Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 226. Comic creator and writer, Ray Jamison

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Ep. 226. Comic creator and writer, Ray Jamison · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

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Comic fans, Marvel geeks, and all the nerds in between,
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welcome to another episode of the Vigilante Vibes podcast
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where we talk all things Marvel and other parts of nerd culture
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like comics and movies without the toxicity that's taking up
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way too much space in all the fandoms.
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I'm your host, Megan Nicole, and today I am so very pleased to
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introduce a very special guest. Today I'm joined by someone who
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has brought an incredible story to the world of comic books
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through his work on the Madcaps. Please welcome Ray Jamieson.
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Hello there, thank you very much for having me on.
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It's always a pleasure to get on and and meet people and talk
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about common topics. I'm happy you're here.
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We talked so much back and forth about doing this and we finally
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got to do it. So I'm very excited and very,
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very excited for people to hear about your comic book work.
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Thank you. So will you tell our listeners a
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little bit about you? OK well I am as as already
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introduced my name is Ray Jamison.
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I am a Canadian. I live up in Winnipeg, MB which
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is super super cold at times. I was I was born in the early
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mid 80s and I liked comics since before I can remember.
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Stretches past my limits. I have an older brother and
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usually older siblings. Younger siblings are usually for
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the first handful year sidekicks to interests of what the older
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sibling likes and I was no different.
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I loved what my brother loved. He watched a lot of he man, GI
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Joe, Transformers, Silverhawks, Brave Star and so forth and so
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so on. But throughout the 80s also was
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that lovely business move. I I laugh.
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I call it an unholy Trinity of cartoons, comic books and toy
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manufacturers and they combine forces and shared the same
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themes. You like this toy?
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Well it's a cartoon. You like this cartoon?
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Well it's also a comic book. And they did a really good job
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at coaxing money out of parents wallets.
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And that's the stuff that raised us all, really, because look at
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us all We're now nerds who are. We're adults doing the kids
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stuff. Huh.
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We're adults doing the kids stuff.
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Yeah, and we're all just like, you know, fainting over the new
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He Man trailer, like we're all still living it up.
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Yeah, that's that's very true. Throughout the 80s, by the time
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Batman 1989 was in theaters, I was only 5.
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I don't know if this was a good or bad thing, but my parents let
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me watch it with them in theatre, which is really cool.
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I very much remember that. And I had very, many very worn
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out action figures of Michael Keaton's Batman and Jack
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Nicholson's Joker. And when you really look back
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and think of the progress those actors did, it was it's, it's
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phenomenal to have such a a really cool film.
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But anyways, to keep the story as concise as possible, going
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through the 90s, I had the privilege of I liked these these
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comic characters. I had minimal access to many
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floppies of stuff at that time. But throughout the 90s, it
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wasn't just getting my hands, getting a little bit older and
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getting my hands on those comics.
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There was also the cartoons took themselves a bit more seriously
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instead of being a business where while kids like Superman,
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let's fit it in our formula, Superman and a Superman cartoon
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and Superman toys. It didn't.
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It didn't really matter the story as much.
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The 90s was very different in my opinion, especially getting into
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the the early, mid to the back mid of that era of that decade.
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You had Kevin Conroy and Mark Calamal in Batman the Animated
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Series. You have what is now renamed as
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X-Men 97. There's there's a lot of cool
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cartoons at that time. And I was, it was a privilege to
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watch us go through and and live through those moments.
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At the same time, there was some really different brave attempts.
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We look at them now and kind of, as they say nowadays, cringe at
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things like the 3D modeling of like Reboot and Beast Wars.
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But they were definitely springboards to other cool stuff
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later on. And then leaving that decade, I
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had a real love hate relationship with the 90s and
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comic books. And I set out all the power to
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what all the individuals of Image Comics did.
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But it also caused a lot of growing pains where everything
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was suddenly visual art and and how could we slick up the pages.
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But I felt from the mid to late 90's, the stories really hurt.
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It was a little lopsided. A comic book is a picture and
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dialogue and for a good chunk of time, everything was just the
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image, no pun intended. That's obviously why they called
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themselves that. They're they're artists.
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They they flex their strengths through those early comics.
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As I left the 90s, I felt myself not interested in what was the
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current stories at that time. I liked early 90s, anything in
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the 80s, late 70s and I would go to a local comic shop and I
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would dig through and try to find the old stuff that I could
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afford. Just open it up and read it.
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It's not like now where you can put in a subscription and get
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access to PD FS of all these copies.
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They were like I would read about.
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I get hints of stories and stuff in like Wizard magazine, but I
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really wanted to read this stuff.
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It was it was AI. Remember in 2004 getting Spider
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Man 40th anniversary CD case, every single issue on PDF.
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That was a big deal to me and I I read through all of them and I
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was just man, this is awesome. One of the coolest things about
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that franchise of or sorry the the franchise of comic book and
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its succession leaving cartoons and being successful in the film
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industry. Starting with in my opinion, the
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the real first successful one being Wesley Snipes and Blade in
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98. After that, the breakout star of
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Hugh Jackman alongside of many successful actors and X-Men of
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2000. And then the real big, big
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springboard was Tony Maguire and Sam Remy's Spider Man 2002 of of
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course Kristen Dunst and William Dafoe and so forth.
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And it's, it's very, very interesting to see the humble
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beginnings. I wasn't even in the humble
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beginnings, but from my point of view as a kid going through the
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80s and 90's, the humble beginnings from my point of
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view, even though it was decades before that, we've come a long
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way and it's very interesting. We've gone through all those
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things that I've listed up to this point to now.
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Something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and actually
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being able to not have a corporate pressure to have a
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beginning, middle and end of a story to fit in a movie.
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We could have Iron Man barely have a functional Mark 3 armor
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at the end of the first Iron Man by one of his last ones.
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It was nanotech where if they attempted such a movie 1020
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years prior, it would be nanotech within halfway through
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the 1st movie and trying to just wrap up the story and that's it.
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It's very interesting all of the lore and everything else.
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But me personally, when I when I was in my early 20s, I left, I
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left my family, my friends and I moved across country for work
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opportunity and I was always looking for reasons to hang out
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with my friends via webcam. So I offered, I've never played
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Dungeons and Dragons before. So I offered, OK, I'll be the
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dungeon master and we made these really cool stories.
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If it wasn't difficult enough to be a first time dungeon master,
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I did a homebrew campaign. So there's no modules to help me
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out with all my own lore, all of my own stories, all the
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characters, everything was on my own, on my own terms.
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I definitely, I didn't bit off more than I could chew, but I
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definitely chewed a lot. And by by the that was over 15
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years ago now. And it's, it's very interesting.
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All of the really cool stories we built.
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I wanted to express some of these stories.
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So I I took, I wanted to turn it into a comic book.
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It was something I really appreciated and I took out the
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characters that the players are playing As for one short story
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throughout all the campaigns we did.
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And I injected in my own characters and eventually it was
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supposed to be two issues. And then because of the content,
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I felt it made more sense to put it into 3.
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And that is pretty much the grounds of how the Madcap
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started. So this April we'll be having
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our third and final issue you can get.
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You can get all three issues through this upcoming
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Kickstarter campaign on April 16th, and that is the long and
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short of how this comic came to be.
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I, when I read the comic it, it's funny because I read it and
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I was like, there's no way any of this be based off this man's
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life because this is, there's so much happening, incredible stuff
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happening. So that is actually really
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fascinating that it does get pulled from somewhere.
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So I don't make comics. So I cannot imagine just sitting
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there and just making the a new world.
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New world rules everything building.
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So the Madcaps is something really, really incredible.
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For those who are interested in checking it out, just look under
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the show notes and you will find the Kickstarter that Ray is
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talking about. But the story does include four
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friends. They all are wildly different
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from each other, but they all have this beautiful chemistry
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that shows that there is history behind them. 1 is a devout
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farmer. 1 is a very kind charlatan, a social connector,
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and a very, very sharp intellectual.
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And they reunite in their hometown of Ivy Wood.
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And of course, when the band gets back together, crazy things
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happen. And that is precisely what
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happens. And I went read like a month
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ago. I read both of them.
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And at the end I was like, wait a minute, no, no, I want more.
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I need more. And it's so interesting because
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these characters, every one of them, could have their own comic
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series. That's that's an interesting
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point. Initially I just planned to have
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this as three issues. This is my first time on the
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creative side of a comic book. So I've never, I've never had it
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like I've never wanted this to be something that fizzled out.
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So if you look at a lot of like TV shows and networks cancel
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them after 1-2, maybe after one season, maybe after three.
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And there's unresolved story arcs and, and other dynamics
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like that. Fans are disappointed and stuff
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overseas in Europe, especially in like Britain, they're more
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likely to make a show, but plan to finish it after X amount of
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seasons. They they're, it's very, very
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different aspect for myself between the two examples I just
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gave. I didn't want to do something
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like I'm not arrogant enough to say this is going to be an
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ongoing monthly and I'm going to be riding this out for the next
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30 years of my life and have it fizzle out after six issues.
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I would hate for that to happen. So instead what I did was I, OK,
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I'm going to tell this little mini series, feel the waters.
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If there's an interest, the interest will dictate whether
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this is worthy of the comic industry.
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The only thing I could control, I couldn't control myself
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writing the story. It was up to me for what talent
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I brought on board and I brought talent I felt was worthy of the
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story. And between that, I my attempt
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is to make something worthy of the industry, but it's up to the
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fans in regards to popularity and quality and stuff.
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I do not want to measure any of that until the entire miniseries
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is out to the public. So once that miniseries is done,
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there's options on the table. I'm, I'm, I'm content if I walk
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away from this and that's it. I'm content if there's enough of
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a following and it's in my best interest to do so.
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I'm happy to continue stories with one or more of these
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characters. I do love where your head is at
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when you say you're just kind of putting it out there that it's,
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you know, it's a miniseries. And there I feel like there are
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a lot of comic book creators who have this huge, their eyes are
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bigger than their stomach and they think they're going to
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continue a same story forever. And it's like, you know, major
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publishers can't do that. So I do like that you're looking
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at it in a more realist point of view.
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But I will say, if you ever feel the need to do a one shot for
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each character, like where Sarlat came from or Dunnen came
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from, I would be very pleased about that.
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Well, I I take that as a as a big compliment.
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Something that was very difficult for this miniseries is
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being able to establish something about characters to to
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give readers a reason to relate or be interested in them.
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One compliment I had is page one of the first issue somebody
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pointed out, and I didn't realize this, but I in one form
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or another, I introduce three of the four characters right away
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and one of them is narrating and then two of them on the back of
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a wagon coming back to Ivy Wood and some feedback.
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I've had some people read the script to all three and I
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consistently have the same thing where each one of them thought
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that Chazgo was not on the level and was not to be trusted.
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And I understood why. Because I wanted him to feel.
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I wanted him to be a very reserved character.
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If you knew nothing about him. If you.
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If you knew because he is this blue skinned elf that would be
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killed on site if people knew what he was, he hides his
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appearance. If you knew only the disguise,
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no big deal. But if you know that he's got
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something else going on and there's not much delve deep into
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it, it doesn't feel right. So in order to give him a bit
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more, for lack of better wording, humanity, I had him
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narrate the first issue through a letter he's writing to an
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individual known as Annette, and people had kind of a significant
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change of perspective on the character.
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That's so interesting. I read him, He was one of my
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favorite characters because I felt like there was so much
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about him I didn't know. And I feel like we're only the
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tip of the iceberg. Like he can change forms.
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He has all these different powers.
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His blue form is really, really cool.
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Like, I love that. And I'm so surprised to hear
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that people thought he was like a secret villain or something.
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Well, the thing thing about Chazgo, so the blue skin, this
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happens in real life with humans.
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If humans ingest enough silver, it actually tattoos their skin
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blue. That's a real thing.
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You could look it up. One guy was interviewed on
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Oprah. There's it.
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It's this. The guy looks fake.
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He looks like Papa Smurf. Essentially.
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When you look at it, it looks like he's getting ready to be on
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set for ATV show or a movie or something.
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It's quite jarring. Chazgo has a similar dynamic.
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His his group of elves that he's a part of, they're known as
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Argos. They live in a mountain range
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that's riddled with silver deposits.
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So this generational exposure to that environment has essentially
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given them that same effect. But of course, because it is
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fantasy, all that silver in his system makes him highly
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resistant to magic, which is a really cool byproduct of of his
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thing. His people, he finds, are very
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he considers them dysfunctional. He's kind of embarrassed of who
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he is. So basically his people worship
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the mountain and they think the mountain protects them.
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They think the mountain as some type of DoD is protecting them
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from magic but in reality it's the silver.
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In their system they would be classed as what one would call a
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xenophobic. They want nothing to do with
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outsiders. So like mages, merchants and any
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like mercenaries they all stay clear that mountain range.
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If Chazgo was seen he'd be killed on site.
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Which is kind of ironic because he's worked his way up as a
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representative of a noble. So basically when he left that
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mountain range, where do I go? Everybody's going to kill me or
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I stay with these people that I'm embarrassed of.
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What do I do here? And this being, which has not a
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lot of details have been given, but she gave him this this his
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necklace piece. It's a Rook.
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He fashioned it to a necklace. And through that, she's been
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able to bypass his resistances on magic and he's able to cast
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some spells which you see through the book from his three
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eyed albino Raven pet name to MX and being able to like blast
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light or or hide his appearance, which is a very crucial one for
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him in regards to survival. The three other individuals are
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the only ones that know what he's actually is.
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So he's very, very reserved and it's all strictly survival
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instincts for him doing that, huh?
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She said a lot. He's still my favorite.
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I still like him. And I did just look up the
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humans with the blue skin and Oh my gosh, I had no idea.
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Yeah. It it looks fake, it looks fake.
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It does, but it's like it's like, oh, it's just crazy.
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If you guys have not, if you didn't know, now you do know,
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but I love. YouTube, Oprah.
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Just type in Oprah interview blue skin.
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I'm sure it'll come up. I don't know if I'm ready for
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that yet, but what I love so much about these characters is
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like they're also so different. Like Charles Go, He, like you
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said, he's very reserved. He kind of keeps to himself and
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these other people on his team, they're the only ones that know
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what he is. And you can see that he does not
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trust easily. He does not open himself easily
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but he does to them and their chemistry with each other is
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just so off the charts. I think it showed the best when
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they in the second issue when they said family needs help, I
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think that's when it was like. OK.
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That they are a family. That's what it felt like to me.
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Yeah, yeah. Family in danger.
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When you were saying about these characters being very different,
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they have a common theme. It's just expressed very
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differently. And the theme is who am I and
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how do I fit in the world, which is not a reinvention of
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anything. And I know that's pretty much
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done with every character ever written in history, but Chazgo,
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since we were just talking about Chaz, if you look at Chazgo, his
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thing with all four of them, I tried to make it feel like every
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human being can somehow relate universally.
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So Chazgo is a very, very straightforward visual 1.
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He hides who he really is and I think every human in some form
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of another, especially the first impressions.
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They don't wear their identity on their sleeve.
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If I said I shoot guns and and knit scarves, I don't do any of
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those things. But if I did, some people be
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taken ajar by that. And those are obviously nothing.
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And compared to something like Chazgo, who his very appearance
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scares people. And I think many people can
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really relate to hiding parts themselves depending who they're
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around. If you look at Madracas, he's
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very different. He is visually he, he, he
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doesn't hide who he is. He wears, he doesn't know too
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much about his people and some people.
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I, I, I know there's many people that I wish I knew more about my
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parent or my grandparents or they came from this country.
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Maybe I should know more about those people might understand a
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little bit about myself and how I was raised, etcetera,
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etcetera. He grabs on Madracas, grabs on
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to any type of even minor reflection of his culture, of
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the people that he doesn't know anything about, is raised by
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humans and hatched as an egg and raised accordingly.
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So that armor ceremonial. He's not a skilled fighter, but
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looking at him you'd think differently.
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Wielding a blade, having that armor on.
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You think he's a mercenary or soldier or something, but in
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reality, despite him being over 6 1/2 feet tall, over £350 of
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weight, he does the opposite where Chazgo downplays who he
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is. Madracas.
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It's all like leave me alone, I'll look intimidating so people
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will leave me alone. Sarlacc the the devout farmer.
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He is a full blooded farmer. His people, unlike your average
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dwarf, his group of dwarves. They left them out in range and
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decided to start farming fertile land.
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They decided to start in the middle of a swamp, which is
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something a stubborn dwarf would do, and over generations have
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been been able from the inside out start terraforming the
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swampland. Because it's fantasy, swamps
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tend to have odd creatures in it.
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So culturally speaking, Sarlacc is good at tracking down and
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pacifying things that go bump in the night.
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And on the on the flip side, he's he's very devout to this
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deity only known as the Divine, and he felt compelled to move
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into Ivy Wood and help those less fortunate than himself be a
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beacon of light in a town, if you will.
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Because of this dynamic and his level of devotion, he has some
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gifts, some blessings, which allow him to repel the undead.
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And you see him heal himself a couple times.
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And there's a couple more surprises surprises on the way
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coming soon. One of the most interesting
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things about Sarlacc compared to the other two, he chose to go to
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a place to be different and he's more dedicated to what he can do
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as opposed to what he's going to get out of.
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So something like Chaz was terrified to show who he is.
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Someone like Madrakis overplays being intimidating to be left
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alone where Sarlac kind of just this is who I am and I'm I'm
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going to take some lumps from this in a city that's
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predominantly human. I think lots of people can
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either know somebody like that or have done that.
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You know what, this is the better thing to do.
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We're probably going to take some lumps on the way, but long
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term it's going to be worth it. Those kind of people you usually
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want around you. If you know anybody like that,
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I'm glad that I know that person.
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It's a very, very powerful dynamic if you know a friend
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like that. And then the last one is the the
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half dwarf, half gnome named Dunanini.
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A little bit shorter than your average dwarf, but can't grow a
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beard. He draws from both bloodlines,
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but he has a hard time fitting in with either culture.
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And it's speculated that between his two bloodlines, much like
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his mother who has a magical influence on nature, he has a
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similar type of influence, but on metals and crystalline
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structures. So that telescope that pops over
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his shoulder, that can blast raw arcana out of it, kind of like a
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shotgun if you will, or which are synced to his goggles, he's
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gifted some way magically. But it's not really.
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He does not really understand it.
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He doesn't know he has experienced smithing, which goes
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hand in hand with his magical abilities that he's still trying
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to figure out. And it it's pretty neat watching
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somebody under 4 feet in height walk up to a tree and reduce it
24:57
to splinters. I just find that enjoyable.
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But I, I know many people, you know, my, my one parent is this,
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my one parent is that. I feel torn in two ways and at
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the same time maybe pushed in both ways as well.
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And because of that very dynamic with him, he bonds very, very,
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just as easily, I should say, with any friend as he would with
25:20
a family member. So I'm sure you know that one
25:24
friend that it's Christmas, I'm going to my buddy's house as
25:27
opposed to going and visiting a parent or something.
25:29
And that's, in a way, kind of like him.
25:33
He's very much, well, he feels very much like family is what
25:37
you make of it. Doesn't have to be blood or
25:39
anything. But what I really loved about
25:42
his character was that he, not only was he the comedic relief,
25:45
he was the laugh throughout the strictness in the air.
25:50
He was just there. He was there to have a good
25:54
time. He was enjoying himself and when
25:58
the time came for him to show his vulnerability, show how he
26:01
cared about the other teammates, he did just that and it showed
26:05
us a different side of him. But then he went right back to
26:08
just having fun, and I thought that was very, very fun because
26:13
it played very well off the other dynamics.
26:17
Yeah, something that was very important amongst these 4
26:20
characters that I'm being told I did a half decent job out is not
26:28
just how they get along, not just how they synergize and not
26:33
just how they rub each other the wrong way, but just how they
26:36
have a good amount of spacing. It's not like 1 character heavy
26:43
in the story, which I tried very hard not to avoid.
26:47
I didn't want it to be like it. It's the one person show because
26:51
it's not supposed to be. And also another thing is they
26:55
all bring something valuable to the story.
27:00
If if you look back and omit 1 character and see their
27:03
influence, the story changes. It's very very different.
27:06
So I wanted to make them all feel like they were very
27:08
important. I think you did that very well.
27:12
It very much felt equal parts of each person, and it felt like
27:16
every person had their own place to shine without watering down
27:20
the other characters, which I find happens more often than not
27:23
when it's a ensemble cast of a comic book.
27:29
Yeah, it was because this story I played out in a game the
27:36
better part of 15 years back, the majority of the story melted
27:41
together. I already knew where it was
27:42
going. The big difference was the new
27:44
characters and how they played off not just their environment,
27:48
but each other, but in turn those characters, they're based
27:52
off of people I know when other cultural or pop culture rather
27:56
references. So when I wrote out this
28:01
scripts, I actually used rule 20, an online DND platform game
28:06
or a platform rather. And I actually made a board and
28:09
made pieces and moved them out round as I was writing out the
28:13
script, which I found super, super helpful.
28:16
But it was, I found very easy to write this story.
28:20
And it's my first time. So I, I've nothing to gauge that
28:25
by. I've, I've heard of people
28:27
getting like heavy writer's block and being on contract with
28:31
bigger company. I got to turn out this story so
28:33
I could understand that being like hard on a, on a person.
28:37
But for me, this was, this was just fun.
28:39
It was a passion project. I wanted to express the story.
28:42
I, I'm not being, I'm not being driven by a sponsorship or
28:47
anything. I just want to make a cool story
28:49
and and here it is. And you did just that.
28:52
I, I would recommend this to anyone because it did have so
28:57
many different layers to it and so many layers you want to peel
29:01
back and know even more of which like I really do want to know
29:06
more of. So you're you're going to have
29:08
to like. Continue.
29:10
To worry. No pressure.
29:12
No pressure, it's OK, do what you want.
29:15
But like I would like to know more.
29:19
Well, I'll tell you what, if this, if this is the only thing
29:22
that becomes of this, this story, these three issues, if
29:27
I've made-up my mind and I'm never doing any more with it, I
29:29
will have a personal conversation with you and I'll
29:31
tell you everything. How about that?
29:33
OK, that that'll work. In my mind, in my mind, even
29:38
though it's not entirely drawn out on scripts, I know the
29:45
majority of where they're they go right up to their
29:48
metaphorical deathbed. Each character, well,
29:52
everybody's got to die. I'm not.
29:53
I know in my head I thought that meant in the third issue and I
29:58
was like, calm down, Ray, calm down.
30:01
Don't do that, rocks. Fall.
30:04
Everybody dies, as the meme says.
30:08
It's just crazy to me because so many people, so many humans,
30:12
even blue skinned humans have trouble keeping up with their
30:15
own lives and you're keeping up with four of them and yours and
30:20
whatever else ideas you have for another story.
30:23
Do you have any ideas for another story or have you
30:26
ventured in that at all? Or is this you're just here
30:30
right now? So I have other pots to stir,
30:35
but the burners, they're on or off.
30:37
So I'm focused on this one. This isn't my day job, so for
30:42
me, I, it you either go quality or quantity.
30:47
I, it's not my capacity to go quantity even if I wanted to.
30:51
So I just want these three issues to be a cool thing.
30:54
And then when the dust settles, I'm going to take a survey of
30:58
the land and then maybe bust out a couple of those other pots and
31:01
see what happens. Also, the possibilities really
31:04
are endless. That's very exciting.
31:06
Yeah, I've also been approached. I can't say who, but I've been
31:09
approached by two individuals to write a story for them.
31:12
So they obviously are liking what I'm doing.
31:14
So I'm flattered. There's much to consider, we'll
31:18
put it that way. I'm.
31:20
Very excited to see where that goes.
31:21
Another thing about your comics that I feel like we haven't
31:25
touched on is the artwork. Oh, thank you.
31:28
It is fantastic. It is heavily detailed.
31:31
There's such beautiful vibrancy on each and every page and just
31:35
with the characters expressions and mannerisms and I guess how
31:40
they hold themselves. There's no way you don't
31:42
understand the tone of the story, which I really appreciate
31:46
as the reader because it's how your your characters are telling
31:49
the story for you. You know, the story can go on,
31:52
or you can read it in the character's body language, and I
31:55
think that is fantastic. Right on.
31:57
Well shout out to my interior artist for issue 3 who also did
32:01
issue 2, Victor Medina. To quote him.
32:05
He felt the script I wrote in describing the panels.
32:09
He felt it was very easy to translate to paper, and he felt
32:14
that the way I described it, I gave enough creative
32:18
constraints. I've said this on some other
32:19
podcasts. If someone tells you to think
32:22
about a painting of the picture, most people they're going to
32:26
take, it's going to take a little bit, a minute, maybe 30
32:29
seconds, or maybe a bit more than a minute.
32:32
But if that same person is approached and said, imagine a
32:35
painting of a picture with a bullfrog riding a bicycle and
32:38
holding a glass of lemonade, right away, all the constraints
32:42
immediately snap a picture into your mind.
32:45
And Victor liked how I gave creative constraints, but not so
32:49
much where I choked out his flair.
32:52
And that's something I try really hard to do because he's
32:54
the artist. It it's not my flair, but I need
32:57
to see XI, need to see X, and because later on in panels like
33:02
in in issue 2, one of the things I wrote is after Chazgo using MX
33:08
to survey where they're going to infiltrate, they catch that two
33:13
bandits are leaving on cart and one of the notes I set into that
33:17
is one of the bandits has to be large.
33:18
The baggy robe because Madracas is going to be wearing it later.
33:22
What the bandit looked like, I didn't care.
33:25
I didn't care if he had hair, I didn't care if he had a scar on
33:27
his face. He had to.
33:29
You, when you look at him, you got to think Bandit, but that
33:31
robe has to be present. So little things like that.
33:36
That it's funny you bring that part up because when I read it
33:38
and he said, he said, I'm going to wear his, you transform into
33:42
him. I was like, you can't fit into
33:44
that. And then I looked back.
33:45
I was like, no, wait, no, he's a big in.
33:47
You probably can. I was like, that was that stood
33:50
out to me because that was a really good catch right there.
33:53
Yeah, yeah. And it it's very important on my
33:56
end, exactly what I want to see and what I need to see is not
34:04
necessarily what I need to see is not the same as make sure all
34:09
these details happen. Because sometimes make sure all
34:11
these details happen that could be overly constricting on on
34:15
somebody trying to express these images.
34:17
The more sentences you throw in, the more they have to process
34:20
and algorithmically make sure this picture works out.
34:23
But if I just that one scene, that one piece of imagery of
34:27
those two bandits on cart, all I said was 2 bandits on cart, one
34:31
has to wear that robe later that that's that's it.
34:34
So everything else was from his head.
34:37
And it was very, very important for me that I make the talent
34:44
working for me. I make their lives as easy as
34:46
possible because the less burdensome I am, the better I'm
34:51
going to get out of them. If only more people realize that
34:57
life lesson in this industry, I think we would have better
35:01
content and we would have happier creators.
35:07
But that's that's the long and short of working with with
35:11
talent. The only other piece of advice
35:14
I've given this on other podcasts is this is my first
35:17
time writing and I found it was very beneficial that I wrote my
35:22
first draft. I completed it before I showed
35:26
it to anybody. To quote my late father, if you
35:29
are going to put new shingles on your roof and you tell 40
35:32
people, suddenly everybody, those 40 people all think
35:36
they're a roofing expert and they're they're going to don't
35:39
use those shingles, use these, put them up this time of the
35:42
year, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
35:44
But if you're writing a story, let's say you're writing a novel
35:48
and you write 1 chapter and you show it to somebody, hey, that's
35:50
really cool, have you considered this?
35:53
And their consideration is really awesome, but it might
35:55
veer completely off course to where you're trying to get the
35:58
story to go for. For me, I finished everything,
36:03
showed them when any input I got back.
36:06
By that point, they saw where I was going.
36:09
So their suggestions were with the intention of contributing to
36:13
that end game, which was very, very helpful on my end.
36:19
Well, your father gave very great advice, so that's
36:23
fantastic. So thank you so much for coming
36:28
in with me. I've had the best time and you
36:31
gave such great insight and I really loved the Madcaps, so
36:36
appreciate it. I hope more people see it
36:39
because the more people need to see it's, you know, it's one of
36:42
those that you just kind of sticks with you a little.
36:45
Right on. Yeah.
36:46
Well, anybody listening right now, all three issues to this
36:49
miniseries, April 16th, you can find it.
36:52
Shout out to my publisher Fillable Publishing, Philip
36:54
Rossert. They have definitely put my put
37:00
my story in a good place. So everything from there comes
37:03
out of the state sees in New York.
37:04
So shipping is relatively low and overall we're going to have
37:10
a lot of cool covers to show off some glow in the dark.
37:13
One's glow in the dark of Chazgo.
37:14
If you look up on the Kickstarter right now and Scroll
37:17
down the one of Chazgo, everything white on that cover
37:19
is going to be glow in the dark. It's one of Dunanini walking
37:22
away from a building on fire, and it's going to be lava foil,
37:26
which is really, really neat. I have six other covers to show
37:30
and I'm not allowed to show them yet.
37:31
And because I've been showing these issues everyone every
37:38
April, I haven't been able to talk about the entire story for
37:42
all this time. It's been torture.
37:43
But just like not showing these covers, it's a similar thing.
37:46
But we're getting close. We've got a month to go.
37:49
We're going to hit the ground running.
37:51
If you want to follow me on Facebook, you can find me as DM
37:54
Ray DM is short for dungeon master.
37:56
You can also find the madcaps Facebook page.
37:59
We're almost at 500 followers and also almost just as
38:03
important on Instagram you can find me as Raymond the DM DM Ray
38:06
was taken. But if you follow any of those,
38:10
I'm going to be giving updates like weekly leading up and very
38:15
important if you can't follow anything and if you can't
38:18
support this financially, if you just click on the follow me link
38:24
that lice black button on the pre launch page, you'll be
38:27
helping me out algorithmically so others have a higher chance
38:32
of getting a view on this project.
38:34
I'm very excited and there's no there's no pressure on my end as
38:41
a creator. This is not you're not going to
38:44
have if you read this story, there's not 70 years worth of
38:47
lore that you have to have memorized to get every
38:49
reference. It's a beginning, middle, end.
38:51
The whole thing takes place in one night.
38:54
If you have friends that you don't get to see as much as you
38:56
used to be, it for responsibilities like your job,
39:01
children, your studies. For me, I moved across country,
39:07
but if you miss your friends to a point where if you get to see
39:10
them for 5 minutes in the parking lot as they're passing
39:13
through the city and your very essence feels recharged, man, I
39:16
really needed that. I guarantee you, you will
39:20
appreciate the story. It's told in the theme of
39:22
fantasy through the medium of a comic book.
39:25
I don't know where the story is going to go afterwards, but this
39:29
whole thing takes place in one night.
39:31
The first issue, the sun's just going down.
39:33
The last pages of the last issue, the sun's just coming up
39:36
and you will feel trapped in the night with them.
39:40
This final issue is leading up to there, there is a revelation
39:45
that there's a necromancer putting a curse on their
39:48
hometown, which happens right at sunrise.
39:50
So these four, they're not the most suited for the job, but
39:54
they are the closest to get this job done.
39:56
They're trying to hunt down this necromancer.
39:58
Lots of lots of action this last issue and lots of good story to
40:02
justify it leading up to that point.
40:04
So hit that notification and I promise you it's going to be a
40:09
good time. Yes, I can vouch for the series
40:13
and it's probably one of my favorite things I've read this
40:15
year. And if you've been following me
40:17
for a while, you know, I read a whole lot of stuff, so that is
40:21
saying something. So thank you so much for being
40:24
on the podcast. It was a pleasure.
40:27
If you are interested in checking out the Kickstarter or
40:30
where you can follow Ray, just look under the episode at the
40:33
show notes and you will see every single link to make it
40:36
super, super easy for you guys. So thank you for listening to
40:39
this episode of Vigilante Vibes. Wherever you're listening to
40:41
this episode, click that subscribe button so you don't
40:43
miss any of my amazing guests like Ray or any future episode.
40:46
Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it.
40:48
Have a marvelous night.