cafe Chronicles.
• 34:10
  Tad Eggleston: The one-page… the one-page sheet to give away for free at Comic-Con?
• 34:18
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, there are a ton of uses.
• 34:20
  Elliott Mondry: 2018.
• 34:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right. You should, yeah.
• 34:22
  Elliott Mondry: We can make that happen.
• 34:23
  Alicia MADDEN: Oh yeah, that's enough time.
• 34:25
  Elliott Mondry: Yeah, more than enough. But, no, so…
• 34:28
  Elliott Mondry: We like to emphasize very real, very narrative-driven stories, and for me to write those, it takes so much of a toll on me emotionally.
• 34:37
  Elliott Mondry: to write the stories the way that I want to write, like, I know… because I've written Volume 1, I wrote Volume 2, and after I wrote Volume 2, it took about a year of that process we talked about, and…
• 34:48
  Elliott Mondry: It was very hard.
• 34:49
  Tad Eggleston: When we say Volume 2, are we talking issue 2 here, or are you already talking about being into Volume 2 of the series that's about somebody else?
• 34:58
  Elliott Mondry: Volume 2 of the series, that's about somebody else, so… Okay.
• 35:02
  Tad Eggleston: So you're way ahead on the writing side.
• 35:04
  Elliott Mondry: Oh, very. We can make known that we're 18 issues in, as far as the series goes, as far as writing.
• 35:12
  Elliott Mondry: So…
• 35:13
  Tad Eggleston: At the pace we're going right now, that means that we'll be…
• 35:17
  Tad Eggleston: She'll be caught up to you in… And what?
• 35:22
  Alicia MADDEN: Whatever.
• 35:22
  Tad Eggleston: 20, 40-something? Cool.
• 35:25
  Elliott Mondry: Hey, well, that'll give us plenty… that will give us plenty of time to get the.
• 35:28
  Tad Eggleston: Lots of time for ads.
• 35:29
  Elliott Mondry: Not on the pod. No, go ahead.
• 35:31
  Tad Eggleston: Give us plenty of time.
• 35:32
  Elliott Mondry: It'll give us plenty of time to get to the top 5 spot as guests on 22 Panels.
• 35:35
  Tad Eggleston: Well, see… see…
• 35:37
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, I mean, that requires all of the people that are ahead of you to stop coming back.
• 35:43
  Elliott Mondry: You know, we can all do… you know, if we all get on.
• 35:45
  Tad Eggleston: Don't you go putting out a hit on any of my friends. That's all I have to say, Elliot.
• 35:50
  Elliott Mondry: I like audiobooks.
• 35:51
  Tad Eggleston: criminal defense lawyer. I know that you know people.
• 35:56
  Elliott Mondry: For the sake of…
• 35:57
  Tad Eggleston: Go down that road!
• 35:59
  Elliott Mondry: For the sake of public record, this is all, humorous in nature. Yes, this is…
• 36:05
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know which people Elliot knows, maybe he only defends jaywalkers.
• 36:12
  Elliott Mondry: Good times. Good times.
• 36:16
  Elliott Mondry: But that's what's so beautiful about comics. There's so many stories that can be told, so many ways that can be told, and no two people can tell those stories as.
• 36:22
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 36:27
  Elliott Mondry: That's why we love this medium.
• 36:28
  Tad Eggleston: It's a… it's a beautiful medium. It's… it's not just a beautiful medium, it's… to me, it remains the perfect medium.
• 36:37
  Tad Eggleston: Like, a comic is limited ONLY.
• 36:41
  Tad Eggleston: by your imagination.
• 36:45
  Elliott Mondry: 100%. I mean, it's not like a Marvel film where you have a budget of millions upon millions of dollars. All you need… if you want to show the same thing in a comic, you just need a pencil and a paper.
• 36:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right, but beyond that, I mean, there are things that you can do in a comic that we haven't figured out how to do on film.
• 37:02
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, how long did it take before they, like…
• 37:06
  Tad Eggleston: the first Christopher Reeve Superman was revolutionary, because it was the first time that they really felt like a superhero movie had been done that felt at all
• 37:20
  Tad Eggleston: as exciting as the comic book. And it was still, like, 10 years before it was done again, and 10 years after that, before it was done again. Not because there weren't attempts, but because
• 37:33
  Tad Eggleston: Even spending a lot of money.
• 37:37
  Tad Eggleston: You know, to capture the type of things that get done in a comic book is not an easy thing to do.
• 37:42
  Tad Eggleston: 2.
• 37:44
  Tad Eggleston: Likewise, there have been adaptations of, I mean, Dan Clough's work, or Adrian Tomina's work. You know, some of the more…
• 37:55
  Tad Eggleston: Autobiographical or… or…
• 38:00
  Tad Eggleston: at least slice-of-life type comics, and they all will capture… I mean, some of it is phenomenal work, and they'll capture a part of it, but…
• 38:13
  Tad Eggleston: The stillness sometimes portrays more in terms of emotions than you really can in
• 38:21
  Tad Eggleston: A moving picture, even with a great actor.
• 38:25
  Tad Eggleston: passage of time is much easier to portray well in a comic than in a movie. You know, there are just so many things that comics are built for.
• 38:36
  Tad Eggleston: And even the things that are harder, things like music or smell or whatever.
• 38:42
  Tad Eggleston: There have been some really creative people who've managed to bring them out in comics in a way that you would
• 38:49
  Tad Eggleston: that you don't believe until you've seen it. But, like, every time I have people telling me, oh, comics can't do this, I'm like, oh, go read this. And they'll read it, and they're like, okay. They don't often do that. I'm like, that's a completely different thing.
• 39:04
  Tad Eggleston: And likewise with pros, you know, particularly for people like me who can't make a picture in their head.
• 39:10
  Tad Eggleston: bomb.
• 39:12
  Tad Eggleston: Prose can do a lot in terms of giving me a character's motivations and whatnot, but
• 39:18
  Tad Eggleston: but not in a way that comics can't. You can make the decision to have
• 39:22
  Tad Eggleston: Exposition panels, or thought balloons, or whatever.
• 39:26
  Tad Eggleston: And I lose the entire visual aspect because I'm not built for it.
• 39:34
  Tad Eggleston: On the flip side, I do know people who prefer reading prose because they like to build their own visual aspects, so I don't want to take that away.
• 39:44
  Tad Eggleston: Probably asked some of this last time, so I'm not gonna go through the whole comics journey with either of you, but… but…
• 39:50
  Tad Eggleston: let's… since we just spent a couple of minutes, and I, like, really gushed too much and took over, and I don't like doing that.
• 40:00
  Tad Eggleston: I do it too much, but I like to let it be the guess. Talk to me about, like, what the medium means to you, and what the medium means to this story.
• 40:13
  Elliott Mondry: So you wanna check.
• 40:13
  Tad Eggleston: Comics, yeah.
• 40:16
  Alicia MADDEN: I hope I… I haven't, like, said this before, at least.
• 40:20
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, again, we've got, like, 3 listeners, so don't worry about it.
• 40:25
  Alicia MADDEN: My favorite thing about comics is that it's an active
• 40:30
  Alicia MADDEN: It's a… reading a comic is, like, active storytelling, and
• 40:36
  Alicia MADDEN: you make the decision to turn… turn the page, to read the next panel. It's not going anywhere without you, the way that a film does. Like, if you fall asleep in the movie theater, you're gonna wake up to the credits rolling. And everything that happened in between, it's up to you, like, oh, maybe I should, like, watch this again, or maybe not.
• 40:57
  Alicia MADDEN: And comics, it's a very active and intimate storytelling session between you and the author slash artist, whoever worked on it.
• 41:07
  Alicia MADDEN: You know, I put in lots of details, because I like to…
• 41:12
  Alicia MADDEN: reward curiosity. I think that's a very good thing in a person. So, I put in lots of little details. If somebody writes on a piece of paper, or there's a book in the background, you better believe that I actually wrote on that piece of paper, and then wrote that book, and then
• 41:29
  Alicia MADDEN: you know, shrunk it, put it in the background, because I want people to get curious and be like, hey, what's in this person's world? What's… what makes Jason's room Jason…
• 41:38
  Alicia MADDEN: Jason's room, like, this is the most Jason room in the whole entire world, so what does he have in it? Well, he's got… he's a runner, he's got trophies, he's got science textbooks, and it's like, I want you to learn that on your own, because you wanted to learn. And I love doing that in other…
• 41:55
  Alicia MADDEN: in comics, when I see that there's, like, a squiggle on a piece of paper, I feel so robbed. I'm like, this is a piece of artwork, and there's a squiggle! So…
• 42:04
  Alicia MADDEN: Yeah, there's that. Like, I like the way that you can't lazily, read a comic, you know, even if it is for pleasure, it's just like…
• 42:12
  Alicia MADDEN: There's… there's so much there, and that's my favorite thing.
• 42:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, if you haven't already, you should read Chip Zdarsky and Matt Fraction's Sex Criminals, just because Zdarsky, with his artwork, is very much like that. The number of things he hid…
• 42:28
  Tad Eggleston: Every once in a while, they, they do a brief, like.
• 42:32
  Tad Eggleston: Part of the letters page would be calling out
• 42:35
  Tad Eggleston: some of the Easter eggs, or if somebody noticed it, they'd blow it up so people could see it, that sort of thing. But yeah, that…
• 42:45
  Tad Eggleston: It's one of the advantages of digital art that
• 42:50
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly people who weren't originally digital artists didn't… don't do as much.
• 42:56
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, you can… you can decide to. This is gonna be the thing if somebody wants to blow it up enough to see it.
• 43:06
  Elliott Mondry: It's gonna be there. For me, I would say, for me, as far as the story and using comics, when I wrote the script, there was never a doubt that it was gonna be a comic book.
• 43:18
  Elliott Mondry: Because it, to me, it's always been the most, like we said, it's a very accessible medium. You know, not everybody has the attention span to go to the theater. Not everybody, you know, might not even be able to afford to go to the theater, especially with today's prices.
• 43:33
  Elliott Mondry: Or, you know, people don't have the attention span to read a prose novel, necessarily. I don't have the attention span to read a prose novel. But…
• 43:42
  Elliott Mondry: You know, if you take issue by issue for a comic book.
• 43:45
  Elliott Mondry: People can spend 5 minutes reading it.
• 43:48
  Elliott Mondry: you know, 24-page issue comic book. They can spend, you know, the $8 or $10, whatever it costs for an issue. Obviously, if you're talking about the massive companies, you're looking at $5 or less dollars, but all this to say, it's much more accessible
• 44:02
  Elliott Mondry: And it's easy to digest, you can use pictures, you can use words, you can use silence like a film, and still make it impactful. And all of those emotions that we want to convey in our story, we're able to convey through comic books. And as a result, we're able to reach more people through the medium than any other medium.
• 44:22
  Alicia MADDEN: I wanted to ask you, Elliot, how long does it take you to typically read
• 44:28
  Alicia MADDEN: A page of a comic, let's say 6 panels long.
• 44:33
  Alicia MADDEN: How long will you.
• 44:34
  Elliott Mondry: Are there…
• 44:34
  Alicia MADDEN: with it open.
• 44:36
  Elliott Mondry: Are there words on… are there words, or is it just, no… there's no words on the page? Like, are we talking… so, decent amount of text?
• 44:43
  Alicia MADDEN: Yeah.
• 44:44
  Elliott Mondry: I'd say… I'll probably read a page twice, so I'll probably read the words and maybe…
• 44:50
  Elliott Mondry: 30 seconds to a minute, depending on how much there is, and then I'll go back and look at the artwork, depending on what's going on in the story. Or I'll do two passes, usually, of a book. I'll do one where I also read the full story, and then I'll go back and re-read things so I can look at the art in conjunction.
• 45:06
  Elliott Mondry: Because my brain, like, you… I don't know who… how everyone else reads it, but I, like, I'll look, and then I'll look at the… I'll look… I'll read the text, I'll look at the pa… the panel. I'll read the text, look at the panel, and then I'll go back and re-read everything so I can absorb the artwork a little more.
• 45:21
  Tad Eggleston: For me, it depends on the book.
• 45:23
  Elliott Mondry: That's us, Tad…
• 45:25
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, for me, it depends on the book, because I definitely sometimes read the way Elliot's reading.
• 45:31
  Tad Eggleston: Where I'm reading the text, and then kind of taking in the panels from there.
• 45:36
  Tad Eggleston: But there are definitely times where…
• 45:41
  Tad Eggleston: I'll take in the panels before zooming in on the text.
• 45:47
  Tad Eggleston: whether or not I really re-read a page has to do with…
• 45:52
  Tad Eggleston: both the quality of the book, how many times I've read it, like, my second or third read tends to be a slower read than
• 46:01
  Tad Eggleston: a first read, particularly in the podcast era of my comics reading career, where, like, I'm trying to cram in a lot before Saturday morning's episode, so that I can…
• 46:17
  Tad Eggleston: really pick out what I thought was best from the work week, and possibly comment on… many other things.
• 46:28
  Elliott Mondry: You know, I think the best to… that question, I think the best comics.
• 46:32
  Elliott Mondry: are the ones where you can read the text and take in the panels at the simultaneously, where it's almost like a seamless transition, which, I mean, I'm looking at… shamelessly plugging, I'm looking at our Kickstarter right now as I read the preview pages, and I'm able to read the lettering in conjunction with the artwork seamlessly.
• 46:52
  Elliott Mondry: And that, to me, is what makes the best books, because it literally is a movie playing in front of you.
• 46:58
  Elliott Mondry: It feels like, and I think the best stories are the ones that read like a movie.
• 47:04
  Alicia MADDEN: You also said before, like, and this is something that I think Dr. Ramos told us, too, when we were in Indie Comic-Con, where,
• 47:12
  Alicia MADDEN: you know it's a good comic when you don't need the… you don't need the words there to understand what's going on, and he said, like, he was really into… was it Captain America?
• 47:25
  Tad Eggleston: Captain America's what he grew up on, yeah.
• 47:27
  Alicia MADDEN: when he was a kid and he didn't understand English yet, and he had English comics, but he could still follow the plot because the artwork was done so well.
• 47:35
  Elliott Mondry: Well, the best comic books, you should be able to take, and this is my opinion, I mean, everyone can beg to differ, if you take out all the lettering in a comic, you should be able to know exactly what's going on based off of the pictures alone.
• 47:47
  Elliott Mondry: And the words just add context to it, but the best comics are the ones where you don't need the lettering to understand what's going on.
• 47:54
  Tad Eggleston: See, I will actually…
• 47:59
  Tad Eggleston: I think the absolute best comics…
• 48:02
  Tad Eggleston: are the ones where a story doesn't require the lettering?
• 48:08
  Tad Eggleston: But the lettering doesn't give you much of anything that the pictures give you.
• 48:15
  Tad Eggleston: In other words, they only make the story better.
• 48:19
  Elliott Mondry: I'd agree with that.
• 48:21
  Tad Eggleston: Y-you know, I mean, and as I say this, like, like.
• 48:26
  Tad Eggleston: you said that you were able to read these together, and I might have been able to read these together, but, like, the first 4 times I read the preview pages during…
• 48:36
  Tad Eggleston: our talk… I didn't read any of the words at all.
• 48:40
  Elliott Mondry: Which is good.
• 48:41
  Elliott Mondry: Right.
• 48:42
  Tad Eggleston: And, and… there was slightly more depth, I knew slightly more about the story when… when I had?
• 48:54
  Tad Eggleston: But that's what they were. They were only… an accent.
• 49:03
  Elliott Mondry: It's supplements.
• 49:04
  Tad Eggleston: it supplements, supplemented the visual, rather than replacing the visual or whatever.
• 49:12
  Tad Eggleston: actually, you know, and my brain is not in a place where I'm, like, thinking of specific examples. Every once in a while, you'll come across a comic where
• 49:23
  Tad Eggleston: The story in words… And the story and pictures aren't completely aligned.
• 49:29
  Tad Eggleston: And those are really special.
• 49:32
  Tad Eggleston: You know, where you're getting a story here while being told
• 49:37
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes a similar story, sometimes a completely different story, and one of your jobs as a reader is to…
• 49:46
  Tad Eggleston: Figure out where they meet, how they relate.
• 49:51
  Tad Eggleston: I feel like Tom King has done this a few times in his…
• 49:56
  Tad Eggleston: DC Comics, where it's like, you find out that, oh, the narration actually goes to something else entirely.
• 50:03
  Tad Eggleston: that you're picking up as you're going. You're seeing one side of the story and hearing the other side, but you didn't pick up the difference until sometimes 2 or 3 issues in, where it's like, let me now go back and reread the last 6 issues, thinking of it from this different perspective.
• 50:26
  Elliott Mondry: That's how they get you before the trade.
• 50:30
  Tad Eggleston: You know, but again, that's the sort of thing that you absolutely can't do in another medium.
• 50:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, how do you have… how do you have a narrator so unreliable that you don't even know… that you mistake who the narrator is?
• 50:47
  Tad Eggleston: In a medium other than comics.
• 50:51
  Elliott Mondry: I'm sure there's movies that come to mind that I'm not thinking of, but… no, it's true.
• 50:55
  Alicia MADDEN: That made me think of Hamlet.
• 50:59
  Alicia MADDEN: Oh, so Hamlet… no, I'm kidding.
• 51:03
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I love Hamlet, but, but, but, expound.
• 51:06
  Alicia MADDEN: You…
• 51:08
  Alicia MADDEN: everyone is an unreliable narrator, and you don't know who is actually telling the truth, because the same event happens around everybody. The king is dead, and… Right.
• 51:19
  Alicia MADDEN: There's spoilers, you guys, from the 1500s. But, yeah, we're suspicious about the manner of death, and… Right.
• 51:28
  Alicia MADDEN: you know, Hamlet is on a warpath to find out, was my father murdered? But, you know, everyone around him is talking about how his grief and perhaps his madness is painting his suspicions against certain people in his court, and…
• 51:44
  Alicia MADDEN: The people in his court are, like, not terribly, believable, too, and it's like, it's one of the best…
• 51:51
  Alicia MADDEN: stories I've ever read. I love it. Yeah, it is… it is not a comic.
• 51:57
  Tad Eggleston: There are good comic versions of it, though.
• 52:01
  Tad Eggleston: actually, like, one of the reasons that I immediately perked up
• 52:08
  Tad Eggleston: We did a Shakespeare and Comics Roundtable probably 4 years ago.
• 52:13
  Tad Eggleston: And John Lee's was the one that brought up
• 52:16
  Tad Eggleston: Hamlet is one that, like, needed good adaptations, because…
• 52:21
  Tad Eggleston: To him, and to me as well now.
• 52:26
  Tad Eggleston: It's like, when Hamlet was… he's a Scottish writer, so… so lots of Shakespeare going on.
• 52:34
  Tad Eggleston: around him when he was in school and whatnot, and he said when Hamlet was finally unlocked for me, it was the first time I saw a college performance where they actually had, like, a 15-year-old playing Hamlet.
• 52:47
  Tad Eggleston: And it's like, oh, wait…
• 52:50
  Tad Eggleston: That's right. Hamlet is young. So, like, when you think of him as an angsty teenager, everything makes sense. Rather than wanting to smack him upside the head and say, what the hell is your problem? You go.
• 53:04
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah, no, that's exactly how a 15-year-old would
• 53:09
  Tad Eggleston: And he is. He's, like, 14 or 15 in the play.
• 53:13
  Tad Eggleston: But we never think of it. We certainly don't think of it that way when we're seeing Kenneth Branagh, or Mel Gibson, or Ethan Hawke play him.
• 53:21
  Tad Eggleston: Right? But that's the sort of thing, like, often Shakespeare…
• 53:27
  Alicia MADDEN: Ever 15.
• 53:30
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he feels like he was almost 15 in Reality Bites.
• 53:35
  Tad Eggleston: he feels really young in Reality Bites. I rewatched that recently, just in the background, and I went, was Ethan Hawke ever that young? I mean, I guess he was, because here I am watching it.
• 53:51
  Tad Eggleston: And I feel like he might have actually been in movies when he was 15. Now you're sending me down a rabbit hole. Wasn't he in something with River Phoenix when they were both young?
• 54:01
  Alicia MADDEN: Stand by me.
• 54:02
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, was he in Stand By Me?
• 54:04
  Alicia MADDEN: I don't know.
• 54:05
  Tad Eggleston: I always forget who was in Stand By Me. I know River, and I know Will Wheaton were in Stand By Me, but I've seen Stand By Me, like, once, and it was way back when it came out.
• 54:16
  Tad Eggleston: So I always forget who was… Who was in it?
• 54:23
  Tad Eggleston: But… Yeah, no, that's… that's where I know him. I can absolutely say that he was once less than 15, because I loved this movie. His first movie was The Explorers.
• 54:38
  Tad Eggleston: where they take… and it was River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke.
• 54:44
  Tad Eggleston: and Bobby Fight, who nobody's ever heard of, because they never did anything more.
• 54:51
  Tad Eggleston: They took, like, a Tilt-a-whirl car and managed to turn it into a spaceship.
• 54:58
  Tad Eggleston: I loved that movie.
• 55:01
  Tad Eggleston: And… and it came out in… in… 19… 85.
• 55:09
  Tad Eggleston: When I was 5, And… Ethan was… Exactly 15.
• 55:19
  Alicia MADDEN: We got there.
• 55:21
  Tad Eggleston: I think he was playing younger than 15, though, so, you know…
• 55:25
  Elliott Mondry: I did want to give a heads up, Alicia does have to head out in about… at about 4.15, so about.
• 55:30
  Tad Eggleston: Well, then it… it is perfect time.
• 55:32
  Tad Eggleston: To, to stop falling down rabbit holes, and… and,
• 55:37
  Alicia MADDEN: Good evening.
• 55:38
  Tad Eggleston: Head into… head into, closing questions, particularly because my, my…
• 55:45
  Tad Eggleston: I don't remember if I asked you this one at the last…
• 55:48
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I know I've asked Elliot this one once, because he was on more recently, but I can't remember if I had debuted this the last time you were on.
• 55:59
  Tad Eggleston: This is the fifth year of 22 Panels, and I feel like I've fallen into the Twilight Zone.
• 56:05
  Elliott Mondry: Congratulations.
• 56:06
  Tad Eggleston: the number of things that I get to do, the people that I get to talk to, the experiences that I've had, the friends that I've made in the last 5 years.
• 56:15
  Tad Eggleston: that if you told me when I was…
• 56:18
  Tad Eggleston: 15, or even 35, that this was gonna be my life, I would have been like, what the fuck are you on?
• 56:26
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna hang out with Blank, I'm gonna get to…
• 56:31
  Tad Eggleston: host a panel at C2E2, I'm gonna, you know, whatever.
• 56:36
  Tad Eggleston: like, my life has just been filled with experiences that, like, even now, I sometimes pinch myself and go, was that really Tad that got to do that?
• 56:47
  Alicia MADDEN: I see.
• 56:47
  Tad Eggleston: Found that this is really, really common among
• 56:50
  Tad Eggleston: people in the comics community, really the artistic community in general, but certainly the comics community. We're a small enough, close enough knit community that everybody has their stories. So I started collecting them. So… so tell me one…
• 57:05
  Tad Eggleston: Like, surreal. Oh, wow, that was amazing.
• 57:10
  Tad Eggleston: Moment that you've gotten to have, because comics are the thing that you spend a big chunk of your life with.
• 57:20
  Alicia MADDEN: Wow.
• 57:22
  Alicia MADDEN: You know, there's so many.
• 57:24
  Alicia MADDEN: Like, that… I was just, like, waiting for… I was waiting for, like, a question, but that is, like, asking me to recite my entire life.
• 57:33
  Tad Eggleston: You only have to pick one, or you can pick more than one, like, whatever you're comfortable with.
• 57:38
  Tad Eggleston: Some people get really detailed, and some people rattle off a list of people that they've met. You know, you can do anything in between. There aren't rules to this question.
• 57:48
  Tad Eggleston: Just… what's been cool from the last few years?
• 57:53
  Alicia MADDEN: Okay, I don't exactly, like, believe in modesty, so I'm gonna just go out on a limb and say that, like.
• 58:00
  Alicia MADDEN: it was, well, meeting… meeting Elliot, and when he suggested… we met at C2E2, like, 10 years ago.
• 58:07
  Alicia MADDEN: Two or three. Two or three.
• 58:10
  Alicia MADDEN: That's true.
• 58:10
  Elliott Mondry: correct time.
• 58:11
  Alicia MADDEN: Yeah, for real.
• 58:13
  Tad Eggleston: What is time?
• 58:14
  Alicia MADDEN: He suggested, like, you know, he was talking to other artists at the time, and he's like.
• 58:19
  Alicia MADDEN: Oh, yeah, audition piece. So, you know, here's the… here's issue number one of my script, and go ahead and draw me a page from it. I've told this story, I know that. Right.
• 58:32
  Alicia MADDEN: Well…
• 58:33
  Alicia MADDEN: I remember how nerve-wracking it was, and I hadn't drawn a picture in years, and just, I'm very competitive, and I was like, it's gotta be the best thing that he's gonna receive from any artist.
• 58:46
  Alicia MADDEN: And…
• 58:47
  Alicia MADDEN: I am so proud of myself, because, like, I… I really wanted it. Like, I really wanted it, and I tried not to portray in my, like, communications back and forth, texting and email. I was like, I'm not gonna portray just how badly I want to be a comic artist, and, like, this is my chance, and, like.
• 59:05
  Alicia MADDEN: like, lose yourself, my Eminem is playing in my head every day while I'm trying.
• 59:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right, right.
• 59:10
  Alicia MADDEN: I'm like, this opportunity comes once in a lifetime. But, like, that's how I felt, and so…
• 59:18
  Alicia MADDEN: like, even… so he… I sent him the piece, he came back, and he said.
• 59:23
  Alicia MADDEN: let's talk about this, and I didn't know how, like, whether or not I got the gig or not, but over the phone, I was like.
• 59:32
  Alicia MADDEN: so what do you think? Can we work together? And he was like, yeah, and I was like.
• 59:38
  Alicia MADDEN: I actually did it! Like, I put my mind towards something, and I worked really hard, and I'm in.
• 59:45
  Tad Eggleston: What he's never told you is that nobody else auditioned.
• 59:49
  Alicia MADDEN: Is that true?
• 59:50
  Elliott Mondry: No, I had a couple other people who.
• 59:52
  Tad Eggleston: Air conditioning.
• 59:53
  Elliott Mondry: There are about maybe 3 or.
• 59:55
  Tad Eggleston: That was just me fucking with you, Alicia.
• 59:59
  Alicia MADDEN: No, but, like, seriously.
• 1:00:00
  Elliott Mondry: I called them all off right after you sent the piece in, if it makes you feel better. I said, don't even finish sending what your completed piece is, you're out, I found my person.
• 1:00:08
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Yeah, and I'm gonna have.
• 1:00:09
  Alicia MADDEN: about that, because, like, comics is something I know, and I know that I know comics, and I gave myself that opportunity, Eminem was there for me, and we made it happen.
• 1:00:21
  Tad Eggleston: Hey, it was… it, like… I forget the other songs, but Barack Obama, published his… his…
• 1:00:29
  Tad Eggleston: Like, debate prep playlist, and that… that was always the last song on his headline… in his headphones going on stage.
• 1:00:38
  Elliott Mondry: That's awesome.
• 1:00:38
  Tad Eggleston: major events, so… I get it. That's definitely a song that hits that spot.
• 1:00:48
  Elliott Mondry: it is.
• 1:00:48
  Alicia MADDEN: Your turn.
• 1:00:50
  Elliott Mondry: Oh, my turn.
• 1:00:51
  Tad Eggleston: I found Alicia!
• 1:00:54
  Elliott Mondry: I mean, I can't… how am I supposed to build off of that? I mean, I think…
• 1:01:00
  Elliott Mondry: Obviously, seeing the characters that I've lived with for so long come to life was just something that I can't really put words to, but I would say a light… when I was younger, my uncle always took me to San Diego Comic-Con, and…
• 1:01:15
  Elliott Mondry: This year, we had the opportunity to exhibit at San Diego, and my uncle coming to visit us at our table with our work at San Diego Comic-Con, where he took me to when I was little, was the most surreal experience that I've ever had. And to be able to share that with Alicia and our team was just…
• 1:01:35
  Elliott Mondry: beyond words.
• 1:01:37
  Alicia MADDEN: I should have said something along those lines, too.
• 1:01:40
  Elliott Mondry: Maybe yours was cooler, don't worry.
• 1:01:42
  Alicia MADDEN: Actually, at, at, at Modern Age Comics, where we had our launch party.
• 1:01:48
  Alicia MADDEN: my… my grandpa is like that for me. I know you're talking about your uncle. My grandpa is the one… he came to that, is what I'm saying, and seeing him there, and I'm… you know, it's one of those things where you… you gotta enjoy the moments you have with people while they're still around. He's still around, he's great, but, like, you know, I was like…
• 1:02:07
  Alicia MADDEN: Oh, he took me to C2E2 for the first time when I was In high school, and…
• 1:02:14
  Alicia MADDEN: And he's here, and it was a big thing, and I'm sure he and my mom cried, which is a big deal.
• 1:02:22
  Tad Eggleston: It, it is…
• 1:02:24
  Tad Eggleston: It is really cool to be able to put things into the world and have people around you go.
• 1:02:30
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is where I should say that I joke about it all the time, that my mom and brother are my consistent listeners, but it does mean a lot to me that my mom and brother actually take the time to
• 1:02:42
  Tad Eggleston: Listen to every single episode I put out, and this is gonna be, like, 940 of them, something like that, when this goes up, so, like, that's… And we love you, Tad.
• 1:02:52
  Elliott Mondry: Mom and brother.
• 1:02:54
  Tad Eggleston: That's… that's… that's a lot of… that's a lot of listening that they've put in. And any family members who might be listening to this who haven't listened to that many, I don't hold it against you. I don't re-listen to any of them. Because I can't… can't imagine
• 1:03:11
  Tad Eggleston: like, I don't view this as a podcast that people binge and listen to all of. I view it as, like, somebody might fall in love with this book club, or somebody might like the way I interview people, and therefore.
• 1:03:25
  Tad Eggleston: do more of the interviews, or somebody might like Tyler, Phil, and I's Taste in Comics, so they'll listen to the weekly episode just to see what we're reading right now, you know? The idea that there are people that listen to all of it is, like.
• 1:03:39
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, among other things, I know how much time I spend recording it, so it's like, really? You mean that much of your life?
• 1:03:46
  Tad Eggleston: But I am grateful for it, so you guys are making me all teary-eyed now, too.
• 1:03:54
  Alicia MADDEN: That's what Calamity Comics does. We roll up and we make people feel things.
• 1:03:58
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, I mean, you need to add a tear to that heart.
• 1:04:04
  Tad Eggleston: She's making a crying heart.
• 1:04:07
  Elliott Mondry: Get one more tier in there.
• 1:04:10
  Tad Eggleston: Closing question, same one as it's always been. Tell me something you love.
• 1:04:18
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't have rules. Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules. But something that you love, and not enough people around you have experienced it, and you really like them too, so you have more people to talk about it with.
• 1:04:37
  Alicia MADDEN: You know, just because I've been drawing so much, I can't…
• 1:04:44
  Alicia MADDEN: I can't say enough just how helpful, like, ASMR is?
• 1:04:50
  Alicia MADDEN: like, if anyone is not yet into ASMR and they think it's weird, like, get over yourself and try it. Like, this… you'll find the right ASM artist, but oh my gosh, like, the company that they can keep you when you're, like.
• 1:05:05
  Alicia MADDEN: I've been going to sleep at, like, 2AM now, and, like, that's just, like, part of my drawing schedule.
• 1:05:11
  Alicia MADDEN: And… you know, me and Whispers Red are the only ones up, and she's telling me, like.
• 1:05:18
  Alicia MADDEN: You're doing great. And I'm like, yeah.
• 1:05:21
  Alicia MADDEN: It's awesome.
• 1:05:23
  Tad Eggleston: Definitely try it.
• 1:05:24
  Tad Eggleston: bed.
• 1:05:25
  Alicia MADDEN: She's awesome. She's from the UK.
• 1:05:29
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, okay. It's good stuff. I love it.
• 1:05:32
  Elliott Mondry: See, I was gonna talk comments, but now I'm like, should I talk about my listening playlist?
• 1:05:36
  Tad Eggleston: You can… I mean, again, I had Nate Powell on again yesterday, and while he was thinking of his answer for this, I told him that, like, he and Andrew Iden, who are the creative team
• 1:05:48
  Tad Eggleston: for March, in separate appearances, have given me, like, the spectrum that I use for people that are having difficulty with this question, because Nate Powell once said.
• 1:05:59
  Tad Eggleston: Jonathan Hickman's X-Men comics. I know everybody's reading them, but not everybody in my life is reading them.
• 1:06:07
  Tad Eggleston: And Nate Powell, er, I'm sorry, and Andrew Iden said his tomatoes.
• 1:06:14
  Tad Eggleston: Because they were just getting picked, and they were really good, and he's on a farm out in North Carolina, and, like, he was excited for more people to have his tomatoes. So, like, there really aren't rules, Elliot.
• 1:06:28
  Elliott Mondry: You know, in that sense, I'm gonna go completely left field.
• 1:06:32
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:06:33
  Elliott Mondry: about ice cream, so…
• 1:06:36
  Tad Eggleston: What's your favorite ice cream?
• 1:06:37
  Elliott Mondry: But, so here's the thing, I have issue… I'm essentially lactose intolerant, and I'm a health nut. And I, this year, discovered this thing that's been kind of viral online called the Ninja Creamy, which is essentially a ice cream maker where you can take protein shakes and other things and make it into ice cream.
• 1:06:55
  Elliott Mondry: So, every single night, I have an entire pint of ice cream, which is, like, less than 250 calories, that's just pure protein and whatever I add in there. And… I… for those who knew me when I was younger, I was a former fat kid, so…
• 1:07:10
  Elliott Mondry: Being able to eat an entire pint of ice cream is just phenomenal. As far as the favorite ice cream, my latest obsession has actually been
• 1:07:18
  Elliott Mondry: My fiance taught me how.
• 1:07:22
  Tad Eggleston: I know what I want for Christmas now.
• 1:07:25
  Elliott Mondry: It's phenomenal! Like, it's a pumpkin spice,
• 1:07:30
  Tad Eggleston: A soft-serve one?
• 1:07:32
  Elliott Mondry: They do a soft… people listen, they do a soft serve, they do sorbet, you can put, like, fruit in there, and it makes, like, a sorbet thing.
• 1:07:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I'm just, I'm looking at the, the, the, the, the options, and, and, and…
• 1:07:45
  Elliott Mondry: You can make an Oreo McFlurry for less than 200 calories. It is insane.
• 1:07:50
  Tad Eggleston: Nice.
• 1:07:51
  Elliott Mondry: And…
• 1:07:51
  Alicia MADDEN: Alright.
• 1:07:52
  Elliott Mondry: So you're like, everyone's like, hold up, wait a minute, this could work.
• 1:07:55
  Tad Eggleston: Because I can't… I can't do sugar anymore.
• 1:07:58
  Elliott Mondry: Yeah, the ice cream.
• 1:07:59
  Tad Eggleston: It's one of my favorite, which is why I have discovered
• 1:08:03
  Tad Eggleston: the handful of, like, Nick's, and a couple other brands of ice cream, that a pint is about what you're talking, you know, 200 to 300 calories, and no sugar, and sometimes extra protein, that sort of thing. But to be able to make it at home, and therefore make it to my own specific.
• 1:08:24
  Elliott Mondry: Yup. You just need some, like, sugar-free pudding mix, and whatever your basic.
• 1:08:29
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:08:29
  Elliott Mondry: You can use whatever milk you want.
• 1:08:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 1:08:32
  Elliott Mondry: go.
• 1:08:33
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, I… I… I will be… I will be telling my wife what I want for Christmas when I'm… when I'm off of this…
• 1:08:40
  Tad Eggleston: this podcast, and we've actually been… we've both been thinking lately that, like, it sucks that nobody does a soft serve that we can do, and here it is. Here is the one that has the option that includes the soft serve.
• 1:08:57
  Elliott Mondry: See, it's like how the comics podcast go, great, but let me talk about this ice cream machine.
• 1:09:00
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Aww.
• 1:09:02
  Alicia MADDEN: I asked just the right question.
• 1:09:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah…
• 1:09:06
  Elliott Mondry: Yeah, this…
• 1:09:07
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, this is.
• 1:09:07
  Elliott Mondry: It took a turn that none of us were expecting in the best way possible.
• 1:09:11
  Tad Eggleston: Totally, totally. I very much love the turn to this term.
• 1:09:16
  Alicia MADDEN: I've gotta turn over to get more drawing done.
• 1:09:20
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I… I will just… I will just quickly say, for Alicia Madden and Elliot MAnden, that… Mondry…
• 1:09:27
  Tad Eggleston: For Alicia Madden and Elliot Mondory, this has been 22 Panels, and we will see you after the next page.