Latest / Issues: Comics & Mental Health / Issues | EP 1 | Paul Jenkins Goes All In On The Sentry, Wolverine Origin, & Hellblazer

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Issues | EP 1 | Paul Jenkins Goes All In On The Sentry, Wolverine Origin, & Hellblazer · Issues: Comics & Mental Health

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Comics have always been more than just stories about superheroes
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: and supervillains. For many of us, these characters represent our struggles, triumphs,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and often our mental health journeys. This is Issues, Comics,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and Mental Health. And in this episode, we explore the
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  Speaker 1: character of this century and its connection to one of
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  Speaker 1: the most misunderstood and stigmatized mental health disorders ever. likened
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  Speaker 1: to bipolar borderline personality disorder and other mental illnesses. Hello, everyone.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Issues Comics and Mental Health. Today, we are
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: inside Kapow Comics, one of Georgia's best comic shops and
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  Speaker 1: our sponsor. And we have an incredible guest, Paul Jenkins,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the legendary creator of The Century. We're diving into something
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  Speaker 1: powerful today, how Paul's character, The Century, and his connection
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  Speaker 1: to mental health, specifically borderline personality disorder, have had such
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  Speaker 1: an impact on comics and comic goers today. I think
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  Speaker 1: the beauty in the Sentry is that it shows how
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  Speaker 1: comic book characters often seen as these unbreakable heroes are
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  Speaker 1: truly just struggling humans. Can you tell us about some
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  Speaker 1: of the specific moments, Paul, of this character's arc that
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  Speaker 1: you feel really captured their mental struggle?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the... the first thing I would
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  Speaker 2: point to is in the first series that I wrote, the,
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  Speaker 2: the sort of origin story of the century, um, we
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  Speaker 2: get to a point where Robert Reynolds, cause that's the
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  Speaker 2: character that I cared about, right? It was the main,
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  Speaker 2: it was the, the, the alter ego, you know, not
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  Speaker 2: the century, not the void, but that you begin to
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  Speaker 2: realize that he's, he's in denial. he knows that he's ill.
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  Speaker 2: He knows that he's the void and that's his illness.
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  Speaker 2: He desperately wants to be the century. He, he would
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  Speaker 2: like to be something that he thinks is more than
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  Speaker 2: he is. And, um, but, but he can't. And to me,
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  Speaker 2: I thought it was really poignant that I know I
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  Speaker 2: wrote it, you know, but I thought it was quite
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  Speaker 2: poignant that at a certain point he realizes that the
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  Speaker 2: ultimate act of heroism is to give up his heroism.
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  Speaker 2: It's the only thing he can do to save the world.
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  Speaker 2: He's destined to fight himself forever. And so the collateral
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  Speaker 2: damage will be millions of people. And so there's only
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  Speaker 2: one way to save those millions of people. And that's
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  Speaker 2: to not be the sentry.
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  Speaker 1: It's to be human.
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  Speaker 2: To be human and to be a guy who has
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  Speaker 2: agoraphobia and doesn't remember anything. Doesn't remember that he was
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  Speaker 2: once a hero. No one remembers that he was a
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  Speaker 2: hero because of the conceit is that he has to
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  Speaker 2: erase all memory of himself from the world. And so
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  Speaker 2: he is this incredible person that's done so much good
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  Speaker 2: and has this aspiration to be the century, but he
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  Speaker 2: can't be the century. He's never going to be able to.
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  Speaker 2: I think that that, that in a sense was a
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  Speaker 2: real parallel to the, the challenge of the mental health issues. Right.
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  Speaker 2: Because I think that you are not just struggling, but
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  Speaker 2: in some ways I think you're probably sacrificing a little
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  Speaker 2: bit as well. You're, you're, you're taking a piece of
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  Speaker 2: yourself and trying to manage it. Right. Think about it
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  Speaker 2: maybe like this, that if somebody has a mental health issue,
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  Speaker 2: what we collectively have a tendency to do with their
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  Speaker 2: struggle is to make that who they are. I have
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  Speaker 2: a really great friend who's a first triple amputee to
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: survive his injuries in Iraq, a guy called Brian Anderson.
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  Speaker 2: And he and I have been really good friends. He's
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  Speaker 2: like a little brother to me. And he and I
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  Speaker 2: hit it off the moment we met. We became really friendly.
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  Speaker 2: And I love the guy, right? One time I was
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  Speaker 2: hanging with him downtown Atlanta and we, to be candid,
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  Speaker 2: we were drinking. We decided to go out and get drunk, right?
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  Speaker 2: We wanted to because we just hadn't done that. And
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  Speaker 2: he pointed out to me that he couldn't drink very
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  Speaker 2: much because he had no mass in his legs. And
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  Speaker 2: so he was going to get drunk really quickly. And so,
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  Speaker 2: you know, that was this thing. And so we thought,
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  Speaker 2: why don't we just kind of enjoy ourselves and get drunk?
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  Speaker 2: Neither of us drink very much. So we're hanging around
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  Speaker 2: downtown and he had said something to me about being
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  Speaker 2: in the chair and being physically disabled. And I said, Brian,
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  Speaker 2: I love you, man, but I don't want to talk
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  Speaker 2: about your chair anymore. We're not doing your chair. We're
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  Speaker 2: hanging out having a beer. You're not a chair, right?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this is what we're trying to work out,
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  Speaker 2: aren't we? I mean, I don't want to educate you.
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  Speaker 2: You're the guy in the chair. But just so we're clear,
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  Speaker 2: you're like my little brother. You're not like my little
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  Speaker 2: brother in a wheelchair. And that I think was an
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  Speaker 2: interesting part of our relationship, you know, that he went,
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  Speaker 2: hang on a minute. Yeah. You know, even I could
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  Speaker 2: learn something. So I think that that is true of
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  Speaker 2: people struggling with mental health issues. Surely we have to
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  Speaker 2: remember that just because if someone's in a bad mood,
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  Speaker 2: it might just be that they're in a bad mood today. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: If someone has ADHD and they are struggling with paying
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  Speaker 2: attention to something, maybe it's just boring. Maybe it's not,
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  Speaker 2: you know, their ADHD that's making this happen. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that that's something that we probably need to recognize.
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  Speaker 1: It's almost like when I live with bipolar disorder, it's
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  Speaker 1: like when someone says, you're manic.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just excited.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe you're just excited.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just having a great day and this thing
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  Speaker 1: that happened was pretty epic.
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  Speaker 2: But how do we understand that, right? Like it's really
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  Speaker 2: hard for us to externalize it. It's really hard for
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  Speaker 2: us to work out what that is. What if you're
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  Speaker 2: just excited? Maybe you're not manic today. What if you're
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  Speaker 2: just really frustrated and tired and a little bit down
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  Speaker 2: and Right? Maybe it's not because you're in the down
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  Speaker 2: cycle of it. It's just that this is not a
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  Speaker 2: good day. Everyone has not good days. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a depression. Maybe it's just a moment you
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  Speaker 1: need to get past.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, right.
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  Speaker 1: Love that. All right. So I know a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people with mental struggles. I think we all do at
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  Speaker 1: this point, including BPD and other struggles. Can they see themselves...
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  Speaker 1: I think they see themselves in an internal fight, an
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  Speaker 1: internal battle. I certainly have been through that where living
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  Speaker 1: with bipolar disorder, which I've been triply diagnosed with by
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  Speaker 1: three separate doctors. My birth parents had the same diagnosis
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  Speaker 1: when they called it manic depression in their day in
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  Speaker 1: the 1970s. And there is this internal battle of almost
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  Speaker 1: this good versus evil, good versus bad. And I vividly
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  Speaker 1: remember as a kid, I had my He-Man toys. I
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  Speaker 1: had He-Man and I had Skeletor. And they always would
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  Speaker 1: fight each other as I lay in bed before I
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  Speaker 1: go to sleep. That was my routine. I would have
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  Speaker 1: He-Man and Skeletor fight. And Skeletor always won. And I
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  Speaker 1: had this internal battle as an adult living with bipolar
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  Speaker 1: disorder of the pain of this internal darkness always winning.
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  Speaker 1: which led me to the Golden Gate Bridge and to
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  Speaker 1: leaping off. You have written about the Sentry's internal battle
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  Speaker 1: in great detail. Can you describe why elaborating on that
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  Speaker 1: in so many different ways in which you did was
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  Speaker 1: so important?
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because, okay, first of all, it doesn't, take
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  Speaker 2: a person, as we just described, you know, it doesn't
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  Speaker 2: take a person with bipolar disorder to have a bad
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  Speaker 2: day or to feel down. It doesn't take a dramatic
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  Speaker 2: attempted exit from the planet of jumping off the Golden
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  Speaker 2: Gate Bridge to be self-destructive in some ways, right? People
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  Speaker 2: can be self-destructive for a number of reasons in different
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  Speaker 2: ways and it's not just the ultimate self-destruction, right? And
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  Speaker 2: so Sentry is this character who represents the, actually, I
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  Speaker 2: think he represents many aspects of these challenges, right? That
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  Speaker 2: there's a scene that I wrote, um, in the century
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  Speaker 2: where he is with his wife, right? So you're talking
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  Speaker 2: about the ultimate Superman, this guy, and they're trying to
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  Speaker 2: eat dinner, but he's constantly got something in the back
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  Speaker 2: of his head. We actually use this, this character clock,
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  Speaker 2: who's the robot that tells him what's going wrong in
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  Speaker 2: the planet. And it talks to him constantly. And there
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  Speaker 2: was a little bit of a suggestion that clock was
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  Speaker 2: actually his inner voice, just trying to work out what
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  Speaker 2: to do. Now, we didn't answer that question because you
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: don't always answer a question in a story. Some of
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: the best stories don't end with an answer. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: that's unsatisfying. They end with a question, which means that
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  Speaker 2: we can ask it. But essentially, as he's eating dinner,
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  Speaker 2: he wants to just spend some time with his wife,
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  Speaker 2: but he can't. And so he says, can you excuse
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  Speaker 2: me for a second? And he runs off and he
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  Speaker 2: saves a collapsing mine shaft in Poland. And he comes
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  Speaker 2: back like 30 seconds later and says, yeah, sorry about that.
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  Speaker 2: And she says, you got something on your face. He's
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  Speaker 2: got like charcoal. And he wipes it off and he says, sorry.
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  Speaker 2: So in that thing, in that moment, she's just so
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  Speaker 2: proud of him. And she's thinking, this is my guy.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a really kind of moment where they're pretty close.
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  Speaker 2: And she says, you want to maybe go upstairs? And
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  Speaker 2: he says, yeah, that sounds great. And he changes back
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  Speaker 2: into Bob. And she looks disappointed. And she says, well,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I thought maybe just for tonight, maybe you
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  Speaker 2: could be him. Right? And she says, you know, like
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: her way of saying it is, well, you like me
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: wearing lingerie, don't you? This is kind of like you
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  Speaker 2: wearing lingerie. It seems like a fair answer to me, actually.
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  Speaker 2: It seems fair. But he doesn't know what to do.
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  Speaker 2: And he says, I don't understand. She said, yeah, that's
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  Speaker 2: the problem. right so I think that that one of
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  Speaker 2: the things that we do with the century a little
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  Speaker 2: bit is to to point out some of the challenges
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  Speaker 2: that you'll struggle with like any human struggles with those
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  Speaker 2: time challenges but some of the challenges that you will
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  Speaker 2: deal with with bipolar disorder with with um with with
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  Speaker 2: borderline personality disorder that's developing you know um he he
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: struggles with agoraphobia so he can't kind of can't go
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  Speaker 2: out he's not sure but then he's really sure when
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  Speaker 2: he's the sentry so he has this fight with himself
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  Speaker 2: he has to like work out when do i become
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  Speaker 2: the sentry and when do i just live as bob
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  Speaker 2: bob's who he is the sentry is just a thing
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  Speaker 2: wow so deep.
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  Speaker 1: Uh switching gears a bit we know you worked on
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: the new thunderbolts movie as a consulting producer for Marvel,
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  Speaker 1: how does that project connect with your work in particular.
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  Speaker 2: On the century?
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  Speaker 1: Or does it?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Well, it does. Yeah. The work that, so on the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Thunderbolts film, you know, I was able to kind of
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: sit with them a little bit and get them to
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: understand the true story of the century, which essentially I
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: think became the film, right? if you see it, I
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: think that there's one thing that Jake Schreier, the director
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: and the writers did that I, I really like, I
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: wasn't actually privy to it, but I thought it was
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  Speaker 2: fantastic that in the end of the film, spoiler alert,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: you know, they go into this place and it's a,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: it's basically Bob Reynolds, uh, shame room. And, and they
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: realized that they all have the shame rooms that they're
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: having to fight through. Every single one of these broken
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: characters is fighting their own shame. And, uh, You know,
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  Speaker 2: I remember talking with them and saying, look, you know,
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  Speaker 2: my sense of this, because I do come from a
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: family of a lot of people with addiction issues, mental
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: health issues, you know, growing up in the countryside, living
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: in a caravan, stuff like that. Like those things that
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I had seen so much and experienced so much. And
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  Speaker 2: I think, you know, the idea that these people walk
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: into these moments of shame because they feel bad about themselves, right?
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  Speaker 2: This is a lived experience for a lot of people.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: It's a lived experience for a lot of people who
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: are suffering from mental health issues like depression, bipolar disorder,
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  Speaker 2: all of that, like the shame of self. And yet,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: you know, rationally, you can go, well, what are you
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: ashamed about? You didn't do anything. That doesn't mean anything.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think that where Sentry became really powerful
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  Speaker 2: in the film and where I feel kind of proud
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: to have created that character and have it have meaning
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: is that He highlights the fact that some days are okay,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: but lately some of the other days have not been
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: okay a little bit more, right? And he's really struggling
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  Speaker 2: with it. The way that it was portrayed in the film,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: the void isn't like a character really. It is. And
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the sentry really isn't a character. If you actually see
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: the sentry in the movie, they did him perfectly the
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: way that I like to do him. which is that
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: he looks like the golden guardian of good, impossible, but
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: underneath there's this undercurrent in his eyes. You know that
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: he's struggling with it, right? That's how I wrote him.
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  Speaker 2: He's this incredible, incredible superhero, but there's this tension of
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: like this thing can crack at any second. And so
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I think that if we can just keep, you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: obviously he's now moving into some other films and he's
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: going to be around for a while. So that... And
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: I will tell you, Kevin, that I get letters from
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: people constantly that say, thank you, thank you, thank you,
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  Speaker 2: thank you for creating The Century. That's my guy. I
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: struggle with bipolar disorder. I struggle with depression. There's an
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: entire Century community online that I found. And so Lewis Pullman,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: who plays The Century, he and I had made friends.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: And I told him about it, you know, the Century community.
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  Speaker 2: And they were so excited when I showed up. They
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: lost their minds. It was great. And so now I
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: speak to those guys all the time. They're lovely people,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: but they're, they're all, you know, all over the place. Right.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: They're all got all kinds of issues and problems. And
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: it is pretty gratifying at times. I love it that
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: my guys, like my fan base, right. They're all like
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: broken and messed up. They're all over the place. And they,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: they're really grateful that they got a character that was them. Yeah.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: You've shown up for them, which is really incredible. Whether
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you intended to or not.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I didn't intend to.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. Whether you intended to or not, you showed
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: up for them and they will show up for you
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: in your entire career, which is pretty cool. We've all
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: got issues. That's why this is called Issues, Comics and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Mental Health. Especially if you come from primordial ooze like
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I've just got a few
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: more questions and we'll wrap this up. You worked with many,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: many characters who experienced intense emotional conflict and struggles. from
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the Sentry to the Hulk, how do you ensure the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: depiction of these struggles remains authentic without romanticizing.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Or exploiting them? Without fetishizing it. Fetishizing. That's the thing.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: That's the word. Yeah, because it's so fetishized, right? So
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I'm going to point to actually something that is not
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: a work that people remember as much, but what most
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: people don't realize is that Civil War came about because
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: I had written 11 issues of civil war front lines
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: before they wrote issue two of the main civil war title.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Civil war front lines is the story, right? It was
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: literally where it came from. And in that I was
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: with the editor in chief and mole, and we were
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: going to meet somebody about six blocks away in New York.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: And we said, let's walk. And he said, I got
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: a question for you. Um, all the time fans ask me,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: can I, can I do a speed ball? This is
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: one of the characters, right? Can I do a Speedball series?
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And every time we publish it, it fails. And they yell,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: why haven't we got a Speedball series? And the answer
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: is because you never buy it. And he said to me,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: can you do something with Speedball? And I said, yeah,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: never heard of him. Who is he? Because I don't
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: know anything about comics. So he tells me who Speedball is.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And by the time that we had gone six blocks
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: and met up with Garth Ennis, I had pitched him
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: this thing and that became the series that we did.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: And that thing was called penance. And the character, what
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: happens is that speed balls involved in civil war, a
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: bunch of people are killed and he's so guilty about
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: what happened that he, cause he starts it. He actually
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: ends up in a situation where 600 odd people die
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and it's his fault and he can't forgive himself. So
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: he ends up, we ended up going through the whole story.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: He ends up building a suit. And when he gets
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: really badly injured, his power is only driven by pain.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So if he's in pain, he has the superpower. So
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: he builds a suit that has all these spikes inside
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: it that put him in pain and now he can
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: drive his power. So he's punishing himself and all of
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: that stuff. I had to research really carefully. Like I
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: had to basically talk to a lot of people. Well,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: in the end, that's the one that won the prison
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: award for accurate portrayals of mental health. Um, you know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: you have to do a bit of research as a writer.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: You have to actually care enough to do the research.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And so I think now is actually one of my
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: favorite things. I don't care about the Eisner. I don't
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: care about the BAFTA nominations. I mean, it's cool. But
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: I like that one. That was good because they said, hey, listen,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: you cared about it and you wrote it the way
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: that shows that you cared. So it takes a little
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: bit of work and a little bit of understanding. But
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Penance is actually a pretty fascinating book because it's very
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: much about like, how we hate ourselves and maybe we
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: drive ourselves with pain and maybe that's not that healthy.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: In the end, there's a great part to it because
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: he wants to take down the really, really bad guy
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: that killed everybody. And he says to the guy, I
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: didn't make the suit for me, I made it for you.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: And he puts him inside, he puts the bad guy
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: inside the suit and then he beats the crap out
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: of him. And he says, I'm going to make you
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: die 600 times. So it's this thing about pain and
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: revenge and all this kind of, none of these are
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: necessarily healthy, but they happen, you know?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: It's almost that idea, we talked about this earlier, the self-destruction,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the self-hatred, self-loathing, and the beating of yourself up mentally
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and emotionally to feel the pain and get over and
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: over again because you feel so much hate for yourself.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: And we can just use superheroes, which is this weird, crazy, mad,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: anything goes world, and we can highlight what that feels
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: like just by creating a superhero type of a story,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: like some weird premise. that we put forward is a
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: weird premise. He builds a suit with spikes in it.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Who does that? No one, right? But it's a comic
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: book way of, you can use comic books in some
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: ways to actually tell interesting stories like that.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Fascinating. You've done such a good job doing that. You
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: are not just, as so many have coined you, the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: comic guy. You're a writer, a true creative. You're a technologist.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: You've made some of the greatest video games to note.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: We can reference the Darkness game, which we did earlier.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And you've called yourself, I found this very fascinating when
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I saw this, the champion of the bastard child of literature.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Can you please elaborate on that? Because I saw you
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: say that and I laughed out loud, but I felt
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: it in my bones after reading Origin of Wolverine. So
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: tell me, because it is literature. So please explain.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I am, right? I'm the champion of the bastard child.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Every time that I find something that's the underdog in
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: the way that people view it, People look at comics
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: and they go, well, comics are just for kids. I'm like,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: let me, you know, let's take a look at Mouse
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: by arts beagleman or you know we'll pick a thing
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: and some of the work that i've done and some
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: of the work that alan moore's done there's plenty of
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: people that miracle man you look at all these projects
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: right comics are not just for kids but they can
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: be for kids and they can be for lots of
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: people so i've spent a lot of time telling interesting
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: stories so then we would go to video games they
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: say when i started working on they said like Because
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: it was driven in the mid-90s by programmers, and they
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: were like, you can't tell stories for video games. When
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: someone tells me I can't do something, it means that
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: they can't do it. And so the moment they tell
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: me I can't do something, I'm like, hold my beer.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I'm going to watch this. You can do it, right?
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I can always do it, right? Tell me I can't
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: do something. There's only two problems I cannot solve, I believe.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: And I'm horribly, horribly, I'm not arrogant. I'm just optimistic
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: and confident. I can't solve the problem of running out
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: of time. Then I can't go back and I can't
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: solve a problem that I don't know exists. That's why
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I struggle with people who are very passive aggressive, because
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you know, you can't fight against that because it's a
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: problem that you, you don't even know exists and they
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: create a problem behind you. And then somehow that's your problem.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: So I think, you know, I, I like to look
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: at a project in a medium. If video games in
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: the mid-90s, you couldn't tell a story, I'm like, let
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: me show you something. So Amy Hennig and I worked
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: together on Soul Reaver, which is one of the games.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: It was about, you know, sort of mid-90s, and it's
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: about Gnosticism. It's about the snake that eats its own tail,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: the Ouroboros, and things like that. And we're doing a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: video game in the mid-90s. And the technology was such
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: that you couldn't even tell much of a story. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: we're like, we're going to solve. Tell me everything that
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I cannot do, and now I know how to make
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: a great story, because I'll just put that to one side.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I cannot do those are the rules. Now I'm going
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: to make a great story. Right. So nowadays you're talking
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: about NFTs. People say, you know, and when NFTs became popular,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, they glorified JPEGs. You're getting ripped
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: off by ugly crypto bros that are taking your money.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: We did a treasure hunt because it fit NFTs. And
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: it was like a worldwide treasure hunt that had a
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: main character that people literally idolized. He was like his
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: incredible influencer character that all he did was talk about philosophy. He,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: this character was, would say things like, imagine you're on
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: a train. This is in the middle of the greed
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: era when people are just losing their minds about making
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: money overnight. And the character would say, imagine you're on
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: a train and you're on your way to North Wales
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: and you're going to get something. It doesn't matter what
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: you go to get. Take a look out the window.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: What do you see? You're missing all of that. It's
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: going to get it that means something. It's actually going
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to acquire the thing. You already know you're going to
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: go get it. So why don't you take a look
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: at the journey? And when you're looking out the window,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: ask yourself one other thing. What else do you see?
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: You know what you see? You see your reflection of
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: yourself in the glass. So you see yourself superimposed over
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: the mountains and the countryside and the sea. That means something.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you, right? That character, people lost their
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: minds when he would interact with them, when he would type.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: They'd say, give him typing, he's typing. And they would
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: all stop, the entire community. And the little three dots
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: would go and then he would write some philosophy. That
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: thing in the middle of crypto bro, JPEG era, you're
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: talking glorified JPEGs that people bought for millions of dollars.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: That was a rip off, but we did a treasure
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: hunt that literally gave away Bitcoin. And here's the best part.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: At the time Bitcoin was worth 55 grand and it
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: was this treasure hunt where people would kind of like
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: get to the final part. We have been telling stories
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: with Alice in Wonderland. It was called Alice in the
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: garden and it looked like it was written by Lewis Carroll,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: but I had written them and, um, they found the
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: garden after episode four and the garden was the garden
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: of earthly delights by her honors Bosch. It's this incredible
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: painting from middle ages and, uh, they found it and
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: they lost their mind because every clue that we'd ever
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: given them was hidden inside this giant painting. So five
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: people are trying to win the Bitcoin. Every single one
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: of those five people wrote to us independently because they
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: didn't know who each other was and they couldn't communicate
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: with each other and asked us, Hey, if I win,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: can I share it with the other four people? That's
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: what kind of move every one of the five people
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: did it every single person. So that's what kind of
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: movement we had. That's what the, that's the power that
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: we had in terms of just talking about positivity and
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: philosophy and stuff like that. It's much more powerful than
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: most things. So there are two things that are powerful, right?
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: There's that. And then there's this kind of hateful rhetoric
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: and anger and frustration and stuff that people see in
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: the world. My job now is to take all of
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: that stuff that we're dealing with and move it over here.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: So it's on that side. That's what I do.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: I love writing that kind of story now.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: See, I think that's beautiful because I always say that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: our words can do one of two things. They can
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: damage and destroy, but they can help and heal.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: True.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: What will your words do going forward, right? So it's
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: a lesson for many, but you've done that in your
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: work in a way without even thinking about it for
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: some time. Well, maybe we're thinking about it. And the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: philosophy of your character led to people going on this journey,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: as you said, that was the most important part was
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the journey.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Except. Not as a movement, like I said, not as
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: a crusader. I wanted to write good stories. So again,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: just to remind you, one of the most curious comments
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: that anybody ever made about me was, you're really good
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: at writing women. And I went, they're 50% of the
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: world's population. You're kidding me, right? Like, of course, I
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: hope so. If I'm not very good at writing women,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: whatever that means, that means I'm not paying attention or writing.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: It's a human issue, not a gender issue.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible. Paul, considering your vast experience with creating complex characters,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: how do you approach writing villains? Do you find that
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: villains also serve as a reflection of some mental struggles
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: in a way that's complex and multifaceted as your heroes?
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: So I'm really interested in villains, and I think that
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: one of the things that we need to look at
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: is why people struggle the way that they do. Why
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: do they become the villain that they seem to be?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: You know, there's an interesting... philosophical question and challenging philosophical question,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: which is why do we execute people? For example, in
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: the United States, right? Like if sometimes their crimes of passion, sure.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: If someone's mentally ill and a clearly mentally ill, then
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: maybe a serial killer or something is a real bit
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: of a challenge to kind of go, well, you knew
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: what you were doing. Well, of course they knew what
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: they were doing, but you know, how broken were they? Right.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: So we, we really kind of, I think we all
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: struggle with the question of like, like how. aware is
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: somebody when they are doing something really bad and how
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: can they stop it right is it is it a
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: matter of being able to say someone hey you're really
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: hurting people just stop and they go yeah okay that
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: makes sense and they stop i think that's really challenging
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: to think that that could happen right and so i
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: think the thing the way that i approach villains is
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: only one one way really which is i think you
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: have to understand them uh if you want to really
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: write a villain properly you almost can agree with with
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: what they might be saying, right? But there's no way
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: you can agree with their methods. You can't agree with
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: the way that they're doing it, right? That's what makes
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: an actual compelling villain because otherwise they're just standing on
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: a street corner saying, look at me, I'm mean and horrible,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: which is really the laser way out. And guess what?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I think we see that constantly. I think we see
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: it in comics. I think we see it in film.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm bad because I'm mean. And it's like,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: that's boring.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: No, you're bad because you believe what you're doing is right. Yeah.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: You're the hero of your own story.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Someone else is calling it bad. Yeah. Wow.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Wrapping this all up, you have worked a great deal
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: in media and film endeavors in Atlanta and beyond. You've
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: studied to be a filmmaker. That's what you originally were
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: studying to do before comics were even a part of
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: your ethos. You've even helped the tax credits be sustained
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and credible for Marvel and other groups. Please tell us
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: about your Meta Studios, an acronym for Media, Education, Technology,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and Advancement. I want to hear all about it because
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I think it's incredible. I think what you're doing is amazing.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Well, the main important part of Meta, as you said,
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: it's Media, Education, Technology, and Advancement. The part that I
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: care about the most is You do the things you
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: care about. You do the things you're good at. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: you try and mix them together, right? I care about
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: education because my wife's a teacher. My mom's a teacher.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I taught in college. There have been some moments. I
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: remember teaching drama to learning disabled kids. There was a
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: kid called David. David White. Never forget him. We were
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: doing some god-awful fun play for the kids. It's called
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: The Dracula Spectacular. And the kids were loving it, but
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: there was David and, and this kid could not look
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: you in the eye. This kid could not speak to
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: people without breaking out into sweat and trembling. He just
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: was so broken. Uh, and he was at the back
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: and he was, he was watching as the other kids
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: tried out and, and yes, the, you know, you'll get
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: this intuition. And I thought to myself, there's a reason
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: why this kid David is standing there. He's interested in this.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: And I don't know why I even did this. I
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: think perhaps we just have intuitions at the time. I
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: don't even know why I did this, but I said, David,
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: you like this stuff? And he couldn't talk to me
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: and he couldn't look at me. And I said, you
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: want to do Dracula? Because that was what the kids
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: wanted to do. And he tried to be Dracula and
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: he and he just was it. He put his arms
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: out and he put his arms wide and he was Dracula.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: He was a different person and he became this character.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, man, I know what's going to happen now. Right?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: So we let him be Dracula. He went through this
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: whole thing and the kids loved him cause he was
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: so good at it. And he went from this kid
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: that couldn't look in anyone over the course of like
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: maybe three to four weeks. who couldn't look anyone in
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: the eye to a kid that all the other children
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: gravitate towards. He was so good at it. He was
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: such a good actor. And at the end of that time,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: when the parents came and we all talked about, I
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: remember his parents coming up to me with him and
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: they were like, what did you do.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: To our kid?
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: And I said, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Your kid did all of this. But the only thing
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: I did was, was along with all the other kids,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: we all recognize that David could do this, but David
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: didn't recognize it. And then he did. So I think that,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: you know, you kind of look at that for Meta Studios.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I think that we love education. We love advancement. We're
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: good at technology and media. And if we can make
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: those things mix together, the things that we're good at
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: with the things that we care about, then that means
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that Meta Studios has meaning. And that's kind of what
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: we're aiming for.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Meta Studios has meaning. I love it. Friends, it is
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: clear that comics, films, and media in general have a
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: way of reflecting the very real struggles we face. Paul,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: what would you say to comic fans and people with
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: mental challenges about the power of storytelling and characters like
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Sentry and how can they get involved?
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I always say that creative people, like so many people
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: tell me that they cannot be creative. People tell me
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: that all the time. I've had an accountant tell me
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: they couldn't be creative. I remember this very clearly, this conversation.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: First of all, you could be a creative accountant, but
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: they may get in trouble. But, uh, you know, I've
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: had an accountant tell me that you can be creative.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: And I said, that's not true. Like it's only true.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Cause you say, so confidence is exactly equal to accomplishment.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: So one of the ways that I describe it is
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: in a weird analogy is golf. Give someone a six iron,
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: put them in the middle of a field and they
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: can play golf a little bit and say, well, hit
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: the ball over there and they do it right. And
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: you can record them on your iPhone. Now. If you
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: put the ball down, give them the same eye, and
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: then you put a pond in the way and a
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: flag up top. So I do that again. They physically
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: change because they're not sure that they can hit it
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: over that pond or hit it onto, onto the green. Right.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: But they can, they've already proven that they can do it.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: They just decided that they can't do it now. And
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: now physically you can see them change. So confidence is
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: exactly equal to accomplishment. And I think if people can
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: work out, you know, believe like don't artificially believe in
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: it instead. Learn to believe in it, but you know
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: what professional golfers can hit, do it every time. Cause
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: they've already hit it. They already know that they've hit it.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: And if they miss it, it's probably because they did
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: something wrong and they go, okay, let me go fix that. Right.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: That's what, that's what they think like. And so I
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: think that if we could probably look at professional golfers
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: and go do that, be that confident and we'll, you'll
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: be fine.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: That's a great point because what you, when you think
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: about looking at differently, what you recite about yourself, what
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you repeat about yourself is when you believe about yourself.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: If you're reciting and repeating horrible, negative, hateful, spiteful, mean,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and awful things to yourself, what are you going to believe?
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Right. So, you know, quite often, much of my wife's chagrin,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I sort of walk into her and I say, look
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: at what you married on.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Aren't you lovely?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Aren't you lovely?
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, I love it. Okay. This is one of my
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: favorite days. Stories like The Century are powerful reminders that
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: even in our darkest times, there is always hope. Through comics,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: we find strength. And through mental health awareness, we find healing.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: This has been the pilot episode of Issues, Comics, and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Mental Health with none other than Paul Jenkins. Thank you,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: my brother. It's been incredible. We love this century, everything
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it's about, all your comics. Thank you, Paul, very much
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: for being on the show.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Thank you.