Hunter Gorinson, Chris Condon, and Peter Krause talk EC Comics

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Your ears do not deceive you. You've just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti.

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So without further ado, let's get on to the interview.

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Comics Fam!

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[00:00:53] [SPEAKER_02]: making self, of course. It should come as no surprise at this point that the cast of unusual

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_02]: characters Michael created in the book includes some anthropomorphic animals. But I can't say

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I've ever seen them riding roughshod across the land in mini tanks a la Mad Max Fury Road before,

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_02]: so I'm so here for it. Perky, slightly beautifully unhinged and completely engrossing,

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_02]: the immediate analogs to me where the Legend of Zelda meets the mighty Thor with Norse

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[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I should have known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Hybrid D&D campaign on social media. My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_02]: we know and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_02]: start playing. Another friend chimes in are you gonna make maps? It's fair to say it's been a while

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[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Hello and welcome to Comic Book Yeti's Cryptid Creator Corner. I'm one of your hosts,

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Jimmy Gispero, and I have a trio of guests today that I am very excited to talk about.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Please welcome to the podcast we have the president and publisher of Oni Press,

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Hunter Goranson, and we also have writer Chris Condon and artist Peter Kraus and

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_06]: we are going to be talking about Oni Press's and the return of EC Comics in conjunction with the

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_06]: William and Gaines Agent Inc. This is going to be the first time EC Comics have been published in

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_06]: almost 70 years, I think. Epitaphs from The Abyss number one is going to be out July 24th

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_06]: and it's going to be followed up by Cruel Universe number one, I believe August 7th.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_06]: But I am so excited to talk to these three gentlemen today, Hunter, Chris and Peter.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Welcome to the podcast. Happy to be here. Thank you for having us.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_06]: So I wanted to kind of start Hunter with you because it seemed like this,

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_06]: when you came onto Oni, this was something that you were really wanting to do for quite

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_06]: some time and I believe it took a lot of effort to kind of get this rebirth of EC Comics. Is that

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_07]: fair to say? Yeah, so this is, look, we are treading in sacred ground for the comic book

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_07]: industry, comic book history. There's a few things more glorious and sacred in the annals

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_07]: of comic book history than the legacy of EC Comics. And I always felt that there was kind

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_07]: of an industry where everything is rebooted, relaunched into infinity. The one thing that

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_07]: just seemed shocking to me that no one had ever tried to pick up the torch from EC Comics,

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_07]: which as you know was unceremoniously kind of brought to an end out of its own making in

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_07]: 1955 and 1956 by the dawn of the comics code authority. And I've always thought that there's

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_07]: an entire alternate universe out there where that didn't happen and EC continued to be the

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_07]: dominant force and got into the thought exercise of what would it look like to do the kind of both

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_07]: shocking, creatively inspired and third rail grabbing stories that EC pioneered in the 1950s

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_07]: in the year 2024 when we're grappling with many of the same kind of anxieties and cultural issues

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_07]: and paranoias. So the timing for the country in the world is unfortunately terrible but for

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_07]: EC Comics it's great, you know what I'm saying? And so this has been a passion project of mine. I was

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_07]: gotten to know very fortuitously William Engaines' daughter and grandson Kathy and Corey Miffson

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_07]: over the years who are wonderful people and kind of embraced my strong millennial energy for what

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_07]: we could do with EC Comics in the year 2024. And then I started drafting up a list and it's

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_07]: great that Chris and Peter are both here because these are two gentlemen who are on my

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_07]: very, very, very short list of initial folks who sprang to mind who I thought would be excellent

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_07]: to help contribute. Fortunately they both said yes and have delivered something really special

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_07]: attached from the abyss number one. So it's been a long road but I couldn't be happier. I just

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_07]: got my advanced copies of the first issue in print two days ago and I sat there quietly,

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_07]: silently looking at them grappling with the reality of what has come to pass.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah I wanted to say having read issue number one of Epitaphs from the Abyss, I mean it's phenomenal.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_06]: The artwork's incredible, the four stories that are in it just really capture what I, you know,

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_06]: my biggest exposure I think first to EC Comics was really the Tales from the Crip series.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_06]: So I think for a lot of folks who, you know, that might have been their first taste of it.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_06]: But I really thought this is not just like a retread and we're, you know, doing similar things.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_06]: These stories, these first four feel so appropriate for right now and really do what I think EC Comics,

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_06]: especially something like the series Tales from the Crip did well, is kind of take

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_06]: these modern, I don't know, dilemmas, paranoias, issues that are going on and use the horror genre

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_06]: to really say something about all of these issues. I thought the first, I mean these first four

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_06]: stories are just phenomenal. Thanks man it's good to hear you're the first person who I've

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_07]: actually spoken to outside of Oni who I know who's read it so thank you very much. It gives

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_07]: me a great, great ease. Maybe I can only sleep at night now. Well hopefully, hopefully. But yeah,

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean from the very first from the introduction of that grave digger character and the like just

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_06]: the dialogue, the boxes, the font, like everything just felt, I just, I felt like I was

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_06]: in very good hands and then each story just delivered on the promise of that first page.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_07]: That's awesome man, thank you so much because look there's a few confrontational things in Epitaphs

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_07]: one that I think people are either going to love or hate or grapple with maybe after they've

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_07]: read it. Chris and Peter's story is definitely one of those like Chris straight up was like

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_07]: I'm ready to, I was gonna swear, I don't know if I can swear on complicity but Chris was

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_07]: ready to go there. You know what I mean? And that was the, I think that was the first,

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_07]: was that the first story you turned in Chris? Yeah. What was going through your mind man

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_07]: is you were thinking about where, because like I know you're here, we taught me and Chris spoke

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_07]: extensively about like our mutual love of EC so he picked it up like you were in from the moment

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_07]: we talked about it. So this is the first thing that's sprang to your head like

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_07]: it must have been a lot to process what's the first thing we're gonna do?

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah I mean I just, I mean I'm a big fan of EC Comics and I mean you and I Hunter we started

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_03]: talking about EC when we first started talking about night people and that was you know and you

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_03]: hadn't acquired the rights yet but you were saying you wanted to get them and I was like

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I want to be there. You do that because it's such an important thing for me and you know

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_03]: like Jimmy I was introduced to it through the HBO series I was you know the Crypt Keeper

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_03]: character was like that was something when I loved I love this sort of this creepy

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_03]: skeletal man just telling stories I love that idea and then through that I found the comics

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_03]: and really fell in love with the comics and and just the concise hard hitting stories that they

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_03]: would tell in those in those issues in six pages or eight pages I believe most of them are six

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_03]: pages and it's just it's amazing what they could do with such a small amount of real estate the

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_03]: impact that they could get out of a story so that was something that I always kind of had in my mind

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_03]: whenever I would be writing a short story or even in the one shot that I did Hell is Square

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_03]: at Circle that was very easy influenced so that that was always in the back of my mind and then

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_03]: once this actually came to fruition and you had acquired the rights to do EC you got the blessing

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_03]: of the Gaines family of course which I think is one of the real blessings of this resurrection

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_03]: of EC Comics that it is blessed by the family. I was thinking about what I would want to do with

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_03]: the with a story what you know how I would want to approach this and and one of the things that

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_03]: came to mind was the classic EC story of the blue and red robots and how racism was alive

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_03]: somewhere in the universe and there was this inspector who comes in and discovers that there's

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_03]: racism and there's a caste system amongst these robots and that was a timely issue at the time

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_03]: obviously I mean it's still certainly timely but it was at the time there you know there was talk

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_03]: of civil rights there was a push for civil rights so it was very timely in the 1950s and so I thought

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_03]: what do we what's an issue today that we could explore and I think right now in 2024 as we're

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_03]: heading into a an intense presidential election I mean we just witnessed the attempted assassination

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_03]: of one of the candidates I mean we're in a we're in a heated time and you know the things that people

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_03]: fighting over are important and that's what I wanted to explore and that's so that's what we did so

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_03]: we took a hard look at politics and Washington and some of the the big issues of the day

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_06]: it threw an EC lens of course yeah I mean your your story Chris and Peter senator senator

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_06]: I I love how it's true for all these stories but yours none of these stories like shy away from

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_06]: from the topic and that thing about when I think of EC and it's kind of it's it's it's a

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_06]: explicit in the first story the idea that the ending should be surprising but inevitable

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_06]: I really thought that that whole ending I don't want to give anything away but it hit so well and

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Peter I wanted to talk to you in terms of you know your approach because some of these like horror

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_06]: stories but you're doing a lot of like talking head stuff in the the panel the first panels

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_06]: but from the moment the main character the reporter gets on that elevator like you do so much in terms

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_06]: of the paddling and the pacing to really ramp up that tension for when that ending hits I was just

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_06]: wanted to ask you in terms of you know what was your approach when you get a story like this and

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_06]: and like pacing it out because so much of horror I think is pacing and it can be a little

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_06]: tricky to do in a comic so I just wanted to ask you about that because I thought it was pitch per

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_04]: well you know it's interesting coming into doing a horror after you know working the last

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_04]: four plus years for Ahoy comics and Ahoy you know their whole bent or aim is it has to be funny

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_04]: so you know here we've been you know doing a superhero spoof

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_04]: my bad for them with Mark Russell and Bry singman so to come into the horror stuff you know I was

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_04]: ready for something like that and quite frankly you know I haven't done a whole lot of the horror

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_04]: stuff I think you're right well about pacing I think with horror uh anticipation is such a big

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_04]: big part of a story you want I was thinking about this today it's it's like if you get on a roller coaster

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_04]: at an amusement park and that first you know 100 yards or 100 feet or whatever is pretty mundane

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_04]: and I love the idea of a relatively mundane beginning something that's very real life very

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_04]: grounded you know we're in the uh editorial offices of a newspaper and then we go from there

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_04]: but the difference is when you go on a roller coaster at an amusement park you probably see

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_04]: the roller coaster you kind of know what's ahead when you're doing a story like this it's great

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_04]: to have that in the person's mind who's reading it okay you know I'm reading an easy comic

[00:15:00] [SPEAKER_04]: I kind of have a feeling that you know something uncomfortable is coming but letting that play

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_04]: out in the person's mind is so much a part of you know the whole thing so when we get to the

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_04]: scene that you're talking about without having any you know uh you know spoilers per se um I got

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_04]: to play a little bit with panel placement and that sort of thing I think you know I might have

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_04]: been posted this on social media just the layout of the panels when we do have that first beginning

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_04]: everything's been fairly square you know perpendicular and maybe played around a little

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_04]: bit with you know some angles and everything but we get um that part of the uh scene and

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_04]: we have a grid of panels and I just thought we're just going to tilt the whole grid

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_04]: at about maybe a 15 20 degree angle and that is like maybe a very subtle way of

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_04]: kind of pointing out to the reader wait things are starting to go sideways here

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_04]: not that they might have not already thought that but this is another reinforcement so um

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_04]: yeah I I love the anticipation of the stuff uh that's such a big big part I think of

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_06]: something like this like a horror book yeah now I I agree um you know Hunter I one day ask you and

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_06]: chris mentioned the um the I think the the ec comic story I believe it was called judgment day and I

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_06]: I I think that was kind of what led but for listeners who don't know the the story of

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_06]: ec comics in and of itself is pretty fascinating I think it was started by William Gaines

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_06]: father in like 1944 and he died in a boating accident in 47 his son took over the company

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_06]: it was first educational comics and then it became entertaining comics and they moved on to horror and

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_06]: you know for for comics fans who are familiar with the comics code authority it was actually

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_06]: a bunch of publishers that not to give a whole history lesson but for listeners that don't

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_06]: know I do think it's pretty fascinating a bunch of publishers got together because there was a

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_06]: turn against a real moral panic against comic books and juvenile delinquency so these publishers

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_06]: got together they came up with this comics code they hired um a magistrate judge Charles Murphy

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_06]: to kind of be the comic czar and if your comic got approved they put this you know approved by

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_06]: the comics code authority on it and the story judgment day involved an astronaut who finds

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_06]: out these these the society of blue and orange robots as Chris said one of the robots I can't

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_06]: remember it's the blue or the orange has has less rights he thinks it's the astronaut thinks it's

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_06]: really unfair spoiler alert but the end of the story the astronaut takes his helmet off and he's

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_06]: he's out he's black and uh Charles Murphy had an issue with this and kind of um I think the

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_06]: writer of it was was it Al Feldstein I think it's game yeah most of the other kind yeah and uh kind

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_06]: of came to we had a real problem there's if you can look it up and there's stories that have been

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_06]: published about how that conversation went with with Murphy and what um the response was they were

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_06]: able to publish it um although I think Murphy relented and just asked them to remove the

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_06]: perspiration from from the astronauts face um but yeah they published it as is they were faced

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_07]: they uh they told them to politely go f himself but that was it's a bit like

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_06]: yeah um but then surely after that ec comics is really not publishing any more of their

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_06]: their horror line it's just mad magazine um but to think that the run of ec comics as

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_06]: most people think of it is 44 to 56 really like 12 years and still has such a lasting impact

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_06]: um so Hunter with with with that kind of history lesson in mind being a fan and wanting to do it

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_06]: is different from you know trying to either capture that or do it justice um when you're

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_06]: selecting art you know writers and artists and kind of thinking about the stories you want

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_06]: to tell like does that overwhelm you at all are you excited about that challenge and kind of how do

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_06]: you approach that to put out these issues yeah that's kind of a big question but usually it's

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_07]: exciting on one hand and incredibly daunting on the other you know what I mean like so what we

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_07]: think of is ec comics the William M. Gaines era when they were publishing horror science

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_07]: fiction and stuff like that it's really like 1950 to 1955 that stuff's been in print for 70 years

[00:19:44] [SPEAKER_07]: been through a new verbal different editions a new world of different publishers you can go buy

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_07]: it right now from phantographics idw or dark horse there it's like it's like the criterion

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_07]: collection of comics or uh you know the hitchcock canon of comics or something like it's it's

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_07]: unparalleled so I think from the outset in terms of both giving us a forward trajectory and also

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_07]: not putting the weight of history on our shoulders to compete with something that's

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_07]: uncompetible we said like let's not try and do like a direct facsimile or simulacrum of what came

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_07]: before as you noted there's like some stylistic things about first and foremost is the tone of ec

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_07]: I think is the thing that we had to bring forward as well as like the cosmetic effect

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_07]: lettering style which makes ec comics immediately recognizable even at a distance you see one

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_07]: panel on twitter you can tell this is from an ec comic you know what I'm saying oh what do

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_07]: sure uh working with artists like first and foremost storytelling uh chops you know what I mean like

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_07]: peter feel free to peter and chris feel free to disagree with me but from where I said

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_07]: it's the most easier to do an 18 issue mega arc in a comic than it is to do a highly affecting

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_07]: eight page story that people are going to think about in two weeks while they're mowing the lawn

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_07]: or taking a shower or something because it disturbed them so much it's like trying to write like a

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_07]: perfect three minute pop song trying to do one of these like six to ten page stories so

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_07]: there's an economy of storytelling that needs to be done and especially when you're not working

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_07]: with recognizable characters like green lantern or wolverine or whatever like you're introducing

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_07]: new faces at the beginning of the story a new high concept and you have to get people invested

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_07]: in those characters and what they're doing and then pay it off in some sick twisted dvm way

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_07]: so when I was a kid sorry peter I'm going to embarrass you for a second when I was like

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_07]: where I was like 12 my two favorite comic book series were James Robinson and Tony Harris the

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_07]: star man I actually have a had a nice star man Tony Harris piece right there and Jerry Orgway

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_07]: and Peter Krause's power of shazam and I read all of those pieces and peter's work for me existed

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_07]: in a continuity with you know 50 years of comics history like obviously building off the greats of

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_07]: the golden and silver age but modernizing it and having a very clean economical style and

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_07]: like great storytelling shops etc thought he was per and then we first got acquainted when I was

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_07]: working briefly at boob studios and we were talking about doing some more irredeemable

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_07]: which if you haven't read it is probably one of the best superhero stories of the

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_07]: wonderful also deeply disturbing super duper deeply disturbing but very good I thought Peter

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_07]: would be great for this unfortunately he indulged me in my manic chatter about how we're going to do

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_07]: two blocks for 2024 which I'm sure isn't absurd to receive on a Tuesday before I feel so old

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_07]: right now did you know and over your travels because you I mean when did you first enter the

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_04]: industry in the late 80s or so late 80s yep we did self-publish black and white comics during

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_04]: you know that whole inage mutant ninja turtles radioactive black belt hamsters all that crazy

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_04]: stuff that was going on so that's that's kind of when I got my foot in the door did you

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_07]: ever get to meet or spend any time with any of the original ec creators like Joe Orlando or

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_07]: Al Williamson and whatnot while they were still doing convention well you know I I never met

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_04]: your lando but you know the first job that I had at DC and Joe was working there at the time

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_04]: you know they had a bonus book for you know what they considered up and coming comic book

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_04]: artists and they were given a given a story this was put in an issue of suicide squad

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_04]: and so they made us do the artists do pencil layouts and send them in you know this is

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_04]: pre-internet pre all the computer stuff that we've got and Joe Orlando went over my layouts

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_04]: well tracing paper redoing the layouts making notes on that and then sent them back to me

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_04]: so that's my Joe Orlando story I still have those layouts that he did

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_04]: so wow yeah that uh that was you know probably my you know I got to meet a lot of

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_04]: guys from the previous you know generations including burn olgar's who did of course the

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Tarzan strip during the what 40s or whatever but um but yeah but that's that's my Joe Orlando

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_04]: story I will have we'll follow it up with the fact that I did end up meeting Jeanette con when she was

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_04]: you know uh head of DC comics at the time I met her at a con shortly after that and introduced

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_04]: myself and she said oh and she recognized the name and everything and I said um that uh

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_04]: you know I appreciated having Joe going over those um and she said yeah Joe worked hard on

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_04]: those layouts already I'm swearing because these young guys they don't know what they're doing

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_04]: so that kind of thing anyway there's my Joe Orlando that's great Joe Orlando is the guy who

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_07]: drew judgment day if i'm not mistaken I could be mistaken but i'm 98 percent sure it's Joe

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_02]: all right let's take a quick break hey comics fan itty comic book publisher band of bars just

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_02]: got a level up and announced it is now a cooperative this heralds a new era for them including a partnership

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_02]: with dollas stories and they added several new members to the ownership group marcus him and as is now

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_02]: chief operating officer Brent Fisher takes on the role of chief diversity officer and joey galvez

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_02]: is introduced as head of Kickstarter ops and social media manager which is sure to increase

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_02]: their capabilities overall as a publisher and it further promotes their mission statement of

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_02]: advancing representation inclusion and diversity in the media they also established a new board of

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_02]: directors to help chart the new path of their journey with new projects in the works like

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Alaska by dropping in june um broken soon launching on Kickstarter and pollen coming up with

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: dauntless stay tuned to this space for more exciting news from the growing bards family let's get

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_06]: back to the show chris i wanted to turn it back to you um you know because i'm familiar with

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_06]: some of your your comic work and um when i i heard you were going to be doing this um and i mean it is

[00:26:37] [SPEAKER_06]: just you're you're among uh it's just some phenomenal creators in this this first issue in

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_06]: terms of writers and artists j holtham and or hey for nes um stephanie phillips phil hester

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_06]: brian as a relo vlad legis daav um but when i read senator senator and um i think with the

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_06]: press release that came out there was like a blurb about your history with ec comics um and from your

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_06]: work that i've read previously it just made you know so much sense um in terms of your work that i

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_06]: was familiar with that you would now be working on this i was like oh yeah um so this is the the

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_06]: writer of like the infield gang massacre and i'm like oh okay yeah i get it um so um you know

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_06]: when you get something like this um and you know talked a little bit about where you went you know

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_06]: with your story um did you think that influence is the ec comics influence is prevalent in

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_06]: you know all of your work is that's something you always keep in the back of your mind and um

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_06]: you know you talked a little bit about focusing on issues today you know to get to your story

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_06]: like senator senator um but when you sit down do that you like cycle through a lot of ideas

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_06]: or were you pretty focused on this one quickly how did that kind of process happen for you um i mean

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_03]: well first of all yeah it is an influence on everything i do i mean looking at i mean if you

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_03]: look at the christmas issues of that texas blood those are very much especially the first one

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_03]: it's very much an ec story um same thing with like i said before hell's the square

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_03]: circles very much an ec story and i mean even when i was doing uh when hunter offered me the

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_03]: chance to write for zeno uh i wrote a story called the chip which nick agnetti illustrated um and that

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_03]: when i did that i literally sat down with one of the ec library editions that i have and just went

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_03]: through and was rereading everything because i just wanted to i i wanted to capture that kind of

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_03]: a vibe um i was obviously mostly focusing on you know fantasy and anyway but um yes i mean it's it's

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_03]: definitely an influence uh in everything that i do um and in terms of how i approached doing these ec

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_03]: stories um i i sent a bunch of ideas uh to hunter and syra and um but yeah it well like what yeah i

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_03]: just i wanted to i did the same thing again that i did was you know i just sat down with a bunch i i

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_03]: also have a lot i don't have any of the original ec books i wish that i had them but they're a

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_03]: little bit too much out of my price range um but i have reprints and so i was scouring through

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_03]: those reprints and i was reading the collected editions that i have and i have you know some

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_03]: of the uh the panc graphics reprints as well so i was going through all that stuff and just

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_03]: pouring over and trying to get you know boil it down for myself of what i expect from an ec story

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_03]: what it feels like to me what what that means you know what the essence is like boil it down

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_03]: what is an ec story so every single story idea that i had sent to hunter was something that i felt

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_03]: that had that vibe um had that essence in it and senator senator was one of the first ideas

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_03]: that i sent over and it was it was something that i you know obviously with politics today it's so

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_03]: polarized i mean that was something like you know there there's almost there's if you just go on

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_03]: twitter and you look at you know just open your your trending bar it's almost like you have ideas

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_03]: for an ec comic just just right there for you just the the sorts of conspiracy theories just

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_03]: these wild ideas that people have the stuff that cropped up in the in the wake of this

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_03]: assassination attempt you know just in general both sides of the political spectrum just these

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_03]: wild ideas it's just it's there and so that was something that i you know brought into it but

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_03]: it was it was all just you know again it's today but it was it was all influenced by

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_03]: what all the great ec creators did back in the day because they did it so well

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_03]: um and again it just it kind of came down to the the economy of their storytelling

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_03]: um you know how they told a incise complete hard hitting story in under 10 pages it just

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_03]: it's it's an amazing feat and i think that more creators should be doing then studying

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_06]: what they did uh yeah i mean the fact that all these stories are what like eight to ten pages

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_06]: is yeah is remarkable um so hunter in the other the next issue coming out after

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_06]: epitaphs from the abyss is cruel universe which is kind of more of the the science fiction

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_06]: you know weird tales type of uh type of comics and again um well and chris i wanted to say

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_06]: i think you're working with uh artist jonathan case but your your story drink up is the name

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_06]: of it from that and uh i mean again really captured a moment like right now in terms of

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_06]: a particular conversation about a certain certain group of folks that are really into

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_06]: longevity i think i heard someone on a podcast the other day say that they

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_06]: that they they were on another podcast and that person has like a longevity doctor which i

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_06]: know i i mean i thought all doctors were like longevity doctors but apparently there's like

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_06]: a specific field of study and i really felt like your story uh drink up again that ending

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_03]: that is surprising but inevitable jeff's kiss man so good well thank you i'm really i'm really

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_03]: blessed to have fantastic collaborators like peter or jonathan case who who i was you know he was one

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_03]: of the my favorite creators um growing up your creature was a big book for me i love that book

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_03]: and for you know i have a real dogged copy of that book so i it you know i'm really lucky to

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_03]: to be you know collaborating with people like this because they just make that they just send it

[00:33:12] [SPEAKER_03]: over whatever expectations i had it just they've seen them so yeah i appreciate it yeah hunter so for

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_06]: with there's with these issues and there's a lot of i think different like variant covers um

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_06]: did were there like you know a particular brief um to the the artists that were selected

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_06]: you know to come up with the covers or was it just like you understand the vibe of ec let's see

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_07]: what you got i think chris like it's like one of those things where it's like it's easy to say

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_07]: this is you understand the ec vibrate well like what i've come to appreciate is like

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_07]: certain for whatever reason certain personality types like me and chris and peter have like

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_07]: inculcated that to some degree and it's a pervasive from a storytelling standpoint it's

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_07]: a pervasive sense of existential dread like it's got like a smile and like uh it's got a little bit

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_07]: of polish like when dustin for instance great example is dustin weaver turned in his first

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_07]: horror host designs and they're nearly identical to what went public our only note was they're too

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_07]: scary like they should be smiling and he would like put smiles on them and he was like you're

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_07]: right actually this is like it exactly terrifying but with a smile you know what i mean and the covers

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_07]: kind of like when you talk about ec covers we're talking about like probably pound for pound the

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_07]: best track record of covers ever produced in the history of comics like there's books devoted only

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_07]: to ec's covers walleywood's cover this one for i have a whole stack of ec reference here

[00:34:54] [SPEAKER_07]: which i ripped oh my god it's been water damaged no this is my childhood copy of shock

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_07]: suspense stories uh this is the highest selling like the original art for this sold for like a

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_07]: million dollars or whatever heritage highest selling cover art ever done so like in a world

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_07]: where we have like if i have one complaint about modern covers it's that the proliferation

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_07]: of variant covers has like kind of i'm sure peter has strong feelings about this

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_07]: this kind of diluted uh has diluted the power of comic book of the craft of comic book covers

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_07]: which used to be like one of the most important things like making sure you've got that right

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_07]: if you read you know how to draw comics the marvel way john buchima's got like an entire

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_07]: thing about covers in there and he's exactly right you know what i mean so it did make me

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_07]: it was like we kind of had to accept the fact that's the year 2024 you have to do variant covers so

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_07]: like many of the challenges i've been presented with in my career in comics you kind of have to

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_07]: accept this fact and then say okay assuming that we have to do that how do we make it good

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_07]: you know and powerful you know what i mean so rule that we've given ourselves for the covers

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_07]: is like they kind of function as stories within themselves like you could appreciate

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_07]: that there's a storytelling element to the cover they're not just pinups and then i think by and large

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_07]: it's not going to be everyone but like i think like 97 of them going forward will all relate to

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_07]: the story content within the books there's very rare exceptions to that like andreos or in teahouse

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_07]: we cover for epitaph someone doesn't have it's an ec evocative image but it doesn't have a direct

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_07]: storytelling reference but we're working very hard to make sure that we make those things

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_07]: line up in the future and then we've established like a very what i think is like one of the cleanest

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_07]: most consistent um lineups of variants so like it's our cover breakdowns are the same like issue to

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_07]: issue so there's two shelf covers on every issue of cruel universe and epitaphs from the abyss

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_07]: there's a one in ten variant that's drawn by j stevens who did uh dwellings for us um at ony which

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_07]: different elements of different covers not just the most famous ones from uh ec history in his own

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_07]: very distinctive uh parv s comic style i love jade of death he's also writing some stories for this

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_07]: book that are crazy and then um ryan hughes is our graphic designer has done two things he

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_07]: mocked up uh some of the original art for uh our covers like issue one's andreos or in teahouse

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_07]: to look like an artist edition you know what i mean where he went in and

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_07]: drew annotations on original ec art board and made it look like the logos are pasted up and stuff so

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_07]: there are they're like a black and white cover with this fun kind of like metatextual overlay

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_07]: and then ryan also designed what's essentially like the it's like the comic book equivalent of

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_07]: like a marvel master work which is for one in fifty variants we're calling them the archive

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_07]: editions if you have those big oversized ec comics archive editions from dark horse it's like

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_07]: what if we could do a one issue version of that so they all have a consistent trade dress they all

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_07]: list the stories and the um the stories in each issue and the creative teams etc so they feel

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_07]: like they're they're high grade collectors editions of those books almost like we'll never

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_07]: be able to have more file copies from william de gains but like this is the closest

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_07]: equivalent we can have so we spent an intense amount of time thinking about yeah these covers

[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_06]: sorry guys no good yeah and and you had mentioned dustin weaver um am i corrected he

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_06]: designed the the grave digger character or was that his interpret like how did he that come

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_07]: about he did uh we had some ideas uh these are them by the way that's dustin weaver's

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_07]: poor host cover uh we had some ideas uh for who these hosts would be and what their different

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_07]: vibes would be and some points of initial reference and then we passed those over to dustin and he

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_07]: came back and i should say we is me an editor in chief seara han who's overseeing these books and

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_07]: has done a phenomenal job and uh as well as cori and kathy from the gains family but uh we

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_07]: passed those over and came back with like just some absolutely insane stuff his model for

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_07]: we did a lot of talking about like whatever the weird stylistic genius of the original e c

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_07]: houses like they're very simple like the most complicated one is the old witch who has that

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_07]: great character design with the big big left eye but as someone who also is obviously into

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_07]: obscure horror stuff too like it occurred to me at some point that um the the original

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_07]: crypt paper the commerce crypt paper looks a lot like laun shaney senior from london after midnight

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_07]: like the lost silent film if you google that he looks like essentially the same uh in alphel

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_07]: seeds ritual rendition of him so i was like let's go back to that which is kind of like where

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_07]: the top hat and some of that comes from he also has he can't watch the movie because it's lost

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_07]: but yeah kind of a shadowy after midnight grave dearest figure and then uh dustin was like i'm

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_07]: going to add some harry dean stan back into this gravedick is a little bit harry dean stan

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_05]: well that's a that's a great character actor to reference i love that

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_06]: um that's phenomenal uh so peter i kind of want to take it back to you and you said

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_06]: you'd been working for a hoi for a while and hadn't really you know done horror uh do you

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_06]: do you change up your style or modified at all depending on what you do i mean you

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_04]: or maybe it's how is your style you can say that yeah i over the years i definitely try to modify

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_04]: the way i draw depending on what i am drawing um you know again i'm seeing it from my perspective

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_04]: don't know about the readers if you know they would agree but um when we look at you know some

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_04]: of the stuff we've done from ahoy especially when we're doing the superhero spoof uh

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_04]: they're my bad you know that it's a very it's you know i can indulge all my silver age

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_04]: fondnesses in in my artwork because we're that's where we're we're going and so it's

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_04]: it's a relatively slick style um you know it's it's got a brush look to it you know etc etc so uh

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_04]: when i do something like this um or you know i i did something for the three worlds three moon

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_04]: people there john and tichman everything um i thought this is a chance you know and i

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_04]: there's people that i just adore um artwork wise uh or hey south sephino uh gabriel hardman

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_04]: guys like that that have a little bit of a roughness to the way that they draw

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_04]: and so i said this is an opportunity to do something like that where it's you know with a

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_04]: little little rougher i mean i think you know towards the end maybe i got a little slick but

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_04]: but uh you know have a little bit of a fuzz to it a little bit of an edge to it i think it works

[00:42:27] [SPEAKER_04]: well with with something like what we're doing here um and really you know trying to get away

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_04]: from any you know superhero type of feel to do it i wanted to be you know fairly kind of i don't know

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_04]: maybe even like a cinema verite type of of feel to it uh and i think that works well for something

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_04]: like you see but yeah yeah um i will i will switch it up depending on what i am working on

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_06]: okay yeah i was i was curious you know because you have such a breath of of of work i'm not i'm not

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_04]: i'm not calling you old uh oh you can't know nothing wrong with that you know jeez you know

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_07]: peter did this character design for my bad i apologize peter what's the character's name

[00:43:16] [SPEAKER_07]: who has the chandelier for a head the chandelier

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_04]: chandelier

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_07]: but like it's an insane character design uh he also has to draw it in multiple panels for

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_07]: issue every time i look at it peter's peter's really putting in the work in on the chandelier

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_04]: i will say this doing my bad that has been one of the most challenging assignments i've ever had

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_04]: we're always coming up with new characters every issue is like you know okay wow i've

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_04]: got a new car to draw i've got a new character to draw i've got a new costume to design so it's

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_04]: you know kind of similar to you know irredeemable was like i look back at that and i look at what

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_04]: you know we did and go holy cow i can't believe that we did all this stuff how did we ever get

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_04]: it done it's you know you're you're doing a lot of stuff on the fly it peter have ever

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_06]: speaking of a character like the chandelier have you ever designed a character where you're like

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_06]: why did i do that because now i just have to keep drawing it

[00:44:26] [SPEAKER_04]: i found a way to make even the chandelier easier to draw as i went on so i try to i do try to

[00:44:35] [SPEAKER_04]: default towards making things fairly basic not a whole lot of seams pouches rivets etc etc

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_04]: so uh you know yeah yeah i think you do you know in the back of your mind yes as an artist

[00:44:51] [SPEAKER_04]: deadlines meet the deadlines get the stuff done those things you know i'm not i'm not gonna

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_04]: i'm not gonna design the jack of hearts let's put it that way i don't want to draw that every

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_06]: every path so uh hunter i wanted to ask you i read a something i think you were talking about

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_06]: in an interview might have been with aipt um where you kind of maybe not making a direct

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_06]: comparison but talking about the issue of like the comics code and censorship and comparing it to

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_06]: you know saying ony publishes i think that i think for three years in a row has been one of the

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_06]: the most banned or criticized books with uh mya co-babes gender queer uh the fantastic book

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_06]: by the way for listeners who haven't haven't picked it up yet um you know was that even like

[00:45:41] [SPEAKER_06]: because of some of the things that ony has published in books like gender queer was that

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_06]: even more of a mission to kind of bring back ec because of what happened in 56 i mean it's not

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_06]: just phenomenal storytelling and art and it's not just timely um you know but was that something

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_06]: that you felt it was important for like ony to do to to reach out to something like ec because of uh

[00:46:06] [SPEAKER_06]: like ony's current slate of books and what's been going on in terms of censorship in america today

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_07]: i'm not sure if there was like a direct connection in terms of the logic but like it

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_07]: definitely like early on in this i was like because you know when i started it ony in late

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_07]: 2022 also as you said that there was a loud thunder crack so i'll take that hopefully

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_07]: not as a ominous sign of things to come

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_07]: you know like ony had been doing great books but it kind of stepped back from doing direct

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_07]: market comics in a real intensive way and it also started to focus more on like younger readers

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_07]: books to a large extent hadn't done any kind of like fastballs down the middle in terms of comic

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_07]: book e comic book stuff which i consider ec to be and i think to myself like what are we gonna do

[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_07]: at ony what there's many directions we could take this can ony do ec does that conceptually

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_07]: make sense and part of what did unlock it for me was gender queer and what had been happening and

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_07]: like the companies were with all and having the ony prior to my time has vigorously supported that

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_07]: book uh david stewart who's uh uh the chairman of our company vigorously supported that book

[00:47:20] [SPEAKER_07]: the cldf has also been a cypherist in their support of that book and it's like a weird echo

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_07]: it's not a direct comparison but there's definitely some sort of weird synchronicity or

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_07]: echo between what gains faced in 1955 1954 1955 as all of that was happening

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_07]: and what my uh and other creators who've had their work and and it's like it's like it's not

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_07]: happening in the it's not happening on the newsstand now it's happening in libraries and schools so

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_07]: it's like it's not a world away it's different for the year 2024 but there's some connected tissue

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_07]: there it's all very troubling and i do think that even in the commercial medium like comics

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_07]: it's our job uh to and that means like everyone in the industry to use art which is what we're

[00:48:13] [SPEAKER_07]: making uh to use art to challenge whatever kind of cultural social issues uh can be done it doesn't

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_07]: have to just be you know letters to the editor and a pit and um and uh some squawking head on tv

[00:48:33] [SPEAKER_07]: like art changes people's minds ec did that and it's heyday we don't have to be

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_07]: hit people over the head with some kind of message and each and every issue or page or whatever i think

[00:48:47] [SPEAKER_07]: that would be boring but we can use the art that we make as a vehicle to have some sort of larger

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_07]: message impact and in the case of like ec those kind of messages are less like uh a a big extended

[00:49:01] [SPEAKER_07]: arm that's going to make you feel good and warm and fuzzy than it is like an ice pick to the

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_07]: chest you know what i mean like we can be very direct into the point with the what these

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_07]: stories the points of these stories you're trying to make so i do think there's power in that and i

[00:49:14] [SPEAKER_06]: do think ec is like a wonderful vehicle for that i mean i think that's awesome and um yeah i i uh i'm

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_06]: very excited for other folks to get these stories in their hands epitaphs from the abyss um

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_06]: when it's out on july 24th and cruel universe on um on august 7th um but yeah i i think that's

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_06]: i think you you summed it up well hunter um but i just want to say this has been a real treat for me

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_06]: i thought these were fantastic issues and i'm very excited like i said for folks to really start

[00:49:53] [SPEAKER_06]: reading these books and you know can see people talking about it online and joining those conversations

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_06]: but uh peter chris and hunter thank you so so much for uh for coming on the podcast today

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_07]: thank you thank you for having more press content and peter crouse to come in future issues too i believe

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_06]: so oh i hope so um because i really love senator senator oh i almost forgot i i shout out to my

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_06]: brother bobby every podcast episode because he listens to all my episodes he's the cryptid

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_06]: creator corners number one most dedicated fan and don't worry bob i'll make sure these are on

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_06]: your poll list because i know he's gonna want them that's awesome um thanks so much thank you guys

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_06]: for coming on and listeners thank you for listening and um i really appreciate you listening and let

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_06]: me know if you uh pick these up what you think about them you can find me on you know twitter

[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_06]: or blue sky or i think i'm on tiktok too uh i'll probably make a video talking about these

[00:50:55] [SPEAKER_06]: when they come out and uh i really appreciate you guys listening and i'll see you next time

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_02]: bye thanks jimmy you're welcome this is biron o'neill one of your hosts of the cryptid creator

[00:51:09] [SPEAKER_02]: corner brought to you by comic book yeti we hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast please

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