Andrew Leamon and Xander Arnot talk Camera Man

[00:00:00] Your ears do not deceive you. You've just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti. So without further ado, let's get on to the interview. Hey Comics Fam!

[00:00:14] There's a realm-trodding dystopian fantasy adventure that cleverly explores Norse mythology sound up your alley? It sure does mine, so I was excited to see one of my favorite comic creators Eisner and Harvey award-winning

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[00:01:19] Michael is handling both the writing and the artwork duties with Takisoma on colors and Sean Lee lettering the project. Head on over to Kickstarter and make sure you back this cuz it's epic. Y'all Jimmy the chaos goblin strikes again

[00:01:40] I should have known better than to mention that was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators

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[00:02:44] I think I'm gonna make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even Hello and welcome to comic book yeti's cryptid creator corner I'm one of your hosts Jimmy Gasparo And I have a pair of creators of comics that I am very excited to talk to tonight and

[00:03:01] Find out all about them and the comic that they're bringing to Kickstarter and a whole bunch other fun stuff that I'm sure We're gonna get into but we're here

[00:03:11] We're gonna talk about camera man, which is coming to Kickstarter June 18th the campaign's gonna run through July 28th and There's a really awesome trailer that they put out and I'm super excited to talk to them about it

[00:03:25] But please welcome to the podcast Andrew Lehman and Xander are not Andrew Xander. How are you two doing tonight? I'm doing great. I don't know about you guys. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you guys so much for having

[00:03:41] Having us here. Yeah, no, I'm excited to talk about this I'm always excited to talk about comics and I love folks that are making their own thing and and kickstarting comics and also I In doing the little bit of research

[00:03:54] I was able to do before we started talking tonight Xander. Are you in Philly? I am Excellent excellent. Yeah. Well in truth. I'm about half an hour. I'm like greater Philadelphia You know kind of more towards Shelfon, but that's fine. I always say I always say Philly

[00:04:09] Yeah, I'm from Delco. Okay. Okay. Wow. I'm like neighbors. Yeah practically So I'm just south of the city. I'm from Delco. I'm in North Wilmington now Delaware But yeah, I went to you know school in law school in Philly and love Philadelphia

[00:04:24] So when I saw that I was very excited. So we're probably gonna I mean Andrew's from I don't know like Chicago or something We're probably gonna leave him out of this I'm used to it. I'm used to it

[00:04:35] But no that's exciting. We'll we'll we'll get into Philly talk a little bit later. I'm sure but let's talk about Let's talk about cameraman first. Let's just get right into it because this looks like a great Concept and the trailer is really exciting

[00:04:53] You know because it it looks like this could easily go right into you know an animated short a cartoon And it seems like it definitely has those Roots of like, you know Batman the animated series type of stuff But I think your main character Cameron Maddox

[00:05:11] He is the cameraman and he basically is wearing like a look what looks like a full-body camera suit filming a movie like out in space Blue Star I think is the the movie that they're actually filming and that's kind of like the setup to it

[00:05:28] There's a little bit more in terms of the trailer But I was really intrigued by like this concept by the character design I Love the colors of it like from the preview pages and even in the trailer like it's really it's bright. It's bold

[00:05:45] It's it was very exciting. So Why don't you start telling? You know tell me a little bit more until our listeners a little bit more about the kind of the development of

[00:05:57] Cameraman like where did who was this Xander was that your ideas or Andrews and how did you guys connect? Yeah, so I mean right out of high school. I found myself like You know task with the decision of am I gonna you know try and find a path

[00:06:12] You know going to university getting a major in something in film or am I going to? Pursue this like passion I have for storytelling on like the internet and that kind of thing So of course you're always just kind of doodling away with ideas And so one day

[00:06:25] During one of my classes I decided to like let me take a lunch break Let me head down to this restaurant down the street and I had an iPad at the time And so I just started drawing and have a stylist or anything

[00:06:34] It started drawing cameraman and it was just an excuse to kind of get a kind of anthology story on paper Just like I don't know how to tell stories. I don't know how to draw comics like legit So I'm just gonna have some fun with it

[00:06:46] Sheld the idea for a long time Had a myriad of creative adventures since then built a YouTube channel And then I'm like, you know what? I really think I want to get into comics and take it more seriously And that's when I started building the world of cameraman

[00:07:01] Build building some of the other characters like the director you see and like the the other characters You see in the trailer and then ended up finding in on Twitter Andrew and Ever since I kind of started bringing the ideas to him

[00:07:14] And I just had a blast building out what the You know from the outline that I've kind of thrown together What the real story would be because an island an outline is just an outline but a script with characters and dialogue and all

[00:07:27] The scenes that happen. That's a whole other dimension to it that I was not able to have myself So but yeah, I would be curious to hear about it on your side of things Andrew I had a how do things

[00:07:38] Yeah, Andrew when you hear like this idea when somebody comes to you and they're like hey I have this idea and I and I do want to talk about your YouTube channel I mean, I think you know, we'll get into that a little bit

[00:07:48] But you've I think you have like close to 400,000 subscribers on Xander flicks YouTube and I want to talk about all that and that the development of that because you YouTube is something that I like I mean, I've done I've watched some but like

[00:08:05] There's a lot of YouTube that I Just a little too old for when it hit and you know So but I'm totally curious and want to know how you you built all that But yeah, Andrew

[00:08:18] Let's let's talk when you somebody comes to you and they have like all this of idea and I think You know you write comics. I could use a writer to help like what attracts you to that type of like project

[00:08:28] Yeah, so you first reached out to me over Twitter DMs and he was just like hey I've got this thing. I think you'd be a great fit for it. I'd love to talk about it with you and

[00:08:40] I so I immediately looked him up online and I saw hey this this guy's legit This isn't some source because you know, we're all used to scams online

[00:08:49] But I was like no this guy this guy's legit. I looked up his YouTube channel. I looked at all throughout his Twitter page I just saw some amazing bright bold colorful art like you were mentioning before

[00:09:01] And I saw a little bits and pieces of the teases of cameraman that he had been doing before I came on board and so I was incredibly intrigued and I was like, I wonder if this is the idea He wants to pitch to me and then

[00:09:14] we got to talking more and he was like, yeah, I'd like to talk to you about cameraman and He sent me Ultimately what was like a little series Bible and I was I was just completely intrigued because I'm obsessed with world building and and

[00:09:31] like lore and myth and You know just getting deep into characters and that's something that Xander was already deeply invested in right from the get-go So he provided me with a pitch or a pitch for the plot itself and then just like here's background and all the characters

[00:09:47] Here's some secrets of stuff that like we're not even gonna talk about yet And it was just like one of those beauties. It was it was it was just a beautiful I

[00:09:58] Don't know it was it was just really it was really fascinating to look into somebody else's mind But I'm used to writing just for myself. So then getting somebody else is like hey, here's my passion project

[00:10:08] Here's this thing that I've been super passionate about and getting to like dive into that was It was an opportunity I couldn't say no to and it helped that the story and the characters were just really fun and

[00:10:21] Immediately just from the art style I could tell that this has the vibe of the cartoons that I loved growing up so I was like, this is this is an easy yes for me. This is an easy yes and

[00:10:33] Pretty much just you know ever since then Xander and I have been talking every day in fact We're DMing each other just like what about this? What about this? What about this? And we're just slowly building this comic one by one Which is which is the coolest experience

[00:10:50] Especially when it's not my sole project to work on it's it's a true collaboration in that sense Even once you know when you talk about writing something just for yourself and this is you know, not that

[00:11:04] It's also a little different than if you were solely working on somebody else's You know like IP or character like you you know You you come on board and you do an issue of something where you have all that backstory But you know editorial approves your story

[00:11:22] But this is a little different too because now someone has come to you with like their passion project like you just said they're their series Bible and It all looks great

[00:11:31] But you also then have to find like a way in to get like into the the headspace of those characters I would think to help, you know write them

[00:11:40] Once you started to get into it did did you find that a difficult task or did you feel like you had enough? In terms of the background that sander had given you that you found an easy way in Well, yes and no to that answer to that question

[00:11:56] So yes, I thought I found it incredibly easy because he gave me so much detail with the characters But also I found that there was a lot of unexplored ground that we could dive into with the script itself so for instance, you know, I would say the

[00:12:13] 47-page comic that the backers will get with the Kickstarter I would say it's kind of two stories in one So the first story is it's about Cameron's first day or first, you know

[00:12:26] his first his first hours on this job and all the angst all the anguish all the Self-esteem things that you go through very much at the spider-man sort of a Peter Parker problems but then second half is

[00:12:42] focus more on the actual making of the superhero film blue star where I Was really curious when I was looking at the Background Xander gave me so much awesome detail But I remember feeling like so the concept of a cameraman is a very passive character

[00:13:03] But this is supposed to be the hero of the story So how do I make him feel more active? And I remember I even asked Xander like so What are you imagining for this character who's a very passive character?

[00:13:16] How do you expect him to like move the plot along when his job is more just to observe what's going on in front of him and you know, I talked with him I talked with our editor Claire Napier and

[00:13:28] Everyone just kind of gave me some really awesome perspective and great ideas and thoughts and it really helped inform Ultimately what the script became but even on top of that, you know, I found this opportunity by talking about that first job element

[00:13:45] Kind of building on from my own personal experience with having just started a job at the time that I was writing this Oh That I could really inject a lot of really personal Really a lot of personal touches in in Cameron

[00:14:02] And so that that was kind of a really fun little element that I got to explore and Xander has been so flexible and open to me kind of Playing in that space with him Oh, that's awesome So you know Xander when you

[00:14:20] You start this process of bringing somebody on board to like You know write the script or help with scripting Because you've lived with this for so long, you know and kind of gone, you know Off to other things and then like return to it. Was that like control?

[00:14:40] difficult to give up or I Like to say that I've done a decent job at that But it's really hard when you're like you think of it 24-7 I mean unhealthy amounts of thinking about this story and then you're like But it's also not totally on paper yet

[00:15:00] So it's you're kind of building the plane while you're flying it really and so it's great to have a collaborator Like Andrew in this case where it's like Help me sort this out. Does this make any sense? Am I making sense now or is this just crazy?

[00:15:12] You know what I mean? So right that there's an element of that to it And I think that we were really able to with this story in particular I mean at least boil it down to I think what the most attractive parts of the story

[00:15:25] Is and I think that you know because I come from animation background I very much approached cameraman in my mind at least this version of it as like a TV show But it's a comic book

[00:15:36] Love it. I love like shows like Ben 10 and Teen Titans and everyone knows I don't stop talking about Batman Beyond on my Twitter These are all like 22 minute episodes and they're all very short

[00:15:47] So there was two there's two like choices you have what so you can go with like a really in-depth fully fleshed out Like graphic novel and that would be a really good way to tell the story But I also was really attracted to the more the smaller

[00:16:04] thumbs up the smaller stories That kind of allowed you to kind of get bits and pieces and put it all together And also it just helped for production just to help get the story out there So that was one of the biggest challenges

[00:16:17] I came to Andrew with was just like and that was something we talked about a lot in the beginning was you know So there's this this is a pretty ambitious little outline that could turn into a really big story if we're not careful

[00:16:27] And so Andrew just breaking you down right there that there's these two parts of the story one is Cameron's first day on the job and then to the filming of their first movie and you know again There's just so much you can do with that

[00:16:40] But I think that we've really got it down to its core pieces and you know I'd love to go and explore like what was happening during some of these days that they weren't filming and you know

[00:16:47] That's the kind of stuff my brain goes to but yeah, it's a lot and I think we did a really great job with it Well Andrew makes a good point in terms of a cameraman kind of being you know

[00:16:58] Being a passive character in terms of the the filming of a movie just you know The in terms of the end product right we don't ever see the cameraman And to make him kind of the main character I can understand how there could be you know some

[00:17:16] Not not some some difficulty, but like yeah, how do we make it like more exciting? How do we get the action involved? How do we build to it? You could certainly create a scenario where all of a sudden the the cameraman becomes you know

[00:17:29] The main character, but but to kind of build to it. I think you know might be a little bit of Of a challenge but You know, I think that you would have to have a collaboration where You know you're there's some trust and

[00:17:47] You're able to freely like shout out any idea like nobody's gonna No one's going to like poo poo it immediately No one's gonna like take charge in the room. You really have to have a good, you know dialogue I think

[00:18:02] And it seems like at least from the bits and pieces I've seen of the end product that the two of you, you know had that It's certainly the the slickest Kickstarter trailer I've seen for a comic book

[00:18:15] I mean it looks great. Well, it helps when he like you like he said earlier if he comes from an animation background I knew it was going to be good when he was teasing it to me a while way while back ago

[00:18:25] But when I finally saw the finished product, I was just like dude. We need to release this as soon as possible This thing is too good to hold on to Yeah It's a really good trailer and like I said the preview pages of the comic look

[00:18:39] Fantastic. I mean, I love the design of the suit. I love you know, uh That looks great. I love the design of the director Um, like those character designs looked really really cool

[00:18:53] Thanks so much something that I something that I personally love about the designs too. Uh just to kind of uh Just keep some praise on tizander Something that I love is like when character design There's one visual element that kind of draws you to the character itself

[00:19:11] It doesn't need to be super complicated for Uh for Cameron in his suit. It's the it's the helmet. It's the face. It's that camera That camera helmet, but then when you look at someone like lork, it's the glasses

[00:19:26] When you see other characters, you know, it's each one of them has something very unique in their design But it's one specific visual element that I think keeps things simple Which is great for the readers, but then also

[00:19:39] It creates a little bit of intrigue at least at first because it's like, um, I wonder Why we're putting emphasis on certain character, uh design traits and Things that I'm just teasing right now Exactly

[00:19:56] So xander, I wanted to talk to you about uh, you know xander flicks and your youtube channel a little bit. Um I mean getting that many subscribers like I think like I said, you're on the cusp of like 400 000 or so and

[00:20:12] Like what when you're thinking about what direction you wanted to go into and I've you know Look at some of the videos and and some of the more popular ones and some have millions and millions of like views So sorry They're not

[00:20:31] Some of them are some of them Look, I'm not I'm familiar with like bend 10, but it was like, you know, again, I'm 45 So it was I was it doesn't make sense even if you know what bend 10 is

[00:20:44] It's bizarre. It was like a bend 10 like parody and it was short and it was like 14 million views and I was like But it was it was wild. Um, yeah But what what what pushed you in that direction? You're like, hey, I'm just gonna

[00:21:00] You know, it's one thing to do it and then you know How much effort were you putting into it to try and You know grow the youtube channel and then did you did you have a goal in mind once you started to get You know more subscribers

[00:21:17] Yeah, so it's interesting. I've done a lot of soul searching about this recently because it's just it's interesting to look back And be like so how do we get here? How do we get to where I'm talking about the comics that we're working on on this youtube channel?

[00:21:29] That was previously just videos of me rolling around in the grass at my park where where people are like watching and like wondering What's going on? Um, and there's a very small town where people are like why is this happening here?

[00:21:40] Um, because I'm from north north carolina originally And that's where I live for the longest for the longest time in high school and everything Um, so I made my youtube channel in high school actually a little bit. Yeah

[00:21:49] Yeah, I was in high school a little bit before that maybe freshman year and and at that point I was drawing I was 100 drawing and I was definitely doing art

[00:21:57] But I I felt like I wasn't really um like people always told me growing up. Hey, you're really good at art You should you should do something with that and then I kind of like

[00:22:05] Never took it seriously and then didn't really like aim to get any better at it So I kind of just kind of plateaued and didn't really pursue it um In any in any meaningful way beyond just like kind of drawing for myself or whatever

[00:22:19] So but I'd always wanted to do comics. I'd always wanted to do these things But I think I just followed the youtube channel was a way for me to follow and express my love and admiration for a lot of things um, and that was and you know

[00:22:32] If you if you take the art out of it, that's the way I was doing it It was just like with my friends dressing up in costume and being silly Um, but I think that I was like if I can build this to be something

[00:22:43] Um, I can use it to do whatever I want to do creatively theoretically that would be the goal, right? um So yeah, the first benton video did really pop off and that you know I think it was like a million views in the first week

[00:22:56] And that and like then then the ad sense kicks in and you're like, oh, that was that's cool And my parents were like, okay. I didn't know you can make money on youtube. That's pretty interesting

[00:23:06] Which it doesn't really clicked at that point especially when when that was happening um So anyway, it didn't it wasn't immediately. It's not even super profitable at that point But it was just like yeah, so there's potential here and I think I was like let me

[00:23:21] I think of the back of my head. I was like, I really don't know what I want to do for school And you know, that was a big question back in the day

[00:23:27] Is like, am I going to go off to or am I going to do after high school? But I was like if I can just make something work here I can I can circumnavigate all of that

[00:23:34] I can go right to the source of just making the things I want to make by myself Like with the people that I want to work with I don't have to like jump through the hoops of

[00:23:42] You know know this person or pay this much money to go to this thing and that was really attracted to me And I was like, I think I think I can do it or I'd like to try and do it

[00:23:50] That was kind of what I wanted to do. That was my adventure with youtube And so now we're at the point where we're post benton era where I dove really deeply into benton built an audience that Still stuck with me through a lot of that

[00:24:02] And I think a lot of them were surprised that I like had other things to do that what that weren't just benton related so Um, maybe maybe blindsided a lot of them, but I but I was like this is I think we're ready for this

[00:24:13] I spent a lot of time working on my artwork and I had some really fun ideas. I wanted to bring to the table with it Yeah, that made sense. No, no it totally did. I was just curious. Um Yeah, yeah, but I would think though there's

[00:24:28] You know, you're probably right though in terms of building that audience and especially you build it off If your love of something like benton and you know now you kind of have a comic that is

[00:24:42] somewhat in that that vein of that, you know animation and the spirit of that show a little bit But certainly your own take your own vision You know, uh And you know dealing with You know AI component of taking over movies and how big

[00:25:03] You know, especially here. There's so much talk now with like is the summer blockbuster dead and like What are we actually going to have to do? Are we actually going to have to go into space to make? Off it a bulls that what it's going to take. Um

[00:25:18] Uh, you know, so you have some of these ideas that are kind of like rolled into this really sleek looking comic. Um I mean, I I think that's that pretty smart to

[00:25:31] To do that and think well, maybe I can pivot into something else and that audience will follow along And if you make something good, I I think enough of them will that You know, you should have you know, hopefully a Successful Kickstarter campaign

[00:25:45] I think there was a long there was a long time where I wanted to make like movies like do film and like Pursue that path and that's really because I loved watching a lot of behind the scenes of like my favorite movies growing up

[00:25:56] You know, there is like sometimes I would get a movie of like render from the blockbuster or whatever And then watch the bonus features before I watched the movie itself Just loving the process of like watching how many people it took to put one scene together

[00:26:10] As I always call back to like this Revenge of the Sith documentary I think I can't remember exactly what it's called, but it's like an hour long uh star wars revenge of the sip And by the way in case we're in sure um And And it breaks down

[00:26:24] The making of a one minute of of movie and it just shows you like uh, this this great like spider web of like all the people in the different Departments and all the people that came together and I was just like

[00:26:35] My jaw dropped as a kid. I was like people get paid to make movies. This is insane. So anyway I think I've always wanted to find some way to work that passion or that love and that understanding of how difficult the process is

[00:26:47] Um into something and then like realizing. Oh my gosh, I have this cameraman character Let's just like Like put put put them together somehow Yeah, and then there's like, you know the rise of ai conversation. That's just so interesting that really pushes our characters to like

[00:27:01] Do something absolutely insane and save the world that from from that from that and other things questionable You know, you know question mark, but I think it's really interesting. Yeah, I'm excited to see what people think of it

[00:27:13] Yeah, yeah, I I think it's a great concept. I really and like I said like like how it looks I was a big fan of you know behind the scenes making of Stuff too. I'm not the first person to say this but I do lament

[00:27:27] You know the rise of streaming to the detriment of dvds because I did love bonus features and But although I will say netflix put out the Like the movies that made us and and some of those were fantastic Um, yeah, you know, I love hearing about

[00:27:46] How it's all made how it all came together like, you know Because especially the stuff that I like grew up loving as a kid and then you get older and you're like, how did they you know

[00:27:55] How did they put all that together and you realized like they were rewriting the script like Moments before shooting Right. That's part of the magic. You don't see it. You don't even see it

[00:28:05] Sometimes you don't sometimes you do see it, but sometimes you don't see it and it's like wow How do they do that? That's like a magic trick, you know

[00:28:11] And even something like star wars when you realize that like george lucas's first cut of star war is like speilberg and I think Maybe koppel or somebody like they didn't like it like it had to be the battle of uh, yavin was like a mess

[00:28:27] Yeah, save with the score and the editing for sure. Yeah Sorry, and you're I think you're gonna face. Oh, no, no, I was I don't even remember what my point was so we're all good

[00:28:38] All right, we'll have a refined one. We gotta say there's there's a lot of parts There's a lot of parts I think working behind the scenes into the story with all these different characters because again like you know

[00:28:47] There are other characters that I would love to introduce later that are other You know aspects of the film production process um and andra and I've talked about many of them and it's just really cool to

[00:28:59] To try and reinterpret what these different people on a movie set do in a in a context where you're transporting yourself to space and trying to disappear into the background and um Sometimes you have to be like a superhero

[00:29:14] Like what is that? What does that even mean? Right? So like So, you know, we have the stunt twins in this universe as well And they have you know their own personalities One's named pyro and I don't even know if we want to talk about characters, but pyro

[00:29:26] Yeah, I'll talk about whatever. I'm I'm Can't wait to get more. Yeah, and I'd love to hear uh, andrew's thoughts on these guys too But you know, obviously we have camp we've talked about cameraman Cameron um and laurik the director, but we also have

[00:29:41] Pyro and correa which you know pyro does the pyrotechnics and correa does the choreography And um green screen who's just kind of looking cool and hanging out in the background and he does he does things that I think Are important. I'm pretty sure

[00:29:57] So but yeah funny things for them to do is really is really unique and I think that out Andrew working with Andrew on this script in particular helped solidify their identity. It's like seeing them in action seeing what

[00:30:08] Um, they have to do to help make the the shot happen is really is really interesting and I think a probably unique challenge Yeah, well and especially given the fact that when it comes to When you're introducing your first, you know, the first issue of a story

[00:30:23] I've done so much research into like how to tell the first issue And one of the big no-nos is introducing way too many characters out front up front We've all read comics where there's 30 characters introduced that you don't know who they are

[00:30:39] You don't know why they are you don't know where anybody is because you have so many characters to balance And I know that was a very that was a big intentional choice with zander and I to really keep the cast for this first issue short um

[00:30:55] because there's going to be plenty of other cast members we're going to meet of the uh of lorix crew, but It's really about focusing on who's going to be the most impactful impactful for the story. We're trying to tell

[00:31:10] So if you're telling a story focused on a superhero blue star in this case I think it makes sense that you're going to have you're going to want your pyrotechnic expert and your choreographer because of all the action that's going to be happening all of the um

[00:31:29] Yeah, all the action that's going to be happening. So Then you're kind of trying to find the right balance and figure out okay How do we want to kind of play up the character's best?

[00:31:42] attributes for this moment and for instance, you know, one of the things I really was excited about was if either of you are familiar with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers bulk and skull How you have these two characters who are just these goofy

[00:31:59] Guys that just kind of they start out as the bullies. They kind of grow into something more Complicated and you grow to really love them and that was immediately when I was seeing the when zander first sent me the stuff for uh pyro and coria

[00:32:16] Was I got to be like, oh, I see a real fun potential for these like two this guilden stern and rosen crants uh Like being able to play these two dynamic characters together

[00:32:30] And how can we kind of play up their dynamic through this first issue through this action thing? and the chaos that uh that That happens throughout the issue And yeah, it was just it was so much fun. There was just so much opportunity with all the characters

[00:32:47] Cameron especially Like I told you earlier like playing up the whole element of the peter parker-ness of him He's not peter parker But there's just elements of peter parker within him because i'm i'm biased i'm

[00:33:01] Even holding up right by my desk right now. I'm reading the new greg wiseman spectacular spider man spider man comic uh, so I'm constantly in love with the spider man sort of angst and trials and tribulations and the bad luck that comes with it

[00:33:19] And I really found that there's a lot of great opportunity kind of inject that same sort of energy the same one that You know zander and I were so clearly drawn to with the characters and that includes the supporting cast I really uh

[00:33:34] That's interesting and I but I really uh andra appreciate you pivoting from mighty morphing power ranges to rosen crants and gilded stern because I I like to keep things complicated. What can I say? I'm a bougie man. I'm a bougie man No, that's mine. Uh, I appreciate it

[00:33:55] I always flip the names around too I always say Rosen stern and gilding crants and then someone always corrects me and then I've just embarrassed for the rest of the day

[00:34:04] I didn't make that mistake here. So I'm very proud of myself internally for not screwing that one up. Thank you All right, let's take a quick break Hey comics fam Itty comic book publisher band of bars just got a level up and announced it is now a cooperative

[00:34:23] This heralds a new era for them including a partnership with dollas stories And they added several new members to the ownership group Marcus Jimenez is now chief operating officer Brent Fisher takes on the role of chief diversity officer

[00:34:36] And joey galvez is introduced as head of kickstarter ops and social media manager Which is sure to increase their capabilities overall as a publisher And it further promotes their mission statement of advancing representation inclusion and diversity in the media

[00:34:52] They also established a new board of directors to help chart the new path of their journey With new projects in the works like Alaska by dropping in june I'm broken soon launching on Kickstarter and pond coming up with dollas

[00:35:04] Stay tuned to this space for more exciting news from the growing bards family Let's get back to the show Yeah, well andrew. I also wanted to ask you you talk about doing research into like what do you have to really do for the first issue? um

[00:35:24] Page, you know issue us. I mean, it's you know a double sized issue You said it's like two stories. So it's really kind of issue, you know, essentially one and two just when you think of like the standard You know 22 page, you know floppy um

[00:35:41] Not only the balance of introducing the characters and Uh, so it's not too much for the audience and that you get to spend a little bit of time with everybody But you also have to balance those character moments with The action scenes

[00:35:58] Do you feel like you had a good sense of being able to do that? in the in this this first oversized issue Oh, absolutely. In fact The the big influence and I kept having to pitch zander I'm like i'm so sorry the script keeps getting bigger

[00:36:15] But the reason why it kept getting bigger was because I realized that I think what I was What I found was a really awesome opportunity Was i'm a big manga guy and especially in like the shonen manga space

[00:36:30] The first issue or first chapter of a manga is always like 40 50 pages And as I was writing this issue, I kind of realized I kind of fully understand now why they want to do that

[00:36:44] It's because you're both trying to balance the concept of introducing a whole bunch of characters But then also getting to the meat of why this comic why you should be continuing to read this comic And I think manga you have to

[00:36:59] You know, usually their action's right at the beginning, but for something like cameraman It's not it's we're not introducing right in the middle of the action. We're introducing sometime before that and It was really about trying to find when the action made the most sense

[00:37:16] But that said there's still action in it um one of the one of my favorite little moments is kind of I love playing up physical comedy I'm a big mr. Bean guy and trying to play up there's a specific moment early on where

[00:37:32] Cameron's not paying attention and he gets run over by a robot carrying boxes and Just like trying to find the different physical comedy of it too It allows to kind of keep you in the mindset of like, okay, there's action happening but then also

[00:37:49] You know once we get to the actual real action the real fighting the the superhero spectacle that you'll you come to expect Uh, I think it it becomes a very different but really fun type of thing that builds

[00:38:04] No, that's awesome. But zander one day ask you in terms of We talked about you know, you mentioned some of the the animation that you liked in terms of your youtube channel You know in terms of like comics. Do you have particular influences? Andrews talked about, you know

[00:38:19] Peter Parker and spider-man, but were there things in the comic world that inspired you or that you wanted to try and You know capture a little piece of Yeah, absolutely. Uh spider-man was probably the thing I read the most growing up. I mean just there's the spider-man

[00:38:35] Adventures series actually like growing up as a kid that was like like the little like graphic novel size ones you could read Um were absolutely like I carried those things around with me I have one that's like a like a raggedy

[00:38:46] Like a semblance of papers now because I used to carry it around with me and practice drawing all my characters with it um, but that's really where my Or my love for comics started was with those and then I think that I'm

[00:38:59] With with this comic in particular. I'm really drawing on my tv inspiration So like, you know Bruce tim glenn mirakami like a lot of the art people from those shows Are what i'm pulling on for this um

[00:39:11] And and yeah, like comics is a completely different art than that animation that I've I've had the Fun of finding out in the process like when I when I go to do a page I always think of it like in terms of storyboarding

[00:39:23] You know I think about how can I draw the action show the show the movement in the most appealing way but Uh with comics you really have to show

[00:39:30] Just one of those frames and in what which frame do you pick to have the most amount of impact and carry through and Carry the reader through the story, but um That's a roundabout way of saying spider-man was the biggest one

[00:39:40] But I think that you know from all the different runs that he's had and I've read a bunch of them um bits and pieces where I can there's so many different uh dynamic poses and

[00:39:53] Ways that you can you can really intimately understand the characters that um, I think spider-man does really well Oh, yeah, certainly that that is interesting though and looking at the difference between animation and and

[00:40:06] You know having to storyboard something but for comics it's just that you know that one moment You have to find you know that for that panel On this podcast creators talk a lot about you know the economy of storytelling

[00:40:20] Which I think is probably captured best. I I think in the comics, you know medium There's you only have a set number of pages a set number of panels that you can You know fit on that page and you really have to

[00:40:35] um balance the the pacing uh, you know With those panels like just just right like you there's there's very little room Between the gutters for for too much fat. You know it's got to be almost all meat

[00:40:51] Absolutely and even on that. No, sorry go ahead zander. No, no go ahead Okay, well, I was gonna say so one of the fun little things that we do throughout the comic In fact zander was right before our recording for this. He was showing me some pages from

[00:41:08] Like the the final pages of the book And there's something that that we're doing in this story to kind of blend since we're doing a story that is both About the filming of the movie but also about the movie itself

[00:41:22] Um one thing that we're doing that's really fun the kind of We're trying to find that way to really emphasize This is the comics medium. How can we best utilize this? Otherwise, we would just make this as an animated feature

[00:41:34] Uh and so something that zander and I were really excited about doing is we're essentially doing uh, They're they're the film reels. So if you'll notice, um You'll notice on

[00:41:47] Cameraman suit he has these the scarf. It's very common very common writer more modern common writer sort of uh film scarf, okay, and so throughout the issue you'll see Reels from that film and you'll see the actual frames from the movie that's taken place. That's through

[00:42:07] Cameraman's perspective and so we were really we were really deeply trying to figure out like how we can best Be economical with the storytelling that we have to do but then also how can we best Utilize the actual medium that we have to be economical with

[00:42:24] And I I think we found a really fun way to do this It it really blends really nicely Especially once you see it through like a lot of dynamic Chase chase scenes and other things where you're playing in both perspectives on the on the page

[00:42:37] But you're never losing focus of where you are in the moment Which is it's it's not an easy thing to do but zander is just pulling it off so well Yeah, and and it's I gotta say it's it's an impossible task to ask a writer to help you

[00:42:51] Create a story where the the main character doesn't really Invade the main story that he's trying to film On but I totally agree with Andrew. I think that finding we found the sweet spot of um

[00:43:03] What's going on behind the camera and and showing what's on camera so that you can kind of almost Get in the the mindset of the audiences that might be watching this movie. What are they seeing? um

[00:43:14] You know, what are what are they showing the audiences back on earth? Uh because You know, but I can't show everything obviously so Yeah, I know I really like that because you know in terms of reading the comic and then it helps to draw you in

[00:43:29] Right when the audience Reading it becomes the audience who is almost like an active participant in in the comic You you can't help but be drawn into

[00:43:42] You know that world because uh, it's like another layer. Um, no, I really I really like that. Um, I wanted to ask in terms of Any the other members of the the team because I think you mentioned Claire Napier

[00:43:57] Uh is the editor on it Claire's fantastic. I mean Claire's been the podcast before and Claire's wonderful Yeah, she's wonderful. I've worked on I worked on a final round with her ages ago And when xander and I were talking about the story

[00:44:12] I was like, oh, I have an awesome person that we could loop into You know to get on this project with us Uh, and I I absolutely adore Claire

[00:44:23] Yeah, it was really insightful to have an editor come in because you know doing youtube for so long by myself Uh, you're not really used to having anyone looking at your work and helping you check and make sure it makes sense

[00:44:34] I could have definitely used that many times early on where like things are not making any sense It's like someone says and hey, let's make sure this all works and all that but no just it's it's great having somebody that has great sense of story and pacing and

[00:44:48] Um, you know, I sent some thumbnail pages to her early on and she said, you know, let's rethink this part And she and I'm like, you know, that's a really good point I'm going to go redraw all these pages now that we've had this conversation so

[00:44:58] But so it's been a really it's been a really, um interesting learning experience for me, uh on this first issue I think it's been really Um great and hopefully it'll lend itself to to giving through other issues of the comic, you know very quickly for sure

[00:45:12] And then Nathan Nathan kempf is doing the lettering for this and just oh great. Nathan's a fantastic from what you saw Oh so good, uh and from what you saw in the preview pages like

[00:45:23] Nathan's killing it and it's going to be really fun to see the rest of the pages as they come in, uh how The whole team comes together for it. Absolutely It's it was surreal seeing the pages with the letters on them and like it's all colored and everything

[00:45:38] It's like, oh yeah, totally crazy. Yeah, because you think you know what the pages look like when it's colored But they are like, oh, there's a whole other dimension with comics where you get this great

[00:45:47] You know tapestry of letters and balloons and things that really make the reader feel like they're experiencing it And jimmy i'm sure you've experienced this too with your comics like that moment where when you see the when you see the finished Art on the thing

[00:46:01] It doesn't seem real almost at first. You're just so like This is this is beautiful. This is I don't know what this is. Oh wait, I wrote this. I had something to do with this Yeah, it's it's the best feeling in the world

[00:46:12] It's it's why everyone's right comics is because of that finished realization I hope it never goes away You know, I just got something not not that not that long ago like the Uh the art for like an eight page story and I was looking at it

[00:46:30] And it was like there was a the editor sent it to me And with a little note from the artist that was just like oh I changed this panel from the script and I broke this out and I combined this hope that's okay

[00:46:42] Just like a few you know tweaks like the artist is kind of taking the story and doing their thing with it And I love that was looking at it. It's just like This is so good Yeah Like being such a jerk like but it's just me

[00:47:00] I'm in a room by myself just looking at it like on my phone and I was but I was just like this is really good And then it comes in colored and then you see like the letters on it. You're like, that's a comic. Hey, that's like

[00:47:12] That's a story. That's the whole thing. Yeah, there's nothing There's nothing like it for me with like no artistic ability whatsoever, but the thing I can write a script and An artist can kind of interpret it and just elevate it and you have this this story

[00:47:28] I just love comics for that. There's just nothing like that feeling when you see it all Come together and especially when you're working with a team where everybody's talking and clicking and You know just trying to make the story the best like nobody

[00:47:45] Is really putting their foot down just for the sake of it Like i'm not talking about not fighting about an artistic choice or something that you really feel passionate about But really being open to just figuring out how to make

[00:47:58] The story the best it can be like I just I love it. Love it It's like Paul thomas anderson says in interviews about just like the act of Making a movie is impossible. It's a miracle that it gets me and comics with the exact same way

[00:48:14] But you know and this is something that obviously it relates to both the comic and both, you know And what we're talking about today. Yeah, but it's just it's it's something that should not be possible But that everybody came together everyone put their 110 percent into it

[00:48:30] And you have a finished product, you know soon We're going to be able to have this printed thing in our hands when all the backers, you know Hopefully back it up

[00:48:40] I don't want to get too out of myself, but i'm optimistic because I believe in this thing so much and But like we get to we get to have something in our hands that we get to be like we made this and it was a team effort

[00:48:52] It's something that could not have been made by ourselves And I love that. I love that team collaboration Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Um And so In terms of the Kickstarter, is there anything Like exciting and you're you know, really excited about in terms of like rewards or stretch goals

[00:49:15] Or anything you want to talk about for listeners who you know, because I'll have a link In the show notes. I just was curious if there's anything you're you know Uh Really excited about in terms of the Kickstarter Zander do you want to talk about the covers?

[00:49:31] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to pivot to Andrew. You're right. I'll show you money with it We definitely focused heavily on variant covers for this for this comic and

[00:49:41] There's a number of reasons for that more because like, you know more options people can choose like the look they like the best but um When figuring out what they were going to be I found that it was really fun to figure out

[00:49:53] Okay, how do we differentiate them in a unique way? The first one the standard cover Is decidedly the one that relates most to story most of the characters and what they're doing in the narrative that we're telling in the first issue

[00:50:03] The second one because they're making a superhero movie in this comic Is a spoof on a superhero movie poster. So you have a floating head cover where like all the cast is kind of like You know MCU MCU'd uh, you know in a tasteful way

[00:50:22] For chatting elements and all that kind of stuff And then the third one Is the movie that they're filming if you were going to like pick up the adaptation of the movie in comic book

[00:50:34] Form you might you might pick up this cover of this comic and it's a blue star so and it's a and the The way it's composed is a reference to the incredible hulk movie. So it's like, you know

[00:50:45] The character and anyway, I'm not gonna say anything about the plot in the movie within the movie um But yeah, and then the fourth one was a featured was a featured artist by um, george

[00:50:56] Commodize, I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce him. But he's very very talented. Uh, oh absolutely. Oh, it's so good I can't wait to show it off to people I've been holding back on it because it just I love all the covers

[00:51:07] But that one like it just blew me away to see someone else interpret a cameraman and just oh, it's stunning Yeah, we weren't far into like getting the comic off the ground And you mean in any meaningful way and I saw his spider-man artwork and I was like

[00:51:22] All right I'm gonna bookmark this and we're gonna come back around when the time comes and we're gonna talk to him about doing a variant cover And he absolutely just killed it. I mean, it's really cool to see Um the characters and his art style

[00:51:33] Oh, yeah, I mean he I I think he's like Ringo nominated, right? Um Yeah dc comics, uh variant covers for sure Yeah I know I think he was also He's doing stuff for Hercules right now. I believe as well

[00:51:52] Yeah, he did stuff with uh dynomites like uh gargoyles and I think the David Buer was writing that dungeons and dragons saturday morning adventures um But yeah Yeah, very very cool. A ton of ton of ton of stuff for dc too. So yeah uh Yeah

[00:52:12] Phenomenal phenomenal artist. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, he's very talented So yeah, all the covers look really fun together. It's like fun to see them all lined up That's one of the things I'm really excited about with this Kickstarter and that Andrew

[00:52:22] I don't know you could you could chime in as well what you're excited for but for me It's really to see the books themselves and and be able to like hand them to someone to be like a read this and then talk to

[00:52:31] Me later, you know that kind of thing Totally, I think just just yeah just having the books just having the options I'm I've been sitting on this thing for

[00:52:39] For some time and I've been so excited to tell my friends like hey, I get to work on this thing today And now I actually get to start doing the actual promotion for the because at the time of this recording

[00:52:50] You know, we're just about to launch the Kickstarter campaign Yeah, you're like a week away. Yeah We're a week away And so it's just I I know a lot of people are dreading it

[00:53:00] Maybe it's just like because i'm a freshman i'm a newbie when it comes to Kickstarter campaigns I just i'm just like eager. I'd i'm star or starry. I this the term

[00:53:09] Uh, and i'm just i'm just excited to talk about this thing and just get it in front of people Get their thoughts the you know xander designed the Kickstarter page and it's just a really fun page

[00:53:21] We got to collaborate on it and do like little fun character bios and Um, you know, then the actual preview pages that you already read and You know, we're we're giving you lots of lots of little goodies before you get into the comic itself

[00:53:34] But I think with the trailer and everything else You're gonna have a really good idea of what the story is and there's plenty of surprises in store There's plenty of surprises Yeah, there's definitely a point where I feel like we've we've like without communicating

[00:53:47] I've decided to like not cross and like not talk about the other Half of the story in great detail because it's really going to be fun to figure out and see how things transpire Um, and we have to like always talk around talk around it in a way

[00:54:00] But like you know, the I think the premise itself is promising enough that they're making the superhero movie and um, you definitely want to see like what that what's involved with all that when you're going to another planet and

[00:54:11] There's they're filming with real people, you know, there may be not just actors. So I mean it. How do you do that? so And you know, this is this is a story that we're telling live and so when you're telling a story live

[00:54:25] Things don't exactly go as planned, but you only get one take with this So you're trying to both You know for for Cameron. This is a high stakes because Lorak you'll very quickly get to find out. He's a very Very passionate very determined opinionated sort of guy

[00:54:47] He is happy to fire people left and right he he has thousands of times he's let go people for the smallest details and So Cameron is coming into the picture and he's trying to figure out how he can keep his job Make a good movie but then also

[00:55:07] survive the situation that he put in And it it makes the story it it makes for a really fun story that I think as when people get to read it

[00:55:17] I think there's going to be a lot that you'll be able to dive into with even a second read That I think xander and I were very conscious about especially as we look to number two That we would that we like to make there as well Yeah

[00:55:31] Awesome. Well, I'm very excited for it There'll be a link in the show notes for listeners when you're listening to this and as long as you're listening and you know between June 18th and July 28th You'll still be able to check out the campaign for

[00:55:46] Cameraman, but I mean I I think it looks great and I'm really excited by the story I think it's that's what you know, I like characters. I like a good concept You know and I want the art to you know, I wanted to look good

[00:55:59] And I think this has all three of those things. So I'm very excited. I wish you Folks the best of luck with uh cameraman number one, but it it just that

[00:56:12] That trailer I mean like listeners if you're not if for any reason you've listened and you're still like You know on the fence about it watch watch that trailer again I mean, I just watch that and I'm like, yeah, I gotta I gotta know more. I gotta

[00:56:25] I gotta read this I gotta get into this story. It just looks it looks really really good and yeah I think you know, you'll hear a lot about like superhero saturation and And where there's too much um, and you guys are kind of on the

[00:56:42] fringes of that idea right cameraman and he's filming they're filming a superhero movie but Um, you have to find a new way in there. These stories have been around for so long They'll continue to be around as long as there is

[00:56:59] an interesting compelling character and story to tell And I think that you have found that and I'm excited to dive in and read more And see exactly where this thing goes. So um, yeah, I I think

[00:57:17] I think the audience is there for it and people are going to find it. I'm very excited for it, but uh, yeah, so I wish you guys the best of luck

[00:57:26] Thank you so much and also credit to zander for that trailer. He directed it. He like hired the voice actors Did the animation himself like it looks so good and I give him all the credit for that

[00:57:38] Oh, thank you. Yeah, I really wanted to make sure it like felt like a little bit y2k with like the TV like a bumper you might see like on cartoon network or something for a show on adult slam

[00:57:47] right and like, you know kudos to to paul paul tallos Composer who's also kind of local actually he's like right down the street. I've never met him, but He's right down the street, but um

[00:57:59] He he composed that score for me like before we even had a first draft of the script And I kind of walked him through the I'll end up posting the full thing at some point

[00:58:07] But like fun little tidbit this the the composer the prompt for the composing of that that score was to create the hero's journey in a musical sense and so that was kind of like

[00:58:18] Hopefully it's it's audible when you when you end up getting to listen to the whole thing But it was really cool to come full circle with using that score in this trailer Finally after all this time because it took like a couple years to make this

[00:58:29] Um, wow to make this whole thing happen. So really excited for everyone to check it out Yeah, and the voice actors you picked where you know you hired were were great The kind of those lorax voices awesome. Yeah his voice like melts our brains

[00:58:44] He has a really good christ for lee impression too if you go to his youtube channel, it's like insane. It's it's like he's in the room It's crazy. Oh, that's pretty great. I'll have to find that But yeah, um

[00:58:55] Well zander and andrew thank you so much for coming on the podcast and chatting about cameraman. This is big Pleasure. Thank you jimmy. Appreciate it. Yeah, um and um We'll send everybody to check out

[00:59:09] I'll put links like I said in the show notes so everyone can go to the campaign page and we'll put links in there for Xander for xander flicks for your youtube channel. Everyone can check out your ben 10 parodies

[00:59:22] And oh gosh, they're so good. I know I know you fringe with that, but I genuinely think you're really fun There's some good. There's some good. You could tell we're having fun while we're making it even if it's a little goofy

[00:59:33] Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean that's a love some fan animation Right that stuff. Hey, that's a whole different thing. Yeah, I really appreciate that Maybe you haven't seen all the ones that that were that jimmy and I are talking about those ones are pretty silly

[00:59:46] Maybe I haven't seen all of them but all the ones I've seen yeah But I'll put links so you can check out andrew's work too I think andrew I think folks can on your website

[00:59:53] They can still go and read monolith that you um had released recently right? Yeah with v gagman Their art is just oh gosh. Yeah, I was so excited to get that comic out too because it's it's stunning It was a really awesome collaboration again And with yeah, yeah

[01:00:10] order uh cabbage Doing the editing which yeah an awesome. This is an awesome team for that one. Yeah Yeah, I really like that last page is great for that one in particular for monolith um, all right well, uh, I'm sure you have many more

[01:00:27] podcasts and uh things to get to to promote cameraman because running a Kickstarter as you'll find is not easy but Hopefully ultimately fulfilling so wish you the best of luck though I think this looks great and I encourage everybody to go check it out especially if you

[01:00:46] Are in any way a fan of of of benton batman the animated series You know the mighty morphing power rangers are any of those like kind of 90s cartoons It definitely kind of has or early 2000s has that vibe

[01:01:00] um, then it just looks like a lot of fun and uh, I can't wait for folks to check it out and I can't I can't wait to back it so Xander and andrew again. Thanks a lot for coming on the podcast

[01:01:11] A shout out to my brother bobby the cryptic creator corners number one was dedicated fan As I tell my listeners bobby listens to all my episodes. So we really appreciate it. Thanks bobby

[01:01:21] And uh, yeah, thanks for listening folks and I'll see you next time. Have a good night This is biron o'neill one of your hosts of the cryptic creator corner brought to you by comic book yeti We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast

[01:01:35] 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 cryptic creator corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast into the comics kate

[01:01:52] Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts