Latest / 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast / With Great Power #327... 22 Panels with Julio Anta

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With Great Power #327... 22 Panels with Julio Anta · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. My returning guest today is Julio Anta.
• 0:08
  Tad Eggleston: Did I pronounce that right?
• 0:10
  Julio Anta: Yeah, you got it. Hello.
• 0:11
  Tad Eggleston: Hey, hey. Good.
• 0:14
  Tad Eggleston: You know, the one time I decided to do the on rather than the and, it would turn out that I was wrong, and you know, I had to make certain.
• 0:23
  Julio Anta: No, you're good, you got it right.
• 0:26
  Tad Eggleston: I also…
• 0:27
  Julio Anta: I don't correct people. It's fine, you know?
• 0:29
  Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, but I'm a teacher, and at my school, we're really big on getting pronunciations right, just to make…
• 0:36
  Julio Anta: That's great.
• 0:36
  Tad Eggleston: feel…
• 0:38
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, literally, I mean, we're so big on it that, like, we try to get them all to…
• 0:43
  Tad Eggleston: record…
• 0:46
  Julio Anta: Hmm.
• 0:46
  Tad Eggleston: A file of themselves saying their name.
• 0:49
  Tad Eggleston: So that it's even available to, like, subs and…
• 0:52
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 0:53
  Tad Eggleston: Related services and whatnot, that it can just be pulled up
• 0:57
  Tad Eggleston: This is how you pronounce it. Not just a pronunciation guide, but listen.
• 1:02
  Julio Anta: Yeah, that's a… that'd be a cool thing for them to listen back on years later, too. Hear their little kid voice say their names.
• 1:09
  Tad Eggleston: Well, it's high school, so…
• 1:11
  Julio Anta: Oh, okay, okay.
• 1:12
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:14
  Julio Anta: Still, you know.
• 1:16
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, if it was elementary school, that'd be awesome.
• 1:19
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 1:22
  Julio Anta: Thanks for having me.
• 1:23
  Tad Eggleston: Embarrassing, because it's more likely to be, like, the squeaky…
• 1:27
  Julio Anta: Yeah, your voice cracks.
• 1:28
  Tad Eggleston: voices.
• 1:34
  Tad Eggleston: So, let's talk Beast of Borkan first, because that one.
• 1:38
  Julio Anta: Sure.
• 1:38
  Tad Eggleston: coming out, and people should… should… I think it's… its final order cutoff is next Monday? Is that right?
• 1:44
  Julio Anta: No, it was the… it was May 23rd.
• 1:46
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, we passed it already. I'm sorry.
• 1:49
  Julio Anta: resale.
• 1:50
  Tad Eggleston: I meant to reach out sooner.
• 1:52
  Julio Anta: It's alright. We're here now, and people can still pick it up on release day.
• 1:58
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right. And for that matter, like, final order cutoff, matters…
• 2:05
  Tad Eggleston: In that, like, it decides how big the first printing is, that sort of thing, but if there start being backorder
• 2:13
  Tad Eggleston: Requests in that printings come quicker… quicker. So, like… Yeah, yeah.
• 2:19
  Julio Anta: So it's not the end.
• 2:20
  Tad Eggleston: end of the world if you miss Final Order Cutoff. You should still go let your comic shop know
• 2:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, going on release day is fine, but letting them know ahead of time is even better, because then, A, they might get it for release day, and…
• 2:32
  Tad Eggleston: And B,
• 2:34
  Tad Eggleston: it seems like we're getting lots and lots of second printings, and I think some of that is the industry's doing better than some of its naysayers say, and some of that is, I think, that first printings are…
• 2:47
  Tad Eggleston: tight.
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: They're difficult.
• 2:49
  Julio Anta: Well, you know.
• 2:49
  Tad Eggleston: Really close to their initial orders.
• 2:52
  Julio Anta: Yeah, I think the comic book pre-order system is also very tough for… you know, this book, I've been…
• 3:00
  Julio Anta: My wife convinced me to get on TikTok, and like most things, she was right about it. I've been making a lot of videos on TikTok and IG Reels also, where a lot of non-comics fans are hearing about this book.
• 3:13
  Julio Anta: And they're super hyped for it, and super excited for it. And then the big challenge is how to get them to pre-order at a comic shop, you know, because that is such an antiquated system, and not at all what, you know, consumers are used to.
• 3:29
  Tad Eggleston: Or, just because I care… I mean, don't get me wrong, I work at a comic shop.
• 3:35
  Tad Eggleston: But… but… or at least one of my jobs, I do stuff at Comic Shop. But… but, like, I care about you getting paid and people reading it, so if they also learn about things like Global Comics, or Neon Ichiban, or…
• 3:48
  Tad Eggleston: Images also ensuite, you know, the places where they can go.
• 3:52
  Tad Eggleston: Get the digital version.
• 3:54
  Tad Eggleston: That's… almost as.
• 3:56
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 3:58
  Julio Anta: For sure. Definitely.
• 4:01
  Tad Eggleston: Because, yeah, no, teaching the public about comic shops is definitely something that, and then the comic shops need to do their job, and I think 90% of them do, but, like, you gotta then have the people walk in and feel…
• 4:16
  Tad Eggleston: Welcomed.
• 4:17
  Julio Anta: Yeah, definitely.
• 4:19
  Tad Eggleston: So… sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
• 4:22
  Julio Anta: No, I don't know what I was gonna say.
• 4:24
  Tad Eggleston: We were talking about TikTok and getting the word out.
• 4:27
  Julio Anta: Yeah, I know. Maybe I should tell people what the book is.
• 4:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah!
• 4:30
  Julio Anta: Yeah, so, Beast of Borican is my, five-issue tropical horror comic book series starring, Latin America's most iconic cryptid, the Chupacabras. It's gonna be published by Tiny Onion and Dark Horse Comics.
• 4:47
  Julio Anta: And it is essentially, it's kind of like two things. It is, on one side, a, like, gory creature feature inspired by all of the monster movies that I grew up watching, primarily Creature from the Black Lagoon, is a big inspiration on this. But then on the other hand, it's also a political thriller.
• 5:06
  Julio Anta: about a, our main human character, her name is Loli. She is struggling against and leading protests against the overdevelopment of the island, particularly a new,
• 5:19
  Julio Anta: upscale resort complex that's gonna be built on protected land after the developer essentially bribed the local government to be able to build it. And then on the day of the groundbreaking, when they do break ground on it.
• 5:33
  Julio Anta: It's… the resort lies atop of these caves that are protected. And it turns out that when they break ground, they wake up a centuries-old Chupacabra, who is, not happy to be woken up, not happy to, again, in its long.
• 5:50
  Tad Eggleston: I read the first issue, I will, I will definitely attest that… Yeah. Happy.
• 5:56
  Julio Anta: Yeah, so yeah, it's a book I'm really excited about.
• 6:00
  Tad Eggleston: And had a little bit of a Predator feel to it, too.
• 6:03
  Julio Anta: Yeah, definitely.
• 6:05
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if that's more the art… artist, or… or…
• 6:08
  Tad Eggleston: But, but that, not knowing my, my, my Chukacobra…
• 6:12
  Julio Anta: as well.
• 6:14
  Tad Eggleston: And not knowing Predator much beyond, like, Archie vs. Predator.
• 6:17
  Julio Anta: Which is one of the… That's the best one of the…
• 6:19
  Tad Eggleston: The most underrated comics ever.
• 6:22
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 6:25
  Tad Eggleston: But, yeah. No, it was, like, talk to me about,
• 6:32
  Tad Eggleston: what inspired this story? I mean, all of your comics come from…
• 6:38
  Tad Eggleston: They seem to come from both personal places or, or, or, or places of…
• 6:42
  Tad Eggleston: This is why I love talking to you. We talked first with C…
• 6:48
  Julio Anta: Isa pueden?
• 6:50
  Tad Eggleston: And this is… this is where… and, like, we can get into it when we get to the next book. This is where, A, I have no Spanish whatsoever, and.
• 6:58
  Julio Anta: should be, I…
• 6:59
  Tad Eggleston: I'm… I'm incredibly… bad at pronouncing things, sometimes even in English.
• 7:06
  Julio Anta: That's okay. Yeah.
• 7:08
  Tad Eggleston: So that's where hesitations come.
• 7:10
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah, no, you know.
• 7:12
  Tad Eggleston: You… you are at the forefront of bringing, latin American stories.
• 7:19
  Tad Eggleston: To comics, and I loved that.
• 7:22
  Julio Anta: Because… Thank you.
• 7:24
  Tad Eggleston: Because, I…
• 7:27
  Tad Eggleston: Don't get me wrong, I love a ton of comics, and a ton of them written by old white guys, but I've also reached a point in my life where it's like, I am always most fascinated to see something from, like, a truly different point of view.
• 7:44
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and, and, and somewhat privilege…
• 7:49
  Tad Eggleston: male white point of view is very represented, so anytime it's a different point of view than that, I'm immediately excited. So tell me about where this one comes from.
• 8:00
  Julio Anta: Yeah, you know, I think, like, all of my books, it comes from a bunch of, sort of, disparate places. It comes from a bunch of different ideas that I've had for stories that, at some point in time, it, like, clicks that, oh, wait, you should combine these ideas.
• 8:15
  Julio Anta: To make a book. Almost all of my books, come from that place, you know? So for this one, it came from a place of wanting to write a monster book.
• 8:24
  Julio Anta: First. That's one place. Like I said, I… I grew up watching all the Universal Monster movies. Creature from the Black Lagoon, has always been one of my favorites.
• 8:34
  Julio Anta: I think monster movies and monster stories are a great way to sort of, like, bring a microscope to and, investigate and interrogate, like.
• 8:46
  Julio Anta: deeply political issues, but through the lens of, you know, a monster.
• 8:52
  Tad Eggleston: Now you've got my wanting to read more monster stories.
• 8:55
  Julio Anta: We.
• 8:56
  Tad Eggleston: Godzilla vs. America books.
• 8:58
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 8:59
  Tad Eggleston: Like, I'm serious.
• 9:00
  Julio Anta: Because there's been a job?
• 9:01
  Tad Eggleston: It had been a genre that, until…
• 9:03
  Tad Eggleston: Until very recently, I had all but
• 9:07
  Tad Eggleston: ignored. I didn't really write it off, because I don't write off anything, but it just…
• 9:11
  Tad Eggleston: been for me, and I'm seeing more and more that's like, oh, wait.
• 9:15
  Julio Anta: Yeah. No, there's some cool stuff that you can do.
• 9:17
  Tad Eggleston: So to hear you describe it like that, just… it's like, oh, now I have words for why it is that I've been liking Monster…
• 9:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Sorry, I interrupted again.
• 9:26
  Julio Anta: No, no, you're good. But yeah, so it comes from that. It also comes from, you know, I grew up… I grew up in Miami, and you know, Univision, Telemundo are huge, sort of, like, touchstones in my life of, like, watching TV with my grandmother, you know? Mostly it was novellas, like, soap operas.
• 9:45
  Julio Anta: But one of the programs that I always remember is called Primer Impacto, and this is, like a tabloid news show.
• 9:55
  Julio Anta: Where it's seemingly every week, they were tracking the Chupacauda all over Latin America.
• 10:01
  Julio Anta: So I have all these memories of, you know, growing up in the 90s, watching, like.
• 10:06
  Julio Anta: you know, footage of a farmer in Mexico, you know, or El Salvador, or Honduras, or Puerto Rico, saying that, like, their goats were killed by some monster, you know, and people have sightings, and all this stuff. It was like this ubiquitous thing at that time.
• 10:22
  Julio Anta: And then at the same time, I have become very familiar, and also involved in protests here. I live in New York City now, against the development of a lot of these luxury… it's sort of this, like, neo-colonization that's happening in Puerto Rico now.
• 10:39
  Julio Anta: Where Puerto Rico obviously has experienced 500 years of colonization and imperialism, whether it was the Spanish invasion in 1493, or it was the American invasion during the Spanish-American War.
• 10:52
  Julio Anta: And then now, this whole period of U.S. ownership on the island, and exploitation of, you know, their industries,
• 11:02
  Julio Anta: that has left Puerto… has left us in a situation where there are now more Puerto Ricans living in the mainland than actually living on the island. And now what's happening is, because of the passage of this new law that essentially makes income, non-taxable if you are from the mainland and now reside in Puerto Rico.
• 11:22
  Julio Anta: you're getting all of these millionaires, people like Logan Paul, he's like, you know, one of the most famous ones, but even richer people that are actually exploiting the island to a much higher degree.
• 11:34
  Julio Anta: Like one of our main… our main antagonists in the book,
• 11:39
  Julio Anta: Who is trying to build an island, a resort on the island. So, you know, it's… all these things sort of came together to, inspire the book.
• 11:50
  Tad Eggleston: Hey, my snark alarm is going off. I need to make the snarky political comment. You mean that a law that was probably sold as, we need to help out these poor Puerto Ricans.
• 12:02
  Julio Anta: Oh, yeah.
• 12:03
  Tad Eggleston: Really a way for rich people to evade more taxes?
• 12:08
  Julio Anta: Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Who would've thought it?
• 12:10
  Tad Eggleston: I'm shocked!
• 12:12
  Julio Anta: Yeah. There's gambling in this…
• 12:13
  Tad Eggleston: establishment. Well, there's probably that, too, nowadays.
• 12:16
  Julio Anta: Yeah, you know, they call it economic development, but what does it lead to? It leads to people being priced out of their homes, you know, it leads to…
• 12:23
  Julio Anta: all the money being in less people's hands. So yeah, a lot of this, you know, all the.
• 12:28
  Tad Eggleston: And this is where, from, like, a policy standpoint, I need to jump in and say, like.
• 12:34
  Tad Eggleston: Huge amounts of this could be.
• 12:36
  Tad Eggleston: like, if just one line was written in the law about the money having to stay in Puerto Rico.
• 12:44
  Tad Eggleston: would massively… like, this is not… this is not like you can't do actual… economic development. Yeah.
• 12:53
  Tad Eggleston: That might even have us still questioning, okay, is this resort a good thing or a bad thing, while at the same time making certain that the bulk of the money isn't paying for
• 13:03
  Tad Eggleston: Some billionaire's yacht, rather than…
• 13:07
  Julio Anta: Yeah. But, you know, I think at the heart of trying to understand this is the fact that Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States, and what is a colony if not a place to extract wealth out of and send it back to the colonial power?
• 13:23
  Julio Anta: So, all of this is, you know, it's part of the plan, you know? Like, you know, I think what you're saying is right, but also, that's not the point. You know, that's.
• 13:32
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, it's not.
• 13:33
  Julio Anta: That's what they're trying to do.
• 13:34
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I only say that sort of thing for… for… For voters who are easily…
• 13:44
  Tad Eggleston: Taken in by the story.
• 13:47
  Tad Eggleston: want to be taken in by this story, like, do a little bit more homework before deciding that, oh, we did this thing and forget about it. Look at what the bill actually does. Yeah. Because I feel like a lot of the time.
• 14:06
  Tad Eggleston: the people who are most affected by it actually know it, which is why I love, actually.
• 14:12
  Tad Eggleston: interacting with the people who are most affected by it and know it. But even those who don't want to spend time on politics because it depresses them, or…
• 14:21
  Tad Eggleston: Whatever, like, asking that one extra question.
• 14:27
  Tad Eggleston: Can often make a huge difference.
• 14:29
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 14:30
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so I try to sometimes think of, what's that one… and it's never the big point, it's just the easy point.
• 14:39
  Julio Anta: Yeah, for sure.
• 14:41
  Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean?
• 14:42
  Julio Anta: Yeah, definitely.
• 14:44
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I didn't mean to interrupt again.
• 14:48
  Julio Anta: No.
• 14:49
  Tad Eggleston: About me?
• 14:50
  Julio Anta: No, you know, I think all those ideas sort of coalesced, into this idea, which, you know, I then, I took to Tiny Onion, to James, and, Eric, who's the editorial director over there, who…
• 15:06
  Julio Anta: I've gotten to know over the years, and, you know, I sort of just sent it to them with no real expectations, just like you do with any publisher. And they told me, you know, this could slot in really nicely with our true weird, line at Dark Horse, because they'd recently done a book about the Jersey Devil.
• 15:25
  Julio Anta: Called Let This One Be a Devil.
• 15:28
  Julio Anta: So it's a very… I'd say it's a very different book than Let This One Be a Devil, which I thought was a great book, but it's, you know, definitely a different vibe to it, but yeah, it's like, it would work really well side-by-side if, you know, if somebody read that book and enjoyed it, I think they would like what we did, too.
• 15:46
  Tad Eggleston: Okay. It's gonna be 5 issues?
• 15:48
  Julio Anta: 5 issues, yeah.
• 15:49
  Tad Eggleston: 5 issues.
• 15:50
  Tad Eggleston: Let us shift gears, because…
• 15:54
  Tad Eggleston: I don't want to start asking you questions that you're gonna say, I don't want to spoil stuff, or whatnot.
• 16:00
  Tad Eggleston: only read the one issue, but I have read the entire… first…
• 16:06
  Tad Eggleston: volume, and now have the second volume way on my list.
• 16:11
  Tad Eggleston: for your Hillside Valley graphic novels, which…
• 16:15
  Tad Eggleston: On one side, or about as far from… From Piece of Boricon.
• 16:20
  Tad Eggleston: you can get, and then another side are very, very similar, because… It's dealing with…
• 16:31
  Tad Eggleston: Cultural differences and human similarities, and…
• 16:35
  Tad Eggleston: And that's actually, like, I said earlier that, like, I love seeing things from a different point of view, and part of it is learning the other cultural stuff, and part of it is reminding myself.
• 16:47
  Tad Eggleston: How similar humans are.
• 16:50
  Julio Anta: Yeah,
• 16:51
  Tad Eggleston: Period.
• 16:52
  Julio Anta: Yeah, no, we have more that unites.
• 16:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, no.
• 16:56
  Julio Anta: operates us.
• 16:57
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 16:58
  Tad Eggleston: So talk to me… First, about Speak Up Santiago, we'll talk about the
• 17:04
  Tad Eggleston: I can't ask his cool questions, because I haven't read it yet. But talk to me about Speak Up Santiago and where that comes from.
• 17:11
  Julio Anta: Yeah, well, you know.
• 17:13
  Tad Eggleston: I loved this book. You know, I'm not even its audience, and I loved.
• 17:18
  Julio Anta: work for…
• 17:19
  Tad Eggleston: for a lot of reasons that I'll get into, but I'll let you sell it really quick first.
• 17:23
  Julio Anta: Yeah, I mean, for context, this is a middle-grade graphic novel, which means it is written primarily for 3rd to 7th graders, I'd say. And you know, ever… so my first book was called Home, and it was at Image Comics. It was a 5-issue miniseries. Thank you. Go listen to it.
• 17:41
  Tad Eggleston: Our last interview, and we talked about that.
• 17:44
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 17:46
  Julio Anta: But, but yeah, that… so that was,
• 17:49
  Julio Anta: a direct market comic book series. But ever since that book, up until now with Beast of Borrigen, I've been working almost exclusively in the, book market, making standalone graphic novels, whether it's for young adults, which is, like.
• 18:08
  Julio Anta: 13 to 17 year olds, or middle grade, like, Speak Up Santiago,
• 18:14
  Julio Anta: But, so this… so this was my, my debut middle grade graphic novel. It's also the first book in the Hillside Valley series, and it's a bilingual graphic novel. It is essentially about this Colombian-American kid named Santiago.
• 18:27
  Julio Anta: who struggles to speak Spanish. So he goes to spend the summer with his abuela in a town called Hillside Valley.
• 18:34
  Julio Anta: But the issue is that she only speaks Spanish, and he's just learning how to speak Spanish. So, he's worried, you know, if I can't communicate with her, who will I be able to communicate with? But along the way, he meets all these kids, and it's, you know.
• 18:49
  Julio Anta: it is… the whole location is inspired by a lot of these Hudson Valley towns that I would go to during the pandemic and still go to to go hiking now. And when I was visiting these places, places like Cold Spring and Sleepy Hollow and Beacon, I discovered these, like.
• 19:06
  Julio Anta: very large, Latin American diasporas. You know, in Sleepy Hollow, I went to this amazing Ecuadorian restaurant and found out there's a huge Ecuadorian community there. In Cold Spring, I had amazing Argentinian empanadas. So, like, I was finding that, especially with more recent arrivals, there are these, like.
• 19:26
  Julio Anta: pockets all over the state where, you know, there's these great diasporas that remind me of what it was like to grow up in Miami, where, it's a community that's 70% Latino.
• 19:37
  Julio Anta: So, you know, this book takes place in that context, so all the kids that he meets are, you know, it's a Dominican kid, a Nicaraguan girl, two Argentinian brothers, and they form a soccer team, they play in a tournament throughout the book.
• 19:53
  Julio Anta: But really, you know, like you said, it's very different because obviously it's written for 3rd to 7th graders. It's a very, like, uplifting, upbeat, heartfelt book.
• 20:03
  Julio Anta: But it does still wrestle with, you know, questions of assimilation and, you know.
• 20:09
  Julio Anta: How to embrace our culture and the desire to be accepted by our own culture, even when we don't feel that way.
• 20:19
  Julio Anta: And this has been a book that has taken me, you know, it's so different than the comics market, because
• 20:26
  Julio Anta: primarily what I do with this book is I go and visit schools all over the country. Like, I did a school visit today before we did this podcast. Oh, very cool. Here in the city. You know, I went to a school, I did 3 class… I visited, 3 6th grade classrooms.
• 20:42
  Julio Anta: Presented on the book, signed copies of the book, did a mini portfolio review with a 6th grader who, like, really did, like, a really amazing job drawing her comic that she's been working on for the last year.
• 20:55
  Julio Anta: Oh, that's amazing. Like, I… one of the… one of the pieces of feedback, like, positive feedback I gave her was that her character is so on model in every panel, in a way that is not always true with professional artists.
• 21:07
  Julio Anta: But yeah, so, you know, it's a totally different audience, but as somebody who does write for all ages, meaning not that all of my books are for all ages, but I write for every age group.
• 21:19
  Julio Anta: It's been an amazing experience to work on middle-grade graphic novels, and then the sequel to Speak Up Santiago is book two in our series, and it's called Soul Goes for Goal, and it follows, one of the supporting characters from Book 1,
• 21:34
  Julio Anta: Now we shift to her POV in Book 2, and we continue the story. So all the characters are back, but now…
• 21:40
  Julio Anta: It's Sol's turn to have her story. And it's been amazing. The book comes out June 9th, and it's been really cool just doing all these school visits to see how excited kids are.
• 21:49
  Tad Eggleston: That one's not out yet.
• 21:50
  Julio Anta: book.
• 21:51
  Julio Anta: Yeah, it comes out June 9th, okay, then I don't feel as.
• 21:54
  Tad Eggleston: Bad for not having read it.
• 21:56
  Julio Anta: Yeah, you're good.
• 21:57
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't notice that there was a pre-order. That's coming out right around the corner, like, next week in comic shops.
• 22:04
  Julio Anta: Okay.
• 22:06
  Tad Eggleston: I think what I appreciated the most about this is… like, personally.
• 22:16
  Tad Eggleston: I have no aptitude for languages, I've always wished I did.
• 22:21
  Tad Eggleston: fascinated by them. So, the way that you were able to Portray the struggle.
• 22:29
  Tad Eggleston: Of picking up a second language.
• 22:32
  Tad Eggleston: But then also, mixing in, like, just the…
• 22:39
  Tad Eggleston: I was hoping, and he was under the weather, I was hoping that my dear friend,
• 22:45
  Tad Eggleston: Dr. Ramos from Psychocomicology would have joined us today, because I know that he would have appreciated this book, both because he learned his English from Captain America, so he…
• 22:58
  Julio Anta: Cool.
• 22:59
  Tad Eggleston: The other way.
• 23:01
  Tad Eggleston: But, because, like, you deal with the…
• 23:08
  Tad Eggleston: Emotional and social well-being really well.
• 23:12
  Julio Anta: Thank you.
• 23:14
  Julio Anta: Yeah, that comes from trauma.
• 23:16
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Well, absolutely. No, I get that. I get that. But, but, like…
• 23:24
  Tad Eggleston: How to put it, like, one of the challenges of, of… And… and why I love…
• 23:30
  Tad Eggleston: really well done middle grade books. One of the challenges of doing middle grade books is presenting trauma?
• 23:40
  Tad Eggleston: And coping skills and whatnot, while still having it be… Both age-appropriate and not… falling into…
• 23:55
  Tad Eggleston: Talking down to, or… Overtly teaching?
• 24:03
  Tad Eggleston: Does that make sense?
• 24:05
  Tad Eggleston: You know, this gets to be the book that the kid identifies with, rather than…
• 24:13
  Tad Eggleston: Don't tell me how I feel!
• 24:15
  Tad Eggleston: Yep.
• 24:16
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:17
  Julio Anta: And that's been the really special thing about, like, these school visits, you know? Like, I'm meeting kids that are coming at it from different sides, you know? Like, I'm meeting these, like, recent arrivals who are having the same struggles as Santi, but about English.
• 24:31
  Julio Anta: You know, and I'm meeting kids that are like Santiago in the book, who, you know, maybe their family is, you know, maybe they're like my kid, you know? Like, they have a Hispanic dad, a white mom, and, like, they desperately want to be accepted by both cultures, and language is a big part of that.
• 24:51
  Julio Anta: But for me, you know, like, for me, Spanish was my first language. But as English became my dominant language, I began to really struggle with Spanish. You know, I think, I sort of… I wrote… I wrote an op-ed, when this book came out for Publishers Weekly that kind of goes into this, but…
• 25:08
  Julio Anta: you know, I… on reflection, I think now, in hindsight, that
• 25:13
  Julio Anta: Well, the fact is that I was ashamed of speaking Spanish when I was a kid. You know, I… obviously, I'm this, you know, second-generation kid growing up with American culture, even though I'm living in a place like Miami that's 70% Latino, you know, probably 70% of the people there speak Spanish as their first language.
• 25:32
  Julio Anta: I felt like I wanted to embrace the American side, right? And I think that there's all sorts of complicated questions of assimilation, involved in that.
• 25:44
  Julio Anta: And…
• 25:45
  Julio Anta: you know, luckily, my grandparents, they only speak Spanish. Luckily, because of my relationship with them, I was able to hold on to my Spanish, and now, you know, I still feel insecure a lot of times when I speak Spanish. I worry about my accent, about forgetting words, or about, like.
• 26:01
  Julio Anta: when I'm having political discussions, for example, like, not quite having the language to have a political discussion sometimes. And that's changed over time, you know, I have really, like.
• 26:12
  Julio Anta: made an effort now as an adult to really just, like, throw myself in those situations, but everything that Santi feels are things that I've felt. And a lot of this, like, stories in there are really anecdotes from my life, you know? Like…
• 26:24
  Julio Anta: there's a moment, and this is kind of a joke for, like, the Spanish speakers, but there's a moment in the first act where,
• 26:33
  Julio Anta: in Spanish, the word for lucha, which is like a fight, a struggle, and ducha, the word for shower, are very similar. So, you know, his dad is like, you know, estoy en la lucha, like, I'm struggling a little bit.
• 26:47
  Julio Anta: And he's like, did he say he's showering? You know? And, like, that's literally something that I was so embarrassed as a kid, because I vocalized that, and I got laughed at, you know?
• 26:58
  Julio Anta: So, like, there's a lot of moments like that in the book that, even though Spanish is my first language, it's a language that I really struggled with as I got older, because it was, you know, English became my dominant language, but…
• 27:13
  Julio Anta: But yeah, and you know, I think a lot of… a lot of kids relate to this, you know, and not just kids, but adults. And a lot of times, I… I do like comic book conventions, you know, like Comic Cons, and people are buying this book for their nieces, their nephews, their, you know, their kids, whatever.
• 27:29
  Julio Anta: And this is, like, to be totally transparent, like, this has been… become my best-selling book of all my books.
• 27:35
  Tad Eggleston: I believe…
• 27:36
  Julio Anta: And it's been, you know, it's only been out for a year, so, like, of all my books, like, wildly my best-selling book. And part of that, you know, middle grade is, like, a booming, age group for graphic novels, but, you know, I think it's…
• 27:50
  Tad Eggleston: That is it's also really, really good.
• 27:53
  Julio Anta: Thanks, thanks.
• 27:54
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, yes, I mean, the middle grade and the specific niche that it fills, I'm certain have something to do with sales. But I love your work, and I still might think this is your best work.
• 28:11
  Julio Anta: Oh, thank you.
• 28:13
  Tad Eggleston: And I've… I love your work and have read, I think, everything but the Blue Beetle?
• 28:18
  Tad Eggleston: Okay. And that's just when I woke up late this morning.
• 28:21
  Julio Anta: Yeah, read that one. I like that one.
• 28:26
  Tad Eggleston: You know, it was on the list!
• 28:28
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 28:31
  Tad Eggleston: I read a lot of comics, I don't know if you know that about me, Julio.
• 28:34
  Julio Anta: Yeah, I can tell.
• 28:39
  Tad Eggleston: Sometimes the piles get big.
• 28:42
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 28:43
  Julio Anta: Same. I think you probably do a better job at reading them than I do.
• 28:47
  Tad Eggleston: Well, you do this crazy thing called writing.
• 28:51
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 28:51
  Tad Eggleston: I occasionally will write a review or a column here or there, but mostly I just talk about comics.
• 28:58
  Julio Anta: Like.
• 28:59
  Tad Eggleston: I get to call it Research for the talking.
• 29:03
  Julio Anta: True. Maybe that's how I should look at, reading.
• 29:07
  Tad Eggleston: Rather than distracting from the writing.
• 29:12
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:17
  Tad Eggleston: and I still, like… and also, I just, I, like, I love so many comics and talk to so many people across…
• 29:25
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 29:26
  Tad Eggleston: All the different areas… areas of comics.
• 29:29
  Tad Eggleston: That, like…
• 29:33
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know anybody that I couldn't, like, take a third of my to-read list, and it's books that they've never heard of.
• 29:40
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
• 29:44
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if it's always great, but, like, I'm kind of, like, trying to carve out a spot where I get to get Julio into this or that, and…
• 29:55
  Julio Anta: You can…
• 29:56
  Tad Eggleston: get Kelly into this or that, and, you know, whatever, cause…
• 30:01
  Tad Eggleston: one of the few skills I have, I carefully didn't call it marketable, because I haven't figured out how to market it, is, like…
• 30:10
  Tad Eggleston: Keeping track of who knows what.
• 30:13
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, trying to pair them together, if they might be helpful to each other.
• 30:18
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:19
  Tad Eggleston: Or what books might be good for this person, or what movie.
• 30:22
  Tad Eggleston: That person should watch.
• 30:24
  Julio Anta: Has this!
• 30:24
  Tad Eggleston: I can't remember them for myself, but I'll be talking to somebody, go, oh, you know what you should read?
• 30:30
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:33
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I mean, like… All in a nice, compact You, you, you… You've got the… the…
• 30:51
  Tad Eggleston: The… anxiety of building new friends.
• 30:56
  Tad Eggleston: The anxiety slash trauma of learning to do something that a lot of people assume that you already know.
• 31:03
  Julio Anta: Yeah,
• 31:04
  Tad Eggleston: Which, which, I mean, that's…
• 31:08
  Tad Eggleston: trying to think if I have real examples of that, and I don't know that I do, but it…
• 31:13
  Julio Anta: Blink.
• 31:15
  Tad Eggleston: Even thinking about it makes me ang…
• 31:18
  Julio Anta: Yeah, definitely.
• 31:20
  Tad Eggleston: Y-you know, I mean, I have a friend who… wasn't brought up.
• 31:29
  Tad Eggleston: like, she had… she had a, I think, Mexican mother and Italian father, and…
• 31:35
  Tad Eggleston: English is the only language she knows.
• 31:37
  Julio Anta: Yeah, that's super common.
• 31:39
  Tad Eggleston: Because of her… but because of her name…
• 31:42
  Tad Eggleston: People always assume that she knows Spanish.
• 31:45
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:47
  Julio Anta: And then it's even worse when, because of your appearance, other people just start talking to you in Spanish too, you know?
• 31:53
  Tad Eggleston: She's got the appearance, too.
• 31:55
  Julio Anta: Yeah, so that's… that's tough, and it's also, you know, it was diff… like,
• 32:00
  Julio Anta: This generation is very different, you know, because we are now finally, getting back to a place where we see
• 32:07
  Julio Anta: language as a positive thing, you know, as a, like, you know, there are white people who are spending boatloads of money to make sure that their kids speak
• 32:17
  Julio Anta: different languages, which is… which is great, you know, but there was a time when someone like your friend, it's very possible that her mom didn't want her to be discriminated against. Absolutely not. You know, so she didn't want her to have an accent.
• 32:30
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 32:31
  Julio Anta: you know, things have… things have changed a lot. I think that.
• 32:33
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, in this respect…
• 32:34
  Julio Anta: respect for the positive, but… Yeah.
• 32:36
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm both an educator and kind of a student of educational history, and there was definitely a period where
• 32:44
  Tad Eggleston: We both… Completely messed with the psychology of kids by forcing them to…
• 32:53
  Tad Eggleston: get rid of the language that they were most comfortable with in school, and become proficient in English before we really allowed them to do anything else, and made them wind up falling way behind in so much of the anything else, because… just because they knew English didn't mean they couldn't learn math.
• 33:13
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:15
  Tad Eggleston: just because they didn't know English didn't mean they couldn't learn history if some effort was put in.
• 33:23
  Tad Eggleston: like, you know, and I mean, thankfully, technology has made some of that even easier.
• 33:31
  Tad Eggleston: Because that… that was… Like, if you have the most favorable
• 33:40
  Tad Eggleston: impression of history, and I don't always, but I like to at least acknowledge a favorable impression. Like, there was a time where…
• 33:51
  Tad Eggleston: Like, they just didn't know how to use their resources in a way
• 33:58
  Tad Eggleston: That really, you know, there weren't enough bilingual teachers available.
• 34:02
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so the idea of just having a bilingual history class, or the idea of… of…
• 34:13
  Tad Eggleston: having an A, you know, at my school, like, a friend of mine, like.
• 34:18
  Tad Eggleston: Half of what he does is he'll be the one-on-one aide for… for…
• 34:23
  Tad Eggleston: Somebody who struggles in a language so that they can be… in… regular classes.
• 34:30
  Julio Anta: Yeah?
• 34:31
  Tad Eggleston: You know,
• 34:35
  Tad Eggleston: But again, I mean, that takes… that takes both creativity and resources, and of course, you know, then you also have to actually have the motivation to decide that it's a good thing.
• 34:48
  Tad Eggleston: Which… Hasn't always.
• 34:52
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 34:52
  Tad Eggleston: been the case. May not even always be the case now, depending on where you live.
• 34:59
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:00
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, for that matter, I'm… Late diagnosed autistic.
• 35:07
  Tad Eggleston: Which means I didn't get any of the stuff that we offer.
• 35:12
  Tad Eggleston: Most autistic people in school now.
• 35:14
  Tad Eggleston: Or at least that some schools do. Like, I know that I work at a school that's blessed, because I know enough people with autistic kids in other districts, it's like.
• 35:23
  Tad Eggleston: why can't I get this? And it's like, they'll tell me a story, I'm like, oh, because their teacher's also autistic, but was never diagnosed as autistic, and therefore had to do it the hard way, and therefore thinks that everybody does it the hard way, even though, really, 90% of people didn't have to go through that trouble, but he went through that trouble, and now your daughter's going through that trouble, so he thinks that he's making her stronger by not making it easier for her.
• 35:47
  Julio Anta: yeah, that's tough.
• 35:50
  Tad Eggleston: But I think we've seen that with languages, too, through the years. I think we see it with everything, like…
• 36:00
  Tad Eggleston: America is a weird experiment where… where some people want
• 36:06
  Tad Eggleston: To take the best of everything and roll with it. And other people are like, oh, we've got this great land, and you can live here as long as you act just like us.
• 36:15
  Tad Eggleston: In this weird… defined way.
• 36:21
  Julio Anta: Yeah, whatever their conception of it is.
• 36:23
  Tad Eggleston: Right. So… so again, like, I love how all of that… I mean, even… there's… there's the…
• 36:30
  Tad Eggleston: it's like a throwaway scene. I don't know if it comes in more… in… The Saul book.
• 36:39
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, like…
• 36:41
  Tad Eggleston: where Niko throws the water on her, and the other girl walks away, and they're like, it's okay, I'm certain the cool girl still thinks you're cool.
• 36:52
  Julio Anta: Cool.
• 36:53
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and it's, like, one of the very few interactions with a white kid that we… we have in the whole thing.
• 37:02
  Tad Eggleston: But again, I mean, it's an example of how…
• 37:08
  Tad Eggleston: Like, even though the, like, primary message of the story might be about struggling to learn
• 37:16
  Tad Eggleston: A new language, and specifically one that a lot of people assume that you know, or one where there's more pressure, because, like.
• 37:24
  Tad Eggleston: It's really hard for him when his grandma's friends talk about.
• 37:28
  Julio Anta: And they make fun of him, yeah.
• 37:31
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I think he handled that well, too, like, particularly in the way the grandma initially talked.
• 37:37
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know that they thought that they were making fun of him.
• 37:41
  Julio Anta: No, no, they didn't. Yeah, that's… and that's an important distinction, you know, where, I think a lot of times,
• 37:49
  Julio Anta: in our… in our culture, I think, like, playfulness, can sometimes be…
• 37:57
  Julio Anta: can feel like meanness, you know? But again, they were saying it amongst themselves, he was not meant to hear it. But he did hear it, and that's what matters, because it really upset him, and it really…
• 38:07
  Julio Anta: bothered him that they thought that he would never lose his accent, because that's his biggest insecurity, you know? Right. But then I think, you know, it… because that's happened to me, you know, when I was a kid.
• 38:19
  Julio Anta: And it wasn't handled the way that his grandmother handles it, you know? Which is the way that I wish…
• 38:26
  Tad Eggleston: But not.
• 38:27
  Julio Anta: handled, you know?
• 38:28
  Tad Eggleston: Because that's another place where it struck me as more human than cultural, because I think every kid has experiences where their parents
• 38:40
  Tad Eggleston: behave in one way or another that is a mixture of trying to help them, or releasing their own stress, or whatever.
• 38:48
  Julio Anta: However.
• 38:49
  Tad Eggleston: But, but they take it differently.
• 38:54
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think… The number of people who don't have trauma, from parents who…
• 39:02
  Tad Eggleston: Thought they were joking around, but the kid didn't realize it, or…
• 39:08
  Tad Eggleston: We're joking around, but the kid thought it was… Being mean, rather.
• 39:13
  Julio Anta: And try…
• 39:14
  Tad Eggleston: Trying to lighten the mood.
• 39:17
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, because think about it, like, as an adult.
• 39:20
  Tad Eggleston: We're more… way more likely to joke about things to just kind of lighten it.
• 39:26
  Julio Anta: Then to…
• 39:28
  Tad Eggleston: Whereas kids were terr… the second anybody's laughing, it's at you, and it means you're bad.
• 39:34
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:36
  Julio Anta: Yeah, because you think, I mean, everything is everything when you're a kid, you know? And… and it's… sometimes it still feels like that as an adult, you know? It does.
• 39:45
  Julio Anta: But obviously, it's so much more heightened when you're, you know, that age, and you haven't had, you know, you haven't experienced so many things, and it feels like this is the end of the world, you know, and it just hurts.
• 39:57
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, one of the things I have to remind myself, like, is… is, like…
• 40:03
  Tad Eggleston: yeah, I don't feel that old, but A, I got grandkids, so get used to it. You're not young anymore. But second, even not feeling that old, I'm like.
• 40:14
  Tad Eggleston: Three times my kid's age.
• 40:17
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 40:18
  Tad Eggleston: At school… my students' ages.
• 40:19
  Julio Anta: Right.
• 40:20
  Tad Eggleston: So, like…
• 40:23
  Tad Eggleston: Whatever they're figuring out that I think is easy to know, I know, like, it feels small with 3 times as much experience as they had.
• 40:33
  Julio Anta: Yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, and I think that moment Facebook is a good example.
• 40:37
  Tad Eggleston: Three times as much, like, Somewhat fully formed brain experiences that.
• 40:43
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 40:44
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, being the…
• 40:45
  Tad Eggleston: Brains don't fully, fully form until they're about 15, but, like, you're 12 or 13 before you're even anywhere close to really being able to see
• 40:55
  Tad Eggleston: Outside of your own.
• 40:57
  Tad Eggleston: Perspective.
• 40:59
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 41:02
  Tad Eggleston: You know, to understand the concept of an imaginary audience, like…
• 41:06
  Tad Eggleston: Requires you to be a teenager.
• 41:11
  Tad Eggleston: So, this thing that I've had 40 years to deal with, 35. I'm not in my.
• 41:18
  Tad Eggleston: yet.
• 41:20
  Tad Eggleston: You know, it's like a brand new concept.
• 41:24
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 41:24
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 41:26
  Tad Eggleston: And then it's like, oh, of course they took it wrong.
• 41:30
  Tad Eggleston: When you take it from that perspective, of course they took it wrong. That's why I think that, like.
• 41:36
  Tad Eggleston: This book goes on the list of middle grade books that… Transcend middle grade books?
• 41:43
  Julio Anta: Hmm.
• 41:44
  Julio Anta: I think it's a great…
• 41:44
  Tad Eggleston: Great middle grade book, but I also think it should be given to a lot of the abuelas out there.
• 41:50
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 41:51
  Julio Anta: A lot of the models have passed.
• 41:52
  Tad Eggleston: A lot of the aunts and uncles…
• 41:55
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 41:56
  Tad Eggleston: You know, and for that matter, whether…
• 42:00
  Tad Eggleston: Whether they share the heritage or not, like, like…
• 42:03
  Julio Anta: Yeah. Yeah.
• 42:04
  Tad Eggleston: There's so much about generational stuff in here, too.
• 42:10
  Tad Eggleston: That, that, like… And that's… that's a hard thing to do.
• 42:16
  Julio Anta: Yeah, and you know, I think it mostly comes from a place of, I write these books… I write the books that I want to read, you know? So, I'm aware of my audience when I'm writing, meaning that I'm aware of,
• 42:29
  Julio Anta: Yeah, I'll take that back. I'm aware of the…
• 42:33
  Julio Anta: age group, and what is expected of a… or what are the expectations of a middle grade versus a YA versus an adult book?
• 42:42
  Julio Anta: But I'm always just writing for myself, you know, so I think that's what leads to a middle grade book that could be read, and you could take things from it at any age.
• 42:53
  Julio Anta: Because I am discovering things about myself while I'm writing it, the same way that when I write my YAs, whether it's an original YA or a Blue Beetle YA, like, I'm writing it for me, first and foremost, and I don't think that…
• 43:07
  Julio Anta: I am so, you know, unique that I'm the only person that's gonna like it. I think there's a lot… a lot of people that like the same things that I do. So when I write for me, I'm also writing for a lot of other people that are like me, so…
• 43:20
  Julio Anta: You know, I think that's how we get to a place where it's a middle grade book that can be read by all ages. And that's, you know, I take that as a huge compliment, so thank you.
• 43:31
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean it as one, and you earned it.
• 43:38
  Tad Eggleston: like… and that makes a lot of sense to me, but also what you accomplish that… that I maintain is the hardest part of…
• 43:48
  Tad Eggleston: adults writing for younger readers, it's one of the places where comics fell down for a long time, and they're.
• 43:57
  Julio Anta: Oh my god.
• 43:57
  Tad Eggleston: considered kid's stuff.
• 43:59
  Tad Eggleston: Because you don't write down to the kids.
• 44:02
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:04
  Tad Eggleston: Elevate the kids, and or allow for the fact that some parts might fly over them.
• 44:10
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 44:13
  Tad Eggleston: You… you don't… don't overly simplify stuff. You don't… act like…
• 44:20
  Tad Eggleston: they can't understand this, or can't understand that. And again, that's… that's a…
• 44:30
  Tad Eggleston: a real skill that I appreciate, because particularly when… like…
• 44:36
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly when you're trying to get kids to start reading,
• 44:43
  Tad Eggleston: That's just such a big deal.
• 44:46
  Tad Eggleston: Like, if you're giving them books that they're reading, and they're like, this is dumb.
• 44:52
  Tad Eggleston: Or, this person thinks I'm stupid. You're not just affecting… Their reading of that book, But you're affecting…
• 45:06
  Tad Eggleston: Their thoughts on reading.
• 45:08
  Julio Anta: Yeah, definitely.
• 45:09
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, yeah, no, I can't wait for Saul.
• 45:14
  Tad Eggleston: you know, we are… we are coming up on… on when I know you need to go, so I gotta get to… to… to my.
• 45:21
  Julio Anta: my favorite.
• 45:21
  Tad Eggleston: closing questions, so that you've got time to answer them.
• 45:25
  Tad Eggleston: The new one, since the last time you were on,
• 45:31
  Tad Eggleston: I've been doing this podcast for a little less than 5 years now.
• 45:34
  Tad Eggleston: And I feel like I've entered the Twilight Zone.
• 45:38
  Tad Eggleston: the number of cool conversations I get to have, the people I get to consider my friends, the things that I've done that, like, if you told…
• 45:47
  Tad Eggleston: even 35-year-old Tad.
• 45:50
  Tad Eggleston: it was gonna become part of his life. I always said.
• 45:53
  Tad Eggleston: Who the fuck are you kidding?
• 45:56
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna what?
• 45:59
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 46:00
  Tad Eggleston: But I also find that everybody in comics, in comics in particular, but in creative industries,
• 46:11
  Tad Eggleston: has similar stories. They have similar moments, whether it's meeting somebody, or hanging out with somebody, or accomplishing something, or, you know, the person that came up to them at the convention table or whatnot, that, like, when they think back on them, they still kind of pinch themselves and go.
• 46:29
  Tad Eggleston: It really happened to me?
• 46:31
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 46:32
  Tad Eggleston: So… so I've started collecting those moments. Cool. You know, tell me a time…
• 46:39
  Tad Eggleston: that it was… it was, like, some surreal-ish occurrence, some, oh my god, that… that happened to me because I decided to do this with my life, and…
• 46:49
  Tad Eggleston: That's such a cool.
• 46:50
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 46:51
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 46:52
  Julio Anta: I mean, I can say a lot of moments surrounding my work at DC, you know, whether it was when I was selected to be part of… I was part of this thing called the Milestone Initiative.
• 47:05
  Tad Eggleston: I remember.
• 47:06
  Julio Anta: yeah, kind of like a training, program, like a… kind of like a fellowship kind of thing, where, you know, I got to meet
• 47:15
  Julio Anta: everyone at DC, you know? And in one moment, I found myself, I don't drink, but, you know, at this bar where we were all at, and just talking to Jim Lee for a minute, you know? Like, whoa, he's a lot shorter than I expected.
• 47:30
  Julio Anta: But, like, the nicest guy, you know, they, I don't know if this story is out of school, but, you know, it's a good story. It speaks to his character, I think.
• 47:40
  Julio Anta: you know, they… DC had an open bar until a certain time, and then, the period was over, but there was still a lot of people there, and he just put his, like, personal credit card down.
• 47:51
  Julio Anta: and said, one more hour, or something. It was, like, very… it felt like a movie, you know? And and yeah, and you know, and then he just paid for everybody's drinks for another hour of open bar, you know?
• 48:02
  Julio Anta: But he's, you know… so I have stories like that, you know, just, like, finding myself, you know, talking to Jim Lee, Scott Snyder, all these people who, you know, obviously I looked up to before I was, or when I was trying to break in. But then there's the moments that I think are, like, even more meaningful to me, which, like.
• 48:22
  Julio Anta: I remember last San Diego Comic-Con last year, I was at my table, and, you know, I bring all my books to…
• 48:30
  Julio Anta: Comic-Con, you know, even if it's, like, a middle grade book, because there's always gonna be people that are gonna find it. But I had multiple kids, and the book had been out maybe… it came out in March of last year, so, like, 3 or 4 months. I had multiple kids that were just there with their parents. They didn't know
• 48:47
  Julio Anta: you know, Speak of Santiago was just a book that they read, you know? And they're just walking down Artist Alley with their parents, and they're like, oh, wait, I read that book, I love that book, and they're just, like, they're asking me questions about the sequel.
• 48:59
  Julio Anta: You know, when's that coming out? So, like, stuff like that, where, you know.
• 49:05
  Julio Anta: it's clear that this is something that they've interacted with, and that they're excited about. Their parents also have no idea who I am, you know? They're just as surprised as I am that their kid found, their kid knows of a book that's in Artist Alley, you know? So moments like that are super special to me. And I think maybe even more special than, like.
• 49:25
  Julio Anta: you know, meeting Jim Lee or something like that.
• 49:28
  Tad Eggleston: No, I, I, I think that, that that's…
• 49:30
  Tad Eggleston: Those… those are both common things that I hear about, is… is the… Is the… this person…
• 49:39
  Tad Eggleston: walked up to me, like, I had somebody talk to me about a con where they actually…
• 49:44
  Tad Eggleston: It was a smaller con, and they, like, they had little enough traffic at their table that they were beginning to wonder why they'd tabled, why they'd taken their.
• 49:53
  Julio Anta: Yeah.
• 49:53
  Tad Eggleston: end up.
• 49:54
  Tad Eggleston: And then suddenly somebody came up.
• 49:57
  Tad Eggleston: And went, oh my god, I came here just to see you.
• 50:01
  Julio Anta: Whoa, that's awesome.
• 50:02
  Tad Eggleston: This book was… and it wasn't even, like, the book that they expected it to be.
• 50:06
  Julio Anta: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:08
  Tad Eggleston: They're like, they're like, this girl didn't know it, but she, like, made the entire weekend worth of for me.
• 50:15
  Tad Eggleston: Because that's the thing, is, like, we're all… we're all humans,
• 50:22
  Tad Eggleston: you may or may not have noticed that I keep having my head down, because I've been desperately looking for your answer to this the last time, because you recommended a really, really good book on…
• 50:35
  Tad Eggleston: kind of… I forget if it was strictly Mexican-American history, or… or if it was all of Latin America that I read.
• 50:43
  Julio Anta: Was it Harvest of Empire?
• 50:45
  Tad Eggleston: It might have been.
• 50:46
  Julio Anta: Let me close…
• 50:48
  Tad Eggleston: Let me now put that title in and see what happens.
• 50:52
  Julio Anta: Yeah, I recommend that book a lot. That book changed my life.
• 50:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, it was. Okay, so you can't recommend that one again.
• 51:02
  Julio Anta: Okay.
• 51:04
  Julio Anta: Alright, so, do you want me to recommend?
• 51:06
  Tad Eggleston: The question now is, tell… no, tell me something you love.
• 51:10
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't really have rules.
• 51:13
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules.
• 51:17
  Tad Eggleston: That you love, that not enough other people have experienced, particularly around you.
• 51:23
  Julio Anta: And he won.
• 51:24
  Tad Eggleston: You want them to, so you have more people to talk about it with.
• 51:27
  Tad Eggleston: And Harvest of Empires was amazing, I meant to write you about that.
• 51:30
  Julio Anta: Thank you.
• 51:30
  Tad Eggleston: talk to you about this, and then I got…
• 51:32
  Julio Anta: Good, I'm glad.
• 51:33
  Tad Eggleston: It was.
• 51:34
  Julio Anta: I'm glad. This is fantastic.
• 51:36
  Julio Anta: I'll talk about this, my friend Sean's new book, it's called Cave Grave.
• 51:42
  Tad Eggleston: It's too, I haven't read it yet.
• 51:45
  Tad Eggleston: way up my… Yeah. Because he did a book with Chris Condon that I loved.
• 51:51
  Julio Anta: He did, he did, yeah. The Goddamn Tragedy, which is a great book. That's right. But, you know, is this a video podcast?
• 52:00
  Tad Eggleston: It isn't, but you can show me.
• 52:02
  Julio Anta: Oh, okay. Well, I'll show you.
• 52:03
  Tad Eggleston: People should go check out Cave Grave.
• 52:06
  Julio Anta: Yeah, so just, like, beautiful.
• 52:07
  Tad Eggleston: And I forget… Just come out, or slightly upcoming?
• 52:11
  Julio Anta: It did. Cave Grave is actually, so there's two stories in here that he had individually self-published, as, like, you know, I think there may be, like, 60 pages each one or something, but now Oni published them as, like, a really beautiful hardcover collection.
• 52:28
  Tad Eggleston: It makes me even more interested. I've had the Advanced Reader PDF for a while and haven't gotten to it, which is why I couldn't remember. Is this… is this…
• 52:38
  Tad Eggleston: One that they gave me, like, because sometimes I wind up getting things right before they come out, and sometimes I get things, like, right before FOC, and sometimes I get them WAY earlier than that.
• 52:48
  Julio Anta: Yeah. Yeah, it's great. It's two westerns. Sean is just an amazing artist. He's a fine artist first, and now he… and he's… he's still a fine artist, but, you know, he also makes comics, because he loves comics.
• 53:04
  Julio Anta: So, yeah, I love his work. If you haven't read his, anyone listening, if you haven't read his, one-shot with Chris Condon, fantastic, and he has even more stuff coming out, yeah. Yeah, he's definitely someone to watch.
• 53:19
  Tad Eggleston: No, I also love his work, so… so I love… I love that… that pick, and now Cave Grave will go higher on my to… to-read list, which, as we discussed earlier, is… is very, very long.
• 53:33
  Tad Eggleston: Julio, thank you, as always, for joining me. Stick around for a minute or two after I stop recording, because I have a couple of questions. But for Julio.
• 53:43
  Julio Anta: Thanks for having me.
• 53:44
  Tad Eggleston: This has been 22 Panels, and we'll see you after the next page.