Sabir Pirzada Interview- The Sacred Damned

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Your ears do not deceive you. You have just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti.

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So without further ado, let's get on to the interview.

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_01]: When we started this podcast, we knew inclusion and diversity were going to be at the forefront of what we wanted to do with it.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Now two and a half years in that mission hits home for me.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Being disabled myself, I know the likelihood of me getting to a con or doing frankly most of the other things that can bring the

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: comic community together is not likely in the cards, but this podcast has connected me with people in ways I never would have imagined possible.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I know the similar challenges disabled creators face trying to get their work seen.

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So it should come as no surprise that I'm excited about the new unseen, unheard disability and neurodivergence anthology on Kickstarter.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_01]: This 64 page, 12 story anthology covers a wide range of genres, including slice of life, horror, sci-fi, fantasy and romance and features at least 50% of each creative team being comprised of people who are a neurodivergent or have a disability.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that editors and can assure you it's in good hands.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And after having seen a few sample pages myself, I'm excited to see the rest of what all these amazing creators have cooked up.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_01]: If they do a second one, you best believe I'm subvitting.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll drop a link in the show notes for you or you can find them on Kickstarter.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Search for unseen, unheard.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Please consider supporting it and our community.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone deserves to be seen.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Y'all, Jimmy, the chaos goblin strikes again.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I should have known better than to mention that was working on my DC universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: My bad.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_01]: He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing.

[00:01:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Another friend chimes in, are you going to make maps?

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So I guess question mark.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It was then that I discovered Arkham Forge.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know who Arkham Forge is, they have everything you need to make your TT RPG more fun and immersive, allowing you to build, play and export animated maps, including in person fog of war.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Capability that lets your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM, get the full picture.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm set to easily build high res animated maps, saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a win every day in my book.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Check them out at arkhamforge.com and use the discount code Yeti5 to get $5 off.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll drop a link in the show notes for you.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And big thanks to Arkham Forge for partnering with our show.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a Goblin Gorlach just to get even.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Byron O'Neill, your host for our Comics Creator Chat.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Today we are delving into the second salvo of the Horizon Experiment, a series of five one shot projects.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Design is something akin to a TV pilot each featuring original protagonists from marginalized backgrounds set in a popular genre and inspired by pop culture icons.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_01]: This one is the Sacred Dam, a horror story from TV and comics writer Sabir Pirdada and illustrated by Eisner award winner Michael Walsh.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It has been described as a Muslim John Constantine take that's hitting shelves at the perfect time for the Halloween season.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's my pleasure to introduce first time guest on with me today, Sabir.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_01]: How are you doing?

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Fantastic.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me Byron.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_01]: What you mentioned in emails that you were busy in a TV writer's room.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I worked in TV myself many moons ago now and like the tech into things is a grip and a cameraman.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And most of that was like the early days of home improvement shows because HDTV was like based in my hometown.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I definitely enjoyed TV work way more than movies.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I did smoke for movies and it takes like weeks to get the glycerin out of your hair.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Not that I have hair anymore, but yeah, yeah, I don't I don't miss those.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But I do miss my theatrical lighting days quite a bit.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm a little envious of your TV work.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_01]: You're getting to do so.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_02]: The grass is always greener.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll say that it's always, always.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, grateful for the work, but then always, you know, excited about whatever is on the other side of the horizon too.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, jumping into the sacred dam last month, Pornsack and Terry were on and we got kind of the big picture background of what the

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01]: horizon experiment is all about.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Shameless self promotion.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't listened to that episode, I'll put a link in the show notes for you if you want to catch up on that.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: But take me back to the beginning of this.

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_01]: How did Pornsack kind of pitch you on the idea of the horizon experiment or would it be more accurate to say that you pitched him?

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a bit of both.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he approached me with the general idea.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it even had a name yet, like in terms of that it was called the horizon experiment.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_01]: OK.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: That he was trying to get together a group of creators who would then kind of run with a popular genre but wanting to

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_02]: infuse some diversity into it such that it affects the story so that you can't just plug in play, you know, anybody and just

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_02]: say, OK, the background is a little bit different, but the story is exactly the same.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_02]: How do the elements of that person's attributes and their world change the story?

[00:05:17] [SPEAKER_02]: And so then I pitched him a variety of story ideas.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not going to mention what they are.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_02]: One of them, though, my manager said, oh, it's a little bit too close to something you're already doing in television.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So don't do that one.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to get in legal trouble, essentially.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I moved away from that one and then I ended up at this, which was sort of, you know, what is Muslim

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: John Constantine look like?

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: What is an Islamic take on the popular horror tropes that we know and love kind of look like?

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And that kind of got going pretty organically because I had plenty of source material to look at that all had very

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Christian iconography from Dracula to the Exorcist.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I thought, what an organic starting point to say, OK,

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: look at these things that I already love and have grown up watching and enjoying.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And how do we sort of expand that perspective outwards to include Islamic lore as well?

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of how we got going.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha. Well, how did Michael come into the picture?

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I know Pornsack wrote a story.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's fairly recently in the silver coin.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So he knew Michael.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Pornsack knows everybody, right?

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, from his days as a vertigo editor and just, you know,

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_02]: all the amazing and well deserved success he's had with his own series.

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So and we also had Will Dennis, editor as well involved.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And so Will knows everybody as well.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So between him and Pornsack, there were all these artists.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Another problem was like who was available, who would be interested in doing this.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't quite have a schedule yet.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was pretty flexible.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I was also sort of midstream on an original graphic novel called Dandelion with Image Comics.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And through that process, I had sort of honed a bit of like standards for myself

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of like wanting to aim very high for artists

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_02]: because I really enjoy working with artists who, you know, are tried and true

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and can bring their own vision, you know, to the script and can sort of,

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, plug it, not just plug in my ideas, but sort of figure out for themselves

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_02]: what's the best way to sort of lay out a page and bring their own style to it.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_02]: So that their voices represented as well,

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_02]: because I've just had the best success with artists who are true collaborators that way.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what I was looking for.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I was looking for a pretty high bar here.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it was Pornsack who suggested, I wonder if Michael would be interested in this

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_02]: because, you know, because I think he thought horror and Michael does a lot of horror

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and he's very good at it.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But we also knew that Michael's schedule was insane

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: because he was getting all this interest from different publishers.

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_02]: He had projects of his own.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So Pornsack kind of ran it up the flagpole with Michael and sent him the script.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_02]: And then Michael did spark to it and was interested in it.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_02]: It took us a little bit of a while to figure out his scheduling

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_02]: because he had other projects.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But eventually we were sort of able to figure out a window where he could then do it.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And once he started to get going on the initial character designs,

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_02]: that's when we all got very excited to see what the potential of it was,

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_02]: because we could then that was like the first proof of concept that we could see.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_02]: What were the initial ideas that we had that are now being sort of funneled

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_02]: through Michael's artistic vision?

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it was a very exciting process.

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, you got the perfect guy for this, you know, image sent over a

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_01]: review copy for me, you know, so I've already had a chance to read it.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And wow, like this is a full no punches visceral in your faced horror story

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: that's heavy on body horror specifically, perfectly suited for Michael.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, horror is one of my favorite genres as a first issue.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I got exactly what I wanted, right?

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It's engaging while simultaneously being a little bit disgusting and disturbing,

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, as someone with a significant autoimmune condition,

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, I'm all too familiar with with what losing control of your body can feel

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: like and how that can completely change your self identity

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and how you interact with the world.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_01]: So you've got this wide open playing field within kind of the horror genre

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: as your story's focal point, what that the sandbox you wanted to play in specifically.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, in terms of the scares of it all,

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I sort of felt like for this to work, it needs to play on fears

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: that are grounded first in something that's not supernatural.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Then you can have the supernatural element on to it.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_02]: So the idea that any of us could not be in control of our own bodies

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: is I think not just universal fear, it's a universal experience

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_02]: that we are all going to have at some point or another in our lives

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_02]: if we have not already, right?

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So so that was sort of the starting point.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And then on top of that, it was like, OK, well, what's

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_02]: what's the supernatural lore that you can kind of put into this?

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And then when Michael got involved, he was like,

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_02]: well, how can I push this further and add details that were not in the script?

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: But really, so not just point of grossing people out,

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_02]: but like play on the fears so that you actually don't lose the humanity

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_02]: of the person experiencing this phenomena that they cannot explain

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_02]: that people may not entirely believe is happening to them

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: in the way that they're describing

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: so that you don't lose that sense of sort of isolation and dread.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And it doesn't just turn into sort of pure noise.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: So so yeah, actually, it started with the fears, I would say.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And then beyond that, I thought, OK, well, what's the cool mythology

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_02]: that we can add to this and how what's the connective tissue between that

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_02]: and the history of the character of Dr.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Nia Jabriel, who's who's sort of not quite the POV for this particular story,

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_02]: but is going to prove to be the most important

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: character if we're lucky enough to continue to tell more stories with her.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: So so finding that kind of issue between her character, history,

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_02]: the mythology and then the universal fears was all kind of

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: the triangle of things that I was trying to connect in this opening this year.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha. Yeah, she's a professor of ethnography and the occult,

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_01]: a demon hunter and an exorcist.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't personally have a great frame of reference here with respect

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_01]: to modern or, frankly, historical for that matter, gender roles associated

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_01]: with the Muslim exorcist.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So is that a role you would typically associate with with a woman?

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Or is this another one of the gender? Not really. OK.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's one of those things

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_02]: that's sort of a strange thing in this long because it's it's a bit of a taboo

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_02]: topic, which is interacting with the unseen.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_02]: The unseen, it's sort of what it's not.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't go so far as to say it's like forbidden,

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_02]: but it's not one of those things that people are encouraged to sort of seek

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_02]: out interacting with there are verses in the Quran about, you know,

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_02]: the world of the unseen and how it can affect our world.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And it's sort of regarded as as a bit of a sacred thing,

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_02]: which, you know, hence the title of the sacred dam, which is what happens

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_02]: when, you know, parts of the world of the unseen sort of

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_02]: rear their ugly heads into our world, welcome or not welcome.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And so so it's not a particularly encouraged or welcome thing for

[00:11:38] [SPEAKER_02]: a human expert to then say, I will be your guide to this world

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: that we're not supposed to access.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that, to me, was sort of a world of contradictions in itself,

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_02]: which is here is this person who is sort of positioning themselves

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: as the hero that we need, but not necessarily the one

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_02]: that the world is going to want to welcome with open arms.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And that instantly felt like it was a source of great story

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_02]: that I hope to further explore if we're lucky enough to get the chance.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I ended up doing a little digging myself into Islamic mysticism

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_01]: and there's this belief in five realms, you know, the fifth being

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_01]: the material one, and it offers up this whole like multiverse

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of to play with.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But the big takeaway for me is kind of moving beyond,

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, our Western binary polarized Christian tradition

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_01]: of things being simply good or bad, right?

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, correct.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Not that intrinsic opposition.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, OK, good. Well, I'm there, right?

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't have that opposition to the spirit, Roman, its inhabitants.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So so aside from that itself being such fertile ground to play with,

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_01]: what else was important to you to include kind of is as a window

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: to look at faith in a different way with with her as a character?

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, a lot of it is like the concept of free will, right?

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, there's this concept that the Quran

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_02]: is not just addressed to mankind, but to Jinn kind, which is like that sort of

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_02]: like entities of free will that we often or almost always cannot see.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that got me thinking of like, OK, there's good and bad

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: that exists on both sides.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And what does that look like to a human who has experienced

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_02]: the worst, not just of the supernatural side, but of humanity as well?

[00:13:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And now you're sort of tasked with saving humanity

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: when you may not be the biggest fan of human.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that was one of one of the sort of central driving points

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_02]: for the character of Anaya Jibril that I'm hoping to explore with her.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, well, I have an anthropology background, so I'm always looking at.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow. Yeah, material culture.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's that's my jam.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And as you mentioned before, one of the things

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's probably the most striking thing to me is the absence of iconography,

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_01]: paraphernalia, dogma, you know, that we become used to with an exorcism role.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's stripped down in terms of all that.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we'll get to it later.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, you know, if it gets gets the legs,

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: but it removes a lot of these visual cues that we've come to expect from the tropes.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that removes a bit of reader safety as like the anchors are they're just gone.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So was that something you were very conscious of as as the writer on the project?

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it grounded me in the body horror elements

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: as I was kind of looking for those anticipated cues.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And that's why I think it's such a fertile ground

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: to explore with further stories, which is if we don't know what rules

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: we're playing with, then kind of anything is possible.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to kind of approach it slowly, not to say that we won't get to

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_02]: creating our own iconography that will be powerful in its own way.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But I want to kind of take my time to build that

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_02]: and kind of see what it looks like step by step.

[00:14:36] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I mean, the more uneasy you are going into this world

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and not really knowing what's going to work and what is not going to work.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the better, you know, so yeah, it's it's it's all very

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_02]: exciting to kind of get to dig into the dark corners of this world

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_02]: when we don't know what we're dealing with yet.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, in terms of material culture, the thing that caught my eye

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_01]: was the scarf, right?

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So she's got like an Indiana Jones vibe.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I absolutely love the scarf and Constantine has this trench coat, right?

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so where did the scarf come from?

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Because that looks like something that be a through line with the character.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that's part of the yeah, it's it's part of the character's

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_02]: history a little bit.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, we looked at like some some Islamic arts,

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_02]: everything from paintings to calligraphy, to blankets,

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_02]: to carpets, to things that were like given as gifts to different,

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, whatever it is, heads of state in different realms of

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: or different periods in different Islamic caliphates and kingdoms and things like that.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_02]: So we had a lot to pull from in terms of why she has the scarf.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And we had we had all different iterations of like how big is the scarf?

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: If it gets too big, does it just kind of become

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_02]: sort of a caricature of this thing that means so much

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_02]: to so many people who actually wear the scarf, you know, two of my sisters

[00:15:49] [SPEAKER_02]: wear the scarf, one of my sisters does not.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_02]: My wife does not. My mom does not.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_02]: That's to say like it

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: has a lot of special meaning to those who do wear it and even to those who do not.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So we had to take that seriously and figure that out.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_02]: As far as why the character wears it, she actually used to wear hijab

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: and we may or may not see that in flashbacks at some point.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But she no longer does.

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And part of that is a relationship with her own faith.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Part of that has to do with her just the way that she chooses to express herself.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But she doesn't want to completely disregard the scarf entirely

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_02]: because it still means something to her.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_02]: So she sort of wears it around herself.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And Michael had a lot of fun drawing it.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, it was just part of the fun of the visuals as well

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_02]: is how can we give her an iconic look that means something to her

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_02]: but also implies a history about her relationship with faith,

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_02]: especially as it corresponds to her interaction with the supernatural.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So OK, I got you.

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I was reading your recent Dynamic Forces interview with another

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Byron in comics journalism.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're taking over.

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And and we were talking or you were talking about her being the first

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Muslim character that you've written that you didn't have to consider

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: the massive representational weight of this corporate apparatus

[00:16:59] [SPEAKER_01]: that kind of surrounded it.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So with this book, did you struggle with with that representational

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: lens still in any way?

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Or was this the creative freedom opportunity moment, you know, for you?

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I went in thinking it was going to be the most liberating thing.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, there was nothing to worry about here.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's I don't have Mickey Mouse looking over my shoulder.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Anything goes and then I got into the process.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You get into the minutiae of some of these things such as like

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_02]: how big should her scarf be at which point it doesn't.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_02]: It's no longer a caricature.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_02]: And you realize that every detail actually does matter

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_02]: no matter what you're doing.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: So, OK, you know, like it certainly was fun to say that,

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_02]: like this character does not need to be liked by everybody

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of readership because she's not liked by everybody in her own world.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_02]: She's rough around the edges.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_02]: She's got her own air of mystery to her,

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and she's a little bit guarded towards humanity.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's intriguing.

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's worth leaning into to see why is she like that

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_02]: and want to unpack the layers behind her.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So I was inspired to take some swings with the character,

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_02]: but in terms of how all of Islam is represented through

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: through Jin through this character of Anaya,

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_02]: like and how she's explaining some of these concepts to Western

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Western characters and Western POVs that are in the comic.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_02]: All of that was actually not as easy and straightforward as I thought it would be,

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: even though I have so much experience doing it in shows like Miss Marvel or whatever.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so yeah, nothing is easy.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_02]: You always feel the weight of responsibility,

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_02]: but it's also fun to kind of take some swings and say, OK,

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: so not all this is going to work for everybody.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It's already a mature horror to begin with.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a certain age group that this is I'm going in knowing it's not

[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_02]: appropriate for them anyway.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so so keep that in mind as I'm starting to,

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, build what all this looks like and make sure that I'm having fun

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: with it and staying true to myself as an audience first and foremost.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And if I like it and this feels true to me,

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_02]: that's a good starting point.

[00:18:55] [SPEAKER_02]: That's always been my my compass, even when I was working on

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: corporately owned, you know, Muslim characters.

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So gotcha.

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, despite having a protagonist with a with a marginalized background

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_01]: in the remit, right, this is still very much an American story,

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_01]: which was a very interesting choice for me.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it would have been a great story if it was said in India or Turkey as well.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But it wouldn't have hit as hard or not for me anyway,

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_01]: because you're getting very much in digging into cultural components.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to give anything away there.

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But what was important to you about grounding this in Americana?

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I grew up here in America.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: So so this story takes place somewhere in Ohio.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_02]: My early childhood was in Ohio.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_02]: I have, you know, vivid memories of spending hollow wings there, you know,

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_02]: and what that was like.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, it's just like the woods of Ohio just got them got lodged

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_02]: somewhere in my brain through all these years.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And so it just felt like a very natural starting point to say that,

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: like, just because we're telling a story that involves a Muslim character

[00:19:54] [SPEAKER_02]: and Islamic lore doesn't mean that this is the type of thing that,

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, you should feel safety in thinking that if I if I live in the West,

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I would never, you know, interact with this stuff.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted very much to have that feeling of the world.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_02]: The unseen is all around us at all times.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, we are all like equal.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_02]: There's an equal opportunity here for it to kind of approach any one of us

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: at any time. And could that be scary?

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And could that be interesting to then put a Westerner in the hot seat

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_02]: and have him experience things he doesn't understand and let Anaya

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_02]: be the one who comes in and sort of explains things to him.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But she does so in such a guarded way that you're not sure

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_02]: you can trust even what she's saying and that she may have her own identity here.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that sort of felt like it was all an excited way to sort of

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_02]: find our way into this world. So.

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's take a quick break.

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_01]: After a string of unexplained

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_01]: disappearances in the southern parts of the United States, retired detective

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Clint searches for his white trash brother while searching for him.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_01]: He ends up being abducted by aliens.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_01]: He is now in the arena for big guns, stupid rednecks,

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_01]: an intergalactic cable's newest hit show, which puts him and other humans

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_01]: in laser gun gladiatorial combat.

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And his brother is the reigning champion with 27 kills.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the premise for a new book from Banda Barnes, Big Guns, Stupid Rednecks.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I got a chance to see an advanced preview of this book and being from the south.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I was a bit skeptical going in, but they won me over

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and nothing is more powerful than an initially skeptic convert in my book.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_01]: In Jimmy's words, Big Guns, Stupid Rednecks is many things, but it isn't subtle.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It tells you exactly what it is up front.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Then it delivers with a great premise, fantastic art and a whole mess of fun.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I had a great time reading Big Guns, Stupid Rednecks.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And what I thought was going to be an indictment of redneck culture

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_01]: quickly showed it was actually a love letter, a family mystery.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Brother Pinnotigan's brother, aliens fighting for profit in a big arena.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: This truly has it all.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Issue one is out already, but you can still pick up a copy on the Banda Barnes website.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And current issues are available via your previews or lunar order form

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_01]: or just ask your LCS. Don't miss.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back to the show.

[00:22:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Your primary antagonists are Jen in the book.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So as I mentioned, I have the anthra degree

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's a focus on the Americas.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was very thin on Middle Eastern mythologies.

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there hasn't been much exploration either in comics short of

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_01]: like Jean, I think it's Defoe's, the gen that series.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And Yasmin Omar Atta had Naira in the gen that came out.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was last year.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so as I understand it, they have their own culture outside of out

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_01]: of our own, you know, and as you mentioned,

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Mohammed was sent as a profit to both communities.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm imagining there's a huge sandbox of other mythological

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_01]: creatures to play with.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So what made the most appealing for you as an anchor entry point?

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it opened up my eyes to the possibility of telling stories with

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Jen was when I started to learn about the different types of

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_02]: gin, hierarchy.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got your marine, which are like up in the sky.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_02]: You've got your your ghouls, which tend to hang out in

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_02]: cemeteries and eat flesh, you know, dead flesh usually.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And you've got a couple of other ones ifreet,

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, which are referenced a few times in Islamic traditions.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So and then the idea that gin had been around from prior to Islam,

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_02]: that Islam merely confirmed their existence.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So people have been talking about them from well before that.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_02]: That just seemed like it was all stuff that I wanted to explore.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But the fact that there were different kinds of them really opened up my

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_02]: eyes to all the potential of like the big world we can we can have here.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, the more research I started to do in the war,

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_02]: like it's not so straightforward as it, you know,

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_02]: you get a straight answer on all this stuff.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_02]: People disagree on what they are.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_02]: They disagree on the categorization of it.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've heard all kinds of interesting stories kind of

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_02]: growing up about people who interacted with the gin and their feet look

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_02]: like this and usually it was in a Middle Eastern country.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so I looked at the commonalities of all the stories

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: of what I had grown up hearing and read a little more about it.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But because they contradicted each other, it seemed like it was

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_02]: it it felt like it was the right level of take this from the stuff

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_02]: that people kind of agree on, but feel free to kind of, you know,

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_02]: roam around within within this box and kind of see what else

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_02]: you can come up with because there's so little that's kind of known about them.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Were there form language notes from Michael or did he have kind of

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_01]: free reign to interpret them?

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I did my own little bit of digging there and I can see some echoes

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_01]: from that 14th century book of wonders.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_01]: There was some some stuff in there.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, interesting. Yeah, I'm trying to think.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_02]: He definitely did have some touchstones and he and I had a whole

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_02]: email chain where I would send him stuff stuff and be like,

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_02]: maybe it looks like this or I remember from, you know,

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_02]: when I was in fourth grade, this one kid told me the story

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_02]: about his cousin's cousin in Morocco and, you know,

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_02]: they interact with a gin and it looked like this.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So maybe we try that and then he'd try a few versions and then

[00:24:55] [SPEAKER_02]: sometimes I would be happy with it, but Michael wouldn't and he

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_02]: would say, I think we can do better.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, like me, Port Sack, Will Dennis,

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_02]: we all thought like it was good to go.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And then like he'd be like, surprise.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I tried a couple of things and and I changed all 20 of these

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_02]: gin and then boom, like you get a whole new set of pages

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_02]: and, you know, Michael had done the work and he just,

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, had his own ideas for what he wanted to explore.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_02]: They all looked great to me.

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I try to stay out of his way, particularly when it

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_02]: comes to the visual design of them, because I'm like,

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_02]: if they're meant to reside in the world of the unseen,

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_02]: kind of anything goes.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_02]: But here's what I've been told about them, you know?

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: OK. Take what you want, make up the rest, you know.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we found a nice happy medium that kind of

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_02]: incorporated everybody's ideas, but still, you know,

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02]: was true to the scares.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: That's all. OK, OK.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_01]: OK. Well, I was reading that this was inspired by

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Pakistani ghost stories.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Is there is there a through line there that makes them more unique?

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that is there a definitive gen that is Pakistani or?

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I wouldn't say so.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, again, like there was one story in that set in Morocco

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_02]: that I would say was equally inspiring to me.

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I know I said that it's because I'm Pakistani American.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Myself. So the majority of of supernatural stories I've heard

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_02]: is from visiting cousins and uncles in Pakistan.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. So that I would say

[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_02]: makes up the majority of the gen stories of her.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But I also went to Islamic school here in America

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_02]: where I had, you know, fellow students from all over the world,

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_02]: from Iran, from, you know, Egypt, from Palestine, all these places.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, it definitely I would say is an amalgamation of things.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't consciously trying to make it specifically Pakistani.

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_02]: I would just say Pakistan was probably the biggest sample size at all.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_01]: OK. Well, recently I've been talking with a lot of folks

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_01]: about what exactly makes a horror comic work.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there are lots of approaches that do, you know, one seems to be

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: to leave it up to the imagination of the viewer that works in movies.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's why the jump scare is so effective, but you can't get away with that

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_01]: in comics. I mean, you got a page turn, but it's not the same thing.

[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_01]: So this approach is more direct and confrontational,

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_01]: which I don't mean in a bad way at all.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It just forces the reader to engage.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_01]: So as a creator, what is the essence of making something truly

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_01]: scary that you found in a comics format?

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, that's why I think the human emotion has to work.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things I learned from co-writing this

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Marvel comics with Eman Vellani, who's an actor who plays as

[00:27:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Barbara in the MCU is that she would always pay very close attention

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_02]: to the way that the artist draws the expressions of the characters,

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_02]: which was something that like for me, I almost would gloss over

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_02]: because I was so used to seeing them in costumes most of the time.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, right?

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_02]: But because she is a performer, that was very important to her.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And it got me to pay closer attention to that because I realized

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_02]: that is how readers are going to understand what emotion

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_02]: they're supposed to be feeling.

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It's by proxy of the main character and how that main character is emoting.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I kind of brought that with me into this,

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02]: into all the other work that I've been doing as well,

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of like making sure that the audience's

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, emotion is anchored by your lead character's emotion.

[00:28:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Consequently, how does Michael Walsh draw those expressions?

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, when is he hiding something from his girlfriend

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_02]: as opposed to telling her the truth?

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, when is he, you know, about to burst with anger

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: over something that he's been bundling up inside?

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, those little moments of, you know, carving out

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_02]: what a character is thinking and feeling without any words

[00:28:27] [SPEAKER_02]: and seeing if you can drop out some of the lettering.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_02]: That I think was key to sort of making sure that the horror moments landed.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_02]: The other thing I just learned to do is like figure out, OK,

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_02]: what makes for the biggest scare?

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Is it saving the big reveal for the page turn?

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Or is it hinting at a little bit by having an arm in frame?

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_02]: So some of those tricks of television and film do come into play

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_02]: with comics in terms of some of the stairs right around the corner

[00:28:51] [SPEAKER_02]: of the frame of the panel itself.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And that was fun to do.

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the other part is Becacari's lettering, you know,

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: figuring out how can you use the lettering itself

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_02]: as a storytelling tool to accentuate the scares.

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, we had a lot of tools in our toolbox.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I like the thing we used all of them.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, Becacari's lettering, I thought was absolutely fantastic.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Their placement is everything.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a five panel sequence moment that illustrates

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_01]: one of the characters dealing with an increasingly problematic aspect

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: of their appearance. Oh, yes.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And dropping those bubbles on their chest was a beautiful way

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_01]: to accentuate that narrative and create a horizontal line.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so well done.

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So well done. I loved it.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the big thing that I love about this book is it makes

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_01]: its effectiveness lies in taking that familiar Western American

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_01]: waypoint and using that to play with the genre in a way

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_01]: and that gives us something we haven't seen before.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm trying to get a feel for where you might be going

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_01]: if more issues are forthcoming, which I hope they are,

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_01]: is the intent to keep it rooted in America?

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Is this a globetrotting vehicle?

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us anything at this point?

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I think everything's on the table.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_02]: The ideas that I have for future stories,

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I do think majority of them are American stories

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_02]: with the exception of maybe one or two.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But that isn't to say I won't come up with three or four more

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_02]: stories next week or next month.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_02]: That'll be all over the world.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the fun of this structure, which is that,

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, for those who don't know and haven't read it,

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_02]: the structure of the Sacred Damned is about roughly,

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_02]: and this is, you know, ballpark figure here,

[00:30:28] [SPEAKER_02]: the first half of your story is in the perspective

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_02]: of the person who is experiencing paranormal phenomena

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_02]: that they do not understand.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And then about halfway through, Anaya Jabriel shows up

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_02]: and she helps kind of guide you through the process

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_02]: and hopefully helps you find a way out of it,

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_02]: but it's probably not going to be the way that you expect.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's the structure of it.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And so through that, I do think there's tremendous opportunity

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_02]: to have some fun by dropping you anywhere in the world

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_02]: with a particular, you know, person in their setting

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_02]: and then upsetting all the things from the corners

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_02]: of their setting, you know, before Anaya Jabriel enters.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think there's any limitations on it.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_02]: It certainly could be this globetrotting thing,

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_02]: but as somebody who has grown up in America,

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of them

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_02]: are set here in the US.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, well, it's also a lint still look at childhood trauma,

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_01]: right? I'm a lifelong horror fan.

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_01]: My relationship to it as a genre has changed dramatically

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_01]: at different inflection points.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_01]: When my son was born, the autoimmune disease,

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_01]: like I can't I can't do dystopian stuff anymore

[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_01]: because I put myself in those people's shoes and it absolutely,

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_01]: it just freaks me out.

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure, I could always read horror fiction,

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_01]: but I couldn't take watching a horror movie

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_01]: after my son was born for a long time.

[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Now that he's older and he wants to watch

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01]: a bunch of them with me, we're kind of planning

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01]: on our October watch list.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's that's what I must be so fun

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_02]: that you get to kind of introduce him to, you know,

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_02]: a bunch of new or or experience new horror together.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, it's very fascinating

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_01]: because he doesn't like older film making techniques

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_01]: like just resolution with a camera like as a big one.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So can't can't dive too far back.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully we'll get get into alien and that'll be OK,

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_01]: just because it is that damn good.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. But personally,

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_01]: have you found that your relationship to horror

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_01]: as a genre has changed over time for you?

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just me being like nosy and curious.

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my passion for it has certainly increased.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't say I was the biggest horror person

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_02]: when I started my own writing career, let's say.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was gravity a little more towards action

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_02]: or science fiction and I actually I will credit

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_02]: the comics medium of getting me more into horror

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_02]: because I really think we're in a really interesting time

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: for comics right now and kind of have been

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_02]: for the past like two or three years where there's just been

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_02]: like really exciting new new projects

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_02]: that have scared me more than any horror movie has

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_02]: in the past decade or so.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_02]: So so yeah, I mean, it's a mix of things.

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Stephen King's work I kind of was late to get to,

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_02]: but I'm starting to get to some of that stuff now

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and really enjoying it.

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So OK. Yeah, I mean, it's I'm actually

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_02]: in a very exciting sweet spot where

[00:33:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I've consumed plenty that I've taken inspiration from

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and I have plenty more to go, you know?

[00:33:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's a fantastic genre.

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, all we need for another horror

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Renaissance is another play,

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_01]: global plagues. That's what does it, right?

[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_01]: We go through we go through all this angst and isolation

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_01]: and isolation and anxiety,

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and it just produces great fiction, I think.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, everyone needs to get on this because selfishly,

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I want it developed further, even maybe as a TV series,

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_01]: given some other things that you do.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to keep my fingers crossed,

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_01]: but we have to start here and pre-orders are

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_01]: everything on this as a continuation trigger.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you are in the least bit intrigued,

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_01]: you've got to add this to your Halloween reading list.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Order it already. I think it's fantastic.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_01]: What else you got cooking in the four color realm?

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't picked up spirits of vengeance from the LCS yet

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_01]: because I just haven't been by.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I know it dropped recently, but I'm a big fan

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_01]: of the 80s Mackey and Adam Kubert series.

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm always. Oh, excellent.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm always down for more expansion on Koshala.

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So that is that's my jam. Oh, awesome.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. So yes, as you mentioned, I've got spirits of vengeance,

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_02]: which just debuted, I think, last week.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's an ongoing series

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_02]: starring pretty much all the Ghost Riders.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. We had exactly entirely all of them, but but most of them.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm having a blast with that.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_02]: It is probably the most violent action packed thing I've ever written

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and very excited to see the artwork, you know, every day kind of pop into my inbox.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Also have a three issue limited series called Venom War

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_02]: People Protectors, which is, you know, Silver Sable and her new Wild Pack.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And they've got the Life Foundation symbiotes

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and they are navigating the Venom War.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm really excited about that one as well.

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_02]: The first issue just dropped, we've got two more left to go.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And then beyond that, you know, Sacred Dan comes out on October 23rd

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_02]: in comic stores everywhere.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just had a graphic novel called Dandelion, which is

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_02]: somewhat dystopian. I don't know if it's entirely dystopian

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_02]: graphic novel set in the future and in the skies.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's sort of a collection of interconnected short stories

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_02]: that together tell a sort of larger narrative of where our future

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_02]: in the wake of climate change could be added.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, I'm down.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I need to get back and read that one.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I dystopian is a word I think that is.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. It's overused.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like woke.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I agree. Right.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. I mean dystopian to me, my favorite book of all time is The Road.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Is Corbett McCarthy's The Road? Oh yeah.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. That that is that is what I have to.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Despite it being my favorite book, that is what I have to stay away from these days.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_01]: But spirits of vengeance.

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So you're saying that it is more violent than this is?

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would say so.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, look, this one is for a different age group, right?

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think the type of violence may go further

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_02]: in some ways for Sacred Dan, but certainly the volume or percentage

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_02]: of it, you know, for in terms of pages out of the issues,

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, if that's one way to look at it is.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's a lot of angry spirits of vengeance out there

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_02]: and a lot of a lot of danger that they're chasing.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to reading it.

[00:36:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks for coming on and chatting with me today.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate it. You taking the time.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I know you got a really busy schedule.

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks so much.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me, Byron.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, actually.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is Byron O'Neill on behalf of all of us at Comic Book Yeti.

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time.

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Take care, everybody.

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_01]: This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_01]: of the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by Comic Book Yeti.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_01]: We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff.

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[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner,

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