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With Great Power #264... 22 Panels with Zack Kaplan · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:00
  Zack Kaplan: Let's… let's talk.
• 0:02
  Zack Kaplan: Good afternoon. Reporting in progress.
• 0:05
  Tad Eggleston: Good afternoon, everybody. You know how laid back we are. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels. My guest for the fourth, fifth, some sort of time that I'll probably count up today, because I've started the process of, like.
• 0:22
  Tad Eggleston: going and better tagging our old episodes, so, like, when I upload your episode today, I'll do a search for Zach Kaplan, and find all of the other times that you've been on, and change the listing, so it's Zach Kaplan 1, Zach Kaplan 2, that sort of thing.
• 0:38
  Tad Eggleston: Then I'll know how many times Zach Kaplan has come to talk comics with us, so hi, Zach Kaplan.
• 0:42
  Zack Kaplan: Hi! Did I say your name enough times? You got it. Yes, sir.
• 0:46
  Tad Eggleston: I wanted people to know.
• 0:51
  Tad Eggleston: that they're here to listen to Zach Kaplan talk about fantastic Zach Kaplan comics.
• 0:56
  Zack Kaplan: One…
• 0:57
  Tad Eggleston: Is that the one that's on the shelf right now, or the one that's coming out soon?
• 1:01
  Zack Kaplan: We can start wherever you'd like. I have a few coming out this fall, so, yeah.
• 1:08
  Tad Eggleston: Just because somehow, and this doesn't happen often, so I'm gonna apologize, normally, I buy all of your books, and either physically or digitally, and I'm, like, way on top of them, and somehow Mastermind started, and I hadn't read it until I was reading the copy that you sent me.
• 1:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yesterday, so I'm halfway through Issue 1, and… and just… just to that turning twist, where we find out about the game, or the… the… the… the master…
• 1:38
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, the Masterminds game, there's.
• 1:40
  Tad Eggleston: Masterminds Club. That's awesome.
• 1:44
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, it's like a golf club.
• 1:46
  Tad Eggleston: I thought it was, like, a Skull & Bones club.
• 1:48
  Zack Kaplan: It is, it is, yeah.
• 1:49
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, that part is there already.
• 1:52
  Zack Kaplan: It's like a treehouse club, yeah.
• 1:54
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, to be honest, if I was to describe what I would expect the difference between a master gamer club and a master businessman club to be.
• 2:08
  Tad Eggleston: I… one of the possibilities would be that the Master Gamer Club would take place in treehouses rather than… That's… yeah. Rather than, like, an underground,
• 2:20
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 2:21
  Tad Eggleston: Clubs with, with, with cigars and pool tables.
• 2:25
  Zack Kaplan: The series does look at the cross-section between those who enjoy games and those who want to be rich and powerful, so I guess there is a VIN diagram of those that still would get into a treehouse, but .
• 2:40
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 2:41
  Zack Kaplan: But for… but probably…
• 2:43
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, let's be honest, you know, and I'm gonna try to overall avoid the politics, but don't you think Elon would be more sane if he'd allowed himself to just keep his treehouse?
• 2:55
  Zack Kaplan: Did he lose his treehouse? I'm assuming he doesn't use his treehouse anymore. I don't know if he ever… It's like a rosebud? It's like a rosebud thing?
• 3:02
  Tad Eggleston: It feels lame, doesn't it?
• 3:04
  Zack Kaplan: Longing for…
• 3:05
  Tad Eggleston: I feel like somebody who's trying to be grown up.
• 3:08
  Tad Eggleston: When he doesn't really want to be.
• 3:11
  Zack Kaplan: I don't know. That's fair.
• 3:15
  Zack Kaplan: I don't know, but that is an interesting.
• 3:17
  Tad Eggleston: But there's such a difference between people trying to be grown up.
• 3:21
  Tad Eggleston: and, like, being responsible, but allowing themselves to do the things they like. I think mastery…
• 3:28
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 3:28
  Tad Eggleston: one that's…
• 3:29
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, this came to me because it was more about, I think, when you… well, when you grow up, you kind of… and when you get a job and you pursue success in an adult fashion, you kind of
• 3:42
  Zack Kaplan: are told there's a certain system, and there are certain kind of ways to do this, and you go get a job, and you work 8 hours, and you show that you're determined, you're easy to work with, and all these things, and then you will find promotion, and you'll find the path to success. And so, ironically, there are some people who go through life and are aware that none of that is actually active.
• 4:03
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I was about to say, like, 30 years later, when you're still working the same job, and you've never actually had an 8-hour day, they're all 10 to 14, and promotions are few and far between, and they're offering a name only, you go, wait a minute!
• 4:21
  Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute, somebody lied to me.
• 4:23
  Zack Kaplan: And putting the decay of the tech industry aside for a moment, just saying, like, remember these stories about Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and all these guys that, like.
• 4:37
  Zack Kaplan: were… were… they were dropouts, or they did their own thing, or they didn't play by… they played by their own rules, and they got ahead, and it's like…
• 4:46
  Zack Kaplan: that's actually the secret, is you actually, you know, life is far more cutthroat and ruthless, and if you approach success as a game, you probably stand a better chance of getting ahead. You just have to be willing to live with yourself and who you might become in the process. So that's what Masterminds is about.
• 5:06
  Tad Eggleston: Can we find… can we find Route C?
• 5:10
  Tad Eggleston: Where we can… where we can play the game, get ahead, but not have to do anything that makes us wanna, like.
• 5:16
  Zack Kaplan: No, I don't… I… no, I don't think that exists.
• 5:20
  Tad Eggleston: And that's…
• 5:20
  Zack Kaplan: That's what this is. That's our goal is.
• 5:22
  Tad Eggleston: You and I need to make it.
• 5:24
  Zack Kaplan: I… no, I… I'm in the.
• 5:27
  Tad Eggleston: You're the creative one! That's my challenge to you. Write the comic where it exists. Have it be the roadmap.
• 5:33
  Zack Kaplan: But I write, you know, in that… you know me, I'm writing things to try to make people think and try to explore subjects that I… that I find interesting and believe in.
• 5:42
  Tad Eggleston: I know what you do.
• 5:43
  Zack Kaplan: I don't know that that exists. I mean, I don't know that life has that option. I think you have to choose between… I think happiness exists, and living with yourself exists, but I don't know that it exists in the same realm as being a cutthroat
• 6:02
  Zack Kaplan: business person who makes it to the top. I think that most people who make it to the top will tell you, oh man, the shit that I had to do to get here, I had to… I had to make some choices I'm not totally happy with. And if there are people out there who have found success and lived, you know, lives where they made… they lived… they were happy with every decision they made, I would love to read those stories, but I…
• 6:25
  Zack Kaplan: you know, and there are teachers who are super fulfilled and who make a great living and have a great life, but I think that when you look at success as it is portrayed as.
• 6:38
  Tad Eggleston: Only some of them make a great, great living. I mean, I'm one of those teachers, so… I live a great life.
• 6:43
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, that's true, you're right. Teachers don't make a great living.
• 6:49
  Tad Eggleston: But…
• 6:50
  Zack Kaplan: I mean, they make a… they make…
• 6:51
  Tad Eggleston: There are a handful of schools, you know…
• 6:53
  Zack Kaplan: But I guess, yeah, I guess it's like, we live in a world today where we are glorifying success, and all the TikToks and Reels and everything are all about, you know, business strategies and ways to get ahead and all this stuff, and it just occurred to me that
• 7:11
  Zack Kaplan: there's a lot of game playing that goes on, and this is kind of a devil's… yeah. So, Masterminds is like a Fincher-esque sort of thriller about…
• 7:18
  Zack Kaplan: The world's smartest secret society.
• 7:21
  Zack Kaplan: And they're inviting a young man to join their ranks, open every door possible for him, but he's gotta win their game. And then we gamified the comic, and so there's a series of puzzles and challenges that kind of you as a reader get to play along with as you read it, and
• 7:38
  Zack Kaplan: And yeah, it's been a lot of fun to make, for sure, and a gorgeous book. Steven Thompson's the artist, Diago Rocha is the colorist, Hassan, Otzman El Hao is lettering it, we got Tom Muller doing designs, and yeah, so it's been a lot of fun to… to… and it's… and it's interesting, because I don't know… there's…
• 7:55
  Zack Kaplan: it's got a unique feel to it. I mean, I had a hard… I was hard-pressed to find other Fincher-esque thrillers on the comic bookshelf that I could say, hey, if you like that, you'll like this. I mean, there's tons of horror, tons of fantasy, and tons of action out there, but…
• 8:11
  Zack Kaplan: Fincher-esque thrillers, I mean, Department of Truth, maybe, but, you know, I was hard-pressed to find, something similar in.
• 8:19
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's…
• 8:20
  Zack Kaplan: style.
• 8:21
  Tad Eggleston: It's, it's literally coming out
• 8:24
  Tad Eggleston: at the same time as yours, and I don't know if I quite call it Fincher-esque, but… but it has… you have a
• 8:33
  Tad Eggleston: feel… to Fred Van Lenti's current, The Future Is project.
• 8:39
  Zack Kaplan: K.
• 8:40
  Tad Eggleston: that he's doing… with Rekha Comics, which is hacker backwards, because they're owned.
• 8:45
  Zack Kaplan: Owned by a cybersecurity firm.
• 8:49
  Tad Eggleston: But his is set in the future.
• 8:51
  Zack Kaplan: Is that a futurist… this is… Masterminds is set in present day.
• 8:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right, right. So, so that's, that's that… I… I didn't, didn't say they were the same. Yes. I was saying that, particularly when you talk about how you gamified the comic, they, they literally have had their…
• 9:07
  Tad Eggleston: wag.
• 9:07
  Zack Kaplan: When you segue into sci-fi.
• 9:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 9:10
  Zack Kaplan: which I write much of, you get a lot… you get a lot more of these. There's a lot of dystopian, dark thrillers in the realm of sci-fi. You get your Blade Runner-esque stuff.
• 9:20
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 9:21
  Zack Kaplan: In… in now, you know, not even one second in the future, but right now, modern day, stories, and thrillers, and… and kind of that dark Finch.
• 9:34
  Tad Eggleston: No, absolutely.
• 9:35
  Zack Kaplan: And I'm surprised there are not more of them, and anytime I find myself working on a story, and I go to the bookshelf, and I go, what are the comparable titles, and I can't find them, I always feel like that's a great sign. Like, I'm in the right zone.
• 9:50
  Tad Eggleston: Fair enough.
• 9:51
  Zack Kaplan: Like, you know, I was like.
• 9:52
  Tad Eggleston: Where are my sci-fi westerns? Join the future? It's like, there are no sci-fi… what are the sci-fi westerns in comics? And there are not a lot, so I'm like, alright. No, there aren't a lot, there are a handful.
• 10:02
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, so I got… so that's always a good sign to me as a creator that… that I…
• 10:06
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 10:06
  Zack Kaplan: Something I can't find.
• 10:07
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 10:08
  Tad Eggleston: That's absolutely… and now you've got me racking my brains.
• 10:15
  Tad Eggleston: Because, you know, that's just how I work. I like to find the other stuff.
• 10:20
  Tad Eggleston: You're not too late to Masterminds. It just started, we just kicked off, the next issue, the next issue comes out in October, so, you got… Well, and, like, I knew…
• 10:31
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, shoot, it'.
• 10:31
  Zack Kaplan: It's a five-issue miniseries, so yeah.
• 10:33
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know how I didn't read it, Zach. I feel so bad. You know how much I plug your comics.
• 10:38
  Zack Kaplan: That's quite… yeah, no worries. I'm glad you got… I'm glad…
• 10:41
  Tad Eggleston: How often do I come to say hello to you and sell 10 things off your table while I'm there?
• 10:48
  Zack Kaplan: Every Chicago, that's right.
• 10:50
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Oh, I'm just talking to my friend Zach, you should buy this one.
• 10:55
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 10:55
  Tad Eggleston: Let me tell you about this one.
• 10:58
  Zack Kaplan: It always helps. That helps to have, have, someone else, besides me sell my own stuff, for sure, at the cons, yeah.
• 11:07
  Tad Eggleston: No, I… like I said, I'm halfway through the first issue and loving every second of it, as I do with most of your work.
• 11:14
  Zack Kaplan: Thank you.
• 11:17
  Zack Kaplan: Did you get… did you get to the puzzle? The first… the first riddle?
• 11:21
  Tad Eggleston: If the first riddle is… is…
• 11:24
  Zack Kaplan: Yes. So you haven't, you haven't, you haven't… no, it's… the next page is the first, is the first,
• 11:30
  Zack Kaplan: The first riddle.
• 11:32
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, well, see, the… the next page is… is the one that… that I heard the… the ding-dong, Zach is here.
• 11:40
  Zack Kaplan: And you went, yeah.
• 11:41
  Tad Eggleston: So I, I read.
• 11:42
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, so you'll have to let me know…
• 11:43
  Tad Eggleston: gamers, and then I had to kind.
• 11:45
  Zack Kaplan: No, you'll have to let me know if you… if you're able to solve… if you… if you solve it, because I know
• 11:50
  Zack Kaplan: Rookie, we'll see if you get it.
• 11:52
  Tad Eggleston: I'll do my best. I don't always do as well with puzzles as I'd like, in part because, like, I'm easily distracted.
• 11:59
  Tad Eggleston: Easily distracted.
• 12:02
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I don't know if you've noticed that when we talk.
• 12:05
  Tad Eggleston: you know, when I go off on rants about other comic books, or… or the weather…
• 12:11
  Zack Kaplan: It didn't, it didn't… it didn't clock for me, no.
• 12:14
  Tad Eggleston: Really clapping.
• 12:19
  Tad Eggleston: So this one is coming out from Dark Horse, right?
• 12:22
  Zack Kaplan: That's our course, yeah.
• 12:24
  Tad Eggleston: five-issue series.
• 12:25
  Zack Kaplan: 5 issue series just started, in… just a couple weeks ago. Issue 2… Issue 2 is October 8th, and then it will be monthly until the end, and it'll collect next, year sometime. So, yeah, been having a blast working with Dark Horse, both on this and then… and then Kill All the Mortals, so.
• 12:43
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, Kill All Immortals, we'll talk about it in a second. You're working with Steven Thompson on this, do I know.
• 12:49
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 12:50
  Tad Eggleston: before?
• 12:51
  Zack Kaplan: Steven did the Midnight Shadows with me.
• 12:54
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 12:54
  Zack Kaplan: Buzz, which was a collaborative.
• 12:56
  Tad Eggleston: That's why I've recognized.
• 12:58
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, but he's also done Star Trek and, several other things. Absolutely insane level of detail, super cinematic style.
• 13:08
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:09
  Zack Kaplan: Really, really great. Really a great…
• 13:14
  Zack Kaplan: Great, you know, inker, just natural inker, and
• 13:20
  Zack Kaplan: kind of in a great cross-section of, you know, like, just great comic art, not too… not too cartoon-leaning, very realistic, very grounded, you know? Just… I just love it. Just a great style.
• 13:36
  Tad Eggleston: So, you, you touched on this, like.
• 13:40
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, you talked about, you know, having the idea and not seeing it on the shelves, and you talked about, like, looking at the world and the lie that is, do this and get ahead.
• 13:51
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 13:52
  Tad Eggleston: Most people are… are not, but was there any… was there any, like…
• 13:58
  Tad Eggleston: any moment, any confluence of, like, you read this and watched that and went, oh, what if you did this? I mean, like, or was it you just woke up one morning and went, oh, mastermind?
• 14:12
  Zack Kaplan: I actually was kicking this idea around even before Squid Games came out, and then I think Squid Games came out, and I was kind of like, oh, I have that idea, I'm working on already mindset.
• 14:20
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't seen yet, because it's a TV.
• 14:22
  Zack Kaplan: They're a little different. I don't do as much TV. Squid Games takes their contestants away from the real world, and and mine is… no, I think I… the germination was, it'd be fun to do a secret society.
• 14:37
  Zack Kaplan: where… where the game is, like, where there's a series of, like, Secret Society of Gamers, and the game is the initiation, and kind of explore the nature of games. I… I grew up… I grew up as a huge…
• 14:50
  Zack Kaplan: gaming nerd, and everything from, you know, Nintendo consoles to computer games, and just, you know, loved the puzzle solving of it all, and loved…
• 15:00
  Zack Kaplan: The storytelling and love, you know.
• 15:04
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and you'd had an element of the, like, app…
• 15:08
  Tad Eggleston: Less of a game app, but still, like, the app-based, attention-grabbing in mindset already, so this is definitely something that you…
• 15:15
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, I would say if people enjoyed Mindset, this has got a similar vibe, both in the sense that it's got a look at modern technology, a little bit the gaming industry, and Mindset looks at the…
• 15:26
  Zack Kaplan: the app and Silicon Valley industry, and this is… they're both kind of flawed characters facing complex moral journeys in a… in a world where they have to choose between being manipulated or manipulating themselves, and… and so I think there's a lot of similarity. I think definitely if you're stacking, like.
• 15:45
  Zack Kaplan: my comics into different realms. Mindset and masterminds are both
• 15:50
  Zack Kaplan: noir thrillers, you know, of mine, but, different in other ways, I think, but… but…
• 15:58
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, it was interesting to… it kind of came from just my love of games, and then kind of realizing that in modern life, life is a… everyone that looks at life as a game, kind of, and doesn't care who they…
• 16:14
  Zack Kaplan: step over to get ahead, like, that… that's how you get ahead. And and I'm a… I'm a Midwest kid from… from cornfields and all, so .
• 16:25
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, dear God, do I hope it doesn't work for everybody, because then we'll become even more cutthroat than we already are, and, like.
• 16:34
  Zack Kaplan: Well, and I think that social media and technology and everything is speeding up this…
• 16:40
  Tad Eggleston: No, it…
• 16:41
  Zack Kaplan: And when I was growing up, and I would play games, no one, like.
• 16:46
  Zack Kaplan: I loved games growing up, I played Nintendo and stuff like that. No one else, like, we didn't have phones, so… parents were not doing word games, or fantasy football games, or like, we're all playing games now all the time. Like, you go to the airport, everyone is on their phone playing a game, not just kids, not just teenagers, like…
• 17:06
  Zack Kaplan: grandmas and grandpas are playing games on their phones, so we're all being.
• 17:09
  Tad Eggleston: To be fair, I mostly read on my phone.
• 17:11
  Zack Kaplan: You're an exception, my man. You're an exception.
• 17:14
  Zack Kaplan: to the rule. We're all… everyone is addicted to games. It's… it's one of the largest,
• 17:19
  Tad Eggleston: I play a little bit of Scrabble.
• 17:21
  Zack Kaplan: No, these games, I mean, whether it's a AAA game that's coming out of GameStop, or it's a mobile.
• 17:26
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, I know. I'm not disagreeing.
• 17:29
  Zack Kaplan: Cheyenne Industries. They'll get celebrities at the Super Bowl. You'll be like, what is this celebrity promoting? This celebrity's promoting a casino game, and you're like, how did they get…
• 17:40
  Zack Kaplan: whoever it is, you know, Julia Roberts or someone to sell a casino game, and it's like, because that's how much money is in these games, because they're getting.
• 17:47
  Tad Eggleston: Because when you can convince people to spend $2 or $3 a day, because they're only spending at 25 cents at a time, you make a lot of money.
• 17:54
  Zack Kaplan: They'll take $2.99 a month on a subscription, and they'll just get your subscription.
• 17:59
  Zack Kaplan: they make a killing. So, we're all being conditioned to play more… to play games, and what does this do to our psyche? What does this do to the way we view life when everything is transactional and everything is gamified? You know, and then you look at job hunting as gamified, dating is gamified, everything in our lives is…
• 18:21
  Tad Eggleston: say, like, like, I mean, Zach, you're depressing me here.
• 18:24
  Tad Eggleston: And I know that the book won't, because the book will be amazing, but, like… but, like, I used to think that it was cool.
• 18:30
  Zack Kaplan: Were you depressed after mindset? Did mindset depress you?
• 18:34
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, it didn't. I didn't… I said the book wasn't gonna… I said, right now, this moment.
• 18:39
  Zack Kaplan: But mindset… mindset says we're all addicted to our phones, and we're laughing.
• 18:43
  Tad Eggleston: I know.
• 18:44
  Zack Kaplan: Got it. And, and the, the…
• 18:47
  Zack Kaplan: the irony that we all know what's happening to us with our phones, but we just accept it. And then at the very end, the hero that… that, you know, he… he, turns the script on everybody, you know, like, he… he's the controller, not the controle. He breaks free. So,
• 19:07
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, I don't think that mindset is a terribly… like, mindset is an empowering story if you want to follow in the footsteps and break free, but we know no one will. So, I feel like masterminds…
• 19:20
  Zack Kaplan: is the same, like, it's the same kind of, question to everybody, like, look at what's going on, and what are you gonna do about it?
• 19:29
  Zack Kaplan: So, yeah, my job is to just…
• 19:32
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I just…
• 19:33
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Tad Eggleston: And honestly, no, it's knowing that you're 100% right, that when I'm sitting at an airport, or a cafe, or whatnot, and everybody's on their phone, including me, I'm probably the only one reading a comic book, or a poem, or a book book, or even news.
• 19:53
  Zack Kaplan: you are.
• 19:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 19:57
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's kind of like the day I discovered that, that, that…
• 20:00
  Tad Eggleston: that neurotypical people apparently can drive automatically. Once they learn how to drive, it's something they do automatically without thought. They don't have to, like, think about, okay, press the… press the gas pedal now. Yeah.
• 20:15
  Tad Eggleston: You're on your turn signal now, check that mirror, check that mirror, check that mirror. How many cars do I have around me? What's this car about to do? What's that car about to do? I learned that most people do that automatically, and I went, what the fuck? And then I went.
• 20:30
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, that makes so much sense now.
• 20:32
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 20:34
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, so games… games were interesting to me, and and the gamification of our lives is interesting to me, and.
• 20:42
  Tad Eggleston: No, it's fascinating. I don't have the answers. It's fascinating, I just…
• 20:45
  Zack Kaplan: One of the answers, I just find interesting topics, and I write stories about them, and then I leave it to the smarter people to figure out the right way to live our lives and find happiness in spite of these things. But, yeah.
• 21:02
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:04
  Tad Eggleston: The smarter people are way behind, though, because, like.
• 21:10
  Zack Kaplan: But if you're listening to this…
• 21:11
  Tad Eggleston: I still think gamified.
• 21:12
  Zack Kaplan: If your listeners are listening, and they're one of the smart ones.
• 21:16
  Tad Eggleston: I hope that they are.
• 21:17
  Zack Kaplan: Then they can… they can…
• 21:19
  Tad Eggleston: Some of them are.
• 21:20
  Zack Kaplan: They can solve this mystery for themselves and for all of us. They can break free. And they can be on the other side of the wall, and they can wave at us and say, I figured it out, and we.
• 21:30
  Tad Eggleston: No, I don't want to wave at you and say I figured it out. I want to say, here, let me help you over the wall.
• 21:35
  Zack Kaplan: Oh, you can help them. Yes.
• 21:38
  Tad Eggleston: I meant you. I mean…
• 21:39
  Zack Kaplan: I can't leave. I can't leave. I'm trapped in, I'm trapped in here. All I can do is write stories to help other people escape. I can't.
• 21:47
  Tad Eggleston: You don't want to write stories from the other side once you've escaped?
• 21:51
  Zack Kaplan: then… then they… then the peop… then the people on the inside wouldn't be able to get those stories.
• 21:57
  Tad Eggleston: It's a bad way to get him back to him.
• 21:59
  Zack Kaplan: You know, the call has to come from inside the house. So, the stories have to be written here, and then I share the stories with people, and then they figure out how to break free. You can't… I can't break free and then reach the people in this world. It doesn't work that way.
• 22:17
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that's just…
• 22:18
  Tad Eggleston: So I'm in it. That makes me sad. So you're saying… That's the only way I can see, that's the only…
• 22:23
  Zack Kaplan: the boiler.
• 22:24
  Tad Eggleston: You have to be in agony, no matter what.
• 22:27
  Zack Kaplan: I have to experience the boiling water to know that the wa… to see it, so I can say, hey…
• 22:45
  Zack Kaplan: That's what I… that's what I write, my man, that's what I do.
• 22:50
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 22:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 22:51
  Zack Kaplan: My internet… it just said my internet connection is unstable.
• 22:55
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:55
  Zack Kaplan: To pop up, right as…
• 22:57
  Tad Eggleston: Mine has had issues, too. Hopefully, yours went through. I didn't hear it, but this is why I recorded the crowd, because I have heard.
• 23:07
  Tad Eggleston: or I have noticed that, like, when I record to the cloud, sometimes I don't get to hear it during the interview, but it still makes it into the recording.
• 23:17
  Zack Kaplan: Good, good. So, so hopefully you're preaching…
• 23:21
  Tad Eggleston: will be there, and I'll get to find out what you said. But that makes it a perfect time to… to pivot, to kill all Immortals, too.
• 23:30
  Zack Kaplan: It is, yeah.
• 23:31
  Tad Eggleston: And, and, like, I mean, first.
• 23:35
  Tad Eggleston: like, you did wrap up in such a way that I knew it could be coming, but I mean, initially, like, with a book called Kill All Immortals.
• 23:44
  Tad Eggleston: I thought there were gonna be no immortals left to kill.
• 23:47
  Zack Kaplan: Do you think that?
• 23:48
  Tad Eggleston: too, feels like… Yes.
• 23:51
  Tad Eggleston: feels like, some issues with truth in advertising there. You shouldn't be able to have Kill All Immortals 2. You should have to have, like, more immortals are made.
• 24:02
  Tad Eggleston: And then kill all of them.
• 24:04
  Zack Kaplan: Hey, you know what? You know what?
• 24:05
  Tad Eggleston: Immortals 2 should be the third series.
• 24:08
  Zack Kaplan: Stranger Things has still got some Stranger Things for you, even after 5 seasons, and…
• 24:13
  Tad Eggleston: But they never say ingest things.
• 24:16
  Zack Kaplan: And the dead are still walking dead, even after, like, 12 seasons, so, you know…
• 24:21
  Tad Eggleston: They don't say all of The Walking Dead, and they don't say strangest things. Now, if you called it Kill Some Immortals, it would make sense.
• 24:33
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, well, Kill All Immortals is just… it's like a life philosophy, like, you know, it's something that takes your whole life to do, you know? We all have our El Guapos, Tad. For some of us, El Guapo…
• 24:48
  Zack Kaplan: is debt, and for other of us, El Guapo is something else, and sometimes El Guapo's just a guy trying to kill us. We all have our immortals, and we're trying to kill all of them. It's just a metaphor. So… yes.
• 25:03
  Zack Kaplan: Kill all… kill all Immortals over and over again, every little chance you get.
• 25:10
  Tad Eggleston: You know, I mean… I think it works. Sure.
• 25:13
  Tad Eggleston: But I had to give you a hard time, because it was really…
• 25:16
  Zack Kaplan: It's good.
• 25:17
  Tad Eggleston: I'm immortals.
• 25:18
  Zack Kaplan: It's okay. It's okay to want to always kill all immortals.
• 25:22
  Tad Eggleston: So, so what you're saying is that the title referred to… The desire, not… the action.
• 25:35
  Zack Kaplan: Kill all immortals. Yeah, the intent… the plan. It's the intent.
• 25:39
  Tad Eggleston: It's not, this book is about killing all the immortals. It's, it's, this book is about someone who wants to kill all of the immortals.
• 25:48
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 25:48
  Tad Eggleston: I got it now.
• 25:50
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 25:51
  Tad Eggleston: So, what you said was true, from a certain point of view.
• 25:56
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 25:57
  Tad Eggleston: That's the greatest line in all of Star Wars.
• 26:00
  Zack Kaplan: 50% of the time to write all the time, yeah.
• 26:03
  Tad Eggleston: That's right! The greatest… the… the… the… well, based on one of the greater… greater Anchorman lines. Yeah.
• 26:12
  Zack Kaplan: 50% of the time, it works every time.
• 26:15
  Tad Eggleston: That's right, that's right.
• 26:22
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. So, give us the, you know, because A, I was reading Masterminds because it had come out, and B, we don't want to spoil too much. Anyway.
• 26:36
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 26:37
  Tad Eggleston: Give us the front counter pitch for Kill All Immortals 2, because…
• 26:41
  Zack Kaplan: I mean, if you're… if you're not familiar with…
• 26:43
  Tad Eggleston: She went after the family really, really hard, and I forget who she managed to kill.
• 26:49
  Zack Kaplan: I told him, I'll say.
• 26:50
  Tad Eggleston: Whatever that wound up being open.
• 26:52
  Zack Kaplan: The first.
• 26:52
  Tad Eggleston: First, what…
• 26:52
  Zack Kaplan: If you're not familiar with the series at all, it's a…
• 26:55
  Zack Kaplan: a family of Vikings that discover a secret form of immortality, and now, a thousand years later, they become a immortal billionaire banking empire, and they're ruthless and barbaric, and the only.
• 27:07
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, to be fair, I don't… I don't think they became…
• 27:11
  Tad Eggleston: a thousand years later, the banking empire, I think they built it up over those thousand years. That was the implication I got. I mean, you wrote it so people… Right, they want to say they became overnight.
• 27:19
  Zack Kaplan: No, no, it wasn't overnight.
• 27:21
  Zack Kaplan: They, they…
• 27:22
  Tad Eggleston: Over a thousand years, they became a banking empire.
• 27:25
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, so…
• 27:25
  Tad Eggleston: 4,000.
• 27:26
  Zack Kaplan: years. It became. Became from one point to another.
• 27:30
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 27:31
  Zack Kaplan: Yes, and the only daughter finally wants out, and she doesn't like, being,
• 27:38
  Zack Kaplan: beholden to this lifestyle and this family, and so the first volume, or the first arc, is all about her conflict with her family. And if you've read the first arc, at the very end, we drop a really exciting cliffhanger, and surprise, surprise, there are more immortals than just this family.
• 27:55
  Tad Eggleston: In fact, I think I texted you as soon as I finished the first arc. I'm like, oh, so they didn't kill all the immortals.
• 28:02
  Zack Kaplan: they don'.
• 28:02
  Tad Eggleston: I did not.
• 28:03
  Zack Kaplan: And so… And you said.
• 28:04
  Tad Eggleston: Hasn't been announced yet, but next month…
• 28:06
  Zack Kaplan: So, this new issue…
• 28:08
  Zack Kaplan: this new issue and this new arc, it picks up right where we left off. It's about Frey and her siblings and her family being thrust into these new dangers, and without giving too much away. I mean, it is…
• 28:23
  Zack Kaplan: action-packed. It's even more dramatic than the first, arc. I think the first arc almost sets the stage for… for more character complexity, and,
• 28:35
  Zack Kaplan: and Fico Asio, who's the artist on this, he's doing Batman and Robin right now, and Thiago Rocha is our colorist as well, on this, and Hasan is also lettering this. But they put on a masterclass, I mean, it's just absolutely gorgeous.
• 28:48
  Zack Kaplan: gorgeous, immersive artwork from the locales to the fight sequences to the drama, and yeah, I mean, I really am excited because I feel like,
• 28:59
  Zack Kaplan: I just want to give readers who… who maybe love the big two, but want something in the creator-owned space, you know, a real kind of consequential and exciting action series to follow. And so, very kind of in the vein of Something's Killing the Children. So, and the response on the first arc was really, really exciting. I mean, that's why we…
• 29:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, in the vein of something's Killing the Children, but it also, I think, strayed into the awesome vein of, like, a John Wick, where it's
• 29:32
  Tad Eggleston: All action, all the time. Let's…
• 29:34
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 29:35
  Tad Eggleston: Let's go.
• 29:36
  Zack Kaplan: It is, actually, and the first… the new issue, we did a new number one so that people can kind of jump on. We're looking at the whole thing very much like a season of television in terms of, like.
• 29:46
  Tad Eggleston: each arc is a season of… is a new season, and so you can jump on here and go back and catch up. Okay, so what you… what you're saying is this is now Game of Thrones.
• 29:57
  Tad Eggleston: Which means that I was happy with the ending, but, like, nobody else was, so you gotta.
• 30:02
  Zack Kaplan: No, I wasn't happy with… I wasn't happy.
• 30:04
  Tad Eggleston: That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. If you start referring to it to television, like, that last season can be difficult. I'm just warning you now.
• 30:11
  Zack Kaplan: No, I think… no, it's not so… it's not so much about the… the la- the ending, I think it's… what it is, is like…
• 30:17
  Zack Kaplan: it's sequential, the storytelling is sequential, but the beginning of each arc… this is not issue 6 in the sense that you really have to go from 5 to 6. It… it explores a relative amount of…
• 30:34
  Zack Kaplan: It's set up so that you can digest this new issue and understand what's going on, and you can enjoy this arc almost in its own standalone sort of experience, but of course it is all on the foundation of the previous volume, so…
• 30:49
  Tad Eggleston: But that being said, I will tell people that if you're looking forward to Kill All Immortals Vol. 2.
• 30:56
  Zack Kaplan: Sure.
• 30:57
  Tad Eggleston: Killo All Immortals Volume 1 is available right now from Dark Horse Comics, for, I think $19.99 at your local comic shop, probably at a lot of your local bookstores, you know, and I'm certain there are even places online that you can find it, because, like, Dark Horse gets their stuff out and about.
• 31:16
  Zack Kaplan: But I think there's gonna be… I… listen, if there are readers listening who are smart enough to just go pick it up.
• 31:24
  Zack Kaplan: Awesome. But if they're like, I'm gonna wait, and they wait, and then they go in their comic shop, and they hear the excitement around Kill All Immortals 2, and they're like, alright, give me… I'll check out this one, and they read it, I'm confident that they will then go, alright, give me Volume 1.
• 31:41
  Tad Eggleston: I'm gonna say, I think most of our readers are smarter than that. I think that they're gonna go… Zach sounds awesome here, I'm gonna go get Kill All Immortals, and be ready for Kill All Immortals.
• 31:55
  Zack Kaplan: I love it, but I'm giving everybody as many entry points as possible.
• 31:58
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely. I'm in favor of that. Yeah. I'm in favor of that. You're the creator, you gotta… you gotta give them entry points. I'm… I'm the salesman, I gotta.
• 32:07
  Zack Kaplan: Sure.
• 32:08
  Tad Eggleston: if it's the money that you're worried about, and your library has Hoopla?
• 32:15
  Tad Eggleston: Kill All Immortals Volume 1 is available on Hoopla. Let's go. You can get it digitally with your library card. If your library doesn't have Hoopla, there's a very good chance that they either have it at the library already, or…
• 32:29
  Tad Eggleston: you can use Interlibrary Loan and get it from another library. It will be shipped to your library, free of charge! Just reminding people, because libraries are awesome, and they're under the same sort of pressures that us teachers are lately.
• 32:41
  Zack Kaplan: I got no problem, I got no problem.
• 32:43
  Tad Eggleston: Shout out.
• 32:43
  Zack Kaplan: The library, yes.
• 32:45
  Tad Eggleston: Shout out the librarians. Or, if you know where Zach lives, I can tell you that his copy is hiding next to his paper file on the bookshelf.
• 32:57
  Zack Kaplan: Sure, yeah.
• 32:57
  Tad Eggleston: Gotta slip into his office.
• 33:00
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, there you go.
• 33:01
  Tad Eggleston: He's moved it now, so… so you might have to look harder.
• 33:05
  Zack Kaplan: So gorgeous. So gorgeous. Yes.
• 33:08
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, very, very, very… Oh, the art.
• 33:11
  Zack Kaplan: We're vision. This is not just audio only. If you're listening to.
• 33:15
  Tad Eggleston: No, this is just audio only. Eventually, maybe someday we'll start.
• 33:19
  Zack Kaplan: Oh, really, this is just audio, so I'm holding this up for.
• 33:22
  Tad Eggleston: You're holding it up for me. You're holding it up for me.
• 33:24
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, look…
• 33:25
  Tad Eggleston: He's showing me great, great spreads.
• 33:28
  Tad Eggleston: Fico Aso's art on this book is ridiculous. Like, John Wick wasn't pulled out of a hat. I think the action…
• 33:36
  Zack Kaplan: sequence.
• 33:36
  Tad Eggleston: have that sort of frenetic energy.
• 33:39
  Zack Kaplan: That was our pitch. The pitch was, it's HBO's Secession meets John Wick, because it's like…
• 33:45
  Tad Eggleston: AI.
• 33:46
  Zack Kaplan: A billionaire family, and they're… they're in fighting, but when they…
• 33:49
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I think one of the… one of the undervalued parts of John Wick, that, like, there's so much beautifully choreographed fighting going on that you don't, like, notice it, is they fight in really beautiful places.
• 34:03
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 34:03
  Tad Eggleston: It's here, too.
• 34:05
  Zack Kaplan: That's the… yeah, that's the, the recipe. The recipe is.
• 34:09
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 34:10
  Tad Eggleston: It's not we're fighting in a dark alley, it's… No, it's not. We get these gorgeous mountains in the back.
• 34:15
  Zack Kaplan: It's not really the fighting. It's not really the fighting. I mean, there are sequences in John Wick where he runs around
• 34:23
  Zack Kaplan: And he has his gun, and he literally, like, taps the guys on the chest with his gun as he shoots. He likes to shoot close.
• 34:31
  Zack Kaplan: Right. There's no action, like, this is not something well-choreographed. It's like, okay, Keanu, you're gonna run through the hallway, these guys are gonna run up to you, tap each of them on the chest with the gun, and they'll fall down. Like, this is not complicated, but what makes John Wick so…
• 34:46
  Zack Kaplan: Cool in the fight sequences are the locales.
• 34:50
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 34:50
  Zack Kaplan: and the wardrobe and the lighting, all of that atmosphere are really… like, that is what elevates it and makes you feel like it's something you haven't seen before, and it's so fresh. So, yeah, we absolutely followed the same recipe, which was.
• 35:07
  Zack Kaplan: there are going to be awesome fight sequences, they're going to be in modern locales, everything from, like, the superyacht to the private plane tarmac to the nightclub and all these things, but then there's also all these, Viking locales, or ancient locales as well. And the new arc follows the same…
• 35:25
  Zack Kaplan: same script, you know, new locations on both fronts, both modern locations and ancient locations that give you awesome fight sequences. So, the new arc is… I'm so…
• 35:37
  Zack Kaplan: proud of it and so excited for it, and I think that if anyone had any… if you loved the first arc, or you just even heard interesting things and you were thinking about it, like… the new… I'm just so excited for what we have coming,
• 35:52
  Zack Kaplan: in October here, so just really awesome, so… Yeah.
• 35:58
  Tad Eggleston: So.
• 36:00
  Zack Kaplan: There's some great covers, too.
• 36:03
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 36:04
  Zack Kaplan: Oh, we got… so, I mean, Oliver Barrett, who just won the Ringo for, being a cover artist, and I, I think, Kill All Immortals, was, part of his annual portfolio there.
• 36:18
  Zack Kaplan: He does a whole other A series of these kind of model shoots, of our characters' kind of, high fashion violence. And then, issue one has a Matt Taylor.
• 36:30
  Zack Kaplan: Cover, which is amazing. John Jiang, who's a convention legend and an awesome cover artist, and then, of course, Tula Lote just won the Eisner for cover art, and
• 36:42
  Zack Kaplan: And she has an art cover for us as well. So, yeah, super…
• 36:47
  Tad Eggleston: Dote is amazing. Yeah. It needs to do more interior. I mean, I don't know if she gets paid more for covers, and it's one of the things that I hate, hate about…
• 36:55
  Zack Kaplan: Is she doing… is she doing something with… she did something with distillery.
• 36:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, she did something with Becky Clunin at Distillery that was amazing, and she did something at…
• 37:04
  Zack Kaplan: Is she doing something in Ignition now? I can't… I can't find…
• 37:06
  Tad Eggleston: I don't remember, but she did a book called Groupies with Helen Milan at Comixology that's about to be released through Mad Cave, that's also amazing. Right. She did, Barnstormers with Scott Snyder through Comixology. You know, she hasn't done… She does a fair share of interiors.
• 37:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, I…
• 37:26
  Tad Eggleston: But there's some people that, like, I love their interior art so much that I wish they could make as much money doing interior arts as they do making covers.
• 37:35
  Zack Kaplan: Oh, yeah.
• 37:35
  Tad Eggleston: because I feel like They, like, take a month off.
• 37:41
  Tad Eggleston: Every 3 or 4 months to just do covers, and that probably pays them better than all of their interior art combined.
• 37:48
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 37:49
  Tad Eggleston: So I get that.
• 37:51
  Tad Eggleston: But… I love her storytelling, it's just…
• 37:57
  Zack Kaplan: She's great.
• 37:58
  Tad Eggleston: It's… it's amazing.
• 38:00
  Tad Eggleston: let. Us. Jump.
• 38:03
  Tad Eggleston: backwards for a second, because you recently wrapped up, and I'm trying to… to…
• 38:10
  Zack Kaplan: The trade has come out on this one. Dark, empty voice.
• 38:13
  Tad Eggleston: Empty void, yeah.
• 38:14
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 38:15
  Tad Eggleston: Or is it coming up soon?
• 38:17
  Zack Kaplan: just came out, I believe, just a couple days ago.
• 38:20
  Tad Eggleston: Came out Wednesday the 23rd. Okay, so it was, like, literally right now.
• 38:26
  Zack Kaplan: Which is right now. Yeah.
• 38:28
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, that's right, because we're, we're, we're publishing, yeah. I, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you're listening to this, it will be coming out…
• 38:36
  Zack Kaplan: It came out.
• 38:38
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 38:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 38:40
  Tad Eggleston: I don't mind telling… letting them behind the curtain.
• 38:43
  Zack Kaplan: We're in the past.
• 38:45
  Tad Eggleston: We're in the past. From the future. We are trapped in the past. We can only tell you what's happening now. We hope that you made it through 3 days. No, so actually, because we had to reschedule.
• 38:56
  Tad Eggleston: It is the 23rd.
• 39:00
  Zack Kaplan: Today is the 23rd.
• 39:01
  Tad Eggleston: Today is the 23rd. We're looking at… So in bookstores, it came.
• 39:04
  Zack Kaplan: Now it's now, sir?
• 39:06
  Tad Eggleston: We're looking at now? We're looking at it now. It'll come out in comic shops tomorrow.
• 39:11
  Tad Eggleston: But, but, but it's out in bookstores right now.
• 39:15
  Zack Kaplan: No, today's Wednesday.
• 39:17
  Tad Eggleston: Today is Tuesday, September 23rd.
• 39:20
  Zack Kaplan: Today is Tuesday, it'll come out tomorrow.
• 39:22
  Tad Eggleston: In comic shops.
• 39:25
  Zack Kaplan: I don't even know where I am right now, if that…
• 39:27
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:27
  Zack Kaplan: All right, got it. It's coming out, it's coming, it's got…
• 39:31
  Tad Eggleston: 24th in comic shops, the 23rd in.
• 39:34
  Zack Kaplan: There you go.
• 39:35
  Zack Kaplan: Dark, empty, void in stores today, now.
• 39:39
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you can go get it.
• 39:40
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 39:41
  Tad Eggleston: And we just did our Spaceballs bit. Did you see that Spaceballs 2 is finally in production?
• 39:45
  Zack Kaplan: So excited. So excited. They pulled Rick Moranis out of retirement for 20 years. I know. I know.
• 39:51
  Zack Kaplan: I mean… I think his kids grew up.
• 39:53
  Tad Eggleston: So he's got time again.
• 39:54
  Zack Kaplan: Great.
• 39:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 39:56
  Zack Kaplan: Our win, absolutely.
• 39:57
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly, exactly. Have you gone to see Spinal Tap 2 yet?
• 40:01
  Zack Kaplan: I did not yet, but I love Spinal Tap, yeah.
• 40:04
  Tad Eggleston: I haven't yet, but I've heard good things. I mean, not like it's as good as the first, but, like, I don't think anybody expects that.
• 40:13
  Zack Kaplan: No.
• 40:14
  Tad Eggleston: I think they just expect it to be fun, and that's what I'm hearing.
• 40:17
  Tad Eggleston: So it's on my list.
• 40:18
  Zack Kaplan: I don't expect Spaceballs 2 to be good, but I expect to enjoy the hell out of it.
• 40:22
  Tad Eggleston: Exactly. I mean, honestly, as Mel Burks go… Mel Burks movies go, I don't know that I totally think Spaceballs 1 is good, but I enjoy the hell out of it.
• 40:34
  Zack Kaplan: Oh, it's great.
• 40:36
  Zack Kaplan: No, you're wrong.
• 40:38
  Tad Eggleston: I think Mel agrees with me.
• 40:41
  Zack Kaplan: I think…
• 40:41
  Tad Eggleston: I heard him talk about it, he's like, it's the only… it's the only time I did a genre pastiche where I didn't know anything about the genres. I don't even know if it's good.
• 40:52
  Zack Kaplan: The schtick is so great, like… It is, it is.
• 40:55
  Zack Kaplan: This is back… this is back, I mean, all the movies from the 80s, where they would just completely derail the plot. They'd just be like, excuse me, we're not… we're gonna not… we're not gonna service the plot for 10 minutes. We're just gonna do one schtick after another that just makes you laugh. It has nothing to do with the story whatsoever.
• 41:14
  Tad Eggleston: Ice balls the toilet paper.
• 41:16
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, so, yeah, it was the whole thing with… I mean, if you… if you condensed that movie down to plot, you'd have, like, an 8-minute movie. The whole thing is just…
• 41:23
  Tad Eggleston: Think it'd be a whole 8-minute movie?
• 41:26
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, I think…
• 41:27
  Tad Eggleston: I think that might be, I think that might be.
• 41:28
  Zack Kaplan: If you took every line out that was not.
• 41:31
  Tad Eggleston: I think that might be pushing it. You know how, like, the condensed football games are actually, like, three and a half minutes?
• 41:37
  Zack Kaplan: They even do that! They even do that in… what am I talking about? Spaceballs even does that in the sequence, where they go backwards, and then they replay the whole movie for, Commander Helmet, right? Remember? Right. Dark Helmet.
• 41:52
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, and they get to… they get to the very… now, now, and the whole thing takes, like, one or two minutes, so that's how little the plot is, so yeah.
• 42:04
  Zack Kaplan: We do it in there. Yeah, so we are, we are in the present right now.
• 42:10
  Tad Eggleston: We're in the now-now.
• 42:11
  Zack Kaplan: Dark Empty Void is out in stores right now, and that's what.
• 42:14
  Tad Eggleston: It's in bookstores, not comic shops, because comic shops get it on Wednesday.
• 42:18
  Zack Kaplan: Right.
• 42:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. But if people…
• 42:21
  Zack Kaplan: this on Wednesday.
• 42:23
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, you're right. I won't have this up until Wednesday, so by the time people are listening to it, they'll absolutely be able to buy it.
• 42:29
  Zack Kaplan: That's what I'm saying. When people are listening to this right now, now it's in comic shops.
• 42:34
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 42:35
  Zack Kaplan: They can go right now.
• 42:37
  Tad Eggleston: So if you're listening, you know, I was gonna release it later in the evening, but now I'm gonna put it up for, like, a 7AM release. If you're listening on your way to work.
• 42:46
  Tad Eggleston: You're gonna pick up your comics on the way home, don't forget to grab… to grab Dark Empty Void.
• 42:52
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, don't go to work, that's what we're saying, just go to the comic shop and get my comedy instead.
• 42:56
  Tad Eggleston: But most comic shops don't open until, like, 10 or 11 anyway.
• 43:00
  Zack Kaplan: I feel responsible.
• 43:01
  Tad Eggleston: I could, like, go to work.
• 43:01
  Zack Kaplan: This is responsible advice. Skip work, go wait outside the comic shop, just to let them know that you care, and get these books. I feel like this is responsible advice that will serve you well in your life.
• 43:15
  Zack Kaplan: Your employer will understand. You just mentioned…
• 43:19
  Tad Eggleston: Did… did this… this reminds.
• 43:21
  Zack Kaplan: Claim it on 22 panels, and here you go.
• 43:23
  Tad Eggleston: I did take… I did take a day off of work to… to stand in line for Phantom Menace tickets.
• 43:32
  Zack Kaplan: I think I might have done that, too. But… but let's not talk about our traumas, Tad, okay?
• 43:39
  Tad Eggleston: Dark Empty Void. Way better than Phantom Menace.
• 43:43
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Phantom is probably not something we needed to all stand in line for, that was the… No.
• 43:50
  Tad Eggleston: No, actually, my terrible admission about Phantom Menace, because I bought tickets for the midnight show, and, like, the 9am show the next day, and then, like, the 7pm show to take a bunch of friends with, and it wasn't until the third time that I saw it in 24 hours that I, like, it sunk into me that, like.
• 44:12
  Tad Eggleston: It… it wasn't…
• 44:13
  Zack Kaplan: But if you like… if you're out there and you like Phantom Menace, that's totally okay.
• 44:17
  Tad Eggleston: I like it better now than I did then.
• 44:20
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, it has some…
• 44:21
  Tad Eggleston: I aged okay.
• 44:22
  Zack Kaplan: It's aged okay. It's aged.
• 44:23
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 44:24
  Zack Kaplan: I agree with you.
• 44:26
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, Dark Empty Void is my first foray into, like, real horror. It's a cosmic sci-fi horror thriller. It's about black holes. Scientists are messing around, as they should, with microscopic black holes. Great idea. If you're out there and you're a scientist, totally recommend that. And then, they lose control, crazy stuff comes out, including a human being. And it's very much like an annihilation, arrival, sort of
• 44:51
  Zack Kaplan: of,
• 44:53
  Zack Kaplan: thought-provoking sci-fi, thriller, adventure. There's a little creature horror in there, akin to, like, Aliens, and and really excited about this one as well. It came out about a year ago, and we had… it was a five-issue series, came out from, like, October to April, and now it's being collected into…
• 45:12
  Zack Kaplan: graphic novel. It's with Chris Sheehan on art, Francisco Segala, colorist, and…
• 45:19
  Zack Kaplan: I believe Justin Birch of And World is our… the letterer, and .
• 45:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it's so, so, so good.
• 45:28
  Zack Kaplan: Thank you.
• 45:28
  Tad Eggleston: Though, I need to go back and look at release dates, because
• 45:33
  Tad Eggleston: I want to say that the… because I remember either emailing you or texting one morning.
• 45:39
  Tad Eggleston: Because it couldn't have possibly been on purpose, it was like, whatever happened in the world.
• 45:47
  Tad Eggleston: Felt just enough, like… like you're… you're staring off into the.
• 45:51
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 45:52
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think maybe it came out the day after Election Day or something.
• 45:57
  Zack Kaplan: Am I?
• 45:57
  Tad Eggleston: I'm, like, sucked. I'm wired up.
• 46:00
  Tad Eggleston: I'm like, Zach, what are you… beautiful!
• 46:03
  Tad Eggleston: But I wanted to just think of it as beautiful and amazing, rather than capturing my emotions.
• 46:10
  Zack Kaplan: We came up with this one during the pandemic, and it is very much about
• 46:15
  Zack Kaplan: For each of us, going through…
• 46:18
  Zack Kaplan: any experience, whether it's a personal experience or it's a societal or global experience, where you just feel like the world is collapsing and there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and how do you get through that? And I found that really interesting in a horror story, because you always get,
• 46:37
  Zack Kaplan: Horror stories, I feel like the characters are always very,
• 46:41
  Zack Kaplan: very excited. They're always very optimistic, and so I really thought it was interesting to do a horror story where the character actually doesn't.
• 46:49
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no, it was… it was right after Inauguration. Issue 3 came out January 29th.
• 46:58
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 47:00
  Zack Kaplan: But I, you know.
• 47:01
  Tad Eggleston: And it's beautiful, but, like, the opening sequence in that is just, like, haunting.
• 47:06
  Zack Kaplan: Actually, I mean, the other thing that it really taps into, which is… it's really more about mental health and depression, too.
• 47:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, God, yes.
• 47:14
  Zack Kaplan: the main character is depressed herself, she's a psychologist, she's lecturing on mental health and depression, and not even severe mental health, how so many of us just suffer from mild aspects of anxiety, or depression, or anger, all sorts of things. Like, we're all afflicted, whether we're diagnosed and medicated, or we're just, you know, going through something temporarily.
• 47:39
  Zack Kaplan: And, you know, like, how do you cope with that?
• 47:41
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, no.
• 47:42
  Zack Kaplan: Really hard. And then, so, how do you save the world? Yeah.
• 47:46
  Tad Eggleston: I just realized that, no, you did it twice, because Issue 2, which was the actual image that I was thinking of, did come out on November 13th, and then Issue 3 came out on January.
• 47:59
  Zack Kaplan: Life goes on, my man comics come out.
• 48:01
  Tad Eggleston: It does, it does.
• 48:02
  Zack Kaplan: Comics come out.
• 48:03
  Tad Eggleston: Whoa.
• 48:03
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 48:04
  Tad Eggleston: I don't know if you knew about this, but I'm gonna share it with listeners. I'm curious as… I'm gonna have to look to see if they do it on other books, too. At least for Dark Empty Void.
• 48:14
  Tad Eggleston: The Mad Cave website had a buy option way back with issue 1, where you would pay $24.99 and get the digital issue
• 48:27
  Tad Eggleston: On the release dates, And then the trade paperback.
• 48:31
  Tad Eggleston: Sent to you when it came out.
• 48:34
  Zack Kaplan: I don't know about that option, but that sounds… that sounds fantastic, so if…
• 48:38
  Tad Eggleston: Does, doesn't it?
• 48:39
  Zack Kaplan: If you're listening, go back in time and totally sign up for that.
• 48:42
  Tad Eggleston: Or at least check out other things. I will also say that Mad Cave is one of the publishers that is day and date on Mad Cave, so for those of us… or not on Mad Cave, on Global Comics. So, for those people who are on a budget,
• 48:59
  Tad Eggleston: $8 a month, $8 a month for Global Comics. Sure. And Mad Cave Comics come out.
• 49:06
  Tad Eggleston: And Global Comics is pretty good about, like.
• 49:09
  Tad Eggleston: I want to say the way they split up the money is based on page views. So, like, your $8 gets split up
• 49:16
  Tad Eggleston: Based on what you actually read that month.
• 49:20
  Zack Kaplan: Which is fascinating. Hey, listen, you know, however you want to consume my comics is totally fine with me. I do always, enjoy supporting local comic shops. They're going through.
• 49:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 49:33
  Zack Kaplan: times right now, so that's always my… that's always my primary suggestion.
• 49:38
  Tad Eggleston: Please, none of that take away.
• 49:40
  Zack Kaplan: But if you don't like your comic shop, you don't have one near you, or you just, don't drive, or whatever you do, and you want to read some comics, by all means, knock yourself out. Libraries, digital, whatever floats your boat.
• 49:54
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, yes, yes. Thank you for reminding me. I never, ever mean to…
• 49:59
  Zack Kaplan: To make it…
• 49:59
  Tad Eggleston: sound like I don't want people to go to local comic shops.
• 50:03
  Zack Kaplan: We… there's… there's many ways.
• 50:05
  Tad Eggleston: I'm a huge fan of local comic shops, but…
• 50:07
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 50:08
  Tad Eggleston: But I'm also a huge fan of…
• 50:11
  Zack Kaplan: Reading.
• 50:12
  Tad Eggleston: Finding a way to read it.
• 50:13
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, reading is good, too.
• 50:15
  Tad Eggleston: Reading is good. And I also think, in the long term… yeah, no, they seem to do it for, like, Defenders of the Earth, Dark Destiny has one that came out today, so that's a cool thing to know.
• 50:25
  Tad Eggleston: Is that.
• 50:27
  Zack Kaplan: Oh, they have a Vincent van Gogh book coming out, too. I'm gonna have to order that for my wife. And I'm surprised to see he's still writing!
• 50:40
  Tad Eggleston: But yeah, no, I'm… like, comic shops have been among my safe places, among my happy places, and whatnot, all my life, so I cannot emphasize enough, particularly if you have a comic shop that fills that need for you.
• 51:00
  Tad Eggleston: support them in every way that you can, but I also know that people have budgets, and people have…
• 51:09
  Tad Eggleston: time and space constraints, so I like to talk about all of the different ways that people can read comics and hopefully arrange for comic creators to get paid on some level.
• 51:20
  Tad Eggleston: Because that is also good. If they don't get paid, they can't make new comics. These are… these are basic lessons that I feel like I need to teach, because… because the… because of what we were talking about earlier. They're not the lessons that… that get taught by our employers.
• 51:36
  Zack Kaplan: Dir.
• 51:39
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 51:41
  Zack Kaplan: I don't care about… I don't care about getting paid. I don't need that… I don't need that money. I just want to read…
• 51:48
  Zack Kaplan: No, they… they'll… they'll garb… they'll hunt for garbage, they'll be fine. I care about… I care about the people out there reading and learning about the boiling water and… and how.
• 52:00
  Tad Eggleston: You have a sugar mama, don't you? Your wife makes way more money than you do. I can just feel that.
• 52:06
  Zack Kaplan: We're all… we're all begging on this… on the side of the street.
• 52:09
  Tad Eggleston: Just, you know…
• 52:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I wouldn't hold that against you. I have a sugar mama, she's a public school art teacher, which tells you what my level for sugar mama is.
• 52:22
  Zack Kaplan: Listen, I'm not writing… it's an interesting topic to bring up, and so let's say something about it. I think it's really important for comic creators when you're writing stories and telling stories.
• 52:38
  Zack Kaplan: that you're doing it to share these stories with readers. You're not… obviously, there is a business and an economic factor here.
• 52:49
  Zack Kaplan: But anytime you get up and you say, listen, forget about the story, forget about the art, I really need your money, can you give me your money? It breaks down the truth of the experience. And so, I'm not really interested in that, and I think that if you…
• 53:04
  Zack Kaplan: have good stories, and you have something to say, and you develop a relationship with readers, all of that stuff will follow, and so…
• 53:12
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 53:13
  Zack Kaplan: I never focus on that aspect of it.
• 53:18
  Tad Eggleston: And, and, and…
• 53:19
  Zack Kaplan: It's always about, I have something to say, I think it will bring you a moment of… of enjoyment, a moment of entertainment, and a moment of thought, and I think you will find it very rewarding, and check it out. And I always direct them to comic shops, because comic shops are the lifeblood of our industry, and I want.
• 53:37
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 53:37
  Zack Kaplan: side. And short of that, like, it really is… my…
• 53:44
  Zack Kaplan: It's not about the money, first and foremost, it has to be about more. The money.
• 53:50
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 53:51
  Zack Kaplan: the money.
• 53:51
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 53:52
  Zack Kaplan: So if you're a creator out there.
• 53:55
  Zack Kaplan: take that lesson to heart, because I think it is important to…
• 53:58
  Zack Kaplan: share stories that you want… that matter so much to be shared, that that takes the priority over anything else. And so, you know, that's why when you are kind, and you're saying, I want to make sure Zach gets paid, and all this and that, these comments kind of gloss over me, because it's not really where my head's at.
• 54:17
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and they weren't supposed to be for you, they're for my listeners. I want to make certain my listeners get you… I mean, because I totally love what you say, but that's also why I think part of my job is to say the words… Fair enough. …get Zach paid, because I know that you're not going to say them. Fair enough.
• 54:36
  Tad Eggleston: I know so many comic creators that, like, turn off their Patreons when they don't feel like they can contribute enough to it, because
• 54:45
  Tad Eggleston: because life has gotten in the way, and I'm sitting there going, you know that the people who give you money on Patreon are not giving you money for that one sketch that you put out a week. They're giving you money because they love your work.
• 55:01
  Tad Eggleston: And they want it so that when life gets in the way, you're not having to worry about whether or not you can pay rent.
• 55:12
  Zack Kaplan: I won't stop that message. Fair enough.
• 55:14
  Tad Eggleston: So I wasn't trying to butter you up with it, Zach. I was trying to remind any listeners out there that as much as artists don't do it for the money, and great art is almost never done for the money, you do still have bills, so it's great when the consumers can sit back and go.
• 55:34
  Tad Eggleston: how can I… how can I get more good art? Because the fact of the matter is, you do have kids. So, like, if you weren't getting paid enough, you could wind up going, I need to go manage a McDonald's, because I need to send my kids to college, and it would be really hard to manage McDonald's and make comics.
• 55:51
  Zack Kaplan: Maybe…
• 55:51
  Tad Eggleston: Impossible.
• 55:52
  Zack Kaplan: Maybe there's…
• 55:53
  Tad Eggleston: It's been done.
• 55:53
  Zack Kaplan: Maybe the secret truth is, I'm already in masterminds.
• 55:57
  Zack Kaplan: I'm already…
• 55:58
  Tad Eggleston: That is possible.
• 55:59
  Zack Kaplan: I'm already in the secret society. Why am I writing comments?
• 56:02
  Tad Eggleston: Zach, why are you? Why am I writing comics?
• 56:07
  Tad Eggleston: Why aren't you a patron of my podcast? I can use your $3 a month.
• 56:11
  Zack Kaplan: Oh, I didn't know you had a patron.
• 56:13
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, we're really bad at… we're particularly bad at…
• 56:17
  Zack Kaplan: Much better at promoting you than promoting myself.
• 56:23
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 56:25
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, anyway.
• 56:27
  Tad Eggleston: Alright, now that we've gone completely off the rails at about the time when we were gonna wrap up anyway, let me ask my favorite closing question, which you've had to answer many times, but, give different answers every time, because everybody does. Tell me something you love, preferably a comic, but we don't have rules.
• 56:44
  Tad Eggleston: Preferably storytelling, but again, with the rules. But something that you love.
• 56:48
  Tad Eggleston: That not enough people around you have experienced.
• 56:51
  Tad Eggleston: And you want them to, so that there are more people to talk about it with.
• 56:57
  Zack Kaplan: Something I love.
• 56:59
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 57:07
  Zack Kaplan: Not sure, man, man, not sure. I'm trying to think of a good answer. I feel quite,
• 57:16
  Zack Kaplan: quite mediocre about the things I've been watching lately. I'm not sure that anything has really struck me in terms of.
• 57:24
  Tad Eggleston: watching, or… I did say preference.
• 57:27
  Tad Eggleston: So you could turn around and just start looking. That's what most people do.
• 57:32
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 57:35
  Tad Eggleston: I always give people a hard time when they don't have a bookshelf behind them, and, like, they're dead.
• 57:40
  Tad Eggleston: because…
• 57:41
  Zack Kaplan: Because so often, the response is, let me go.
• 57:45
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, this!
• 57:47
  Zack Kaplan: I don't know, I… nowadays, I love just doing nothing. I love slowing down life. This is… this is more, philosophical than any… than any, like, read this or watch this, but I think that…
• 58:00
  Zack Kaplan: You know, Masterminds is about the gamification of life, but I think we're all playing life so fast, and sometimes you have to, sometimes you've got, you know, kids to be dropped off, and you've got jobs to do, and money to make, and all these things, and sometimes you can't control it, but more and more, I just really love
• 58:19
  Zack Kaplan: a quiet walk or a moment to myself, a chance to recollect my thoughts. I think that I'm finding a lot more joy in…
• 58:29
  Zack Kaplan: clocking out of the nonstop busyness and the hustling, and just… and just taking a moment to appreciate something, especially as you feel perhaps the world is going mad, or the chaos of the world. I feel like that that is a really healthy thing to just kind of say.
• 58:44
  Zack Kaplan: yes, the world exists, but I exist too, and I am my own… I am my own entity, and I can just enjoy a moment of myself and a moment of my thoughts without…
• 58:54
  Zack Kaplan: the world or business or anything bombarding me. So, that is what I love, and I think more people should do that. So, if you're listening.
• 59:02
  Tad Eggleston: Give it a try. And you even managed to answer all of my follow-up questions with that, because you essentially said do it… you started with doing nothing. I'm like, oh, you're gonna have to define what doing nothing is, because I can't imagine you just sitting there.
• 59:17
  Tad Eggleston: Which would be doing nothing.
• 59:18
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 59:19
  Tad Eggleston: But you were kind enough to say the walks, and the.
• 59:21
  Zack Kaplan: I think it's good, yeah.
• 59:22
  Tad Eggleston: connections, and…
• 59:23
  Zack Kaplan: A good walk is, you know, a good walk is great, or I gotta.
• 59:26
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 59:26
  Zack Kaplan: I got some squirrels in the backyard that, always are playing in the trees that are super fun to…
• 59:32
  Zack Kaplan: To zone out to and watch, while…
• 59:34
  Tad Eggleston: I'd like to.
• 59:35
  Zack Kaplan: morning cup of coffee for 5 minutes before I… before I, get… get the day going. So, yeah.
• 59:44
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, sometimes even when I'm doing other stuff, when my cats start, like, running around after each other, and, like, parkouring, and… I mean, sometimes I think my cats are John Wick, because, like, they… they…
• 59:57
  Zack Kaplan: they will have, like, wrestling fights that go across the rooms and across shelves, and somehow don't manage to knock anything down. They knock things down all the time, but it's not when you expect them to. Yeah.
• 1:00:10
  Tad Eggleston: And just, like, sitting back and watching them do it, like, just letting go of the other thing I'm doing so I can watch them do that is…
• 1:00:18
  Zack Kaplan: Pets are great, enjoy your pets, absolutely.
• 1:00:21
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, grandkids are also great.
• 1:00:24
  Tad Eggleston: For the same reason.
• 1:00:25
  Zack Kaplan: Kids, kids in grade?
• 1:00:26
  Tad Eggleston: Only you can give them back.
• 1:00:28
  Tad Eggleston: you can't give the pets back, they get to stay. The grandkids, when they become too much, it's like, here.
• 1:00:33
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 1:00:36
  Tad Eggleston: Your kids are small, you've got.
• 1:00:37
  Zack Kaplan: I don't have grandkids. No, I don't have grandkids.
• 1:00:40
  Tad Eggleston: One day. One day, Zach.
• 1:00:42
  Zack Kaplan: I will, yeah, one day I will.
• 1:00:43
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, hopefully. Your kids might decide that they don't want… they don't want to do that. One of my kids decided that.
• 1:00:50
  Zack Kaplan: It's possible.
• 1:00:51
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but I… That's okay, too.
• 1:00:54
  Zack Kaplan: I… yeah, we'll see. Time will tell.
• 1:00:56
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Try not to be one of those parents that's overbearing about wanting the grandkids, as awesome as they are.
• 1:01:01
  Zack Kaplan: No, I won't do that.
• 1:01:06
  Tad Eggleston: Zach, it is always, always a pleasure. Thank you, Ted. Apologies if I was all over the place today, I know I was.
• 1:01:14
  Zack Kaplan: You're great, man, man, you're great.
• 1:01:16
  Tad Eggleston: But.
• 1:01:17
  Zack Kaplan: Fun time? Yeah.
• 1:01:18
  Tad Eggleston: Always fun to talk.
• 1:01:20
  Zack Kaplan: I'm certain we'll talk again. I think this is the longest we've actually gone without talking since the first time you came on. Aww.
• 1:01:28
  Tad Eggleston: you were coming, like, consistently every two to three months for a while, and I think we've been a whole, like.
• 1:01:33
  Zack Kaplan: Every two to three months! Good lord.
• 1:01:35
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:01:35
  Zack Kaplan: Well, because you keep putting out new books!
• 1:01:37
  Zack Kaplan: It's true.
• 1:01:38
  Tad Eggleston: and say, hey, Zach, this looks awesome, and you go, okay, I'll come talk about it.
• 1:01:41
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, and I'm sorry, I'm gonna do it again next year, so.
• 1:01:45
  Tad Eggleston: I'm down with that.
• 1:01:47
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah, I…
• 1:01:48
  Tad Eggleston: I mean…
• 1:01:48
  Zack Kaplan: I'll be stopping, so…
• 1:01:50
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I was recently told by a friend of mine that I needed to fire my scheduler.
• 1:01:56
  Tad Eggleston: I said, I said, but I am the scheduler. He said, I don't care, heads must roll. And I'm like, but… but I like it.
• 1:02:03
  Zack Kaplan: Yeah.
• 1:02:05
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I don't think I'll see you in 2 or 3 months, but I'll see you next year. No, probably not. I'm certain that, like, if we don't see each other before C2, E2, we'll bump into each other and go, oh, we need to do something.
• 1:02:19
  Zack Kaplan: Yes.
• 1:02:20
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 1:02:21
  Zack Kaplan: For sure.
• 1:02:22
  Tad Eggleston: Panels, this has been Zach Kaplan, and we will see you after the next page.