Adam Wallenta Interview - Punk Taco

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[00:00:55] Hello and welcome to Comic Book Yeti's Cryptid Creator Corner. I am one of your hosts, Jimmy Gasparo, and I am very excited about today's guest. It's their first time on the podcast and I've been lucky enough to meet this individual at Baltimore Comic Con. They have a fantastic comic book that they wrote and they worked on with his son.

[00:01:18] And it's, I believe in 2019, it won the Ringo Award at Baltimore for, I think, Best Kids Comic or Graphic Novel. It's called Punk Taco. And there's two volumes, but we're going to talk all about it. We're going to talk about Paper Cuts as publishing it. And we're going to talk about a bunch of other stuff, I think. But please, welcome to the podcast, Adam Olenta. Adam, how are you doing today? I'm good. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

[00:01:46] Yeah, so this Punk Taco has kind of had, I think, an interesting journey in terms of, you know, volume one, volume two. We do put these on YouTube. So sorry to the podcast listeners, but if you're watching this on YouTube, I do have my copy.

[00:02:09] And you can see it's a sizable tome, and it's absolutely beautifully illustrated. It's so fun in terms of the character of Punk Taco, the colors, the other characters that you find in both volumes. But yeah, why don't we start with kind of the interesting journey that Punk Taco has had?

[00:02:35] So Punk Taco was created with my son, Makana, when he was five years old, approaching six. And it was just one of those days that we were hanging out, playing. I was a stay-at-home dad at the time, freelancer pretty much all my life. So I worked from home and took care of my son when he was young. And we were just hanging out, playing with toys and Legos and action figures.

[00:03:02] And I had this name kind of rattling around in the back of my head for a long time. I wasn't quite sure what it was. And I had just casually mentioned it to him. And he just started cracking up laughing. And then he started coming up with ideas for characters and who Punk Taco was and, you know, what he would be like.

[00:03:22] And, you know, started doing drawings and and it just came to life really organically as far as like, you know, just hanging out with a five-year-old and coming up with crazy ideas. And he was shooting off so many ideas and I was recording them on my phone and I would write down notes and we would act out little scenes. And we had so many that we we couldn't even fit it into the first book.

[00:03:49] And that ended up being inspiration for the second book as well. But as this was all happening, you know, like the first day and, you know, I was seeing the light in his eyes and the excitement. And over the next couple of weeks when we were developing, you know, the characters more and drawing pictures together.

[00:04:08] And, you know, I started putting together his ideas into a format that would be acceptable for, you know, an actual book because, you know, he was he was young. He didn't know how to write a beginning, middle and end. But he just knew from his own reading experience, the types of things that you like to see, excuse me, and read. And I was kind of contemplating, you know, what to do with it. And, you know, I had been in publishing for many years.

[00:04:38] I started out at Marvel and I did stuff for DC and I self-published and had my own company. And I thought, you know, the possibility of pitching it to other companies to see if they would be interested. And then I just started to think about the entire process of publishing and how long it can take. You know yourself as someone who writes and pitches stories.

[00:05:04] You know, you can get 100 rejections, you can get one acceptance. And even then it could take years before it even sees the light of day. And as I was doing all this with my son, I just kept thinking about, you know, do I want to do that because he's going to grow up quick? It's basically what it comes down to.

[00:05:27] Like, I want to create something with him while he has this energy, while he has this excitement and inspiration. So I decided that we would self-publish it and see how it goes. And then if, you know, if it does really well or if anyone's interested, then maybe we can, you know, reevaluate later.

[00:05:47] So we decided on how much we wanted to invest in the project, you know, from a publisher perspective and how much time I could commit to, you know, helping, you know, bring this thing to life. I had actually been working on another graphic novel. I was 200 pages in, fully penciled, inks and colors. I was working on those at the same time. And I put that down. I put it on the shelf and I haven't even gone back to it since.

[00:06:16] Oh, wow. I've been working on Punk Taco ever since. So we self-published the first book and we got a great response from fans at conventions. Back up real quick. Punk Taco, I felt like was probably the best work of my career. Funny enough, I'd been all of my books in the past that I've self-published have been distributed through Diamond.

[00:06:46] Punk Taco was the first book that was rejected by Diamond. They originally told me that they had no idea how to distribute it or, you know, who the audience would be for. They just basically shut me down. So I had ordered all these books with the assumption that they were going to distribute it and they didn't. And so I got stuck with all these, you know, graphic novels in my garage at the time. And I was talking about the journey, the ups and downs of creating this book. Yeah.

[00:07:14] And that same year as we're going through around conventions and we're, you know, promoting it ourselves because we have like 2000 copies of these books in our house and no distributor. And so we start submitting to different awards.

[00:07:35] The first award we submitted to was the Kids Comics Award, which was hosted by the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival in Michigan, which is a great comic arts festival out of the library there. And it's just an amazing experience. And we actually got nominated and it's a it was an award that was voted on by kids completely. No, no adults at all. So that was really exciting. We were. That's awesome.

[00:08:02] We were teamed up with, you know, or we were nominated alongside some really great graphic novels that we had been fans of some really all, you know, professionally. You know, what I do with that, what I do is professional. I should say big publishers. You know, I consider self-publishers professional as well, even though a lot of people look down at us sometimes. So we were up against big publishers like Scholastic and Random House and some others.

[00:08:31] And so it was a two day weekend out in Michigan and we drove there. We drove it was like 16 hour drive from Connecticut to Michigan. It was Father's Day weekend and the award ceremony was on Sunday, which was Father's Day. And to our surprise, we actually won. And that was really, you know, the best way, you know, you know, as a parent, you know, the best possible way you can celebrate Father's Day was being amongst, you know, some amazing peers.

[00:08:59] You know, the pennies were there from ElfQuest and just a ton of talent was it was in the house. And to win that award with my son was was the best thing ever. Shortly after we were nominated for a Ringo Award. And at that point, we had my wife had switched jobs. We flew out. We drove. We moved out to California. And so when we got nominated for the Ringo Award, we had to fly back to Baltimore for that.

[00:09:29] And that was an amazing experience. It was a very late night. I think the kids comics award was like the last award that they handed out. And it was like something like midnight by that point, because, you know, comic people like to talk. And as you can tell, and and we actually won. And so, you know, my son, who was what was he, six or seven at that point.

[00:09:55] And, you know, he got to stay up really late with a bunch of adults. And he thought it was the coolest thing ever. We got to go up on stage together and accept the award from from Tom King, I believe, was was the presenter at the time. And just an amazing experience. And again, we were up against, you know, all creators and books that we were fans of. And just to be in their presence was was humbling.

[00:10:23] And so at that point, we figured, oh, maybe we have something, you know, maybe people like this book. And so we started to shop it around to agents and other publishers to see if they can take it to another level. Because, you know, like I said, I think I the initial print run was like 2000 copies. And that's nothing in the grand scheme of things as far as, you know, book distribution.

[00:10:53] At this point, we were getting close to selling out and I had to make a decision if we were going to reprint it or see if another publisher picked it up. So I waited a little while. We got over 100 rejections. You know, every major publisher rejected it. Every agent rejected, rejected us. Despite the, you know, the as I call it, market testing that we did for them free of charge.

[00:11:20] Yeah, I mean, that's that's just remarkable about, you know, the publishing industry, like the side of it that folks, you know, don't know. Like you hear a lot. Oh, I had a lot of rejections, you know, as like a new creator. Yeah, but to think you would, you know, I was like 25 years in the business at that point. And yeah, I have an award winning book, you know, you know, my son helped, you know, we co created it together.

[00:11:47] And I felt like, oh, that's kind of like that's like different. Right. Not many people, not many young people have had their hand in this type of thing. And like I said, we did the market testing for them. We've won awards and it wasn't like our reach was so far that, you know, they can make the argument. Oh, you already published. You know, what else are we going to do with it? Well, if I'm not mistaken, there's probably like a million other children out there that haven't even seen or heard of this book.

[00:12:15] So if you can't do anything with it, you're telling me you're not very good at your job. Right. So right. Which that's what they told me. So, so we ended up, uh, I reached back out or actually diamond reached out to me and I go, well, we'll distribute it now. You know, now that we have an award and everything, a couple of awards and everything. So I decided, all right, well, I'll reprint it, uh, since diamond is going to distribute it.

[00:12:41] Uh, cause we sold out of the first run at this point and I placed an order for another, another run, uh, print of the first volume. And that's when the pandemic hit and diamond shut down. And, and we went six, eight, nine months, something like that without any hearing from them at all. Even though I had placed this order for like 2000 more books. Jeez.

[00:13:07] So now I'm stuck with more books and, uh, no, and the distributor is missing. Finally, they, they got back to me and you know, they had a very small order because they were on the downward at that point. Right. Once COVID hit and then, you know, now they're bankrupt and everything else. But at that point I had already been working on volume two, hoping that maybe another publisher would, would pick us up.

[00:13:34] And, uh, I ran another, the first one was partly funded by Kickstarter. The second one, we decided to go with Kickstarter again because of the rejections. Um, it was almost twice the size as the first book. And, um, and then when that came out, we submitted it to the awards again and we got nominated for another Ringo for best kids comic for the second book. Um, by that point we actually moved back to Connecticut.

[00:14:01] So that's where the books were delivered and, uh, we were doing conventions and everything else. And, um, we didn't win that Ringo award. Uh, so that was, that was a different experience. So, um, when we won the first one, I had to explain to my son, listen, we were probably not going to win this. Right. You don't want to get their hopes up and sure. And then we won and then he gets, you know, he gets a little ego boost as do I, you know, and you're like, oh, that's, that's awesome.

[00:14:28] And then the second one, we're like, oh, maybe we'll win this one. And then we didn't. So that's the other side. It's like, oh, now you experienced loss, which is, is good for character building. They say, um, but it was a great time. We had a lot of fun. Uh, any, anytime you're around that many creative people, it's always a good experience. Um, so we were working on book three and actually I was working as a teacher.

[00:14:55] I, when we moved back to Connecticut, I got a job as an art teacher. I had taught off and on over the years. Um, and I went back to teaching full time. And towards the end of my, my year teaching, when we moved back, I got a call from my old friend, Mike Martz, who, um, is the editor in chief of mad cave studios. Um, and he asked me if I wanted to come back to the world of publishing, uh, full time.

[00:15:24] I had worked with Mike at Marvel. I started out as an intern there and I, I worked as a colorist, as a assistant, uh, editor off and on and various other jobs. So we've known each other for, you know, close to 30 years. And, um, he made me an offer and it was really difficult because I actually love teaching. I love, you know, working with kids and it's inspiring to me as an artist to, you know,

[00:15:51] see their creative energy and, and, and work with them. And, you know, I try to inspire them. They inspire me. Um, and I had, I was at a great school that I really loved. Uh, both of my kids were there, so I got to teach with my kids. Um, so it was a real, real hard decision to make. And I balanced it out with, you know, the idea of having been a self publisher for so long

[00:16:15] and having the door to bigger publishers close to me off and on. Um, I wanted to be able to be that foot in the door for my fellow creators. Um, so I went from, you know, I had to kind of give up my love for teaching to try to be an advocate for, you know, fellow creators and not a teacher for them because hopefully anyone that's, you know, pitching, they already know what they're doing.

[00:16:44] They're on the verge of being a professional if they're not already professionals. Um, but I, I could be that, that advocate and that foot in the door for people. Um, so I went back to publishing and can paper cuts. And, uh, I had to go through the whole process just like anyone else pitching my book. You know, I may have had a little bit of an upper hand as far as bringing punk taco to paper cuts, but I, I did have to go through the whole process and you know, the, the big

[00:17:12] bosses had to check it out, see if it was worthwhile, see if it was something they wanted to invest in. And luckily they did. And, uh, so we decided to, um, reprint the original punk taco material and I wanted to add new material to it. And we rebranded it as punk taco adventures. Um, and we have the first volume that just came out, uh, which is this one and it contains

[00:17:39] all the original material and the first book as well as two brand new stories, uh, which I'm really excited about and proud of. And then we have the second volume coming out, um, later this year or we're sending it to print next month. Um, yeah, next month. So I'm frantically trying to, to, uh, resize the book right now because, uh, the original version, uh, you know, if I have one around here is much bigger than the, uh, then, than this version.

[00:18:09] So, so yeah, so punk taco has had this really long journey and, um, you know, from being just an idea hanging out, you know, with, with my son to, you know, self publishing to winning these awards to getting rejected endlessly by, you know, everyone. And then finding a home at paper cuts, which, uh, I'm really, really happy, uh, to have that opportunity.

[00:18:36] So, and I can still get to work with my son and my, my, uh, youngest who is 10 now. He also contributed to the new book. And so I get to work with him. And so that's really exciting. Oh, that's awesome. Uh, I mean, I was going to say it, it is remarkable in terms of like that journey from everything that you, you know, just talked about from the initial story ID and the comic and self

[00:19:02] publishing and, and like winning the awards, getting the rejections. Like you have, you have, you have had like the whole experience, almost like every experience that creators, lots more downs, like could have. And it's like one of those economy charts where it goes. Right. And I mean, I think some people know like how difficult it is in terms of publishing

[00:19:28] um, you know, making anything is difficult, but it's, there still is something about hearing when you have like a book that people really seem to love where it's, it's winning awards and still, you know, getting rejected by publishers. It's, it's wild. If I could share some of the, the, the, like my, like, so I had an agent briefly in that time that we were pitching to some of, you know, in between the, the reprint of the

[00:19:55] first volume and the, um, in between that and the second volume. And, uh, so she did pitch it a ride. And it took years to get an agent and tons of rejections. And I, I, I forget to mention her and I won't say the name because she ended up dropping me actually because of all the rejections from the publishers. Um, so rather than, you know, actually believing in me and, and, and sticking with me.

[00:20:23] And she said some really crazy things, which I, I can't share, um, to the public. Uh, but it was, it was like someone stabbed me in the back and in the heart at the same time, but she would send me these rejections. And some of the rejections would be like, I don't like the artwork. I don't get the humor. I don't think kids are going to like this. And this is after we won, you know, kids comics awards and Ringo awards for best kids comic and all that stuff.

[00:20:50] And I'm just like, wow, like, I don't know what any of these people want, or I don't know what they think. I don't know if they even read the book. Like, um, it was just crazy. The, the, the wild thing about it, like, and having the copy of punk taco to the big, you know, hard cover, uh, you know, sitting next to me here and having looked through it earlier. It is, I mean, it is, it is just, it is so much fun.

[00:21:20] Like you see it on a shelf. It is the artwork is so eye catching. The colors are so bright. The humor is a perfect mix of like little kid would find this funny humor. But there's also like, there are some, what I'll say dad references, you know, snuck in there that a kid would just read right through and they wouldn't necessarily get, cause they

[00:21:46] wouldn't be old enough to get, you know, the, the name that's being referenced. But parents reading it with their kids would certainly get it. The kids would probably laugh cause the parents are laughing along with some of the stuff. Like it's just, it's just silly enough. Um, and it, but with, you know, a ton of heart, it has, as has that superhero aspect to it where we're, we're taking on King Booger.

[00:22:16] We're, we're, we're fighting. Yeah. However, I don't know if it's Booger or Boogar or whatever, but Boogar is kind of what Boogar, but it has just enough of all these like elements. And the thing I like about it is that it, it definitely has like the kid sense of humor, but the perfect example is, um, like, like punk tacos, like a little bit, you know, sarcastic.

[00:22:44] It's not, it's not, it's not just like, it's not just like little kid humor. Like, I think in the second book, they meet a character, I think they're fighting like a robot. Then it's revealed that the robot is really a character called like cuddles, like see any, you know, and I don't, I, it caught me so off guard. I remember reading it when punk taco is just like cuddles, like snuggly hugs, just like just

[00:23:10] the, the way it's all presented and it's, you know, and, and punk tacos got his music and it's, it's, you know, and, uh, the back of the second book is great when he's on your version of David Letterman. And, um, I think it's like Dan Wordman, uh, whatever, but you know, and he's going through all his, like, he's coming up with a different origin story, like sophisticated, they're sophisticated

[00:23:36] kind of bits, but that kids would still find funny. And the, you know, the, and the artwork is great. All the characters are outrageous. They, they all look like something that it was either well constructed by an artist who's been doing it for 30 years. But with just enough of, you know, a kid had downtime and they just gave them like paper and crayons and let his imagination or her imagination run wild.

[00:24:06] It is. It, and I, like I told you, I think before we started recording that I, when I got this at Baltimore off, you know, from you when you were there at the convention and I think you, you wrote something very nice inside and you and your son signed it and drew a little punk taco in there. And I think Charlotte read it, but I don't think Penny ever read it. I think like after Charlotte read it, we had put it on, you know, the shelf and, you know,

[00:24:34] as, as what happens, like kids, my kids in particular get a ton of books and sometimes you forget to, you know, pull them off the shelf. And she saw this as I walked, you know, past her to go get ready for this podcast. And she's like, what is that? You know, Penny's eight years old and I'm like, oh, it's punk taco. I'm going to this, you know, this, the, the person I'm interviewing created it with his

[00:25:03] son and I'm going to go interview him. It's called pump taco. And she's looking at it and she goes, well, I want to read that when you're done. And that's all she saw. She, she, and she heard punk taco. She saw the cover. She's eight years old. She, you know, loves all kinds of books and comic books. She's read the never girls. I think it is with like Tinkerbell and she's read a bunch of other chapter books.

[00:25:28] She's read a, my little pony comics, you know, into the spider verse stuff. She'll, she'll read all kinds of things. And she saw it. And just instantly it was like, that's awesome. Drew her right to it. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you know, you kind of touched on it. We, we, we wanted right from the start, even when McKenna was young, like I would read him everything. I was home with him all the time, 24 seven.

[00:25:54] I mean, we read everything from, you know, regular, you know, Spider-Man and Captain America, you know, omnibuses, you know, old stuff, like hardly any, any new stuff. Like this is before he was even reading on his own. I would just sit and read to him. And I, we, we read like all the elf quest volumes, like stuff that probably kids shouldn't be, you know, reading, but like he just would sit there and absorb it all.

[00:26:21] So he had a really great attention span for, you know, long winded comics. And like, that's what he grew up enjoying. Like comics with words, you know, stuff by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas and Chris Claremont, you know? Um, so when he started to find his own comics or, or when we started to look at stuff that

[00:26:41] was more for his age group, it, it wasn't always, um, didn't always have like enough words in it. Like the younger comics are often very sparse and like, so he would, he would enjoy them. He would, but he would blow through them and it wasn't stuff that he was really always going back to. There were some books like Owly, which has no words. Like we write, read Owly hundreds and hundreds of times.

[00:27:08] Um, three thieves was another one that we absolutely loved, which were republished republishing at, uh, paper cuts. Um, what that's one of my all time favorites. Um, same thing with Harrow bear. Um, but we wanted to make a book that kids who just love to be read to their parents or adults, grownups can read it to them and enjoy it. The kids will enjoy it.

[00:27:34] And as they get older, the reason why we did that big hardcover format was because we wanted something, you know, virtually indestructible that a kid, you know, they can read it with their parents. And as they start to, you know, they'll put it on the shelf and they'll rediscover it when they're, when they're learning how to read, they'll pull it back off. And they'll be like, Oh, now I can read this on my own and they'll pick up on things and enjoy it. And then, you know, maybe they'll put it away and then they'll rediscover it in middle school. Right.

[00:28:00] Like, and be like, Hey, I remember reading this and they'll, maybe they'll catch up, catch on to things that, that they missed, you know, the first time or the second time around. So we wanted it to be something, you know, I don't know if I want to use the word sophisticated, but like we wanted it to be a book that kids can grow with and, and, and as they get older, they're still going to enjoy it. We've had kids, we've had teenagers buy the book at, you know, shows like Baltimore. We've had adults without kids buy it and enjoy it.

[00:28:31] So we, whenever someone says, even now, like I struggle as an editor, sometimes people like, Oh, what, what's the age range of this book? And, you know, we had those boxes, you know, seven to 12, we're 12 to whatever. And sure. I'm like, to me, it's an all ages book. It's a young kid could look at the pictures and enjoy it. A kid who's learning how to read can pick up words and enjoy it. Middle school, high school, you know, if you like to smile, if you like to laugh, you can pick it up and enjoy it.

[00:29:02] So, and it, and it really depends on the reading level more so than the age, right? You know, not every eight year old reads at the same reading level. Um, not every middle school kid reads at the same reading level. So we wanted it to be something that kids can learn from it and, and use it as a tool. And we've had teachers tell us that they use it, you know, in their classroom to, to teach, you know, reading as well as like social, emotional, you know, relationship, you know, learning and, and all that stuff. So, you know, I'm really proud of it.

[00:29:32] I think it's a, um, you know, it's something that I created with my son. So of course I'm, I'm just proud of it from, from that standpoint, but I think we, we achieved our goal. Um, and we created something for everybody. I, you know, I, I agree. I think it's, I think it's fantastic. Like from the moment I first heard about it. Um, I just thought it was just a fantastic concept. I love the story of you and Makana, you know, creating it together.

[00:30:01] Um, I mean, if you started this when he was six, I mean, he's got to be in his early team now. Yeah. He's 14. So what's kind of his, like, has he grown like with comic books and then reading other things for school? Like what's his relationship with it now? You know, either continuing to work on stories or. Yeah. So we, we work on stories together.

[00:30:27] There are a lot of times we're still, because we, things move slowly, we're still mining some of the original ideas from, you know, the really, you know, the first day, right? Like, and, um, so we have book three, which may end up being book three and four. It's, it's much bigger than even book two is. Um, so we've been working on that for a couple of years now, uh, off and on.

[00:30:55] And, uh, the artwork is, you know, it's all penciled. Uh, I've been inking it and having it colored at the same time and we'll get together and we'll look at pages and we'll work on the dialogue and, uh, the jokes and we'll make sure everything is, you know, funny to us. And, um, I mean, his day to day as a 14 year old, you know, freshman in high school is really focusing on school at this point. So that's, that's his priority in his education.

[00:31:25] Um, he goes to all the, you know, almost all the books signings and conventions with me, as long as he doesn't have a, uh, you know, a sports game. Um, and he hangs out and talks to kids, signs books. And, um, he's a bit quieter these days. You know, when he was young, he was much more energetic. Now he's much cooler and reserved. And, uh, you know, um, that's, I know from a teenager. Um, sure, sure.

[00:31:55] But he, you know, deep down he's, he still loves going to all those things. You know, his younger brother, Kayla, um, actually wrote, well, he didn't write. He, he came up with the whole idea for what will either be the fourth book or the fifth book. So whether we break the next one up into two books or not is to be determined. Uh, but he wrote the, a big story and came up with all these ideas and I have it all recorded and it's, it's really funny.

[00:32:22] And so now his younger brother's contributing. And like I said, they did, uh, held me out with a new story in the, in the, this reprinted or the republished book by paper cuts, um, which I'm really proud of. And, uh, so yeah, day to day, he's, he's always looking over my shoulder to some degree and making, you know, keeping an eye on me and I'm always going to him for, you know, I run everything by him first before anything happens, whether it's a, you know, a promotional

[00:32:51] thing or, or a new idea for the book. Um, so yeah, we, we have a lot of fun together. It's he's growing up and, uh, I don't know if it's going to be his thing where he, you know, wants to become a professional in this business or he's really good at other things and has other interests, um, that he's discovered on his own that I'm really proud of. So, yeah, we'll see how it goes. I just try to support him and, you know, at the very least we created something cool together

[00:33:20] that we will always have that experience. And, you know, that's, that's the important thing to me. Oh yeah. I mean, as a dad, there's just, you know, nothing better than, you know, the thing to have that experience and that, I'm in that time, you know, really, you know? Yeah. And then like going back to what I said originally, I didn't want to go around pitching it because I just wanted to have some time with him to create. And it was purely innocent. It wasn't like I was trying to make money.

[00:33:48] I didn't know if the book would be successful or I wasn't, I wasn't even concerned with it. I was just like, I already create books and that takes up a lot of my time. So if I'm going to do this, let me create something with my son and see what happens. So, like I said, this, this book in particular, this, this paper cuts version. Um, one of the thing that makes it really special is we have a, this new story in it and like, you know, Makuna contributed, uh, artwork to it.

[00:34:17] His brother did as well, but we also got a bunch of other amazing cartoonists involved. So there's this new story is about the world of art. Um, the wonder of art here. And it starts off with punk taco and bash and they're at a museum and they're looking at, you know, during the modern art section and bash is like looking at something and he's like, I don't get it. You know, and we've all kind of been there looking at art, um, depending on what we like.

[00:34:46] And sometimes we'll look at something and be like, why is that in a museum? Right. I mean, I'm an artist and I could admit, like, I felt like that at times. And so punk taco then breaks down, like how every artist is different and how every viewer is different. And, and, and we all see things, you know, through our own experiences and our own likes and dislikes. And so what was really fun about this story was, um, we did it in the traditional punk taco style, but then we got a bunch of friends to contribute.

[00:35:16] You know, so like Franco, uh, from tiny Titans, he did some work and Mike, uh, Cavallaro and Shane Campos, um, Mike Compa, who does Harrow Bear did, did artwork. And so punk taco is so great. Yeah. Punk taco is talking to all of his, to his friend about how every artist interprets things differently or art Baltazar, you know, his punk taco is just crazy. Um, and so we even got like people like, you know, my friend Chuck,

[00:35:46] Steve from public enemy contributed like artwork to the, to the piece. Um, that's awesome. In his style. We have, you know, DJ JS one, who's a famous graffiti artist did a piece. Uh, but all that aside, what really excited me was that, um, I was able to give my students, um, where I was teaching the opportunity to contribute artwork as well. And this is one of my students who is in the fifth grade now. Um, and he contributed this piece.

[00:36:14] And then I have another student who's in the sixth grade now, and she contributed this piece. So I was able to, you know, turn students into professional, you know, creators and, uh, give them that opportunity that I never had as a kid. Um, so I was really proud of that, that, that we were able to, to write this story together with, when my, with my boys and then give other people the chance to play in the punk taco universe. And it was a lot of fun. Now that's incredible.

[00:36:42] And, and all those, those pages for listeners, you know, who, you don't see that it'll, it'll be on the YouTube, but, um, yeah, all those pages like look great, getting all those other kids, you're getting your other son involved as well. And you mentioned Chuck D for listeners who don't know that I think, um, not to put a timeframe on it, uh, Adam, but I think it was like 2006, 2007, you worked on a public enemy comic, right? Yeah.

[00:37:11] So before, you know, Marvel did any of the hip hop stuff, I was, you know, working with Chuck because I'm also a musician. So I've known Chuck for a long time and, you know, I had wanted to do a public enemy comic even from my days at Marvel there, they had a music division and they were supposed to do a public enemy comic. And I remember seeing all the original artwork and, uh, thinking like, Oh, like I would love to be a part of this because I was just a fan at that point of public enemy.

[00:37:39] And so years later when I met him, I had told him about my experience at Marvel and that we were working with them on this comic and something that the music division had fallen through. I guess it wasn't making money. And that was during the time of Marvelution when they went bankrupt and a lot of people got fired. And I'm not exactly sure what happened with the music division, but it just basically died. And so Chuck was like, yeah, man, let's do it. And it was that simple.

[00:38:07] And so we came up with some ideas together and worked on the artwork together and, you know, put out a, you know, a full run of books. And then we collected it as a trade paperback. Um, and, uh, actually before we, we, we published it ourselves, we actually went to Marvel and said, Hey, we, you know, we got this idea for a public enemy comic. And they were like, yeah, okay, but you got to pay us to do it. And so we were like, why would we pay you to do it?

[00:38:36] And, um, we'll do it ourselves. And it was some like crazy amount of money. Like I forget the exact, like $56,000. They wanted us to pay them to produce a comic that we were going to do ourselves anyway. So, you know, Chuck and I just did it ourselves and, uh, brought it to life. Five years later, they did like the hip hop, uh, comic book covers, uh, based on album covers and stuff. And, and I didn't even get invited to do it. That's crazy.

[00:39:06] I know, but that's all right. I'm not there. Jimmy is too humble to do this. So as his stalwart ride or die, I wanted to tell you about his new graphic novel, Penny and the Yeti with artist Amber Aiken. What started as a comic short with his daughter that I've known about for ages now, and it's evolved and has become one of those annoying can't talk about it in comics things for too damn long. Yes, I'm predisposed to be supportive, but after reading an advanced copy of it, I have

[00:39:35] to admit it's way better than I anticipated. No shade, but it's really good. Remarkably so. Does it have a Yeti? Yeah. Is it cute and adorable? Yeah. But it straight flies in effectively tapping into the all too familiar family dynamics that we all are facing in 2026 and approaching it in a way that doesn't insult the book's target audience. Kids! They are way smarter and perceptive than we adults give them credit for. So I really appreciated Jimmy's narrative approach tapping into his own experiences

[00:40:04] as a dad and a spouse. I can hear his wife saying, get off your phone, Jimmy, through the pages. She's going to kill me for saying that. It's hitting shelves on April 21st and I dropped a link in the show notes where you can pre-order a copy today. Yeti or not, here we come with Penny, Perry, Fenton, Maxine, and the magical, mythical, magnificent Yeti. On behalf of us both, we appreciate your support.

[00:40:33] Before we wrap things up, I know I did want to give you a chance and I wanted to talk to you about some of the stuff that you're doing with Paper Cuts and that Paper Cuts has coming out. Um, so I, I, cause I know I've interviewed, I mean, I, listeners know I love Man Cave. Uh, I love Maverick and, and Paper Cuts, not just because Paper Cuts is publishing Penny and the Yeti. Um, but because I, by the way, pre-order it, get the pre-orders in now. Yes.

[00:41:03] Because pre-orders are really, really, really important. People. Soup. Don't, people soup on it. They think, oh, he's just promoting his stuff. The pre-orders count because that's what the New York Times, they want you to sell 5,000 copies in like your first, two, first or second week. And that's really hard to do even for, uh, uh, an established publisher like Paper Cuts. But the good thing is the pre-orders count. So if you get your pre-orders in, it really helps.

[00:41:32] And we can make, you know, Penny and the Yeti and New York Times bestseller. And, um, wouldn't that be nice? Uh, yeah. Final order cutoff is March 30th, everybody. Um, but yeah, but it never, there's never really any cutoff. You could pre-order. I mean, I hate to promote Amazon because, you know, whatever, but you could go to books a million. You can go to Barnes and Noble. You can go to all those websites and pre-order, you know, even the day before. Um, so please do that. But yeah, I'm working at Paper Cuts. I'm a senior editor there.

[00:42:01] I work on a lot of different books. Um, I've interviewed Trevor Mueller. Um, and I've talked to Trevor about some of the stuff he had coming out. And one of the things we talked about, which I loved the concept of it and, um, the secret team society. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, bringing, bring, part of bringing me to paper cuts was because I had a background in education. You know, I'm a teacher and I have written, you know, uh, lesson plans and curriculum for

[00:42:31] years. Um, so I, we wanted to do educational graphic novels. Uh, so I came up with the secret steam society. And the idea was to take my old school love of like those old GI Joe, you know, bios that they had on the back of the, the, the characters and every character had their own, like, you know, the likes and the dislikes and their specialties and everything. Right.

[00:42:59] So I took that and I, I created a, uh, a school for, you know, really smart kids and each kid, you know, there's kids from all around the world and they all have their own specialties and speak different languages. And so it's like my own little roster of, of, you know, characters that we created. And, you know, when we hire authors to, you know, write these books, they get to pick, you know, which characters that they want to, um, use for these stories based on whatever

[00:43:28] the subject is. Trevor has written several of them for us. Uh, we have courses, which is out now. Then we have the, um, music, which is like the science of music, which is, you know, one of my favorites as a, as a musician, uh, which just breaks down like all the science of music from, you know, how instruments are made to how sound and music affects our body

[00:43:51] chemistry and how, you know, the inner ears work and, and processes music and sound and everything. And so that's a really fun book that's coming out soon. Oh yeah. The music one, I think Trevor had sent me a preview of it, but the music one is amazing. I mean, the horses one is great. Uh, you know, but I'm not, like I'm not a horse guy. Right. And so every volume is different. You like horses. Yeah.

[00:44:18] But the music one is, you don't have to read one to, to know the other, like they're all self-contained. Yeah. So we're really proud of that and we're just warming up with it. So we really hope people will give it a chance and check it out. Uh, we've got a lot of great topics coming. Um, I edit flash Gordon adventures, which is, uh, the first volume was by our Baltazar and Franco. And then the second volume, we did an anthology, which featured, you know, tons of great talent, over 20 something great.

[00:44:48] Uh, cartoon is from our Baltazar to, uh, Stan Sakai to, um, uh, Mike Cavallaro, uh, just super talent. Um, and then I added books like the Smurfs and, um, hero bear, which you can see over here, which I highly recommend everybody getting. If you've never read it, uh, it was published years ago, um, by Mike and then through, uh, boom, but we're doing like a really amazing version.

[00:45:18] And then we're, we're coming with all new hero bear stories. Once we finished with the original, uh, printings that we're republishing. Um, another one that I really loved, I mentioned it earlier is three thieves. Uh, this is like one of my all time favorite series. It's seven volumes. And, uh, we read this to McCona when he was before he can read and my wife and I read it. I, you know, I want to say like 40, 50 times each of us, like, like, like we would read the whole series.

[00:45:47] We were getting it from the library, which is where we discovered it. And then, uh, we had to buy the copies. So when I came to paper cuts, I was like, I got to work with Scott Chandler. And he said that the book was available. And so now we're reprinting that and working on him with some other new stuff, um, which I can't reveal yet, but it's super cool. But yeah, I always used to, uh, pitch three thieves to friends and we would buy it for, for, you know, friends.

[00:46:11] And we would say it was like, um, like Game of Thrones for kids, um, because Game of Thrones is really popular at the time. So it was like that intrigue and that suspense, but there was like action and adventure. It was like such a cool graphic novel. And Scott is one of the best cartoonists in the business. Um, and so, yeah, I work on a bunch of stuff. Um, you know, I'm always looking for new books. So it's all the creators out there that may be listening.

[00:46:39] I'm always looking for new projects to work on. Um, you could check out what paper cuts is doing on our website and see the variety of, of creators we work with and the variety of subject matters that we publish. Um, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love helping creators bring their books to life. And, um, like I said, being that foot in the door for, for other creators and championing, you know, being a champion for their, their books and their ideas.

[00:47:09] Um, yeah, it's a lot of fun. Oh, that's awesome. Um, yeah, I, I also wanted to say that I saw it was announced. I don't think that long ago, but, um, yeah, paper cuts also later on this year has a couple of, um, star Wars books coming out. I think there's smugglers and scoundrels and then I think it's called tales from, uh, the outer rim.

[00:47:34] But I believe Greg, Greg pox involved and Kevin Scott and then, uh, uh, Christian, uh, Colbert. Yeah. Colbert. He actually illustrated the music book for us, the secret steam society music book. Nice. And then, and then, uh, now he's working on star Wars. He's a phenomenal talent, super, you just incredible artist. Um, yeah, I'm not editing any of the star Wars books. Um, I, I hope to maybe work on one at some point.

[00:48:03] I have some possibilities, but you know, I can't talk about that yet. Um, that's I, look, I understand. We have a speed racer adventures, which is one that you can talk about, uh, for pre-order now speed racer adventures. And, uh, Franco actually wrote that and Derek charm is illustrating that one. And he's also an amazing artist. Um, yeah, we have, we have a lot of stuff coming.

[00:48:28] Paper cuts is a great, um, publisher for what I like to call all ages books, but you know, we're, we're in the middle grade realm. Um, I think we have something for everyone, for every reading level, every grade level. And, uh, hopefully everybody out there will, will check out our books. Um, and if you're a librarian, uh, please, you know, order our books.

[00:48:51] And so the kids can read them, you know, uh, libraries, I'm always trying to champion libraries because I feel like, you know, that's how I rediscovered, uh, graphic novels. And in many ways I had stopped reading comics for a long time. And then, you know, when I would take McKenna to the library two, three times a week, and we discovered like all these amazing, you know, middle grade, young reader books. And all ages books that were not by Marvel or DC.

[00:49:18] And so, you know, uh, other publishers and, uh, it really like inspired me to, to want to work more in that market and, uh, and produce stuff for kids. So, yeah, I, I've taken my kids to the library and yeah, when I got back into reading comics, I mean, the library was one of the best ways to, I would, if, if I had to buy everything that I read,

[00:49:44] I never would have been able to do it, but yeah, the kids and I discovered so many great books. Ones that I like, you know, graphic novels that, that they liked. Um, yeah, we, we go to the library all the time, but one of the, in the libraries these days are, are amazing. Like they're like the fact that they're putting these books on the shelves. I mean, I, I'm old. They didn't have comic books or graphic novels in the library when I was a kid. I wish.

[00:50:11] Um, but yeah, it's amazing. We didn't have that stuff. So the fact that there, there are so many librarians and teachers out there that are now, you know, accepting of, of the medium and, and embrace it and, and champion it. That's, that's amazing. So thank you to all of them. I really appreciate it. Oh yeah, absolutely. The brandy 100 library is, is the library near me. The librarians, they're amazing. Um, they have wonderful display, graphic novel displays.

[00:50:41] And comic book section. And yeah, the, the, my kids and I go and, and get lost there. Um, we absolutely love it. One of, one of the first things I, I did because the brandy 100 library has a section. If you're a local author, one of the first things I did was submit all the information for Penny and the Yeti for the local library. You have to, you have to, you have to campaign your own stuff. It's, it's important. And, um, yeah. Yeah.

[00:51:08] Um, but Adam, this has been amazing. I am so excited for all the stuff that paper cuts has, has coming out. Um, I, you know, listeners know, I'm just a big fan of what Mad Cave does and Maverick.

[00:51:22] It is, they, it, it, it has been between like all of the different imprints, some of the best stuff that I can, you know, that, that I read consistently, whether or not, you know, it's Maverick books like Paper Planes or Navigating With You or some of the, um, the, the, the Mad Cave stuff itself.

[00:51:43] Like Nottingham or Orla recently, or the, the most recent Dave Chisholm's is Ted O'Key, uh, you know, or some of the other paper cut stuff like Harrow Bear. And I'm, I don't, I'm not familiar with Three Thieves, so I'm excited to get involved in that. Yeah, check that out. I'll check that out. I'd love to hear what you think about it. It's, it's, it's, yeah. We'll get Scott to come on here and talk to you. He's, he's an incredible creator. No, I'd, I'd love to.

[00:52:11] I have, I actually, in, in a few weeks, I do already have, um, Christian, uh, Colbert scheduled. So I'm excited to talk to Christian, um, about Star Wars and about the, the secret steam society. Cause I think it's such a great, uh, concept and, uh, yeah. And, and, and Punk Taco. So I'll put links in the show notes listeners so you can go and check out all of this stuff that you can especially check out Punk Taco. And look, if you're someone who listens to this and you're like, well, that's not really my thing.

[00:52:40] You're going to have a, you know, uh, if you don't want to check it out yourself, you're going to have a kid in your life. You're going to have to go to somebody's birthday party or a christening or like if you celebrate an Easter gift, you know, whatever it might be. And I have never gone wrong getting a kid. I have never gone wrong getting a kid, a book or, or, or a graphic novel.

[00:53:03] And Punk Taco is something that, um, I think is something that everybody can like whether, and doesn't matter the gender of the child either. Penny saw this and she's like, I want to read it. So this is something that truly is for, I think, absolutely everybody. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, that's, that's, wow. I, I, thank you. Um, you know, we're just trying to make great books for everyone.

[00:53:33] And like you said, I, we always give books as gifts. So, you know, we're constantly buying books and giving them and you can't go wrong. You know, and Punk Taco makes a great gift. Penny and the Yeti, Three Thieves, Hero Bear, all these, you know, any, any of them, you know, just go out and buy books and give them as gifts. It's, it's so much better than, than a video game or anything else, you know, or, uh, it's something that's going to inspire the kids. So. I, I think so.

[00:54:02] And Hey, I, I know that I know for a fact, a lot of creators, like especially indie creators or newer creators have told me that they listen to the podcast. Um, and so if you are somebody who is listening to this, like as a creator, um, you know, there's a couple of lessons here. I think in terms of this episode one, sometimes no matter how good your book is, you're going to get rejected.

[00:54:27] You got to believe in yourself and you got to keep going because perseverance than persistence and perseverance more so than I think anything else is, is a real thing. Really big determinant factor in terms of success. And the other thing is if you're a creator, um, you know, Adam said, he's always looking for books. So start getting those all ages pitches polished up. All right. That's right. Yeah.

[00:54:55] And, and, you know, I always make myself open to anybody out there. I admit, I don't have all the answers. We've rejected books that got picked up by others and they look amazing. And I still try to champion those books. Um, I don't, you know, I don't, I'm not the, the end all be all at paper cuts or mad cave studios. I'm one editor and I try to champion as much as I can. Uh, but sometimes we get it wrong.

[00:55:22] And, um, that doesn't mean that your book is, is not valuable. It doesn't mean that we don't think that you're an awesome creator. It just means it didn't fit with what we were trying to do that particular day. Um, you know, I, I, I, I am now at the other end of having to write rejection letters and it's the part of the job that I really hate. Um, but I, I always tell everybody that, that I write a rejection letter to, you know,

[00:55:50] if they don't know me already, you know, I've received these letters. I know what it's like, you know, I believe in what they're doing. You know, I, I want to see their book succeed. Uh, so please don't give up. Please don't use, you know, think of this rejection and give up. You know, I could have given up a thousand times, um, but I didn't. And I don't, I don't want to see, I don't want to be the cause of anybody feeling that way.

[00:56:16] Um, so I, I try to continue to champion what, what everybody does even after, you know, paper cuts makes their decision. Um, because, you know, I know how it feels. I really do. And it sucks. So, um, keep trying. My door is always open. Like one rejection doesn't mean that, you know, your next book isn't going to get accepted. Um, sometimes it takes more than one, more than, you know, more than five, 10.

[00:56:43] And you just have to keep trying and that's, you know, perseverance and persistence, being professional, being polite, you know, don't get upset when we reject you. Um, but just try to be understanding that, that we don't like doing that. It's just, that's the nature of the business. Um, you know, I'm never going to say, uh, like we can't guarantee anything ever, but I love getting new pitches. I love trying to work with creators and help you bring your, your projects to life.

[00:57:12] So, um, reach out and we'll see what we can do. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Adam. I really appreciate, I really appreciate your time. I really love, you know, a punk taco. Um, and I, you know, and, and thank you for coming on and chatting with me about it. I'll have links in the show notes, uh, so you can pick up punk taco. You can check out all the other great stuff that paper cuts has coming out. Shout out to my brother, Bobby.

[00:57:41] As I do every podcast, Bobby is the cryptid creator corners. Number one, most dedicated fan. Bobby listens to all my episodes. And, um, I think he's after like, I'm coming up on my 250th episode of the podcast and Bobby's, Bobby's bought a lot of comics. So, um, that's an achievement. Congratulations on that. That's, that's awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, we have over 400 episodes total. Um, but yeah, I'm coming up on my, my 250th.

[00:58:10] They'll be out in a, I don't know, like a week or two weeks. Um, so, so yeah, Bobby's bought a lot of comics. So sorry, Bob, but I'm going to keep talking about, I'm going to keep talking about great comics and you're, you're probably going to have to keep buying them. Um, but yeah, uh, listeners, uh, check out. Punk taco. You're not going to be sorry. Check out paper cuts. You know how much I love mad cave and maverick and paper cuts and all the stuff that they're putting out. And it's, I mean, it's not just because they're publishing penny in the Yeti.

[00:58:40] I mean, look, that's part of it. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not gonna lie. I'm very, I'm very excited that it, I turned 47 in like 10 days or so. So, uh, and the book will be out next month. So, um, I still think it's kind of wild that I'm going to be a, like a, not just like self published, but like a published author at 47 years old, uh, for the first time. So, um, that's, I love it. I love to hear it.

[00:59:05] I have another creator who is even much older and she has a book coming out like no joke. Like, I don't want to put anyone's age on blast, but I didn't, when I apologize, we're making this episode even longer than normal, but, but I was so excited because we, we accepted this book and we greenlit it and it wasn't until I actually met the creator and, and,

[00:59:32] you know, over zoom and, you know, she was much older and I, it was, it's her first book. And to me, that's exciting because, you know, this is like a, you know, she's had her career, did her thing, had a family, had an amazing life and everything. And then she created this, this beautiful book and, um, and, and I hope more people like,

[00:59:58] cause you know, I do author visits, you know, at schools, libraries, um, everywhere. And my message to the kids are all, is always, you're never too young to, to create something. And, but then I always see a teacher or a parent or a librarian. I could tell, like many of them will say it out loud. They'll say, Oh, I wish I would have done this. Or I wish I could have done this.

[01:00:24] And I'm like, you're only like in your forties, maybe some, you know, maybe there's older ones, fifties, but you know, I'm in my fifties. And so I can get in, uh, I could kind of guess an age range and I'm like, you're never too old. Like I, I, I always end the never, you're never too young. You're never too old for those people because I felt that way at times. Like, Oh, you know, you know, I hit this certain age.

[01:00:50] I'm not going to be the young guy, the new hot sensation, blah, blah, blah in the business, whatever. Um, and a lot of us feel like that, you know, that's that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Like if you don't win the, the Oscar by your, you know, your mid twenties, you know, you're, you're nothing right. Like, or, you know what? Not everybody has that journey. Everyone has a different journey. And sometimes you're in your late forties. Sometimes you're in your fifties. Sometimes you're 67. Like, Hey, just keep creating and, and don't give up.

[01:01:20] You know, if you have your story to tell, tell it regardless of the age, you know, you could, you know, I, I agree. I think, I think about it a lot in terms of, um, you know, like, I just, I never thought of writing as, uh, as a career. Like, and I, I would do it when I was younger, like just write stories just for fun or tell stories in high school and into college. And then, but then it was my, when it was work, then it was being a lawyer, it was doing all that stuff.

[01:01:50] And it's just, yeah, I, I, at 25 years old, I, I couldn't have written a story like Penny and the Yeti, you know, I, I couldn't have done that. Um, and just, but, but to be able to do it now and to show my kids and to have worked with everyone at paper cuts and to work with Amber, the artist and to work with buddy, uh, the letterer, it's just, uh, it's been an incredible experience.

[01:02:17] And, um, yeah, I just, uh, talking about it on podcasts now and, and doing the, the, you know, getting the word out and doing all that. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to stop doing it. I just want to keep doing it. I love it. I love it. It's a journey, man. It's just the journey. You get, you have to enjoy it ups and downs and side to side and everything else that happens in between. Absolutely. Just have fun and appreciate that, you know, Hey, you're getting a book published. It's amazing. It is. It is. It is amazing. It is.

[01:02:47] So many people talk about it and they never do it. Right. Every, there's so many, I call them civilians, right? Everyone, civilians have the biggest opinions too. They're like, Oh, this could be better. That could be, it's like, if you don't create something and know what it's like, like you, you can't really, you know, have an opinion on how to do it better because it's hard. It's hard to take an idea and bring it to life. Whether you do it on your own. Anything. Yeah.

[01:03:14] No matter what it is, whether or not you're an artist or a writer or a filmmaker or a Television show. Yeah. It's, it's hard. It's hard to make anything, but. Yeah. Well, uh, and again, Adam, thank you listeners, you know, rate and review us, do all those things. If you could drop a review on whatever site you listen to the podcast, it really helps us. We have the YouTube channel as well. So if you want to subscribe to that, Byron's always trying to get people to subscribe. And, uh, I think the YouTube is, is fun too.

[01:03:44] And you get to see some of the stuff when we show comics. So, but thank you so much for listening. You know, I appreciate it. Um, and you can find me on blue sky. Uh, I, I sometimes post TikTok videos about comics. Always, you know, always feel free to come and let me know what it is you're reading. Um, let me know what comics you like, especially if you're reading the books from any of the creators we've had on. I want to know what, what it is you think. Uh, so thank you very much. And, uh, yeah, good night. I'll see you next time.

[01:04:12] This is Byron O'Neal, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by Comic Book Yeti. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff. It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast, Into the Comics Kate. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.