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With Great Power #261... 22 Panels with Michele Abounader & Fell Hound · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. We're returning for the third time is Felhound. Returning for the second time is Michelle Abinator, and last time they were working together, too, because Fel had one of the
• 0:19
  Tad Eggleston: the pieces in Michelle's anthology, but this time they're directly working together. Michelle wrote a story that Fel is
• 0:28
  Tad Eggleston: is… is drawing, I'm certain, wonderfully. So… you guys want to talk about… is it Funeral House? Funeral home? I forget.
• 0:38
  Tad Eggleston: Or how are we pronouncing it? Because we put the fun in capital letters, so is it supposed to be, like… what's the proper pronunciation of your Kickstarter, I guess, is my first question.
• 0:53
  Fell: I've just been telling people funeral home with the fun bolded, but I say that whole sentence, so…
• 1:01
  Michele Abounader: I either call it… just… I call it Funeral Home, or I call it the… the Funeral Yuri, which is also funny,
• 1:09
  Michele Abounader: Or…
• 1:11
  Michele Abounader: I don't know, it's difficult. Everybody wants to make a fun home joke, because the fun is bolded, but it's… it's that… the meme that's putting the fun in funeral, so it's…
• 1:22
  Michele Abounader: You know, we're out here doing our best, but it is a funeral home.
• 1:29
  Tad Eggleston: Funeral home. Okay.
• 1:31
  Tad Eggleston: It's, live on Kickstarter now. I think you're fully funded. Are you fully funded? It's another one of those things that I didn't check in time. Yes, you're fully funded, so people going now can guarantee that they will get their comic. Who wants to give me the pitch?
• 1:49
  Tad Eggleston: Or was I supposed to do my homework so I could do it off the top of my head?
• 1:52
  Fell: job of it.
• 1:54
  Michele Abounader: Oh, I'm terrible at pitching my own things, because you wrote the pitch, so… I did sort of write it. We came up with this idea together, so we're… this is a… it's a… a co… co-creation joint. It's…
• 2:08
  Michele Abounader: The basic idea of the story is that there are assassins who use a funeral home as a cover for their assassin business, and their assignments come in
• 2:18
  Michele Abounader: To the funeral home, in, essentially, as an empty casket with, you know, the assignment inside, and then they go take care of business, and…
• 2:31
  Michele Abounader: And… You know.
• 2:33
  Michele Abounader: Do the other taking care of business, where they…
• 2:36
  Michele Abounader: Also, do funerals, so that they have, you know, a place
• 2:40
  Michele Abounader: A place to work and a place to live whilst… whilst assassinating.
• 2:44
  Fell: Yeah, I mean, times are tough.
• 2:45
  Tad Eggleston: Well, well, and…
• 2:46
  Fell: Thank you.
• 2:48
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 2:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, and conveniently, Crematory.
• 2:56
  Tad Eggleston: That's probably useful for an assassin.
• 3:00
  Michele Abounader: That's not something that is explored in this particular book. There's no, we haven't used.
• 3:05
  Tad Eggleston: anymore.
• 3:05
  Michele Abounader: Manning, because, I mean, it's very, the book itself was sort of designed to read, like, an anime pilot episode, so it's just really dramatic.
• 3:14
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 3:15
  Michele Abounader: Well, I think perfectly dramatic. I don't think that it's too dramatic. I think it's just dramatic enough.
• 3:21
  Fell: Yeah, it's silly, it's fun.
• 3:25
  Michele Abounader: While also being…
• 3:26
  Tad Eggleston: Silly and fun.
• 3:27
  Michele Abounader: Serious.
• 3:28
  Tad Eggleston: both good.
• 3:29
  Tad Eggleston: Deadly serious. I mean…
• 3:31
  Michele Abounader: Sorry, I can't… every single panel of this book is essentially an inside joke. I feel like everything is an Easter egg, everything is purposely very silly, while also really tackling
• 3:44
  Michele Abounader: like, tough things.
• 3:45
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 3:46
  Michele Abounader: and death.
• 3:46
  Tad Eggleston: So now you've given me the idea for the follow-up podcast that we need to do, like, a year from now, where…
• 3:56
  Tad Eggleston: Where we're not spoiling anything for anybody, and maybe we'll even stick it behind the paywall on my Patreon, or if you guys have any paywalls anywhere, you can have it behind there, where we go page by page, and you tell me the inside jokes.
• 4:12
  Michele Abounader: Oh, I don't know about that.
• 4:14
  Fell: Yeah, there's a lot of layers to.
• 4:16
  Michele Abounader: There's a lot of layers to pretty much everything that we've done in this book, and I think, like.
• 4:21
  Tad Eggleston: Well…
• 4:22
  Michele Abounader: It's a good peek behind the curtain, but you might…
• 4:25
  Fell: You know, you'll get some of it. You'll get what you're meant.
• 4:28
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 4:29
  Fell: Exposed too much of our.
• 4:30
  Tad Eggleston: You don't want to give too much information out? I mean, if I gave you a year, you could also write alternate versions. You wouldn't actually have to give out too much.
• 4:40
  Fell: Yeah, let us fabricate a story behind all the inside jokes first, and then we'll tell you the… Yeah.
• 4:45
  Tad Eggleston: Seconds.
• 4:48
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I love the idea of assassins using a funeral home.
• 4:56
  Tad Eggleston: like… You said you came up with it together. Is this, like, just the…
• 5:03
  Tad Eggleston: the random BS session, where it came together, or, like… What's our inspiration here? Cuz…
• 5:13
  Michele Abounader: I'm like, what do we say?
• 5:14
  Tad Eggleston: I'm in particular…
• 5:15
  Fell: Yeah, y'all got a.
• 5:15
  Tad Eggleston: Particularly given that you don't use the crematory, which was where I went immediately. So it couldn't be, hey, the funeral home gives you a perfect way to get rid of the body.
• 5:26
  Michele Abounader: I don't always excel at practicality.
• 5:31
  Tad Eggleston: You're in comics, it's the perfect business.
• 5:35
  Michele Abounader: Obviously, we're just here for the money.
• 5:38
  Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute, the what?
• 5:42
  Michele Abounader: Yeah, exactly. What did we say last time? We joked when we started working on.
• 5:47
  Tad Eggleston: I'd say Michelle.
• 5:47
  Michele Abounader: promoting the Kickstarter.
• 5:48
  Tad Eggleston: Brighter than Phil.
• 5:50
  Michele Abounader: Phil's in an even darker room, he's the… Hi, Phil.
• 5:55
  Fell: Hello, hello!
• 5:57
  Michele Abounader: I'll say that when we started promoting this, we kind of joked that, like, we would say something different every time somebody asked us.
• 6:04
  Michele Abounader: Okay.
• 6:08
  Michele Abounader: Like, what did you say last time?
• 6:11
  Tad Eggleston: So what's this one here?
• 6:11
  Fell: So Michelle and I, we go golfing a lot, on the golf course called Golf With Your Friends. And you know, we do a lot of, like, business meetings on the golf course, where we just talk about comics.
• 6:24
  Fell: You know, like, professionals out on the golf course, shooting the balls.
• 6:30
  Fell: And yeah, and you know, I think I just started talking, and…
• 6:37
  Fell: Through a fever dream, this came about.
• 6:39
  Michele Abounader: Yeah, cause we do… we watch a lot of,
• 6:42
  Michele Abounader: The same, like, anime shows, or we read a lot of the same little mangas, and we talk about it in the group chat, and it's all…
• 6:51
  Michele Abounader: Deeply unserious stuff for the most part. And we'll discuss, like, what we're working on, like, ideas that we've had while we're golfing, and…
• 7:01
  Michele Abounader: We just… I think almost a year ago now that we started working on this one, and it kind of…
• 7:07
  Michele Abounader: one thing led to another, and it ended up being, well, if you write it, I'll draw it, and…
• 7:13
  Michele Abounader: We came up with the whole story together, and figured out, like, what we wanted the outline to be, and…
• 7:19
  Michele Abounader: And I kicked the script out, and…
• 7:23
  Michele Abounader: Yeah, it's been really wonderful just, like, making something very silly with my friend, and I recommend everybody just make
• 7:32
  Michele Abounader: take those wild ideas and just, like, make them with your friends, because sometimes that should just be what it's about, I think, in comics.
• 7:39
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I… Yeah.
• 7:42
  Tad Eggleston: Go ahead, fell.
• 7:43
  Fell: I was gonna say, it's, like, a great use of free will to just, like, make some nonsense with your friends, especially in these, once again, trying times.
• 7:53
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 7:55
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I cannot…
• 7:58
  Tad Eggleston: cannot agree more. I also have to give everybody the insight into how my brain works, because
• 8:07
  Tad Eggleston: when you said that you went golfing together, initially I'm like, is this, like, the story that she's making up on the spot? I can't picture the two of them golfing. Then I went, well, maybe if it's mini golfing.
• 8:20
  Michele Abounader: Very athletic, I take offense to this. I'm clearly an athlete.
• 8:24
  Tad Eggleston: I didn't mean the athletic side, I meant golf just seems boring.
• 8:29
  Tad Eggleston: But then I thought to myself, maybe it's mini golf, and then I went, but wait a minute.
• 8:34
  Tad Eggleston: Michelle's in New York, I think, and Fel's in Toronto, so they can't get… so, I literally went and I googled golf with friends, because you had said that, and I went, oh wow, not only are they doing it virtually, but it is mini golf! That's awesome!
• 8:53
  Michele Abounader: And it is one of the worst games. Like, it really is… the game mechanics are really bad, and it doesn't usually load up properly on my computer, so I usually don't even have ground, so I'm just, like, hitting at nothing. I have no idea what's happening, and… but, you know, that's life, I think. Sometimes you just…
• 9:09
  Fell: Michelle wins every time without seeing the floor. That's why she is, like, the most athletic.
• 9:14
  Michele Abounader: I'm really athletic, I'm just, like, just a champion golfer without seeing the ground.
• 9:21
  Fell: Yeah, hidden talents, like…
• 9:22
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 9:25
  Michele Abounader: It's very bunch of me to be good at golf, I think.
• 9:28
  Tad Eggleston: I love it.
• 9:31
  Tad Eggleston: And again, like, I can't tell you how happy I am to discover that it's both a video game and mini golf.
• 9:40
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know what you were expecting from the two of us, but maybe lower those expectations a little bit. No, no, I didn't… didn't…
• 9:49
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, if you really did meet to golf, I wouldn't be disappointed, I'd just be surprised, because I would have
• 9:58
  Tad Eggleston: I would have expected it to be something that seemed less… old white man.
• 10:06
  Tad Eggleston: Look, that's how you're successful in this world. You emulate old white men, right? I mean, there is truth to this!
• 10:13
  Michele Abounader: Oh, God.
• 10:16
  Tad Eggleston: But… but I viewed you both as rebels.
• 10:20
  Michele Abounader: Very kind.
• 10:21
  Tad Eggleston: You had already talked about all the money you make in comics, so, I mean…
• 10:32
  Tad Eggleston: I'm sorry, you've just, like, made me laugh so much that I've run out of questions for the moment. Phil, do you have any questions?
• 10:42
  Tad Eggleston: I feel like I can't hear you.
• 10:46
  Tad Eggleston: I see your lips moving.
• 10:48
  Phil: Hello?
• 10:49
  Tad Eggleston: There you go.
• 10:50
  Fell: That works.
• 10:50
  Phil: What?
• 10:52
  Phil: Now you can hear me?
• 10:55
  Michele Abounader: Yes.
• 10:55
  Tad Eggleston: Have a good weekend.
• 10:56
  Phil: Okay, I was… I was wondering, I kept trying to…
• 10:59
  Tad Eggleston: Join the conversation.
• 11:01
  Phil: Yeah, and I was like, okay, alright, I'll… not this one, I'll jump in next time, okay, you know, I'll give it a second, but yeah, I went on a similar journey, of thinking about golf, and I was like, it's mostly… I recognize my own associations with golf, where it's just like…
• 11:16
  Phil: please know. Please don't make me do this. I don't like being outside in the best of times, and making me swing a stick at a small object seems like a terrible idea to add on top of that, so… He says as he talks to us from his porch. Yes. Well…
• 11:32
  Tad Eggleston: Inside right now.
• 11:34
  Phil: I am outside right now, but the… and there's… I wish you could see all the beautiful plants that my wife has cultivated, but there's a screen, so the bugs can't get me here.
• 11:42
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, okay.
• 11:43
  Phil: in our little porch, so yeah.
• 11:45
  Michele Abounader: Love that. Good for you.
• 11:47
  Phil: Yeah, I used to… we also have, like, funny lights hanging, but if it's just, like, green or red out here, then I'm virtually invisible, so I figured I'd… I was hoping there would be more light than this.
• 12:02
  Tad Eggleston: Well, you know, it's September.
• 12:04
  Tad Eggleston: It's starting to get dark earlier.
• 12:08
  Tad Eggleston: Thankfully, it is.
• 12:09
  Phil: Oh, I guess I did have, a comics-related question, though. So, Michelle, you were with, Bad Ag Publishing, for a while, and now…
• 12:19
  Michele Abounader: True, yeah.
• 12:20
  Phil: Yeah, I just… I… I, only heard about that through you, and I was just wondering what kind of experience that was, if that's… you know, I know you're out on your own now, so…
• 12:33
  Phil: I was just… I was curious about that.
• 12:42
  Phil: And I understand if that's an awkward question, I'm so sorry.
• 12:45
  Michele Abounader: I'm really proud of a lot of the work that I did there, and it was really wonderful getting to work with all the writers and artists, on my books there.
• 12:54
  Phil: And…
• 12:56
  Michele Abounader: Yeah, I'm… I'm really glad that I had that opportunity to work with everyone, and anytime that you can hire, people from, like, a more marginalized section of the industry, and make, like, and give people, like, paying gigs, and, like, create some really cool stuff.
• 13:11
  Michele Abounader: I'm always really grateful for that type of opportunity, so I'm really happy.
• 13:15
  Michele Abounader: That I got to do that, and really grateful for the relationships that I built with creators in my time there.
• 13:27
  Michele Abounader: Awesome.
• 13:27
  Tad Eggleston: And back to golf.
• 13:30
  Michele Abounader: I don't know if that… I don't know if that answers your question, yeah. Anyways…
• 13:37
  Phil: It does.
• 13:37
  Tad Eggleston: That's a good answer. That's a good answer.
• 13:39
  Michele Abounader: It's… it's truly… that's, like, really my… my best and biggest takeaway from… from the entire experience. Yeah.
• 13:48
  Michele Abounader: I love making comics, and meeting new people, and writing…
• 13:53
  Michele Abounader: like, meeting cool writers and artists is amazing, and getting to work with people that I consider my friends and make some new friends was a really good experience, so…
• 14:05
  Tad Eggleston: Last time I talked to you, Michelle, I feel like…
• 14:08
  Tad Eggleston: I know you were mostly freelance and putting out your own stuff, but I feel like you had a gig somewhere that wasn't bad egg. Do you still have a regular gig, or are you strictly freelance now?
• 14:19
  Michele Abounader: I'm, at the moment, strictly freelance, looking for, like, the right
• 14:23
  Michele Abounader: Full-time editorial opportunity, so looking for the right thing.
• 14:28
  Tad Eggleston: So, that I'm shouting out to my friends who are the right types of people. Michelle is available, and you should snap her up.
• 14:38
  Tad Eggleston: And if you're not the right type of people, I hope you're not listening, because Michelle is not available, and you should not snap her up. Yes.
• 14:46
  Fell: I can attest, Michelle is one of the best editors I have ever worked with, so if the right people do come along, go.
• 14:54
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 14:54
  Fell: Hire her, give her lots of money, she deserves it all.
• 14:58
  Tad Eggleston: You're not the only one. Dylan Gilbertson is a regular on this podcast, and he gave massive shout-outs to you.
• 15:05
  Tad Eggleston: And next time, we'll make certain that you, you come to, to…
• 15:10
  Tad Eggleston: like, he forgot to include you when we were doing the My Neighbor Necromancer.
• 15:15
  Michele Abounader: Kickstarter.
• 15:17
  Tad Eggleston: We did manage to bring the, the, Jason and, and,
• 15:21
  Tad Eggleston: Luca this time. You know, for the first two issues, he'd just come alone. But, but that's when I found out that he had an editor. He's like, oh, yeah, I should have called her. I'm like, yeah, she's been on…
• 15:34
  Michele Abounader: Honestly, he's wonderful. Working on that book is a lot of fun, because he's a really good writer, and Jason's an amazing artist, and…
• 15:43
  Michele Abounader: Luca, great on those colors, and it's… it's a really good experience working on that book. It's a really cool story. I'm glad they… they continue to fund those issues, because I love.
• 15:53
  Tad Eggleston: I am joked.
• 15:53
  Michele Abounader: I think it's such a sweet book, and it's difficult to do any kind of, like, YA anything in crowdfunding. It doesn't hit as much as, like.
• 16:03
  Michele Abounader: some of the more mature topics, I think, just because that's who's backing stuff, right? Like, that's just the ecosystem, but they always manage to get it over the finish line, and I'm really happy about it.
• 16:14
  Tad Eggleston: Well, we…
• 16:15
  Michele Abounader: Because I really want.
• 16:16
  Tad Eggleston: I love that.
• 16:17
  Michele Abounader: L?
• 16:18
  Tad Eggleston: We plugged the hell out of it here, and not just because he's a regular on… Heavy Medical Club.
• 16:29
  Tad Eggleston: But, really, cause…
• 16:32
  Tad Eggleston: like, one of the coolest 22 Panels moments was when… because he reached out to me to be on the show
• 16:39
  Tad Eggleston: for the first Necromancer, he was just doing the rounds looking for, like, anybody that might talk to him about it. I'm like, absolutely! And as we're talking to him about it, and I'm looking at…
• 16:49
  Tad Eggleston: the work that he's done, I came across…
• 16:54
  Tad Eggleston: Can't remember the name of his Action Lab book right now, Sweet something…
• 17:03
  Tad Eggleston: And I went, wait a minute, hold on a second.
• 17:06
  Tad Eggleston: I can't remember if my brother went to college with the writer or artist of this book.
• 17:13
  Tad Eggleston: Do you know a Peter?
• 17:16
  Tad Eggleston: And he's like, Echo, stop!
• 17:19
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, 10 minutes later, I had my brother crashing the podcast, and… and two old college…
• 17:26
  Tad Eggleston: doormates geeking out together, because, you know, that's how small the world is sometimes. And now I get to see Dylan every month to talk about having a medical magazine.
• 17:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, he is. I know.
• 17:40
  Michele Abounader: I just love that guy. I got to see him a couple times this year, because he was out in San Diego, for San Diego Comic-Con, and…
• 17:48
  Michele Abounader: then I saw it out in Boston at Fan Expo, so it's…
• 17:53
  Michele Abounader: It's been cool to get to actually chat with him in person. It's always fun to, like.
• 17:58
  Michele Abounader: actually meet the people that you work with. I think in comics, like, we're all kind of spread out.
• 18:02
  Tad Eggleston: It is.
• 18:03
  Michele Abounader: So, it's…
• 18:05
  Tad Eggleston: I was like.
• 18:05
  Michele Abounader: Such a great time.
• 18:06
  Tad Eggleston: I, I, I…
• 18:07
  Tad Eggleston: I have been known to, like, drive hours when I, like, somebody that I enjoyed talking to on the podcast is gonna be doing a signing at a shop that's, like.
• 18:18
  Tad Eggleston: far away, but not so far away that I can't make the round trip and still be at work in the morning.
• 18:25
  Tad Eggleston: I just know.
• 18:28
  Tad Eggleston: Aww.
• 18:29
  Michele Abounader: Understand.
• 18:31
  Michele Abounader: Felina.
• 18:31
  Tad Eggleston: I am gone.
• 18:32
  Michele Abounader: And to hang out in person a bunch of times, and that's always been really fun.
• 18:36
  Michele Abounader: We always get into.
• 18:38
  Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute, so, like, in person, in person? Or, like, Wreck-It Ralph, you got sucked into the machine and played golf together in person?
• 18:48
  Fell: I'm kidding, we have none.
• 18:49
  Michele Abounader: Kind of both, I feel like. I feel like we should, next time we're in the same place, we should go do a little putt-putt. I feel like that would be really poetic and beautiful.
• 18:59
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I will say that I know a couple of really, really great ones in the Chicago market, so if you guys want to, like, apply for cake next year, I will take you to the putt-putt.
• 19:09
  Fell: Oh, I think, I think y'all are gonna have to come up to me, though, because I…
• 19:13
  Michele Abounader: It's gonna have to be a tiny pot pie.
• 19:15
  Fell: Trout.
• 19:16
  Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
• 19:16
  Michele Abounader: Do you have…
• 19:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah. How is the…
• 19:19
  Michele Abounader: We're not today.
• 19:19
  Tad Eggleston: in Toronto.
• 19:21
  Fell: We have mini golf, I mean…
• 19:24
  Fell: I can't remember where, but we definitely do. But I know there's one in Niagara Falls that's really lit, it's Dinosaur Mini Golf, the volcano, like, I think…
• 19:33
  Tad Eggleston: And it's on your side, not our side.
• 19:35
  Michele Abounader: And then…
• 19:36
  Fell: Like, right on the border, so it's, you know… It makes a small drive.
• 19:39
  Phil: I think our son…
• 19:40
  Michele Abounader: Did you close your favorite restaurant in Niagara Falls, though? Did they close it?
• 19:43
  Fell: Oh my god, I hope not, I'd be crushed.
• 19:46
  Michele Abounader: I'm looking it up.
• 19:48
  Phil: What is this… what's the favorite? I was only going to say Tim Hortons, because it's the only Canadian
• 19:52
  Phil: restaurant I know of, but…
• 19:54
  Fell: We have other stuff.
• 19:55
  Phil: I know, I know, that's my fault.
• 19:56
  Fell: Beautiful and wonderful.
• 19:58
  Michele Abounader: Oh, it's still open.
• 19:59
  Fell: Okay, it's the Rainforest Cafe.
• 20:02
  Fell: With their chicken quesadillas.
• 20:05
  Phil: Who?
• 20:06
  Phil: Luckily.
• 20:07
  Michele Abounader: I love… absurdity, and Raid Forest Cafe is absurd, so…
• 20:12
  Fell: They don't make restaurants like that anymore, that's… that's the thing.
• 20:15
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I'm gonna… I'm gonna have to actually go get a passport so I can come visit you. The last time I went to Canada, that wasn't required. You could just drive across the border.
• 20:27
  Tad Eggleston: So, you know…
• 20:29
  Fell: But yeah, come up, we can all golf together and go to Rainforest Cafe.
• 20:33
  Tad Eggleston: Toronto's not actually a terrible drive for me.
• 20:37
  Tad Eggleston: I think I could make it in… 7 hours?
• 20:42
  Michele Abounader: Also, I am, actually.
• 20:43
  Fell: Come on.
• 20:43
  Tad Eggleston: It's less… it's about the same amount of time it'll take me to get to CXC this weekend, so…
• 20:52
  Tad Eggleston: Phil's a little bit farther, you're Nashville, right, Phil? I always forget if it's Nashville or Memphis, so yeah, you're Nashville.
• 20:59
  Phil: It is Nashville, yeah.
• 21:00
  Phil: Yeah, the city. City of the North.
• 21:02
  Tad Eggleston: Country, then blues.
• 21:04
  Phil: Yeah, it's not great.
• 21:07
  Phil: I would not recommend. There's a dearth of putt-putt. We've got nothing.
• 21:12
  Fell: Okay.
• 21:13
  Phil: Yeah, that's reasonable.
• 21:15
  Michele Abounader: No, then.
• 21:15
  Phil: Exactly, yeah, it's kind of a problem for me.
• 21:19
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, back to, to funeral home.
• 21:24
  Tad Eggleston: Fel, I… I adore your…
• 21:28
  Tad Eggleston: artwork, as you know quite well, because I've gushed over it with Sir quite a bit, what…
• 21:38
  Tad Eggleston: challenges did you… and by challenges, I mean, like, the challenge-accepted type challenges, that you looked at the writing and went, oh my god, this is gonna be amazing, I can't wait to draw this.
• 21:53
  Fell: Chop me up, go ahead, chop me up. Oh my god, yes. I mean, well, we came up with a story together, so it was, like, usually, you know, a lot of time when people pitch me, like, long-form comics, I'm just like.
• 22:05
  Fell: it doesn't feel… like, I know it's collaborative in the end, but it doesn't always feel collaborative sometimes, the way you're treated as an artist in this industry. That's not the way working with Michelle works, like, it was…
• 22:17
  Fell: Like, we thought of this together from the ground up, and every time we gulfed about it, just talk about it, we had a lot of fun. And Michelle just has, like, some of the most incredible ideas I've ever heard, like… like, a cuckoo clock.
• 22:29
  Fell: Like…
• 22:30
  Fell: no, like, I don't… I like the cuckoo clocks, and, like, there's… there's this animal that's, like, a raccoon and a possum, we called it a raccoossum, and that's, like, a very important character in the book, I would say. And just, like, I don't want to spoil the book, but there's so many, like, silly little things that come out of her brain that I'm just like, this is the best thing I've ever heard.
• 22:51
  Fell: I think it's like this… Fearlessness of being just really stupid about it.
• 22:58
  Michele Abounader: that I love.
• 23:02
  Michele Abounader: Thank you, it's really nice.
• 23:03
  Tad Eggleston: I got you, girl.
• 23:06
  Michele Abounader: at, like, the preview pages that we have on the campaign, and I'm like, you can talk about anything that's… it's not really spoiling if we're already…
• 23:13
  Fell: I don't have the page outlets.
• 23:15
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, I'll get there in a second, but it's always… it's always fun to… not to tell me story stuff, just like…
• 23:24
  Tad Eggleston: What… what has been… Oh, you got Heather to draw again. I missed that.
• 23:30
  Michele Abounader: She doesn't usually say no when I ask her for stuff. It's really fun. That's good. Are you guys still having your regular coffee date to edit together?
• 23:40
  Michele Abounader: Oh yeah, we co-work a couple times a week, usually, she's really smart, and…
• 23:47
  Michele Abounader: I learn a lot about.
• 23:48
  Tad Eggleston: I totally agree.
• 23:49
  Michele Abounader: editing from her, so, and she does stuff like covers for me, or…
• 23:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Yeah. I keep meaning to pitch the two of you on… on coming together to talk about what co-working as editing looks like, and just because I'm pretty certain you'd make each other laugh the way you and Phil make each other laugh.
• 24:10
  Michele Abounader: it's… editing is difficult to, like, talk about the stuff that we would talk about, because a lot of it would be under, like, a… like, a friend's DA, like an NDA, but, like.
• 24:20
  Michele Abounader: I can tell my editor from this, but, like, I can't say it out loud in front of other people.
• 24:25
  Michele Abounader: So, I don't know that we would have a lot to say. I mean…
• 24:30
  Tad Eggleston: But, that's fair, that's fair.
• 24:32
  Michele Abounader: Heather's cover is wonderful, it was sort of…
• 24:35
  Tad Eggleston: No, I'm looking at…
• 24:35
  Michele Abounader: the idea was pitched to her as, like, a Sleeping Beauty-type homage cover of, like, the classic, like, fairy tale.
• 24:43
  Michele Abounader: you know, girl asleep in a coffin, asleep, you know, like, Sleeping Beauty, and she really…
• 24:52
  Michele Abounader: stepped it up. I feel like every time she does something for me, she figures out, like.
• 24:57
  Michele Abounader: Some cool new way of doing stuff, and…
• 25:01
  Michele Abounader: I kind of give her a good amount of, like, freedom to create cool stuff, and that's when you get, I think, some of the best work from your friends, is when you kind of remove the stress of the expectation.
• 25:15
  Michele Abounader: same thing with Skylar's cover, we kind of, like, gave some guardrails, and we're like.
• 25:20
  Michele Abounader: We know whatever you make is gonna be amazing, here's some vibes, some inspo, and kind of, like, hang out in this realm, and… and…
• 25:29
  Michele Abounader: I mean, incredible work, so… Unlike… really quick Felhound appreciation moment.
• 25:42
  Tad Eggleston: That was what I was gonna ask for next, so you don't have to be…
• 25:44
  Michele Abounader: Yeah. As much as I come up with, like, ridiculous nonsense, like.
• 25:51
  Michele Abounader: Fel is really great at matching my energy of my ridiculous nonsense. Like, if I have… like, the other day, I asked, like, I begged, like, can you just change one panel so that we can, like.
• 26:01
  Michele Abounader: kind of add in one more gag, and instead of being like, no, I already drew it, she was very much like, yes, I can fix that, I can easily fix that, and so we were able to, like, add in more joke.
• 26:12
  Michele Abounader: So, really, it's just been an absolute, like, joy to see this very silly thing, like, come to life.
• 26:22
  Michele Abounader: And I think, like, I mean, I've known Fel for a while, since, like, Commander Rao came out, and it's been really cool, like, watching… I'm gonna talk about you like you're not here. It's been really cool watching Fel, like.
• 26:35
  Michele Abounader: Experiment with different art styles, like, change up…
• 26:39
  Michele Abounader: The way that… that she makes comics based on whatever is inspiring her in the moment, and it's… it's just been really cool to watch, because…
• 26:48
  Michele Abounader: you know, starting at Commander Rao, and how sad both that and And We Love You made us, like, then watching Sir come to life was also just an absolute pleasure, an absolute joy, and…
• 27:02
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 27:03
  Michele Abounader: Yeah, it's such a great book, so if anybody listening doesn't have Sir yet, for some reason, it is available now, anywhere, books and comics are sold. And…
• 27:15
  Tad Eggleston: That's right.
• 27:15
  Michele Abounader: I really recommend it. It's an.
• 27:16
  Tad Eggleston: And that's actually…
• 27:18
  Tad Eggleston: I actually felt we haven't managed to get together for lunch since it came out, but that's actually Emil Farris' copy. So,
• 27:29
  Tad Eggleston: It will be in her hands sometime before the end of the fall.
• 27:34
  Fell: Yeah, well, thanks for… thanks for… for glazing me up. Appreciate it, Michelle and Dad.
• 27:40
  Tad Eggleston: My related question was, like, I asked Fel about what things came from you that made her just, oh wow, this is gonna be awesome to draw. What things came back to you where you looked at it and went.
• 27:56
  Tad Eggleston: Oh my god, that's so much better than I had it in my head.
• 28:00
  Michele Abounader: Everything that she sends out to me. Every single…
• 28:03
  Tad Eggleston: For reading Sir, every issue had, like, oh, wow.
• 28:09
  Michele Abounader: I… every single thing, like… like we were saying earlier, there's so many, like, little jokes, and, like, little things, and…
• 28:18
  Michele Abounader: I think it takes a special kind of artist to be able to make every panel have a little bit of a joke in it.
• 28:25
  Michele Abounader: And…
• 28:26
  Michele Abounader: she's taking Make Everything a bit of a joke very seriously, and… and that's about as serious as I take it, right? Like, we're deeply serious, unserious about this.
• 28:36
  Michele Abounader: This story about this comic, and…
• 28:38
  Michele Abounader: like, there's lots of, like, little faces, little things happening in the background, just, like, tiny little details that are snuck in everywhere. And so I'm doing it, but she's also doing it, so it's kind of like a joint effort in making the most deeply unserious comic possible, to deal with themes of grief. Like, I feel like we really can't escape the fact that this is about
• 29:02
  Michele Abounader: People dying, and it is about grieving people dying, and it is about personal relationships with your family and with your found family, but it's also
• 29:11
  Michele Abounader: incredibly unserious, which I think we get this sort of way of creating from watching shows like Sailor Moon, and…
• 29:22
  Michele Abounader: I don't know, Birdie Wing, and Utena, and, you know, any other anime that is out in the world that's just so silly, but also really serious.
• 29:34
  Fell: Yeah, like, I think this joint project is really just the epitome of, like, think of, like, two people known for creating, like, the saddest things you've ever read, and then just, like, what happens when they try to make something very silly. And it's, like, a really…
• 29:49
  Fell: cool insight to see how that works out brain-wise, because I feel like once people read it, they're gonna go… there's obviously gonna be a lot of, like, what the hell is this?
• 29:59
  Fell: I think that's, like, the charm of it. It's like, yeah, what the hell is this?
• 30:04
  Fell: To be in our home, it just is. Like, I don't know how to explain it, it just is.
• 30:10
  Tad Eggleston: I'm… I'm…
• 30:11
  Tad Eggleston: like, I was already a backer, and every word that you're saying is like, okay, do I need to up my backing level? Do I want more of this right now? What I do want to know is, like.
• 30:23
  Tad Eggleston: You talked about it being the pilot episode. Do you have thoughts and plans already to do more? Because I feel like I already want more.
• 30:34
  Michele Abounader: Not currently, right now, I mean, I'm not saying no, never, but I think…
• 30:39
  Michele Abounader: for now, I mean, Fel, please feel free to correct me. I think for now, it just, like… it's just meant to exist, like, kind of as it is. Like, it is a number one, it is a pilot, but it's…
• 30:50
  Michele Abounader: I think, like, if for some reason the Kickstarter made, like, $100,000, we'd be like, yeah, we could crank out a couple more of these, like, we're doing real good, but…
• 30:58
  Michele Abounader: I mean, it's… it's definitely… it has its audience, and it is exactly who we expected to be the audience of it, and we're not…
• 31:05
  Tad Eggleston: So you're saying I have…
• 31:07
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I've got 6 days. 6 days is probably too short for me to manage to get it that high.
• 31:13
  Fell: Rob.
• 31:14
  Michele Abounader: Yeah, I get it.
• 31:17
  Michele Abounader: Like, we kind of… Doesn't mean I won't try.
• 31:20
  Fell: Yeah. I mean, please, I'm not gonna be upset if it does really well, and then we have to do more, but like…
• 31:26
  Michele Abounader: I think… I just… in my mind, I think, this always…
• 31:30
  Michele Abounader: it kind of exists as a way to, like, create possibility, but not necessarily be a drop-off point for more, because I know I'm so busy, and I know Fel is also, and we have… it took us…
• 31:44
  Michele Abounader: you know, it'll be a year for us to just get this one out. I can't imagine what it would take to get more of this, so…
• 31:51
  Fell: Yeah, this is one of those magical instances where, like, two really busy people just managed to have, like, a small amount of free time at the same time, and we decided to do something with it in the amount of time. Yeah, have free time.
• 32:05
  Tad Eggleston: Well, that leads to my favorite question to ask that often can't be answered. Do either of you have anything coming up that you're allowed to talk about?
• 32:17
  Michele Abounader: Yeah. Yeah, I do. Do you have anything that you're allowed to talk about?
• 32:23
  Fell: I mean, I feel like you go first, you probably have more than me.
• 32:26
  Michele Abounader: I have Funeral Home, obviously, and then I have, launching next week, alongside my friends at Lifeline Comics, Kat and Phil, we're doing a comic anthology tie-in to the YouTube show, The Comic Shop.
• 32:42
  Michele Abounader: Which kickstarted last year, to make… or earlier this year? I don't know. My brain doesn't really.
• 32:50
  Tad Eggleston: So will this be on Kickstarter as well?
• 32:52
  Michele Abounader: It will be, and it's a,
• 32:55
  Michele Abounader: an anthology, we worked with Cheyenne, who wrote, created, and starred in The Comic Shop. It's on YouTube now, it's mid-season, I think there's 3 episodes in it. It is hilarious. So, they're about 15 minutes long, the episodes, so if you haven't watched it yet, definitely check it out, but…
• 33:10
  Michele Abounader: The anthology is dropping next week, we've got some pretty heavy hitters in it.
• 33:15
  Michele Abounader: Stephanie Williams, Cody Ziegler, Joe Illage, Tango, Paris Elaine.
• 33:23
  Tad Eggleston: Joe's another friend of the podcast. TJ Kirkway.
• 33:26
  Michele Abounader: Like, like, so many, like, amazing people. Akira V is writing one, oh, man.
• 33:34
  Michele Abounader: I don't have the…
• 33:35
  Tad Eggleston: Well, as always, I'll say right now, I'll talk to any and anybody about it, but I'll talk to anybody about.
• 33:42
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 33:42
  Tad Eggleston: Agreed.
• 33:44
  Michele Abounader: it's a really cool anthology, and I'm interested to see, like, what this campaign will look like, because it's, you know, a little non-traditional, because it's for…
• 33:54
  Michele Abounader: Like, a show, but the show is, like, crowdfunded, and really indie comics-focused, and…
• 34:01
  Michele Abounader: yeah, it's really cool. So I'm excited, for that to drop, and then after that, there's another anthology that I had to open submissions for. It's about witches, it's a horror anthology,
• 34:15
  Michele Abounader: that'll be dropping in October, again, with Lifeline. It's really, really cool, and… really excited for that.
• 34:26
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 34:27
  Michele Abounader: doing a lot with Lifeline, they kind of have given me, like.
• 34:31
  Michele Abounader: sort of my own imprint over there that we refer to as DeafLine, which was a bit of a joke when I first said it as, like, a haha. It's, like, the opposite of Lifeline. And I'm working on, like, a lot of really cool horror projects. Can't say more about
• 34:47
  Michele Abounader: specifically what we're doing for the end of this year, early next year, but I can say that there's a lot of really, really cool things with some amazing creators, and…
• 34:57
  Michele Abounader: It's not… I'm not saying it's all really gay, but I also am saying that, like, so…
• 35:03
  Michele Abounader: straight people get out of my DMs.
• 35:08
  Michele Abounader: BFL, if you've got anything you can talk about.
• 35:12
  Fell: Yeah, I mean, I'm also in a couple anthologies that haven't been announced yet, that will hopefully be announced soon. I spent most of this year doing covers, to be honest. I did a cover for another
• 35:25
  Fell: a comic running right now called Bound by Words. It's being run on Backerkit, and I got to do a really cool Sailor Moon homage for it.
• 35:33
  Michele Abounader: Go ahead.
• 35:33
  Fell: Yeah, and I did a bunch of other covers, I feel like half of them haven't come out yet, so hopefully one day they will come out.
• 35:44
  Tad Eggleston: That one's very… Very cool.
• 35:49
  Tad Eggleston: Final ques… well, actually, Phil, do you have any last questions before I get to my favorite final question?
• 35:55
  Phil: No. Well, I mean, I guess I did, I… Bell, I saw you, posted a drawing of, I assume.
• 36:04
  Phil: Commander Rao? Does that mean there's… there's gonna be more of her in the future, or was that just, like.
• 36:10
  Phil: For the moment.
• 36:11
  Fell: Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that. Yeah, I probably should say something about that, but it's sort of like a work in progress right now. There will be more Commanderout in the future, just a small little thing, but…
• 36:26
  Fell: Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned that while I completely blackened my brain for a moment.
• 36:30
  Michele Abounader: Thank you, Phil.
• 36:33
  Fell: Yes, yes.
• 36:34
  Tad Eggleston: That's why we bring him.
• 36:35
  Fell: So it's the pasta sauce, they will return briefly.
• 36:39
  Fell: But I can'.
• 36:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, oh no.
• 36:40
  Fell: Don't say anymore. Looking forward to more heartbreak.
• 36:44
  Michele Abounader: Sauce Gary returning. The resurgence.
• 36:47
  Fell: Yeah!
• 36:50
  Tad Eggleston: So, my favorite question to ask.
• 36:55
  Tad Eggleston: And you've both had to answer before.
• 37:02
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably a comic, but we don't really have rules.
• 37:06
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules.
• 37:09
  Tad Eggleston: But something that you love.
• 37:11
  Tad Eggleston: That not enough people around you have experienced, and you really want them to because you want more people to be able to talk to about it.
• 37:23
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, I mean, I guess you can tell me about golf with friends, but you clearly talk about it already.
• 37:29
  Fell: What were you gonna say?
• 37:30
  Michele Abounader: We probably have the same answer. I feel like it's always the Peach comic. It's always this… this manga that we read called My Dear Lass. I feel like I bring it up on, like, every… everything as the one thing I wish more people would read.
• 37:43
  Michele Abounader: I'm sure I also did, yeah, read.
• 37:46
  Tad Eggleston: I feel like I read some of it, too.
• 37:48
  Michele Abounader: read that.
• 37:49
  Fell: Beautiful. Changed my life, like, literally. Like, changed the way I draw, changed the way I approach storytelling. It's a beautiful, beautiful comic. It updates, like, once every three months, but…
• 38:00
  Fell: You know, other than that, it's perfect. It's wonderful.
• 38:04
  Tad Eggleston: My dear lass.
• 38:06
  Michele Abounader: By Tracy Hugh, it's very good. Love it very much.
• 38:10
  Tad Eggleston: Definitely.
• 38:10
  Michele Abounader: Other than that, I'm thinking there's gotta be something else, because I'm sure I always bring that up. I mean, like, read Heathen by Natasha Alzarisi, like, there's also Heathen, which is the other thing I always talk about.
• 38:22
  Phil: That was my first pick, of, the free hoopla picks for,
• 38:27
  Phil: When I was… when I was host, it was heating, so heck yeah.
• 38:30
  Phil: I know, I know you're a bigger fan than anyone, so…
• 38:34
  Michele Abounader: I… we… Fel and I joke that we're the, like, the presidents of the Heathen Fan Club, platinum members of the Heathen Fan Club,
• 38:42
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 38:44
  Fell: VIP card numbers. I do it.
• 38:46
  Michele Abounader: I'm trying to think of something else that's not Heathen or the Peach Comic, because I feel like it's all I ever say, but it just continues to be on my mind.
• 38:54
  Fell: Yeah, I've.
• 38:55
  Michele Abounader: And I started…
• 38:55
  Fell: I read, like, a million-word Chinese novel called Clear and Muddy Loss of Love, and it's fantastic. The only problem is that I can't get anybody into it because it's a million words and nobody has the time for it. But if anyone has time to read a million words of the
• 39:11
  Fell: greatest low-burn, sapphic, historical Chinese love story of all time, then I highly recommend it.
• 39:19
  Fell: It's just like…
• 39:20
  Tad Eggleston: Give me the title again.
• 39:21
  Fell: of pain and slow burn, but it's great.
• 39:24
  Phil: Clear and muddy Waters, is that it?
• 39:26
  Fell: Clear and muddy loss of love.
• 39:28
  Phil: I'm sorry.
• 39:30
  Fell: Yeah, very long name. The Chinese books love their extremely long poetic titles.
• 39:37
  Tad Eggleston: If there's an audiobook version, you will likely have me say, challenge accepted.
• 39:45
  Tad Eggleston: There's not an audiobook version, then we'll have to see.
• 39:49
  Fell: I do not think there is, unfortunately, because the entire English version is fan-translated.
• 39:54
  Phil: Oh…
• 39:55
  Fell: It's one of those.
• 39:56
  Tad Eggleston: Actually.
• 39:57
  Phil: Happy time.
• 39:58
  Tad Eggleston: No…
• 39:58
  Michele Abounader: Read it.
• 40:00
  Tad Eggleston: for long.
• 40:02
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, really? Not for long. It looks like it is being released.
• 40:07
  Tad Eggleston: November 11th.
• 40:10
  Fell: So, there's actually…
• 40:11
  Tad Eggleston: Things like…
• 40:12
  Fell: going on with the English publisher, because my friend is doing the covers for those books in the English edition, and there's…
• 40:18
  Fell: There's been some… a lot of delays, so I feel like something sus is going on.
• 40:23
  Tad Eggleston: So they may… it may not actually be coming out.
• 40:26
  Fell: Yes, which is extremely tragic, because it's so good.
• 40:30
  Phil: And or might be just… Churned through some sort of auto-translator.
• 40:35
  Fell: Yeah, I'm worried, because the book is really good, it's just like…
• 40:39
  Fell: I don't know, accessibility is always.
• 40:42
  Phil: Something like that.
• 40:43
  Tad Eggleston: So, Ted, now you have to learn Chinese first, and then…
• 40:48
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean…
• 40:49
  Michele Abounader: I'm gonna read it.
• 40:50
  Tad Eggleston: Unfortunately, I have, like… so little… But, like, you've sold me.
• 40:59
  Tad Eggleston: it's just a matter of… of whether or not I can… I can ever…
• 41:04
  Tad Eggleston: find a readable copy. If you send me whatever you're reading, I'll start trying to work on it.
• 41:10
  Fell: Amazing, I'll send you the links that I have.
• 41:14
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that works. That works. Because I've already read just enough, plus, like, listening to what you said just enough to go, okay, this does actually look like my sort of thing. And it would not be the only… the first time that I went on a million-word odyssey.
• 41:32
  Tad Eggleston: It's books!
• 41:34
  Tad Eggleston: So, like… Bring it on.
• 41:38
  Tad Eggleston: Bring it on, but then… but then you gotta draw the comic.
• 41:42
  Tad Eggleston: Well, first we have to find somebody to pay you to draw the comic, but you know what I mean.
• 41:46
  Fell: God, I wish.
• 41:51
  Tad Eggleston: So, everybody, please, please, please go back.
• 41:55
  Tad Eggleston: back funeral home.
• 41:57
  Michele Abounader: Keep an eye out.
• 41:59
  Tad Eggleston: for Michelle's stuff at Lifeline Comics. I will actually say, all of Lifeline Comics that I have bumped into, I have liked quite a bit, so, like, go ahead and…
• 42:08
  Tad Eggleston: just support Lifeline Comics, support Felhound, wherever you see them, because… Awesome.
• 42:17
  Tad Eggleston: Sir, it made my top of the year list. I think it topped my top of the year list.
• 42:23
  Tad Eggleston: And, and… I can't tell you how many people I've pitched it to, because…
• 42:28
  Tad Eggleston: It's just… beautiful. And I think it actually also made me go watch that motorcycle jousting movie, and you do it so much better.
• 42:37
  Tad Eggleston: I can't even remember what the motorcycle jousting movie was called that we talked about when Dylan…
• 42:42
  Phil: It's Knight Riders, yeah.
• 42:43
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 42:44
  Fell: I also.
• 42:44
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't seen it. Yes. Which…
• 42:46
  Tad Eggleston: Which was better than I expected it to be, but still not nearly as cool as your motorcycle jousting.
• 42:55
  Fell: Yeah, I, I…
• 42:56
  Tad Eggleston: And the rest of the movie was definitely not nearly as cool as your story.
• 43:00
  Phil: Yeah, I started…
• 43:01
  Tad Eggleston: Given the jousting part.
• 43:02
  Tad Eggleston: better.
• 43:04
  Phil: just… just this afternoon, and, I'm already hooked, so, and I, I love Knight Riders, I definitely was the one who mentioned it to Tad several times, so, it's already better.
• 43:15
  Tad Eggleston: See? I knew it had come from somewhere.
• 43:19
  Fell: I still think you!
• 43:21
  Tad Eggleston: So, but yeah.
• 43:22
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 43:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, so, I mean, if you feel like you need to do more motorcycle jousting, I will be there to buy it. I'm just saying.
• 43:33
  Tad Eggleston: I'll be there to buy whatever.
• 43:34
  Fell: DJ.
• 43:36
  Tad Eggleston: But I didn't know I needed motorcycle jousting until you gave me motorcycle jousting, and then it's like, oh my god, I like motorcycle jousting.
• 43:45
  Michele Abounader: Right, and it's like, now what? Now that I know that this exists, like, what do I… what am I supposed to do? Now that motorcycle jousting exists, like, how do we… how do we move forward?
• 43:55
  Fell: Honestly, I think the same way.
• 43:57
  Tad Eggleston: How do we up the ante for motorcycles?
• 43:59
  Fell: We make, like, $100,000 from it, and then… and then we get more. That's how it works. Publishing.
• 44:05
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 44:05
  Michele Abounader: television.
• 44:06
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 44:07
  Tad Eggleston: Publishing.
• 44:09
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, so I gotta sell it to every library I know.
• 44:14
  Michele Abounader: That's one of the keys when it's a graphic novel. Get the libraries onto it.
• 44:18
  Tad Eggleston: I know someone.
• 44:19
  Michele Abounader: Get the schools and libraries involved. Definitely a really easy time in the U.S. to, like, get gay books into libraries and schools, so it should be a no
• 44:29
  Michele Abounader: Right? It's super simple right now.
• 44:31
  Phil: Well, I was amused. I think… I think about one of… someone joked that, someone thought it was a… it was a straight pairing, and having started to read it, it's like, oh no, that's comical that anyone would think that.
• 44:44
  Fell: A lot of people think Avery is a man on the cover, so I feel like that might just, like, get me under the radar just enough.
• 44:51
  Phil: Yeah, it's gonna…
• 44:52
  Tad Eggleston: And that's my point.
• 44:54
  Phil: parent, the.
• 44:54
  Tad Eggleston: is I'll very carefully sell it to everybody, strictly based on the gratuitous violence.
• 45:00
  Michele Abounader: Yes.
• 45:00
  Tad Eggleston: that isn't even that gratuitous. But if I pitch it as gratuitous…
• 45:06
  Fell: I think…
• 45:07
  Michele Abounader: I don't know…
• 45:07
  Tad Eggleston: No, there's…
• 45:08
  Michele Abounader: like… Did we talk about how gay funeral home is? Have we even talked about it?
• 45:13
  Fell: I don't think enough.
• 45:14
  Michele Abounader: I don't know what…
• 45:15
  Fell: No, but you can't. I mean, it does…
• 45:17
  Michele Abounader: Very slow.
• 45:18
  Tad Eggleston: The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
• 45:22
  Tad Eggleston: tagline here is a story about chosen family, processing grief, and sapphic assassins. It's not burying your gays if your gays are burying everyone.
• 45:33
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 45:35
  Michele Abounader: Yes.
• 45:36
  Tad Eggleston: You can talk about how gay it is, I just… it hadn't even occurred to me. Everyone is gay. I just love the stories you tell.
• 45:42
  Michele Abounader: Everyone is gay, all of the women… Everyone is gay. The main characters are all very much lesbians, they're all really gay, and you can tell that by…
• 45:51
  Tad Eggleston: Including Greg.
• 45:51
  Michele Abounader: They really are, I think Gramps… Gramps is…
• 45:55
  Michele Abounader: There's nothing romantic that happens with Gramps. He just spends a lot of time with Charlie, his pet rackapossum, who is, by the.
• 46:05
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I do realize…
• 46:07
  Michele Abounader: Which is important.
• 46:10
  Tad Eggleston: Right, I did finally actually read words, and it says, token, sweet old man, so that would be my tip, that he's not another lesbian.
• 46:19
  Michele Abounader: he's just a token man. Like, we needed to have one man that doesn't die, so we made… we put an old man in it.
• 46:26
  Fell: So people know we're really about that. One man that doesn't die, I mean…
• 46:29
  Michele Abounader: Yeah.
• 46:30
  Tad Eggleston: For diversity. I thought the one man that you mourned for would be Gramps.
• 46:35
  Michele Abounader: He doesn't… why would he die? Why are you trying to kill us?
• 46:38
  Fell: comfort.
• 46:38
  Michele Abounader: character.
• 46:39
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know.
• 46:39
  Michele Abounader: Good old man.
• 46:40
  Tad Eggleston: Because… because you were talking… you were talking about it being about grief, so I… I thought that there was somebody to grieve.
• 46:46
  Phil: You can't make the rack of possum sad.
• 46:49
  Michele Abounader: No, okay, Charlie's sad.
• 46:51
  Phil: John Wick?
• 46:52
  Tad Eggleston: That would be rude.
• 46:54
  Tad Eggleston: No, there's no killing.
• 46:55
  Michele Abounader: It does say it's…
• 46:57
  Tad Eggleston: John Wick.
• 46:58
  Tad Eggleston: Or, no, no, it doesn't say it's John Wick. Somebody said it was John Wick.
• 47:02
  Michele Abounader: Zoe, sad.
• 47:03
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yes. Zoe Tunnell said, it's like if someone stuck Sailor Moon and John Wick in the fly machine.
• 47:12
  Tad Eggleston: Mmm.
• 47:13
  Tad Eggleston: Natasha Alterishi, of heathen fame, said, this is great, no apologies, mayhem and gay camaraderie.
• 47:23
  Tad Eggleston: And, Ry Hickman gave you Get Ready to Root for the Sound Effects, my personal favorite character. So, as somebody who adores sound effects, I am now very much looking forward to the sound effects. Look. Did you do the sound effects, or was that the…
• 47:38
  Fell: Shout out Jodi Troutman. Shout out Jody Troutman.
• 47:42
  Tad Eggleston: Jody Troutman did the sound effects?
• 47:44
  Michele Abounader: Jody is.
• 47:45
  Tad Eggleston: Fantastic.
• 47:46
  Michele Abounader: She is my favorite letterer, and… I feel like I try.
• 47:50
  Tad Eggleston: She does great work.
• 47:51
  Michele Abounader: Every day to everyone, because she is incredible, and…
• 47:55
  Tad Eggleston: I love so many letters that I have trouble picking a favorite now.
• 47:59
  Tad Eggleston: But I love Jody.
• 48:00
  Michele Abounader: We just… we need to talk more about letters in comics, I think, and how… We do.
• 48:06
  Michele Abounader: we… we need it, and I think in Funeral Home especially, a lot of the… the jokes, a lot of the gags are buried in the sound effects, are, you know.
• 48:17
  Michele Abounader: in… are injected by Jodi into the story. She is the perfect rainbow sprinkles to this little gay cupcake that we have made, and I could not be more excited to see, like, what else she does with this, because she's already really just exceeded all of my expectations.
• 48:34
  Fell: Like, we love her work so much, we turned it into stickers. That's how much we love her work. Yeah.
• 48:39
  Phil: Awesome.
• 48:40
  Tad Eggleston: I did see that.
• 48:41
  Tad Eggleston: And that was when I was going, oh, I need to up my… my,
• 48:47
  Tad Eggleston: Because I don't think I ordered the stickers yet.
• 48:51
  Michele Abounader: I definitely recommend…
• 48:52
  Michele Abounader: getting the stickers and getting all of the covers. It's difficult to pick a cover, because Fel's cover is so good.
• 48:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, it is very, very dangerous.
• 49:00
  Michele Abounader: In and of itself.
• 49:02
  Fell: I deserve, like, extra points for being the only person that can work in color, so…
• 49:07
  Michele Abounader: Yeah, that's true.
• 49:08
  Tad Eggleston: The book itself is…
• 49:09
  Michele Abounader: It's not in full color.
• 49:12
  Tad Eggleston: Right. I, I have, I have, I have two questions, regarding covers. D-do you…
• 49:21
  Tad Eggleston: Do you have even, like, the pictures of the cover inside the book, or is your only way to get the cover
• 49:28
  Tad Eggleston: by having the different covers. And second, since, like, the Skyler has a print available, though it's a big and expensive print, is there any chance that you would consider adding smaller prints?
• 49:41
  Tad Eggleston: Because I would buy prints of all the covers, but buying the book three times is hard, because then I'd want to give two of them away, and I wouldn't have all the covers anymore.
• 49:52
  Tad Eggleston: Mmm…
• 49:53
  Michele Abounader: Like, I don't have the book map pulled up, but I feel like we do plan on putting…
• 49:59
  Michele Abounader: the covers in the back on one of the… I'm not sure.
• 50:02
  Fell: I think we can.
• 50:03
  Michele Abounader: We're gonna try, if printing will allow, when we are doing.
• 50:07
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, it's not a, I'm canceling my order. It's a…
• 50:14
  Michele Abounader: Sure.
• 50:15
  Tad Eggleston: I'm a teacher. I make a little bit more money than a comic artist, but not a lot. Sure. And I try to give…
• 50:24
  Michele Abounader: A lot of them.
• 50:25
  Tad Eggleston: comic artists.
• 50:27
  Michele Abounader: In terms of doing other prints, we really just wanted to keep this campaign as simple as possible, and the more things that you do as an add-on, there's just more stuff to do.
• 50:35
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 50:35
  Michele Abounader: Just the two of.
• 50:36
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 50:36
  Michele Abounader: We're keeping it as simple as possible.
• 50:40
  Michele Abounader: I think we're gonna have a cover gallery, but I don't believe…
• 50:44
  Michele Abounader: Please don't hold me to that. I know they'll be in the PDF.
• 50:48
  Tad Eggleston: I'll probably forget by the time I get the book.
• 50:51
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, if it'll be in the PDF, I'm getting that too, so, you know…
• 50:54
  Michele Abounader: So, you'll… yeah.
• 50:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, okay.
• 50:55
  Michele Abounader: So, it'll be there.
• 50:57
  Michele Abounader: Cause… cause it was really hard for me.
• 51:00
  Tad Eggleston: Because… I'm sorry? Phil, your cover's just cool. It had to be felt. So cool.
• 51:06
  Tad Eggleston: But… but then I saw Heather's cover, and I'm like, that's really cool, but it still has to be…
• 51:12
  Fell: They're all really beautiful, I mean, not.
• 51:14
  Tad Eggleston: And Skylar's is also very cool, but it's 5 extra dollars, so it was easier to cut hers off.
• 51:22
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm just being honest here, I'm not trying to, like, denigrate it.
• 51:28
  Michele Abounader: look, this is Kickstarter Comics Economic.
• 51:31
  Tad Eggleston: Though the $55…
• 51:32
  Michele Abounader: I don't have time.
• 51:33
  Tad Eggleston: Funeral package?
• 51:37
  Tad Eggleston: The $55 Super Funeral Package? Very, very tempting.
• 51:42
  Michele Abounader: Lots of things.
• 51:44
  Tad Eggleston: Very tempting.
• 51:47
  Tad Eggleston: So… Nino.
• 51:51
  Tad Eggleston: Michelle Fell, it's always a pleasure to have you. I hope you both come back.
• 51:57
  Tad Eggleston: Many, many, many times in the future. Welcome back anytime to plug anything, or just to talk comics, because it's fun, and I hope you're all well.
• 52:07
  Tad Eggleston: And, we will see you.
• 52:11
  Michele Abounader: After this painting. Yeah, thanks for having us.
• 52:13
  Fell: thicker…
• 52:22
  Tad Eggleston: now that we're not recording.