1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,400 Pickup. 2 00:00:02,400 --> 00:00:05,400 All right. 3 00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:06,600 All right, here we go. 4 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:07,960 You ready to go? On your side. 5 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:08,800 Ready, baby. 6 00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:11,800 Here we go. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. 7 00:00:12,040 --> 00:00:13,640 Hey, yo. Welcome to geek freaks. 8 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:15,600 I am Frank, and I'm with Aubrey 9 00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:18,880 Sanderson of Free Planet, a new comic from Image Comics. 10 00:00:19,120 --> 00:00:20,160 How are you doing, Audrey? 11 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:22,080 I'm doing great, baby. Thank you for having me. 12 00:00:22,080 --> 00:00:23,520 Great free planet. 13 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:25,120 Just to kind of throw it out there real quick. 14 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:27,920 You know, we talk about saga very much around here, 15 00:00:27,920 --> 00:00:30,120 and I'm getting some saga vibes out of this. 16 00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:31,920 Can you tell us a little bit about Free Planet? 17 00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:34,080 Yeah, man. First of all, that's high praise. 18 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:34,640 Thank you. 19 00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:39,200 You know, we do bring up saga in comparisons, right? 20 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:41,960 We tell people that Free Planet, it's a geopolitical space. 21 00:00:41,960 --> 00:00:46,560 Opera is the genre, and we tell people that it is the complex 22 00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:51,920 future history of East of West meets the interpersonal 23 00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:56,880 soap opera drama of saga. 24 00:00:56,880 --> 00:00:59,160 Right. So we're trying to we're trying to do both, right? 25 00:00:59,160 --> 00:01:03,160 We're trying to do something complex, something rich, dense, even. 26 00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:05,480 Right. But also something personal. 27 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:08,840 Something intensely personal and emotional with 28 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:13,560 big military sci fi action spread throughout. 29 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:16,040 It's where we try to hit all the notes, man. 30 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:18,280 And you have some very, very cool characters right off the bat. 31 00:01:18,280 --> 00:01:21,280 Is it Talon the robot? Talon? Yeah. 32 00:01:21,640 --> 00:01:22,960 Or are you fan favorite of mine? 33 00:01:22,960 --> 00:01:24,080 I love em. 34 00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:26,280 Bro. I, so I'll tell you a funny story. 35 00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:28,880 I when I first got the first issue of Free Planet down 36 00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:30,960 like Free Planet and free, it's different, man. It's. 37 00:01:30,960 --> 00:01:32,880 There aren't other comics on the rack like this. 38 00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:34,840 It's a very specific approach. 39 00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:36,720 And I was a little nervous about it. 40 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:39,760 So I shown it to friends, and then I would hit them with a battery of questions. 41 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:43,160 I would interrogate them afterwards, just as like my market research rate. 42 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:46,880 And one of the questions I always ask was, who's your favorite character? 43 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:48,600 And I was shocked. 44 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:53,160 I was shocked that it was Talon, until I thought about it. 45 00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:55,840 And we shouldn't spoil this because I think it's it's really good. 46 00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:57,440 But yeah, you know, you're nodding. 47 00:01:57,440 --> 00:01:59,920 You know, you know exactly what I like. 48 00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:03,240 I realized I was like, oh, of course they love Talon. 49 00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:07,680 And that if I'm being honest with you, that impacted our plans for the book. 50 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:08,840 I went back to the outline. 51 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:11,720 I went back into the outline and changed some things, just in light 52 00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:15,640 of how much people were responding to Talon even at that early day. 53 00:02:15,640 --> 00:02:20,280 I love hearing that it's the first place you went the record of easy, I love them. 54 00:02:20,880 --> 00:02:23,000 Let's talk about where this idea comes from, 55 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:26,840 because I think, you know, with a lot of color books nowadays, sci 56 00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:29,880 fi is a little bit on the outside of it, and you're doing a really good job 57 00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:34,080 of using that sci fi lens to explore freedom and politics and stuff like that. 58 00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:36,440 Where did this spark of an idea come from for you? 59 00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:37,400 And yet. 60 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:42,720 You know, so the initial idea was very broad, 61 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:46,520 and it was really just a way to kind of explore 62 00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:52,640 geopolitical dynamics without being either, 63 00:02:52,680 --> 00:02:57,920 you know, without my self being hindered by real life factual accuracy 64 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:03,680 or the audience being hindered in their perceptions of things. 65 00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:03,920 Right? 66 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:05,880 Because if you set something, if you do historical fiction, 67 00:03:05,880 --> 00:03:09,480 no matter what the event is, people are going to come to it 68 00:03:09,640 --> 00:03:15,360 with their own, already locked in notions of how to look at the different parties. 69 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:15,840 Right. 70 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:19,280 And that's something I wanted to get free of as well. 71 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:23,680 And, you know, that's how I started with the idea of space. 72 00:03:23,680 --> 00:03:27,640 Venezuela, a planet with a powerful resource, 73 00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:33,240 but all by itself on its own, stuck between big superpowers 74 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:37,080 and trying to slug it out and trying to figure out a way forward. 75 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:40,080 And from there, you know, asking myself questions about it, 76 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:43,440 it became apparent that it should be a brand new nation, 77 00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:47,360 that they should have won a Revolutionary War and that, you know, 78 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:51,600 the more Jen and I talked about it and thought about it and worked on it, 79 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:54,000 it's been a minute since I've had anything on the shelves. Man. 80 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:55,920 And it's because I've been working. 81 00:03:55,920 --> 00:03:58,560 I've been up on my mountain, figured this thing out. 82 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:03,400 And how I did it was research, just extensive amounts of research 83 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:06,440 into real life revolutions 84 00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:09,800 and civil war and, you know, mostly the 20th century. 85 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:13,200 But going back deeper to hit the, you know, the US revolution, of course, 86 00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:16,960 but also Russia and Cuba and Haiti and China 87 00:04:17,360 --> 00:04:20,840 to get a perception of, you know, the different 88 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:25,200 factions and philosophies and political worldviews 89 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:29,440 that form these revolutionary coalitions, they struggle to move forward 90 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:33,600 and that that impacted not just this larger world 91 00:04:33,920 --> 00:04:37,680 that every planet exists within, but the characters 92 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:40,880 who are all members of 93 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:43,560 they're all they all fought in the Revolutionary War, 94 00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:47,000 but they all come from wildly diverse backgrounds, 95 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,520 and they have completely different ideas about what, 96 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:53,760 you know, actually is, you know, they founded the first completely 97 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:57,960 free planet in human history after fighting for candidates 98 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:01,920 from a brutal, corporate dominated oligarchy. 99 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:07,040 And now the hard part now is figuring out how to move forward and how to, 100 00:05:08,120 --> 00:05:10,960 how to take what everybody wants 101 00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:14,240 and find something that everyone will be okay with. 102 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:16,120 And it's complicated, and that's what it's all. 103 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:17,160 And that's what the book's all about. 104 00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:19,200 That's that struggle 105 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:22,760 to, you know, 106 00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:26,960 rectify different perception, different views of freedom. 107 00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:27,360 Right. 108 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:30,720 And to really and to really bring those, all those things together 109 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:34,720 is what informs not just the geopolitical maneuvering, 110 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:37,440 but the military action and the interpersonal drama 111 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:40,440 on the satellite with Freedom Guards based out of. 112 00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:41,040 Yeah. 113 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:43,680 And and, you know, speaking of the different ways, 114 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:47,360 what I'm harkening back to is that, like late 1700s France, 115 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:50,600 they had the revolution and it's very violent in the way it happens. 116 00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:54,320 And and then so looking at what where they were at at the time, 117 00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:55,200 like trying to figure out, 118 00:05:55,200 --> 00:05:58,360 okay, what is too much at this point we had this violent revolution. 119 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:00,880 If we want peace, we have to scale back that violence 120 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:02,240 that's gotten us our freedom. 121 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:03,520 And you have military leaders 122 00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:06,520 and these war generals that are together to try to defend this planet. 123 00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:09,680 So what is too much freedom for these people? 124 00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:13,080 Is there anything in particular that you wanted to explore in that realm? 125 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:15,240 Yeah. 126 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:18,600 You know, I mean, I think the central question of 127 00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:21,760 Free Planet is 128 00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:24,680 what, you know, what is freedom look like, 129 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:27,680 and what are we willing to sacrifice to get it right? 130 00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:31,840 And that that encompasses a lot. 131 00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:34,200 And, you know, I took a lot of, you know, 132 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:37,680 back to my research, one of the books that was really impactful. 133 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:41,840 And I read it twice all the way through was, the Dawn of Everything by David 134 00:06:41,840 --> 00:06:44,840 Graeber and David Windrow and it's, you know, 135 00:06:45,840 --> 00:06:50,240 it's a book of anthropology, but it's a wide ranging 136 00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:54,800 historical anthropology that really digs into what is freedom. 137 00:06:54,920 --> 00:06:58,760 And when did we start giving up these core human freedoms? 138 00:06:58,760 --> 00:07:01,480 And that was a really influential 139 00:07:01,480 --> 00:07:05,360 tome in terms of developing what Free Planet was really about. 140 00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:07,760 And that's 141 00:07:07,760 --> 00:07:11,640 exploring, you know, different perceptions 142 00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:16,400 of freedom and different ways of organizing societies. 143 00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:16,880 Right? 144 00:07:16,880 --> 00:07:20,880 Inclusive not just of politics, but religion and philosophy 145 00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:24,360 and economics and culture and how these things interact 146 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:28,400 with one another and make for really complex incentives 147 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:32,040 that result in, you know, strange bedfellows, 148 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,640 but also internecine animosity 149 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:39,040 between people who would, on the surface, seem to be on the same page. 150 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:40,200 Yeah. 151 00:07:40,200 --> 00:07:43,440 You mentioned in the first book like you're free to go so far, 152 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:46,880 but when it starts going up against somebody else's freedom, that's the issue. 153 00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:49,120 But then. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. 154 00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:51,160 You know, and so like the scene, the scene 155 00:07:51,160 --> 00:07:54,480 you're talking about, it's it's when I point to a lot 156 00:07:55,080 --> 00:08:00,080 because I think it's indicative of the free planet approach in a few ways. 157 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:02,920 Right. And the first is layout. 158 00:08:02,920 --> 00:08:03,960 It's a big spread. 159 00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:05,880 You know, this is a book that has to be. 160 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:09,360 It was designed to be a print periodical, right? 161 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:11,040 Not digital because 162 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:15,600 we approached it in a very chicken iron sense. 163 00:08:15,600 --> 00:08:18,720 Howard Chaiken was, he he's a dear friend of mine, and he. 164 00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:20,280 I met Jed through him. 165 00:08:20,280 --> 00:08:23,400 Jed is j was working as Howard's assistant when we first met. 166 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:27,720 And, you know, Howard's big innovation was viewing comics 167 00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:32,520 not as a collection of panels, but a collection of pages and his belief 168 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:36,120 and I, I subscribe to it, is that pages are the fundamental, 169 00:08:36,720 --> 00:08:40,040 foundational, fundamental storytelling unit of a comic, 170 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:43,240 and the interaction between panels, the way a page is laid out. 171 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:44,920 That's the magic of comics. 172 00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:46,840 And we leaned directly into that. 173 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:51,480 There's a ton of spreads, and they are jam packed with visual information. 174 00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:56,680 I for the first time ever, I did thumbnails before I script, 175 00:08:57,720 --> 00:08:59,760 and that's to ensure that's to ensure 176 00:08:59,760 --> 00:09:03,800 that everything I write is geared around these overwhelming visuals. 177 00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:05,720 And the one that I'm talking about in the first. 178 00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:09,000 When you brought up in the first issue, it's a big spread 179 00:09:09,240 --> 00:09:14,560 and it has the Freedom Guard responding to a small landowner 180 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:19,800 who has been using his land the way that his family's used it 181 00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:24,720 for generations, which is mining this uniquely powerful energy source. 182 00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:25,080 Right. 183 00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:28,760 And the Freedom Guard is there to tell him to knock it off in a firefight. 184 00:09:28,760 --> 00:09:30,440 Breaks off, breaks out. 185 00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,440 And they want him to stop 186 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:36,880 mining, stop extracting this fuel from the ground 187 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:40,600 in order that they can terraform and grow food. 188 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:41,080 Right. 189 00:09:41,080 --> 00:09:43,200 They can start doing agriculture in that area. 190 00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:44,840 And he refuses. 191 00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:48,520 And, you know, on the surface, that seems authoritarian, 192 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:50,960 especially from a US perspective. Right? 193 00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:55,560 Like that's that's like a villain on Yellowstone showing up, telling, 194 00:09:55,600 --> 00:09:59,000 telling John Dutton what needs to be do with the love Yellowstone. 195 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:00,200 So yeah. Classic. 196 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:03,720 Tell it, tell it, tell it John Dutton what he needs to be doing with his land. 197 00:10:03,960 --> 00:10:05,960 That's what it feels like, especially from the U.S. 198 00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:11,600 perspective, where freedom is so baked into our founding mythology, right? 199 00:10:11,680 --> 00:10:12,400 Our identity. 200 00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:15,240 It's a thing that across the political spectrum. 201 00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:15,600 Right. 202 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:19,200 This is the thing that we all believe and we we hold deeply important. 203 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:22,760 And so it feels very authoritarian and brutal. 204 00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:27,040 But then you look at the rest of the spread, which has graphs and charts 205 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:31,400 and, you know, these historical captions that kind of give context 206 00:10:31,400 --> 00:10:34,880 and sometimes provide added perspectives on what you're seeing. 207 00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:39,240 You realize, oh, this planet, they're starving, they're running out of food. 208 00:10:39,440 --> 00:10:43,080 And that's this is indicative of the formal approach 209 00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:48,040 to Free Planet in terms of how we're using diverse visual elements like charts 210 00:10:48,040 --> 00:10:52,840 and graphs and captions, and to build out these overwhelming spreads and visuals. 211 00:10:53,040 --> 00:10:57,120 But it's also it's also indicative of the approach in that 212 00:10:58,520 --> 00:10:59,400 it's not 213 00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:02,640 simple, it's complex, it's difficult. 214 00:11:02,760 --> 00:11:04,880 There's not there's not a direct metaphor here. 215 00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:06,600 There's not. A friend of mine asked me, Daniel 216 00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:08,640 Freedman, he's an incredible comic book writer. 217 00:11:08,640 --> 00:11:10,200 He asked me, 218 00:11:10,200 --> 00:11:11,520 you know, doing all this research that you did 219 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:13,800 because he you're talking about my bibliography. 220 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:15,600 And he said, do you know this research? 221 00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:16,600 Do you 222 00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:19,680 did you come to any conclusions like this free planet, like, figure out 223 00:11:19,680 --> 00:11:21,440 like what the thing is? 224 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:23,760 And I say, well, no, absolutely not. 225 00:11:23,760 --> 00:11:25,440 Because it's not what it's about. Right? Yeah. 226 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:28,320 The point is that there is no that is the definitive answer. 227 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:28,480 Right? 228 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:29,360 That's exactly right. 229 00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:31,680 Like the point is to get you to think about it. 230 00:11:31,680 --> 00:11:36,240 The point is for readers to have something to chew on this like 231 00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:39,600 instead of just a ABCd narrative. 232 00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:40,040 Right? 233 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:43,360 Just stretched out over five issues and then broken into pages. 234 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:46,520 This is a collection of oftentimes 235 00:11:46,560 --> 00:11:51,080 discrete in that, you know, a spread is a scene, right? 236 00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:56,000 If it's not the entirety of a scene, it's at least meaningful in and of itself. 237 00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:58,680 There's no filler pages. There's certainly no filler issues. 238 00:11:58,680 --> 00:12:02,280 This is designed to be an art object and literature. 239 00:12:02,400 --> 00:12:04,080 It's it's designed to be both right. 240 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:07,080 And that it's something you need old and appreciate in your in. 241 00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:11,800 And you're incentivized to do that by how wonderful it looks. 242 00:12:12,080 --> 00:12:16,280 And in doing so, you're rewarded with a chance to live 243 00:12:16,280 --> 00:12:20,920 in this world and ruminate over some complicated, complex stuff. 244 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:23,520 Man, it's it's been a. Joy ride like that. 245 00:12:23,520 --> 00:12:25,680 Like, like you should walk away thinking about it. 246 00:12:25,680 --> 00:12:27,720 Even when we're talking about that specific situation. 247 00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:31,200 I found myself thinking like, well, if I had a seat at the table, I would say, 248 00:12:31,400 --> 00:12:34,840 let's use the resources out of the mine to help buy food from other planets 249 00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:36,720 or whatever, like you're you're wanting to be. 250 00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:38,840 That's what sci fi does, right? It makes you walk away 251 00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:40,880 thinking like, well, this is what I would tell Kirk to do. 252 00:12:40,880 --> 00:12:42,480 You know, you change up, you know your playing. 253 00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:43,880 That's exactly right. Yeah. 254 00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:45,000 I mean, and that's, 255 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:48,600 you know, a lot of that classic sci fi is what we're harkening back to. 256 00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:50,440 You know, I, 257 00:12:50,440 --> 00:12:51,040 you know, when I was 258 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:55,200 formulating the idea of this planet, this like trying to go to go its own way, 259 00:12:55,240 --> 00:12:59,280 be completely free and, you know, really based around personal autonomy. 260 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:03,440 It was heavily influenced by The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. 261 00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:06,280 It's one of my favorite, one of my favorite novels. 262 00:13:06,280 --> 00:13:09,320 And I was talking, actually, I was talking to Howard about Howard 263 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:14,200 Chaiken, about it, and he's like, well, you need to record Wayne or Smith be Red 264 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:18,000 Claude Wayne or Smith, and like, I don't know, like it's earlier. 265 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:23,600 It's from the 60s and it's, it's bananas and I adore it. 266 00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:28,800 And but it's like the text for not only Ursula Gwynn's 267 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:33,840 like, Hain ish cycle, but also, Frank Herbert's Dune. 268 00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:36,080 Right? Like, it's it's a lot of farming. 269 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:37,640 A lot of just my being a. 270 00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:38,400 Yeah, that's the thing. 271 00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:41,800 And like, it's alarming how much these two kind of more 272 00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:44,800 popular, more well known works today. 273 00:13:44,880 --> 00:13:47,800 It's alarming how much they took from 274 00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:51,240 Katrina Smith's, Instrumentality of Mankind. 275 00:13:51,360 --> 00:13:53,040 Yeah. Oeuvre. Right. 276 00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:56,560 And it's alarming, but that's also one of the really cool things about sci 277 00:13:56,560 --> 00:14:01,640 fi is, you know, as ideas become tropes and get utilized and, 278 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:06,520 you know, it was our hope to be able to contribute to that, to play along. 279 00:14:06,520 --> 00:14:07,520 And, you know, 280 00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:11,200 I tried I, I took our advice and I read a bunch of chord Wiener Smith 281 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:15,480 and it was really valuable in terms of like thinking about this world. 282 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:18,760 But I'll tell you, it's that stuff. 283 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:22,680 Pales in like in terms of 284 00:14:22,680 --> 00:14:27,240 influence, pales in comparison to the nonfiction research that I did. 285 00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:29,960 You know, like like the, the esthetic. 286 00:14:29,960 --> 00:14:30,280 Right. 287 00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:34,080 This sheen kind of comes from classic sci fi stuff, 288 00:14:34,440 --> 00:14:38,040 but what informs it, and I think this is true of if you look at 289 00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:43,280 Katrina Smith, deeply, deeply knowledgeable 290 00:14:43,280 --> 00:14:47,560 and enmeshed in global politics, right? 291 00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:49,080 Geopolitics of his time. 292 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:52,720 If you look at Frank Herbert, deeply knowledgeable 293 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:56,400 of religion and anthropology and ecology. 294 00:14:56,400 --> 00:14:57,120 Right. 295 00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:00,480 Ursula Gwynne was the daughter of anthropologists herself. 296 00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:01,200 Right. 297 00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:05,120 So, like to catch up to these folks, I had to do a job 298 00:15:05,120 --> 00:15:07,920 where I had to wear out my library card. 299 00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:09,800 They had in order to get Aubra. 300 00:15:09,800 --> 00:15:11,280 You're not allowed to come back. 301 00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:13,640 I know they got they got sick of seeing me. 302 00:15:13,640 --> 00:15:15,000 But because I needed 303 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:18,480 to, I need to learn enough to build the foundations of this thing. 304 00:15:18,920 --> 00:15:20,000 Well, and touching on that, 305 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,240 I think one of the things that you add that I think might be not lacking, 306 00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:27,080 but I focus in your book, is how grounded these stories can be, because 307 00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:30,040 not to give any spoilers away, but I mean, like the 308 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:32,200 the scene that's in the cabin, it's on the last few pages. 309 00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:33,640 They're that right there. 310 00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:36,640 You're like, oh, that's going to ripple like crazy, you know? 311 00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:40,200 And it's just there's one little things that can like change 312 00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:42,240 how this entire planet works. 313 00:15:42,240 --> 00:15:45,320 And just the discussion where you take someone aside 314 00:15:45,320 --> 00:15:48,040 and you discuss what future looks like, what freedom looks like, 315 00:15:48,040 --> 00:15:50,560 and that could change the direction that entire thing goes. 316 00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:54,200 And so all these big geopolitical moves are happening, but it also brings it down 317 00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:57,960 to very personal moments that can swing things back and forth very rapidly. 318 00:15:58,280 --> 00:15:59,360 Thank you for saying that. 319 00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:03,160 It was important to me, my previous work, I had, 320 00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:04,800 you know, especially my dark horse stuff. 321 00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:07,800 I, no one had to fight savage, savage hearts. 322 00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:10,280 Which is with Jed and, worst dudes. 323 00:16:10,280 --> 00:16:12,080 Even even though it's like, a worst case. 324 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:13,480 It's a very specific thing. 325 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:14,280 It's like 16. 326 00:16:14,280 --> 00:16:16,840 It's for, like, lousy 16 year old boys. 327 00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:19,320 It's very raunchy and silly, but all of those. 328 00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:24,000 But all of those books I just listed really leaned into this 329 00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:26,920 interpersonal soap opera. 330 00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:29,760 I like writing that stuff, you know, I like writing romance. 331 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:32,760 I like writing, you know, people 332 00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:37,920 dealing with their feelings in big visual ways. 333 00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:39,600 Right? That's the thing I really enjoy. 334 00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:41,200 So I didn't want to lose that. 335 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:42,760 And, you know, 336 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:46,320 when I was up on my mountain, man figuring out what Free Planet was going to 337 00:16:46,320 --> 00:16:51,360 be, you know, I had a lot of boxes I needed to tick off in order 338 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:56,280 for me to be happy with where I was taking my work. 339 00:16:56,600 --> 00:17:00,800 And one of them, you know, there were things I needed to maintain, right? 340 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,840 Like the the relentlessly visual nature of my work 341 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,200 and making sure that I'm not overwhelming. 342 00:17:07,520 --> 00:17:10,240 Jed's contributions, which are immense 343 00:17:10,240 --> 00:17:14,280 and I think are readily apparent to anybody who looks at this thing. 344 00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:15,080 Yeah. 345 00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:19,120 But among them, too, was maintaining these personal moments, 346 00:17:19,120 --> 00:17:22,240 because I recognize that, you know, just 347 00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:26,920 just doing the geopolitical and the military, like the sci fi 348 00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:31,560 military stuff that would that could make for a really interesting, smart comment. 349 00:17:31,560 --> 00:17:32,880 And that was on my mind. 350 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,320 I wanted to do something that was perceived as more cerebral 351 00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:38,600 and complex than what I had done previously. 352 00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:40,240 But I 353 00:17:40,240 --> 00:17:44,000 knew that if we lost, you know, there's certain things people want from my work. 354 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:46,560 There are things people like about my work and I do want to lose. 355 00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:49,720 But also to your point, man, like that's what grounds it. 356 00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:51,240 That's what makes it important. 357 00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:54,960 And for me, the the trick was in making sure that 358 00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:59,040 the interpersonal drama wasn't incidental. 359 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:00,640 Right. 360 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:03,920 Like it wasn't it wasn't just something grafted on where guys were 361 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:07,120 fighting over the last cupcake in the commissary. 362 00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:07,640 Right. Like that. 363 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:10,640 Like, or the canteen or whatever, you know, like that's, 364 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:13,000 that's it couldn't be stuff like that. 365 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:13,840 It had to be, 366 00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:15,800 it had to be like everything else in the book, 367 00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:18,840 deeply connected to these themes of what is freedom? 368 00:18:18,840 --> 00:18:23,280 And, you know, what kind of discipline is required to maintain it. 369 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:25,920 That's another big running theme of this thing, right? 370 00:18:25,920 --> 00:18:27,720 The discipline necessary for. Yeah. 371 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:29,520 And you could feel it coming for you. 372 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:30,160 Yeah. 373 00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:32,760 I mean, you know, and it's, it's I don't know, I had a lot of those. 374 00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:33,280 Right. Yeah. 375 00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:36,840 And the way I ensured that 376 00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:40,560 I have dossiers and 377 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:44,280 it's a massive kind of living word document 378 00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:47,280 that I think things do with all of the characters, 379 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:51,360 including Jackson Crater, who's my favorite and shows up in issue two. 380 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:52,800 The. 381 00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:54,720 I can give you a spoiler, little spoiler for him. 382 00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:56,120 Okay. 383 00:18:56,120 --> 00:18:57,000 Let me get through this first. 384 00:18:57,000 --> 00:18:59,440 I'm sorry. Judge. 385 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:02,720 So I have all the characters have sections for each characters headings 386 00:19:02,800 --> 00:19:04,320 and then underneath them, you know, and so, 387 00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:06,240 you know, I have the background information, right? 388 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:10,000 What they did in the Revolutionary War, what planet they're from, they're kind of 389 00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:14,240 class and socioeconomic background and like what religion they are. 390 00:19:14,280 --> 00:19:16,360 There's multiple religions in this thing. 391 00:19:16,360 --> 00:19:20,720 And then I have crucially, the most important part 392 00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:26,040 subheadings for all the other characters under each heading for one character. 393 00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:29,240 And that's where I explain where they agree 394 00:19:29,240 --> 00:19:32,280 or disagree with these other characters. 395 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:36,040 And that that's the crux of it. 396 00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:36,840 All right. 397 00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:38,280 Like whenever there are, 398 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:41,440 whenever there is interpersonal drama, scratch the surface of it. 399 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:43,160 It's something we need to scratch. 400 00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:46,720 What's beneath it is these conflicts, ideas 401 00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:50,520 about freedom, sacrifice, discipline and authority, 402 00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:53,120 those four things and how they interact with one another. 403 00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:55,680 And it doesn't even need to be a big, explosive confrontation. 404 00:19:55,680 --> 00:19:58,440 It could just be a conversation between two guys leaning against a vehicle 405 00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:01,000 and just kind of talking about today's event. 406 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:03,240 And right there, you feel like I could be the third guy 407 00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:04,800 sitting there talking about this as well. 408 00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:07,520 And that makes you doesn't matter how many planets away it is, it 409 00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:09,120 makes you feel like you're right there with them. 410 00:20:09,120 --> 00:20:11,600 Hell yeah. I love hear that, brother. Thank you. 411 00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:14,240 Of course. I want to talk a little bit about the artwork. Of course. 412 00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:15,600 You thought you had talked 413 00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:20,160 about how it's page by page and you really feel that panels exist? 414 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:23,880 Sure, but you feel like the color touches the very edge of the paper every time. 415 00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:27,040 What was what was some of the intention with your artwork in this one? 416 00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:28,240 With everything like that? 417 00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:32,480 So, you know, I, 418 00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:35,520 you know, I did for the first time ever, I did this, those thumbnails. 419 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:39,240 But I think it's important for me to point out, I don't send those to Jed. 420 00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:41,560 I do thumbnails for me 421 00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:46,040 so that I can write a script visually and I don't ever, like, lean on. 422 00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:48,440 Just, do a five panel grid, right? 423 00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:50,280 Just the pieces around and things like that. 424 00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:54,920 It's a way of making sure that I edit my scripts as visual experiences, 425 00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:59,400 and then I try and communicate that information textually through to Jed. 426 00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:02,400 But almost without fail, he comes back with something better 427 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:03,760 because he's better at that than I am. 428 00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:08,480 And I think that's that is the most significant part of Jed's genius. 429 00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:10,000 Right? To look the pages. 430 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,000 The first thing you notice is what an incredible draftsman he is. 431 00:21:13,360 --> 00:21:17,960 Because he can draw everything and he draws it beautifully and, the world. 432 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:20,320 And he and he doesn't skimp on detail. 433 00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,000 He does not slack. He does not cut corners. 434 00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:23,880 All pages. 435 00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:26,560 Yeah. Yeah, dude. And there's not dead. 436 00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:30,880 I mean, there's dead space, but even the dead space is filled with stuff. 437 00:21:31,080 --> 00:21:34,160 That is thematically linked, 438 00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:37,160 to what we're what is being discussed on the page. 439 00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:40,440 And, you know, so he's incredibly diligent. 440 00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:42,960 He's incredibly his incredible draftsman. 441 00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:45,320 His actual his craft is outrageous. 442 00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:50,640 Yeah, but the true Jed differentiator, the reason that Jed is the only one 443 00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:54,600 who could have done this comic is his outrageous 444 00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:57,600 skill at page design. 445 00:21:57,600 --> 00:21:58,760 And that's that's why 446 00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:01,880 I don't send him my thumbnails, because he's better at this stuff, 447 00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:05,640 and he not only comes up with ways 448 00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:10,040 to display the information that I asked to squeeze 449 00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:13,040 onto a single page, he not only finds a way to do that, 450 00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:16,680 but he finds ways to do it that are visually interesting 451 00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:20,960 and, crucially, speak to what's being discussed. 452 00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:22,920 He actually gauges with the material 453 00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,840 and at every at every stage of development, this has been the case. 454 00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:30,160 You know, it really was a game of one upsmanship with me 455 00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:35,080 doing my extensive research and him doing outrageous amounts of design work. 456 00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:35,560 Right. 457 00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:39,480 Like if and this is not a thing anyone's expected to notice 458 00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,480 in a first read, but we play, 459 00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:45,960 you know, my my belief is that it warrants a couple reads at least. 460 00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:49,280 And if you if you go through it again, you'll start seeing this stuff. 461 00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,440 Different groups of people use different types of guns. 462 00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:54,720 They get their power from different places. 463 00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,400 That impacts the style of machinery and ships 464 00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:02,680 and vehicles that they use, which as we as the series wears on, 465 00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:07,200 we learn, also impacts their strategy and tactics in combat 466 00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:11,240 and touches on it, you know, and is informed by economic realities. 467 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,400 It's all interlock because Jed and I are in 468 00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,560 and we we have this idea that we want to explore, 469 00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:22,560 and we just keep layering and layering more and more 470 00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:26,200 and more on top of to make it more and more complex. 471 00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:29,280 And Jed's the jitsu perfect partner for it. 472 00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:32,080 I can't imagine doing it with anybody else. 473 00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:36,360 Is there anything that Jed took on to his own that you find changes your story? 474 00:23:36,360 --> 00:23:38,640 But it also was an improvement that you wanted to embrace? 475 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:41,520 Oh. Interesting. 476 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:43,280 So, I mean, 477 00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:45,520 every time he sent over layouts, right. 478 00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:47,240 It's like a real answer, right? 479 00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,440 Like, because I do my thumbnails and, like, and I have a 480 00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:54,080 if you go like digging on my Substack, you can find, I did a process post 481 00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,880 like that shows my thumbnails and then his layouts 482 00:23:56,880 --> 00:23:59,880 and then his inks and then the final so you can see the changes, 483 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,720 but, you know, and some of them were closer than others. 484 00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:09,080 But he always makes changes to the actual storytelling that I adore. 485 00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:14,080 I think early on in the design stage, you know, because I gave him 486 00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:17,520 very, very 487 00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:21,480 I gave him very broad descriptors for archetypes. 488 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:21,840 Right. 489 00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:27,120 And they archetypes from classic sci fi combined with archetypes 490 00:24:27,360 --> 00:24:30,480 from like real world revolutions. 491 00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:31,440 Right? Okay. And 492 00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:36,000 and so I sent him this list of archetypes. 493 00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:38,600 And then he started doing design work and a lot of the character. 494 00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,720 And this is the thing I like doing, because I like to let the character design 495 00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:45,840 guide who the characters are. 496 00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:47,680 And I think it's important to go the other way, too, 497 00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:50,680 because some characters I did have more of an eye for. 498 00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:55,080 But all of the characters, Jed took such a strong lead 499 00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:57,360 in figuring out what these folks are going to look like, 500 00:24:57,360 --> 00:25:01,560 and that impacted the story on a really profound level as well. 501 00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:02,600 Yeah. 502 00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:03,920 And then with your letterer, 503 00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,160 did the jet do the lettering or did you guys have another letter? 504 00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:07,680 No. Our letterer. 505 00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:10,080 So, we're color by Victoria a stone. 506 00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:10,680 Incredible. 507 00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:14,560 It's my first time working with him, but will not be the last. So. 508 00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:16,840 Right. So vibrant, wonderful, so lush. 509 00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:20,360 And, letterer, was Taylor Esposito, who's lettered, 510 00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:22,560 almost everything I've ever done. 511 00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:23,240 He's my guy. 512 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:27,120 And he's, you know, both Victoria and Taylor 513 00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:30,360 were very patient with Jed and I, both 514 00:25:30,360 --> 00:25:35,800 because we have a vision for this book we know we want it to look like, and it 515 00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,600 we go a few rounds of correction. 516 00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,600 So we're very because we're, you know, 517 00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:46,200 and we pride ourselves in the types of corrections in the notes that we ask for. 518 00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:48,840 This is a we're not bad clients. Right. 519 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,920 And like we're not try that in blue right. 520 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:53,520 You know 521 00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:55,680 let's see it in green actually. Right. 522 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,760 The notes that we give are you know from Jed, 523 00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:03,960 they're things based on lighting effects and focal points. 524 00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,400 They affect focal points on the page and how the page as a whole is read. 525 00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,040 The color notes that I'm giving, for instance, are typically 526 00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:15,360 thematic related in terms of how we're using different colors 527 00:26:15,360 --> 00:26:18,520 and tones at different points in the book, and things 528 00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,720 we want to keep consistent and callback to. 529 00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:22,920 Maybe, you know. Right. 530 00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:28,480 So the notes that we're giving are substantive, 531 00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:32,760 but also based on a try on achieving a specific effect. 532 00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,200 They're not random, they're not uninformed. 533 00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:37,320 Right. And, you know, 534 00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:41,880 Taylor, Taylor's incredibly patient with me, 535 00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,360 and he's learned over the course of years, but it's because we share 536 00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:49,040 we have a shared vision for the power and importance 537 00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:52,120 of good comic book lettering. 538 00:26:52,120 --> 00:26:52,800 Right? Yeah. 539 00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,800 Taylor, too, is a student of, 540 00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,480 Howard Chaikin and Ken Burns acts, collaborations. 541 00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:00,840 Right. 542 00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:06,000 And the way that those guys really innovated the integration 543 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,840 of lettering into comic book design. 544 00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:10,080 Right. 545 00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:13,200 And it's kind of like a and it's it harkens back a little bit to Kurtzman, 546 00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:13,960 Harvey Kurtzman, 547 00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,320 who used to do the layouts himself and draw the word balloons even. 548 00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:17,560 Yeah. 549 00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,240 But I think they really they ratcheted up to another degree 550 00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:23,280 because it impacted page layout 551 00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:26,760 in a way that, you know, Kurtzman typically stuck to a gridded approach. 552 00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:32,320 And Taylor is game, and he's eager to explore 553 00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,960 kind of the outer reaches of what like what counts as comics, right. 554 00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:42,000 Like we do we do captions and word balloons, but we also do charts and graphs 555 00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:47,160 and infographics and weird little displays and breakout boxes and stuff. 556 00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:50,320 Almost like files, which means you kind of if it makes you feel like you have 557 00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,320 like the inside knowledge of the the people in the story don't have. 558 00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:54,960 That's. Well, that's exactly right. 559 00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:56,320 That's I love that you pick that up. 560 00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:57,800 That's exactly the intent, 561 00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,880 you know, because it's the captions are written in a different voice. 562 00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,440 They are they are a different character. 563 00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:06,800 His name is Doctor August Ferrucci. 564 00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:10,680 There's an email address in the back of every issue that you can write in 565 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:14,040 with questions about theory and history, because that's what this is. 566 00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:15,200 It's a history book. 567 00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,480 It's him giving the history of this revolution 568 00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,640 in this new society that grew out of it. 569 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,240 And he knows way more than we do. 570 00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:25,560 He knows how it ends. 571 00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:29,640 But he's parceling information out as relevant 572 00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,800 and to affect reader perceptions. 573 00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:37,360 And sometimes even sometimes to even undercut them 574 00:28:37,360 --> 00:28:40,800 or outright contradict what you're seeing on the page. 575 00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:44,120 And it's again, it's it's a matter of separating. 576 00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:48,840 So like, here's the back, here's the hindsight's 2020 view of what went down. 577 00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,360 And then here's everybody who was theirs. 578 00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:56,080 Separate entirely different perspective on what happened and what it meant. 579 00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:00,080 So not to spoil anything, but are we looking at an unreliable 580 00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:00,960 narrator in that sense? 581 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,880 Does he have an end goal for the reader like, 582 00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:05,160 it's important that the reader believes 583 00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,560 that this certain faction did best type of thing, 584 00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:08,400 and so is 585 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,200 he kind of leading us down a path, 586 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,760 and we're supposed to visually see something different. 587 00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:16,320 You know, I, I struggled and 588 00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:19,120 made every have made every 589 00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,680 effort for all just Ferrucci to play it down the middle. 590 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:23,600 Right. Okay. 591 00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:27,040 And his, his voice and you know, 592 00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,360 and he speaks factually about things, but, the voice of the narrator. 593 00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:35,360 Doctor just Ferrucci he it's the. 594 00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:39,000 So the reason I'm reading, I'm reading the Spanish Civil War by Hugh Thomas. 595 00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:39,680 I'm reading it. 596 00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:41,880 I read it for its second time right now. It's 1200 pages. 597 00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:42,600 It's a monster. 598 00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,480 I read, and I read, so I loved his writing so much. 599 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:47,640 And also it just seemed relevant. 600 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,640 I read his History of Cuba, which goes from like 601 00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,840 when the Spanish when it from the English or vice versa. 602 00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,560 All the way up to like into Castro. 603 00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,200 Right. So it covers a huge amount of time. 604 00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:01,040 It's massive. 605 00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,680 And I love his voice because he makes every effort 606 00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,440 to call it down the middle and to remain objective 607 00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:11,920 cataloger of historical fact. 608 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:13,360 But he struggles, right? 609 00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:17,280 Because it's sometimes there's, you know, you have to go by what people said, 610 00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:19,200 and you trust them and can you believe them? 611 00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:24,080 And different people say different numbers of casualties at this event. 612 00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,680 And, you know, like any, any number of examples. 613 00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:30,640 And, you know, I, I also did quite a bit of Murray Bookchin 614 00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:34,400 reading who is a, an anarchist, 615 00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:40,120 historian and philosopher, and he speaks viciously 616 00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:44,400 about Hugh Thomas's work, about the Spanish Civil War specifically. 617 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:48,360 And he has, like all these civic complaints that I'm sure are correct. 618 00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:48,720 Right. 619 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:51,840 So, like, I guess the point I'm making is are all 620 00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:56,040 just for he, the narrator of the book, he tries to play it down 621 00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,600 the middle and tries to, you know, give a fair accounting of both sides. 622 00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,240 But even that is a choice. 623 00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:03,360 Yeah, that's a good point. 624 00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:04,320 Yeah. Right. 625 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,440 But even even the center part even, like, trying to, like, 626 00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,600 you know, in any kind of political discussion 627 00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:13,200 and even just the center path, that's not a neutral position. 628 00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:14,800 Right? 629 00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:15,120 Yeah. 630 00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:16,200 I mean, I 631 00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:19,080 it reminds me so much not to go off topic, but I'm a big fan of George R.R. 632 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,160 Martin's work, and we have fire and blood out. 633 00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:24,000 And it's all the accounting. It's it's a major. Looking back. 634 00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,200 And it's two main sources for like the dance of the Dragons is the guy 635 00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:30,720 from the brothel like the entertainment from the brothel and the master 636 00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:32,440 and it's like the masters, like, oh, they did things right. 637 00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:34,520 And the guy with the brothers, like, nope, they hooked up. 638 00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:35,800 And so I love that. 639 00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:36,440 And then it's like, 640 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,120 as you're watching, of course, like the show or whatever, you're like, 641 00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:40,920 oh, the guy from the brothel was right every time. 642 00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:43,320 Yeah, I love I'm with you, man, I love and reliable. 643 00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:46,240 Narrator I read for the first time over the pandemic. 644 00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:50,480 I always thought, I always thought during height, if you read Wuthering Heights. 645 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,040 Oh, I haven't yet. No. Okay, so. 646 00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:54,120 Adding it to the list. 647 00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,560 It's like a weird turn to talk about the Bronco Faulkner's. 648 00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,040 But, I read Wuthering Heights for the first time, and as a kid, 649 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:04,080 I always assumed it was like some kind of, like, steamy romance. 650 00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,440 Because the book covers, it's always like this guy, like, you know, 651 00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:11,160 standing in the wind and looking off a cliff, and a woman, and it just. 652 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:13,160 It felt like Jane Austen or something. Yeah. 653 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,600 Like your mom. Steamy now. Novels that you never look at and. 654 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:19,440 Yeah, yeah, it looks like it looks like a boring Fabio cover. 655 00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,840 Oh my God. Yeah. Like, right. Like that's what it looked like. 656 00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:22,240 Classic. 657 00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:26,600 I didn't realize, but he told me he was like, no, dude, you need to read. 658 00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,840 And he like, told me a little bit about it and I read it. 659 00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:32,040 Oh, it is a revenge story 660 00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:36,760 about the hardest, coldest man who's ever lived. 661 00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,800 He's getting over everybody who wronged him. 662 00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:40,320 It's. 663 00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:41,760 It is. 664 00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,840 And the reason I bring it up now is there's layers 665 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,440 of unreliable narrators, because the book is told. 666 00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,240 It's told by her who wrote this stuff down. 667 00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,240 He heard it from the housekeeper 668 00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,680 of this family who's worked for them for like 40 years or something. 669 00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,120 Right? Right. So you've got layers of people you do. 670 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:01,800 You have all these reasons not trust. 671 00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:05,560 You know, I, I hesitate to call the narrator under a light. 672 00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:06,560 What a great question. 673 00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:11,200 I had to call him reliable, but he is biased. 674 00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:13,080 I'll say that every and every. 675 00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:14,600 Every historian is biased. 676 00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:16,200 Yeah, every historian is. 677 00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:17,880 And that's that's absolutely part of it. 678 00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:23,440 And you get to see more of that specific point of view in the back matter. 679 00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,840 Every issue has a few pages of back matter, which is brand 680 00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,200 new essays written by me, but in the voice of doctor 681 00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:35,680 all just for Roshi, with new painted illustrations, 682 00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:38,760 hand-painted traditional media, just like the covers. 683 00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:42,440 New two new painted illustrations from Jed in every issue. 684 00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:44,360 The cover is gorgeous, by the way. 685 00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:46,240 Just to throw that out there, hand painted, you could feel it. 686 00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:47,960 It's definitely. 687 00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:48,920 Jetsam. 688 00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,280 I mean, like, yeah, it's it's obscene. 689 00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:55,640 I keep finding strengths of his that I did not know that he had. 690 00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:56,960 I didn't know he could paint like this. 691 00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,960 He was like, oh, because I was like, you know, we need figure out a colorist 692 00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,440 so we can get this cover done. He's like, oh, you know what? 693 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:04,080 I think I'm going to paint the cover. 694 00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,800 I was like, perfect, do it. Yeah. Yes. 695 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:08,120 And it's like, I don't know. 696 00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:11,040 I try and trip him up sometimes I'll be like, you know what? 697 00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:14,800 Let's do a big Liefeld figure, like full body 698 00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:17,480 on the left side of the page, like floating over the panels. 699 00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:19,080 Right. Liefeld figure go right. 700 00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:20,160 And I think because, like, 701 00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,400 he doesn't draw anything like life out, he doesn't lay out pages like Rob Liefeld. 702 00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:28,880 But goddamn if Jay doesn't nail it every single time, whether it's like 90 703 00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,200 Image comics or 80 seinen manga 704 00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:36,160 or 70s break or Belgian comics like whatever. 705 00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:38,920 Weird stuff. That guy's got a cape. Go. 706 00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:41,200 That's a thing. Like, it's exactly like that, dude. 707 00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:42,760 It's exactly like that. 708 00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,240 There's a thing in that. There's a thing in issue two. 709 00:34:45,240 --> 00:34:47,120 And people will know it when they see it. 710 00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:52,240 But it's I said, you know, out loaded for bare Liefeld style. 711 00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:54,560 Just just load him up with weapons. 712 00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:55,840 Let's see it. Right. 713 00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,520 And he does. And it doesn't look anything like Liefeld. 714 00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,560 But I mean, this is the genius of DJed and I think this is 715 00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:03,920 this is the trick, right? 716 00:35:03,920 --> 00:35:06,200 If you're an artist, inclusive of writers. 717 00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:07,640 Right. If you're if you're creator 718 00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,760 can't ever be trapped in mimicry. 719 00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:14,120 Right. And you avoid this a few ways. 720 00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,960 One is research, one is actual, you know, not watching movies 721 00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,760 or reading other books, but actual research. Right? 722 00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:22,480 Nonfiction reading. 723 00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:27,720 The other one is when you do partake of other fiction, right? 724 00:35:27,720 --> 00:35:31,960 When you read other comics or books or watch movies or TV shows, ensure 725 00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:36,960 that what you're lifting from them is not just surface esthetic. 726 00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:41,160 Ensure that what you're lifting is the foundational aspects of things 727 00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:42,160 and how they work. 728 00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:42,680 So when 729 00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:46,600 when I say to Jed, draw a Liefeld figure, he doesn't pose them like Liefeld. 730 00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,600 He doesn't compose it like Liefeld, but he captured 731 00:35:49,720 --> 00:35:53,520 what works fundamentally about that approach 732 00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:58,040 and then filters it back through his own storytelling esthetic. 733 00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:01,040 And then why did I why did wildlife failed do that then? 734 00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:02,240 That's kind of gives you an idea like, 735 00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:04,680 oh, it's weak to make this thing pop and show. 736 00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,280 Yeah, I see, okay, I guess. That's exactly it. 737 00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:09,280 And he does it with all of this stuff, right? 738 00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,760 Any with any kind of wacky layout I come up with or, you know. 739 00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,600 Oh, I have an idea for this very specific infographic, 740 00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:19,160 and I want you to draw it into the page amid the panels and stuff. 741 00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:20,040 Right. 742 00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:24,240 He is miraculously able to 743 00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,040 better than just following orders. 744 00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:28,800 Right? 745 00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:33,680 Jed recognizes what it is that like the crux of what 746 00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,680 I'm going for and the point of it and why we're including it, 747 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,640 and then he finds a better way to present that on the page. 748 00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:42,960 It's when, you know, partners clash well together. 749 00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,960 I want to give you another quick shout out real quick before we move on too far. 750 00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:47,520 Taylor, your letterer. 751 00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,840 One of the things I yeah amazing with with with talons were bubbles though 752 00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:54,480 typically like when you see Ultron or whatever, 753 00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:58,160 if it's a robotic voice, it's very, very robotic typeface. 754 00:36:58,160 --> 00:36:58,680 Right. 755 00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:00,800 But there was something with talons where it was like I actually had a 756 00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:02,960 like double take on it where I was, you know what? 757 00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:05,520 It is robotic, but it's not so far off everybody else. 758 00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:07,200 And then as you read the book more, you're like, 759 00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:10,880 oh, it's because he's closer to human than you'd expect any robot to be. 760 00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,440 So I was like, it's just not quite human. 761 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:17,200 So it's not full of Ultron, you know, slanted all the stuff that I liked it. 762 00:37:17,240 --> 00:37:18,600 It was a good touch. 763 00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,240 I love, I love it, I love that you brought that up and as a reward, 764 00:37:22,240 --> 00:37:26,280 for being such a perceptive reader, I'm going to claw you into something else. 765 00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:28,560 And Free Plane is loaded with this kind of stuff 766 00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:30,280 because we just layered so much things into it. 767 00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:31,560 It's meant to be explored. 768 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:34,520 Basil who? 769 00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:35,600 You don't. 770 00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:41,160 Oh, you haven't seen this because I don't think he's actually spoken in this issue. 771 00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,440 Basil is the big battle suit. 772 00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:47,320 He's married to Katia, the big, muscly scientist. 773 00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,000 Basil is a doctor. He's the. 774 00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:51,520 He's the doctor for the Freedom Guard. 775 00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:53,960 He's trapped in this giant metal suit. 776 00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:54,880 You don't know what? 777 00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:57,600 Like the big pink eye is either one of the big key guys. Correct? 778 00:37:57,600 --> 00:37:59,760 It's like a porthole that he looks out of. 779 00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:00,840 And we do not know. 780 00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:03,720 We do not know why he's in that yet. That'll come later. 781 00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:04,880 That'll get revealed later. 782 00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:10,840 As with as well, a lot of stuff, but, a little spoiler when he's so Talon 783 00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:15,800 has normal like human word balloons, but a different font. 784 00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:16,680 Okay, 785 00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:20,160 Basil in the big battle 786 00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:24,120 suit has a normal font, but different word balloons. 787 00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:26,720 Oh, so. Like almost going through a speaker, then it's like a human going. 788 00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:28,440 That's exactly right. That's exactly right. 789 00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:30,360 So it's so you get it, you get a couple. 790 00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,000 So, you know, you get a couple different perspectives. 791 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:38,600 You get on the you get you get the the machine becoming human. 792 00:38:38,720 --> 00:38:39,000 Yeah. 793 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,480 And you get the human trapped in a machine. 794 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:43,280 Right. 795 00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:47,880 And this is and this is and this is why, this is why Taylor puts up with me. 796 00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:48,680 Because it's two. 797 00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:50,160 It's two and end. Right. 798 00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,960 It's just it's not just try a different font. 799 00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:54,160 Right. Yeah. Yeah. 800 00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:55,680 What maybe is were balloons a little different? 801 00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:57,440 Right. It's to a specific end. 802 00:38:57,440 --> 00:38:59,640 It's to a specific effect I was talking to. 803 00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,720 So I'm gonna I'm gonna drop a name. 804 00:39:01,720 --> 00:39:03,520 Sorry, I've already dropped a few, but, 805 00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,200 Yeah, he gave us a blurb, so I feel like he giving me a blurb. 806 00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:09,480 Sorry. I feel like it's fair for me to drop the name Jonathan Lethem. 807 00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:10,400 Incredible. 808 00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:13,400 He's one of my favorite novelists, and I'm, 809 00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:15,240 I've known for many years because I was fortunate enough 810 00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:18,520 to work on Omega the unknown that he did it. 811 00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:19,680 Did he wrote it? Marvel. 812 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:23,800 I added a assistant editor on that book, and I've kept in touch with him, 813 00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,800 and I was showing him Free Planet. 814 00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:28,360 I printed out a bunch of books. 815 00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,200 I wanted to see it in print, right, to be able to read it properly. 816 00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,200 So I had like colored printouts, and they brought him to his house, and, 817 00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:36,120 he made ham sandwiches, and we're looking at this thing 818 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:37,800 and chit chatting about it. So. 819 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:39,000 Yeah, it was pretty cool. 820 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,240 And he says, he says, 821 00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:42,880 I was 822 00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,680 telling him, you know, I'm were I worry every issue. 823 00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:50,240 The Vittorio and Taylor are going to quit on us. 824 00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:51,640 He's like, why? 825 00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,040 I was like, because I was like, because I'm not just a nightmarish micromanager. 826 00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:59,320 Because, like, I, and judge as bad as I am because we have a specific idea 827 00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:01,760 of what we want to accomplish here and what we want to be doing. 828 00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:02,520 And he stopped me. 829 00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,520 He says, no, no, no, no, no, you're an auteur. 830 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:08,360 Yeah, that sounds better. Let's go, let's go. Yeah. 831 00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:10,800 Well, what do you see a driver like that you can like, oh, this is fine art. 832 00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:12,120 Okay, I get it. You did? 833 00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:14,800 Yeah. That's right. 834 00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:15,480 So. Yeah. No. 835 00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:17,120 It's awful. It's. Yeah. 836 00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:18,480 Those guys are incredible. 837 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:23,160 Like, the book would not work without the Taurean and Taylor. 838 00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,880 And their contributions to this thing are immense. 839 00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:29,680 And it's felt to, I'm going to throw my name out this that you drop a name for us. 840 00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:29,920 Go ahead. 841 00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:33,120 Robert Kirkman's got a blurb at the back of this thing too. 842 00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:35,160 So make sure you guys check that out. 843 00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:36,960 Good one. To. Me, I can. 844 00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:38,400 I was, like, insanely hyper. 845 00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,240 Yeah. Go for it's insanely high praise. 846 00:40:40,240 --> 00:40:44,120 All the posts and it's on the poster and I have it up above my desk. 847 00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,680 Guys, I'm just a shameless mark for, but I. 848 00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:48,440 Would, you know, I'm stoked. Man. 849 00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:49,600 I'm so stoked about this thing. 850 00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:53,160 Rich, intricate world building. 851 00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,360 Yeah, it is equal parts Dune, Clermont 852 00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:59,880 and saga while being wholly original. 853 00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:00,800 I mean. 854 00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:02,400 That is good, That is insane. 855 00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,160 Yeah, that's pretty. 856 00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:04,560 Are we. 857 00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:07,080 To argue with Robert the Robert Kurtz I know. 858 00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:09,640 And look at it. Well, he knows how to do space opera stuff. 859 00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:11,160 You knows what he's doing, man. 860 00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:11,760 Yeah. 861 00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:16,080 No, it it means a lot, you know, it's free planet is a big swing. 862 00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:18,000 It's something it's different. 863 00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,880 I think I started off this interview by saying there's not. 864 00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,240 There aren't other books like Free Planet out there right now, 865 00:41:24,240 --> 00:41:27,840 and I don't I don't know if I've ever seen one that's like Free Planet. 866 00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:28,200 It's. 867 00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,360 Yeah, it's designed differently. 868 00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:32,360 It's designed to operate differently. 869 00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:33,480 And it's a lot. 870 00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:36,080 It's not a book. You you burn through quickly. 871 00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:41,600 It's not a breezy read, but that's by design because it's, you know, 872 00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:44,280 things need to be, 873 00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,080 you know, if you want to chew on something that needs to be substantive. 874 00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:48,000 Yeah, right. 875 00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,520 What a weird what a weird, what a weird metaphor. 876 00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,080 But we're. Stick with it, man. Yeah, it's. But it's. 877 00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,400 Yeah, it's a big, chewy piece of meat free planet. 878 00:41:57,600 --> 00:41:59,680 And you got to you got to ruminate on it, man. 879 00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:01,400 Like a cow chew that could. 880 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,800 And it's it needed to be dense to accomplish that. 881 00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,400 But I recognize that that's not a popular flavor right now. 882 00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:08,760 It's something different. 883 00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,720 A buddy of mine referred to it as counter-programming. 884 00:42:11,720 --> 00:42:12,440 Yeah. 885 00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:16,080 But if it has a moment right now, I would say like a really good 886 00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:20,040 example is absolute man, Martian, and no Martian, the Martian Manhunter. 887 00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:21,480 Great book. Gorgeous. 888 00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:23,080 But that is kind of what I'm getting 889 00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:25,680 with this, where it's like, this is closer to art. 890 00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,200 It's more of a statement than it is for your flash in the pan, 891 00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:30,840 read out real fast comic book, you know, and I think, 892 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:32,600 I think there might not be something before, 893 00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:35,840 but there is something coming up where this book fits perfectly in it. 894 00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:37,440 Hell yeah. I love hearing that, brother. 895 00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,720 And that's why it's been, you know, it is different. 896 00:42:39,720 --> 00:42:40,440 It's new, 897 00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:44,200 and that's why it's meant so much to have all these blurbs from people 898 00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:44,840 that they get it. 899 00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,400 You know that, like that, folks who are so well placed in the industry 900 00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:52,200 and so knowledgeable about comics and how they operate, 901 00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:53,680 the fact that they recognize 902 00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:57,240 that this is something worthwhile and this is something different and worth 903 00:42:57,240 --> 00:43:00,480 paying attention to, is enormously gratifying. 904 00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:01,720 I'm stoked. 905 00:43:01,720 --> 00:43:04,720 I'm stoked for everybody else to get to read this thing finally. 906 00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:06,320 Which you guys will be able to read this. 907 00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,160 It's going to be on May 7th. 908 00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,320 You guys can pick it up online, but I, of course 909 00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:14,000 recommend you guys go to your local comic book shop and put on this. 910 00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:15,640 But I want to make that I've been interrupted. 911 00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:16,320 Make that even stronger. 912 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:17,880 Don't read this online. 913 00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:19,400 It's going to be a nightmare. 914 00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:21,880 It's yeah, charts and graphs and too much text. 915 00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,320 And crucially, there's so many spreads. 916 00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:25,480 And the simple fact of the matter is 917 00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:29,560 you cannot appreciate a comic book spread digitally. 918 00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,880 Yeah, the aspect ratios of whatever it is you're reading it on are off, 919 00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:36,880 and you cannot appreciate the entirety of a spread. 920 00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:38,640 And that's how this thing was built around. 921 00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:42,120 It's built around you sitting on your couch, spending some time 922 00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:46,600 with it, poring over this thing, being able to flip back and forth easily. 923 00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:47,680 That's how it was designed. 924 00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:51,120 And you're robbing yourself of that if you read it digitally. 925 00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,520 I so just, you know, behind the scenes, I get everything as a PDF to kind of, 926 00:43:54,560 --> 00:43:56,600 you know, read it beforehand. Sorry for you. 927 00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,840 I have to like I always like to zoom in a lot. 928 00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,600 So I get like kind of bubble by bubbles, like I really kind of absorb each of them. 929 00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:03,480 But then I kept zoom back out. 930 00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:05,080 Yeah, what a nightmare. What terror. 931 00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:09,760 I tell people it's actively hostile to digital media effectively. 932 00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:10,680 Thank you. One more. 933 00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:11,400 Can I give one more? 934 00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:13,920 I know you're trying to get me out of here. Now you're get for spoiler. 935 00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:18,680 We do the spinning book gimmick. 936 00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:20,960 Oh. You're on. Yeah, the whole book spent. 937 00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,960 The whole book spins around, right, I hate it. 938 00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:25,720 It's, Yeah, I started doing it. 939 00:44:25,720 --> 00:44:27,800 I was like, why more people do this? And I. 940 00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:29,600 And then I got halfway through, I'm like, oh, I get it. 941 00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:30,880 It's difficult. 942 00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,520 It's very difficult to plot out and plan. 943 00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:35,920 And that's impossible with digital to. 944 00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:36,880 And that's the other thing. 945 00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,400 It's I don't know what it's going to look like in digital, 946 00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:41,320 but it doesn't matter because it's not how it's meant to be read, 947 00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:45,040 you know, and like, even and because the way we read, 948 00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:48,040 we read left to right in this country. 949 00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:49,560 So the way that you would want it to 950 00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:53,520 spin is the opposite direction that PDF reader spin it. 951 00:44:53,720 --> 00:44:56,440 So in order to read it digitally, your ass is going to, 952 00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,160 but you get your preview copy, you're going to have to hit, 953 00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:01,600 you're going to have to hit the spin button. 954 00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:02,000 What, 955 00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:04,440 three times, I don't know. 956 00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:07,160 Yeah. Like I and this time all. The way back around to. 957 00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:09,400 Get it time every single time to. Get it. 958 00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,560 How do we take of you Aubrey. It's terrible. 959 00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:12,560 It's dreadful. 960 00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:14,480 Do not read the digital version. 961 00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:15,920 You hate yourself. 962 00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:17,800 I'm going to be getting the paper version first. 963 00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:19,080 Oh, yes. By then. 964 00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:20,160 Yeah. May 7th. 965 00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:21,560 Make sure you guys had your local phone book shop. 966 00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,480 If you have to go to free, go to image.com. 967 00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:25,760 We'll have all the links in the description as well. 968 00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:26,920 Image comics.com. Okay. 969 00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:28,960 Thank you so much for joining me to Aubrey. 970 00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,520 I had a great blast. Thank you for having me. 971 00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:34,360 All right, guys, again, free planet local car workshop May 7th 972 00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:36,960 link in the description. We'll see you guys next week. Bye.