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With Great Power #259... 22 Panels with Fred Van Lente & Atom! Freeman · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. The… my guests tonight are, Fred Van Lenti, the… the much-acclaimed author of many, many, many comics, but… but today we're here to talk some more about the future is.
• 0:19
  Tad Eggleston: And, publisher of Record Comics, Adam Freeman. So, so, you know, last time you brought your editor, now you're bringing your publisher. Next time, you'll bring… bring the… the big, big guys, and the time after that, we're gonna have, what, God?
• 0:38
  Fred Van Lente: I can't. I'm out of… I'm out of friends, so it's almost
• 0:42
  Fred Van Lente: Joe next time, Adam if Joe doesn't want to do it, so…
• 0:45
  Tad Eggleston: No, you brought Joe last time. I mean, exactly.
• 0:48
  Fred Van Lente: You know there's no doing.
• 0:49
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 0:52
  Atom! Freeman: Although, I will say, we have a deep bench of, really talented pros on this project. I feel like you can.
• 0:58
  Tad Eggleston: That's what I'm saying.
• 0:59
  Atom! Freeman: for a while, you know?
• 1:00
  Tad Eggleston: That's my idea. Well, and we've had to reschedule a couple of times because, like, real work keeps getting in the way, but, like, when I met you, I met Ashley.
• 1:13
  Tad Eggleston: Who's, like, one of the actual hackers from…
• 1:16
  Tad Eggleston: From, and she's planning on coming on. That's right. We just, like, she does, like, she works for a living.
• 1:25
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, we just…
• 1:29
  Atom! Freeman: We'll get there.
• 1:30
  Atom! Freeman: That was at C2E2, yeah.
• 1:31
  Tad Eggleston: It was.
• 1:32
  Atom! Freeman: We did that panel about, about hacking in comics. We talked about, the future is, and, like, legitimately, how much of this has been influenced by these real-world cybersecurity professionals
• 1:46
  Atom! Freeman: who legitimately keep us safe. I mean, we're talking, like, these people are on the front lines of saving civilization. Like, they are incredible, they are superheroes.
• 1:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 2:00
  Atom! Freeman: Truthfully.
• 2:01
  Tad Eggleston: I agree.
• 2:05
  Tad Eggleston: So, you're doing your second Kickstarter now.
• 2:09
  Tad Eggleston: With issues 2 through 7, and I'm gonna, right up front, bring to attention what I think is the coolest
• 2:19
  Tad Eggleston: element of it.
• 2:21
  Tad Eggleston: Which is that, like, at every tier that costs $25 and more, you will reach out to
• 2:30
  Tad Eggleston: the comic shop of the backer's choice, and get them $25 in store credit, which is, like, the coolest thing I've ever seen in a Kickstarter. So, the first question is, like, whose idea was it? And applaud them, and
• 2:51
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm just, like, like…
• 2:55
  Atom! Freeman: Go ahead, please, yeah.
• 2:57
  Tad Eggleston: I was gonna say, like, hats off to you, but also, like,
• 3:02
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, talk… first, talk glowingly about comic shops, I'm certain that both of you can do it, but then talk about how it's also a brilliant marketing strategy, because it really is.
• 3:15
  Atom! Freeman: Well, thank you. You know, I think the one thing that we have in comics… in the comics industry, the one thing we have in common is these beautiful places in every community where comics and, and the community itself comes together.
• 3:31
  Atom! Freeman: They are this incredible, incredible piece of our culture that is incredibly resilient. I'm using the word incredible a lot, but…
• 3:42
  Tad Eggleston: I was about to say.
• 3:43
  Atom! Freeman: It's true.
• 3:44
  Tad Eggleston: The Incredibles earlier today?
• 3:45
  Atom! Freeman: It truly does defy, belief how resilient these stores are. Our company, Prana Direct Market Solutions, we work a lot in,
• 3:56
  Atom! Freeman: in tracking the data around our comics industry, and I can tell you that brick… as far as brick and mortar sectors go, the comic shop, the direct market comic book shop, is unique in that
• 4:10
  Atom! Freeman: There has not been a change, plus or minus 4% in the count, the store count, in the last 20 years.
• 4:18
  Atom! Freeman: It is… they are… they are this stable thing in an environment where brick and mortar, as a general rule, has gone away. Our strip malls are now all services. They're, you know, they're kung fu studios and hair salons, but these…
• 4:33
  Fred Van Lente: Restaurants.
• 4:34
  Atom! Freeman: Restaurants, right? They are these beautiful places that continue to be community centers and are focused around this art form that we love so much. And so, when we got involved with RECA,
• 4:47
  Atom! Freeman: Rekka really was the brainchild of a man named Jason Blanchard, who is their head of, like, content and community and marketing, and he… I met… when I met Jason, he was running a comic book store.
• 5:02
  Atom! Freeman: So… and so was I, actually, to that point. But, he…
• 5:08
  Atom! Freeman: when we really started digging in, all of this was born in a van that Fred and I and Jason and Joe Keating, who's been on the show, and
• 5:22
  Fred Van Lente: Wrigley.
• 5:23
  Atom! Freeman: Huh?
• 5:24
  Fred Van Lente: Debra Wigley.
• 5:25
  Atom! Freeman: Deb Wrigley, thank you. I was… man, I was going up on her last name.
• 5:28
  Atom! Freeman: Deb, like, we all crammed ourselves into a van, and went from Baltimore down to Tampa, Florida, and stopped at a bunch of shops along the way, and did appearances.
• 5:37
  Atom! Freeman: We did a hackfest, we, you know, we did all of this stuff to promote the book. And during that period, we really dug in, we got a chance to really kind of talk out. So, as to whose idea I was, I don't actually know, because the van itself kind of came up with these ideas.
• 5:54
  Tad Eggleston: So what model and year of.
• 5:56
  Fred Van Lente: Claim it on the stand.
• 5:57
  Atom! Freeman: Jesus, we gotta…
• 5:58
  Tad Eggleston: We gotta, like… we gotta get more of those out on the road.
• 6:03
  Atom! Freeman: Very true. I think it was a Sienna. I think we were in a…
• 6:06
  Tad Eggleston: I totally understand.
• 6:07
  Atom! Freeman: get it.
• 6:07
  Fred Van Lente: large.
• 6:08
  Atom! Freeman: It was a big one, yes. It was.
• 6:10
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it would have been so much cooler if you'd said, like, a 1972 VW bus.
• 6:18
  Tad Eggleston: But I'll take.
• 6:18
  Atom! Freeman: It was a big…
• 6:20
  Atom! Freeman: It was a, it was in the mid-70s, it had, had a, a,
• 6:25
  Tad Eggleston: Camper top.
• 6:26
  Atom! Freeman: a Joe Jusco painting on the side, and it was… yeah, no. Anyway, yeah, it was… it was a really beautiful experience of people that, you know, really should have gotten on each other's nerves more than we did, and we all just kind of came at it from a love of…
• 6:44
  Atom! Freeman: comics and the love of comic shops, and we really thought, alright, how do we use this as a way to support both? And…
• 6:51
  Atom! Freeman: you know, so far, so good. We're over 200% over our goal, and that's, I think, 48 hours in? Something like that. So…
• 6:58
  Tad Eggleston: I, I… 200% of your goal?
• 7:02
  Atom! Freeman: No, I mean, almost…
• 7:03
  Tad Eggleston: Your goal…
• 7:03
  Atom! Freeman: Man.
• 7:04
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, your goal was $1,337.
• 7:08
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, we're 20x our goal.
• 7:10
  Fred Van Lente: Yeah, I was about to say, you're at $27,182. Yeah.
• 7:16
  Tad Eggleston: I… I…
• 7:16
  Fred Van Lente: Go back to their accomplishments.
• 7:19
  Tad Eggleston: I was backer 2. I would have been one, but I was working.
• 7:24
  Atom! Freeman: Number 2, hello! Thank you, Tad.
• 7:28
  Atom! Freeman: We're jumping in there.
• 7:29
  Tad Eggleston: I would have been one, but I was working, and I got distracted in the middle of…
• 7:34
  Fred Van Lente: We made our ask, apparently, in two and a half minutes, so… Yes.
• 7:38
  Tad Eggleston: Two and a half minutes.
• 7:39
  Atom! Freeman: You were quick if you were number two, so no, do not apologize about your…
• 7:44
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, when I started, you had zero.
• 7:49
  Tad Eggleston: Well… When I, when I, when I finished.
• 7:53
  Tad Eggleston: even though it gave me the credit for being 2, when I finished, you were funded.
• 7:57
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah. Right.
• 8:00
  Atom! Freeman: We talk about community and a lot in this project, because they are… Black Hills Information Security is the parent company of Reka Publishing.
• 8:09
  Atom! Freeman: they really do lean into community, and the community showed up, both the comics community and the cybersecurity community. They really did show up for this. And, you know, it's wonderful. Tad, I have to ask, though, where are you going to spend your 25 bucks? Where's your local comic shop?
• 8:25
  Tad Eggleston: That'll be Dreamland Comics in Libertyville, Illinois.
• 8:30
  Atom! Freeman: I love it! Streamline.
• 8:31
  Tad Eggleston: And…
• 8:32
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, right on, man!
• 8:34
  Tad Eggleston: Alex Ross may still go there from time to time.
• 8:39
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't bumped into him yet, but he's been a customer there since before anybody knew who he was.
• 8:46
  Atom! Freeman: So I have a story. It's a podcast, so we get a chance to tell stories, right?
• 8:50
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely. That's what we're here for. I mean, I want to talk about the book, I want to plug the book, but, I mean, Fred's been on this show before, we talk about baseball, we talk about…
• 9:00
  Tad Eggleston: Dungeons & Dragons, you know, we talk about whatever we wind up talking about.
• 9:03
  Fred Van Lente: True.
• 9:04
  Atom! Freeman: Well, I mean, this is gonna sound like a name-droppy story, so I apologize.
• 9:07
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, you know, I, I, I…
• 9:11
  Tad Eggleston: as somebody who always feels like I'm name-dropping and, like, not doing it on purpose, they're just, like…
• 9:17
  Tad Eggleston: my friends and guests now, I… yeah, I don't even think of it that way.
• 9:23
  Atom! Freeman: So, my friends Paul Dini and Misty Lee were getting married.
• 9:28
  Tad Eggleston: Isn't it fun to say things like, my friend Baldini.
• 9:31
  Atom! Freeman: Those are all lovely. They're wonderful. But, and by the way, their house is.
• 9:37
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he's not my friend, he's your friend.
• 9:39
  Atom! Freeman: Yes, exactly.
• 9:39
  Tad Eggleston: But what I mean is I have friends of similar stature, and it just never gets old to be able to say, my friend…
• 9:45
  Atom! Freeman: Never gets old. No.
• 9:48
  Atom! Freeman: So, we, they were getting married, and they had a, they got married on Halloween, or, like, Halloween week, I don't remember now exactly.
• 9:56
  Tad Eggleston: In camps.
• 9:56
  Atom! Freeman: It didn't quite work out there, it was Halloween. But, so they decided to have a costume ball, and they… it was a beautiful, beautiful wedding, beautiful space.
• 10:05
  Atom! Freeman: And Bill Morrison and I were discussing going, and we realized… we both said, kind of, I don't know that I want to wear, like, a goofy costume to a wedding. I would rather wear a suit.
• 10:17
  Atom! Freeman: And he said, you know, I have a Green Hornet costume ready to go. Like, I've got the suit, I've got the mask, I've got everything, and I'm like.
• 10:28
  Atom! Freeman: I should do something like that, and so I settled in on the spirit.
• 10:32
  Atom! Freeman: Which, you know, I had a nice blue suit, I just had to hunt down a mask and a fedora, and I was set, right?
• 10:39
  Atom! Freeman: And, you know, and so I did. I went and found… they didn't quite match, but it was enough. It's a costume party, who cares, right? And I get there.
• 10:47
  Atom! Freeman: And I'm seated, you know, sitting there with my, at the time, little infant, who is now in his 20s,
• 10:57
  Atom! Freeman: a, it was dressed as Baby Yoda. This was before Baby Yoda was a thing, but we had him in a little Yoda costume.
• 11:05
  Atom! Freeman: And we're sitting there at the wedding, and there's this… this guy right in front of me who is…
• 11:12
  Atom! Freeman: I mean, when I say he's dressed as the spirit, I mean he looks like the action figure that Graffiti Designs did.
• 11:19
  Atom! Freeman: Like, legit. Like, this… everything is the same color. The dude is built like a fucking triangle. Can I curse? I'm sorry.
• 11:27
  Tad Eggleston: It feels like a trip.
• 11:27
  Atom! Freeman: triangle. He is just, you know…
• 11:30
  Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute, you dropped the fuck. Right after I said that you could curse.
• 11:34
  Atom! Freeman: fucking triangle, right? That's that.
• 11:36
  Fred Van Lente: And Adam.
• 11:37
  Atom! Freeman: dealers…
• 11:38
  Fred Van Lente: Did you check to make sure that he did, or in this case, did not have the most important part of a spirit costume?
• 11:45
  Atom! Freeman: Which was?
• 11:46
  Fred Van Lente: No socks.
• 11:47
  Atom! Freeman: I did not.
• 11:49
  Atom! Freeman: It was always the joke about the spirit, was Eisner never bothered to give him socks. See, where were you?
• 11:56
  Atom! Freeman: Where were you this… below these, what, 20 years ago or so? Anyway, and I'm, like, sitting there, like, I was feeling proud of my costume, but this guy showed me up, and I'm talking to him, like, this costume is amazing, and he goes, yeah, I actually had a costume designer, and I showed him the graffiti Designs action figure.
• 12:14
  Atom! Freeman: I'm like, I… great. Great. You know, here I am, and now I feel like I look like a schmuck. I thought I looked great, now I look like a schmuck.
• 12:22
  Atom! Freeman: And and so, fast forward, so that was October, the following July, I'm at the Eisner's in San Diego, and I'm sitting there in the audience, and Paul and Misty get up to present.
• 12:33
  Atom! Freeman: And they talk about how they had a wedding, a costume ball wedding, and how everybody showed up in costume, and they start listing off the people who were there, and they said, and Alex Ross was there, dressed as the spirit.
• 12:44
  Atom! Freeman: And I'm so… the whole time I'm talking to this guy, like, you jerk, and it's Alex Ross, and I think that's the only time I've ever talked to him, so there you go.
• 12:53
  Fred Van Lente: I mean, for moments.
• 12:54
  Tad Eggleston: Great.
• 12:54
  Atom! Freeman: You didn't forget about the other guy, and you're like, I'm not Alex Ross.
• 12:58
  Tad Eggleston: That's great. Adam Freeman.
• 13:00
  Atom! Freeman: How do you think I'm Alex Ross?
• 13:03
  Tad Eggleston: In a weird way, though, I was… and I was gonna do this off the air, but it's gonna be more fun to do it on the air and find out if… we just added a new co-host. Fred's met Tyler, but Phil is now an official co-host.
• 13:18
  Tad Eggleston: And while he wasn't able to come tonight, he did ask me to tell Fred that… Fred, you had…
• 13:25
  Tad Eggleston: as a stretch goal, or as an added thing on a Kickstarter many years ago, breakfast with you? Yeah. Or some sort of…
• 13:35
  Fred Van Lente: Yes, I'm pretty sure we did that for the first King Kirby.
• 13:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that sounds right. That sounds right. So, so there was one of those that was paid for and never redeemed.
• 13:46
  Fred Van Lente: Okay.
• 13:46
  Tad Eggleston: And that's because… and that's because right…
• 13:49
  Fred Van Lente: Giving the money back.
• 13:50
  Tad Eggleston: No, he doesn't want the money back. He doesn't even want the breakfast. He just… he just… I mean, I told him he should ask for the breakfast that he's everywhere in New York, but that's the problem. It was right after, like, it was finished that he, like, embarrassingly realized…
• 14:06
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, wait a minute.
• 14:08
  Tad Eggleston: I live in Nashville.
• 14:10
  Tad Eggleston: How am I gonna collect this breakfast from Fred?
• 14:16
  Atom! Freeman: to New York to have.
• 14:17
  Tad Eggleston: So he's too embarrassed to even give you the information to ask for it.
• 14:22
  Fred Van Lente: Hold strings with whoever it is that runs the Nashville Comic Con.
• 14:25
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, we're gonna get the…
• 14:26
  Tad Eggleston: We're gonna get ready.
• 14:27
  Atom! Freeman: So you can collect on that breakfast. We're gonna make that.
• 14:30
  Tad Eggleston: I figured we'd… that was the other reason I wanted to put it into your ear, but, like, yeah, that's… Yeah.
• 14:38
  Tad Eggleston: Adam's embarrassment not realizing that he was talking to Alex Ross made me think of…
• 14:44
  Tad Eggleston: remember that Phil… Phil got embarrassed and went,
• 14:48
  Tad Eggleston: How do I ask him? I'm gonna ask him to come to Nashville and have breakfast.
• 14:53
  Fred Van Lente: I mean… I'd be like, I'd appreciate the invitation.
• 14:59
  Fred Van Lente: I might be limited in my ability to take them up on it, but…
• 15:03
  Fred Van Lente: You know, it's the thought that counts.
• 15:06
  Tad Eggleston: We have bench co-hosts that live in the New York area, so sometime I might just try to arrange for Phil to go visit one of them, and then you guys can go somewhere in Brooklyn.
• 15:18
  Atom! Freeman: There you go. Well, let me know, maybe I can show up.
• 15:21
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I was about to say, I might go with him, and we can all have breakfast together.
• 15:25
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, I love it.
• 15:26
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, dude.
• 15:28
  Tad Eggleston: But, yeah, so, I mean, I love that about this shop. I love it when…
• 15:36
  Tad Eggleston: I love it when the comics community supports each other.
• 15:40
  Tad Eggleston: That's, like, the other thing that, like, our other co-host, Tyler, is actually opening a shop.
• 15:46
  Tad Eggleston: in…
• 15:47
  Fred Van Lente: up.
• 15:47
  Tad Eggleston: La Verne, Minnesota, which is one of the reasons that.
• 15:50
  Atom! Freeman: Nice.
• 15:51
  Tad Eggleston: He's not here tonight, is that he's… Going nuts, building bookshelves, and… Getting licenses together, and…
• 16:03
  Atom! Freeman: Well, you should, reach out and let us know if he has any… there are any challenges that can be helped with. We are always.
• 16:11
  Tad Eggleston: Well…
• 16:11
  Atom! Freeman: I'll try and help.
• 16:12
  Tad Eggleston: I will definitely, I will definitely do that, and for that matter,
• 16:19
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he's gonna be probably one of the
• 16:24
  Tad Eggleston: 10 or 12 closest shops to, to, to, you know, Black Hills?
• 16:30
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he'll still be 9 hours away, but he's just over the Minnesota border from South Dakota.
• 16:36
  Atom! Freeman: Well, there you go. There you go.
• 16:37
  Tad Eggleston: He, he was just vacationing in the Black Hills.
• 16:42
  Fred Van Lente: You do have to, tran- you usually have to transfer at the Minneapolis airport when you are flying to…
• 16:48
  Atom! Freeman: That's true.
• 16:49
  Tad Eggleston: This is what I'm saying.
• 16:50
  Fred Van Lente: city.
• 16:50
  Tad Eggleston: Though he's, like, 3 hours from Minneapolis, so…
• 16:54
  Tad Eggleston: Because he's just over the… I met Tyler because my wife is from Sioux Falls, and they worked together 20-some-odd years ago, and stayed… so she's known him way longer than I have.
• 17:11
  Tad Eggleston: And at one point on Facebook, he said, I miss my comics podcast, because he had one before us. Is there anybody out there that wants to…
• 17:23
  Tad Eggleston: Thanks.
• 17:24
  Tad Eggleston: Emailed immediately and said, Have you thought about my son?
• 17:30
  Tad Eggleston: He'd been a guest on his previous show.
• 17:33
  Tad Eggleston: I got a phone call, and, you know, this is, like, the 697th recording?
• 17:38
  Tad Eggleston: Something like that? In 4 years?
• 17:41
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 17:41
  Atom! Freeman: And I, in our podcast, I always say, if you say the word beep, it shows up in the transcript and lets us know we need to edit something out. Are you… is your recording local? Because you're… you are still kind of choppy.
• 17:56
  Tad Eggleston: I'm still going… .
• 17:58
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 17:59
  Tad Eggleston: No, it's gonna go into the cloud, and we'll see how it shows up. We're… we're decidedly lo-fi.
• 18:08
  Tad Eggleston: And nobody's complained about it yet, but we don't have a huge audience. Maybe we'll worry about it more later. I've worried about it in that I'm gonna go back to having an actual wire come into my house than the AT&T 5G that worked really well for 3 years, and now not so long.
• 18:26
  Atom! Freeman: Thank you so much.
• 18:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 18:28
  Atom! Freeman: Kinda have to. Yeah, it sucks.
• 18:30
  Tad Eggleston: I actually disagree.
• 18:32
  Fred Van Lente: my landline's down, because my Wi-Fi had improved so much.
• 18:37
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and, and, and, and that's, that's the…
• 18:40
  Tad Eggleston: Real annoying part, we have one…
• 18:43
  Tad Eggleston: wire option, and, like, 4 wireless options, but the 4 wireless options, you know, the one that we have was good, it was the best for a long time, and now it's shaky, and the other 3 we haven't even heard good things about.
• 19:00
  Tad Eggleston: And the wired one is, well, I mean, it works well, but their customer service is crap.
• 19:08
  Fred Van Lente: Mmm.
• 19:08
  Tad Eggleston: Which is why I won't name them.
• 19:10
  Tad Eggleston: They're famous for their lousy customer service, though. So famous, they changed their name a few years ago.
• 19:17
  Tad Eggleston: And still remain famous for their lousy customer service.
• 19:23
  Tad Eggleston: But that's not what we normally have in the comic book industry, we'll pivot back.
• 19:27
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Tad Eggleston: Like I said, I love the way… I love the way…
• 19:32
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, one of the things that we were talking… I mean, because obviously we've been talking about comic shops a lot more as Tyler opens his, but one of the things that we all love is that, like, so few of them are even in competition with their nearest other comic shops. It's like, they're aware
• 19:50
  Tad Eggleston: That they're not trying to take…
• 19:53
  Tad Eggleston: A bigger part of the existing pie, they're trying to bake a bigger pie.
• 20:00
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 20:00
  Tad Eggleston: If they don't have something, they'll say, oh, well, but let me call my buddy.
• 20:06
  Tad Eggleston: The next town over with his shop.
• 20:10
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 20:11
  Atom! Freeman: And that's much more common than anybody realizes. Also, it's, I think it's a,
• 20:18
  Atom! Freeman: misunderstanding on the part of many comic shop retailers who believe that they are in competition with each other, because all the data I see says that when a comic shop goes away.
• 20:29
  Atom! Freeman: something like 60% of the sales that are generated by that store also go away. What that says to me is that most of the people who shop at comic shops are…
• 20:40
  Atom! Freeman: number one, they're a fan of the shop first, right? They're a fan of that experience, more so than they are, you know, even the product.
• 20:50
  Atom! Freeman: So, I always think that whenever I hear about shops that are, like, overly competitive with each other, I'm like, you're missing the point. The point is, like, you just…
• 20:58
  Tad Eggleston: Totally missing the point.
• 20:59
  Atom! Freeman: job you or can, right?
• 21:01
  Tad Eggleston: Right. I know of at least two, like, informal
• 21:10
  Tad Eggleston: rings of shops that, like, will swap graphic novels around. They'll keep lists, and they get together in, like, a chat room at the end of every month, and who needs… you know, I need this. Does anybody have it? I need this. Does anybody have it?
• 21:26
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no.
• 21:28
  Atom! Freeman: Exactly, yeah. We're all in this together.
• 21:32
  Tad Eggleston: so.
• 21:33
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 21:34
  Tad Eggleston: Cause, cause among other things, I mean.
• 21:36
  Tad Eggleston: And this goes back to why we founded the podcast, and why part of our tagline is to elevate the medium of comics. It's the only medium that anybody says, oh, I don't like that medium.
• 21:49
  Tad Eggleston: Lobby says, I don't like moving pictures.
• 21:52
  Tad Eggleston: He says, I don't like written words.
• 21:55
  Tad Eggleston: They might say, I don't like mystery novels. Well, yeah, I… okay. They do say, I don't like reading, but I'm a high school teacher, I know.
• 22:04
  Atom! Freeman: But, but… Yeah.
• 22:07
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, like, Twitter is reading.
• 22:11
  Tad Eggleston: He didn't say it was good reading, but it's rhythm words.
• 22:15
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, that's true. That's very true.
• 22:18
  Fred Van Lente: My TikTok is bigger.
• 22:20
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, but that's moving pictures.
• 22:24
  Fred Van Lente: Right. Maybe my point was lost. Fair enough.
• 22:30
  Atom! Freeman: Gotcha!
• 22:35
  Tad Eggleston: So, I always think there aren't people who don't like comics, they're people who don't realize that they like comics.
• 22:42
  Tad Eggleston: or don't realize that the comics that they like have more like them. So it's just a matter of, like, finding those more people, not…
• 22:51
  Fred Van Lente: Well, and I think there's all these different markets, you know, like…
• 22:55
  Fred Van Lente: the people who are… who have the Wednesday habit, God bless them, they keep us all in business, aren't as the same people who are on Webtoon.
• 23:03
  Fred Van Lente: Yup. Yup.
• 23:04
  Fred Van Lente: not the same people, like, I think I've just noticed there's a very vibrant, just, Kickstarter, people who just.
• 23:11
  Tad Eggleston: in common.
• 23:12
  Fred Van Lente: and people just buy comics on Kickstarter who never stop.
• 23:14
  Tad Eggleston: There he is.
• 23:16
  Fred Van Lente: There is.
• 23:17
  Fred Van Lente: having done, as you know, Ted, my nonfiction comics forever, you know, starting out with Active Philosophers, which is up for the Ringo Award for Best Humor Comic this year, so if you've not yet voted.
• 23:31
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, nice!
• 23:32
  Fred Van Lente: listening to this, and you're a comics professional, go ahead and do so. I realize if I want to win one of these rewards, I should probably shamelessly promote myself.
• 23:40
  Tad Eggleston: And if you're listening to this, and you're a philosophy teacher, I had a couple of kids who used it as their study tool to get A's in their
• 23:53
  Tad Eggleston: philosophy, you know, their advanced credit. I forget if it was an AP class, I don't remember if there's AP philosophy or not, because I'm a special ed teacher. I don't think about AP, even though I help lots of people with their AP classes.
• 24:06
  Tad Eggleston: So I don't remember if it was AP or just Advanced Philosophy, but, like, it was one of the prestigious classes at a prestigious high school, and…
• 24:16
  Tad Eggleston: they weren't willing to take it home because you'd signed it for me, and they were kind of in awe of that. They were in the study skills room on a regular basis, like, I gotta learn about…
• 24:28
  Fred Van Lente: I'll send a copy for the room that's not signed, so…
• 24:31
  Atom! Freeman: There you go.
• 24:33
  Fred Van Lente: Taking the.
• 24:33
  Tad Eggleston: I'm switching.
• 24:34
  Fred Van Lente: As long as they bring it back. Anyway, the reason I bring that up is because one of the things I found last.
• 24:39
  Tad Eggleston: I think we finally got it in the library, Fred. Oh, good! There you go. Yeah.
• 24:43
  Fred Van Lente: Last summer, I did a,
• 24:47
  Fred Van Lente: Kickstarter for Game Masters, which was the book that Tyler and I did about the history of role-playing games.
• 24:52
  Tad Eggleston: I have that over there somewhere.
• 24:54
  Fred Van Lente: Oh, lovely, and and thank you for your support. And, you know, doing the nonfiction stuff about a variety of topics, whether it's philosophy or history or… I did a book in basketball with Joe Cooper that Random House put out.
• 25:08
  Fred Van Lente: It's much easier to give someone who is into comics a book about philosophy or role-playing games than it is to find someone who is into role-playing games and philosophy and give them a comic if they are not already… oh, there you go.
• 25:25
  Fred Van Lente: Adam. Army, we appreciate it. So, I definitely think there's a literacy there where there's some people… which is a long-winded way of saying I think that the Venn diagram of comic book retailers and Kickstarter and,
• 25:40
  Fred Van Lente: webtoon and everything else, it's all people who like comics, and I think that.
• 25:46
  Fred Van Lente: that there's no reason to sort of exclude any of these circles from anything else. It's all one big happy… well, not always happy. One big family.
• 25:54
  Tad Eggleston: Damn.
• 25:55
  Atom! Freeman: Dysfunctional family.
• 25:57
  Fred Van Lente: And I think…
• 25:58
  Tad Eggleston: And slowly it gets bigger. I mean, I remember getting really excited one day when I was at Barnes & Noble and found March, not with the comics, but with the history books.
• 26:08
  Fred Van Lente: Yeah. We started Action Philosophers in 2003, and that was a big struggle. We had the, you know, we had the big struggle of, like, they're putting it in the human way. Don't listen to this Ringo Awards nominee. But
• 26:21
  Fred Van Lente: But, they always put the next Garfield in the humor section, we were like, probably should be in the philosophy section, you know, even though we are funny.
• 26:29
  Fred Van Lente: Everyone's about that.
• 26:30
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Fred Van Lente: So that's why Eisner came up with the term, or at least popularized the term graphic novel, was because.
• 26:37
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 26:38
  Fred Van Lente: you know, a contract with God, which is.
• 26:39
  Tad Eggleston: To try to give it a more gravitas.
• 26:43
  Fred Van Lente: Well, and he wanted to be in the literature section, he didn't want to be stuck with Bloom County.
• 26:47
  Fred Van Lente: Nothing against Bloom County, but it's just a different animal.
• 26:49
  Tad Eggleston: She's also amazing, yeah. So…
• 26:55
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna… I'm gonna ask one book-related question, but then… but then spin that into a question for… for Adam.
• 27:03
  Tad Eggleston: as I was rereading today, I love the fact that you did the first heist, and then you put the team together. So, you know, you're used to having that…
• 27:16
  Tad Eggleston: that episode, or that part of the movie, or whatnot, where the team gets thrown together. In fact, Greg Ruck was just thinking about this in his… his newsletter, because he's doing the… the…
• 27:27
  Tad Eggleston: the Cheetah and Cheshire robbed the Justice League, and he was talking about, you know, the first episode of Leverage, where you're pulling the team together, that sort of thing.
• 27:36
  Fred Van Lente: Right.
• 27:36
  Tad Eggleston: But you did it! You guys did the heist. It's like, you get to have the heist, and you don't know these people at all, and it doesn't matter, because the heist's gonna be awesome. And then the next four issues are pulling the team together, like…
• 27:48
  Tad Eggleston: How did you come to that decision? I think you landed it perfectly. Thank you. But it's kind of interesting to try to write a story with these characters that have really interesting backstories that we're going to learn more about.
• 28:02
  Tad Eggleston: Right. But you barely even tell us what their skills are, you just throw them into it, and let us go along with the ride.
• 28:11
  Tad Eggleston: Talk to me about, like, that decision-making process, like, how.
• 28:16
  Fred Van Lente: Yeah, I mean, you know, that is absolutely 100% a record decision. I…
• 28:22
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 28:23
  Fred Van Lente: The origin stories first, or at least most of them, with the intention that they would come out first and would build this big heist, which has now ended up being…
• 28:31
  Fred Van Lente: publishing-wise, the second heist, we just wrapped up, the art on 6 and 7, which is the climax of the origin arc, but I think the folks at RECA, and Adam, I don't even know if you were involved in this decision-making at all, but they were like, well, let's… this is cool, but let's do something where we have all the team already together. And, and rarely do you have an opportunity to do something like that
• 28:56
  Fred Van Lente: where a publisher is willing… because we have been working… I mean, we've been working on the futures since about…
• 29:01
  Fred Van Lente: what, 2023? Probably, you may need a little bit longer, your association with RECA.
• 29:06
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Fred Van Lente: And, it's rare that a publisher's like, you know, we've already paid, and for, I think, the…
• 29:13
  Fred Van Lente: what became issues 2 and 4 were done, the Sally and Martina origin issues, and then Rekha was like, you know what, this is cool, but let's have a…
• 29:22
  Fred Van Lente: Sort of more of a quote-unquote pilot that's,
• 29:27
  Fred Van Lente: them doing what they do, right, together as a team, pulling a heist, in this case, busting a human trafficking ring on a casino in the moon.
• 29:36
  Fred Van Lente: Which…
• 29:38
  Fred Van Lente: Happy with how that turned out. But… and then we sort of dialed the clock back, and I was a little worried. I thought people were gonna be a little confused, but so far, everyone seems to be really jamming on it, which is awesome.
• 29:47
  Fred Van Lente: And, you know, just from a writer's standpoint,
• 29:52
  Fred Van Lente: it was terrific to do those origin stories first, or already had a great handle on these characters. Like, that never happens, where I've already written these characters by themselves for, you know, multiple issues, and then I get to throw them all together.
• 30:04
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean.
• 30:05
  Fred Van Lente: Partly why that came out so well, in my opinion, was because I already knew the characters inside and out.
• 30:10
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 30:10
  Tad Eggleston: I heard… I mean, Matt Fraction for years has talked about how the third issue is really the first issue, and I recently heard him talk about how he was excited about the new Batman run, because he was given enough lead time that
• 30:25
  Tad Eggleston: that…
• 30:26
  Tad Eggleston: the first issue coming out was actually the third one that he wrote, because he got done with the first two, and he went, you know, I actually want to start it differently.
• 30:35
  Tad Eggleston: And they said, sure. So it kind of sounds like you also got to do that. It's like, here I am writing this book, and then it's like, wait a minute, what if we did this?
• 30:46
  Atom! Freeman: And that's… I mean, that is basically how it came together, as… I mean, you know, not only does… you know, it takes Fred a minute to learn who these characters are.
• 30:55
  Atom! Freeman: But it also, like, it takes, our… our artist on…
• 31:01
  Atom! Freeman: every other origin story, and on that first issue, Inio Bufi, I think, you know, he is an incredible artist, but, like, I feel like he, like, just… I think because he was able to do the origin stories that he did first, he understood the world better.
• 31:18
  Atom! Freeman: And he understood the characters better, and if you go back and you look at what is now issue number 2, which could have been issue number one.
• 31:25
  Atom! Freeman: it, you know, he was still working those kinks out, I think, in some ways, and we all were, right? I remember very clearly reading the script to what is now issue one, and suddenly, I think because I had, like, you know, kind of lived in this world, I was immediately
• 31:45
  Atom! Freeman: feeling for these characters, like, they immediately… the jeopardy for them, like, it hit me, and like, you know, when Sally is…
• 31:53
  Atom! Freeman: when Sally sees what she does on the dark spot of the moon, right, I just felt for her, and when Martina is dealing with what she's dealing, like, I just… something about getting to know those characters a little better for all of us became… it just became more real.
• 32:11
  Atom! Freeman: And… and he's, Fred's absolutely right. It comes out of the RECA team's determination to…
• 32:19
  Atom! Freeman: do a 60-issue run. Like, we were committed to 5 years.
• 32:24
  Tad Eggleston: I love that.
• 32:24
  Atom! Freeman: comics.
• 32:26
  Tad Eggleston: Love that.
• 32:27
  Atom! Freeman: And not only did they commit to that, they called the shot, they're, like, letting us do what we need to do in order to get it done, but, like, when we got through with that issue one, which very well could have been 5 issues all by itself.
• 32:40
  Atom! Freeman: They said, how about we just make that a single issue?
• 32:43
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 32:44
  Atom! Freeman: That's incre… I mean, A, you're eating up 5 months of lead time, you've just.
• 32:48
  Tad Eggleston: And…
• 32:48
  Atom! Freeman: Basically, 4 issues to the 60 issues.
• 32:51
  Tad Eggleston: And Fred's like, thank, thanks, I thought I had some lead time, and no…
• 32:56
  Atom! Freeman: Yep!
• 32:57
  Fred Van Lente: I had so much material amassed, though, it really was not that big of a deal.
• 33:00
  Tad Eggleston: That's good, that's good. I just… I suddenly had a flash at Cartoon Crossroads last year. Somebody asked Chip Zdarsky about the…
• 33:09
  Tad Eggleston: the, Joker Year One story, and he said that it was essentially, like, he wanted to give his regular art…
• 33:23
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, We got…
• 33:27
  Tad Eggleston: He did such a good job that DC decided to release it weekly. He's like, damn it!
• 33:36
  Atom! Freeman: Well, be careful, be careful.
• 33:38
  Tad Eggleston: I only gave him half as much time as I was hoping to.
• 33:40
  Atom! Freeman: Be careful what you get good at. Warren Simons, a good friend of both.
• 33:44
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 33:45
  Atom! Freeman: Fred and mine, used to say, just be really careful with what you get good at. So, there you go.
• 33:52
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:55
  Tad Eggleston: And who you get good at it for?
• 33:57
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 33:57
  Tad Eggleston: Because, you know, if you've got the right bosses, you could say, hey, no, this was really, like, supposed to be to give so-and-so some breathing room.
• 34:08
  Atom! Freeman: It's comics. Who needs breathing?
• 34:10
  Tad Eggleston: It is.
• 34:12
  Atom! Freeman: If things aren't on fire, it doesn't feel like we're doing our work.
• 34:14
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and that actually leads me nicely to my spinoff question. At the back of the first issue,
• 34:23
  Tad Eggleston: in the back matter, it kind of sounds like, Adam, you got to be the one that put together this crew, so talk to me about… about putting together your crew.
• 34:34
  Tad Eggleston: For this… I mean, talk to me about how it… I mean, I've heard the origin from Joe and Fred, but it sounds like you were there…
• 34:45
  Tad Eggleston: So talk to me about how this crazy-ass…
• 34:51
  Tad Eggleston: 60 issues, 5-year commitment came about to begin with, and then, like…
• 34:59
  Atom! Freeman: Well…
• 34:59
  Tad Eggleston: How do you go from somebody having that idea and convincing you that they have the money and the will to do it to, like…
• 35:08
  Tad Eggleston: Doing it.
• 35:09
  Atom! Freeman: Well, I think it all goes… as we mentioned earlier, it all goes back to Jason Blanchard, who was a retailer, and I met him when he was a retailer, and convinced… did a… was doing a panel on why this new thing called Facebook is a place where you should market your comic shop.
• 35:27
  Atom! Freeman: And… And he and I became very.
• 35:31
  Tad Eggleston: I remember when Facebook was a new thing.
• 35:34
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, well, we're all over.
• 35:36
  Tad Eggleston: I got my account when you still had to have an EDU.
• 35:39
  Atom! Freeman: That's right, there you go. So, so I, you know, I've known Jason for a long time. He ended up working for DC for a little bit, and then he worked at Diamond, running Free Comic Book Day for a while, and then moved into cybersecurity, and he and I remained friends the entire time.
• 35:58
  Atom! Freeman: he comes to me, working in this new company, and he says, I want to make, promotional comics for our classes. We do these, they do these classes on cybersecurity, and they wanted to do zines with comics in. He said, would you help me?
• 36:12
  Atom! Freeman: And I said, sure, I mean, I'll consult. And so, I think consulting is some of the work that I do, and basically just teaching people how to make comics, and how to sell them in our market.
• 36:22
  Atom! Freeman: And it, and that was really where it began. He hired Joe Keating. I knew Joe vaguely. He and I kind of crossed paths several times when he was in marketing.
• 36:35
  Atom! Freeman: For image, and, you know, we are, you know, we're all, we're all pros, so we all kind of bump into each other.
• 36:42
  Atom! Freeman: Then…
• 36:44
  Atom! Freeman: So, anyway, so they finally said, listen, we want to start Rekka Publishing, we want to start Rekka Comics, we want your help in putting this together. And so, I… honestly, the first step for me was Fred.
• 36:58
  Atom! Freeman: I was looking around at who the writers were that I felt comfortable in working with, and Fred, of all of them, understands… I think he absorbs information and makes it his own, right? And at the time, he was, at the time we were talking about doing
• 37:18
  Atom! Freeman: real-life stories about hackers. Like, we were talking about doing real-life heist stories about these people who… whose legit jobs are breaking into banks. Like, that's their job.
• 37:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 37:30
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 37:31
  Atom! Freeman: And, and legally, just want to put that out there. They're not… they're not actual thieves.
• 37:37
  Atom! Freeman: But, so they were regaling us with these stories, and so I brought in, Fred. I said, listen, this is the guy, and there was a lot of conversation back and forth. Fred brought in an editor, incredibly talented, driven guy named, Nate Cosby.
• 37:56
  Atom! Freeman: Nate, God bless him, is running, I don't know, 30 or so, Disney books at Dynamite right now.
• 38:03
  Atom! Freeman: So I think once… once we realized we were at this, gonna be at this for 5 years, and we were all gonna be mad people, like, at it, he… he went, I love this project, but I'm gonna have to step away. But before he did, he brought in…
• 38:17
  Atom! Freeman: Studio Arancia, who is, an art agent, Italian art agents, and they brought us to, Inio Bufi, and,
• 38:29
  Atom! Freeman: our… colorist whose name I'm going completely up on.
• 38:34
  Atom! Freeman: Fred, help me out, Andrea Maloney.
• 38:39
  Atom! Freeman: And, and Mario, they brought in some really incredibly talented people.
• 38:45
  Atom! Freeman: We ended up,
• 38:48
  Atom! Freeman: working… they had worked with Taylor Esposito on other projects, and I knew Taylor from working with him at other,
• 38:56
  Atom! Freeman: Publishers for lettering, and listen, if there is a, if there's an unsung hero of comics, it is the letterer.
• 39:05
  Tad Eggleston: We've had, I think, 5 different letters on the show. I totally agree with you.
• 39:09
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, I mean, the letterer and the production designer, those are two… two roles that, if you fill them, it elevates the entire experience.
• 39:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 39:20
  Atom! Freeman: And they, will… they do an incredible job of… I always liken it to sound design in a low-budget film.
• 39:29
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 39:29
  Atom! Freeman: When sound design is right, you're willing to overlook all sorts of bad cinematography.
• 39:34
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 39:35
  Atom! Freeman: The bad acting almost is forgiven when the sound design is great.
• 39:39
  Atom! Freeman: So, anyway, so we brought them in, oh, very early on, we brought in an incredibly talented designer named Ryan Hughes. Ryan has done logos of… well, he did the Recca logo, and he did the Future Is logo.
• 39:56
  Atom! Freeman: And trade dress.
• 39:58
  Atom! Freeman: He also is responsible for, you know, probably two-thirds of the… the… of your favorite comics logos. He's… he's.
• 40:06
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 40:07
  Atom! Freeman: incredible talent.
• 40:07
  Tad Eggleston: No, he's another guy that I need to talk to sometime. So, you know, you're free to hook me up, or bring him the next time, whatever.
• 40:15
  Atom! Freeman: You got it. Fascinating, dude. Fascinating, man.
• 40:18
  Tad Eggleston: Because there are a couple of jobs that I haven't gotten to talk to Yeah…
• 40:25
  Atom! Freeman: That are, like, major jobs, and it's designer and, and, like…
• 40:30
  Tad Eggleston: Assistant.
• 40:31
  Tad Eggleston: I've got a couple of people's assistants that I keep giving a hard time. You know, I wanna… no, just assistants. I've had assistant editors, I've had editors, but, like, you know, it gets to a point where, you know, certain people have… it's like…
• 40:45
  Tad Eggleston: I have too much writing to do. I need somebody else to book my podcasts, and make certain I'm where I need to be, when I need to be there, and remind me what I'm supposed to be doing today.
• 40:56
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, 100%.
• 40:57
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes they're online assistants, and sometimes they're in-person assistants, and…
• 41:01
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. And if you know the right one, you know how to get to somebody.
• 41:05
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So, yeah. Oh, yeah. Very true.
• 41:08
  Atom! Freeman: But yeah, so it was really just, I liken it to just knowing who your people are, even if you've never worked with them, right? There are just certain people that you see their work and you go, oh, you're one of us.
• 41:22
  Atom! Freeman: Right? And and this particular project really required people who were both
• 41:29
  Atom! Freeman: passionate about comics, and making really great comics, and not just… I mean, this really could have been, like a…
• 41:38
  Atom! Freeman: what we call corporate comics, right? Or custom comics, where, you know, you have, Toyota decides they want to do a comic book about the new Sienna, and it ends up feeling like an advertorial.
• 41:53
  Atom! Freeman: This really could have ended up being that. But instead, they made the decision to, like, really work with pros, and really focus on making sure everyone understood that the goal, at the end of the day, was to make great comics.
• 42:08
  Atom! Freeman: And the selling of their company, the selling of their services, the, you know, the promoting of cybersecurity, it was almost secondary.
• 42:18
  Atom! Freeman: In fact, John Strand, who is the owner of Black Hills Information Security, who is the parent company of RECA,
• 42:26
  Atom! Freeman: he… he gave us two mandates. He said, you know, we need to make great comics.
• 42:32
  Atom! Freeman: And the reader is the hero of the story.
• 42:35
  Atom! Freeman: And we really have, I think in many ways, we have hit those marks. I think Fred has worked incredibly well with our team in giving them places to.
• 42:48
  Tad Eggleston: add in what are called CTFs, which stands for Capture the Flag, which are these puzzles that hackers give each other to kind of.
• 42:56
  Atom! Freeman: Hone their craft and teach everybody new skills, and they're just puzzles, they're just codes.
• 43:01
  Tad Eggleston: I was actually about to… that leads perfectly to what was going to be one of my later questions. Have either of you done any of the CTFs yet?
• 43:11
  Atom! Freeman: No.
• 43:16
  Atom! Freeman: Joe, though, Joe Keating, he is all in on the CTA.
• 43:20
  Fred Van Lente: It's true, Joe's Joe has done a bunch of them.
• 43:22
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I, I looked at a couple… And went.
• 43:27
  Tad Eggleston: Sometime I'm gonna wind up binging these.
• 43:30
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, huh.
• 43:31
  Tad Eggleston: But I have a lot to learn before it'll be a binge rather than a bang my head against the wall. So I need to have…
• 43:41
  Tad Eggleston: You know, because I just looked at it long enough to go, okay, I'm pretty certain that if I learned anything, anything at all about how this works, this would get relatively easy for me
• 43:52
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, not easy-easy, but you know…
• 43:55
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, well, and that's what it's designed for, right, is to get.
• 43:57
  Tad Eggleston: Challenging puzzle, rather than… foreign language.
• 44:02
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, and it's designed to keep you… to make you comfortable with those, with that environment, right? So that you don't see it and go, that's scary. Right. And I will say that, that the community around Black Hills and that hacker community
• 44:19
  Atom! Freeman: They've, they've started doing their, like,
• 44:25
  Atom! Freeman: essentially, like, step-by-step walkthroughs of the CTFs. They give themselves, like, I think it's, like, a year or something before they start putting these out. So they've started putting them out for that… this first volume.
• 44:38
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 44:39
  Atom! Freeman: see, you know, what the steps are that they take on.
• 44:42
  Tad Eggleston: Gotcha.
• 44:43
  Atom! Freeman: So… so yeah, it is… it is… I mean, it…
• 44:46
  Tad Eggleston: Fantastic.
• 44:47
  Atom! Freeman: Another layer on top.
• 44:48
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, because this is something that I brought up last time, is that aside from, like, selling comics and getting people
• 44:56
  Tad Eggleston: To know about… Information security and advertising some for… the information security
• 45:05
  Tad Eggleston: company. Particularly with the leaderboard, they're also recruiting their next set of hackers.
• 45:12
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 45:13
  Atom! Freeman: And these.
• 45:13
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, all in one comic. I mean, like…
• 45:19
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Fred knows this already, because, I mean, he got the gushing email the second I heard about it, going, Fred, I need to talk to you about this, because…
• 45:29
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 45:29
  Tad Eggleston: Because I love things that work on multi… like, this is… and this is… this is why I want to talk to your bosses at some point, too, just because I'm just really impressed with the number of different…
• 45:44
  Tad Eggleston: Purposes.
• 45:47
  Tad Eggleston: The comic has, while still maintaining that perfect comic purpose of just telling a great and entertaining story.
• 45:58
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah. Do I have one nitpicky question for Fred?
• 46:02
  Fred Van Lente: Cool.
• 46:03
  Tad Eggleston: So you're… yeah, yeah.
• 46:06
  Fred Van Lente: Only one? I'm winning.
• 46:08
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, no, no. You're not explicitly, but I hope he'll someday become explicitly either autistic or at least neurodivergent.
• 46:18
  Fred Van Lente: Character.
• 46:19
  Tad Eggleston: Made a comment about home being…
• 46:26
  Tad Eggleston: the state…
• 46:30
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 46:34
  Tad Eggleston: Statistical thinking, because yes, 97% of accidents happen within.
• 46:40
  Fred Van Lente: Dad, sorry, sorry, sorry.
• 46:42
  Tad Eggleston: That's because you…
• 46:44
  Atom! Freeman: cold. Did I cut out? Yeah, you cut out.
• 46:46
  Fred Van Lente: Do not know what you asked me.
• 46:48
  Atom! Freeman: Can you…
• 46:50
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, okay.
• 46:50
  Atom! Freeman: You were talking about Eli.
• 46:52
  Tad Eggleston: He was talking about… Eli was talking about home being
• 46:57
  Tad Eggleston: The most dangerous place, because 97% of accidents… Happened close to home.
• 47:04
  Tad Eggleston: It's very first-level statistical thinking.
• 47:07
  Tad Eggleston: Because you spend close to 97% of your time
• 47:12
  Tad Eggleston: within 5 miles of home. So it's not actually really more likely that you'll have an accident at home.
• 47:23
  Tad Eggleston: it's… You have more time at home.
• 47:27
  Tad Eggleston: So, you know, it might be that the middle of the street, 5 miles away, in terms of the amount of time you spend there, you'll have a lot more accidents there. But because you spend more time at home, even though there's less accidents, it's kind of like the airplane is the safest way to travel. You know, yes, 200 people die…
• 47:48
  Tad Eggleston: When an airplane…
• 47:50
  Tad Eggleston: crashes, but, you know, there's one crash for every 10 billion miles, rather than one crash for every…
• 47:59
  Tad Eggleston: 50,000 miles in a car.
• 48:02
  Fred Van Lente: Okay.
• 48:03
  Tad Eggleston: And I'm just feeling like ha… I'm feeling like…
• 48:07
  Tad Eggleston: Hacker Eli would have known that.
• 48:11
  Tad Eggleston: That it's kind of a misnomer statistic, that it's more dangerous at home because of that.
• 48:19
  Fred Van Lente: Right. Well…
• 48:22
  Atom! Freeman: Why would you…
• 48:23
  Fred Van Lente: I actually drove…
• 48:24
  Atom! Freeman: You well-actualied Fred, in the most well-actually, project either of us have ever worked on.
• 48:32
  Atom! Freeman: Fred, carry on.
• 48:35
  Fred Van Lente: I…
• 48:37
  Tad Eggleston: I tried not to well, actually, it. I said, I feel…
• 48:40
  Fred Van Lente: Well, Tad, I, like you, am a teacher.
• 48:45
  Fred Van Lente: I'm gonna put my teacher hat on here, and say, could you rephrase that? Because I'm… I don't see…
• 48:53
  Fred Van Lente: That, to me, is a description, not a criticism. I don't understand what the criticism is, I guess.
• 48:59
  Fred Van Lente: Well, number one, and number two, I think Matt…
• 49:01
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 49:01
  Fred Van Lente: Like, we're talking, but we're both saying the same thing.
• 49:06
  Tad Eggleston: And number two, there's something that has to do with the speed.
• 49:11
  Fred Van Lente: That's going on.
• 49:11
  Tad Eggleston: The way he was talking to his mother, it seemed like he was saying that home was incredibly dangerous, you know? She was saying, you're safe at home, and he's saying, well, actually, 97% of accidents happen at home, and, like, I don't…
• 49:23
  Tad Eggleston: I don't feel like that would have made him think that home was more dangerous, because he also knows that he spends…
• 49:30
  Tad Eggleston: So much more time that it skews the number.
• 49:34
  Fred Van Lente: But that doesn't change the fact it's still… You're…
• 49:39
  Fred Van Lente: But I don't understand what you're arguing, because it's… I feel like we're saying…
• 49:42
  Tad Eggleston: What I'm saying is, like.
• 49:44
  Fred Van Lente: To the statistical… Threats. That's not to say that… that…
• 49:50
  Fred Van Lente: it sounds like what you're trying to say is what Eli is trying to say, that home is actually threatening to him, which I don't think was what he was trying to say.
• 49:56
  Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
• 49:57
  Fred Van Lente: I think he… number one, I think Eli likes correcting his mother.
• 50:01
  Tad Eggleston: No, that's fair, too.
• 50:03
  Fred Van Lente: A young person does not like correcting their parent. That's what I got out of it, which is this…
• 50:08
  Tad Eggleston: perspective.
• 50:09
  Fred Van Lente: You lied.
• 50:09
  Tad Eggleston: I just know.
• 50:10
  Fred Van Lente: If any, like, the boss's mom around.
• 50:13
  Tad Eggleston: My, my, my, my autistic…
• 50:16
  Tad Eggleston: statistical, long-time baseball number brain immediately went, yes, 97% of accidents happen at home, but your chance of having an accident at home is, like…
• 50:30
  Tad Eggleston: 1%… I mean, I'm not gonna do the full numbers, but let's say it's 1% per minute, whereas crossing the street in the city of Chicago, it's 5% per minute.
• 50:44
  Fred Van Lente: Okay.
• 50:45
  Tad Eggleston: It doesn't… the statistic only took location into account, not time.
• 50:53
  Tad Eggleston: And time's a critical variable.
• 50:57
  Fred Van Lente: But again, you're… I don't know if you're editing… I love Adam laughing here. I will… I will argue about this until the cows come home. I have no problem with it whatsoever. That's the joy of the podcasting format. If I was on Jimmy Kimmel, we'd already be cutting to commercial.
• 51:14
  Tad Eggleston: That's wrong.
• 51:15
  Fred Van Lente: commercial an hour ago. In fact, I probably would never have been invited to be on Jimmy Kittle, so appreciate your time.
• 51:21
  Tad Eggleston: I'm dead.
• 51:21
  Fred Van Lente: here. But…
• 51:23
  Fred Van Lente: I guess what I'm… I'm failing to understand is… is what you're actually… so what you're saying is.
• 51:31
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I had initially read it as him saying that home was… We're in 4, but…
• 51:40
  Tad Eggleston: And I like it that way. So I'm not… I'm not arguing against it anymore.
• 51:45
  Tad Eggleston: Because you gave me a satisfying.
• 51:48
  Fred Van Lente: that?
• 51:48
  Tad Eggleston: Framing…
• 51:49
  Fred Van Lente: You totally cut out again.
• 51:52
  Tad Eggleston: Anyways…
• 51:53
  Tad Eggleston: What I can't tell, and I need to go listen at some point, is what… I have a feeling that sometimes the, both of them get picked up by the recording in the cloud, and they just don't get to the other person, because I…
• 52:06
  Fred Van Lente: Yo.
• 52:07
  Tad Eggleston: We'll have to figure that out.
• 52:09
  Fred Van Lente: Oh, what else?
• 52:09
  Tad Eggleston: What I was saying… what I was saying was, that…
• 52:16
  Tad Eggleston: in my head, when I read it, I felt like he was telling his mom, well, I was actually safer when I was over there than I am here, but you now told me that he was messing with his mom.
• 52:29
  Tad Eggleston: Which is also a completely valid thing for him to do, so it… with that reframing, I now love it the way it is.
• 52:36
  Fred Van Lente: And, obviously, spoiler alert for that story, it then immediately follows the scene, someone attacks him in his home, so he was actually right in the first place, so it kind of undermines the whole thing. But, you know, I totally get it,
• 52:51
  Fred Van Lente: I'm not neurodivergent. We have an entire Eli-focused storyline coming up.
• 52:57
  Tad Eggleston: very soon, that is very neurodivergent focused, so Tad, I'm very interested to hear what you're.
• 53:01
  Fred Van Lente: take on that is going to be.
• 53:03
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 53:04
  Fred Van Lente: I've definitely talked with some folks about that.
• 53:10
  Fred Van Lente: But, no, I get it. I get it that, you know, for a lot of neurodivergent folks.
• 53:16
  Fred Van Lente: Home is very much where the heart is.
• 53:20
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but I'll also toss in that, like, and I say this as a neurodivergent folk who also works special ed with a lot of neurodivergent folk,
• 53:30
  Tad Eggleston: like so many things in life, you meet a neurodivergent person, you've met a neurodivergent person. Yep. So, I mean, it's entirely possible that he can be brilliant in a lot of ways and never go beyond first-level statistics.
• 53:46
  Tad Eggleston: You know, not want to do more than two numbers at once, rather than doing three-dimensional
• 53:53
  Tad Eggleston: That would also be a valid answer for Eli.
• 53:55
  Fred Van Lente: Yeah, no, fair enough. No, to me, it's… it's… it… that… the larger point of that scene is…
• 54:03
  Tad Eggleston: And the larger point, you nailed.
• 54:05
  Fred Van Lente: Is Eli fucking with his mom?
• 54:08
  Tad Eggleston: That's why I… that's why I started with… I had a very nitpicky… I… I knew it would
• 54:15
  Tad Eggleston: autistic, nitpicky. It bothered me, and 99% of everybody who read it didn't think anything about it.
• 54:25
  Fred Van Lente: We… we picked the shit out of that knit.
• 54:29
  Atom! Freeman: I will say…
• 54:29
  Fred Van Lente: We did. I enjoyed it.
• 54:31
  Atom! Freeman: I'm… I'm enjoying… I'm enjoying… I've been enjoying this, this back and forth. I think primarily, too, because for me, it comes out of…
• 54:40
  Atom! Freeman: an experience of this project. I don't know if you would even assume this, but it turns out, in the cybersecurity world, this has a few neurodivergent folk in it.
• 54:52
  Tad Eggleston: I would assume that most of them are neurodivergent.
• 54:55
  Atom! Freeman: Shocking, I know, right? And .
• 54:58
  Tad Eggleston: And if they're not, they have a whole untapped market of hackers out there.
• 55:04
  Atom! Freeman: And so John Strand, I mentioned him earlier, who is legitimately in this world, is like.
• 55:12
  Atom! Freeman: It's… it's hard… it's really hard to talk about what a celebrity he is when you're in a room full of hackers. Like, the guy walks through the room, and you would think it was.
• 55:24
  Tad Eggleston: It's like Fred at a Comic Con.
• 55:26
  Atom! Freeman: Seriously. 100%.
• 55:30
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Fred has a poster with his face on it.
• 55:32
  Atom! Freeman: Seriously, come on. And I…
• 55:34
  Fred Van Lente: I didn't make that poster, I got it from another place.
• 55:39
  Fred Van Lente: Someone else made it.
• 55:40
  Atom! Freeman: He's making posters with his face on them.
• 55:42
  Tad Eggleston: He had to pay for it, they made him buy it.
• 55:44
  Fred Van Lente: Well, that's true, too. No, they printed too many, and I got an extra one.
• 55:48
  Atom! Freeman: So, John… Is, as…
• 55:54
  Atom! Freeman: he gives note… I mean, he gives notes. He gave a lot more notes early on, but his… he's almost always the last, person to look at everything, and… and many times he'll say.
• 56:06
  Atom! Freeman: this technical piece that you did, it's a little bit off. Let's tweak it so that it rings true for our audience who understands the tech behind this.
• 56:17
  Atom! Freeman: And so he… that is his… his role is… I mean, A, he pays for everything, but B, he, like, does this moment… he does this, like, kind of, sanity check for us on what is and is not possible.
• 56:31
  Tad Eggleston: And this is actually what I… what I love about having smart guests, is that was literally where I was going with my nitpicky question, was that.
• 56:40
  Atom! Freeman: Sure!
• 56:40
  Tad Eggleston: Like, do you have… Somebody died.
• 56:47
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, so… but… so I remember your conversation just now about, well, actually… well actuallying Eli's well-actually line.
• 56:59
  Atom! Freeman: reminded me of a note that we got pretty early on from John, which was… if I can remember, I'm gonna do my best to try and quote it, because it just stuck so hard. He said, My people are the well-actually people, and I am their king.
• 57:16
  Atom! Freeman: So I will well actually you. And so, yeah, it's, I love that we're well.
• 57:22
  Fred Van Lente: I'm in comics, I'm used to it.
• 57:24
  Atom! Freeman: It's, it's like it's turtles all the way down. It's just the well actually is all the way to the floor. It's.
• 57:31
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I…
• 57:32
  Fred Van Lente: I'm very well actually EE as well.
• 57:38
  Fred Van Lente: It's all good.
• 57:40
  Fred Van Lente: I'll never forget how annoyed I was that everyone loved that yellow… the joke among my friend group is, that's not how canals work, because there's a whole plot point in The Shape of Water, a move I didn't particularly like anyway, that revolves around
• 57:54
  Fred Van Lente: getting someone… getting a fishman into a canal in a way that is absolutely not how canals work. I just went on and on and on about it.
• 58:02
  Fred Van Lente: And finally, my friends are like, shut up, no one cares?
• 58:05
  Atom! Freeman: No one cares, so now whenever I…
• 58:08
  Tad Eggleston: My wife may regularly say during TV or movie watching, you know this isn't a true story, right?
• 58:20
  Fred Van Lente: That's right.
• 58:22
  Atom! Freeman: We're all afflicted, yes.
• 58:27
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, so… I've gotten to read the first 5 issues, and the Kickstarter includes 6 and 7, so 6 and 7 are the original first heist? Are we still…
• 58:41
  Fred Van Lente: Yep.
• 58:42
  Fred Van Lente: Yep. Okay. The, the, the…
• 58:45
  Tad Eggleston: You want to tease it all for anybody that's not already.
• 58:49
  Fred Van Lente: See it on your picture.
• 58:50
  Tad Eggleston: starter that's 25 times its goal already?
• 58:54
  Fred Van Lente: Number 5 just dropped in.
• 58:56
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, really…
• 58:56
  Fred Van Lente: Posted it.
• 58:57
  Tad Eggleston: 23 times, but… We have, I think, 22 days to make up the rest. I'll get to 25.
• 59:07
  Fred Van Lente: Yeah, exactly, we got to 25. in fact, I think the fifth issue just dropped today in comic shops, which is.
• 59:13
  Tad Eggleston: That sounds right.
• 59:14
  Fred Van Lente: of ARF,
• 59:16
  Fred Van Lente: the, service dog to the machine intelligence Art, who is the non-human member… well, unless you count Art. There's two non-human members of the team, and that's their…
• 59:27
  Fred Van Lente: Origin is this issue.
• 59:29
  Atom! Freeman: Right.
• 59:29
  Tad Eggleston: And, I mean…
• 59:31
  Fred Van Lente: And then… and then, so, if you… That was a brilliant decision, to decide that the machine intelligence needed a service animal. Yeah, I was pretty much.
• 59:40
  Tad Eggleston: I adore that.
• 59:42
  Fred Van Lente: Thank you.
• 59:46
  Fred Van Lente: Yeah, I… well, I read… they sent me to this… Recca sent me to the Netflix of the series called The Future of Things, or something like that, and so one of them was about the future of pets, and I was like, well…
• 59:58
  Fred Van Lente: can we reverse this, and as opposed to having the dog talk, like, an upright, which is a lot of what the tech, you know, like, read me, like, what, you know… I feel like we don't need dog translators, necessarily, like, you know.
• 1:00:10
  Tad Eggleston: They're pretty good at getting their message across.
• 1:00:13
  Fred Van Lente: Cat translators, it's a different story, but we have a whole…
• 1:00:16
  Tad Eggleston: But do we want cat translators?
• 1:00:19
  Fred Van Lente: It would be nice if they could tell us, like, cats are particularly notorious about hiding illness and injury, so it would be nice…
• 1:00:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that's fair.
• 1:00:27
  Fred Van Lente: That would be the one… talk to the vet, right? That would be the one thing I would really want.
• 1:00:31
  Tad Eggleston: But I think a lot of what they'd be telling us is, I know where you sleep.
• 1:00:36
  Fred Van Lente: Well, yeah.
• 1:00:39
  Fred Van Lente: Well, it would be… I still think it would be a lot of ignoring us, you know?
• 1:00:43
  Tad Eggleston: too.
• 1:00:44
  Fred Van Lente: I'm always fascinated when some people think cats don't know their names. I'm like, cats know their names.
• 1:00:48
  Tad Eggleston: They're actually…
• 1:00:49
  Fred Van Lente: Don't give a shit what you have to say.
• 1:00:52
  Tad Eggleston: Studies that say that cats absolutely understand you, they just often choose not boundaries.
• 1:01:01
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:01:04
  Fred Van Lente: And this one, my favorite thing about this one, which you may have seen to be on the show, is that he loves bags and sleeping on bags. Can you see that?
• 1:01:12
  Tad Eggleston: I've got a couple of… couple of cats like that.
• 1:01:15
  Fred Van Lente: It's been down there this whole interview.
• 1:01:17
  Fred Van Lente: So if you're paying attention, starting with issue 2 through issue 5, there's been a through line of the people kind of plaguing our heroes, and as Wheeler keeps picking them up, which is sort of a thing. We ripped off the shadow. The shadow in the original books would always find people who were desperate and bring him and be… make him as agents, and that's… that's sort of what I'm doing here.
• 1:01:36
  Fred Van Lente: And then
• 1:01:38
  Fred Van Lente: The 6 and 7 is our first two-parter, which is where they go after this group.
• 1:01:43
  Fred Van Lente: Doom Scroll.
• 1:01:46
  Fred Van Lente: Who is a former, black hat hacker collective that's turned into a quote-unquote cybersecurity outfit called…
• 1:01:55
  Fred Van Lente: rain security systems. So, it's the…
• 1:01:58
  Fred Van Lente: Heist is coming up where they go after Rain corporate headquarters.
• 1:02:04
  Fred Van Lente: So that's coming up.
• 1:02:05
  Tad Eggleston: opportunity.
• 1:02:06
  Fred Van Lente: Issue 6 drops in?
• 1:02:08
  Tad Eggleston: I'm looking forward to it. I was crossing my fingers when I asked for PDFs that they were done, and I was gonna get those too. But, you know, I'll forgive you.
• 1:02:18
  Tad Eggleston: Or Joe. Joe's the one…
• 1:02:20
  Fred Van Lente: Leave them… no, 6 is not, quite… quiz 6 is… oh, no, 6 just went to print.
• 1:02:27
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, I just approved that one to print, so it is… it is done, yeah.
• 1:02:30
  Fred Van Lente: So it's 7, it's not quite done yet.
• 1:02:33
  Atom! Freeman: Not… we're almost. We're getting real close.
• 1:02:37
  Tad Eggleston: It's been phenomenal so far. I've been enjoying the ride. I understand why I'm enjoying the ride, because you…
• 1:02:48
  Tad Eggleston: Seemed to also be enjoying the ride, and enjoying each.
• 1:02:50
  Fred Van Lente: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:51
  Tad Eggleston: And have that, I think my last… Go ahead.
• 1:02:57
  Fred Van Lente: I've been very lucky in that, I tend to like what I work on. There are a couple books I've quit
• 1:03:05
  Fred Van Lente: smartly, because I was like, oh, this sucks!
• 1:03:09
  Fred Van Lente: It's just not for me.
• 1:03:11
  Fred Van Lente: Fortunately, this is absolutely not the case. Quite the opposite, let's say.
• 1:03:14
  Tad Eggleston: Bye.
• 1:03:16
  Tad Eggleston: His resignation letter's coming after Issue 10, Adam.
• 1:03:21
  Fred Van Lente: Dude, I'm… dude, I'm working issue 20.
• 1:03:24
  Atom! Freeman: It's true.
• 1:03:25
  Fred Van Lente: It's a 60-issue run.
• 1:03:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:03:29
  Tad Eggleston: He's keeping…
• 1:03:31
  Atom! Freeman: he's keeping, I think up, what, something like 4 different artists working right now, that are currently on interior art, so he's… he's… he's staying ahead of all of them. So yeah, he knows… he knows way…
• 1:03:46
  Tad Eggleston: writing down names yet?
• 1:03:48
  Atom! Freeman: What's that?
• 1:03:49
  Tad Eggleston: Are we able to hear any new names yet?
• 1:03:52
  Fred Van Lente: I don't think so. And I will say, I do have some experience in this, because I worked for the webheads when Amazing Spider.
• 1:04:00
  Tad Eggleston: I remember.
• 1:04:01
  Fred Van Lente: So, that was… that's what this feels like, is a lot of keeping artist fed in jiu-jitsu, and you know how, like, on a lot of TV shows, it's like, they shoot episode… they shoot scenes from multiple episodes, and this…
• 1:04:15
  Fred Van Lente: Coors of a single.
• 1:04:16
  Tad Eggleston: At once, right?
• 1:04:17
  Fred Van Lente: program.
• 1:04:18
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:04:20
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, my last book-related question,
• 1:04:26
  Tad Eggleston: and this is more of an artist question, but since I've got the two of you, it's got to be kind of your response to it.
• 1:04:33
  Tad Eggleston: It seems to me that one of the harder things
• 1:04:40
  Tad Eggleston: To portray visually really well is…
• 1:04:47
  Tad Eggleston: Crazy-ass future shit that's also near enough future shit that it has to be… really believable.
• 1:04:56
  Tad Eggleston: You know, where you can't just throw out all rules of everything that we do now.
• 1:05:03
  Fred Van Lente: Right.
• 1:05:04
  Tad Eggleston: But you still… and I feel like that's something, you know, whether it's… whether it's Wheeler's Visor, or… or the… the… the holographic…
• 1:05:13
  Tad Eggleston: images and whatnot, I feel like that's something that you've really…
• 1:05:16
  Tad Eggleston: done well so far? What went into decision-making on how you were gonna… portray some of these near-futurist
• 1:05:30
  Tad Eggleston: concepts.
• 1:05:32
  Fred Van Lente: Well, the future's based… I think whenever you're doing a fictional world like this, it's smart to just kind of have one basic kind of, like, standard thing, and for us, it's the AR, it's the augmented reality, and very early on.
• 1:05:45
  Fred Van Lente: the off-mention, and rightfully so, Jason Blanchard gave me a book called Super Sight, which is a book about augmented reality. If you don't know what augmented reality is, if you've ever played Pokemon Go, that is augmented reality. It's just, you know, virtual stuff. It's not virtual reality in that you're going into, like, a Tron-like, you know…
• 1:06:03
  Fred Van Lente: Second world, but there is a second world sort of layered over our first world.
• 1:06:08
  Fred Van Lente: And and so that's… and a lot of that, was something that Ennio Bufi played, had to play with, which what was supposed to be the first issue, which was really…
• 1:06:18
  Fred Van Lente: became the second issue, the Martina issue, and he did a really great job of just, right off the bat, designing this really kind of… not just visually interesting world, but a visually intuitive world.
• 1:06:29
  Fred Van Lente: So the reader's looking at the images and isn't completely lost, you know?
• 1:06:35
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, and it was a challenge in working with InEO and working with the colorists. I think the colorists really did a lot of that lift of.
• 1:06:44
  Tad Eggleston: Fair?
• 1:06:44
  Atom! Freeman: of how do we talk about something, that layer of reality on top of reality, right? How do we talk about that layer of information that we're all going to be interacting with? And I think that, in many ways, getting that right.
• 1:06:58
  Atom! Freeman: was, was an early challenge, and I think also the… one of the things that I think Fred is doing an amazing job at is beginning to blend
• 1:07:09
  Atom! Freeman: what is reality, and what is not… what is that… where that AR starts to become reality.
• 1:07:17
  Atom! Freeman: Right? It is no longer just, the visual scroll I see on top of your face, or, like, you know, like right now, if you do two thumbs up and, you know, something, you know, balloons or something fall down the ceiling from the zoom, like, at some point, that…
• 1:07:34
  Atom! Freeman: becomes your reality, that becomes what you're dealing with, and I think Fred is doing an amazing job of integrating that into some of the scenes, and allowing the artist to begin, like, kind of blurring those lines for the characters. There is that, but also, I think one of the…
• 1:07:52
  Atom! Freeman: Remarkable things about this experience is
• 1:07:55
  Atom! Freeman: As he said earlier, we talked… we started this project in 20…
• 1:08:00
  Atom! Freeman: 22, right? When was it in the… when did we go to that basement of Anyone Comics, Fred? When was that?
• 1:08:06
  Fred Van Lente: I think it was 23. I think you spoke to me about it at Baltimore.
• 1:08:10
  Atom! Freeman: Explain, too.
• 1:08:10
  Fred Van Lente: All 22. I think you were already… you were on it on 22, my participation was just kind of speculative at that point.
• 1:08:17
  Atom! Freeman: Right.
• 1:08:18
  Tad Eggleston: I know that basement.
• 1:08:20
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah. I'm sorry that they had to move now. Yeah, I know, I used to have an.
• 1:08:25
  Tad Eggleston: I visited that basement. Did you?
• 1:08:27
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, I had an office there, which is why we were able to use it.
• 1:08:31
  Atom! Freeman: Because that was my local comic shop before I moved.
• 1:08:36
  Atom! Freeman: But I say all of this to say that, like, during that period, they said, here's what the future real… we think the future is going to look like.
• 1:08:43
  Atom! Freeman: Right? You're going to have the… this information in front of your eyes, and…
• 1:08:48
  Atom! Freeman: And you're gonna be able to see, when I look at Fred, I'm gonna be able to see not only his name, but I'm also… there's gonna be a layer of information of metadata that chases Fred around, right? And and if I really want to hack with you, if I really want to fuck with you, I can make sure… I can change what it is that you see about Fred.
• 1:09:08
  Atom! Freeman: Right? And so…
• 1:09:10
  Atom! Freeman: so much of what they told us, and what that supersite, and other things that we were able to even develop on top of that, I mean, we've developed nomenclature that, who knows, might end up becoming the actual nomenclature of this reality, because we are kind of participating in that.
• 1:09:29
  Atom! Freeman: Has become true.
• 1:09:31
  Atom! Freeman: Right? So, I mean, the… when we started, I think that, you know, when we said, well, people are going to interact with AR in their glasses or in neural implants, everybody was like, what, like Google Goggles? That was a joke.
• 1:09:46
  Atom! Freeman: Now, it is not a joke. Like, there are people legitimately walking around the world with this sort of…
• 1:09:52
  Atom! Freeman: Information at their… at their… on their eyeballs, right?
• 1:09:57
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and, like, slightly different, but similarly, like, Apple announced yesterday that there's now a translation mode in the near…
• 1:10:05
  Atom! Freeman: the new AirPods.
• 1:10:07
  Atom! Freeman: It's… I mean, it…
• 1:10:08
  Tad Eggleston: picks up.
• 1:10:09
  Atom! Freeman: It's developing at very quickly.
• 1:10:11
  Tad Eggleston: It translates into your ear, right.
• 1:10:13
  Atom! Freeman: We keep talking about how this, you know, the future is, is like, you know.
• 1:10:17
  Atom! Freeman: 30, 50, or whatever years in the future, we haven't really defined that for a very specific reason, which is…
• 1:10:24
  Atom! Freeman: The future is catching up to us, even though we're only 6 issues in, you know?
• 1:10:31
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:10:31
  Atom! Freeman: So, it's, this…
• 1:10:34
  Atom! Freeman: This project has been, it's been an interesting, for me as well, experience in that
• 1:10:44
  Atom! Freeman: It is kind of preparing you for what the world is going to feel like in our lifetimes.
• 1:10:50
  Atom! Freeman: Like, the world is going to shift dramatically in our lifetimes, and this is the kind of thing that they're going to be dealing with, and…
• 1:10:56
  Atom! Freeman: These are people that we're working with, very serious people who are preparing for that reality.
• 1:11:02
  Atom! Freeman: Dumb.
• 1:11:04
  Atom! Freeman: It's fascinating.
• 1:11:06
  Tad Eggleston: So also, Fred, don't… don't be Greg Rucka and write the… the blueprint for the takeover of the world, please.
• 1:11:16
  Tad Eggleston: As we're reading… as Lazarus has become almost history rather than past and future.
• 1:11:25
  Fred Van Lente: Well…
• 1:11:25
  Tad Eggleston: Give me.
• 1:11:26
  Fred Van Lente: We'll find out, right?
• 1:11:28
  Tad Eggleston: Or if you're gonna do it, make it a happy one.
• 1:11:33
  Atom! Freeman: It is.
• 1:11:33
  Fred Van Lente: As Tolstoy said, happy people make for bad drama. You know, that's the… that's… that's the problem with the dramatists.
• 1:11:39
  Tad Eggleston: It's true.
• 1:11:39
  Fred Van Lente: create conflict, I don't solve it.
• 1:11:42
  Tad Eggleston: I know.
• 1:11:44
  Atom! Freeman: We're not.
• 1:11:44
  Tad Eggleston: It's really.
• 1:11:44
  Atom! Freeman: creating a dystopian world, right? If you look at the world that the future is, lives in, it's not a bad place to live.
• 1:11:52
  Atom! Freeman: Right? We haven't really created, like, this… this horrible environment that is… I mean, in many ways, it's gonna be kind.
• 1:12:00
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, unless you're one of the volunteers to work on the moon.
• 1:12:06
  Atom! Freeman: Or, you know, you have to, give over your body to personal shopping in order to pay the bills while you're in.
• 1:12:13
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:12:15
  Fred Van Lente: But we have bad actors now, right? I mean, we have… That's right.
• 1:12:19
  Tad Eggleston: Good point, Fred, don't give them ideas. We just finished a reread of Lazarus, and I gave Greg a little bit of a hard time when we talked to him. I'm like, Greg.
• 1:12:30
  Tad Eggleston: It's such a beautiful book, but I also feel like you gave them ideas.
• 1:12:36
  Fred Van Lente: I have to say that utopias are just as fictional and implausible as dystopia. If you want a world without suffering.
• 1:12:45
  Fred Van Lente: Roll back into the womb, would be my strong suggestion for you. See if your mom is at that.
• 1:12:51
  Tad Eggleston: Offering.
• 1:12:52
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah. I think that at its best…
• 1:12:54
  Tad Eggleston: There's some sort of happy medium, isn't there?
• 1:12:57
  Fred Van Lente: I mean, I think that's life. I think you're living it right now.
• 1:13:03
  Atom! Freeman: We talk about science… people talk about science fiction as, like, you know, why are you giving them ideas? Why are you telling them how to destroy the world? Or… well, they talk about technology and say, why are you doing… why are you doing the thing that the dystopian writers said not to do, right? Right. Both of those are bullshit.
• 1:13:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I do want to make it clear that I… I was… I was joking. Yes, I don't know. I view science fiction much more as…
• 1:13:33
  Fred Van Lente: Yes.
• 1:13:33
  Tad Eggleston: cautionary tales, and yes, they sometimes become roadmaps, but more times than not, it actually comes out because somebody else has already discovered the roadmap, but the science fiction writer goes, oh, this thing that you're doing, just because you think it's cool, you're not thinking about the
• 1:13:53
  Tad Eggleston: the bad things.
• 1:13:55
  Atom! Freeman: Or… or I would… I would actually even push back on that. I think in that particular instance, it's not the science fiction writer's job to say, don't go down this path, because down this path, there be dragons.
• 1:14:08
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't even say it was their job to say not to go.
• 1:14:12
  Atom! Freeman: Science fiction author's role in that place is to say.
• 1:14:16
  Atom! Freeman: This is the reality that's coming.
• 1:14:19
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Prepare for that.
• 1:14:20
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 1:14:21
  Tad Eggleston: That's what I meant.
• 1:14:22
  Atom! Freeman: reality that's coming. AI is coming, right? We are going to be dealing with this world. We can't just.
• 1:14:28
  Tad Eggleston: I still hate the… and this is actually why I love that Fred made it mechanical intelligence. I hate that AI term, particularly right now, where it's way more of a marketing term than…
• 1:14:43
  Tad Eggleston: You know, increased computing power is absolutely coming.
• 1:14:47
  Tad Eggleston: We're a long, long way from a mechanical intelligence that can truly create.
• 1:14:56
  Fred Van Lente: Yeah, I mean, those of us who lived through the dot-com era see Echo, I definitely feel.
• 1:15:01
  Tad Eggleston: And for that matter, one of the things I.
• 1:15:04
  Fred Van Lente: Remember when they used to slap I on the front of everything? That was the.
• 1:15:07
  Tad Eggleston: Right. I mean, one of the things I laugh about, like, in education, is how much we're talking about and trying to use it for things that it's not designed for. It's like, oh, you don't have to write your math worksheets anymore. Yes, you do. AI is terrible at math.
• 1:15:24
  Tad Eggleston: Terrible, and you know why? It wasn't designed to do math. It doesn't know the rules of math. It's a language model. It's looking for other math problems, and if they were done right, great. If they weren't done right, it doesn't know the difference.
• 1:15:38
  Fred Van Lente: Fortunately, it also can't storytell… comic storytell worth… worth a damn.
• 1:15:42
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly.
• 1:15:43
  Fred Van Lente: Again, because no one's caught it.
• 1:15:45
  Tad Eggleston: What it's really good at, that people, like, completely bash it for, and I'm not saying that we should get rid of translators for art, because there's a nuance to translation, but it's really good at translating, because it was designed to look at language and predict what comes next.
• 1:16:04
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean, that's one of the things that blows my mind, is first of all, we use the term AI for… I mean, I was in a training where they were using the term AI for everything from, like, a basic spreadsheet…
• 1:16:18
  Tad Eggleston: To large language models, to a really good calculator.
• 1:16:23
  Tad Eggleston: And they were just using it interchangeably, and I'm like, you know you're talking about, like, 17 different things, and you're just calling them
• 1:16:31
  Tad Eggleston: Nine.
• 1:16:31
  Fred Van Lente: Game Masters the role-playing game history book, because humanoids bring it out in France next year in French, and they asked me to write a chapter focusing on French gaming.
• 1:16:42
  Fred Van Lente: For the French edition.
• 1:16:45
  Fred Van Lente: And I think I'm gonna write it in French.
• 1:16:48
  Fred Van Lente: A language I can't read, write, or speak.
• 1:16:51
  Fred Van Lente: But…
• 1:16:53
  Fred Van Lente: I think I can win… I know enough about romance languages in general that I think with the help of Google Translate, and the fact,
• 1:17:01
  Fred Van Lente: There's a retired guy who lives down the hall from me who's from Paris.
• 1:17:04
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I was about to say, make certain…
• 1:17:06
  Fred Van Lente: I'm gonna lift this up in this list.
• 1:17:08
  Tad Eggleston: through to clean it up.
• 1:17:09
  Fred Van Lente: But I think it's doable, and partly I also have to figure out you know.
• 1:17:15
  Fred Van Lente: do French gamers use French terms, the French equivalent for the English terms, or for that matter, the Japanese terms, or do they just use the other language for it? So it's all something I'm gonna have to figure out.
• 1:17:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right. The person who I read the most, who wasn't strictly, like, a programmer and working on making AI, but stayed on top of where the world was with it, was Kevin Drum.
• 1:17:39
  Tad Eggleston: Who unfortunately passed away late last year.
• 1:17:44
  Tad Eggleston: But he actually noticed, God, almost 10 years ago, he had a blog post about… I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but, like, Google Translate?
• 1:17:56
  Tad Eggleston: Got infinitely better overnight about a week ago.
• 1:18:00
  Tad Eggleston: And sure enough, like, a week after that is when Google announced that they turned on their large language model for Google Translate.
• 1:18:09
  Tad Eggleston: But one of the differences there, versus, like, a chat GPT,
• 1:18:14
  Tad Eggleston: Is, like, it had a very specific set of stuff that it was trained on.
• 1:18:20
  Tad Eggleston: not…
• 1:18:31
  Tad Eggleston: And… have…
• 1:18:34
  Tad Eggleston: large language models that are based exclusively on Westlaw, because the ones using ChatGPT will wind up having citations to cases that don't exist.
• 1:18:45
  Tad Eggleston: Whereas the ones that only trained it on the actual cases, it becomes a valuable tool for searching through thousands of pages worth of documents.
• 1:18:57
  Tad Eggleston: You know, but we're at this weird time where it's like, oh, it'll just do everything, and it's like, no, you need to understand what it does to be able to… it's like, it's like, I'm gonna give you a hammer and not tell you what it's for, and say it can do anything you want.
• 1:19:14
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 1:19:16
  Tad Eggleston: But that's my soapbox, so I'm gonna get off it, and I'm gonna ask… add them two quick questions, then we'll move on to my favorite closing question that Fred's had to answer multiple times, but…
• 1:19:28
  Atom! Freeman: Okay, great.
• 1:19:28
  Tad Eggleston: You can answer it again anyway.
• 1:19:30
  Tad Eggleston: But Adam, Adam doesn't.
• 1:19:32
  Fred Van Lente: I don't remember it, so…
• 1:19:33
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, nobody ever does, and I love that, because everybody likes it, and then they forget about it. So, that's perfect. It makes it the perfect question, because I get different answers every time. But Adam, the first is, it's Adam, A-T-O-M, exclamation point, which I'm guessing…
• 1:19:51
  Tad Eggleston: isn't what your mother put on the birth certificate? If it is, just correct me right now.
• 1:19:58
  Atom! Freeman: No, no, it was,
• 1:20:01
  Atom! Freeman: It was an internet joke that got out of hand, that, if you… I don't know if any of your listeners were involved in the Warren Ellis Forum back in the day. It was a joke that I put into a signature file that I forgot was there, and then
• 1:20:18
  Atom! Freeman: And then when I tried to change it, somebody who I had an internet crush on said, no, no, no, that's your name now. And I went, okay, sure. And then, and then it just made it easier for me to get, quoted in the newspaper as a retailer.
• 1:20:32
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:20:32
  Atom! Freeman: Because that was a big deal back then, you had to get quotes.
• 1:20:34
  Tad Eggleston: Right?
• 1:20:34
  Atom! Freeman: newspaper. And then it just became about marketing. Now, every time, I use both interchangeably now.
• 1:20:43
  Atom! Freeman: It is a legal alias, so I can sign contracts as ATOM! But, it… honestly, these days, it… professionally, I go by that, and, you know, personally, I go by ADAM, but honestly, I don't care at which… what you call me.
• 1:20:58
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I understand, yeah.
• 1:21:01
  Tad Eggleston: I just… I…
• 1:21:04
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's cool, but I also knew that there had to be some level of story.
• 1:21:09
  Atom! Freeman: Of course.
• 1:21:10
  Tad Eggleston: trying to go out there. It was, it was like… I mean.
• 1:21:14
  Tad Eggleston: there's a long history. You've got Elliot S. Maggen. You've got… yet.
• 1:21:21
  Atom! Freeman: Yep.
• 1:21:23
  Tad Eggleston: So… so I had to ask, and the second thing is, I… I first, like, describe it for our listeners, because we're an audio podcast, but second, I love your t-shirt, and I'd like to know where you got it.
• 1:21:37
  Atom! Freeman: This is brand new, I just got this today. There's a podcast called Comics Are Dope.
• 1:21:42
  Atom! Freeman: And .
• 1:21:44
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:21:44
  Atom! Freeman: he recently did a post saying, look, I need to upgrade my
• 1:21:49
  Atom! Freeman: my machines, and I will say that I follow a lot of comics content creators and podcasts like yours. I do… I do a podcast myself, and I think that there's an incredible value for these content creators are bringing to our industry right now.
• 1:22:08
  Atom! Freeman: Because at the time, there was a time when our, fred and I, our job was to court what was then the comics press, these websites that would, report on comics, or magazines, you know, would report on comics, and our job was to work with them to try and promote our content, or our product.
• 1:22:28
  Atom! Freeman: And and these content creators, you, I add you to that, are… you are fulfilling this, like, really incredibly important role in our industry of giving us a platform…
• 1:22:41
  Tad Eggleston: I prefer to think of myself as a conversation haver than a content creator. I kind of hate the content word, but…
• 1:22:48
  Atom! Freeman: Well, still.
• 1:22:49
  Tad Eggleston: But I appreciate the compliment anyway.
• 1:22:53
  Atom! Freeman: So the role that you fulfill in this is crucial to the work that I do and that Fred does.
• 1:22:59
  Atom! Freeman: So when I see stuff like that, and yeah, it's a… if you… I can describe it, it is the, Comics Code Authority, the old, the classic seal, and and it's got a big red, mark across the word, approved.
• 1:23:16
  Atom! Freeman: So I… it basically says, not approved by the Comics Code Authority, which I absolutely.
• 1:23:22
  Tad Eggleston: And that's… that's totally what… what caught me, is, like… and I, you know, cause… I… I know the comic book legal…
• 1:23:33
  Tad Eggleston: And it's a… approved by the October 3rd in the past. So initially, I wondered I knew… CB…
• 1:23:45
  Tad Eggleston: LDF design, but I think it's even cooler to know that it's, it's, it's one of our.
• 1:23:51
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah. Our fellow podcasters.
• 1:23:53
  Atom! Freeman: Amen, amen.
• 1:23:55
  Atom! Freeman: Depending on whether or not your audio cut in or out, I think you were saying that the CBLDF owns that trademark, and they do, and I think I have somewhere deep in here.
• 1:24:03
  Tad Eggleston: Oh.
• 1:24:04
  Atom! Freeman: than that as well, so yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:06
  Tad Eggleston: No, I didn't know if they… I didn't know they owned the trademark, I just knew that they had a t-shirt with it.
• 1:24:11
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, they… I think they were gifted that by… I don't remember who exactly… which estate, but yeah.
• 1:24:19
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah.
• 1:24:20
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, anyway.
• 1:24:21
  Tad Eggleston: No, they've got… they've got… there's a notebook, there's hoodies, there's a disapproved trucker hat.
• 1:24:28
  Tad Eggleston: So yeah, they've put this on a number, a number of.
• 1:24:33
  Atom! Freeman: I think a lot of that came out of, our… Fred and my mutual friend, a man named Alex Cox, who now works at Image Comics, at the time, for the longest time, he was the head of,
• 1:24:45
  Atom! Freeman: basically fundraising for the CBLDF, and.
• 1:24:50
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but I was actually talking about your shirt.
• 1:24:53
  Atom! Freeman: No, I understand that one.
• 1:24:54
  Tad Eggleston: Comics are dope, yeah.
• 1:24:55
  Atom! Freeman: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:56
  Tad Eggleston: Has put that logo on t-shirts, sweatshirts, a notebook, a trucker cap.
• 1:25:03
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, man.
• 1:25:03
  Tad Eggleston: A throw pillow, you can get.
• 1:25:05
  Atom! Freeman: I gotta get that merch.
• 1:25:06
  Tad Eggleston: A, a disapproved… Comics are dope.
• 1:25:10
  Tad Eggleston: Throw pillow for your couch.
• 1:25:13
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm approving of this, and…
• 1:25:16
  Tad Eggleston: It might be me spending even more… I spent…
• 1:25:21
  Tad Eggleston: Thank God, A, I have no other vices, and B, I have my sugar mama, a public art school teacher, that allows me to spend way too much of my paycheck on comic book stuff.
• 1:25:35
  Atom! Freeman: Let's hear it for art teachers. I'm married to one as well.
• 1:25:37
  Atom! Freeman: 100%.
• 1:25:38
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, aren't they great?
• 1:25:40
  Atom! Freeman: They really are.
• 1:25:40
  Tad Eggleston: And that's one of the reasons that I buy less t-shirts, because she's a printmaker, so she makes them for me.
• 1:25:46
  Atom! Freeman: There you go, there you go. Well, that's wonderful.
• 1:25:49
  Tad Eggleston: So, so the closing question that Fred might remember when I ask it, but Adam.
• 1:25:54
  Tad Eggleston: Well, no. Adam, you get to decide whether you're gonna go first, or because Fred's had to do it, you can decide that you need time to think, and then Fred will get put on the spot. The question is…
• 1:26:06
  Tad Eggleston: Tell me something you love.
• 1:26:08
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't really have… rules.
• 1:26:13
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules. But something that you love, that not enough people around you have experienced, and you want them to because you want more people to talk about it with.
• 1:26:29
  Atom! Freeman: Questions.
• 1:26:31
  Fred Van Lente: I'm surprised I forgot it, actually.
• 1:26:33
  Atom! Freeman: So, something that I.
• 1:26:35
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that's what you said the last two times.
• 1:26:38
  Atom! Freeman: Something that I love…
• 1:26:40
  Tad Eggleston: That's why I love that question, Fred.
• 1:26:43
  Atom! Freeman: people around me love, because I want to be able to discuss it, and.
• 1:26:47
  Tad Eggleston: You want to be able to have conversations about it, enjoy it with people.
• 1:26:51
  Atom! Freeman: Oh, that IS a tough one, man.
• 1:26:54
  Tad Eggleston: And as I tell people, like, again, comics are great and ideal, but I'm not into limits.
• 1:27:01
  Tad Eggleston: Storytelling is great and ideal, but I'm not into limits.
• 1:27:05
  Tad Eggleston: Previous answers are… oh, and, like, some people are like, oh, it must be obscure. No, that's why I said people around you. Nate Powell, the last time he was on, said, you know, I just got back into X-Men comics. I've been reading Jonathan Hickman's X-Men run, and I know for most of your listeners.
• 1:27:25
  Tad Eggleston: They know tons of people that are reading these, but I'm in the indie comics scene, and nobody reads X-Men anymore.
• 1:27:33
  Tad Eggleston: Andrew Iden said his tomato garden, so that's, like, kind of the… also, if you want to give me more than one thing, you're allowed to.
• 1:27:41
  Atom! Freeman: Okay, I'm just gonna… I'm just gonna freeform here for a minute. I'm gonna go… the things that I am into that not a lot of people… that are around me are. Okay.
• 1:27:50
  Atom! Freeman: let's see.
• 1:27:56
  Atom! Freeman: I… I… when I'm… when I need to relax and take my brain off of work, I play Minecraft.
• 1:28:02
  Atom! Freeman: And I do that, like, just.
• 1:28:04
  Tad Eggleston: Hey, I know, I know lots of high school kids, and even more middle school kids will play with you.
• 1:28:09
  Atom! Freeman: That's right, exactly, I know. Something about the dig, dig, dig, build, build, build, dig, dig, dig, bid, blow, build, that I find to be very relaxing. I love yoga, so I am, always down to talk about it at yoga for hours, if you really want to dig into that. I've taken up…
• 1:28:29
  Tad Eggleston: I might hit you up on that sometime, just because I want to learn more.
• 1:28:32
  Atom! Freeman: Let's go. My company, Prana Direct Market Solutions, Prana is a word that comes out of the yogurt traditions. I've really gotten into organic gardening, so I'm also doing a lot of building with bamboo, because the way this property that I'm on has been
• 1:28:50
  Atom! Freeman: bamboo that has been overrun, and I have to clear it, but also it's a great building material, so I've gotten really nerdy about
• 1:28:57
  Atom! Freeman: How do you bend, and how do you flatten, and how do you bind bamboo? I think it's fascinating. Oh, gosh.
• 1:29:06
  Atom! Freeman: I have a…
• 1:29:08
  Tad Eggleston: We've heard it's also good for making paper in a more sustainable way.
• 1:29:12
  Atom! Freeman: Yes, yes, the fiber's in a very strong, really great.
• 1:29:15
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 1:29:15
  Atom! Freeman: To take it back to a nerdy thing, you talked about Lazarus earlier. My son's name is Lazarus.
• 1:29:23
  Atom! Freeman: But it wasn't based on the Rucka comic, it was, based on Lazarus Long, who's a character from Robert Heinlein. I, you know, I've read the Robert… several of those novels that I've read enough times.
• 1:29:36
  Atom! Freeman: That I know that every time I bring him up around Fred, he gets… he's like, yeah, I read them. It was not that great. And that's okay. I love them. Oh.
• 1:29:45
  Fred Van Lente: I actually read the one. I read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to prepare for the first issue of The Future Is, what became the first issue of The Future Is.
• 1:29:54
  Atom! Freeman: And I am deeply nerdy about the comics industry and the history of the comics industry. So you see all these boxes behind me. About half of them are just old magazines and trade, trade magazines. I've got. I just pulled out, for reference from a conversation earlier today, this is Comics and Games Retailer.
• 1:30:13
  Atom! Freeman: Magazine that I have, I, I, I love this stuff. I… my office is…
• 1:30:18
  Atom! Freeman: decorated by old, point-of-purchase displays, for stuff that happens in comic shops. I'm deeply nerdy about comic shops, so…
• 1:30:27
  Tad Eggleston: Well, then, sometime I'm gonna have to drag you back to talk about that, too.
• 1:30:31
  Atom! Freeman: Let's go!
• 1:30:32
  Tad Eggleston: Because I get… I get nerdy about that sometime, too, but I'm too much the polyglot, so I don't get as deep into a lot of things, because I have…
• 1:30:41
  Tad Eggleston: Too many things that I want to get deep in, and not enough time.
• 1:30:45
  Atom! Freeman: To quote Robert Heinlein, specialization is for insects. You, you're doing fine.
• 1:30:50
  Atom! Freeman: There you go. How's that? Did they…
• 1:30:53
  Tad Eggleston: I love it! You did great.
• 1:30:58
  Atom! Freeman: Awesome.
• 1:30:58
  Atom! Freeman: Fred, do you have another answer? I don't know what you answered last time.
• 1:31:02
  Tad Eggleston: I don't either. I don't know what he answered last time, either.
• 1:31:05
  Fred Van Lente: The thing that really blew me away recently was actually a video game that I stumbled across, during the French
• 1:31:14
  Fred Van Lente: game research I'm doing now for this book, for humanoids, and I just finished this. It's, it's by Obsidian, who are the people who made Outer Worlds, and their most famous game is Fallout New Vegas, and a bunch of other terrific stuff. It's called Pentiment.
• 1:31:33
  Fred Van Lente: It is really neat. It's a storytelling game set in 16th century Bavaria, with an art style that is the illustrations from medieval woodcuts and Gustav Dore and illuminated manuscripts.
• 1:31:49
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, nice.
• 1:31:50
  Fred Van Lente: a side-scrolling 2D
• 1:31:53
  Fred Van Lente: murder mystery. But calling it a murder mystery is somewhat reductive. It takes place over a quarter century. It's all set in the same town where there's mysterious goings-on, and it's just…
• 1:32:04
  Fred Van Lente: terrifically well done. It's the sort of thing you're like, why did a major gaming company give the money to do this? Because it's… it's pretty profound and fantastic. I got it on the Xbox Game Pass, I'm pretty sure you can get it on Steam.
• 1:32:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I'm looking at it on Steam right now.
• 1:32:18
  Fred Van Lente: It's a great indie game. It's fantastic.
• 1:32:22
  Atom! Freeman: You know what, can I change my answer? I'm gonna throw out everything I said earlier, and I'm gonna go even nerdier. I wish I had more people in my life that I could play backgammon with.
• 1:32:33
  Atom! Freeman: Because I love backgammon.
• 1:32:35
  Fred Van Lente: Never planned.
• 1:32:36
  Tad Eggleston: I… I once knew how to play.
• 1:32:40
  Atom! Freeman: Wow. My mom taught me how.
• 1:32:42
  Fred Van Lente: If we get stuck in Rapid City again, Adam, you're gonna have to teach me.
• 1:32:45
  Atom! Freeman: You got it.
• 1:32:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I will say, just because I'm down to learn anything that anybody's passionate about, if we're ever at a con together, and you want to teach me to play Backgammon…
• 1:32:56
  Fred Van Lente: Nope.
• 1:32:57
  Atom! Freeman: You got any money?
• 1:32:59
  Atom! Freeman: Because if we can'.
• 1:32:59
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't say I gamble on it.
• 1:33:03
  Atom! Freeman: It's the old joke about.
• 1:33:04
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, did you miss…
• 1:33:05
  Atom! Freeman: poker, do you have any money?
• 1:33:06
  Tad Eggleston: Did you miss the part where I said my sugar mama?
• 1:33:10
  Tad Eggleston: He's a public school art teacher.
• 1:33:13
  Atom! Freeman: Yeah, I know, I get you, I get you.
• 1:33:17
  Atom! Freeman: Awesome.
• 1:33:18
  Tad Eggleston: Dad, this was fun!
• 1:33:20
  Tad Eggleston: It was a blast! I, I, I love, I love talking comics, I love talking to Fred, I now love talking to Adam. Thank you, thank you so much for joining us, and for 22 panels, this has been Fred Van Lenti and Adam… Adam Freeman! We will see you after the next page.
• 1:33:40
  Atom! Freeman: Don't forget to like and subscribe!