Dan Watters talks Destro

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

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[00:01:31] Y'all, Jimmy, the Chaos Goblin strikes again!

[00:01:34] I should've known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media.

[00:01:41] My bad.

[00:01:42] He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know,

[00:01:44] and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing.

[00:01:49] Another friend chimes in, are you going to make BAPS?

[00:01:52] It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together, so I guess?

[00:01:57] It was then that I discovered Arc and Forge.

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[00:02:28] Check them out at arcandforge.com and use the discount code YETTI5 to get $5 off.

[00:02:34] I'll drop a link in the show notes for you and big thanks to Arc and Forge for partnering with our show.

[00:02:39] I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even.

[00:02:44] Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of the Cryptic Creator Corner.

[00:02:47] I'm Byron O'Neill, your host for today's chat, and today I'm joined by a newcomer to our show, Dan Waters.

[00:02:53] I've been wanting to have Dan on for a while here.

[00:02:55] Dan's portfolio includes writing credits for Homestake Pilots, Loki, Lucifer, a personal favorite of mine,

[00:03:00] the seasons have teeth, the six fingers that's going on currently, and the recently released Creature from the Black Brune, among others.

[00:03:08] And now he's turning his attention to help.

[00:03:10] Skybound launched the the Energon universe, mashing up the worlds of classic G.I. Joe and Transformers franchises with Destro miniseries,

[00:03:18] which along with Scarlett kicks off the next phase of those book releases.

[00:03:22] Dan, welcome to the show. You having a good week?

[00:03:24] I am. Thanks very much for having me.

[00:03:26] Yeah, yeah. Well, I know you've been busy promoting the next installment of the Universal Monsters comic franchise with Image,

[00:03:33] the Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is in shops now.

[00:03:36] I don't want to recover a lot of ground there except to ask how feed been for the series thus far.

[00:03:41] I really enjoyed the first issue and I wasn't previously like a big fan of the creature.

[00:03:46] Yeah, I mean, to be honest, that's what we've been hearing a lot.

[00:03:51] Yeah, I think it's been a bigger reaction than I honestly expected.

[00:03:56] Dracula is one thing, the Creature from the Black Lagoon is very much another.

[00:03:59] Right.

[00:04:00] But it turns out there are a lot of quiet, covert creature fans out there.

[00:04:07] And yeah, hopefully we've made some new ones. It certainly seems like it.

[00:04:13] Yeah, I was very, very young when I was first exposed to the movie.

[00:04:18] But yeah, not a big fan, but I really like the direction you're taking it in.

[00:04:24] So Destro, I was recently chatting with Kelly Thompson about Scarlet,

[00:04:28] which is kind of the parallel series to Destro, kind of about growing up with the character.

[00:04:33] And for those of us at a certain age in the US, it's kind of difficult to evade an imprint,

[00:04:38] at least at a cursory level from the GI Joe and Transformers franchises.

[00:04:42] Growing up in London, was it something you were readily exposed to?

[00:04:46] Nah, not at all.

[00:04:49] We had a thing called Action Man, which was, I only know this in retrospect,

[00:04:56] there was when they brought GI Joe to the UK, they were like,

[00:04:59] well, real American hero might not fly the same.

[00:05:02] So they rebranded his action force and used a lot of the same characters,

[00:05:07] but sort of repurposed them in different roles.

[00:05:10] But by the time I was a kid, it was a thing called Action Man,

[00:05:14] which is far more of like a Kendall kind of size thing with a scar on his face.

[00:05:20] And it was very James Bond geared, also coded.

[00:05:25] And I love that as a kid.

[00:05:27] I'm surprised by how much I've ended up talking about Action Man in my adult professional life

[00:05:33] and this sort of launch of this book.

[00:05:37] But yeah, GI Joe wasn't something that was particularly on my radar.

[00:05:42] So I think I've come to it from a very different perspective

[00:05:46] to pretty much everyone or all the other writers I've talked to

[00:05:49] who've been working on this energy and stuff.

[00:05:52] Yeah, I mean, I'm frankly delighted that you got recruited on this

[00:05:55] because there's definitely a different filter you can bring to the table

[00:06:00] as opposed to this iconically American filter, right?

[00:06:03] Kind of as an outsider, and I don't mean that in a bad or derogatory way.

[00:06:06] You know, kind of as a work for a higher gig, how did they approach you?

[00:06:09] How did you get involved?

[00:06:11] Yeah, I mean, I think it was because I was already working on Preacher.

[00:06:17] And I think I was sort of brought up in conversation

[00:06:22] between the editors and Josh Williamson.

[00:06:25] And they liked the idea of putting me on this.

[00:06:27] I have a history of writing sort of megalomaniacs

[00:06:32] and sort of very entitled sociopaths.

[00:06:36] You know, I did Lucifer,

[00:06:38] and the first superhero book I ever did was Ocean Master,

[00:06:41] like a one-shot and then Loki

[00:06:45] and all these sort of very powerful, very entitled characters.

[00:06:49] So I can see why I might have come up in conversation about Destro.

[00:06:53] But I think it's something about the works because, you know, he's not American evil.

[00:06:59] Yeah, exactly.

[00:07:02] Well, it's writing, you know, the characters that are classically seen as villains,

[00:07:05] just something that's more appealing to you.

[00:07:07] You know, Lucifer, Loki, Asriel even is, you know, is an antihero, right?

[00:07:11] And now Destro.

[00:07:14] Yeah, I mean, I do love writing them.

[00:07:16] I like writing the heroes as well.

[00:07:19] I guess I have a sort of healthy British skepticism towards the sort of concept of the hero,

[00:07:25] you know, which I think sort of bleeds through from the sort of comics that we grew up with over here,

[00:07:31] the sort of homegrown stuff, you know, all the 2000 AD

[00:07:35] and then the sort of the writers that we looked at, you know, very quickly,

[00:07:40] the Moors and the Morrisons and all those kind of writers who came up through that same,

[00:07:48] with that same foundation.

[00:07:52] But I do love writing villains.

[00:07:54] They're a lot of fun and I think there's a, you know, I get asked like sometimes,

[00:08:00] oh, is it hard making them empathetic?

[00:08:02] And I don't think it ever is because I think there's an element of wish fulfillment

[00:08:07] when we read a villain's book.

[00:08:09] Yeah.

[00:08:10] And there's also, I mean, I'm not convinced that a character has to be particularly likeable,

[00:08:20] to be engaging.

[00:08:24] You know, like everyone sort of I think knows by this point that, you know,

[00:08:26] a flat villain who's just sort of out to rule the world for no reason doesn't cut mustard

[00:08:32] for readers or audiences because we're all a bit more emotionally intelligent than that

[00:08:36] to think that those people really exist.

[00:08:40] But, you know, we are bombarded every day like in the news and everything by these sort of maniacs

[00:08:46] who are running all our countries and controlling everything.

[00:08:52] And they do have their own motivations.

[00:08:54] None of them are out just to rule the world for the sake of it, but it's not that far off.

[00:09:00] Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:01] Well, SkyBand was kind enough to send me a review copy yesterday of Destro

[00:09:05] that's very much on the front end of production, no colors yet.

[00:09:08] And I got to say it's pretty intense, you know.

[00:09:11] I don't know if you've seen the movie, but it's hard for me to escape comparing him to Andrew,

[00:09:16] the Andrew Nicholl film, The Lord of War with like Nicholas Cage.

[00:09:19] You know, he's always got this kind of above it all, you know, kind of persona as he's just operating

[00:09:25] on a different level as that international arms dealer while vamping out, you know,

[00:09:29] in that plunging black suit with the high necked red collar, you know,

[00:09:32] like rocking the family jewel and the red one to clarify.

[00:09:36] It's a great character to play with.

[00:09:38] And honestly, you know, that like G.I. Joe and Cobra characters are pretty WWE when you think about it,

[00:09:43] like with these code names and costumes.

[00:09:45] So like were there other media analogs that kind of influenced you coming from,

[00:09:50] you know, like a new perspective to this character?

[00:09:53] I think there was kind of a, you know, like you say, Lord of War,

[00:09:57] like that's, you know, based on an amalgamation of true stories.

[00:10:03] Right.

[00:10:04] And I think sort of so trying to sort of ground it to a certain aspect, you know,

[00:10:08] you know, bearing in mind this is also a world with Transformers falling out of the sky.

[00:10:12] Yeah.

[00:10:14] But trying to ground it to a certain aspect and just the idea that he is part of this lineage

[00:10:21] that's kind of always controlled the world through the distribution of arms,

[00:10:27] I think is something that's a very juicy concept to sort of get your teeth into.

[00:10:33] And I think there is like, like the more I sort of looked into the characters again,

[00:10:36] I wasn't super familiar before I was approached with this.

[00:10:41] And you know, I was up front skybound about that as well.

[00:10:43] I was like, yeah, I don't know anything yet.

[00:10:45] And they're like, no, that's great. That's fine.

[00:10:47] You know, we're starting from the ground up.

[00:10:49] Yeah.

[00:10:52] It's sort of free to free to discover what you want and they gave me some sort of directions

[00:10:58] to look in and, you know, the show and the and the comics, the Larry Hammer comics

[00:11:03] and things like I did want to look at.

[00:11:06] But what sort of struck me was that he does have this sort of like, like, you know,

[00:11:12] capital R romantic element to him.

[00:11:15] You know, he is like pro wrestling Dracula.

[00:11:18] Yeah.

[00:11:19] And so I think that he also has this sort of very toxic, romantic edge and this sort of isolation.

[00:11:27] So that was definitely something that I wanted to make sure was also present in the book.

[00:11:33] OK. Well, there's been a fair bit of creative license, you know,

[00:11:37] utilized to thread the inner John universe together.

[00:11:40] It looks like we're staying reasonably close to his established Oregon origins.

[00:11:44] You know, he's the man behind Mars or the Military Armament Research Syndicate,

[00:11:48] you know, a state of the art weapons manufacturer now in loose alliance

[00:11:52] with the formerly formed if fledgling Cobra organization as of Cobra No.

[00:11:57] 5, the first issue of Scarlet, you know, kind of stayed a bit away from the bigger timelines.

[00:12:03] But but this one definitely seems a little more embedded, you know,

[00:12:06] as it was in the Duke and Cobra Commander.

[00:12:09] What kind of restrictions were you given with respect to filling in the world of Vinnie?

[00:12:14] I don't know if it was so much about restrictions, more about, you know,

[00:12:20] that the idea of these books are building blocks in sort of creating this world.

[00:12:27] So, you know, that was a sort of note I started off with.

[00:12:34] But, you know, that really works for where we're at.

[00:12:38] And, you know, it was obviously some thought had gone into why a desk story book and why now.

[00:12:42] So something quite easy to sort of slip into because, yes, you know,

[00:12:47] the sort of events of Duke and Cobra Commander have sort of tilted the world's access a little bit

[00:12:53] in terms of power structures and or at least what can be sort of what can be sort of seen approaching.

[00:13:02] So, you know, where Destro sees that sort of coming,

[00:13:09] because that's what he's always done, what his family's always done,

[00:13:13] stay ahead of the curve to sort of make sure they're on top of the most recent advancements in warfare

[00:13:20] so they can always be the ones with them all in pocket and sell them to everyone else.

[00:13:26] But now it's changing and he's being he's kind of out of the loop.

[00:13:31] And that's, you know, stuff that's all been very naturally set up in the in the in those two books.

[00:13:36] So really this story kind of has to tie into them quite a lot because that's exactly where he finds himself now.

[00:13:44] And this book is essentially the grab for power when he sees the world changing.

[00:13:53] Yeah, I mean, it was really that familial connection and the way it played out kind of surprised.

[00:13:58] You know, he talked about that legacy in Duke and we kind of get a preview of the coup in Darklonia,

[00:14:05] you know, that small central European country.

[00:14:07] And, you know, Cannon has that as ruled by his cousin, obviously, you know, in the energon universe.

[00:14:12] In this iteration, things are can change, you know, but that family dynamic was surprising.

[00:14:17] You know, you talked about him being kind of Scottish royalty anyway and rotten royalty.

[00:14:23] Right. That's got to be something really fun to play with as an Englishman.

[00:14:26] Yeah, I mean, he's a he's a lad. So like close to a lord and sort of a monarch.

[00:14:31] He's a monarch in his own right in terms of Mars and how he sort of behaves on the global stage.

[00:14:39] Sort of power behind the throne, I think is is maybe a little closer.

[00:14:44] But yeah, I mean, you know, it's the fact that he's he's Scottish definitely gives me a certain end.

[00:14:50] Yeah. Being sort of British, British Isle space.

[00:14:56] All right, let's take a quick break.

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[00:15:51] Let's get back to the show.

[00:15:56] Most work for hire stuff doesn't have this much of an immersive universe already kind of stocked and layered in.

[00:16:02] And it seems like a very natural collaborative extension, kind of not unlike working at Marvel,

[00:16:09] where you're kind of given a character and it has all the if you want to pick somebody else to throw in there, everything is evaluated by an editor.

[00:16:16] And it seems like also, you know, an analog to kind of what you're doing with exploring these overlapping narratives with Rom on one hand, Six Fingers project.

[00:16:24] Was it did it feel like an immediate fit for you or was there did you have to do a bunch of background research and go back and read like Larry Hama stuff or.

[00:16:34] Yeah, I mean, I definitely had to do that, but that's also just, you know, that's part of doing your job.

[00:16:38] Right. And it's and it's always a pretty exciting part, especially with something like this, where the sort of brief is that, you know, you have this sort of all this raw material and you have these different continuities ready and you're helping build a new one.

[00:16:54] And, you know, so rather than sort of everything being canonically set in stone, it's more like here is a load of stuff other people have done that you can pick and choose from.

[00:17:03] And you can you can sort of mine for ideas and for content and sort of put it together in a new configuration.

[00:17:11] Like that's that's a very appealing thing as a creator.

[00:17:15] Yeah, I would imagine so.

[00:17:17] One of the things that I've always found fascinating about Destro is kind of the emotive nature of his helmet, which is ways it's always sort of x me right.

[00:17:26] You know, and it wasn't as rigid in this iteration, but by contrast, what made Cobra commander always so sinister was never getting to see his face.

[00:17:33] Right. And the bats are more terrifying and robotic with their, you know, kind of reflective metallic countenance.

[00:17:40] Right. Here's he's infused with like a lot of emotive range, especially more than a blank mask would and it makes him more human and relatable and kind of in a way honestly that's more frightening.

[00:17:50] Because for me in my read right that the shiny mask is this mechanism that forces the reader to kind of uncomfortably examine how they might similar react similarly react in similar circumstances.

[00:18:02] So how did you want to play that? Has that just always been something with the mask, hey, we're not going to make him this like solid rigid character?

[00:18:12] Because in ways he could be much more scary with that.

[00:18:16] I think yeah, I think there's a bit of a creative license to mask helmet kind of emotes, you know, in sort of green goblin territory.

[00:18:28] Yeah, sure.

[00:18:31] But yeah, to be honest, I don't remember any particular discussion about it.

[00:18:35] I think that's generally how he's been portrayed.

[00:18:38] It is, yeah.

[00:18:39] In the sort of like animated show and things.

[00:18:42] And yes, there is a you know, there is something to having a non emotive face, but

[00:18:54] I also think a big appeal of Destro is that he's enjoying himself a lot of the time.

[00:19:03] Okay.

[00:19:04] And like yeah, I think you need to I think you need to like see him being smug.

[00:19:10] Gotcha.

[00:19:11] And that works a lot better with his face on show.

[00:19:15] Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:16] I mean, the look is still very, very classic.

[00:19:19] And I really appreciate keeping the classic fist rockets in because I can't wait to see him go all Boba Fett at some point that that's going to be.

[00:19:26] It's fun.

[00:19:28] Okay, okay, awesome.

[00:19:30] Well, and I could also already see the kind of the conflict between him and Cobra Commander brewing.

[00:19:35] I've always considered Destro as kind of a very principled individual.

[00:19:39] Even if you know his moral compass is a bit broken.

[00:19:42] You know, he's orderly and methodical, whereas Cobra Commander is like a chaos goblin.

[00:19:46] It's fascinating to see how Joshua Williamson set up the Cobra organization, right?

[00:19:52] Because it's far less militaristic from the jump kind of recruiting what looks like a rag tag mercenary militia, at least for now.

[00:20:00] And maybe we'll get uniforms later.

[00:20:03] But I can't imagine this is Destro's idea of a proper organization.

[00:20:08] You know, he's all structure.

[00:20:10] So is that perceived butting of heads between the two on my part going to be part of the larger narrative here?

[00:20:16] Yeah, I think even, you know, without giving too much away, I think even the fact that Cobra kind of needs structure and it needs bodies is, you know, something that's going to come into play.

[00:20:31] You know, the sort of main antagonists for Destro in the book are Tomax and Zama, the Crimson Twins.

[00:20:45] And you know, they are trainers of mercenaries.

[00:20:48] So there's, you know, a sort of they all have things each other want or each other need.

[00:20:57] And I think that's kind of always been the heart of the sort of conflict within Cobra.

[00:21:04] You know, it's interesting to have those two pillars.

[00:21:10] You've got G.I. Joe, who are the good guys and they're soldiers and you've got Cobra and they're the bad guys and they are crazy snake people.

[00:21:19] But you also kind of have you've always kind of had this pillar in Destro in that he's very in the Cobra camp, but he doesn't have the same agendas as Cobra Commander.

[00:21:31] Right. He's always kind of got his own priorities.

[00:21:36] And I think that just, you know, that just makes the whole thing just a little more flavorful.

[00:21:42] Yeah, I mean, I know that that self-interest is kind of a primary motivation for him.

[00:21:47] But I was sort of surprised because compared to Tomax and Zama, he's like he's like the normal one.

[00:21:54] And I'm curious about how the character rollouts happen there because the Crimson Twins, was that was that something you inherited from the jump?

[00:22:02] Or did you say please give me the psychopaths because I like writing psychopaths.

[00:22:07] No, that was that was I was actually in the brief.

[00:22:10] They wanted to they wanted to bring them in at this point.

[00:22:13] But they are you know, they're they're very like interesting foil for him.

[00:22:16] But that was that was something I looked at without getting into the sort of too much of the weeks of process.

[00:22:21] But you know, sort of going like, OK, like they are they are business people.

[00:22:25] They are also these very smart leaders of an organization who would like to rule the world.

[00:22:34] So where is the real jarring differences between them and Destro?

[00:22:42] And I sort of that was that was the place that I had to look to make sure that, you know,

[00:22:47] it wasn't just two equal opposing forces, but they had very distinct sort of priorities and and moods and also sort of, you know, how they go about things is different.

[00:23:06] But yeah, I you know, I spent a lot of time writing that first sort of introduction scene with them because I wanted to make sure they came in sort of been harrowing and terrible way.

[00:23:18] Which wasn't even about showing that they are worse than Destro because I don't think they need to be.

[00:23:23] And I don't think they are either. You know, I don't want to flatten Destro at all or sort of or sort of tone him down because he's the protagonist of the book.

[00:23:36] But it's not a thing of, oh, he's suddenly doing it all because he has like a sick daughter or anything like that.

[00:23:41] It's like, no, no, no, he's still a he's still a piece of shit.

[00:23:44] OK, which was something I've sort of always tried to do like writing writing things like Lucifer and things like that.

[00:23:52] Like if I'm going to write a character who's the devil and that's really is another kind of devil.

[00:23:58] They've got to be the devil. They can't be.

[00:24:00] You can't start turning it down just because just because they're the lead and you want people to like them.

[00:24:06] Well, good, because I thought you were going to make me feel sympathy for him, Dan.

[00:24:09] And I was going to be like, no, I adore hating corporate fat rats pulling the strings behind the global economic curtain.

[00:24:15] Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:17] You can understand why he's doing what he's doing, but you should not agree with it.

[00:24:21] OK. OK. Good. Good.

[00:24:24] Well, kind of as an American talking to a British cat without getting too much into global politics or too many complex geopolitical issues, you know, you can really kind of fuck with Americans heads right now.

[00:24:36] Right. Because we have the January 6th capital riots, which are still fresh in our consciousness and Cobras recruiting militia members, which is like frighteningly topical here right now in the states.

[00:24:47] Add to that the guilt I'm personally dealing with as a citizen of a country providing armed conflicts, you know, arms conflicts across the globe.

[00:24:55] That's a pretty fertile ground to play with.

[00:24:57] I honestly really was surprised because I had no clue when I started reading GI Joe again that it would feel this this material is this strong and topical to what we're dealing with currently.

[00:25:10] Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard not to when you're when you're you're dealing with.

[00:25:14] You know.

[00:25:16] These are these are people who sell bombs and machine guns.

[00:25:19] It's you know, it's a.

[00:25:21] It's a.

[00:25:23] It's a very real thing and you know the UK is no less culpable in providing almonds than the US, particularly particularly right now.

[00:25:35] I think I think what is it the US the UK and France is the world's three biggest arms dealers.

[00:25:42] So yeah, that's you know it's it's it's very.

[00:25:46] On my mind as well, but you know.

[00:25:50] You want to you want to put some of that in the book, but you also don't want to feel like you're trivializing it or minimizing it either.

[00:25:57] So it's a it's a it's a tightrope.

[00:25:59] Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a balance, but I really appreciate that because I didn't, I guess anticipate going in feeling as as emotionally pulled by by GI Joe and the Transformers like I, you know, because I have that filter and it's so strong from being a kid.

[00:26:18] That that being an adult and resonating to it in a very, very different way is is it's fascinating. I'm having to process it.

[00:26:27] It's interesting. I think I think there's also a thing where you know we are sort of.

[00:26:32] So if you know as the world changes and as sort of.

[00:26:37] What we see and what is sort of shown to us by both news networks and social media.

[00:26:45] People have different opinions on things down and they come to them with like quite strong lenses.

[00:26:50] You know, you're sort of saying about like like talking with Americans like the one of the weirdest experiences or reactions I've had to a story was writing a.

[00:26:59] I did a story with John Paul Leon for.

[00:27:04] Batman secret files and it was.

[00:27:08] It was featuring a character that that James Tynion had created called Gunsmith and it was Batman versus Gunsmith.

[00:27:16] And.

[00:27:21] I basically I got yelled at on Twitter by some guy who.

[00:27:26] Was you know, yelling about the woke agenda that I brought into this comic by having Batman be anti gun.

[00:27:34] Which you know in my in my understanding is a pretty fundamental element of the character.

[00:27:41] Yep.

[00:27:43] Well, it was wild because I was actually listening to a read that you talk about people and going nuts about things.

[00:27:50] I was listening to a recent episode of Matthew Rosenberg's podcast ideas don't bleed that you were a guest on.

[00:27:56] And you is funny because you liken yourself to being the can of corpse like for some comics readers and I don't know just struck in my head and I'm taking a completely.

[00:28:06] Well, it was hilarious because I think I think you were talking about it being associated with coffin bound right.

[00:28:13] But given the analogy and the emotional depths, you're kind of plumbing with these characters and stuff which I greatly enjoyed by the way.

[00:28:21] Where does that come from?

[00:28:23] Do you feel like you just make people feel uncomfortable as a writer in general?

[00:28:27] Hopefully in the right ways generally speaking.

[00:28:31] I don't know.

[00:28:32] I think my sort of my sort of entry point to sort of genre stuff.

[00:28:44] Like when people start talking about like Star Trek or whatever, I can't join in the conversation.

[00:28:51] I'm sorry now it just doesn't do anything for me.

[00:28:53] It never really has.

[00:28:57] Other than some of it being penned by Harlan Ellison.

[00:29:02] But I came from horror.

[00:29:06] Horror was entirely my sort of my sort of point of entry.

[00:29:09] And I don't really think of myself as a as a horror writer, like specifically.

[00:29:14] Okay, but I think it does.

[00:29:17] I think it has sort of maybe maybe warped me to a certain extent.

[00:29:21] I've always been interested in sort of like transgressive books and transgress literature, like you know the.

[00:29:28] The sort of comic that's.

[00:29:31] Let a fire under me in the last like sort of year or two is Lovesick by Loana Bertio.

[00:29:36] I just you know, I just think something that things that sort of push.

[00:29:41] Push boundaries in some direction or other always always speak to me because it always feels that little bit more revolutionary than.

[00:29:51] And then sort of treading safer ground.

[00:29:55] But you know, it's not like the only thing I look for or try and create.

[00:29:58] Sometimes I'll be a little surprised by by eliciting this reaction.

[00:30:03] So it's not it's not a conscious thing, but you know those people sort of saying that they couldn't look at pages of coffin bound.

[00:30:09] And I was quite surprised by that because you know, especially working with Danny, I kind of thought we have a little more leeway because her art is so stylized.

[00:30:18] It's not like it's hyper realistic gore or anything.

[00:30:22] It's all you know.

[00:30:23] Black marker on white paper, but people felt very viscerally about it, which is a good thing in the end.

[00:30:32] I guess I mean, and I think we all need to take responsibility for the own our filters that we bring into books too, you know, especially horror.

[00:30:40] I was having a discussion because I read spectrograph recently and the without giving a whole bunch of stuff away for people who haven't read it before.

[00:30:50] The childhood trauma that was in that was simply too much for me, right?

[00:30:55] My wife is a trauma psychologist.

[00:30:57] We live in the trauma world.

[00:30:59] We get exposed to it a lot.

[00:31:01] So I think it's fine to be like, hey, hey, I recognize how good this is, but it's just simply not for me and that's OK.

[00:31:09] You know, I think fandom just just needs to take responsibility for itself a little bit more, you know, and be mature about it.

[00:31:17] I think a lot of the time, you know, when people are asking for sort of content warnings and things like that's really what they're asking for is sort of just like a bit of full warning so they can.

[00:31:27] You know, it's not about policing what's in the work.

[00:31:30] It's about wanting to be wanting to just know ahead of time.

[00:31:34] And, you know, there's different opinions on that and where that's appropriate.

[00:31:40] But yeah, I don't think anything should be off topic or off the table.

[00:31:49] Any topics should be off the table.

[00:31:51] But I also do think there's most of them don't even necessarily know that art has a responsibility in any specific way.

[00:32:03] Specific works can have specific responsibilities, but art in itself doesn't.

[00:32:08] But I also do think I also think we know when people sort of.

[00:32:12] Going uninformed or, you know, writing sort of outside their their sort of, you know, stories to tell as people sort of say it most of the time just what you get is flat and boring because it doesn't tap into anything.

[00:32:25] And I think that's that's a better thing to keep in mind.

[00:32:31] You know, because yes, you know, sort of the same old same old stories that don't really tap into anything but are trying to sort of.

[00:32:38] Capitalize and other people's trauma or other people's experiences.

[00:32:42] You know, they just they never work and they're never good.

[00:32:45] They're just they're just noise.

[00:32:47] So how do you circle back?

[00:32:50] How do you bring that eat that personal ethos into to Destro?

[00:32:55] Oh boy.

[00:32:57] Well, having never been an international arms dealer.

[00:33:03] I guess it's more about I guess it's more about sort of, you know, like warped perspectives and sort of.

[00:33:13] Proof the I think is a big part of it as well.

[00:33:16] Sort of, you know.

[00:33:19] Everyone sort of trying to get one over on each other and sort of come out on top.

[00:33:26] And I think, you know, everyone, everyone has worked with people like that.

[00:33:30] Everyone has known people like that.

[00:33:32] That's really, that's really kind of what the books about.

[00:33:36] In the end, it's about it's about these people who kind of hate each other.

[00:33:40] But trying to we're trying to utilize each other and trying and having to make compromises.

[00:33:46] You know, people have to make these huge compromises in the book, you know, without giving too much away on their ethics and on achieving their goals.

[00:33:57] So keep things stable.

[00:33:59] Well, total aside here, but I'm frankly tired of interviewing people who have rock star hair.

[00:34:04] And for people who don't know Dan, you have rock star hair.

[00:34:07] I'm wondering how Alex Pagnadol feels about the one in the White Noise Collective that doesn't have amazing hair.

[00:34:13] And I need to speak up for my fellow bald guys here, right?

[00:34:16] Because there needs to be like an Eisner for best hair in comics and Rom would win hands down, I think.

[00:34:23] Yes. Yeah, well, Rom's got 10 years on me as well.

[00:34:27] So, you know.

[00:34:28] What? That's ridiculous.

[00:34:30] Well, we touched on creature a little bit touching on other projects before we wrap up.

[00:34:35] One hand, six fingers books where you're writing another bank character here.

[00:34:39] This time it's a serial killer and issue four drops the end of May.

[00:34:44] Is that right?

[00:34:45] Yep. That's right. Yeah.

[00:34:46] OK.

[00:34:47] Well, what else you got coming up?

[00:34:49] I think you're writing a Doctor Who thing with Titan.

[00:34:51] That correct?

[00:34:52] Yeah, I'm writing the new 15th Doctor comic.

[00:34:56] We sort of started it with the free comic book day issue, which I think everyone can download for free on Kindle or whatever.

[00:35:06] Your preferred digital comics medium is.

[00:35:11] And that's yeah, that's I think we're doing four issues on top of that starting starting in June.

[00:35:19] You know, that's been a lot of fun.

[00:35:21] That feels like a sort of a feather in my cap as a sort of British genre writer to get to write some Doctor Who.

[00:35:31] But we have a lot of a lot of footsteps of people I admire and know.

[00:35:37] Because having said having said what I said about Star Trek, Doctor Who is always has always worked for me because it's the ultimate.

[00:35:45] It's lasted so long because it's just it's an almost perfect storytelling device.

[00:35:51] It's a person who can go anywhere at any time and generally wants to help.

[00:36:00] And that, you know, that device on its own lets you tell like an unlimited amount of stories.

[00:36:05] Yeah, yeah. Sure.

[00:36:07] Where can people find you online?

[00:36:10] I'm at Dan P.G. Watters on basically every everywhere you would care to find me.

[00:36:18] I stick to the same the same handle.

[00:36:21] OK, and we do. Do we have a definitive drop day for Destro yet?

[00:36:25] Yes, I believe August 17th.

[00:36:29] Oh, it's in August now. I thought it was much earlier.

[00:36:33] I mean way off. No, no, you're right. It's going to print now.

[00:36:37] 19th of June. I was way off. OK, OK. That's more what I align with what I was thinking.

[00:36:42] Yeah, well, I know you can't speak to such things, but I really do hope you you get Firefly because I absolutely love that character.

[00:36:52] And I've been really impressed with all the inner John Universe books thus far.

[00:36:56] This one's no exception. They all managed to feel kind of simultaneously independent while still cohesively knitting together these seemingly very disparate pieces.

[00:37:05] So make sure to pick it up. Don't tell anyone, but this one very much might turn out to be my favorite of the lot.

[00:37:12] And one of the things that I've been really surprised with is is is the talk of what among shop owners that I've been chatting with is how many new readers that this is actually pulling in.

[00:37:22] Because initially I thought it would just be hitting the demographic pocket of me.

[00:37:27] Right. But apparently younger people are jumping in on Transformers and G.I. Joe as a bandwagon for the first time.

[00:37:33] So, you know, it's bringing people in. So that's fantastic.

[00:37:38] Yeah, that's always very lovely to hear. That's always kind of the goal.

[00:37:42] Yeah. Well, thanks for stopping in to talk with me, Dan. I really appreciate it.

[00:37:47] Thanks very much for having me, Byron.

[00:37:49] Yeah. Well, this is Byron O'Neill and on behalf all of us at Comic Book Yeti, thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time.

[00:37:55] Take care, everybody.

[00:38:03] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast.

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