Latest / Honey Badger Radio / ComicsGate, Isom, and the Importance of Stories With Eric July of the Rippaverse | Fireside Chat 224

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ComicsGate, Isom, and the Importance of Stories With Eric July of the Rippaverse | Fireside Chat 224 · Honey Badger Radio

0:00
Hello, Hello, Hello everybody. Welcome to Honey Badger Radio. My name
0:03
is Brian and this is the fireside Chat where we bring on really interesting guests
0:09
that you know, whether they are intentionally involved in the sort of like men's
0:13
issues conversation or not, I think are important too for you guys to know
0:18
about. So today I have a very exciting guest, Eric July. And
0:24
Eric is well he's kind of a renaissance man, right, so he does
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he does music, he does like um different like metal and rap, and
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you do political commentary and you do now you're going into comic books and animation
0:40
and it's all very exciting stuff. So welcome to the show. Eric.
0:44
First off, welcome. I appreciate you having me man, and thanks for
0:47
the kind words. Yeah, yeah, no, I think the stuff is
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amazing and I'm glad to see you know, people are just you know,
0:55
doing what you're doing, like like they're some have come before and many hope
1:00
fully will come after. So um, so I want to ask you.
1:03
We're definitely gonna talk about the comic book a little bit, but before we
1:06
get into it, I wanted to know a little bit about, like,
1:10
uh, why you have your finger in so many different you know, sort
1:14
of soups like what is it? Is it? What is it? It's
1:18
just like your the nature of your personality, like tell us a little bit
1:19
about that. Well, Um, I think it's like I grew up and
1:26
I kind of was into a little bit of everything, and I think that
1:30
God just blessed me with these different talents. But more so, I need
1:34
to be creating, right, um. And that's what really the last let's
1:38
say decade and some change had been. It was me trying different things out
1:42
that I was interested in, and really I was only seeing the most success
1:47
with things that I did that were creative, Like that were in the creative
1:51
space. It's very fulfilling to do it. Um. So you know with
1:55
the following that I built up over the years, YouTube, what had you
2:00
on the internet? You know, it was really just me just being me.
2:04
So whether it was like metal stuff or I want to do vocal covers,
2:07
I woke up. I did that. If I wanted to speak about
2:09
a social topic or a political topic, I could do that, or comic
2:13
books, I could do that. But nonetheless it for sure the important thing
2:19
here is that I create. And I think that's why you got like the
2:23
band and re reverse right now? Why those among all else, those have
2:27
been the most successful ventures that I've ever been I've ever been a part of.
2:30
And like I said, it's more about fulfilling. I was blessed with
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these talents. I better use them, and it feels good to do it.
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Like I'm not doing anything that I don't like to do right away.
2:39
Everything that I do I thoroughly enjoy doing. And it's, like I say,
2:43
fulfilling to get up, wake up and be able to do whatever it
2:46
is you want and there's going to be an audience for it. So it
2:50
was a lot of it was I don't want to say by chance, because
2:53
yeah, I was involved in so many different things being young and whatever worked
2:59
worked for me. But also it's just when you combine that with the work
3:04
ethic and effect that again, I feel like I was placed here on this
3:07
earth to create here we are. So that's why I'm kind of involved in
3:10
just everything, and out of curiosity. Does your like worldview? You know,
3:17
you're an ant cap and I'm friends with an caps. I think it
3:21
is a it is like a good sort of default starting place, you know,
3:25
for like how you sort of organize your life, Um, does that
3:30
inform your creativity? Like? Like, And what I mean by that is
3:34
it just to be clear because you know, one of the things that people
3:37
talk about in the sort of like mainstream culture, our mainstream popular culture,
3:43
is that they're bothered by the messaging, right like there's this this overt over
3:47
you know, um beating you over the head with like a sermon about whatever
3:53
the cause is at the time. And I think that, Um, I
3:58
think that our views and our values do influence our work, right, So
4:02
that's why I'm asking, So I'm not I'm not. You know, it's
4:04
not really about whether or not you're being preachy, because I think you can.
4:09
You don't have to do that. But it's more about, like,
4:12
you know what is like, does does your value system influence your work?
4:15
Well? Well, absolutely? And I would say at most you mentioned the
4:19
aircap stuff. I think from the economics of it all, you know what
4:23
I mean? Like, you know, I look at the riper verse and
4:26
why that became a thing that was well us seeing the problems that plague the
4:30
industry and wanting to do something about it and understanding that it's not gonna be
4:33
handed to us. It's not gonna be anything that we kind of stumble across.
4:36
It's gonna be a lot of work to be done. And because I
4:40
recognize I understand markets right now, I understand economics, this is one of
4:44
those things where it was I don't want to say easy, but I'm going
4:47
to and people like myself or going to trend towards being part of those solutions
4:51
that creating in various different industries as opposed to like begging to be accepted or
5:00
hoping that you know, the shot call has changed their view and all that.
5:03
So I think for sure it influenced if it influences me, just in
5:09
how I act, you know, as as a certain individual, I think
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at all, And to your point, like it's gonna show itself in various
5:15
different ways, and I think from a businessman's perspective would probably be very high
5:20
up on the list of how that kind of people can are able to pick
5:24
that up, not necessarily from the messaging like the individual material, but certainly
5:29
how things are set up and independence and like you know, our business being
5:32
we are own distributor, right, Reverends are own distributor, so you know,
5:35
we want to keep so much in the house. That's very well about
5:39
decentralization, which again, you know, I'm a cat, that's one of
5:41
the things that we lead with as a as a strategy. So yeah,
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I would for sure say that in those different aspects, it's certainly you can
5:49
see it show up. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's something else
5:54
to it too, because I you know, I stopped consuming mainstream media a
6:00
long time ago. It just wasn't you know, it wasn't doing it for
6:03
me. It was really predictable. I don't know if you've noticed that.
6:06
But when when they make an announcement about something, I'm like, Okay,
6:10
it's gonna have this, this, and this, and it does like every
6:13
time. So it's like I don't need to watch it because I already you
6:15
know. But what I think it's not just the philosophy about how you sort
6:20
of present the product, because that's what you know. A true capitalist is
6:24
going to respond to the market, not try to create a market, you
6:28
know, not say well you have to drink blood light or you have to
6:31
shop at Target. It's like, well, or you know, we'll call
6:34
you a bigot. It's like, well, we're gonna try to figure out
6:38
what it is the market wants and then respond to it, right. So
6:40
in your case, you know, everybody was fed up with the state of
6:45
comics, and fortunately comics has a pretty low, let's say, costs to
6:49
entry, right, Like, like people are really upset about what's going with
6:54
video games. But the problem with video games as an industry is this really
6:57
expensive the break unless you're gonna start off really really indie and you know,
7:00
you really you need a lot of high skiel people and then you're hoping that
7:02
you'll get exposure and Steam is good for that. But um, as far
7:06
as it's cultural impact, it's it doesn't have the same entry like um potential
7:13
that comics does. And it's one of the reasons why I was, you
7:16
know, interested in getting involved in comics as well. And so um that
7:23
brings me to another thought, and it's about stories. So your hand cap
7:27
values are reflected obviously in this. I guess your you value things like liberty
7:32
and uh and and you know the ability to what I call choose the good
7:38
right, because like what what a lot of wokeyes will do is they'll say,
7:43
you have to give up all of your power to the state or give
7:46
us your tax money so that we can do good on your behalf. But
7:49
the problem with that is is that people aren't choosing it because it's being forced
7:54
on them. Right, So, so there's nothing moral about that, even
7:57
if you think, you know, you're saving the planet or whatever it is
8:00
that the current crisis might be. Um. So, then what I was
8:03
wondering about is, uh, where do you get your like, how does
8:09
your sort of like morals come out in your storytelling? And where do you
8:13
get those problems? I mean, I think that if you look at like
8:16
general universal truths, I think that's where it would be the most presence at
8:22
present. And I think that a lot of those truths, even people that
8:24
we would be the wokees or people whatever side or the political aisle, they
8:28
generally understand those as concepts. They might not extend them to the logical conclusion.
8:35
But you know, as far as what it's good, what is evil,
8:37
what is just, what is righteous, there's a general understanding about what
8:41
that what that is. I think where people start to differentiate is that they
8:46
think that and to your point, that it's on them to like try to
8:50
you know, enforce that that that viewpoint on every individual in terms of one
8:56
like cohesive sort of sort of action. So you don't don't have the ability
9:01
to to be an individual per se. So I think that as far as
9:05
the universal truths, those are very liberty liberty minded when you look at what
9:09
it's just what it's good, what is what is right? And I think
9:11
those are where where uh in the storytelling, where you you're you're gonna see
9:16
it. It's gonna be less about me. I'm not making like and capped
9:20
the comic right, that's not right? Yeah right? Yeah, So so
9:24
you know that's not necessarily what it is and I'm what it is and I'm
9:26
doing. But it will show itself when you see that uh, faced with
9:31
whatever sort of adversity a character is trying to uh do good right, And
9:37
and I think that's where where it blends into and why I believe that our
9:41
element of storytelling and comic books are so it's such a digestible thing because even
9:46
people, whether they know it or not, um, they understand the difference
9:50
between generally what what what is right and what is what is wrong. Um.
9:54
So that's kind of I would believe where where it shows and are a
10:00
roach to storyteller. We don't necessarily make, we don't make like Mary Sus
10:03
I think people that read the first I saw on book understand that he's a
10:07
very flawed character and there's a level of adversity and perseverance that's gonna have to
10:11
obviously take place, and in this whole first arc watching him go through that,
10:18
And I think that's very important because I mean, any regular individual,
10:22
no matter where it is you're from, you're gonna be faced with those types
10:24
of decisions. And what's gonna make you a good person or versus a bad
10:28
one is obviously gonna be how you take that or what's thrown at you and
10:33
what do you make of that? And I think that that's type of approach
10:35
that we have. M And so you did you grow up with comic books?
10:41
Yes, so I did too. So when you know, I'm gonna
10:43
be fifty in a couple of months, and uh, I remember when I
10:48
was I was like eight nine years old. My mother she, you know,
10:52
we were really poor. She would go to this drug store because she
10:56
worked as a sort of like a nurses assistant, and they had at these
10:58
drugs or as they had these I don't know if you've ever seen them,
11:01
but that you get like ten comic books, right, and they're in a
11:03
plastic bag with the covers torn off because like nobody bought them and they were
11:07
random issues, right, And she would give them to me and I would
11:09
just read through them, and even though I would get like have no context,
11:13
I wouldn't know what happened before, and I probably never find out what
11:16
happened after I would. I was just so like sucked into it. And
11:20
I think that what you're right about the fact that when it comes to something
11:26
that has a moral arc like the and the morality is is I'm not saying
11:31
it has to be black and white, but it should be like somewhat clear
11:35
cut. So, for example, I think there's a reason why some of
11:39
the classics classic literature, like uh Tolkien's work is it's it's you know,
11:46
it lasts so long, it's transcendent, right, because the themes in it
11:50
are universal. They they're just it's not that the the events actually happened.
11:56
It's that the events are true, if that makes sense, you know what
11:58
I mean. And that's why they stick with people. And I don't think
12:03
it's really hard to do that. But we are at a place now in
12:07
our popular culture where everything is about everything being shades of gray, and morality
12:11
isn't like clear cut, and you know there there are there are characters who
12:16
are clearly villains if you look at it objectively, but you can tell that
12:20
the storytellers are trying to tell you that it's justifiable, right, Like I
12:26
give you an example. So I did not like Black Panther the movie.
12:30
And I love the character though, like I was a huge fan of the
12:33
character, right, love the character, but I thought the movie was bad.
12:37
And there's a lot of reasons for it. But one of the things
12:39
that really upset me was that the um I don't know if it was Ryan
12:43
Coogler or some of the writers that he had or whatever, but they were
12:46
really trying to make the Killmonger character the hero, like like, you know,
12:52
to somehow he was wronged and that like whatever he wanted to do should
12:56
have happened, and and they're and they're That thinking did not work with me.
13:01
And I think that most people have some kind of instinct that it's like
13:03
wait a minute, like the Thanos thing. I don't know if you like
13:05
know, but you know, at that time, I was still watching those
13:09
movies. I think I stopped after Endgame because I was upset with how it
13:11
ended. But like the Thanos thing, there was a lot of people saying,
13:15
oh, yeah, he's got he's kind of got a point. I'm
13:16
like, oh, killing half of all life in the universe. I mean,
13:20
you know, but they but they would they were trying to sell this
13:22
right, and sometimes, like some they would hide behind this like idea of
13:26
well, we want the villains to not be one dimensional, so we're gonna
13:31
but it's like no, but like this is still objectively evil, Like it's
13:35
it's cle you know, it's pretty clear cut. So um. I where
13:39
I started to like really resonate with this sort of moral frame was from old
13:45
comic books because I think in you know, I kind of like started to
13:48
tune out in the nineties because some of that like gray morality was starting to
13:52
creep in back then. But like before that, man, I was like,
13:56
I love Superman and and I know a lot of people don't, but
14:00
I think that like characters like that are very difficult to do because you know,
14:03
they're all powerful, but they have like a very very strict morality.
14:09
Captain America's like that, And then you can have fun with characters like the
14:13
X Men, which was one of my favorite books growing up, right,
14:16
So that's kind of what I was wondering about. It are these like does
14:22
is that one of the reasons why you were a fan of comics? Was
14:24
it like that kind of like the moral frame of the time. I don't
14:26
know, like how old you are what you were reading that for sure?
14:30
I mean that I think what is I've been burnt out on this idea of
14:35
that gray area because it's different from it's not even an antihero because even antihero
14:41
he may he's just a cut throat he punisher. Yeah, like yeah,
14:43
it's still like, hey, I'm I'm doing something that is punishing people for
14:48
doing evil things. So there's no gray area there at all. Really,
14:52
you know, he's just he will go the line across the line that other
14:56
characters U won't. That's really the main difference. But what's bad. It's
15:01
still bad. But yeah, like to kill market things, I think a
15:03
primary example of where these people are at and what they do. And I
15:07
think this is where, you know, funny with this whole conversation obviously pops
15:11
off with how does this how does your moral sort of framework or lack there
15:16
of influential writing? And I think that's that's what's happened with that type of
15:20
character being dressed up? Because people want to feel like they can justify bad
15:24
behavior, right, So what better way to do that than to create some
15:28
other character and you create all these gray areas like, yeah, what he's
15:31
doing is screwed up. And often you'll see the same type of people that
15:35
would herald that also in real life will say, well, that's just unjustified,
15:41
like it's an objectively bad thing. They will be like, well,
15:45
it's permissible because of X, Y and Z. Right, So I think
15:48
that's where where for those guys into your point, you know, that's that's
15:52
kind of where the reperverse kind of comes from. It's like, there are
15:56
several the multitude of issues that plague the kind of a book industry, and
16:00
I just wanted to be a part of that solution. But I absolutely am
16:03
am annoyed by the idea. Still think that there's level of complexity and and
16:08
um fun that certainly you can have weaved into the into the storytelling, but
16:12
yeah, that whole gray area um type of character to try to justify them,
16:19
like after they've done something like atrocious rich market primary example, after they've
16:26
done something that is just legitimately bad. Yeah that's kind of old. Yeah
16:30
yeah, Like, um, you know, this is why I think stories
16:36
are so important. So I think that that we that are not I guess
16:41
you could say part of the Hollywood Club or the or the mainstream like popular
16:48
culture of the stuff that like what Netflix does and and all these other big,
16:52
giant, multi million dollars studios. They are they see the landscape storytelling
17:00
for what it is, the importance of it, how much influence it can
17:03
have, and they're they're using that to sort of engineer people, right,
17:07
I mean, it's it's you could say it's propaganda too. I mean,
17:11
but we have that everywhere. It's in our media, as in our schools.
17:15
You know, it's it's everywhere. We're being bombarded with it. And
17:18
the the it starts with the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of
17:21
the difference, right, And um, the thing about comic books was that
17:26
they were inexpensive enough, and they were attractive to young people, and so
17:29
they pick up an issue of Spider Man and they know, like, you
17:32
know, like what he's about and what his enemies are about, and like
17:36
that you know that the Spider Man is he was I remember around the time
17:40
that. It was like after the Toby Maguire movies came out, they did
17:44
like a pole or something about who everybody's most favorite superhero was, and it
17:48
was always spider Man. Spider Man came out number one for many years.
17:52
And it's because he is He is like a a I would say, an
17:56
ideal reflection of the average comic book reader. Right, It's like a young
18:00
man, you know, maybe feels a little like like an outcast, but
18:06
wants to do great things. They want to go on the adventure. And
18:08
this is why generally men are attracted to comics, not to say that women
18:14
won't read them, but the structure of the hero's journey is a male journey
18:21
in general, and women would like they'd like to go on the ride too.
18:25
But we're living in a time now where everything is being inverted. Because
18:30
when you're trying to do something new, like you could, I could think
18:33
of like older books that did do something new but didn't really straight too far
18:37
away from the formula, like the Ninja Turtles comics. I read the old
18:41
black and white you know that were like the hardcore ones, you know that
18:45
were violent, but they were still you know, it was still a good
18:49
story. It's still like sort of you had your heroes and you had your
18:52
villains, right, and there was pretty clear cut. But like today people
18:59
are seeing the point and that they're they're because they're getting hung up on this
19:04
kind of narcissistic identity thing right where they have to see themselves in something.
19:11
And I think that it's something that's being pushed on us too. I think
19:14
generally people don't need that, but they think they do because they're being told
19:18
that they do. Do you know what I mean? Trade? That's that's
19:19
that's one hundred percent of learn trade. I brought this point up a million
19:22
times, like with the concept of like representation and like when people, you
19:27
know, that's the justification for really everything, every change that they do to
19:32
to certain forms of media, it's always in the name of inclusivity and representation.
19:36
And it's such a it is narcissism, uh certainly, but it's one
19:40
of those things where it forces that individual if they are going to you know,
19:47
adapt that to be as shallow as they possibly can, where nothing's really
19:51
interesting about them outside of h I guess let me say this, the most
19:55
interesting thing to them is about them is some super largely super official in the
20:00
grand scheme of thing, and largely something that you did control, like me
20:03
being black, you know what I mean, Like I didn't really just kind
20:06
of came out this way, right, Yeah, I didn't necessarily earn it,
20:08
right, It was like one of those things that happened. And you
20:11
know, there are various characters that doesn't matter what racial makeup. Obviously bring
20:17
them Spider Man. I mean, all the youngsters from multitude of different ethnic
20:21
backgrounds love have loved that, loved that character despite him maybe being a white
20:26
a white character, and that's never been been a sort of issue. But
20:29
it what they've done unfortunately. And anybody that certainly has had children, whether
20:34
it be you've had them directly, you've got nieces and nephews, whatever it
20:37
is, you know that youngsters don't really think like that, even in like
20:42
how they play with each other. That's not like anything that they care anything
20:47
about. So when they start hyper emphasizing like race and other aspects of it,
20:52
that's a learned treat. That's something that they picked up from someone from
20:56
someone else. Maybe it's the schooling, maybe it is directly reflect the of
21:00
their parents. But that's not anything that's not something that's like naturally um occurring
21:04
by by any means. And right, if you just see little kids,
21:08
you go, they're playground plan doing the thing. They do not care about
21:11
that type of stuff, and it goes to show how much of a learning
21:15
trade it is. And even there's pockets of the of the world that may
21:18
have different like work, racial backgrounds, where they don't have they're not like
21:22
at this constant strife like it feels like we are here in America because that's
21:26
not anything that's really that's not part of their real soab culture to be that
21:30
divisive. So it a hundred percent is a learning trade. Absolutely absolutely.
21:34
I think that it's actually it's pushed on young people because they are more prone
21:40
to be like, oh, I guess I am supposed to feel different about
21:41
this this you know, this white kid or whatever, because he's white,
21:45
right, and so it is absolutely pushed on him. And and it's you
21:48
know, it's funny you bring up the Peter Parker thing, because you know,
21:52
I was like, when I started hearing about this, it actually really
21:55
upset me because I loved Spider Man sid was little, and I'm like,
21:57
are you telling me that I'm not supposed to like him because he's not Puerto
22:00
Rican and then you know, like that's ridiculous, and so it's it's like,
22:03
oh, did you think that all this time that this character that's sold
22:07
like you know, millions, if not billions and billions of comics okay,
22:14
was only being read by straight white men from queens that were you know,
22:18
like that doesn't make sense, Like it's so stupid. Right, So like
22:22
I got so, you know another I don't know if you're because you're into
22:25
the gaming thing, and maybe we could talk about that a little bit too,
22:27
because I'm a huge gamer. I love the Dark Soul series, right,
22:33
but it reminds me of something else. So one of the hobbies I
22:36
got into as a high schooler was Dungeon Dragons, so tabletop gaming, right,
22:41
and at the time it was like a fringe thing, and it was
22:45
actually my white friend in my high school. So I went to high school
22:48
in Chicago by Cabrini Green, which at the time was like the roughest project
22:52
in the whole city. I came from the hood, I came from poverty,
22:56
right, And there was this white kid. He didn't live there because
23:00
you know, that wouldn't have worked out for him. But but he went
23:03
to the school there and he introduced me to D and D and we played
23:06
the crap out of that and then, like you know, recently, I
23:08
saw that Dani was becoming really popular and it was going mainstream, and I
23:11
was like, oh, this is gonna go mainstream and then people are gonna
23:15
start policing it and all that, and sure enough it happened. They were
23:18
like, oh, well, you know, it's historically been only played by
23:21
straight white men. And I'm like, you guys are just the worst people,
23:23
like you're you are They are so bad because I think that they're trying
23:29
to create a kind of and this is in every industry, right, every
23:33
part of our culture. They're trying to create unrest and they're trying to create
23:37
division. It's it's not it's not an accident, okay, because if they
23:40
get what they want, like if we and they have, right, they
23:44
just look for more things. And what they ultimately seem to be doing is
23:48
honestly and this is why this is a men's channel. They're taking away all
23:51
the things that men like, all of the things that boys grow up with,
23:55
all of the things that bring men together, right like like the hobbies
23:59
like the culture of comics, the culture of anime, the culture of board
24:03
games and table talk games and video games. These are all hobbies that men
24:06
have, and yeah they are. I mean again, girls do it too,
24:11
but it's mainly it's driven by men. It's driven by men that buy
24:14
into it. And I think that that is completely on purpose. So and
24:19
what I've noticed, and let me know if you think that I'm getting close
24:22
to the money on this, is that when they change something, the only
24:27
thing they can do so they can't actually make small changes. They have to
24:32
completely invert everything. So you know, they change like you know, they
24:37
make the Indiana Jones, right, they take Indiana Jones and they make him
24:41
like a loser, divorce you know, has been all that, and then
24:45
they bring in this woman that's you know, as smart, smarter than he
24:48
is, better than he is, and everything. And they've done this with
24:51
I don't know everything, basically, they did with Star Wars, they did
24:53
it with you know, the Marvel movies. They've done it across the board
24:57
and nobody responds, well, I mean, it sells some tickets for again,
25:02
insecure narcissists, but in general, they don't they don't make money because
25:06
people know instinctively something is wrong with this, right. And and by the
25:11
way, the race thing, this is also interesting because I've said this before.
25:15
They will promote black heroes that are male until it's time to change them
25:19
into women too, and they will do that. They will because yeah,
25:25
they will, they will, or they'll just get eliminate them. Look at
25:27
I can give you a couple of examples I heard because I haven't watched it,
25:30
but my friend Dave Cullen, he has a channel called the Dave Culin
25:33
Show on YouTube, and I've known him for a number of years, and
25:37
he did a video about this secret invasion thing. Now, Nick Fury was
25:41
a favorite character of many people, right, and they for a while he
25:47
was the guy that kind of had the plan and all that. But in
25:49
this show, because he's the main character, he's just a beta like they
25:53
like everybody talks about him or whatever they did with Patrick Stewart on Star Trek,
25:57
they did it with m was another uh um oh the Black Panther even
26:03
and and this is like not the I know that Chadwick Boseman passed away rest
26:07
in peace, but even in his own movie, all the women were dominating
26:11
him. Like you know he was. I always say that his best appearance
26:15
was in Civil War. That was like the baddest black panther. I was
26:18
excited, you know for that. But like they dropped the ball after that.
26:22
So I don't know if you noticed that inversion, but there's like there
26:25
is like a serious inversion going. I mean, I think they there their
26:30
own a mission for sure to bastardize definitely things that have existed and have been
26:36
around, um, that are recognizable. Um. So I don't think it's
26:41
an accident by any means, because they've attempted to even with quote unquote new
26:48
characters, and because nobody will give it to time of day because they see
26:51
it from a mile away. What goofy stuff you're trying to do. They've
26:53
recognized, or they recognized very early on, that is not something that's conducible.
26:59
So in turn they did will say, okay, what if we just
27:03
hijack things that are already a thing, and at minimum you're going to get
27:07
you're gonna turn some heads, right, and they're gonna at least give you
27:11
the time of day because well, it's a character that you grew up loving
27:14
rights that you you've it's recognizable. So whether it has that brand, Star
27:19
Wars or Marvel or DC or you mentioned what's happening with any Indiana Jones and
27:25
what's going on from James Bond doctor who. Yeah, it just keeps going
27:30
and they go after those because that's the only place that they'll get the time
27:34
of day to tell their little goofy goofy stories. Anyway, and I do
27:38
think there is a bit of hatred, I guess absolutely, because they look
27:45
at these characters and they're like, well they know that. They definitely these
27:48
cocky writers know they would never be able to create something that's comparable. Never
27:52
they don't have that, they don't have the the no, they have the
27:56
vision, they can't do it. I think that aggravates them. That aggravation,
28:00
so they probably I think they get off it was like what taiko wait
28:03
when they oh yeah, yeah, like he told me, like yeah,
28:07
I'll ruin your lord. But yeah, you know yeah, I think there's
28:11
a bit of narcissism and just all around to resent. There's resentments. Yeah,
28:18
yes, that's the perfect term um for like the the audience. And
28:23
like I said, I don't think that's an accident by anything, No,
28:26
not at all. It's it's basically like canaan abel um, you know.
28:30
And and they're they're angry with the people who came before them because they essentially
28:36
gave a worthy sacrifice to the culture and their storytelling. The best example is
28:41
Tolkien and and what did what you know Amazon, They were like, well,
28:45
we have billions of dollars, we're just gonna make something better and they
28:48
gave us rings of power and nobody's watching, right, um, because it's
28:52
they they're missing the point. And yes, you're right. They're absolutely really
28:56
resentful and jealous of the fact that people will not like go of what came
29:00
before. However, there is a contingent of people. I like to call
29:04
them culture junkies, is what I call them. These are people who will
29:07
forgive anything the studio does because they get to keep watching their favorite stuff,
29:12
right. They will. They will make excuses. They'll say, oh,
29:15
you know, um, the Doctor Strange and the Mouth of man Is or
29:19
whatever it was called, Like that wasn't that bad. I mean we got
29:22
Doctor Strange and there was you know, Reed Richards was in it, and
29:25
like the Black Bold was in it. But then they will make any excuse.
29:29
They'll say, oh, I like Miles morality, he's well written,
29:32
you know, And I'm like, but it's basically just Peter Parker with dark
29:34
like the same everything. Right, Oh no, he's no, he's got
29:38
his parents. No, I mean it's basically the same guy. It's like,
29:41
you know and and um. But yeah, the culture junkie. So
29:47
I'm trying to shake them out because they kind of I don't want to call
29:51
them the normies because I think even the normies are like walking away. This
29:56
is why. You know, what was the Indiana Jones movie? It bombs?
30:00
And yeah, what was the what? Which one? Flash? The
30:04
Flash? Oh yeah, the Flash? Yeah yeah, So those movies bombed,
30:07
so clearly the normies are voting with their dollars like that. There was
30:11
a movie that came out the same weekend, I think, or on July
30:15
fourth. It's called The Sound of Freedom, an indie film about like child
30:19
sex trafficking. That movie made way more money than Indiana Jones. That's crazy.
30:23
Like I'm I'm impressed and I'm glad, but i am surprised because you
30:27
would have thought that something with the name Indiana Jones would just make bill a
30:33
billion dollars, right, But people are seeing now this pattern that doesn't seem
30:37
to end, you know, So, um, I want to know what
30:41
you think about this, This this thing I call the culture junkies, the
30:45
people who just they want to make any excuse. Do you know I have
30:48
friends like that. That's a problem. Have long told people to get I
30:52
mean, if I get of all people, let go of Marvel and DC,
30:56
I'm not giving anybody any excuse, right because if I could do it,
31:00
as much as it's so intertwined that I was with that, I feel
31:03
like anybody can do it. But it's like you cannot reward I mean,
31:07
you know this with children, you know this with just it's just basic human
31:11
action that incentive. Rewarding bad behavior incentivizes them to continue to do it.
31:18
Right, So if you actually recognize that this is something that is not good
31:23
or they are bastardizing something, it's best to walk away from that as a
31:30
poster to rewarding them with or even putting them under the illusion that, well,
31:34
some people actually enjoyed this. Instead, you're tolerating it more than anything.
31:38
You don't actually enjoy it. It's more like, well it's a recognizable
31:41
brand, and you might have enjoyed it and that's it. That's really where
31:45
the buck stopped. You're to tolerate its existence. You're not really into it.
31:48
But yeah, it's a problem because you know, you're always you're definitely
31:52
for newer creatives like you. You're fighting against that that type of a person
31:59
who will continue to give them the benefit of the doubt no matter what it
32:01
is that they do. And to me, I'm a very simple man.
32:05
Once you've made it abundantly clear that you're not doing this with myself and mine,
32:09
then it's on me as an individual to act accordingly. Right, So
32:14
we talked about it earlier with the amount of just resentment that these guys have
32:17
made it abundantly clearly they especially like fans, older fans of this stuff,
32:22
they do not like you. They in fact find you as a hurdle.
32:25
So for me, once they made that clear, I'm done. Like,
32:29
I'm like, all right, well, i gotta start acting accordingly. I
32:30
can't reward this bad behavior. And yeah, I think you're starting to see
32:34
a little more of it. But yeah, there's still these people that unfortunately
32:37
cling to well it was okay or it's gonna be okay, And it's like
32:42
the Marvels that's dead on arrival, man, Like that's just accepted. I
32:45
mean, if you didn't see it when Star Wars died, you know that
32:50
that? I mean that was that was it? Like when Star Wars died,
32:52
I was like, Okay, these people don't understand the hero's journey.
32:55
They don't read Joseph Campbell. Nothing else good out of this because like,
33:00
once you miss that, it's so like Star Wars is so easy to make
33:05
money on, and they they yeah, is it is really like somebody did
33:08
the work. I mean now people are like, you know, those prequels
33:12
aren't bad, you know, you know, yeah, I know it.
33:17
So um back to comics for a second. Um, do you do you
33:22
know Steve Dicko? I assume you know no Steve Dicko, So in case
33:25
people here don't know, Steve Dicko was the the guy who basically created Spider
33:30
Man. I mean at least he designed and did the artwork for all the
33:34
early issues. Maybe Stanley was you know, responsible writing it too, And
33:37
I'm not going to take that away from I love Stanley too, but but
33:39
Didco is an interesting character because, uh, he made a comic. Have
33:45
you heard of his individual comic called mister A. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
33:49
okay, okay. So, um, so I read some mister a
33:54
books and it's sort of like you can kind of see the kind of like
34:00
cultural war that's happening today, you can see it in a microcosm back then,
34:05
because when he made his book, a lot of people were, you
34:07
know, not happy with his sort of like objectivist approach. Now, I
34:12
agree that it's not easy to write a character like that, um, but
34:16
I think that he was trying, and you know, I think that it's
34:20
it's important that people are trying, which is I think what a lot of
34:22
folks are doing today that are trying to make their own content, right um
34:25
there. You know, we'll stumble, will fall, we might even fail,
34:30
but um, I think that people are trying. So I guess I
34:34
wanted to know what are your thoughts on on Ditko's um work. If you
34:37
see oh, well, of course so many Dicko's. Dicko Man, you
34:40
can't go you can't beat the classics and m certainly as far as how influential
34:45
he was to this industry, there's no certain there's no there's no way around
34:47
that. But uh, you know, writing these stories that have again really
34:52
what it is. It's it's it's just a little more. Because definitely a
34:55
lot of the early Marvel, particularly the earlier marvel Um stuff was it was
35:04
yeah, the good and evil, all that stuff was there, but it
35:07
was a very It took them a little bit to start adding a little more
35:10
complexity to their levels of various forms of storytelling. Yeah, Like definitely,
35:16
if you read some of that stuff out in the sixties, it was really
35:20
really simple. Um. But but you know, guys like we did Cole
35:24
and obviously going into the seventies and the eighties and you got some of these
35:28
more complex story thet's took great stories, and I think that maybe it was
35:31
ahead of it, ahead of its time, because you know, you've seen
35:34
definitely the objectivist approach. Uh. You know, a character that comes to
35:37
mind for me is like anarchy, which is a character that DC is DC's
35:43
anarchy. And it's funny like because they started them as the typical like Tommy
35:46
anarchists. Yeah sure, sure, that thing that doesn't actually exist. Yeah
35:52
yeah, money, they turned them into more of a uh objectivists, right
35:59
uh type of an archists more I rand kind of influenced stuff, yeah,
36:04
yeah, opposed to and it worked, right, the character became a lot
36:07
more liked obviously like that because it resonated obviously with more people. So I
36:12
think you could that could be said for several different types of storytellers where sometimes
36:16
early you know what I mean, and yeah, don't get it when they
36:20
get ready yet, right, Yeah, that's generally what happens sometimes, and
36:24
you grant your game more of appreciation. I can say that for even like
36:29
for what like some of the editors did, like um Jim Shooter. You
36:31
know, he facilitated basically the most successful era of Marble, you know in
36:35
the eighties and the rise of the X Man with all that stuff, Like
36:39
he facilitated all that, and he had a rather bad rap for a long
36:45
time. And then you come to find after speaking with people like of the
36:49
old like he he kept the wheels churning. And that's why he didn't like
36:52
what because he was a bad person. It was because well, he made
36:54
people make sure, artists made their deadlines, made sure that This is why
36:59
he facilitated the best the best deal. And now you look at the state
37:04
of Marvel and you're like, they need a gym shooter like Dad, like
37:07
they long did not they didn't appreciate him when he was a thing. Uh,
37:10
certainly working with Marvel. So sometimes it happens, whether it be write
37:14
or or editor, anybody in the creative space. Sometimes you just early on.
37:19
Um, that can be a different difficult spot to be in. So
37:22
let's talk about your book. Um, I saw him, and so you're
37:25
you're currently working on number two, right, well, two's done, I
37:31
mean you're working on number three. Yeah, three, I'm working on whether
37:35
the two is done. Obviously the pre orders alive right now, Um for
37:38
that, but yeah, I'm writing actually three, I'm twenty twenty five pages
37:43
in on three. Yeah, so okay, without giving anything away, because
37:46
I know who you want people to read it, What is the kind of
37:50
like because when I when I was reading comics, all right, I would
37:53
I would read different books for different things like that I wanted. So,
37:58
you know, like the best Captain Mary books were sort of like political thrillers,
38:01
you know, the best Um. And when I say political, I
38:05
don't mean partisan. I mean like it was like in the realm of like
38:07
you know, his relationship to the government and his patriotism. And then like
38:12
when you read x Men books, they had a different feel when you read
38:15
Spider Man, it's a different feel, right, You're going for different things.
38:17
And I was always a Marvel kid growing up. Um, So like,
38:22
what's the what's the feel that you're getting that you're trying to put out
38:27
for this book. Well, obviously there's a level of familiarity with the character
38:32
itself, right, you seek Ice m He has a slick sort of simple,
38:37
more simple. I love those, right, love those. You You
38:40
remember a Vindicator from Alpha Flight that was a I love that costume. I
38:45
thought that was the ship. So it's like just you know, it's simple.
38:49
Uh. And and that was all about design because I was trying to
38:52
launch this company alf of character they had some it was new, it was
38:57
fresh, but it had some level of familiarity. So common book lifer could
39:00
like say, oh yeah, I want to learn more about the character itself.
39:05
But you know we started I mean Ice, some one particularly had a
39:07
It was a very tough job. Right, it's not just launching IAM's book,
39:12
it's also launching the entire riververse. Right, it launched to everything.
39:15
So you know what we I someone begins with he'd already been a hero and
39:22
retired, right uh. A also known as a Avery Sealman. So we're
39:27
picking up during the spot where he had been a hero for years and now
39:30
he's retired. He's on his own or at in the hero life, he's
39:35
doing his own thing. He lives on his own ranch right outside of this
39:37
big city. And you know, with Ice someone, he gets a call
39:42
from his sister and his sister's like, hey, I had this girl that
39:45
was interning interning with it and they all know him as a family friend,
39:50
and she's gone missing a wall. Can you go to this old friend of
39:53
yours by the name of Darren Fontaine on and just check and see what's going
39:57
on, because that's where she had last heard that he was. And that's
40:00
when the Shenanigans start to take place, because he's going back into this massive,
40:05
serious city that he's he goes still within his job, but he's always
40:09
reluctant. That's why he lives outside of the city in the first place.
40:13
So that's what everything takes place. And we're picking up with Iceam too obviously
40:19
after the events that take place there where you know, he's already ran into
40:22
all these other like special people in this world. We call x R Ran
40:28
into uh the Alpha Cores Ran into some of the other members, like Santoine
40:32
we fought twice in the first book, and now he's dealing with those consequences
40:37
having Um approached Darren Fontano, which again was his old friend. That's basically
40:43
he's a he's a cutthroat kind of guy. So we're picking up there,
40:46
and I'm glad that we have a lot of return viewers reader excuse me,
40:51
of the of the book. That means they enjoyed it, you know what
40:53
I mean. And that was that was a hard act to follow there,
40:55
and obviously with us having the success it is that we're having right now,
41:00
entering almost one point eight million already, and that's just really showing that it
41:04
resonated with it and that's what it was about. It was about giving people
41:07
good, good material and giving people something to look forward to in comics,
41:12
which is just much needed right now. Absolutely, And I think as an
41:15
artist, I think that a really good design UM is very very important because
41:21
you want it, you want it to be something that people like recall instantly.
41:24
That's why you know, costume designs like Spider Man's and the Fantastic Four
41:29
and Wolverine they pop because you know, like you see the silhouette you know
41:32
what that is, right? The Batman thing, you know what it is,
41:36
right, So it's it's very important for building that kind of like um
41:40
uh, they say visual visual dictionary, right, like, oh, I
41:45
know what this so and so looks like. And then even if you like
41:46
make little changes, you know, like Batman's been through a number of costumes,
41:51
but there's there's a unifying features, right, so they all have the
41:55
ears, right and the cape with the with the scallops on it. Um.
42:00
So there's that. And then the other thing I was going to mention
42:02
is, so, so does your book have battles in it? And action?
42:07
Because I'm saying this because one thing I noticed when before I stopped reading
42:13
comics is that like they stopped doing action, Like if there was one,
42:17
you know, it would be like one panel, a guy punches somebody and
42:21
that's it's over. And then they get back to like the soap opera stuff.
42:22
Talking in a yeah, it's like talking in a diner or there or
42:27
now I think it's like slice of life stuff, like people go into the
42:29
cafe and like who was sleeping with who? And and it's like and the
42:32
villains are hanging out with the heroes, and it's like, but I mean
42:37
it is and and I'm like, wait, wait a minute, Wait a
42:38
minute, Where's where's the action, where's the tension, where's the adventure?
42:43
Right? So, so I assume your your stories do help that absolutely.
42:46
I mean it's actually that's a way that you know, definitely in my form
42:51
of storyteller and where I don't want to hold the audiences. He had a
42:53
lot of a hand excuse me. A lot of it is is told through
42:59
the the the action of what's like people want to know what's Isom's capabilities?
43:05
Right, A lot that's all told through It's not necessarily spoke some of it,
43:08
you know, but for the first book, you're seeing him do certain
43:12
things that that give you kind of, um, you know, an eye
43:16
on what he is capable of doing. The same can be said for the
43:20
other characters as well. I think with any book, well in the superhero
43:23
genre at least, I mean I think you have a little more leeway with
43:27
other stuff, but definitely in the superhero genre, I think you have to
43:30
have a nice little balance of that and to completely remove the action and its
43:37
entirety, I mean that's where where you see the artists kind of really show
43:39
how good they are, right and new different things. That's where they're shine
43:44
doing those actions scenes. So as a creative and more specifically as a writer,
43:47
you have to be able to have those those moments in a superhero It's
43:52
again it's different if you're telling a different type of comic per se, but
43:54
definitely in the superhero world, a lot of people look forward to that to
44:00
those um, those those those they want to see that, they want to
44:01
see the action like and it's it's it's a boy thing, sure, because
44:07
like we know, how many times have you been on the internet and you
44:09
see like you know, uh, fans arguing over like which you know character
44:15
is gonna beat which character fight? Right? Yeah, who's stronger? Or
44:20
like can can you know? It's like what was the meme? Can he
44:22
defeat Goku? So um, But there's a reason for it because it's kind
44:28
of like in um in the nature of men to measure their potential and so
44:34
do you do test it by that? And they want to see it tested.
44:37
And I think that you're right about like you know, superhero books,
44:40
but not only I mean you could you can find this in you know,
44:44
kung fu books and like books about samurai and picks about anything where you know,
44:47
requires somebody to put forth conflict. Yeah, conflict, that's physical,
44:52
right, And what I think, um, if I'm super charitable to the
44:58
Big two, what they've been doing is they're trying to satisfy like as many
45:01
people as possible. So none, yeah, exactly, and their master of
45:07
none. And what they end up with is you get these books that are
45:09
basically soap operas, and if you watch TV, you know they do the
45:14
same thing, like why does why does anyone watch the CW It's just soap
45:16
opera stuff and occasionally they put on tights, um, and it doesn't work.
45:21
It's not what it's not what boys want, right, they want to
45:23
see. They want to see the resolution. They want to see. Um,
45:28
someone try to do harm and then someone else stopped them at the end
45:30
of the day and the simplest terms, right, even if it you know,
45:34
it's funny because even if it doesn't make a lot of sense, Like
45:36
I watched um, since I don't watch anything new anymore, I've been watching
45:39
old stuff. And I watched Spider Man two with Toby McGuire and Doctor Octopus,
45:44
right, and there's this fight in the bank that they have. It's
45:46
the most comic bookie thing ever right there. They're just fighting at a bank
45:51
and they're literally throwing bags with dollar signs on them at each other, and
45:54
it's like and nobody cares, Like, nobody's saying that's not realistic. And
45:59
one of the one of the things I noticed about modern writers, I guess
46:04
woke writers, I suppose, since that's most modern mainstream writers, is that
46:07
they take things too literally but not seriously. And I don't know if you
46:14
understand what I mean by that, but they they like to deconstruct things.
46:17
They like to say, oh, this doesn't make sense because you know,
46:21
and then they they sort of like, as Alan Watts said, they disenchanted.
46:27
Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
46:29
for sure. No, I'm right there with you, actually um on
46:31
that and look and and that's that's all to me, stems from knowing your
46:37
audience, right, and knowing who who Who is the target demographic And you've
46:43
brought that point up, and we you know about this whole trying to appeal
46:46
to the widest demographic. I don't know what data they're looking at. It's
46:51
wrong whatever it is where they think that like it did. For example,
46:55
comics. The primary audience is gonna be again doesn't mean man, be young
46:59
man, it's ye, that's just that's just who who is going to gravitate
47:04
towards this um and to not consider that is idiotic. It's from certainly from
47:09
a business standpoint, but you know, we've seen this idea also creep in
47:14
other aspects where people feel like it's narcissism, right because they feel an ego
47:19
more egotistical and they feel like, you know, you have to live up
47:22
to a certain standard to be a customer of them, So they're trying to
47:28
teach you what you should like, as opposed to you feeling that void or
47:31
feeling that what it is that the market actually dictates. So that's why you
47:36
have this obsession of mass appeal and why some of the content is so bad.
47:40
People that watch me, it's funny you mentioned that you're a souls guy.
47:44
People that watch me know that they watch me for the gaming stuff.
47:46
That's been one of my lead topics that I've been so frustrated with certain with
47:51
games and that they're trying to appeal to the widest audience possible, and it
47:55
makes for a mundane experience, particularly in this level of what they deem ask
48:01
assessibility, and really all that is is dumbing the game down, trying to
48:07
hold the game players hand and strip like steering away from us figuring out problems,
48:14
solving issues, which is why a lot of us gravitate towards that,
48:17
you know what I mean, towards the souls of the world. It's a
48:21
punishing game, but the level of perseverance and all that, that's part of
48:23
the experience, right and for what's happening right now in modern game gaming,
48:29
where they, I guess because it's become so popular, they look at it
48:32
like, well, there's something inherently wrong with their being a barrier of entry
48:37
for something. And it's not. That's life, that's life in general.
48:40
Not everybody can do everything right. It's okay, but that's not anything that's
48:45
generally embraced right now with modern entertainment, which is why it a lot of
48:49
it feels so mundane. It's because they've become literally the master of none.
48:53
Yeah, it always comes back to comfort for them. Actually, they don't
48:58
want to hear opinions. They don't like, they don't want to play games
49:00
that are too difficult. They don't want to read comics that don't appeal to
49:05
their sensibilities, Like they can't even tolerate that. They don't want to see,
49:08
you know, films where have you. I don't know if you notice,
49:12
but stuntmen they don't get a lot of work anymore because everything is done
49:15
with CGI now, at least in the big budget stuff. Right. The
49:17
only people who still do that stuff and be guys like Tom Cruise for example,
49:22
or Chicano Reeves with a John Wick franchise. They those get movies get
49:27
a lot of attention because people want to see, you know, stunt men
49:30
putting in the work, especially if you grew up in the eighties and you
49:34
saw like all the action movies of the of the seventies, eighties and nineties,
49:37
and and to your point about the demographics, what's interesting is that they
49:43
drive away the people that built the industry to the level that it's at.
49:46
So the brand gets built up by the hardcore fans, and then they alienate
49:52
them because they want to like you know, and and they what they don't
49:55
seem to realize is that the normans, the people they're trying to attract,
50:00
they're pretty fickle, right, So they'll they'll get into it for a bit
50:02
and then they'll leave. I'll give you a good example, the Nintendo We.
50:06
When the Nintendo We came out, like you know, senior citizens are
50:08
buying it, little kids, families, everybody was super excited. And I
50:13
was not a fan. I thought motion controls was a gimmick. I didn't
50:16
think that it was gonna be a long lasting thing. Sure enough, like
50:21
every family member I know that bought a wee, it's it's in their closet
50:24
collecting dust because they played it for a while and then they got their rocks
50:28
off and then they left alone. And so I think that, um,
50:32
the hardcore market, and I don't even want to say hardcore, I would
50:36
say just like the market of people that are that would call themselves, you
50:39
know, game enthusiasts. You don't have to be like one of these guys
50:43
that does like you know, speed Runs or or your or you play every
50:46
Souls game like I have. I played all of them. But but um,
50:51
you don't have to be one of those people. Just somebody who likes
50:53
to, you know, feel like their contribution in a game matters. Yeah,
50:58
and it's not. You're not just like you know, how I've noticed
51:00
this that a lot of games these days are doing exactly what you said,
51:04
where they say you can basically play this so that you're just experiencing the story
51:07
and and and I think this is important to point out because that will they
51:14
will try to make that the norm, the default. They will make every
51:17
you know, they already do it with like visual novels for example, which
51:21
you know, I know there are probably people here that like visual novels.
51:23
But but hear me out, I'm not saying we shouldn't have them. I'm
51:27
saying that my media should not become that. Right. So if I want
51:31
to play I don't know, like a Souls game for example, or the
51:36
new Armored Core, which I'm super excited about, um, I don't want
51:39
them to put like a story mode in there. I want to play the
51:45
game like. That's why you know, like and and I think that they're
51:49
there it's it's all about comfort. They just want to feel like they can
51:55
belong, and so they hate games that challenge them. And that's an attitude
52:00
issue that I believe is like you know, I dare I use their term
52:04
toxicum to put on definitely instilled on younger people where it's like, um,
52:10
you know, what do you have to strive for if you're like, if
52:14
there's no barrier ventry at all, right, and you have your contributions literally
52:17
don't even don't even matter, and you're gonna be put up. You can
52:22
get you can accomplish the same exact thing someone else is. And that's nowadays
52:25
definitely the competitive aspect of it all is has been completely I don't want to
52:30
say completely removed, but it's a thing that people look as if it's a
52:34
problem right to to now again, so many games are now adopting this this
52:38
as an approach um final fantasy. The New Ones recently got into trouble for
52:43
that, for trying to give these people all these accessibility problems, accessibility things
52:47
all though dodge and all all of whatever what have you. And you know,
52:52
now it kind of backfired because you have these supposed game reviewers making it
52:57
seem like because literally they kind of can go through it without really thinking.
53:01
It's like mind is to be able to complete the game. And I'm like,
53:05
see that that's we're backfires. And why I believe that more games that
53:08
should be created. I mean a lot of the ones that we grew up
53:12
on. They didn't even have difficulty options at all. The game was the
53:15
game, you know what I mean, It's just what it was. That
53:17
was the experience of the devs. Absolutely, and there's nothing wrong with that.
53:21
I think that people got to get off of their high horse and think
53:23
that everything has to be made with them as an individual in mind, and
53:28
that's just not how it works. It's not like in itself, is not.
53:31
It's not like that there's things that you can do that I can't.
53:34
There's things I can do that you can't, and there's nothing wrong with that.
53:37
In fact, it is a beautiful thing that we can trade and do
53:38
other cool stuff befriends, even having been that different. So that's something that
53:44
needs to be embraced certainly in gaming. And I hate that this is the
53:46
direction that they're going in. Yeah. Absolutely so. I've had a couple
53:52
of guys in the there's sort of in that space that making their own comics
53:55
and stuff. I had on r J and if you know it's r J.
54:00
He has a channel called the Fourth Age. He discusses. Yeah,
54:04
I think you've been on his channel, Yeah, because I remember seeing the
54:07
interview and um, I had him On because I really liked his approach to
54:10
storytelling, the importance of storytelling. So this is the importance of stories.
54:17
I believe that. Why So I asked myself, why do boys in particular
54:23
like adventure stories? They they and we've always liked them. Right, You
54:28
can look all the way back in literature, we you know, the Three
54:31
of Usketiers and Zoro and Treasure Island and the Time Machine and all these other
54:37
you know, on into the pulps like Conan and John Carter of Mars or
54:44
Princess of Mars Um Flash Cordon and then Star Wars, and you know,
54:47
here we are today. And I think it's because there's something in the nature
54:52
of males in particular. I think I think women like them, but I
54:57
think it's for different reasons. I'll put it that way. They to see
55:00
the man doing the adventure. The men like to see the adventure unfold.
55:04
That makes sense. So men are attracted that because it's it's it kind of
55:07
goes all the way back to you know, primitive man like like there was
55:12
you know, you're in your tribe and everything whatever's outside is the unknown,
55:15
and so men are are we have an instinct to explore the unknown. We
55:20
want to go out there and find out what's there. And so men are
55:22
on the perimeter of society, or at least like the I'll say the most
55:27
like um, the most masculine men, or the most driven men will be
55:30
on the exterior, the perimeter of society, looking for adventure, trying to
55:35
solve the mystery of what's outside. And it's always been there, right,
55:38
and so like as in as time goes on, boys they grow up and
55:45
they they absorb this material in their fiction. They get in the comics,
55:49
they read books, they they watch films or cartoons or whatever, and they
55:52
and they always have the same kind of arcs that involve, you know,
55:55
adventure and conflict and there's always a more old thing that's proposed, and the
56:00
hero does the right thing, you know, sometimes he has to figure it
56:05
out, sometimes he knows it, but it doesn't really matter. They see
56:07
it happen, right, And then those kids they become men or young men,
56:12
and they're exploring that more in their real life. Now, right,
56:15
they might still be into those stories because that's sort of like where they get
56:19
that basis that they're drawing from. And so they pursue an education and a
56:23
career in something that acts like an adventure for them, whether that's starting a
56:28
business, or if that's joining the police force or the military, or it
56:32
doesn't even it could be scientific pursuits. It doesn't really matter, right,
56:36
They're just doing something that will put them out there. Maybe they were introverted
56:40
when they were growing up and then they're like, I want to be a
56:43
radio guy, or I want to start a band or whatever. But all
56:46
of it is an adventure. It's very exciting. You don't know what's going
56:49
to happen, right, and it gives you great stories to tell other people.
56:52
And I think that stories are like the primary way the human being share
56:58
wisdom. It's the it's the only way. It's the only way, right,
57:01
So if we want to to share our experiences with other people, it
57:07
can manifest in a number of ways. Um, and of course comics is
57:10
one, but there's also writing and music and uh and everything else. And
57:14
I think that one of the reasons why you're like so involved with all these
57:17
things. It's like a bunch of different ways to tell, you know,
57:22
a story that is near and dear to you. It doesn't have to be
57:25
about you, but like you know, in terms of its abstract framework.
57:30
And one of the things that I really like to see is as as we
57:37
get more mature, the next adventure for men is marriage and and like what
57:42
all of that comes with. So I'm married and I'm on that adventure right
57:45
now. My wife and I have been together for like seven years, and
57:47
you know, I think that it's like a more it's it's also very exciting.
57:52
And then beyond that, you know, there's children and family and all
57:54
of these are are are um, I think they're all very very uh worthwhile
58:01
pursuits. I wouldn't say that they're for every man, but but I think
58:06
that men have that that drive and so if the stories don't reflect that,
58:10
and this is what I'm getting at, right, So too many stories today
58:14
are about people that like men that that don't grow up, you know,
58:16
like Seth Rogan for example, Like they stay teenagers and they they you know
58:22
what I mean, like they they they watch porn, they play video games
58:25
like whatever, and I'm all about video games, but but it's there.
58:30
They promote a kind of failure to launch. And I don't blame men for
58:35
falling into that trap, especially because a lot of these men don't have a
58:38
father that models that behavior, right, So you see, like there's like
58:43
this this cascading effect. And this is why I think stories are are really
58:49
important. I agree. I mean, there man, he's all prayable soul.
58:52
I mean, it's a it's it's a thing that has always been a
58:57
way that man has been able to at minimum commun unicate definitely between generations.
59:01
So it's it's so very vital and so very important. And a lot of
59:06
people aren't getting that that story certainly told to them, and a lot of
59:10
men don't ever become that become men and they're not ever never taught. I
59:15
think the fatherlessness and stuff is certainly a big deal, you know what I
59:21
mean, it's a it's a massive thing that you know, um and I
59:25
say this as a person that grew up in you know, in the in
59:29
the way that I did, you know what I mean. I mean,
59:30
I'm married now at some point you know, we'll have well have children as
59:34
well, and you know that's something that I want to absolutely pride. I
59:37
don't think that's the right term, but we'll use it for right now.
59:39
And my problem myself in certainly being that example, and I think it's so
59:44
very very important and also for those youngsters that aren't able to pick up that
59:49
stuff. I mean, we look at like comic books and a lot of
59:52
you know, you talk about the moral compass, and definitely for a lot
59:54
of young boys, I mean that was my age and older. That's why
59:59
they picked up a lot out of that stuff from you know what I mean,
1:00:00
it was from books, from comics, you know what I mean,
1:00:05
the easily digestible medium certainly for that. So even they're they're there to first
1:00:09
see that sense of like wrong and be able to conceptualize that was told to
1:00:15
them in a story in a comic book. For a lot of them,
1:00:16
you know, and it was so cheap too, like you know, I
1:00:20
mean, I paid seventy five cents for a comic book and that was considered
1:00:22
high yea, yeah, it was, it was. It was it was
1:00:27
easy for them to get into that. And I think that's something that certainly,
1:00:30
uh worthwhile, is a lot of guys in our corner of a little
1:00:32
pocket of the Internet that actually going out of their way to tell those all
1:00:36
ages stories that are gonna be very very impactful for for years to come.
1:00:39
And it's necessary definitely when you understand the a bit of nonsense of being pumped
1:00:45
out there and your your your libraries, your schools and all that is like,
1:00:50
if you don't give them something, uh, they're gonna stumble across something
1:00:52
that's far worse. Um. And and really the only way to to I
1:00:57
think, go against that would be to compete with it and do better as
1:01:01
creatives to do that. And this is why they're so necessary. So I
1:01:06
got nothing but love for people that are out there trying to be able to
1:01:08
be part of the solution and create, create those stories and tell those stories.
1:01:12
Absolutely, so I got some I'm want to read some super chats because
1:01:16
some people have sent some super chats and they want to make some commentary,
1:01:20
but really good conversation. Eric, thank you so much, So I'll read
1:01:24
through these really quick. Okay, So mister oh three oh three games is
1:01:28
ten dollars and says, what are you doing, Brian, It's dangerous to
1:01:31
have Eric on the stream. The amount of concentrated baseness between the two of
1:01:36
you can create a singularity. Joking aside, I'm a happy rip reverse customer,
1:01:39
and I wanted to ask mister July if mister Juli has thought about the
1:01:44
issue of power creep, leaving street level heroes in combook universes a bit useless.
1:01:50
For example, Batman stopping a bomb that is is not as exciting when
1:01:53
he can call the Flash to help. Well, I think there's a way
1:01:57
that you tell those stories, and I think it's it's uh, it's very
1:02:00
important. I think the art of the you know, I'll talk about this
1:02:02
kind of with ice On, despite them having powers, is a very rounded
1:02:07
story and I think those those street level stories, Um, the art of
1:02:12
that has been completely lost, definitely in mainstream comics, despite there being a
1:02:15
growing actual demand for it. And you can see that and the fact that
1:02:19
Batman Steele out sells everybody. Uh so you know, it's not that people
1:02:23
don't want it, but there is a wave you're gonna tell a story with,
1:02:27
and that's that's like a thing that you have to you have to take
1:02:30
into consideration right there from the get goal, um, as you're building your
1:02:34
universe, that what type of beings that you're gonna have in them. And
1:02:37
obviously, considering how long these characters has been have been around, the creators
1:02:40
of Batman's of the Superman's of the world, I'm pretty sure they could not
1:02:44
conceptualize that their characters would be a part of the fabric of like American culture
1:02:50
like that that they even transcend comics. Nobody anticipated that. Uh So that's
1:02:57
why I think the cool thing about the rip reverse is you know, one
1:02:59
thing that we talk about all the time is I don't tell my story just
1:03:02
simply thinking about the now. I think the five, the ten, the
1:03:06
fifteen years from now, and I'm calculated and every character that I create,
1:03:10
every story it is that we tell for that exact reason, right, because
1:03:15
you have to be able to consider all of those sorts of options. And
1:03:17
I don't think it diminishes those characters. Um, it's still I think those
1:03:22
street level stories, all the ones that resonation, I love them. I
1:03:25
love them. It actually really really upset me when I saw what they did
1:03:31
with Shang Chi. I mean like when I when I heard when they because
1:03:37
you know, they made the announcement and I still like the MCU at the
1:03:40
times. It was years before and I was like this, and I was
1:03:43
telling my friends, like, this movie needs to take place in the nineteen
1:03:45
seventies and they need to find a dude that looks like Bruce Lee, and
1:03:50
you know, and it needs to be like as shang Chi as it gets.
1:03:52
But then I realized there was no way they were gonna do that because
1:03:54
they were gonna stay where they have. This is the thing about these people,
1:03:58
Okay, they are true believers. This isn't like a cynical cash grab
1:04:02
thing. In fact, if they were greedy, which they of the people
1:04:05
accused them of being greedy, I don't even know what that means. But
1:04:09
if they were trying to just trying to turn a profit, then they would
1:04:12
make something that the fans want. But yeah, but they don't. So
1:04:15
they're anti profit and they make garbage. And I knew that, you know,
1:04:20
when as it came closer, I was like, Oh, they're not
1:04:23
gonna do this right because they're gonna see the whole thing as a racist stereotype
1:04:26
and so they're gonna try everything to go against it. And not only do
1:04:29
they do that, because I didn't even I tried to watch it. I
1:04:31
think I got like halfway through and I was like nope, um, but
1:04:33
they like they had some female character just outdo him, and I was like,
1:04:39
God, you guys, do you ever get bored of this? Because
1:04:41
I'm like, you know, I'm over it but um, yeah, So
1:04:45
as far as like just really quick on my thoughts on the power Creep thing,
1:04:50
um, I think that as long as you have if you're if you're
1:04:54
doing a crossover event like a Justice League comic for example, and you want
1:04:58
Batman to mat okay, um, there are ways to do. I think
1:05:02
Bruce tim and Paul Deaney when they were thing his name is Paul Deney,
1:05:05
when they were doing the animated Justice League show, they did a really good
1:05:10
job of of having everyone like play a role so it wasn't just Superman doing
1:05:15
stuff, right, um, And I think that's important. So it's all
1:05:18
it's all about how you do it. The problem though with DC comics in
1:05:23
particular, is that everything is scaled so high that you you know, you're
1:05:27
it's really difficult to convince people that some of these things are out of the
1:05:30
reach of their more powerful characters. But in Marvel they scale everything way down.
1:05:34
And I think that, you know, even like the Hulk has limits
1:05:38
to some degree, right, So I think that it helps to like set
1:05:43
your power levels so well in your Iceam universe, what we're without going to
1:05:46
this character, but like when you're looking at the larger picture, like how
1:05:50
how godly do you want things to get or are you going to look more
1:05:55
the Marvel scale or offset that it'll be a long time before to like some
1:06:00
intercalactic interplanetaria like world for like that, that it'll be a minute before we
1:06:05
get There's just a countless amount of stories that we can tell right now.
1:06:09
Absolutely so I don't want to get I don't want to you know, like,
1:06:13
if you're gonna make some like ever powerful being like that, I feel
1:06:15
like that that needs to matter, you know what I mean? Yea,
1:06:18
And for me, that's the like people see I Somes loses fights, you
1:06:24
know what I mean, Like there is that level of he is not he
1:06:29
has his limitations, he has uh you see it, and in fact some
1:06:31
of his uh things that he's just not capable of doing in the first book.
1:06:36
And I think that can be said for even the other upcoming books that
1:06:40
we have going as well, that they're not just a bunch of guys that
1:06:44
can do everything. And it is I think set and establish those rules.
1:06:48
But also we even within your storyteller, I think that's where that's where the
1:06:53
actual talent comes into play. When you have multiple characters that can do various
1:06:58
different things. You have to put them in a realm that makes sense.
1:07:00
Um. And and that's that, that's a that's a creative talent. It
1:07:03
is that that has to be not only developed, but it has to be
1:07:06
taken into consideration if it's gonna work from the get go. That's the advantage
1:07:11
that guys like ourselves have. Uh, you know, I'm creating. I'm
1:07:14
not creating in a Stanley era. I'm creating in this new era of technology
1:07:17
and and a direct line of site with my audience, so I can take
1:07:20
things into consideration that they couldn't, you know what I mean. And then
1:07:25
we do that in our story, tell them yeah, and you know,
1:07:28
but stand he did try. He used to take he used to take letters
1:07:30
and respond to them. So you know, I think that what he did
1:07:35
was revolutionary in that regard. And it's in our current like you know,
1:07:42
in in where things are now, it's even more you know, it's like
1:07:45
a faster conversation. So absolutely absolutely crucial. Um, thank you for that,
1:07:49
mister O three oh three anonymous. So somebody who didn't give us the
1:07:54
name, they give us ten bucks and says autism runs wild amongst libertarians and
1:07:59
MRAs, we make natural allies. I would call it stoicism instead, I
1:08:05
think because the thing is is that where I'm not prone to emotional outbursts over
1:08:11
things. I mean, sometimes I run into stuff that's really infuriating, especially
1:08:15
when it's shitting on art, and I think that I'm part of my language.
1:08:19
But I do think that there is a broader conversation around arts in general
1:08:26
that i've I've I've often attempted to initiate in the history of art because I
1:08:30
studied it and I know where everything started to go wrong, where we used
1:08:34
to like appreciate talent and skill and effort, and where now it's all about
1:08:40
messaging. And this is like over one hundred years old, like this has
1:08:44
been going on. So but thank you for that. I would again I
1:08:47
stand by it. It's stoicism, not autism. I don't know much about
1:08:51
that. Then mister O three or three gives us another five dollars and says,
1:08:58
if Eric is answering, I saw him quite. Was there any inspiration
1:09:01
for sam and will we see more of him? I found him fascinating because
1:09:04
I like bro characters like him, Oh, bro characters of the ship.
1:09:09
Yes, I can promise you that there's gonna be plenty of Sam. Yeah,
1:09:15
it's hard to say what the inspiration is for the character without like going
1:09:18
into so much detail of spoiling future stories. But he's not a I will
1:09:24
say this much. He's not a random character. He is absolutely He's there
1:09:28
and there's a purpose. He's not just like there just to be on Avery's
1:09:31
ranch. So I'm actually glad that there's people that like a character of that
1:09:34
level because I have a lot of I love bro characters. My favorite thing
1:09:40
about Shonans because I talked about this, I did a stream. I was
1:09:44
streaming an anime video game, JoJo's Bizarre Venture, one of my favorite animes
1:09:46
ever, and I talked about the sort of formula of Shonans where you have
1:09:53
like your hero and everybody loves the hero, but then there's like the close
1:09:57
friend. Oh yeah, you know, and everyone loves that guy that's the
1:10:00
bro, right, and I mean like the world yeah, vegeta or um.
1:10:05
I mean there's tons of example. I was big into Hoketon Oken,
1:10:08
the Fists of north Star, and Ray he was like the you know,
1:10:12
um, and every every anime has a bro if it's if it's a good
1:10:15
shown in right, so I think in you you hawk show. I forget
1:10:18
the guy's name, but he has like the energy bat or whatever. Yeah,
1:10:24
yeah, man having a draw on a blank on his name that looks
1:10:28
yea and one piece. I think it's zero. So you know there's there's
1:10:31
tons of the bro characters are super hey yeah he yes, yes, yeah,
1:10:36
that's right. The yeah because it's good because you show the friendship and
1:10:42
that and that and again it's another thing that that men they just they like
1:10:45
having that that you know, their their writer die you know, roll dog,
1:10:49
so um big, it's a big thing. Uh Okay, thank you
1:10:54
for the super chow. So if you want to send another super chow,
1:10:58
you can go to feed the Badge of dot Com force slash just the tip
1:11:00
to send us a super chat. I will prioritize those over the rumble rants
1:11:04
and the super chats. So I got a rumble rant from occupant forty two
1:11:10
because there's twenty dollars, Thank you, Occupant forty two. I don't know
1:11:13
if I have a sound for that. Hold on a second, I might
1:11:15
have a thank you. I'll just say hello, hello that and he says,
1:11:19
looking forward to seeing the honey Badger Defender of Men and Boys appear in
1:11:24
Isam number three. It sounded funny in my head. I'm not I am
1:11:29
not going to suggest that you would do. You do whatever you want to
1:11:32
do, but I'm really glad that you're out here doing stuff. I will
1:11:35
say that. Albert Nata retro this is super Chats, gives us five dollars
1:11:41
Canadian and says, if this interview goes well, I'm taking full credit.
1:11:44
If it goes south, it's on YouTube. He was, I've been,
1:11:47
you know, I'm just gonna say it. I was. I emailed him
1:11:50
a bunch of times. I send him super Chats. But I know he's
1:11:53
busy, got a lot going on. But thank you, Albert for you
1:11:57
know, hooking us up with the email address. I guess that was what
1:12:00
I needed. And then he gives us another five dollars Canadian, says the
1:12:03
problem with Thanos is that you can snap your fingers and make anything happen.
1:12:08
Why not create infinite resources. His motive in the comics was better. Yeah,
1:12:12
you see I was death. Yes, that was so stupid. That
1:12:17
was such a layup that, Yeah, they could have done that. I
1:12:21
think there is this thing and I think this was an issue even like back
1:12:26
when they were starting to make movies about comic book stuff, where they thought,
1:12:30
oh, we're gonna do a story about the X Men, but we
1:12:31
couldn't possibly bring the r Empire into it because the concept of aliens is just
1:12:35
too crazy, right, But it was in the comics, right, So
1:12:40
they were they were trying to make everything kind of a self contained in a
1:12:44
vacuum. And with Thanos, I guess they they they thought, well,
1:12:47
we could have like a purple guy with a butt chin, you know,
1:12:50
like that wants to destroy, but he couldn't be in love with the personification
1:12:55
of death. And I mean that's what they miss out because I think that
1:13:00
what that is, and this is the thing of what I said to you
1:13:02
before about how these people don't take things seriously, they just take it literally,
1:13:06
is that Thanos's love affair with death is actually nihilism. That's what it
1:13:13
is, right, That's why he loves death. He he loves death because
1:13:16
he is a nihilist. He wants to see everything end. And nihilism is
1:13:20
something that is creeping into our culture through our media. Right. So so
1:13:25
maybe I mean, maybe there's a part of me that thinks that they're doing
1:13:28
that on purpose, like they want people to be nihilistic. They don't want
1:13:30
to deliz. Yes, they wanted to demoralize, right, So they're not
1:13:34
gonna They're not gonna tell the truth about Thanos because I think that when they
1:13:40
were starting to tell those stories, that's kind of what stan Lee and whoever
1:13:44
else was involved with writing them. I think Thanos came out in the seventies,
1:13:46
but they that's what they were that were going with when they started the
1:13:50
whole death story. So are you writing you're the writer on this book?
1:13:57
Yes, for Ice on one three, I'm writing all of that. And
1:14:01
um, we got Chuck Dixon, the prolific Chuck Dixon writing Alpha Core,
1:14:06
which will be out that that's the next book that will come out. And
1:14:10
then Yairo, we have a SOSCA systems that are writing Thos. And then
1:14:13
I'm so, yeah, we gotta we got a team. We're starting a
1:14:15
little we're starting to build here, very nice. And I understand that you're
1:14:19
working on an animation. Yeah, so you know we had obviously we took
1:14:26
put that filler out there with the trailer, the Ice one two animation trailer
1:14:29
to kind of see where people were how people felt about it. Obviously there's
1:14:32
a massive demand. In fact that actually after after this interview, there's an
1:14:36
email actually specifically in regards to the animation that I'll be tending to because yeah,
1:14:44
that's something that that I want to take seriously. It's just a matter
1:14:46
of figuring out obviously more logistical stuff and what's gonna be our individual capacity.
1:14:51
So yeah, that's really the biggest thing. I'm so it looks it looks
1:14:56
really good. Um, I saw the trailer, and you know, as
1:15:00
someone who's always wanted to break into any sort of creative industry, I do
1:15:04
what I can to help people. So there's a guy I know, and
1:15:09
maybe this is the email. I don't know, but there's a guy I
1:15:11
know. I had him on the show and he worked. He was a
1:15:14
pro. He worked in the animation industry professionally. He worked on the Ninja
1:15:17
Turtles, he worked on Ben Ten, he worked on I think it was
1:15:21
Over the Garden Wall and Stephen Universe. And he's also made his own books.
1:15:29
I don't have it here, but and his name is Luke Weber and
1:15:33
he's been on the show. So he's a friend of the channel. I
1:15:35
know. You guys know about Luke, very very talented guy. Unfortunately he
1:15:41
was working professionally. But the me Too movement that sort of like blew through
1:15:45
the animation industry, and we don't have a lot of time to get into
1:15:47
it, but I will say it involves unions that want to put women in
1:15:51
positions in animation jobs and they're pushing the men out. And I have all
1:15:57
the receipts, so I'm not just talking out of my ass. And we've
1:16:00
done videos on it. So he's not getting any work. And he was
1:16:03
living in California and then he relocated to Texas and I guess now he lives
1:16:08
in Wyoming or something. And I told him I would I would because he's
1:16:12
really good. Like he is really good. Um, So I told him
1:16:15
I would try to put him in touch with you because if you want to
1:16:18
make this happen. He's looking for somebody to work for, and he is.
1:16:23
I think he's totally worth it. He's done some great work for us
1:16:27
as well, and uh just for our books, you know, because we're
1:16:30
a pretty smaller operation trying to like, you know, get out there.
1:16:34
But yeah, I mean I want to see everything I want to see,
1:16:38
like movies and animations and we just don't need these people. I mean they're
1:16:43
like, we don't need them, like we we can build our own things,
1:16:45
and I think we can do it better they, you know. So,
1:16:49
um, so what do you do you have any I guess advice for
1:16:56
people who are looking to also get their feet wet in this because this comic
1:17:01
book thing in particular, But there are like my boss is writing a book
1:17:05
and us it's like a science fiction fantasy thing, but it's it's just a
1:17:12
book book, right, um. And I know that there are people that
1:17:15
are trying to sort of move the needle in the culture so that we can
1:17:19
you know, the normans are are not really there. It's not working.
1:17:24
They're they're fickle, they're moving on to other things. And the culture junkies
1:17:29
I think, I hope they're like a small group of people that won't keep
1:17:32
it going forever, so they're gonna be looking for something fresh. So,
1:17:35
uh, what kind of what's been the thing that has kept you moving?
1:17:42
Well? I think people need to understand how realistic things are. I mean,
1:17:46
there used to be an insane ceiling um that everybody would hit in entertainment,
1:17:54
which is why the megacorporation became a thing in the first place. You
1:17:58
just could not do it independently. Yeah, it was. Can I just
1:18:02
say, I'm let me. Can I just say that corporations are not a
1:18:05
product of capitalism? Okay? No, and people always bring it up,
1:18:12
but no, no, it necessitates the state. So no, that's not
1:18:15
what it is. But that's that's why the again, the megacorporation was the
1:18:18
thing and the these whole big, massive corporate entities because they could promise you
1:18:25
take New Zealand essentially that you would always hit your head under uh. And
1:18:30
this is why, you know, the artist signs to the record label or
1:18:32
the the the guy that could do stuff in his own individual capacity ends up
1:18:38
signing off his uh, his concepts to other other properties. The reason why
1:18:44
that's the thing is because of the ceiling. Well that's been almost completely removed
1:18:48
now for a lot of different industries, namely comics, right and even in
1:18:53
some cases and like the film industry, not necessarily in the direct animation,
1:18:56
but because that's still gonna cost money, but definitely in a film. You're
1:19:00
seeing people do short films with like a DSLR, you know what I mean.
1:19:02
They don't need their phone. Yeah, they don't need a fourteen thousand
1:19:06
dollars red camera even to do that anymore. So that and also the social
1:19:13
media aspect of it all and the Internet and the growth of it is giving
1:19:16
you a direct line of sight with the audience. So what doing something like
1:19:20
what we do, brand new company, no investors, nothing, to come
1:19:24
out and become a multimillion dollar company in less than a year, actually in
1:19:29
less than like a week a day. I mean, you know, if
1:19:30
you want to be technical, that was unheard of back then, there had
1:19:35
people pulling the strings. There's no way. Now it's very doable, and
1:19:39
the reverse is a prime example of that. So I would say that people
1:19:43
need to understand that what was generally unrealistic. Don't play by those sets of
1:19:47
standards and old archaic models because they're not really let me say this, there
1:19:53
are people that are protective of the status quo. And there're only reason they're
1:19:57
protective of that because there's probably not a spot for them any event that this
1:20:00
whole thing gets decentralized, right, which I do think that's the direction that
1:20:04
we're heading into. There's not gonna maybe the day of the major corporation for
1:20:09
certain entities or certain aspects of the entertainment industry are going to be gone and
1:20:13
it's going to be more smaller. There'll be some very very successful entities,
1:20:16
there will be some reverses of the world, but it's a lot more doable
1:20:19
because you have a direct line of site with your audience, so it's realistic.
1:20:24
It's the point it is that I'm trying to make. And even we
1:20:27
talk about gaming and how much expensive, I mean, you're seeing what people
1:20:30
are able to do with with new unreal engine and all that, like,
1:20:33
it's that's even becoming more accessible. Yeah, it's coming more accessible to people.
1:20:38
So that's why I would tell people and I would encourage folks to understand
1:20:44
that there's a difference between the old guard and whatever it is that we're entering
1:20:47
into now, and you gotta play by the new rules, not the old
1:20:51
ones, and you'll you'll figure out that there's a room, there's room for
1:20:55
a lot of success and also more importantly, to do fulfilling work. Like
1:21:00
you know, everybody that works for the River Verse is doing fulfilling work.
1:21:02
They make I pay them on time, I pay them very well, and
1:21:05
it's very fair and competitive, so they're part of a project that they're not
1:21:10
dealing with the same problems that they're dealing within the mainstream. A lot of
1:21:13
our guys that work for us, at work for us are former Marvel guys,
1:21:16
formal DC, formal DC guys that are now in a better spot than
1:21:21
what they are what they had been before. So it's a doable thing.
1:21:25
It's realistic. As the point it is, I guess that I want to
1:21:27
make m very good stuff. I'm very excited. Uh, things are looking
1:21:32
bright. I think that you know, um, there's a lot to be
1:21:36
demoralized about, but I think there's a lot more to be to see us
1:21:40
promising so um in our culture, which I think is extremely important. I
1:21:45
think that a lot of people miss it, you know, when you get
1:21:46
too wrapped up in like the political because I think it's you know, as
1:21:51
as Andrew right Bart said, the downstream from culture exactly. So you know,
1:21:58
if you're sharing the right values out there, then people will carry that
1:22:00
forward and they'll know it's right because there is something about as the Fourth Age
1:22:05
says, you know, a good story is a reflection of reality. So
1:22:10
if you know that you're seeing something that is, it feels real to you,
1:22:13
then you're gonna resonate with it. So, um, okay, other
1:22:15
than your book, because I'm sure you're reading that. Who out there are
1:22:19
you like interested in or reading like, who else that's contributing? Are you
1:22:26
like kind of getting into I would say that there's a lot of people that
1:22:29
are on our corner and on our pocket of the internet that are doing great
1:22:34
things. Um, and you know some of them ended up actually doing cover
1:22:39
work for the River Verse. Well yeah, like Shane Davis, Yes,
1:22:44
is also doing some great work with his projects as well. And you know
1:22:47
seeing what Shane's done with the Glorious Ricks and the Starlight Cats and he has
1:22:53
his own stuff that he's building that's inspiring, right. Um, there's people
1:22:58
that and again these these are former comic pros, if you will, that
1:23:01
are doing some some uh some fantastic work with everything it is that they're doing,
1:23:06
and everybody's trying to work towards. Um. I think the crowdfunding element
1:23:11
has introduced a new element for for some people that just wasn't available for them.
1:23:14
Now, yeah, that's why they're trying to stop it. Yeah,
1:23:16
exactly, because it's like, hey, we don't have to go through you
1:23:18
anymore, we can just let the crowdfund it. So but that in itself
1:23:23
is a lot of people that are coming from that that aspect that we're seeing
1:23:26
do awesome things raizor fist but a good friend Stuffing doing his thing with our
1:23:30
man's ge prime uh and go to the bad Lands which they're finishing up that
1:23:35
should be feeling up very soon. Um. So it's a lot of people
1:23:39
in our little corner. That's what's fun about this, because there's a lot
1:23:42
of people in our corner of the Internet that are doing some awesome things in
1:23:45
comics. Um that I again, we collaborate every now and then, Like
1:23:49
I said, you get cover B and cover and cover h C for for
1:23:55
ice something too done by Ethan van Scabre has a lot of his own work
1:23:58
cyber frog and everything, and Shane Davis did they did our foil covers.
1:24:01
So they're individually doing their own thing and it's it's fun to watch. And
1:24:06
I'm not a spiteful guy. Um, I'm a guy that loves to see
1:24:11
other people be great, and I certainly want to see my friends be great.
1:24:14
So to see other people in our corner seeing a lot of success has
1:24:17
been has been awesome. Absolutely, absolutely, we all benefit. Right,
1:24:21
um so, so are you gonna do any crossover stuff with other people?
1:24:27
Because this is something I'm sure people have asked about, like do all these
1:24:30
books? Could they exist in the same universe. I know that that's a
1:24:33
big ass, but think about it, like it's George Perez, a legend,
1:24:38
one of my favorite artists up there with like Scott Adams and Walt Simonson.
1:24:42
Those are two of my absolute favorites. Mark Silvestri. Anyway, he
1:24:45
did he illustrated because George Perez's big thing was crowd shots, right, he
1:24:50
did this great crossover Justice League versus the Avengers. I think it was like
1:24:57
Justice League Avengers crossover, a huge book look and even at a big crossover,
1:25:00
but you know, it was kind of a one time thing. Like
1:25:03
after that, everything's sort of reset to normal. Have you guys ever talked
1:25:06
about anything like that. I know it seems a little silly, but I
1:25:10
bet the fans would love it. Yeah, I know, people like it's
1:25:13
it's hard definitely with the universe like ours that prides itself so much and like,
1:25:17
h you know, the continuity element and all that. So that's what
1:25:20
a crossover stuff kind of I don't know how we would generally pull that off.
1:25:26
I'll however, I will say this, if there's a if there's like
1:25:30
a cover or something, we see people do that as a collaboration. Like
1:25:32
you'll see some person's IP collaborate with somebody else's on a cover. That's been
1:25:36
really cool to see. But yeah, like those massive crossovers, it'll it's
1:25:41
gonna be difficult to do that with ours, just because we pride ourselves so
1:25:44
much on the continuity aspect. Yeah everything, No, I understand. Yeah,
1:25:48
but but you know, I love to collaborate with people that are also
1:25:51
doing awesome things. So if we can do that in a way that makes
1:25:55
sense for like a one off thing, yeah, Like if we can make
1:26:00
it make sense, it has to be, Yeah, for sure, and
1:26:02
I'm willing to hear it out. That's for sure. All right. Well
1:26:04
then never say never. Yeah, So, uh that sounds really cool.
1:26:10
And um, I guess the other thing I wanted to ask you going back
1:26:15
to video games for a moment because it's it's one of my passions. So,
1:26:17
um, what are you currently playing and on what platform? And what
1:26:23
are you looking forward to? Uh? Well, man, I've been in
1:26:26
kind of a funk right now. I've played obviously a lot of Eild and
1:26:30
Ring people. Oh yeah, we had played all that, and I'll float
1:26:34
from you know, at PS five as well as PC even though I have
1:26:38
the Xbox is really useless. The fact that I have a PC, um,
1:26:42
but I'm playing on whatever um that I can you know, I can
1:26:45
play and I'm there are some games that I'm I'm I'm intrigued by. I've
1:26:48
said this before. I'm really really hoping that I get uh some good uh.
1:26:54
There are some that look intriguing, like the next gm MM experience.
1:26:59
I'm hoping that we get very very soon because I love our online RPGs.
1:27:02
Whatever that looks um. But right now, which like it's it's not a
1:27:08
whole lot out there that I'm like, oh man, I'm looking forward to
1:27:11
playing this. I'll play play every now and then a little something some But
1:27:14
like I said, Eldon Ring, probably I think it was the most recent
1:27:15
game that I clocked them that I came back to and clocked the most outs
1:27:19
in. Yeah, yeah, did you do you like fighting games? Yeah?
1:27:23
I could play on Street Fighter recently came out. I hadn't played it
1:27:26
yet, though I'm not crazy about Fighter six, but I love the Street
1:27:29
Fighter. I grew up on that. Street Fighter four actually was my favorite
1:27:33
because I like the roster the most. Um I played five when I first
1:27:38
came out, but I didn't like the model they had where there was only
1:27:41
some characters and there was no arcade mode and you had to like download.
1:27:45
I was like, no, I'm not, I'm not participating in that,
1:27:46
you know, I'm not. I'm less critical of DLC than most people.
1:27:51
I can be pretty forgiving, but it has to make sense if I feel
1:27:55
like I'm being exploited that I'm not gonna do it. And I'm not a
1:27:58
fan of six, but I was, you know, big into tech in.
1:28:02
I got really good at that and like Guilty Gear and that's actually a
1:28:05
good. Another thing I wanted to mention about about that is that a lot
1:28:09
of those games are getting dumbed down too. So yeah, yeah, I
1:28:14
know, I know, and so like that. You know, Uh,
1:28:16
that's another thing that I'm seeing happen, Like I understand. The last Guilty
1:28:20
Gear, which I didn't buy, was you know, you could just mash
1:28:25
combos and it didn't have the complexity that the old ones had. Um So
1:28:29
and I think fighting games it's a problem because you know what's interesting is the
1:28:31
fighting game community. I brought this up before. You know, these people
1:28:34
that claim to care about like minority representation, like they're they're all about the
1:28:40
fighting game shit. Like if you look, it's like it's all like Asians
1:28:43
and Hispanics and black people like they you know. But I mean not that
1:28:45
it matters to me, because it doesn't, but it's interesting you know that
1:28:49
that um, that kind of that hardcore experience is being nerved basically, you
1:28:55
know. So, um, all right, well I was just curious about
1:28:58
that. I'm I'm currently playing I think Jedi Survivor, which I do as
1:29:02
a I stream that here on this channel whenever I get into it, and
1:29:06
I'm liking it because it's kind of soulsy, you know. Um, but
1:29:11
uh yeah, I've been doing that, and I'm kind of interested in Hell
1:29:15
Divers too, which I saw saw the trailer yesterday and that looks sick.
1:29:19
I loved Hell Divers. That was so much fun. And also what was
1:29:25
it last one? Armor cores? Uh six? Because you know from from
1:29:28
Soft is like, I love those guys. They can't do wrong in my
1:29:30
opinion. But anyway, and we've been going for a bit, I think
1:29:33
you gotta go probably, so I appreciate you hanging out. And again,
1:29:40
um stick around a little bit because I want to say a few things at
1:29:43
the end here. But let me wrap it up for everybody else. Let
1:29:45
me make sure I'm not missing any super chats or anything. No more super
1:29:49
chows, no rumble rants, no super chats. All right, So thanks
1:29:55
so much for coming on today's show. If you guys liked this video,
1:29:58
please show me by leaving al subscribe. If you're not already subscribed, hit
1:30:00
the bellf for notifications. Let us know what you guys think about what we
1:30:03
discussed on the show today. Check out the links in the description so you
1:30:08
can check out I saw him number one and two and be and be ready
1:30:13
for whenever you if you started the fundraiser for three yet for you're starting like
1:30:17
Priyota campaign for the Priyota campaign is still happening for two right now, so
1:30:23
yeah two three, that probably won't happen until like early early next year.
1:30:26
So two ye one, you want to get in all well, yeah,
1:30:29
get in on that and uh yeah, check out all the links, follow
1:30:32
them on Twitter and all that. And hopefully if you're new here, you're
1:30:35
following us as well. I'm not on Twitter. I got banned from Twitter
1:30:40
like years ago because I basically made fun of Commies and they don't like that.
1:30:45
But um, you know, so uh yeah, because I said that
1:30:50
they're basically the same as Nazis and you can't you can't change my mind.
1:30:54
U. So yeah, I'm not on there, but you can follow at
1:30:57
Honey Badger Bite on Twitter and I do manage that account even though it's technically
1:31:01
Allison's, So thanks so much. I did get one more super chat at
1:31:04
the end, so I'll go ahead and read it. Albertnaa retrocos the Twin
1:31:08
on was Canadian says, make an interpretational x over or crossover in a classic
1:31:13
secret war story, characters from each universe brought together by a mysterious force and
1:31:16
study the concepts of good and evil. And then he says, Star Trek
1:31:20
the TS Savage Curtain. I guess that's a of the original series, like
1:31:25
a reference. All right, well, thank you, Albert. Not a
1:31:28
bad idea again, never say never, but we'll see. Let's hope.
1:31:30
Let's hope it blows up to the point where that becomes feasible. So thank
1:31:35
you guys so much for coming on today's episode of the Fireside Chat, and
1:31:39
we will talk to you all in the next video