Latest / LifeAudio / The Sean McDowell Show - Rob Liefeld Grilled by Students and Christian Apologists
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What was the inspiration for creating the character Deadpool?
- 0:02Speaker 2: You know, the honest answer is paying the rent, but
- 0:05Speaker 2: you want a more creative answer.
- 0:07Speaker 3: Rob, how has Jesus changed everything about your life?
- 0:11Speaker 4: Well, so here's the deal. How does a Christian make
- 0:13Speaker 4: a character about Deadpool? I'm sure you get asked that.
- 0:15Speaker 1: What do you say?
- 0:16Speaker 2: Well, so I'm going to go back to, have you
- 0:17Speaker 2: ever had a moment where you felt pressured to compromise
- 0:21Speaker 2: your decision?
- 0:21Speaker 5: Yes.
- 0:21Speaker 4: He said to me, I'm a big editor here at Marvel,
- 0:23Speaker 4: and I just offered you a great gig. Who do
- 0:25Speaker 4: you think you are? And I said, I think I'm
- 0:27Speaker 4: the guy that's not going to join the show. In
- 0:28Speaker 4: two months, we have Avengers Doomsday.
- 0:31Speaker 2: I saw Ryan Reynolds walk by in that outfit.
- 0:36Speaker 4: Is he in this new movie? Is it up in
- 0:37Speaker 4: two months?
- 0:43Speaker 6: Friends, I think they've closed the doors, so let me
- 0:45Speaker 6: go ahead and get started.
- 0:48Speaker 1: If you don't know me, my name is Sean McDowell.
- 0:50Speaker 5: I went here, I teach here full-time, but I also,
- 0:55Speaker 5: thank you very much, I also.
- 0:57Speaker 1: Collected comics in the 1980s and in the early 1990s.
- 1:01Speaker 5: And I had two favorite writers and two favorite artists.
- 1:06Speaker 5: One by the name of Tom McFarlane created Venom, iconically
- 1:10Speaker 5: drew Spider-Man. Total outspoken atheist. Had a chance to interview him,
- 1:15Speaker 5: which was interesting. And Rob Liefeld, who's joining us this afternoon.
- 1:26Speaker 5: Three people clapped for me. They are here for you,
- 1:29Speaker 5: my man.
- 1:30Speaker 4: Which is good.
- 1:31Speaker 1: Now, quick back story and we're going to bring him up.
- 1:34Speaker 5: Is I was at a church near here, I won't
- 1:36Speaker 5: mention it, and discovered a friend who's in a small
- 1:39Speaker 5: group goes, yeah.
- 1:39Speaker 1: I'm in a group with Rob Liefeld. I was like, wait,
- 1:41Speaker 1: hang on.
- 1:42Speaker 5: Like, the Rob Liefeld? I've got his comments going way back.
- 1:46Speaker 5: I'm like, he goes to church here.
- 1:48Speaker 4: He's a Christian.
- 1:49Speaker 1: It was like two years. I was sending you notes. Finally,
- 1:52Speaker 1: your wife, Joy, came up to me. I probably was rude.
- 1:54Speaker 1: I was like, Joy, I really want to interview your husband.
- 1:57Speaker 1: What do I have to do?
- 1:58Speaker 5: I was probably a little over the top. When you
- 2:00Speaker 5: came over and we did that interview, that was one
- 2:02Speaker 5: of my all-time favorite interviews. My two boys came, got
- 2:05Speaker 5: a chance to meet you. We love you, and the
- 2:07Speaker 5: back of our mind has always been, like, I would
- 2:09Speaker 5: love to get Rob to Biola.
- 2:11Speaker 1: Now, in case you're just not familiar.
- 2:14Speaker 5: With exactly what he does, Scotty, tell them a little
- 2:16Speaker 5: bit more about his backdrop.
- 2:17Speaker 4: What's up, guys? My name is Scotty McDowell. I am
- 2:19Speaker 4: a senior here at Biola.
- 2:22Speaker 5: Thank you.
- 2:24Speaker 7: So Rob Liefeld broke onto the comic book scene at
- 2:27Speaker 7: Marvel in the late 1980s, and by 1990, he was
- 2:31Speaker 7: drawing and writing The New Mutants and helping create one
- 2:34Speaker 7: of the most iconic characters in comic book history named Cable.
- 2:38Speaker 7: Then in 1991, everything exploded. In New Mutants number 98,
- 2:42Speaker 7: Rob introduced Deadpool. Just a few issues later, New Mutants
- 2:46Speaker 7: became X-Force, and in August of 1991, X-Force number one
- 2:50Speaker 7: hit stores and sold over 5 million copies. Then, in 1992,
- 2:55Speaker 7: he left Marvel alongside several other legendary creators and helped
- 3:00Speaker 7: launch Image Comics, a company built around giving creators something
- 3:03Speaker 7: they didn't have at Marvel.
- 3:05Speaker 1: Ownership of the characters they created.
- 3:07Speaker 7: In his first Image book, Youngblood became a massive success
- 3:11Speaker 7: and helped establish.
- 3:12Speaker 1: Image as a major force in the comic book industry.
- 3:15Speaker 4: And look at the legacy that Image Comics has created.
- 3:17Speaker 7: Today, some of their titles include Spawn, The Walking Dead,
- 3:20Speaker 7: and everybody's favorite TV.
- 3:21Speaker 4: Show, Invincible.
- 3:23Speaker 7: And countless other iconic titles all came from the company
- 3:26Speaker 7: that Rob helped create.
- 3:28Speaker 4: The characters Rob created, Deadpool, Cable and Domino.
- 3:30Speaker 7: Shatterstar, and X-Force, have gone beyond the comic book realm
- 3:34Speaker 7: to the pages to the big blockbuster movies such as
- 3:37Speaker 7: Deadpool 1, 2, and 3, and become known by millions
- 3:40Speaker 7: of people today.
- 3:41Speaker 4: And now the most important.
- 3:42Speaker 1: Thing about Rob is that he is a follower of Christ.
- 3:46Speaker 4: So, Brian, would you join me? Thank you.
- 3:57Speaker 1: Good to have you right in the middle. So we
- 4:00Speaker 1: have some questions for you.
- 4:01Speaker 8: Thanks, Robin.
- 4:02Speaker 4: You guys, thanks for coming to this session. I really
- 4:04Speaker 4: appreciate it.
- 4:05Speaker 1: Great to see you. Now, we've got some questions for Rob.
- 4:08Speaker 5: And then we're going to open it up for your
- 4:10Speaker 5: questions at the end. And I brought two comics that
- 4:13Speaker 5: my dad gave me in whatever, 1990, 91, whenever this
- 4:18Speaker 5: came out.
- 4:18Speaker 4: I've kept them.
- 4:19Speaker 1: Rob signed them.
- 4:20Speaker 5: So we're going to give for the best question that
- 4:23Speaker 5: you ask at the end.
- 4:25Speaker 1: So, Rob, let me start with this question. We'll start
- 4:28Speaker 1: with the fun one. What was the inspiration for creating
- 4:31Speaker 1: the character Deadpool?
- 4:32Speaker 2: You know, the honest answer is paying the rent, but
- 4:36Speaker 2: you want a more creative answer. So the book that they,
- 4:41Speaker 2: I may all be non-conflict people, I'm going to bore
- 4:44Speaker 2: you for a minute, but the original X-Men, which they're now,
- 4:48Speaker 2: I guess, going to make a movie based on those characters.
- 4:50Speaker 4: They were a failed title.
- 4:52Speaker 2: That's not me spinning it. That's history that Stan Lee
- 4:54Speaker 2: would tell you. It was not selling.
- 4:57Speaker 4: On par with Avengers or Fantastic Four or Spider-Man.
- 5:00Speaker 2: And I can tell you as a kid, because I
- 5:02Speaker 2: started collecting comic books when I was seven years old.
- 5:06Speaker 4: It was a rabid obsession with mine. They were at
- 5:10Speaker 4: 20 cents when I started.
- 5:11Speaker 1: This is 1974.
- 5:12Speaker 4: Yes, that sounds as old as it is.
- 5:15Speaker 2: But I would ride my skateboard up to the 7-Eleven,
- 5:18Speaker 2: the liquor store.
- 5:19Speaker 4: I had this.
- 5:20Speaker 2: Mecca on this Four Corners just about three blocks from
- 5:24Speaker 2: my house.
- 5:26Speaker 4: And I would pass it on the way home from
- 5:28Speaker 4: school and on the way to school.
- 5:30Speaker 2: And there was a 7-Eleven, a liquor store, and a
- 5:32Speaker 2: grocery store named Stater Brothers that all had comic books. So, man,
- 5:35Speaker 2: I was like living the life. But I never bought
- 5:38Speaker 2: the X-Men because they were super boring. And I'm going
- 5:40Speaker 2: to tell you why. I call them arm casters and
- 5:44Speaker 2: temple touchers.
- 5:45Speaker 4: Professor Xavier, stop.
- 5:47Speaker 1: Stop.
- 5:48Speaker 4: Okay?
- 5:49Speaker 2: And then there's Cyclops. I'm going to touch my temple
- 5:51Speaker 2: and blast you. And then there's Jean Grey.
- 5:52Speaker 3: Stop. Stop.
- 5:54Speaker 2: Stop and then there's angel i'm gonna flap my wings
- 5:57Speaker 2: that's all he does then there's beast who had big
- 6:00Speaker 2: feet and big hands so uh that's it and so
- 6:03Speaker 2: i'm like i'd rather have the avengers captain america has
- 6:07Speaker 2: a shield thor has a hammer iron man has a
- 6:10Speaker 2: you know killer suit of armor like everybody has weapons
- 6:13Speaker 2: hawkeye has bows and arrows that's the stuff that i
- 6:16Speaker 2: migrated towards They offered me the original X-Men. They were
- 6:19Speaker 2: in a book called X-Factor. It was selling very well.
- 6:22Speaker 2: I was wooed by, but Rob, you'll make so much
- 6:24Speaker 2: money in royalties. The royalties started kicking in in comic books.
- 6:29Speaker 4: In the mid-80s. And a buddy that we all got
- 6:32Speaker 4: to know named.
- 6:33Speaker 2: Mark, he was drawing the major X-Men book, which had
- 6:36Speaker 2: Wolverine and Nightcrawler and Colossus and all the cool characters
- 6:39Speaker 2: that you've seen brought to life on screen. And this
- 6:43Speaker 2: dude was living in a house in Malibu and driving Porsches.
- 6:47Speaker 2: And Todd McFarlane, my buddy, would be like, Mark's.
- 6:51Speaker 4: Killing it with the royalties.
- 6:53Speaker 2: And so it was like, everybody was talking, just like
- 6:55Speaker 2: in any business, what he's making, what he's making. And
- 6:57Speaker 2: when they said, Rob, we want you to do the
- 6:58Speaker 2: new X-Men, the book that features the classic X-Men lineup.
- 7:03Speaker 2: It's called X-Factor, and Rob, you'll make really good royalties. Well,
- 7:06Speaker 2: so I'm 20 at that point. I've been doing comics
- 7:08Speaker 2: for two years. But I'm like, that's a stinker. I
- 7:11Speaker 2: will die on that book. I may make some money, but...
- 7:15Speaker 2: It's like you don't want to follow Magic Johnson as
- 7:20Speaker 2: point guard for the Lakers. You want to follow the
- 7:22Speaker 2: point guard that.
- 7:23Speaker 4: Followed Magic Johnson. Because everyone is going to be like,
- 7:27Speaker 4: he sucked. Oh, now we got somebody good. You don't
- 7:29Speaker 4: want to follow the superstars.
- 7:30Speaker 2: And the thing is, the guy who had been doing
- 7:32Speaker 2: that book was really good. And I didn't think I
- 7:34Speaker 2: would be as good. And I didn't like the characters.
- 7:36Speaker 2: So here's the long-winded answer. So they said, but then
- 7:39Speaker 2: we have this book called New Mutants. And New Mutants
- 7:41Speaker 2: was so boring, so terrible, so out of touch, made
- 7:44Speaker 2: by old people.
- 7:45Speaker 4: And I was a young person then. They were made
- 7:48Speaker 4: by me now. And so I said, I'll take that.
- 7:53Speaker 2: And they're like, well, Rob, we think we're going to
- 7:54Speaker 2: cancel it. And I'm like, let me do whatever I
- 7:57Speaker 2: want with it. I will turn this into what it
- 7:59Speaker 2: needs to be.
- 8:00Speaker 4: And they believed in me.
- 8:01Speaker 2: And I introduced this character, Cable. And suddenly, we're going
- 8:04Speaker 2: up 100,000 units. a month, which is unheard of, but
- 8:08Speaker 2: I would, like, I'm working alone, isolated in my studio drawing,
- 8:13Speaker 2: but I would do a signing once.
- 8:14Speaker 4: A month at a comic store in Los Angeles or
- 8:17Speaker 4: Orange County.
- 8:18Speaker 2: And the lines were getting bigger, and all that meant
- 8:20Speaker 2: was that more people were getting excited about the book,
- 8:22Speaker 2: and they were responding to the work that I was doing. So,
- 8:25Speaker 2: after Cable's such a big deal, they finally let me
- 8:28Speaker 2: write the book as well as draw the book. They
- 8:29Speaker 2: had been letting me kind of really run over the writer,
- 8:32Speaker 2: which was good, because it helped the book, But then
- 8:35Speaker 2: they finally removed the writer who was, I've got to
- 8:39Speaker 2: censor myself, old. And so then, how do I follow
- 8:45Speaker 2: up Cable?
- 8:46Speaker 4: He's already taken over.
- 8:47Speaker 2: They're making toys of Cable by this time. So people
- 8:51Speaker 2: always ask me, if you look at the cover that
- 8:53Speaker 2: Deadpool is, can you guys hear me? The cover that
- 8:59Speaker 2: Deadpool appears on, New Mutants 98, there's three characters. I'm
- 9:03Speaker 2: throwing it all against the wall. And two out of
- 9:04Speaker 2: three made that. Two of them went on to become
- 9:06Speaker 2: iconic characters, Deadpool and Domino. And then the other one, Gideon,
- 9:09Speaker 2: biblical name, inspired because I was.
- 9:11Speaker 1: A pastor's kid.
- 9:12Speaker 4: I was grabbing all sorts of influence from Bible stuff.
- 9:16Speaker 4: But I loved, as a kid, okay, I'm going to
- 9:18Speaker 4: take you a little.
- 9:19Speaker 2: Back and skip against an hour because you can see
- 9:21Speaker 2: I'm a long-winded dude.
- 9:23Speaker 4: Scott is like, please shut up.
- 9:25Speaker 2: And so here's the deal. When I was the generation
- 9:31Speaker 2: that saw Star Wars for the first time, little nine-year-old
- 9:33Speaker 2: Robbie Liefeld.
- 9:34Speaker 4: Went to the movie theater and had never seen it.
- 9:36Speaker 4: This is how me and my friends watched Star Wars.
- 9:39Speaker 4: Oh my God! What is happening? Like, we couldn't believe it.
- 9:44Speaker 2: Like, when that ship goes overhead and the special events,
- 9:47Speaker 2: you could not believe that that movie was shot in 1976.
- 9:49Speaker 2: It was released in 1977, but go to any movie
- 9:53Speaker 2: prior to that. George Lucas is a visionary. I met
- 9:56Speaker 2: him a couple weeks ago and I was garbling my words.
- 9:58Speaker 9: I mean, George is like, get this guy out of here.
- 10:02Speaker 9: I'm like, but you invited me. But the thing is,
- 10:07Speaker 9: in the sequel, they have Boba Fett. And they introduce
- 10:10Speaker 9: Boba Fett in a really super bad holiday special. But
- 10:13Speaker 9: the cartoon is rad.
- 10:15Speaker 4: And Boba Fett is cool. And he's taking down everybody.
- 10:18Speaker 2: And it's the first time that little Robbie Liefeld had
- 10:20Speaker 2: heard of mercenaries, bounty hunters.
- 10:23Speaker 4: And I'm like, that's cool. Well, this is my chance
- 10:25Speaker 4: to have a mercenary and.
- 10:26Speaker 1: A bounty hunter.
- 10:28Speaker 2: And if you look at New Mutants 98, Deadpool is
- 10:31Speaker 2: working for a guy who has given him a contract
- 10:33Speaker 2: to get Cable.
- 10:34Speaker 4: And Deadpool is the bounty hunter.
- 10:36Speaker 1: He's Boba Fett.
- 10:37Speaker 4: The guy that hired him is named Tolliver. That's top
- 10:39Speaker 4: of the hut. And Cable is Han Solo. I'm totally
- 10:41Speaker 4: ripping off Star Wars.
- 10:44Speaker 2: But Deadpool speaking of Todd McFarlane he was doing he
- 10:49Speaker 2: had the best selling Spider-Man book but what everyone in
- 10:52Speaker 2: the industry was doing I was in.
- 10:53Speaker 4: My car waiting to meet Scotty.
- 10:54Speaker 2: Today and I don't have any special status that I
- 10:59Speaker 2: put Ben Affleck on other than he's a really good
- 11:01Speaker 2: director as well as an actor and he's giving a
- 11:03Speaker 2: lot of promotional interviews for his new movie and he
- 11:08Speaker 2: was talking about his experience playing Batman and how he
- 11:10Speaker 2: felt like Zack Snyder's Vision was kind of compromised.
- 11:13Speaker 1: By the studio that stepped in and meddled.
- 11:15Speaker 2: And then at the end of his statement, he goes,
- 11:17Speaker 2: but it really comes down to if we want to
- 11:19Speaker 2: honor Frank Miller.
- 11:20Speaker 1: And I'm like, wait!
- 11:21Speaker 4: Frank Miller is.
- 11:22Speaker 2: A comic book icon that inspired me and Todd in
- 11:25Speaker 2: every book.
- 11:26Speaker 4: And so Frank had done this book called Dark.
- 11:29Speaker 2: Knight where he turned that into this super dark, crazy
- 11:32Speaker 2: tale in the future and it affected the industry.
- 11:36Speaker 3: Todd.
- 11:37Speaker 4: wanted to.
- 11:37Speaker 1: Make Spider-Man dark, and he did.
- 11:39Speaker 4: And he'd be like, I'm making, I mean, the first
- 11:41Speaker 4: issues of Todd's Spider-Man that he's writing, it's voodoo magic,
- 11:44Speaker 4: it's dark, he.
- 11:46Speaker 1: And Spider-Man's having marital problems with.
- 11:48Speaker 10: Mary Jane, she's going out clubbing at night, leaving Peter alone,
- 11:51Speaker 10: and you're like, when did Spider-Man not be funny anymore?
- 11:55Speaker 10: Spider-Man's not funny at all.
- 11:56Speaker 1: He's like, crack a joke, because Todd's not funny, sorry, Todd.
- 11:59Speaker 2: And so I'm like, I can take the Spider-Man of
- 12:02Speaker 2: my youth that would punch people and make jokes, And
- 12:06Speaker 2: I pinched him in the marble, I said, Deadpool is Spider-Man.
- 12:10Speaker 4: With guns and swords.
- 12:12Speaker 1: And they're like, done!
- 12:13Speaker 2: You guys, it was last year for the first time
- 12:17Speaker 2: I read the list.
- 12:18Speaker 4: Somebody said, Rob, in the letters page of your.
- 12:20Speaker 2: Last issue of New Mutants, before we transitioned it to exports,
- 12:23Speaker 2: which sold five million.
- 12:24Speaker 4: Copies, because we were cooking. In that, in the letters column!
- 12:29Speaker 10: Because it's all about Deadpool. A guy goes, I love Deadpool.
- 12:32Speaker 10: He's Spider-Man with guns and swords. And I'm like, that's
- 12:35Speaker 10: what I pitched him as. So landed that plane, sold
- 12:38Speaker 10: some comics.
- 12:39Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, the first answer
- 12:41Speaker 4: is the truth. Paid the rent.
- 12:43Speaker 2: I tried to keep selling well so Marvel would keep
- 12:46Speaker 2: giving me everything I wanted and keep me hired.
- 12:50Speaker 11: Because even now, I've got kids.
- 12:52Speaker 4: They're in the workforce. All my kids are in their 20s.
- 12:54Speaker 4: They're old. And they're like, Dad, I'm trying to get
- 12:57Speaker 4: a new job. I'm like, dear God, give him a
- 12:59Speaker 4: new job.
- 13:00Speaker 2: My daughter, she's going to nursing school. Get her into
- 13:03Speaker 2: that nursing program so she can get that job. And,
- 13:05Speaker 2: you know, acting jobs. So, like, when you're 20s, you
- 13:09Speaker 2: just want to pay the bills. You just want to,
- 13:10Speaker 2: you know, make your way. And so that's my long-winded answer.
- 13:13Speaker 4: Be careful with these questions. All right, Rob.
- 13:15Speaker 2: That's weird, dude.
- 13:24Speaker 7: So, Rob, we're here at Torrey Conference, and the theme
- 13:27Speaker 7: of Torrey Conference is that the resurrection changes everything.
- 13:31Speaker 3: That Jesus changes everything. Rob, how has Jesus changed everything
- 13:37Speaker 3: about your life?
- 13:38Speaker 4: Well, so here's the deal.
- 13:40Speaker 2: I get up every morning, and as I walk down
- 13:42Speaker 2: my stairs, I look down at my beautiful green lawn,
- 13:45Speaker 2: and that's when you know you're old, because you're in
- 13:47Speaker 2: my interest.
- 13:48Speaker 12: And you're like.
- 13:49Speaker 10: Man, even in this heat, I've kept that lawn green!
- 13:52Speaker 4: And I say, God, thank you for this day. I
- 13:54Speaker 4: am a sinner saved only by your grace. I say
- 13:56Speaker 4: it every day. I say it often. My wife will
- 13:58Speaker 4: tell you. I say it all day because I'm deeply flawed.
- 14:02Speaker 4: And as a kid, now, it doesn't matter if my
- 14:05Speaker 4: dad was a minister. I just got it. It clicked
- 14:07Speaker 4: with me.
- 14:08Speaker 2: Around the same time I'm getting into comic books, I
- 14:12Speaker 2: am really getting into the Bible.
- 14:13Speaker 4: And you're like, what do you mean?
- 14:15Speaker 1: I wish I had the picture.
- 14:16Speaker 4: I showed it. I spoke to like a business conference
- 14:20Speaker 4: like two weeks ago. I was so shocked.
- 14:21Speaker 2: I'm like, I've never done this before, but I found
- 14:24Speaker 2: this one picture of me in the wedding for my uncle.
- 14:28Speaker 4: And I am seven years old.
- 14:30Speaker 2: And what they gave me for being in that wedding
- 14:31Speaker 2: was this giant illustrated Bible. It was the size of,
- 14:34Speaker 2: I was going to say a phone book, but you
- 14:35Speaker 2: don't know what a phone book is. They used to
- 14:37Speaker 2: deliver them.
- 14:38Speaker 4: They're big, fat, and they had everyone's telephone numbers up.
- 14:41Speaker 4: And a giant book. And I was like, wow. And
- 14:44Speaker 4: for whatever reason, I believe the Lord guided my hand.
- 14:47Speaker 4: I opened it. Double page spread.
- 14:51Speaker 10: Shirtless dude, ripped with the jawbone of an ass, and
- 14:56Speaker 10: he's kind of going like this.
- 14:57Speaker 4: Yeah!
- 14:58Speaker 2: And he's smashed, blood's coming out of these soldiers' mouth,
- 15:01Speaker 2: and it's Samson.
- 15:03Speaker 10: Killing 5,000 Philistines. And the bloodlust in little Robbie Liefeld
- 15:08Speaker 10: was like, no.
- 15:09Speaker 4: And I'm like, yeah, I can get into this. Like,
- 15:13Speaker 4: Samson's whooping some butt here. I'd say another word, but
- 15:16Speaker 4: I'm a biologist. And so I'm like, Samson is crushing.
- 15:21Speaker 4: And then he's wrestling a lion. And oh, crap. Wait,
- 15:24Speaker 4: what do you mean he's blind? and he's going to
- 15:25Speaker 4: kill everybody, and he dies? Oh, that sucks. Saturday morning cartoons,
- 15:29Speaker 4: they always live. The super friends never die, okay?
- 15:31Speaker 2: So then I go to Joshua and Gideon, and I'm
- 15:34Speaker 2: an Old Testament guy. I'm an Old Testament seven-year-old. I'm
- 15:37Speaker 2: obsessed with all these Old Testament heroes. And I'm like, wait,
- 15:40Speaker 2: so David didn't just kill Goliath? He cut off his
- 15:43Speaker 2: head and go to the Scriptures. He walked around with
- 15:46Speaker 2: that head.
- 15:47Speaker 4: Imagine, hey everybody, I got a head here. I took
- 15:50Speaker 4: it off the giant. What's up? So I was totally
- 15:54Speaker 4: engaged in the Bible. Not really a New Testament guy.
- 15:57Speaker 2: Other than Christ and the resurrection. But I was so
- 16:04Speaker 2: into the Old Testament. But with all the supernatural, the superpowers.
- 16:08Speaker 2: I mean, God came upon David. He came upon Samson.
- 16:11Speaker 2: that that word came upon is very specific. It's when
- 16:15Speaker 2: God creates a supernatural awakening or an action in you.
- 16:20Speaker 4: And it's used in the Old Testament. And there's a
- 16:21Speaker 4: prophet I talk about, or a judge, in the book
- 16:23Speaker 4: of Judges, his name's Jephthah.
- 16:25Speaker 11: And he's a judge no one's heard of, but he's
- 16:28Speaker 11: another one of those guys that took on the Ammonites,
- 16:31Speaker 11: and it says, before he writes in the Bible, in
- 16:33Speaker 11: my Bible, in Judges, and the Spirit of the Lord
- 16:36Speaker 11: came upon Jephthah and delivered.
- 16:39Speaker 4: Him this victory.
- 16:40Speaker 2: He couldn't do it by himself. So I've always been
- 16:42Speaker 2: attuned to this. So when I was in seventh grade,
- 16:45Speaker 2: they were preaching the word. And in Sunday school, a
- 16:48Speaker 2: man named Jim.
- 16:49Speaker 4: Arks, who is long gone, passed. God bless him.
- 16:53Speaker 2: He worked at our church. I went into a corridor
- 16:56Speaker 2: like this out here. I got on my knees. I
- 16:59Speaker 2: accepted the Lord in my heart. And I've never, ever,
- 17:01Speaker 2: ever let that faith go. And I'm going to tell you,
- 17:05Speaker 2: in the early 2000s, I went to Borders. There was
- 17:08Speaker 2: a bookstore that used to be around Borders, you know,
- 17:10Speaker 2: books and whatever music.
- 17:12Speaker 4: And I was like, I'm going to try and see
- 17:14Speaker 4: if I can be an atheist. And I tried for
- 17:16Speaker 4: three weeks. I read every atheist book.
- 17:19Speaker 2: Some I bought, some I read there because they had
- 17:21Speaker 2: a dumb policy that you could read the books at
- 17:22Speaker 2: the library.
- 17:23Speaker 10: And I just couldn't do it. I'm like, I can't
- 17:25Speaker 10: go there. All of these arguments for atheism, I just can't.
- 17:28Speaker 4: It's in me. I believe.
- 17:29Speaker 2: And I think when you believe and you have that
- 17:31Speaker 2: faith on your side, You know, it's with you all
- 17:35Speaker 2: the time. So, Scotty, being a believer and being of
- 17:39Speaker 2: faith in the work that the Lord has done in
- 17:42Speaker 2: my life, I am nothing without all of the things
- 17:45Speaker 2: that God has blessed me with, whether it's my talent,
- 17:47Speaker 2: my drive, the beautiful wife that he introduced me to,
- 17:52Speaker 2: and the beautiful children that we have had.
- 17:55Speaker 4: And I mean beautiful on the inside. And they're just wonderful.
- 17:59Speaker 2: Also on the outside. The thing is, God is with
- 18:07Speaker 2: me every day. My faith is everything. People in my
- 18:10Speaker 2: industry know it. I believe it's part of why I
- 18:12Speaker 2: have been targeted my whole career. When I came forth
- 18:15Speaker 2: really boldly, I could tell. It was like, now we're
- 18:18Speaker 2: going to just shoot you all the time.
- 18:19Speaker 4: But I'm good.
- 18:20Speaker 2: Like, that doesn't, like, if you've read that I'm the
- 18:23Speaker 2: worst artist on planet Earth, I'm cool.
- 18:26Speaker 4: That's cool.
- 18:26Speaker 2: You know, I'm also the most hireable artist on planet Earth,
- 18:29Speaker 2: so I kind of reconcile both things. I'm like, I suck,
- 18:32Speaker 2: but I'm never without work.
- 18:34Speaker 4: I suck.
- 18:35Speaker 2: And again, that's because God's taken care of me and
- 18:37Speaker 2: he's watched over me, and I'm not sure I answered
- 18:39Speaker 2: your question.
- 18:40Speaker 6: We talked about this a little bit last time, is
- 18:45Speaker 6: that there's always questions that Christians wrestle with in terms
- 18:49Speaker 6: of what films, movies, what kind of media do we engage?
- 18:54Speaker 1: How do we do it wisely and biblically?
- 18:58Speaker 5: What's your approach to approaching and creating media as a Christian?
- 19:04Speaker 1: What does that look like? How do you navigate those waters? Well,
- 19:09Speaker 1: that's a really interesting question.
- 19:10Speaker 2: So I grew up in a really, I've got to
- 19:12Speaker 2: go all the way here. I grew up in a
- 19:14Speaker 2: very judgy, super Baptist, oppressive, Not my dad. My grandfather
- 19:21Speaker 2: was the head pastor. My dad was the associate, you know, pastor.
- 19:25Speaker 2: My dad was never, my dad was all just a
- 19:27Speaker 2: kindness man. And everyone like, he just left such an
- 19:32Speaker 2: imprint on everyone with his kindness.
- 19:36Speaker 4: Other people at the church were super duper judgy.
- 19:39Speaker 2: But we'd sell weird things like tracks, Christian tracks that
- 19:43Speaker 2: had people burning in the.
- 19:44Speaker 4: Lake of fire going, why did you abandon me, God?
- 19:46Speaker 4: And I'm like a seven-year-old. I'm like, why am I
- 19:48Speaker 4: reading this? This is like fear-mongering.
- 19:50Speaker 2: But when it comes to the arts, I, whether it's
- 19:54Speaker 2: a play, you know, do I, like Shakespeare, or whether
- 19:59Speaker 2: it's great directors, I'm a matured adult, and I would
- 20:03Speaker 2: not let my children, okay, case in point, you know, little,
- 20:07Speaker 2: a lady came to me with.
- 20:09Speaker 4: Her son 10 years ago at a signing in Las Vegas.
- 20:15Speaker 4: And he's dressed up like that. Cute outfit, cute kid.
- 20:20Speaker 2: But the mom starts accosting me. Why does that movie
- 20:23Speaker 2: have to be R-rated? I'm like, lady, your son is
- 20:29Speaker 2: dressed up like an assassin who kills people for money.
- 20:34Speaker 4: That's what little Billy's dressed up like right now. Well,
- 20:38Speaker 4: I never. I thought my mom was standing in front
- 20:39Speaker 4: of me. Well, I never was a very 1970s person.
- 20:42Speaker 4: And she stomped off.
- 20:43Speaker 2: I was like, lady, get a grip. The movie wasn't
- 20:47Speaker 2: made for this game. I didn't make the movie. I
- 20:51Speaker 2: got paid for the movie. I enjoyed the movie because
- 20:53Speaker 2: I'm a man. I'm an adult person, okay?
- 20:56Speaker 4: I'm not a child. I wouldn't show Deadpool to children.
- 20:59Speaker 4: But I have had people who are like, hey, Rob,
- 21:01Speaker 4: I showed.
- 21:02Speaker 1: Deadpool to my five-year-old six times, and I'm like, there's
- 21:04Speaker 1: something wrong with you.
- 21:05Speaker 4: I'm not a child.
- 21:07Speaker 1: Okay? I'm going to go to the Old Testament.
- 21:11Speaker 2: There is stuff in there that I've told you I
- 21:13Speaker 2: think is distinctly R-rated that when I discovered it, I was.
- 21:16Speaker 4: Like, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Because that wasn't just
- 21:19Speaker 4: the paintings. I'm like, there's sex in the Old Testament! Wubba, wubba! Okay?
- 21:26Speaker 2: There is an underground cartoonist There was an underground cartoonist.
- 21:31Speaker 4: I'm sure you don't know. Underground comics.
- 21:34Speaker 2: So my sister is seven years older than me. So
- 21:37Speaker 2: she's way older. And she was doing a tour paper
- 21:41Speaker 2: on underground comics. And I was probably eight years old.
- 21:45Speaker 4: So that would put her at 16. Or older.
- 21:48Speaker 2: I think it was her senior year.
- 21:51Speaker 4: And she had this coffee table book. And I looked
- 21:53Speaker 4: at it. And I'm like, underground comics? What is this?
- 21:56Speaker 1: And I'm in there like.
- 21:57Speaker 2: Marvel and DC Comics, well, underground comics were made by
- 21:59Speaker 2: these avant-garde, the hippie, the hipsters, like my buddy who looks.
- 22:03Speaker 1: Like he's from the 1970s right here.
- 22:04Speaker 4: I love him. No, I told him earlier, he's rad.
- 22:08Speaker 2: I feel like I'm back in 1977 if I just
- 22:09Speaker 2: look at you. I'm reading through my youth, and I
- 22:12Speaker 2: think fashion and all this stuff is cool. I'm super
- 22:14Speaker 2: boring and super old, and I just draw all day.
- 22:16Speaker 2: But the thing is, underground comics were very much about
- 22:20Speaker 2: drugs and sex, and this guy, R. Crumb, Robert Crumb,
- 22:24Speaker 2: Google him, he was the king of underground comics. Now,
- 22:27Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you something. He hit the culture
- 22:29Speaker 2: hard in, I think, 2006. He's been kind of out
- 22:36Speaker 2: of it. He's a super talented artist. He had a
- 22:38Speaker 2: very distinct style.
- 22:40Speaker 4: Really talented.
- 22:41Speaker 2: He announced to everyone that he's putting out a hardcover
- 22:43Speaker 2: book that he drew the entire book of Genesis. Whether
- 22:48Speaker 2: it was the New York Times, CBS News, LA Times,
- 22:50Speaker 2: I watched everything because I was obsessed with it. R. Crumb,
- 22:53Speaker 2: the king of underground, druggy, sex comics, decided to draw
- 22:58Speaker 2: the Bible. And he said, I am not of the faith,
- 23:01Speaker 2: and this did not change me, but I wanted to
- 23:03Speaker 2: draw word for word, line for line, everything.
- 23:06Speaker 4: That is depicted. This book, as you imagine, has got
- 23:09Speaker 4: some raw images in it. Because like I said, there's
- 23:13Speaker 4: some stuff in the Bible that's R, maybe X, right? Okay,
- 23:16Speaker 4: hand it to the kids. And so reconcile that first,
- 23:20Speaker 4: and then get back to me. But here's the deal.
- 23:22Speaker 4: Because you're going to be like, but Rob, that's ordained. Yeah,
- 23:25Speaker 4: but there's certain maturity is, I think, what I would
- 23:29Speaker 4: get to.
- 23:30Speaker 2: And I don't believe God judges me when I go
- 23:32Speaker 2: see Terminator 2 or Predator or Basic Instinct. I don't
- 23:35Speaker 2: think he's like, oh, Robbie Liefeld, I'm going to shove.
- 23:39Speaker 4: A lightning bolt up his... No.
- 23:42Speaker 2: Because I walk out and I'm inspired as an artist.
- 23:44Speaker 2: And I just believe when we get to the arts,
- 23:47Speaker 2: we're in a different place. So I have a son
- 23:50Speaker 2: who was on a show and he was a werewolf.
- 23:53Speaker 4: Do I believe in werewolves? I do not believe in werewolves.
- 23:56Speaker 2: And I think maybe they're slightly on the other side
- 24:00Speaker 2: of things.
- 24:00Speaker 4: But it's a part, it's a role. He was given it.
- 24:04Speaker 4: He's read for serial killers. Okay?
- 24:07Speaker 2: It's called, like, at some point we can stop, but
- 24:09Speaker 2: at the end of the day, what I do, I'm
- 24:11Speaker 2: doing to glorify God. But I may tell a story
- 24:14Speaker 2: that's uncomfortable, but it's what I want to tell with
- 24:17Speaker 2: my artistic talents.
- 24:18Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, am I.
- 24:20Speaker 2: There's a guy that we know, and I told you,
- 24:22Speaker 2: I felt like your light bulb went on in your head.
- 24:24Speaker 4: I love you, man.
- 24:25Speaker 2: But I was like, this guy does a comic book
- 24:28Speaker 2: about the devil. And it almost seeks to glorify the devil.
- 24:34Speaker 2: And I will call that man my friend until the
- 24:36Speaker 2: day I die. But we have different end games with
- 24:40Speaker 2: what we're trying to do.
- 24:43Speaker 4: I will give the Lord all the glory for what
- 24:46Speaker 4: I do and be.
- 24:47Speaker 2: Excited about that I was able to tell those stories,
- 24:50Speaker 2: but there's, you know, I gotta be honest, I don't
- 24:52Speaker 2: sit there and go, oh man, I've really gone over
- 24:54Speaker 2: the line with something, because then I look and I go,
- 24:58Speaker 2: you know, I let everybody know who gave me the
- 25:00Speaker 2: talent to do it, and some of you have athletic talent, some.
- 25:03Speaker 4: Of you have talent in terms.
- 25:06Speaker 2: Of writing, some of you have like super scientific brain talent, again,
- 25:11Speaker 2: I got given an artistic talent, I understood that it
- 25:13Speaker 2: was God given, and I The way I came about
- 25:16Speaker 2: it was me and my friends all went back from
- 25:18Speaker 2: Star Wars, and we wanted to draw the characters. There
- 25:20Speaker 2: is no internet. There is no way to access those images.
- 25:23Speaker 2: We had to do it from memory. Maybe a magazine
- 25:25Speaker 2: had a couple, but we all drew Chewbacca. But mine
- 25:29Speaker 2: was the only one that looked like Chewbacca. I'm like,
- 25:32Speaker 2: is that a mop? What is that?
- 25:34Speaker 4: What is that? Oh, and they're like, wow, you draw.
- 25:36Speaker 1: And I'm like, man, maybe I have a gift.
- 25:38Speaker 4: Maybe I can draw.
- 25:39Speaker 2: But the arts is a weird thing, and I don't
- 25:42Speaker 2: think there's any one thing I think, what is your
- 25:45Speaker 2: heart going.
- 25:45Speaker 4: Into that art, and what is your heart going out
- 25:47Speaker 4: of it?
- 25:47Speaker 2: Because like I said, I could take on, you know,
- 25:51Speaker 2: let's say a member of my family, my wife was
- 25:53Speaker 2: an actress too, and there was only one role, she said,
- 25:57Speaker 2: I didn't really want to play this, and so she
- 25:58Speaker 2: and her sisters decided not to read for it, because
- 26:01Speaker 2: they were triplets, they were kind of a gimmick for
- 26:03Speaker 2: their time, and then one of them went on to
- 26:04Speaker 2: be on Saved by the Bell, and the other one
- 26:06Speaker 2: went on to be on a whole bunch of other
- 26:07Speaker 2: guest stars, but my wife was like, I'm kind of
- 26:09Speaker 2: done with this, the acting thing is kind of weird.
- 26:11Speaker 1: And I don't love it.
- 26:13Speaker 2: But, uh, I think, like I said, there's no hard
- 26:16Speaker 2: and fast rule.
- 26:17Speaker 4: See, if I was a Baptist that I grew up with,
- 26:20Speaker 4: you'd just be condemned, condemned, condemned. But I don't believe
- 26:22Speaker 4: that's the answer. So why don't you give me the answer?
- 26:26Speaker 4: I've watched you two. Have you watched their videos?
- 26:28Speaker 1: They school everybody.
- 26:30Speaker 4: And now they're teaming up all the time. I feel
- 26:32Speaker 4: terrible for the people you guys cornered. Because it's like, here,
- 26:36Speaker 4: I'll slap them. Okay, you slap them.
- 26:37Speaker 2: Here, here, here.
- 26:40Speaker 4: And I'm like, the McDowells are like, they're wrestlers. Like, here,
- 26:44Speaker 4: I'll drop the chair.
- 26:46Speaker 1: You know?
- 26:47Speaker 4: So, you know it's true. I watch it.
- 26:49Speaker 1: All right, Rob.
- 26:51Speaker 7: You have been in the comic book and film industry
- 26:53Speaker 7: for 40 plus years now?
- 26:54Speaker 4: Yeah. 40 plus years.
- 26:56Speaker 2: Have you ever had a moment where you felt pressured
- 26:59Speaker 2: to compromise yourself? Yes.
- 27:01Speaker 4: So, well, so, during that time in Marvel Comics, again, guys, I'm...
- 27:07Speaker 4: I get into the comms industry at 18 years old.
- 27:08Speaker 2: Let me tell you what I was doing before I
- 27:10Speaker 2: was 18 years old. You understand, at eight years old,
- 27:14Speaker 2: my dad goes in for a brain surgery. He gets
- 27:17Speaker 2: a blood clot the next day. He is in a
- 27:19Speaker 2: coma for six months. They tell my mom every day
- 27:23Speaker 2: he is going to die. I drive with Patty Liefeld,
- 27:26Speaker 2: God bless her. She is crying on the way to
- 27:28Speaker 2: the hospital and on the way back. My sister, I
- 27:31Speaker 2: don't know where she But I did not see her
- 27:33Speaker 2: for that.
- 27:33Speaker 4: I think she was out. She dealt with it in
- 27:35Speaker 4: her own way. She could drive. She could leave.
- 27:37Speaker 2: But I would drive with my mom. And I would
- 27:39Speaker 2: hear the doctors tell my mom that they don't say
- 27:43Speaker 2: this anymore. This is the verbiage of the 70s.
- 27:46Speaker 4: Paul is a vegetable and likely never to wake up.
- 27:49Speaker 1: And we can't recommend not pulling the plug on him.
- 27:51Speaker 4: And I'm like, don't pull the plug on dad. Let's
- 27:54Speaker 4: give him some work tonight. Then one day, God woke
- 27:56Speaker 4: him up.
- 27:57Speaker 3: Boom.
- 27:57Speaker 4: Out of a coma. But then he had two months
- 28:00Speaker 4: of rehab. His whole body had been dead.
- 28:02Speaker 2: And this is 1970s science. And I mean, I'm like,
- 28:04Speaker 2: did they work on him with rusty tools? I mean,
- 28:07Speaker 2: because in 1985 it came back. And it was, I'm
- 28:11Speaker 2: about to graduate. My parents are living in Illinois now
- 28:14Speaker 2: because my dad has taken a job there as a
- 28:18Speaker 2: superintendent of a school. And they didn't tell me, they
- 28:20Speaker 2: didn't want to upset me because that time for our
- 28:22Speaker 2: family was very traumatic. I mean, I did not, I remember,
- 28:25Speaker 2: they didn't even tell me the day they were bringing
- 28:28Speaker 2: my dad home. I think they just didn't want me
- 28:30Speaker 2: to get too anxious. But I saw all these cars.
- 28:32Speaker 2: My sister took me to the drugstore to get comics.
- 28:35Speaker 2: And as we drive back, now I'm nine years old,
- 28:38Speaker 2: I see all these family cars. And my sister's like,
- 28:40Speaker 2: Dad's home.
- 28:41Speaker 1: I'm like, what?
- 28:41Speaker 4: I ran in. I cried. I hugged him.
- 28:44Speaker 2: He was also missing a giant part of his head
- 28:47Speaker 2: because he had to go back in there and put
- 28:49Speaker 2: plastic there because they had taken so much bone. I mean,
- 28:52Speaker 2: this is archaic science of 1978.
- 28:55Speaker 4: Now, he had another surgery in.
- 28:57Speaker 2: 1985 because my parents met me at my graduation. They
- 29:00Speaker 2: flew in and they're like, Robbie, we need you to
- 29:03Speaker 2: come back with us to be with your dad all summer.
- 29:06Speaker 2: He's going to have brain surgery. The tumors are back.
- 29:09Speaker 2: And I was a dutiful son. I'm like, let's do it.
- 29:11Speaker 2: I had a girlfriend. I had a life here. I
- 29:13Speaker 2: thought I'm going to have this great, you know, post-senior
- 29:15Speaker 2: high school summer. I graduated the next day. I'm on
- 29:18Speaker 2: a plane to Chicago. I sat next to my dad,
- 29:21Speaker 2: helped him out. This one went so smooth. We had
- 29:23Speaker 2: this great French doctor, Dr.
- 29:24Speaker 4: Rimbaldi.
- 29:25Speaker 2: He was so ace. And my dad was in and
- 29:28Speaker 2: out of the surgery. No coma, no complications. I said,
- 29:32Speaker 2: I'm going to go home now.
- 29:33Speaker 4: And they lived in Illinois. I flew home.
- 29:35Speaker 2: A buddy of mine, his family rented me a room.
- 29:38Speaker 2: And I immediately became a busboy. pizza delivery guy, and
- 29:41Speaker 2: I work construction five days a week with my buddy.
- 29:44Speaker 4: So we're up at 4.30 in the morning getting our
- 29:46Speaker 4: construction boots on. We work construction.
- 29:49Speaker 2: We work until 4 o'clock every day.
- 29:51Speaker 4: I get home and between four or five nights a week,
- 29:54Speaker 4: I'm delivering pizzas or.
- 29:56Speaker 2: I'm bussing tables because I'm just trying to make Because
- 29:59Speaker 2: at this point, things look bleak. My parents' financial picture
- 30:02Speaker 2: is bleak. So drawing comics is like my goal.
- 30:05Speaker 4: And one year later, because I graduated when I was
- 30:08Speaker 4: 17 years old. I didn't turn 18 until October of 1985.
- 30:11Speaker 4: So I graduated in June of 85. One year later,
- 30:15Speaker 4: I'm hiring comics. And that is a blessing. That is,
- 30:17Speaker 4: the good Lord blessed me ridiculously.
- 30:21Speaker 2: And so getting in comics and paying the rent is,
- 30:27Speaker 2: is like all, now I can draw, do what I love,
- 30:30Speaker 2: and make some money, and get paid.
- 30:33Speaker 4: $ 200 a page. And if I can do 25 pages
- 30:35Speaker 4: a month, then I'm good.
- 30:37Speaker 2: So, I'm now getting some attention with my art, and
- 30:40Speaker 2: I'm answering your question directly after that kind of buildup.
- 30:42Speaker 4: I just want to give context. An editor at Marvel
- 30:46Speaker 4: calls me up and says, Rob, we want you to
- 30:48Speaker 4: do the new Doctor Strange book. Well, I had already
- 30:50Speaker 4: heard what they were going to do with Doctor Strange.
- 30:52Speaker 2: Doctor Strange, when I was a kid, by Stan Lee
- 30:54Speaker 2: and a gentleman named Steve Ditko, was cool, fun, magic,
- 30:57Speaker 2: other dimensions, specific, like, magic creatures.
- 31:00Speaker 4: Again, now, I have friends who are like, magic is
- 31:02Speaker 4: of the devil, and I just shut the door. Magic
- 31:05Speaker 4: can be fun.
- 31:06Speaker 3: Stop.
- 31:07Speaker 2: Yes, magic, if I have a pentagram, and I'm calling
- 31:09Speaker 2: up the devil, and I'm trying to burn, yeah, okay. So,
- 31:13Speaker 2: let's comment on, we have friends who banned Harry Potter
- 31:15Speaker 2: books in 2001.
- 31:16Speaker 4: Like, you can't read Harry Potter, it's up to the devil.
- 31:19Speaker 4: I'm like, you need help. Not me, just for the record. No, no,
- 31:24Speaker 4: you're my stand-in friend.
- 31:26Speaker 2: It's like my dad, when he took me to see
- 31:27Speaker 2: Star Wars, and he drove home and he said, Robbie,
- 31:29Speaker 2: if I ever see you praying to the force, I'm like, Dad!
- 31:33Speaker 4: Because Obi-Wan kind of looks like Elijah, kind of looks
- 31:35Speaker 4: like Moses.
- 31:36Speaker 1: If you look at, again, it's like, there's some Old
- 31:38Speaker 1: Testament stuff going on on Tatooine.
- 31:40Speaker 2: But anyway, I mean, if Obi-Wan opened his closet and
- 31:42Speaker 2: there was the Ten Commandments, he'd be like, I knew
- 31:44Speaker 2: it was Moses!
- 31:45Speaker 4: But the thing is, George Lucas was pulling for everything.
- 31:49Speaker 2: So this guy says we're going in a very occult
- 31:52Speaker 2: direction of Doctor Strange. He's going to be battling like
- 31:57Speaker 2: Satanists and more occult and supernatural.
- 32:01Speaker 4: And there's going to be spells.
- 32:04Speaker 2: And I got to tell you, that just didn't sound
- 32:07Speaker 2: cool to me. Like I don't want to, like the
- 32:09Speaker 2: devil sitting on my shoulder while I'm drawing. I really
- 32:12Speaker 2: was 20 years old and.
- 32:13Speaker 4: Not having it. And I said, hey, you know what?
- 32:15Speaker 2: I really appreciate you offering me this new direction for Dr.
- 32:20Speaker 1: Strange.
- 32:21Speaker 2: But if you want to go to the old, the
- 32:23Speaker 2: Stan Lee Dr. Strange, I'm all for it. But this
- 32:25Speaker 2: new one where he wears a coat and he investigates the.
- 32:28Speaker 4: Occult, I'm not for that. And he said to me,
- 32:32Speaker 4: who do you think you are? And I mean, you
- 32:35Speaker 4: feel that on the phone.
- 32:36Speaker 2: They're in New York. I'm in Los Angeles. I'm in
- 32:38Speaker 2: Orange County. And he goes, who do you think you
- 32:41Speaker 2: are that you can turn down to work? I'm a
- 32:43Speaker 2: big editor here at Marvel, and I just offered.
- 32:45Speaker 4: You a great gig. Who do you think you are?
- 32:47Speaker 2: And I said, I think I'm the guy that's not
- 32:50Speaker 2: gonna draw Doctor Strange. I was very nervous that I
- 32:59Speaker 2: was now going, because this guy was a very influential editor,
- 33:06Speaker 2: but there was a brand new young editor who had
- 33:08Speaker 2: just taken over the X-Men, and I do believe it
- 33:10Speaker 2: was a direct correlation three days later Rob you want
- 33:12Speaker 2: to do the original lifespan no that's too scary for
- 33:16Speaker 2: me I don't think I'm good enough the characters were
- 33:19Speaker 2: like temple touchers and stuff but like I said the
- 33:20Speaker 2: guy who was drawing it was really good and I
- 33:22Speaker 2: didn't want to follow him if I didn't make that
- 33:23Speaker 2: clear and then he's like well we have this other
- 33:27Speaker 2: thing and you guys my path on that so Scotty
- 33:30Speaker 2: I would not give in to the pressure and I
- 33:32Speaker 2: mean in that moment there was a hanging moment that
- 33:34Speaker 2: felt like a thousand years of you know when the
- 33:37Speaker 2: editor says who do you think you are you're like
- 33:40Speaker 2: oh boy I'm in trouble And I'm a guy who
- 33:41Speaker 2: needs Marvel to give me work. So that is the
- 33:45Speaker 2: one time, and I definitely believe that that was like
- 33:48Speaker 2: a crossroads. That was like a bit of a kind
- 33:50Speaker 2: of like a journey for me, a test. And I'm glad.
- 33:54Speaker 4: That I, at 20 years old, stood up and said, no,
- 33:57Speaker 4: I'm not going to compromise.
- 33:58Speaker 2: I love that.
- 34:00Speaker 1: I've got a question for you.
- 34:07Speaker 5: I think Scott has one more, and then we'll open
- 34:09Speaker 5: it up. Sometimes people ask me, what are your favorite interviews?
- 34:13Speaker 5: And just so you know, my all-time favorite interview always
- 34:16Speaker 5: has been and always will be with my dad, just
- 34:18Speaker 5: for the record.
- 34:19Speaker 1: And then I'm like, after that.
- 34:21Speaker 4: He's a goat.
- 34:22Speaker 1: He is the goat.
- 34:23Speaker 5: After that, I'm like, you are one of the first
- 34:26Speaker 5: that come up. And I've been thinking about it because
- 34:28Speaker 5: I asked you this question. The moment I tell people,
- 34:31Speaker 5: I interviewed Rob Liefeld, created a character. He created Cable,
- 34:34Speaker 5: created Deadpool.
- 34:35Speaker 1: He's a Christian. Half the time, I'll get a look like, huh.
- 34:39Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 34:39Speaker 1: Like, how does that work?
- 34:41Speaker 5: And I've thought about, like, there seems to be two
- 34:44Speaker 5: ways to look at Deadpool. Tell me if I'm completely
- 34:46Speaker 5: off on this. One is irreverent, crass, certain humor. Maybe
- 34:51Speaker 5: it makes us laugh at things maybe we shouldn't laugh at.
- 34:55Speaker 5: The other's like, he's actually a tragic character. And he's
- 34:59Speaker 5: acting out certain hurt and pain and experiments that have
- 35:02Speaker 5: been done on him. When I started to look at
- 35:04Speaker 5: it through that lens, I started viewing the character differently.
- 35:09Speaker 5: How do you view him as a character? And to
- 35:11Speaker 5: answer the question people ask me, like, wait a minute,
- 35:13Speaker 5: how does a Christian make a character about Deadpool? I'm
- 35:15Speaker 5: sure you get asked that.
- 35:16Speaker 1: What do you say?
- 35:16Speaker 4: Well, so I'm going to go back to what I
- 35:18Speaker 4: told that lady in Little Billy. He's an assassin who
- 35:21Speaker 4: kills people for money.
- 35:21Speaker 2: Is that a great job that God would want you
- 35:23Speaker 2: to do?
- 35:24Speaker 4: No, he's an anti-hero, like Boba Fett.
- 35:27Speaker 2: I mean, they eventually turned Boba Fett into, like, look,
- 35:29Speaker 2: I know the Mandalorian movie failed, but it was based
- 35:31Speaker 2: on Boba Fett. And that show was blowing up for
- 35:34Speaker 2: a while because he's an anti-hero.
- 35:35Speaker 4: We like compromised people. So, look, here's the deal.
- 35:39Speaker 2: I was thinking, I've drawn thousands of comic book pages.
- 35:41Speaker 2: I was drawing one before I came here today. I
- 35:44Speaker 2: hope to draw until I drop dead on my drawing board.
- 35:47Speaker 2: I hope I die on my drawing board.
- 35:48Speaker 4: I told my wife. I'm not sure if she's entertained
- 35:49Speaker 4: by that.
- 35:50Speaker 2: But there was a guy who was drawing a story
- 35:53Speaker 2: for us, and the family called and said, he died
- 35:55Speaker 2: drawing your story.
- 35:56Speaker 4: And I kind of thought, that was badass.
- 35:58Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
- 35:59Speaker 2: So the thing is, the thing is, look, In those
- 36:06Speaker 2: thousands of people, in those thousands of pages, I've murdered
- 36:09Speaker 2: people brutally, bullets through heads, swords impaling people. It's just
- 36:14Speaker 2: the function of, like, do I go to John Wick
- 36:17Speaker 2: and go, oh man, John Wick is sinning so bad, killing.
- 36:20Speaker 4: These 60 people. No, I'm like, kill more! I'm going
- 36:24Speaker 4: in to see John Wick? Deadpool.
- 36:27Speaker 2: The humor has become opened up wildly because of, let's
- 36:32Speaker 2: be honest, he was put in the hands of a
- 36:34Speaker 2: very talented comedian, a comedic voice named Ryan Reynolds.
- 36:41Speaker 4: And he bent Deadpool to his will.
- 36:44Speaker 2: People tell me, look, there's the Deadpool that Marvel Comics
- 36:47Speaker 2: give you, whether it's by me or any of the
- 36:48Speaker 2: other authors, and then there's Ryan's Deadpool. And as he
- 36:51Speaker 2: has become more well-known as Deadpool, he has made Deadpool
- 36:54Speaker 2: more him. I know people who believe that he plays
- 36:58Speaker 2: Deadpool in multiple roles now, just because they've gotten used
- 37:01Speaker 2: to hearing that voice as Deadpool.
- 37:03Speaker 4: See, I create a character for Marvel. I get a
- 37:06Speaker 4: great royalty share. I get a creator share. It's great.
- 37:08Speaker 4: I love those movies. I love that merchandise.
- 37:10Speaker 2: It helped put my kids through all manner of schooling
- 37:13Speaker 2: and bought multiple cars because.
- 37:15Speaker 4: Every kid needs a car, right?
- 37:16Speaker 13: Whatever.
- 37:17Speaker 2: But the thing is, at the end of the day,
- 37:20Speaker 2: I don't own Deadpool. And when they take him and
- 37:24Speaker 2: put him in other people's hands, you have to just
- 37:26Speaker 2: observe and watch. But I'm not going to not tell
- 37:29Speaker 2: you that that character exists because I put him into existence.
- 37:34Speaker 2: Because that is, you know, I have a contract that
- 37:37Speaker 2: says that, that dates back to 1990. But what they
- 37:41Speaker 2: do with him, whether it's in cartoons, games, look, the game.
- 37:48Speaker 4: Is very overrated. If I can tell you this story,
- 37:52Speaker 4: my kids are super gamers when they were, my sons
- 37:56Speaker 4: Chase and Luke were mega gamers. I do not have
- 37:59Speaker 4: that talent. But I would watch them do crazy, I mean,
- 38:02Speaker 4: amazing things. So Deadpool's getting his game. It's 2014.
- 38:05Speaker 2: We're going to GameStop after basketball practice. I have all
- 38:08Speaker 2: three kids with me. My wife is at home.
- 38:10Speaker 4: I have my daughter, Chase, and Luke. And we walk
- 38:14Speaker 4: into GameStop, and I go up, and I know the
- 38:17Speaker 4: Deadpool game is R-rated. Does that mean I have two
- 38:21Speaker 4: minutes left? No, you're good. Oh. I'm sorry. Keep going.
- 38:26Speaker 4: So the thing is, I said, hey, can we get
- 38:28Speaker 4: the Deadpool game? Okay. Sir, we've had angry mothers returning
- 38:34Speaker 4: this game all day. Oh, by the way, this is
- 38:37Speaker 4: 6 p.m. in the evening, so I guess it's after practice.
- 38:40Speaker 2: And we just have to warn you that this has
- 38:43Speaker 2: become a very problematic game for us.
- 38:45Speaker 4: We've got a lot of angry moms today. I just
- 38:47Speaker 4: need to tell you that. I'm like, yeah, I'm good.
- 38:50Speaker 4: Can I have the game? And then a manager comes out.
- 38:53Speaker 4: I just want to... You know, go by what my
- 38:56Speaker 4: employee just told you. We really want to warn you.
- 38:58Speaker 4: And my son Chase goes, my dad created Deadpool. Give
- 39:01Speaker 4: him the game. And I said, I'm sorry. I just
- 39:07Speaker 4: like to buy the game, you know. And so we
- 39:09Speaker 4: bought it. And I just told you, I don't play
- 39:10Speaker 4: video games. And I, is it LARPing? I don't know.
- 39:19Speaker 4: I lived through my son.
- 39:21Speaker 2: I gave the son to Luke Liefeldt.
- 39:23Speaker 4: Who in 2014 is 13. I said, play the game, son.
- 39:28Speaker 4: He's like, sure thing, dad.
- 39:31Speaker 10: I've been playing Star Wars games, but I'll play this
- 39:33Speaker 10: R-rated game for you.
- 39:34Speaker 4: And he doesn't know what he's doing. He's got his
- 39:36Speaker 4: mic on.
- 39:36Speaker 1: He's going on.
- 39:37Speaker 4: He's in the beanbag. I'm sitting in the game room
- 39:39Speaker 4: watching him. Well, to enter the third level.
- 39:44Speaker 2: My wife walks in, and Deb was walking towards a
- 39:49Speaker 2: girl in a jacuzzi wearing a very skimpy bikini.
- 39:53Speaker 4: I've never played this game. I didn't know it was coming.
- 39:55Speaker 2: But then they have the perspective of the hands going,
- 39:58Speaker 2: so here's the camera.
- 40:02Speaker 4: And my wife, I hear from behind, what are you
- 40:04Speaker 4: doing in here? Oh, Luke, stop the game, stop the game.
- 40:10Speaker 2: I never got beyond that third level because I wasn't.
- 40:13Speaker 4: Able to play the game again. So, like I said,
- 40:18Speaker 4: the game developers, and let me tell you, for a
- 40:20Speaker 4: year they'd come up to me and say, hey Rob,
- 40:22Speaker 4: I'm so and so, I'm working on the game, you're
- 40:23Speaker 4: going to love it, the game, yeah!
- 40:25Speaker 1: It's R-rated, yeah!
- 40:26Speaker 4: And I'm like, right on.
- 40:28Speaker 2: Because that's just my, like I told you, I read
- 40:34Speaker 2: a story about a kid who saw off the head
- 40:36Speaker 2: of a giant and walked around with it. And then, like,
- 40:39Speaker 2: you know, murdered people to be with their wives. Like
- 40:41Speaker 2: I said, I'm not justifying it, but The Bible is R-rated.
- 40:45Speaker 2: So when I go see people, just plunge bullets into people.
- 40:48Speaker 2: Because not everybody in the Bible is redeemed.
- 40:51Speaker 4: And we can have that battle of intellect.
- 40:54Speaker 2: But the bottom line is what people do with your creations,
- 40:59Speaker 2: you have no control of. I can only speak to
- 41:01Speaker 2: the origins of it. But at the end of the day, yes,
- 41:04Speaker 2: when you make stories, Star Wars is nothing without Darth Vader.
- 41:08Speaker 2: Without Darth Vader walking through that hall in your dark,
- 41:11Speaker 2: Sith Lord, the movie doesn't mean anything. And then later
- 41:14Speaker 2: with the Emperor and his cackling. You've got to have
- 41:16Speaker 2: bad guys and you've got to have good guys. And
- 41:18Speaker 2: sometimes you have compromised people. Han Solo is not someone
- 41:21Speaker 2: I want my son to grow up to be.
- 41:23Speaker 4: I watched it again for my birthday.
- 41:25Speaker 1: I turned 59. I'm like, I'm going back to 1977.
- 41:27Speaker 2: And my son walked by me and he goes, I
- 41:30Speaker 2: knew you were going to watch Star Wars today.
- 41:31Speaker 4: I'm like, yep.
- 41:32Speaker 2: And Han Solo is a total scoundrel, two-faced liar, cheat, and.
- 41:36Speaker 4: We love him. He's called an anti-hero. It's a scoundrel.
- 41:40Speaker 4: And it's just fiction. What I make is fiction, but
- 41:42Speaker 4: at the end of the day, the talent that I
- 41:44Speaker 4: make it with, I give the glory where it belongs.
- 41:47Speaker 2: Because I'm just a storyteller, but storytellers need all manner
- 41:50Speaker 2: of characters, otherwise we're not invested. The Bible has villains,
- 41:54Speaker 2: you know? And that's why we're invested. David is nothing
- 41:58Speaker 2: without Goliath. Goliath defines him. Not only to us in
- 42:02Speaker 2: the world, but what happens to his legend in the
- 42:05Speaker 2: Bible and how people... He's the kid who killed the.
- 42:08Speaker 4: Giant, right? So anyway, I'm not sure I answered your question.
- 42:10Speaker 4: These are just my thoughts. And I'm sharing. All right, Brock,
- 42:14Speaker 4: you're going to get it fast.
- 42:16Speaker 1: This is on you, man.
- 42:16Speaker 4: You're going to answer this fast. If I don't ask
- 42:18Speaker 4: this question... I don't answer anything fast. You got this.
- 42:22Speaker 4: I am long-winded.
- 42:23Speaker 7: If I don't ask you this question, I'm going to
- 42:25Speaker 7: get in trouble here. In two months, we have Avengers Doomsday.
- 42:29Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 42:35Speaker 7: When we saw Ryan Reynolds walk by in that outfit,
- 42:38Speaker 7: is he.
- 42:38Speaker 4: In this new movie? Is it out in two months?
- 42:42Speaker 4: It's out in two months. Find out in two months.
- 42:46Speaker 4: Is that fast? It is pretty fast. He can wink
- 42:49Speaker 4: at us, though. All right, fair enough.
- 42:52Speaker 1: Here's the deal.
- 42:54Speaker 2: You told me you were recording this, and there are
- 42:56Speaker 2: people who probably have their phones on me.
- 42:57Speaker 4: I'm not doing a jack.
- 42:59Speaker 3: I'm not doing a jack.
- 43:02Speaker 4: Can we get a mic back here?
- 43:04Speaker 7: All right, if you want to raise your hand, if
- 43:06Speaker 7: you have a question, we're going to get to these
- 43:08Speaker 7: really fast.
- 43:09Speaker 1: Okay.
- 43:10Speaker 8: Luke, you picked on you, dude.
- 43:11Speaker 4: You can. Here's the deal.
- 43:12Speaker 1: Ask your question quickly.
- 43:15Speaker 4: I want name and your question. My name is Esteban.
- 43:19Speaker 9: I want to ask you, why do you think that
- 43:20Speaker 9: people from different cultures, nationalities, and ways of seeing the world.
- 43:24Speaker 4: I can't see you. I have to see you. Okay,
- 43:26Speaker 4: I'll start again. Okay, why do you think that people.
- 43:29Speaker 15: From different cultures, nationalities, and ways of seeing the world,
- 43:33Speaker 15: CNN superheroes can identify and inspire themselves to be better
- 43:36Speaker 15: people without having the same.
- 43:38Speaker 2: Point of view.
- 43:40Speaker 1: I didn't understand.
- 43:43Speaker 4: I didn't quite understand the question.
- 43:45Speaker 13: Can you rephrase that in like one sentence?
- 43:47Speaker 4: I'm not very bright.
- 43:53Speaker 13: Why can people from different cultures be affected by different superheroes?
- 44:01Speaker 4: So, okay. We all get excited about aspirational. I'd love
- 44:08Speaker 4: for these two guys to weigh in, too.
- 44:09Speaker 2: So, look, whether it was Magic Johnson, I was watching
- 44:13Speaker 2: the Lakers when they drafted him. Those games were played
- 44:16Speaker 2: after 11 o'clock at night. I mean, it wasn't the
- 44:19Speaker 2: NBA that we know today. But then there's Kobe Bryant.
- 44:21Speaker 4: And when Shaq and Kobe were tearing through the league,
- 44:24Speaker 4: I'd be like, it's Spider-Man and the Hulk! We crush everybody!
- 44:28Speaker 4: He's the Hulk, Kobe's Spider-Man!
- 44:30Speaker 2: We just, there's aspirational things that we put on superheroes
- 44:34Speaker 2: because they are so fantastical and I think they do
- 44:37Speaker 2: grant us an escape and we want to believe that somehow, someway,
- 44:42Speaker 2: if we put on the cape or the utility belt,
- 44:45Speaker 2: we'll solve problems. We know that's not true. There is
- 44:48Speaker 2: no Deadpool in real life. There is no Batman with
- 44:51Speaker 2: prep time or not.
- 44:52Speaker 1: And we all... But.
- 44:55Speaker 4: But it's like, you know, like.
- 44:56Speaker 2: I said, for me, I was into the heroes of
- 44:57Speaker 2: the Bible, and they all disappointed me because they died.
- 45:00Speaker 2: Because I wanted the further adventures of Samson. I wanted
- 45:03Speaker 2: to go to every colony and crush them. But that
- 45:05Speaker 2: story ended. So, I mean, it's a little bit of
- 45:09Speaker 2: an indulgent, we're indulging fantasies to derive aspiration. But like
- 45:15Speaker 2: I said, I put capes on Shaq and Kobe, and
- 45:18Speaker 2: I'm sure they didn't ask for them.
- 45:19Speaker 4: I'm sure they'd be like, why are you calling us
- 45:20Speaker 4: Spider-Man and the Hulk? I'm Kobe and that's Shaq.
- 45:23Speaker 2: So I'm not sure I answered your question again because
- 45:25Speaker 2: I'm a little touched.
- 45:27Speaker 4: That's great. We've got one right here.
- 45:31Speaker 3: Hello.
- 45:33Speaker 14: Okay, so to me, Deadpool is someone who hides his
- 45:35Speaker 14: emotions behind humor.
- 45:37Speaker 1: But as Christians, we're called to be real and honest
- 45:39Speaker 1: about who we are.
- 45:40Speaker 15: Has creating Deadpool taught you anything about being authentic and
- 45:43Speaker 15: being honest with yourself.
- 45:44Speaker 4: And with God?
- 45:50Speaker 2: You know, talking about my dad, so he had four
- 45:54Speaker 2: more cancer surgeries and the last one took his life.
- 45:57Speaker 4: So cancer touched my family. It's why Deadpool has the
- 46:02Speaker 4: cancer story. Because by the time I'm doing Deadpool, that's
- 46:06Speaker 4: his fourth one. And each time, so... Eight months before
- 46:10Speaker 4: I get married, again, my mom and dad, they would
- 46:12Speaker 4: keep things secret. We need to talk to you.
- 46:13Speaker 2: And I'm like, my dad's not going to be allowed
- 46:15Speaker 2: to watch me get married. So there's the cancer journey.
- 46:18Speaker 2: And again, going to the hospital. My dad had 18-hour,
- 46:21Speaker 2: 19-hour surgeries. So the cancer aspect of Deadpool is very
- 46:25Speaker 2: personal to me. But, you know, for me, I'm putting
- 46:30Speaker 2: stuff on the page that's entertaining. And let me tell
- 46:32Speaker 2: you something, what entertaining gets me is it gets me
- 46:34Speaker 2: an audience with people.
- 46:35Speaker 4: And then I share who I am with people.
- 46:38Speaker 2: So I don't get invested terribly with the actions of
- 46:41Speaker 2: the characters because at the end of the day, they
- 46:44Speaker 2: serve a purpose to entertain. I'm an entertainer with comic
- 46:48Speaker 2: book stories. And then I get to stand in front
- 46:51Speaker 2: of people and share my story and share my authenticity
- 46:54Speaker 2: because I'm real. Deadpool's not real. And neither is Superman,
- 46:58Speaker 2: as great as he is. And I used to love Superman.
- 47:02Speaker 2: He was this aspirational character. And then they gave Superman
- 47:04Speaker 2: a political side.
- 47:05Speaker 4: Like 15 years ago, I'm like, No, no, no, don't
- 47:08Speaker 4: make him comment on politics. He's Superman.
- 47:12Speaker 2: He loves everyone. The Superman, the most like Christ character
- 47:18Speaker 2: ever is Superman. Two Jewish men who were impoverished, wanting
- 47:22Speaker 2: to make a better life for themselves.
- 47:24Speaker 4: I mean, come on. They give him up. I mean,
- 47:27Speaker 4: it's part Moses, part Jesus. They kind of put him
- 47:29Speaker 4: in the Nile and sacrifice him for the betterment. serves us.
- 47:35Speaker 2: It's a super Christ story, but when they start putting
- 47:38Speaker 2: politics and other stuff in there, I'm like, wait, what's this?
- 47:41Speaker 4: Don't leave that alone.
- 47:43Speaker 2: But the people, I'm sure, I never got to meet
- 47:45Speaker 2: with the creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, but I
- 47:49Speaker 2: did get to.
- 47:50Speaker 4: Meet Jack Kirby. Hang out with him. Go out to
- 47:53Speaker 4: dinner with him. Go to his house multiple times. Become
- 47:56Speaker 4: friends with him. And I got to know that guy.
- 47:59Speaker 4: And I got to know his faith.
- 48:01Speaker 2: But I didn't get to know that faith from the
- 48:03Speaker 2: Fantastic Four, but I wouldn't be interested in him unless
- 48:06Speaker 2: there was the Fantastic Four.
- 48:07Speaker 4: So that's my answer. Great. Thank you so much. We
- 48:10Speaker 4: have one in the back over here.
- 48:12Speaker 16: I just want to say thank you for coming to
- 48:16Speaker 16: Torrey Conference this year. And my question is, do you
- 48:19Speaker 16: think God can use a story that never mentions him
- 48:22Speaker 16: to accomplish something missional? And if so, what makes a
- 48:25Speaker 16: story spiritually meaningful without turning it into a Christian message?
- 48:30Speaker 2: Well, so you're asking me. God can use anything, anywhere,
- 48:33Speaker 2: for any glory. That's the end of the story. So
- 48:37Speaker 2: whether it's a story, whether it's a guy who throws
- 48:40Speaker 2: a touchdown in the last seconds, and then when the
- 48:42Speaker 2: mic gets in front of him, he goes, I just
- 48:43Speaker 2: want to give all the glory to God.
- 48:44Speaker 4: Come on, we're Christians. I still see my wife go, yeah!
- 48:48Speaker 2: If you throw a touchdown or make a last-minute shot
- 48:51Speaker 2: or block some shot and you give the glory.
- 48:53Speaker 1: To the Lord, my wife will be your fan for
- 48:54Speaker 1: the rest of her.
- 48:55Speaker 4: Oh, man! They're Christians! Yeah! I mean, immediately.
- 48:59Speaker 2: So God can use anything, anytime, anywhere. So stories are
- 49:03Speaker 2: ultimately nothing to him. I don't... So I don't believe
- 49:06Speaker 2: God has read the New Mutants for Day.
- 49:08Speaker 4: I don't. And that's my answer. Great. Thank you. I
- 49:11Speaker 4: have one right here. Here, I'm going to pass the mic.
- 49:14Speaker 4: Can you see it on the left? So my favorite
- 49:18Speaker 4: X-Men hero is Nightcrawler, and he is Catherine. And he
- 49:24Speaker 4: is Catherine.
- 49:24Speaker 15: And the new X-Men 97 is shown to have a
- 49:26Speaker 15: lot of connection with space. And we are a lot
- 49:28Speaker 15: of creatives here, ACMA, arts, a lot of that. And
- 49:31Speaker 15: I'm questioning, after 40 years of being in the comic
- 49:33Speaker 15: book industry, how would you recommend, but also how would you.
- 49:38Speaker 15: Nowadays try to show these Christian characters that are openly Christian,
- 49:43Speaker 15: but also flawed in creative media, such as comic books,
- 49:46Speaker 15: TV shows, and movies.
- 49:49Speaker 4: The last part, Shady, and how would I what?
- 49:51Speaker 2: How would the first part?
- 49:54Speaker 4: Sorry, say the last sentence. How would you.
- 49:59Speaker 15: Show Christians, flaws, characters, in movies, comic books, with your experience?
- 50:04Speaker 4: Well, so here's the deal. Great question.
- 50:06Speaker 2: The thing I really liked about Nightcrawler early on in
- 50:08Speaker 2: his very first appearance, he's running from people who want
- 50:12Speaker 2: to burn him because they think his appearance makes him
- 50:14Speaker 2: look like a demon. And so he's this terribly burdened guy.
- 50:18Speaker 2: He didn't ask to look the way he did, but
- 50:19Speaker 2: they think he looks like a demon. He's a genius character.
- 50:22Speaker 2: Tremendous character. And then you find out that he's got
- 50:24Speaker 2: this deep Catholic faith.
- 50:27Speaker 4: That he wrestles with. So, you know what, I would.
- 50:31Speaker 1: Personally, as a believer, I would love to see Captain
- 50:35Speaker 1: America pray before.
- 50:36Speaker 4: He goes into battle, but you're not going to get that.
- 50:37Speaker 2: That's not happening, and it's certainly not happening in this
- 50:41Speaker 2: day and age.
- 50:42Speaker 4: That's become too loaded, sadly. But, you know, like, for instance,
- 50:46Speaker 4: I have a.
- 50:47Speaker 2: Story of a character that I created 30-plus years ago
- 50:52Speaker 2: named Evangeline.
- 50:52Speaker 1: She's an angel.
- 50:53Speaker 4: She falls to Earth, and I explore so much with her.
- 50:58Speaker 2: One thing, she never has a romance because I'm like,
- 51:00Speaker 2: she's not going to be you know, getting into a
- 51:02Speaker 2: romantic adventure.
- 51:03Speaker 1: I don't need that. But she has a priest who's.
- 51:06Speaker 2: Doubting his faith and she walks through his doors desperate
- 51:09Speaker 2: because now she's.
- 51:10Speaker 4: In human form.
- 51:12Speaker 2: Every issue of Evangelion that has come out so far, well,
- 51:15Speaker 2: the next three that come out starting today, one, two, three,
- 51:18Speaker 2: we've relaunched it.
- 51:19Speaker 4: I'm not here to plug it. I'm just giving you.
- 51:21Speaker 4: She prays in every single issue and.
- 51:25Speaker 2: There was somebody who I was working with on the
- 51:27Speaker 2: book that asked off the book And I wondered if
- 51:33Speaker 2: it was because they didn't like that I have religion
- 51:36Speaker 2: and faith and God in it. And I just accepted
- 51:39Speaker 2: their sidestepping that book as, okay, this is something that.
- 51:44Speaker 4: Rob expects me to, this character is praying? Because that's
- 51:48Speaker 4: just not common.
- 51:49Speaker 2: But my character is asking the Lord to comfort and
- 51:53Speaker 2: guide them. In 1993, I launched a book called Prophets.
- 51:57Speaker 2: And he has Bible verses. That first issue is plastered
- 52:00Speaker 2: with Bible verses.
- 52:01Speaker 4: And I'm going to tell you, I can time it
- 52:03Speaker 4: to the day where the guns came out for me.
- 52:05Speaker 4: But I didn't care. I was fearless. The thing about
- 52:08Speaker 4: me and my industry, half of them will say I
- 52:10Speaker 4: have a big mouth.
- 52:11Speaker 2: It's just I stand up and I tell people, that's wrong.
- 52:13Speaker 2: You treat people badly. You should treat creators better, blah, blah, blah.
- 52:17Speaker 2: The company that he referred to, Image Comics, is the
- 52:19Speaker 2: same company today that it was 35 years ago.
- 52:23Speaker 4: You can walk in with your Mr. Blue Man and
- 52:26Speaker 4: keep Mr.
- 52:26Speaker 1: Blue Man.
- 52:27Speaker 4: You can take and make toys of Mr. Blue Man,
- 52:30Speaker 4: make movies, make cartoons. You own it. Image gets a
- 52:33Speaker 4: piece for helping you put it to life, but they
- 52:35Speaker 4: don't own it. So what does Image own? It owns nothing.
- 52:38Speaker 2: Image Comics owns nothing.
- 52:40Speaker 4: Everyone at Image Comics owns what they bring into it.
- 52:43Speaker 2: That's me bringing the generosity of a creative spirit and
- 52:50Speaker 2: sharing it with people and trying to like Just empower creators. So,
- 52:54Speaker 2: of course, I'm not going to stand for it when
- 52:56Speaker 2: I think creators are treated bad by any company.
- 52:58Speaker 4: And I understand the people that don't speak up because
- 53:00Speaker 4: it's like, I may lose my page rate. I don't care.
- 53:03Speaker 2: I'm employed for 41 years. Like, you're not, like, all
- 53:08Speaker 2: the bullets have been sprayed at me. And I have
- 53:10Speaker 2: been protected. So I'm going to continue to speak up.
- 53:12Speaker 4: And I know I'm a little off base here. But
- 53:15Speaker 4: why'd you ask me? You know, why'd you ask me here?
- 53:17Speaker 4: I'm going to go off base.
- 53:19Speaker 1: You're good, you're good.
- 53:20Speaker 4: Right to the right. Yeah, we all, right at the middle.
- 53:23Speaker 3: Hello, my.
- 53:25Speaker 15: Name is Garrison, and my question is, if Deadpool walked
- 53:30Speaker 15: into a church on a Sunday, what do you think
- 53:32Speaker 15: about the church and Christian faith would.
- 53:34Speaker 4: Make him stay, and what do you think would make
- 53:36Speaker 4: him leave?
- 53:37Speaker 2: So the character is deranged, and science did that to him.
- 53:43Speaker 2: And I'm not sure if you've met with a deranged person,
- 53:46Speaker 2: but I'm not sure it would go the way you
- 53:48Speaker 2: Imagine it would on either way. Deranged people are going
- 53:52Speaker 2: to do deranged things.
- 53:53Speaker 4: They have definitely made him. So he was deranged, disfigured.
- 53:59Speaker 2: You know, you guys, the whole thing was you got
- 54:02Speaker 2: this program that's putting out Wolverine. I am the first
- 54:05Speaker 2: guy that goes beyond the Wolverine program. I asked my editor, Mr. Editor,
- 54:10Speaker 2: love this guy.
- 54:10Speaker 4: His name was Bob. He gave me all these amazing opportunities.
- 54:13Speaker 4: I said, Wolverine, you call him Weapon X. correct me
- 54:17Speaker 4: if I'm wrong, the X is Roman numeral 10. That's correct.
- 54:20Speaker 8: Okay.
- 54:22Speaker 2: Then, what about the other nine? And I said, Deadpool
- 54:25Speaker 2: is weapon nine. He's, before they perfected, because Wolverine kind
- 54:30Speaker 2: of came out okay.
- 54:31Speaker 4: He doesn't look disfigured.
- 54:32Speaker 2: He's got these rad claws that retract, and he's super violent,
- 54:36Speaker 2: the way little Robbie Liefeld loved the Old Testament.
- 54:38Speaker 4: And so, I'm all in.
- 54:40Speaker 2: But I was like, what about getting there? What about
- 54:43Speaker 2: all the broken eggs before they made the omelet? So, Deadpool,
- 54:47Speaker 2: by and large, was supposed to, and they approved all
- 54:49Speaker 2: of this. They were like, Rob, we're cool, we're cool.
- 54:52Speaker 2: And then I, ironically, your name's Garrison. Weapon 11 is
- 54:55Speaker 2: Garrison Kane. And he is introduced in X-Force 2. And again,
- 54:59Speaker 2: now they've perfected it. So you've got Deadpool is when
- 55:01Speaker 2: he was deranged.
- 55:03Speaker 1: And then after that, everything was coming out much more smoothly.
- 55:06Speaker 4: So Deadpool is the last, like, broken egg.
- 55:08Speaker 2: And I'm not sure a broken egg that's scrambled the
- 55:11Speaker 2: way he is, that walks into a church, I don't,
- 55:14Speaker 2: I mean, God can reach.
- 55:15Speaker 4: The deranged for sure, but I'm not sure.
- 55:17Speaker 2: Like, some people, I went to In-N-Out, how many people
- 55:23Speaker 2: go to In-N-Out? My wife and I went to In-N-Out
- 55:28Speaker 2: the other night, and I said, Joy, you should have
- 55:30Speaker 2: been here with me when I was alone the other day,
- 55:31Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you, because at In-N-Out, it's now
- 55:34Speaker 2: apparently okay to have your children with their shoes stand
- 55:38Speaker 2: on the tables and stomp, and my wife and I
- 55:40Speaker 2: are like, We would never have let our kids do that,
- 55:43Speaker 2: but these crazy parents are letting these kids with these
- 55:45Speaker 2: dirty feet stomp and walk on tables that.
- 55:48Speaker 1: You're going to eat food from.
- 55:49Speaker 4: Okay? But I said, Joy, I can go to you
- 55:52Speaker 4: one better.
- 55:53Speaker 10: I was in here five days ago, my favorite In-N-Out,
- 55:56Speaker 10: and at that table.
- 55:58Speaker 4: There was a deranged dude playing his phone, super volume.
- 56:02Speaker 10: I don't know what he was watching, soap operas or something,
- 56:05Speaker 10: but he was just nodding to it, eating his food.
- 56:07Speaker 4: And then the guy next to him, which looked like
- 56:10Speaker 4: I thought he was a respectable dude, he dialed up
- 56:12Speaker 4: a call and had a call.
- 56:14Speaker 2: On speakerphone right next to me.
- 56:17Speaker 4: I don't think going to church on a Sunday is
- 56:19Speaker 4: going to help either of those dudes. Okay?
- 56:22Speaker 10: I don't think he's not going to listen to his
- 56:24Speaker 10: TV at full bore and in and out. And I
- 56:26Speaker 10: don't think he's not going to make calls for all
- 56:29Speaker 10: of us to hear and listen in. So, deranged people
- 56:31Speaker 10: walking to a church on Sunday are irrelevant.
- 56:34Speaker 4: Are we done? We've got one final question here. I
- 56:38Speaker 4: have been such a disappointment. I'm so sorry. Yes? Hi,
- 56:43Speaker 4: I'm Caroline.
- 56:44Speaker 2: Do you think that Christianity has found its way into
- 56:46Speaker 2: the Marvel Universe without the creators intending it?
- 56:50Speaker 4: You tell me. I don't see it. Am I missing something?
- 56:53Speaker 4: I think, look, you guys, we have never been in
- 56:57Speaker 4: a world... Okay, so.
- 56:59Speaker 2: I'm driving here. I'm talking to my best friend as
- 57:01Speaker 2: I'm driving here. And I'm getting on the freeway on
- 57:04Speaker 2: Imperial Highway. And I'm over in the lane. And the
- 57:08Speaker 2: car in front of me is now blinking rapidly. They
- 57:11Speaker 2: need to get out of the lane. They do not
- 57:13Speaker 2: want to get on the freeway. And there's plenty of road.
- 57:16Speaker 2: I just redid my license yesterday. Because I'm old, they
- 57:20Speaker 2: made me take the test.
- 57:21Speaker 4: I was so ticked off. But I'm sitting there reading
- 57:24Speaker 4: all these rules of the road, and I'm acing it.
- 57:25Speaker 4: So I'm reading this, and it's talking about what you're
- 57:28Speaker 4: allowed to do and how many. This person was doing it.
- 57:30Speaker 4: They wanted out of the lane. They don't want to
- 57:32Speaker 4: go on the freeway.
- 57:33Speaker 2: The cars next to them closed them off and would
- 57:35Speaker 2: not let them. And I'm literally like, let.
- 57:37Speaker 4: This person, they want out of the lane. What is
- 57:40Speaker 4: wrong with the society? No, you're not going to get
- 57:42Speaker 4: in my space.
- 57:43Speaker 2: We are living in the most difficult times of my
- 57:46Speaker 2: lifetime and I know of yours.
- 57:48Speaker 4: It's not even close.
- 57:50Speaker 2: I can't speak to the World War II era or
- 57:52Speaker 2: any stuff like that, but I was born during Vietnam.
- 57:55Speaker 4: And so I've seen the world. I remember like, mom,
- 57:57Speaker 4: why is the president getting on the plane and waving
- 57:59Speaker 4: at us? And she was like, oh, he's resigning. So
- 58:02Speaker 4: I was there when Nixon said bye-bye. So, I mean,
- 58:04Speaker 4: I've been there. I've seen humiliation of presidents. I've been there.
- 58:08Speaker 2: We are at the most supercharged that we've ever been. But,
- 58:12Speaker 2: come on, we have to share our faith. And if
- 58:15Speaker 2: you want to make a comic where somebody prays or
- 58:17Speaker 2: proclaims their belief, you do that. But I'm not sure
- 58:20Speaker 2: that that's going to make it through the systems that
- 58:23Speaker 2: are so heavily now... There's guardrails.
- 58:27Speaker 4: And I think.
- 58:29Speaker 2: You guys, it used to be being a Christian was
- 58:32Speaker 2: something like, you know, proclaiming your faith.
- 58:35Speaker 4: That's why I thought I was bold in doing it
- 58:37Speaker 4: when I was a kid.
- 58:38Speaker 2: Anyone who met me, they'd know my dad's a minister,
- 58:41Speaker 2: and I'm of the faith, and some people didn't want
- 58:43Speaker 2: anything to do with me.
- 58:44Speaker 4: It brought me closer to others.
- 58:45Speaker 2: I have some great friends who are hardcore atheists, not
- 58:48Speaker 2: just the one you mentioned, like five of them, and
- 58:49Speaker 2: they're in the business.
- 58:50Speaker 4: And they'll say to me, like, do you really give
- 58:53Speaker 4: some money to your church?
- 58:55Speaker 1: And I say, I do. I tithe.
- 58:57Speaker 2: Ugh.
- 58:58Speaker 4: And I get told that I'm nuts for that. But
- 59:00Speaker 4: that's okay. That doesn't change my intention whatsoever.
- 59:03Speaker 2: So I just believe that these giant corporations now, they
- 59:09Speaker 2: protect and have.
- 59:10Speaker 4: guardrails and all that stuff. So do I want that
- 59:12Speaker 4: to be the case?
- 59:13Speaker 10: Yes.
- 59:13Speaker 4: Do I think it's... You show me, and then I'll know. Okay,
- 59:16Speaker 4: here's the deal.
- 59:17Speaker 1: I do think it's in the Marvel Universe, but I
- 59:19Speaker 1: think it's more subtle. So, for example, take Infinity War
- 59:24Speaker 1: and Endgame.
- 59:25Speaker 5: Builds up ten years of the most epic storytelling possible
- 59:30Speaker 5: trying to tell the greatest hero imaginable.
- 59:32Speaker 1: Who's the greatest hero?
- 59:34Speaker 5: The one who willingly lays down his life for another.
- 59:39Speaker 5: So in Infinity War, you have Captain America saying, we
- 59:42Speaker 5: do not exchange lives until only one out of 14
- 59:47Speaker 5: million ways to save the universe is for Iron Man
- 59:51Speaker 5: to willingly lay his life down. So I think of like,
- 59:56Speaker 5: and you can tell me if you think I'm crazy,
- 59:58Speaker 5: we're pushing time here. But I think of, I forget
- 1:00:01Speaker 5: all the names you give this, when Thanos is throwing
- 1:00:03Speaker 5: off Gamora because you have to sacrifice something in love
- 1:00:06Speaker 5: to get the Soul Stone, and she's like, this is
- 1:00:10Speaker 5: not real love. Real love does not sacrifice another. Real
- 1:00:14Speaker 5: love lays his own life down. I think it's all
- 1:00:18Speaker 5: over the Marvel Universe. It's just not in your face.
- 1:00:22Speaker 5: I think it's in Fantastic Four. The question, would I
- 1:00:24Speaker 5: give up my child To save the entire universe. I
- 1:00:30Speaker 5: think these themes are woven through subtly in ways people
- 1:00:33Speaker 5: don't even see.
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: I can keep going on. We're pushing time.
- 1:00:37Speaker 4: I love this guy. I don't think you're crazy. My
- 1:00:39Speaker 4: name is Diego. I'm part of the CMA program here
- 1:00:46Speaker 4: at Biola. I think Ray West could be here. Thank
- 1:00:50Speaker 4: you so much for coming here.
- 1:00:51Speaker 8: And speaking as a personal CMA goober who's trying to
- 1:00:58Speaker 8: express his art and trying to go out into the crazy,
- 1:01:02Speaker 8: scary world of LA, what advice do you give to
- 1:01:08Speaker 8: all Christians as we try to move forward through media,
- 1:01:11Speaker 8: through art, through what we try to do and how
- 1:01:14Speaker 8: can we better glorify that with the big red kills
- 1:01:16Speaker 8: of whatever the world tries to do on us.
- 1:01:19Speaker 4: So here's the deal, man.
- 1:01:20Speaker 2: I've told you, I have never shied away. I really,
- 1:01:23Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you right now, it's just, you know,
- 1:01:26Speaker 2: other people will say mumbo jumbo. I said it the
- 1:01:28Speaker 2: last time.
- 1:01:29Speaker 4: I have a really good friend.
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: I'm not going to do the accent again this time.
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: I shouldn't have done that.
- 1:01:34Speaker 2: But he, all of my atheist comic book friends, and
- 1:01:39Speaker 2: there are many of them, and I think they think
- 1:01:42Speaker 2: I'm a lunatic for the way I believe, but I
- 1:01:44Speaker 2: have never compromised once.
- 1:01:46Speaker 4: And they'll say things to me like, you go to
- 1:01:49Speaker 4: church on Sundays? I do. And I don't feel like
- 1:01:51Speaker 4: God calls like, oh, Rob, you better go. I'll tell
- 1:01:54Speaker 4: you what I told my kids when I would drive
- 1:01:55Speaker 4: them every week.
- 1:01:55Speaker 2: I said, guys, the church is open every Sunday for
- 1:02:01Speaker 2: us to go join with other believers and to celebrate
- 1:02:04Speaker 2: and to rejoice and to be in fellowship with others.
- 1:02:07Speaker 4: And I try and take that opportunity every time I can.
- 1:02:11Speaker 2: And I hope as you grow up, you'll see it
- 1:02:13Speaker 2: the same way. I don't believe, you know, there was
- 1:02:16Speaker 2: a member of my family that someone got very concerned
- 1:02:18Speaker 2: about because they stopped going to church. I don't believe,
- 1:02:21Speaker 2: they didn't change their lifestyle, they just stopped going to church.
- 1:02:23Speaker 2: And it was a final alarm fire for somebody in
- 1:02:26Speaker 2: my family. I'm like, yeah, that's probably not where you
- 1:02:28Speaker 2: should put your focus, okay?
- 1:02:30Speaker 4: You don't know the walk that that person is having. But,
- 1:02:34Speaker 4: so when people ask, do you go to church?
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: Do you tithe?
- 1:02:36Speaker 4: Are you crazy? You give how much to the church?
- 1:02:39Speaker 2: Well, that's between me and my convictions.
- 1:02:43Speaker 4: But here's where I'm getting at. I would tell you
- 1:02:46Speaker 4: going into the arts, do not abandon your faith.
- 1:02:49Speaker 2: There is no good reason for you to not be
- 1:02:51Speaker 2: exactly who you are right now. If you are a believer,
- 1:02:55Speaker 2: if you love the Lord, go and be a believer
- 1:02:57Speaker 2: and love the Lord in that business. You will be
- 1:02:59Speaker 2: shocked at the conversations you have, at the relationships you meet. Somewhere,
- 1:03:03Speaker 2: someone down the line went to church, read a Bible,
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: had an experience, and it makes you tremendously more To
- 1:03:14Speaker 2: compromise yourself is just gonna, I believe, set you back
- 1:03:20Speaker 2: from your goals. I don't know, I think you have
- 1:03:24Speaker 2: to embrace, I have never once compromised, and I wanna
- 1:03:27Speaker 2: draw goofy superheroes, okay? I mean, the stuff I draw
- 1:03:32Speaker 2: is lunatic, and write is crazy stuff. But I'm blessed.
- 1:03:37Speaker 2: My career, you know, I did a book in 1993
- 1:03:40Speaker 2: called Profit, I was at the top of my game,
- 1:03:44Speaker 2: selling a million of everything I touched.
- 1:03:46Speaker 4: For 10 years, everything I sold was top of the charts.
- 1:03:49Speaker 2: And I told my kids, like I had this, what
- 1:03:51Speaker 2: you call the Midas touch, but I knew it wasn't
- 1:03:53Speaker 2: for me.
- 1:03:53Speaker 4: It was, I was being blessed.
- 1:03:55Speaker 2: So I thought, man, you know what I'm going to
- 1:03:56Speaker 2: do now? I'm going to do a book and I'm
- 1:03:58Speaker 2: going to put Bible verses in it. And John Prophet
- 1:04:01Speaker 2: is inspired by the word of the Lord. And so
- 1:04:04Speaker 2: there's Prophet number one, 1993. There's Bible verses all through
- 1:04:07Speaker 2: it as he's fighting and battling robots. So he's not
- 1:04:11Speaker 2: like Samson breaking people's jaws and dropping temples on people.
- 1:04:15Speaker 4: So it's just robots. But he's got scripture.
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: I'm putting scripture in Bibles.
- 1:04:21Speaker 2: And I'm going to tell you, did I see the
- 1:04:23Speaker 2: targets on me increase? And that's a pretty big way to.
- 1:04:27Speaker 4: Announce to people.
- 1:04:28Speaker 2: Because I don't see that in Captain America or Iron
- 1:04:31Speaker 2: Man or Batman with scripture.
- 1:04:33Speaker 4: And I'm not saying I should. I don't need Batman
- 1:04:35Speaker 4: to have scripture. I enjoy Batman for Batman.
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: Or Spider-Man for Spider-Man.
- 1:04:39Speaker 4: But I chose this route. Because I wanted to be
- 1:04:41Speaker 4: more vocal.
- 1:04:42Speaker 2: And I've done weirdo comics, man. Where Jesus comes off
- 1:04:47Speaker 2: the cross and beats up all the other gods.
- 1:04:50Speaker 4: And I just wanted to do it. It's like all
- 1:04:52Speaker 4: the other gods were making fun of Christ on the cross. Like,
- 1:04:55Speaker 4: look at him, silly Jesus.
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: And Jesus gets off the cross and beats the.
- 1:04:59Speaker 2: Crap out of Zeus and Odin and all the other
- 1:05:03Speaker 2: gods of Thor.
- 1:05:04Speaker 4: And it was just this weird... You want to talk
- 1:05:06Speaker 4: about high art? I don't know. But the.
- 1:05:12Speaker 2: Thing is, do not abandon your faith.
- 1:05:16Speaker 4: There is no reason.
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: Be genuine.
- 1:05:19Speaker 4: Be authentic.
- 1:05:20Speaker 2: That is what people relate to. And you know what?
- 1:05:23Speaker 2: I don't go to church to be blessed. It's not transactional.
- 1:05:26Speaker 4: You shouldn't go and be in your faith for God
- 1:05:29Speaker 4: to give you a great role. That's not what I'm saying.
- 1:05:31Speaker 4: I want to make very clear what I'm not saying.
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: But you will have.
- 1:05:36Speaker 2: I think, a better experience in the arts if you
- 1:05:39Speaker 2: are authentic and if you don't, I'm just going to
- 1:05:41Speaker 2: say it again, abandon your faith, okay?
- 1:05:44Speaker 15: I'm part of the CMA program, and Rob, I first
- 1:05:46Speaker 15: want to say, absolutely love your work.
- 1:05:49Speaker 4: Thank you, sir!
- 1:05:49Speaker 2: I love the Deadpool characters, love the comics, love the movies.
- 1:05:54Speaker 4: I especially love the gimmicks. For example, Taskmaster, always trying
- 1:05:58Speaker 4: to get away from Deadpool.
- 1:06:00Speaker 2: But my personal favorite is seeing the fourth wall place.
- 1:06:04Speaker 17: And I wanted to ask you about that Is there
- 1:06:06Speaker 17: any sort of secret sauce you have for the fourth
- 1:06:09Speaker 17: wall breaks?
- 1:06:10Speaker 2: And do you think there's an aspect of religion that
- 1:06:13Speaker 2: helps with that? No.
- 1:06:17Speaker 4: That's the fastest. Thank you for that question. The last
- 1:06:20Speaker 4: part I'll just say no. So fourth wall characters.
- 1:06:22Speaker 2: So I have a podcast because I just like talking comics.
- 1:06:24Speaker 4: And I did an entire.
- 1:06:26Speaker 2: The fourth wall breaking comic starts with a character called
- 1:06:29Speaker 2: Howard the Duck. Hugely popular comic in the 70s. Went
- 1:06:33Speaker 2: on to be a terrible movie. But the comics were fun,
- 1:06:35Speaker 2: and he would turn and talk to us. His comics
- 1:06:38Speaker 2: were printed in 1976, 77, 78. Then She-Hulk breaks the
- 1:06:42Speaker 2: fourth wall. Then DC characters have some characters that break
- 1:06:45Speaker 2: the fourth wall. Jim Lee and I did a comic
- 1:06:49Speaker 2: in 1993 called Darker Image.
- 1:06:50Speaker 4: He had a character called Death Blow. I had a
- 1:06:51Speaker 4: character called Blood Wolf. 1993, Blood Wolf breaks the fourth.
- 1:06:55Speaker 2: Wall, talks directly at you, makes jokes, kills kind of
- 1:06:58Speaker 2: a cable-looking character. And so that was my first time
- 1:07:03Speaker 2: Breaking the fourth wall can be really funny.
- 1:07:05Speaker 4: So five years later, they put that application on Deadpool.
- 1:07:08Speaker 2: So Deadpool had been around about a decade, and now
- 1:07:11Speaker 2: they put that on there. And like I've said, if
- 1:07:13Speaker 2: that's why you like him, then that is a writer
- 1:07:16Speaker 2: named Joe Kelly applied that fourth wall aspect to him.
- 1:07:20Speaker 2: What I can tell you is the dozens of statues
- 1:07:23Speaker 2: and the video games that came before that and his
- 1:07:25Speaker 2: cartoon appearances and his toys on every toy shelf since 1993...
- 1:07:31Speaker 2: Deadpool was still so ridiculously popular, but if the fourth
- 1:07:36Speaker 2: wall broadened.
- 1:07:37Speaker 4: That and broadened the new audience, fantastic. But I don't
- 1:07:40Speaker 4: believe it has any... I'm sorry. The fourth wall, I
- 1:07:44Speaker 4: don't see the Christianity there. Are we ready in the back?
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: Sure.
- 1:07:52Speaker 4: Hi, my name's Harry.
- 1:07:54Speaker 14: So obviously you've created some characters that aren't.
- 1:08:01Speaker 4: The traditional Christian role models.
- 1:08:03Speaker 14: So when you tell stories that are exploring those darker themes,
- 1:08:07Speaker 14: how do you distinguish between portraying those things and compromising
- 1:08:12Speaker 14: your faith? And how do you think meaningful Christian ideas
- 1:08:17Speaker 14: can compromise characters like that?
- 1:08:21Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm going to go back to... I'm going
- 1:08:24Speaker 2: to be as basic as I can. Like I said,
- 1:08:25Speaker 2: if you watch these two cats go at it on.
- 1:08:28Speaker 12: Social media, they're going to give you the deepest theological...
- 1:08:33Speaker 12: I remember my dad, he went to Talbot University and
- 1:08:37Speaker 12: got his master's and I remember sitting there and going,
- 1:08:39Speaker 12: what's a master's?
- 1:08:41Speaker 4: But my dad was deep into that.
- 1:08:44Speaker 2: Theology as well. These guys are going to slap you
- 1:08:49Speaker 2: and watch their videos and they're going to educate you.
- 1:08:51Speaker 4: I'm not.
- 1:08:53Speaker 2: I tell fantasy stories that I think fall on the
- 1:08:58Speaker 2: side of good entertainment. but certainly characters are corrupted they
- 1:09:03Speaker 2: are compromised it's all part of the hero's journey so
- 1:09:08Speaker 2: as I said earlier and it's not a comment it's
- 1:09:10Speaker 2: my life I'm sitting in front of you today.
- 1:09:14Speaker 4: Because I made comic books for 41 years.
- 1:09:17Speaker 2: And I get to tell stories, and people have a
- 1:09:19Speaker 2: curiosity about that. And so I don't sit down and go,
- 1:09:25Speaker 2: how am I going to glorify the Lord with this story? No,
- 1:09:28Speaker 2: I'm going to glorify the Lord by making the story,
- 1:09:31Speaker 2: by using the talents he gave me.
- 1:09:33Speaker 4: And then I'll talk about it after I put it
- 1:09:36Speaker 4: into the world. So again, I will.
- 1:09:39Speaker 2: Tell you, I mentioned last time, and I know I'll
- 1:09:42Speaker 2: try and keep this really brief. Samson was one of
- 1:09:44Speaker 2: my heroes of the Bible when I was a kid.
- 1:09:48Speaker 2: Killed the lion and killed the Philistines. Killed so many Philistines.
- 1:09:54Speaker 4: I've got to be honest. Turned me on as a kid,
- 1:09:56Speaker 4: how violent Samson was. I mean, he was killing everybody.
- 1:10:00Speaker 4: And I was like, this guy is rad, and God
- 1:10:03Speaker 4: gave him the strength, and then he is a complete dumbass.
- 1:10:08Speaker 4: He is a complete dumbass. I'm glad that we love
- 1:10:14Speaker 4: the violence as much as I do.
- 1:10:16Speaker 2: As I grew older, I learned, Samson really had very, very, very, very, very,
- 1:10:23Speaker 2: very few in.
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: The kingdom of God.
- 1:10:26Speaker 4: He is a complete loser who the Lord uses.
- 1:10:29Speaker 2: No, he lies, he cheats, he steals, he's a mocker,
- 1:10:37Speaker 2: but God used him.
- 1:10:38Speaker 4: And I believe that's an allegory for all of our lives.
- 1:10:41Speaker 2: Because literally, I mean, God gives Samson the secret and
- 1:10:45Speaker 2: because he.
- 1:10:45Speaker 18: Loves Samson, He's enthralled or in full lust. He's like, hey, babe,
- 1:10:49Speaker 18: let me tell you how to kill me. And she does.
- 1:10:54Speaker 18: She puts him in a position where he's now captive.
- 1:10:56Speaker 2: And then at the end of his life, when he
- 1:10:58Speaker 2: knows it's over, he asks God, come upon me. Use
- 1:11:03Speaker 2: me one last time. And God's like, I can do that.
- 1:11:04Speaker 2: I can drop this entire temple on these scumbags.
- 1:11:08Speaker 4: And he does. But I thought he was a hero.
- 1:11:10Speaker 4: And he was even marketed as hero of the Bible.
- 1:11:12Speaker 2: But as an adult, you understand, he's a deeply, deeply, deeply,
- 1:11:15Speaker 2: deeply flawed man but he's used for God's glory.
- 1:11:20Speaker 4: So if I'm flawed but used for glory, then I
- 1:11:22Speaker 4: had a good day.
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: Hey, we're pushing time here, but we got one more
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: in the back.
- 1:11:27Speaker 4: We're ready to go.
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: I know you want one up here, but let's go
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: back here. Got to be quick.
- 1:11:32Speaker 4: Go. Hello. Thank you, first of all, so much for
- 1:11:34Speaker 4: coming out. I just wanted to ask, in your time
- 1:11:39Speaker 4: when you created Deadpool, you said there.
- 1:11:40Speaker 13: Was such a landscape of dark, gritty characters, and so
- 1:11:44Speaker 13: you were able to find a niche that was different
- 1:11:45Speaker 13: than that.
- 1:11:47Speaker 4: I don't know how much you.
- 1:11:47Speaker 13: Still follow comics and still follow sort of pop culture media,
- 1:11:51Speaker 13: but in today's world, do you see any sort of
- 1:11:55Speaker 13: themes that are overly portrayed and maybe a niche that
- 1:11:57Speaker 13: is not so much used that somebody could create a
- 1:12:01Speaker 13: character out of right now?
- 1:12:03Speaker 4: You know what I see?
- 1:12:04Speaker 2: I see a lot of, I maybe see a leaning
- 1:12:06Speaker 2: more towards, like we've seen so many compromised characters. And
- 1:12:11Speaker 2: the one thing I liked about James Gunn's Superman movie
- 1:12:14Speaker 2: is Superman was back to being the Superman of my youth.
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: He's a good guy. He's a good guy who wants
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: to help people.
- 1:12:19Speaker 2: And as I've said, Schuster and Siegel created, and they
- 1:12:27Speaker 2: come of Jewish backgrounds, and they were very honest in
- 1:12:31Speaker 2: how the Christ story was inspirational for Superman. And if
- 1:12:35Speaker 2: you look at it, he's sent away. It's Superman meets Moses.
- 1:12:39Speaker 2: It's the whole Superman story. and then he's kind of
- 1:12:41Speaker 2: like a man who can perform all these great miracles.
- 1:12:43Speaker 4: But he serves others.
- 1:12:44Speaker 2: He's this incredibly selfless person, and that's what I grew
- 1:12:47Speaker 2: up with, and I saw so much of Christ in Superman.
- 1:12:50Speaker 2: So I would love to see just more do-gooders and less,
- 1:12:55Speaker 2: I've seen so many characters that I grew up and
- 1:12:56Speaker 2: I loved, and even recently that.
- 1:12:58Speaker 4: Have been compromised and turned into, like, why did they
- 1:13:00Speaker 4: do this?
- 1:13:01Speaker 2: Did they just think that this character needs to be
- 1:13:04Speaker 2: kind of super compromised now in order to be relatable?
- 1:13:09Speaker 2: So I think James Gunn, Superman, and then still Chris
- 1:13:12Speaker 2: Evans as Captain America.
- 1:13:14Speaker 4: He is the ultimate awesome Boy Scout. We root him on.
- 1:13:18Speaker 1: They haven't messed him up yet. Please don't mess him up, Robert.
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: Can't wait to see him next to Deadpool 2 in December.
- 1:13:24Speaker 2: Literally don't think that's happening.
- 1:13:27Speaker 4: Wait till Secret Wars.
- 1:13:35Speaker 6: Hi, my name is Nathan.
- 1:13:40Speaker 17: In Death Pool of Rain, As a theology geek and
- 1:14:05Speaker 17: raging Marvel addict, what was your reaction when Devil Clothes,
- 1:14:11Speaker 17: I'm Marvel Jesus.
- 1:14:13Speaker 4: I had family members tell me they were praying for me.
- 1:14:16Speaker 4: That's my answer.
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: Because one side of me was.
- 1:14:20Speaker 4: Like, whoa, that's heretic.
- 1:14:23Speaker 17: And the other side of me was, it's still pretty funny.
- 1:14:28Speaker 4: Let me take this. This is a great way to
- 1:14:30Speaker 4: end it because I did cost my family. It cost
- 1:14:32Speaker 4: me friendships in my family.
- 1:14:34Speaker 2: People took to Facebook publicly, family members, to accost me,
- 1:14:38Speaker 2: drag me out into the town square and say, like.
- 1:14:44Speaker 4: And these people know my heart. And I had nothing
- 1:14:47Speaker 4: to do with that. But I was publicly being flogged.
- 1:14:49Speaker 4: And you know the easiest thing to do? Flog.
- 1:14:54Speaker 3: Flog.
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: Flog.
- 1:14:55Speaker 4: And I don't... associated.
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: With those people anymore.
- 1:14:58Speaker 4: I don't have any tolerance for that.
- 1:15:00Speaker 2: I understand, see, I also understand that it is, in
- 1:15:04Speaker 2: many ways, the heretic aspect of it.
- 1:15:09Speaker 4: And so, but I can't change that it was put
- 1:15:13Speaker 4: into the world. And I can't change that it was
- 1:15:15Speaker 4: attached to him.
- 1:15:17Speaker 1: And I'd be.
- 1:15:17Speaker 2: Lying if I didn't laugh, okay? Ryan Reynolds could read
- 1:15:25Speaker 2: The phone book would make me laugh, okay? He's got
- 1:15:28Speaker 2: that way he talks with that voice. My wife has
- 1:15:32Speaker 2: a great Ryan Reynolds imitation. But like I said, I
- 1:15:37Speaker 2: was immediately condemned and judged. And do you think that's
- 1:15:40Speaker 2: what the good Lord wants us to do?
- 1:15:42Speaker 4: He doesn't.
- 1:15:43Speaker 2: It's the plague of social media. And unfortunately, like I said,
- 1:15:47Speaker 2: that person revealed their character to me. And so rather than,
- 1:15:51Speaker 2: I was really put on the roaster. I just was like,
- 1:15:56Speaker 2: what we should all do sometimes, those people just want
- 1:15:58Speaker 2: to take my energy and engage it in the worst
- 1:16:00Speaker 2: possible way.
- 1:16:01Speaker 4: I need to move on and continue to do.
- 1:16:03Speaker 2: Me, so I just left that behind. I don't know
- 1:16:06Speaker 2: if that's the answer you're looking for, but that's my life.
- 1:16:09Speaker 5: Sorry.
- 1:16:10Speaker 1: Rob, that's a good answer.
- 1:16:14Speaker 4: Thank you.
- 1:16:19Speaker 1: Super sad to me that that happened to you. I
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: laughed at that scene, for the record. It didn't bother
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: me at all.
- 1:16:25Speaker 5: Like, given the character and the nature of it, I'm like, oh,
- 1:16:28Speaker 5: that makes sense you would say that.
- 1:16:30Speaker 4: So, Southern Baptist upbringing, baby.
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: No, I get it. We, uh, one of our arts,
- 1:16:36Speaker 1: how many of you are part of the CMA program here?
- 1:16:40Speaker 5: We have one of the top cinema meeting arts programs,
- 1:16:43Speaker 5: I think, anywhere, especially in the Christian world, have a
- 1:16:45Speaker 5: new huge theater that came up And the head of
- 1:16:48Speaker 5: our whole program worked on things like The Walking Dead.
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: You might know Kirkman.
- 1:16:53Speaker 5: I would assume you know Kirkman.
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: Just amazing to really teach your wisdom.
- 1:16:57Speaker 5: And discernment, but also kindness towards people who maybe navigate
- 1:17:02Speaker 5: some of these issues differently than we would according to
- 1:17:05Speaker 5: our Christian convictions.
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: Can we pray for you? Go ahead. Just pray that
- 1:17:09Speaker 1: God will bless you. Do you want to pray, Scott?
- 1:17:11Speaker 4: I would love to.
- 1:17:12Speaker 1: Can we just lift a hand up for Rob as
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: he enters back?
- 1:17:15Speaker 7: Dearly Father, Lord, thank you so much for an opportunity tonight, Lord,
- 1:17:17Speaker 7: just ultimately talk about you, Lord, and to glorify you.
- 1:17:20Speaker 1: Lord, I pray for Rob as he heads back into.
- 1:17:22Speaker 4: The comic book world, to the film media, Lord, that.
- 1:17:24Speaker 1: You would just use him as a light.
- 1:17:26Speaker 7: And that when people are lost, Lord, they would look
- 1:17:28Speaker 7: to Rob and be able to see hope, be able
- 1:17:30Speaker 7: to see Jesus in him, Lord.
- 1:17:31Speaker 1: So I thank you, and you are worthy of all
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: of our praise.
- 1:17:34Speaker 4: In Jesus' name, amen. All right, last name, last name.
- 1:17:36Speaker 5: Do you have any question that jumped out to you
- 1:17:40Speaker 5: from the last one?
- 1:17:41Speaker 1: That was a thoughtful question.
- 1:17:45Speaker 4: Let's give it to the Wikipedia guy.
- 1:17:48Speaker 1: Wikipedia guy. Next course, number one.
- 1:17:50Speaker 4: Come on up here.
- 1:17:50Speaker 5: The rest of you, thanks for coming. We pushed the time.
- 1:17:53Speaker 5: Give a hand for Rob one more time.
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: Thank you, everybody. Thank you.