Johanna Taylor Interview - The Ghostkeeper

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[00:01:29] Head to 2000AD.com and click on subscribe now or download the 2000AD app and why wait? Start reading today. I'll put links in the show notes for you. Hello and welcome to Comic Book Yeti's Cryptid Creator Corner. I'm one of your hosts, Jimmy Gasparo, and I have a very special guest on the podcast today that I was very excited. I think I reached out and asked them to come on the podcast because I just thought the idea behind their graphic novel was really cool.

[00:01:56] The art looked really fun and I got to read it. They were kind enough to send me a copy and it is great and I cannot wait to talk about it. But please welcome to the podcast, Johanna Taylor. Johanna, how are you doing tonight? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me, Jimmy.

[00:02:28] I'm doing great. Great. Like just something that totally captured something that I would be into.

[00:02:52] And I mean, it's really like a young adult, you know, that that age range, probably 12 and up or maybe even a little younger. But I was captivated by it. I thought it was so much fun. And great story deals with kind of some heavy issues in terms of mental health, in terms of the main character, Dorian Leith, some of the other characters as well.

[00:03:19] But there's some important lessons there that folks of all ages would would be wise to listen to. I really kind of instantly. But when I got to the end, like understood the, you know, Dorian's idea of I have to take care of everybody. And he sometimes did not do a great job of taking care of himself.

[00:03:49] And I was I just turned 46 to tell you how old I am. Listeners of the podcast know that I'm an old man. But I was great for many years of talking to my friends about the benefits of going to therapy. And that if your arm, I mean, I've probably said it thousands of times. If your arm was broken, you'd go to the doctor.

[00:04:14] So if something not that you're broken, but if something's going on that's that isn't clicking or working right or that you're struggling with, there's there should be no shame. Just like nobody questions you if you go to the doctor to get your broken arm in a cast. You should go talk to a therapist, find a therapist that works for you. There's a lot of different types of therapy. And for years, I put off going therapist by sale. Honestly, same.

[00:04:45] But there were there's like a part in particular where Dorian was like, I would tell all these ghosts that like you need to find rest. And I never once thought that to apply that same advice to anything Dorian was doing. So but not to talk around to talk around it. Let's get right into it. Why don't you so they can hear from you? You tell listeners kind of what the ghost keeper is all about. Yeah. So the ghost keeper is a Victorian YA fantasy.

[00:05:14] And it's about a guy, Dorian, who's just starting out. He is a therapist for ghosts. And so he goes from haunted house to haunted house. And instead of exercising the ghost like you would expect, he sits the ghost down and asks them to talk about their feelings and just ask them, hey, why are you haunting this house? Is there any unfinished business you have that I can help with?

[00:05:37] And he helps them to kind of manage their emotions, accept the situation that they're in, the fact that they're dead, the fact that they need to move on. And he helps them to get rid of this ghostly rot that has been growing on the ghosts that feeds on their misery and their regret and their fears of moving on.

[00:06:00] And that prevents them from moving on to the next life and entering limbo to get to death store, which is where you go to get to the afterlife in the world of the ghost keeper. So he helps them out with that and tries to help cure the rot. And it starts to become very overwhelming very quickly because he is the only one who can see the ghosts.

[00:06:26] Everybody else who lives in the town, as far as he knows, can't see the ghosts. And so he feels extra pressure because he feels like he's the only person who can help them because he's the only person who's like, who knows they're there, who knows what they're dealing with, who can communicate with them. And so he takes it upon himself to be that person and play that role for them.

[00:06:49] And it becomes something that really starts to progressively weigh him down and interfere with his relationships, interfere with his real life and his own mental health struggles. And so it's a story about learning how to set boundaries, learning how to take care of yourself as well as other people,

[00:07:11] and figuring out just a good work-life balance without falling into burnout and what to do with burnout when you hit it. Yeah, I mean, it hits all of those notes. And one thing I was thinking about, folks that take on a caregiver or a caretaker role, whether that is in their job or in their family life.

[00:07:41] There's a couple of things that I think don't get talked about enough, and Dorian exemplifies almost all of them. I touched on it a little bit before where he was great at giving out advice to try and help other people, but wouldn't apply the advice to himself. He felt, the other thing was that he felt because he was the only one that could see the ghost, as you said, he's the only one that could help them. But other people at times offered Dorian help.

[00:08:10] And he seems, and he's like, no, I got this. I have to do it. I have to do it. And, you know, as I think probably everybody listening knows somebody in their life who, it's tough to talk to them about because they do a lot. And they, it's part of their DNA that they can handle all of these things. But sometimes it's not possible to do it all.

[00:08:36] And if somebody's offering you help, you don't want to, I think it almost comes from a sense, you know, that they don't want to burden this other person asking for help. But most people, I think when they genuinely, genuinely ask if they can help, they want to help. They don't see it as a burden. But I know plenty of people in my life who try to do everything and feel like they're the only one that can do it. Right. And it almost becomes a point of pride.

[00:09:06] Like that's how they derive worth in their own life is they try to be a resource for other people and they try to help other people. And it creates a bit of a struggle because you can't absorb other people's problems. That's why there are other people's problems. And I think there's also a stigma still around going to therapy. It's gotten a lot better now.

[00:09:30] But I think there's also, yeah, there's a stigma around going to therapy because it tends to be interpreted as a like. It's like a lapse in your like personal strength somehow in a way that getting injured, physically injured, isn't quite interpreted. So people, if they hear you go into therapy, their immediate thought is like, oh, well, what's wrong with you? Like what are you having mental issues that would end?

[00:10:00] It creates like all these character judgments that kind of happen unconsciously. And I feel like a lot of people tend to get really spooked by having that vulnerability to be like, hey, I have some struggles with my mental health and to normalize that sort of talk. And so they try to appear stronger than they are and kind of work through that and keep it inside so that they don't burden other people.

[00:10:27] So it's like it's equal parts a pride issue and also feeling like you just can't put that on other people, like wanting to spare other people that pain and that burden by handling it on your own. Yeah. I mean, I know I definitely think that makes, you know, a lot of sense. And even, you know, when I said I would I would tell people like, you know, all the time, hey, why don't you talk to somebody?

[00:10:56] Find somebody, find a professional, sit down, talk to them, whatever the issue was. This sounds like it is going to take more than like, you know, having a beer at a bar and talking to your friends about like you might need somebody else to like a professional to weigh in. Though that can help. It can. No, definitely. Talking to your friends, talking to somebody can can help.

[00:11:17] You know, sometimes even with, you know, even if you're you're not, you know, looking into like medication, like talk therapy with a professional, extraordinarily helpful. But, you know, there is still like you wouldn't. I have to leave work at one o'clock to go to a doctor's appointment. People don't like, you know, bat an eye for something.

[00:11:44] But there's still like, oh, I'm not going to I'm not going to say I'm going I'm leaving. I have a therapy appointment, you know. And so I've tried to get I've tried to do better about about that. And, you know, and to say, well. Just telling other people or saying like therapy is helpful and there shouldn't be a stigma surrounding it. But then, you know, acting like it's it's a secret. If you go to therapy, I'm like, no, I go to therapy.

[00:12:14] Like, it's right. Right. And I have to I kind of have to live it. Like, no, I go to therapy. Like, I'm fine. I have anxiety. I go to therapy. I talk to somebody about it. Past, you know, two years. I don't I don't wake up every morning like I used to call the dread. Just that feeling. Monday mornings are the worst. Just like that feeling of as soon as I step out of bed, the day is going to start. Right.

[00:12:39] That that happens so rare now, which is which is great for me. And that's fantastic. And that's the tricky thing with mental health is because it's a little bit more invisible than a physical ailment, because if somebody's broken their arm, you can see the broken arm. If somebody's struggling with depression or anxiety or has like bipolar or borderline personality disorder, like those kinds of things, like they're not usually very visible.

[00:13:08] And that was part of what I use the rot that the ghosts suffer with and the existence of the ghosts themselves. Like it's in the universe of the ghost keeper. Everyone pretty much has accepted that ghosts are real and ghosts do exist. They're more just like a little freaked out and they're kind of treated like vermin a little bit. It's just like, oh, a ghost haunting my house is treated with the same level of gravity as a raccoon infestation or like hermites or whatever.

[00:13:38] Yeah. And so they're more just like, oh, gross. Get that out of my house. But why I utilized something like the gap between Dorian seeing the ghosts and other people seeing the ghosts and the ghostly rot. But I wanted to communicate the invisibility of the manifestation of mental health issues because that is such a huge thing that caused people to kind of not take it very seriously.

[00:14:04] And that comes through in the story in the sense that like Prudence Greaves in the beginning, she kind of is very dismissive. She's just like, OK, just do whatever you have to do. I don't really care how you do it. Just get them out of my house. And it's not until things start to affect her directly that she starts to actually care about Dorian's methods.

[00:14:26] And that's really a huge factor in some people's reluctance to be open about their mental health because it is invisible. And so people tend to not really know how to take it and how to treat that sort of thing when you're talking about it just in candid conversation. Because it's hard to relate to something that you can't really see on its face. Like a broken arm is like, oh, I can imagine what that's like.

[00:14:53] Either I've broken an arm or like somebody else and you can see the arm in a cast. But there's not really a cast for your brain that is visible. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's done so like you you do it so smartly. It is just done so well because all of that is captured within it.

[00:15:18] And it is still a really it's it's strange to say maybe it's still a really blood like Victorian kind of ghost story. Like all the characters are pretty fun. Like Dorian's great. Brody's great. You know, Grant Grant Grant's got Grant. I go back and forth on Grant. Like, you know, Grant. Sometimes she's OK. Sometimes she's a little selfish. And, you know, but but it.

[00:15:45] Again, the characters use very effectively to be able to talk about these things, you know, going on like with Dorian and really with with all the characters and in the story. And I really love. I mean, you you wrote it. You did all the art. Micah Myers lettered it. Right. Yes. Yeah. I love Micah. Micah's awesome. Micah's great. I love the art style in it. The kind of little.

[00:16:15] Fungus floral design for the rot all came out. You know, it looks really cool. It looks really sickly and sinister at times. The Owen every time. Like, like I thought Owen was a fantastic design. He's kind of like a. Is he supposed to know he's like an old ship captain. Right. Or. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Kind of an old timey. Captainy piratey feel. Yeah, definitely. I just thought all that was great.

[00:16:45] I mean, I really love the whole. I mean, I'm not an artist, but I read a lot of comics and graphic novels. I love the whole overall design of the book. Like, I just love how it read. I loved how it looked. I love the choices you made in terms of. Like, it's not always just like straight paneling. There's a lot of great stuff where, you know, things are kind of like broken out. You have a couple of really.

[00:17:12] Interesting pages where we see Dorian kind of like visiting all the ghosts. Yeah, it looks real. It looks really. It's it's a it's a really easy to read and it really looks like wonderful. Loved all that stuff about it. I love the design of the town. Rookwood. I thought all of that was like super fun, super cute. So, yeah, kudos on all the art stuff. I mean, it just is great. Oh, thank you.

[00:17:41] I don't really have a question. That was just. It's so one of the things. Yeah. One of the things I want to talk about. I'm a big Oscar Wilde fan. So immediately when I fantastic, you can't help. When a character is named Dorian and you're like, OK, well. Immediately thinking of Dorian Gray and then I'm like, OK, so there's got to be some type of maybe some type of Oscar Wilde influence in here.

[00:18:10] And so then I think I read when I was preparing for this that there was kind of some the Canterville ghost influence, which I always thought of the Canterville ghost as like. You're not really like early Scooby Doo. That's what I thought. Yeah, it's kind of a goofy story. Like in classic Oscar Wilde fashion, he doesn't really like give the situation the gravity it

[00:18:38] deserves because he's satirizing it. And he's just like, oh, what if what if haunting? But the ghost is like really bad at being a scary ghost and nobody takes him seriously. And, you know, Oscar Wilde is going to there's nothing he won't satirize. There's nothing he won't just like take to the absolute heights of absurdity and just in his dry wit way.

[00:19:05] And that was the part where I was just like it inspired the story. But I also felt like the ending of the Canterville ghost was a little unsatisfying. And so I wanted to like kind of expand it and take it to the natural conclusion of just like, OK, what if there was a guy whose job it is to talk to the ghosts who are, quote unquote, bad at haunting and don't really aren't necessarily sinister. They're just kind of people and they're they're freaking out.

[00:19:32] They are struggling to, you know, maintain their emotions and struggling to cope with the situation that they're in, the fact that they're dead and kind of in a little bit of denial. And and then I also wanted to kind of take the idea that Oscar Wilde introduced with the ghost and Canterville ghost moving on to the next life and just kind of thinking about, OK, what would that look like? What would that entail?

[00:20:00] Well, and that was the early that was the early framework for the ghost keeper story was very much that. But it's funny that you mentioned that because there are actually a handful of other Oscar Wilde Easter eggs. Oh, yeah. The book. I'll have to go back and read it again and see if I pick up on any of them. But I can give you one right now. Muffin the cat. She's named after the fact that they eat muffins in importance of being earnest.

[00:20:31] When it's like any time they have an emotional like, oh, no, I'm freaking out about something. I need to eat muffins about it. Right. Oh, man. And so I used mufflin as just kind of like, oh, she's the emotional support cat. And she's named after the emotional support muffins in importance of being earnest. Oh, I forgot that. I was in the importance of being earnest. That's my favorite, too. Were you really? Like, yeah.

[00:21:00] I did theater in high school and college. And I did community theater after college for a little bit as something to do. Oh, that rules. But yeah. So that was I love the importance of being earnest. That was probably. I don't know. 20. What year is it? 2025? Maybe 18 years ago. Yeah. So. Wow. But yeah, I was in it.

[00:21:29] I got to play Algernon, which is my favorite character. Oh, that's awesome. That's a fun role. Yeah. It is. No, it was 2005. It was 2005 when I was in it. So it was 20 years ago. So 20 years ago, I was in the importance of being earnest. Wow. So, yeah. But fun, great show. One of my favorites. So I will have to go back and look to see if I can spot any other Oscar Wilde Easter eggs. That is because that's great. Yeah.

[00:21:55] That's the main one that comes to mind in terms of like a little bit more textual. But there's also a lot of influence in terms like Brody, for example. I based Brody's design like with his hair and his silhouette. I based that off of photos of Oscar Wilde. Oh, okay. Yeah. Like especially the hair. I was just like. And his glasses? I just threw the glasses on because I thought they were adorable. Oh, okay. Because he was also based off of.

[00:22:26] Have you seen the. Is it Hulu? The What We Do in the Shadows TV show? I haven't seen the TV show. I've seen the movie. But I haven't watched the TV show yet. So the character of Guillermo in. In What We Do in the Shadows. Okay. I know who the actor is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Harvey Gillum was the visual kind of inspiration for Brody. And then I basically just took that and copy pasted Oscar Wilde's hairstyle onto it. That's awesome.

[00:22:55] I love hearing stuff like that in terms of those little touches and influences that come into it. Yeah. I'm curious. What was the development of the whole story and book like? Because this is your debut graphic novel, right? Yes. So from like pitch to like the whole process really getting it done. Like what does that look like? You know, for our listeners, I'm kind of curious.

[00:23:24] Like how much time from you pitch to you get to hold the book in your hands? Like is it years? Yes. Okay. That's the short answer. Yes. Short answer. Yes. So The Ghost Keeper is about 270 pages. I pitched it as, oh, it'll probably be 150 to 200 pages.

[00:23:49] Back when I was a sweet summer child who didn't know how long things took and how long the story would end up being. But it was, it was a really big undertaking because I was doing the art and the writing. Yeah. It ended up being about a year, a little under a year for the writing. And most of that was waiting for edits. And that also includes doing the thumbnail pass, which is kind of drawing.

[00:24:18] But you're basically doing a rough draft of what the pages would look like. Kind of like a storyboard style. But for me, I was a glutton for punishment. And I put the text in with my thumbnails just so I could kind of get an idea of how much space I would have with the speech bubbles. Wait, you didn't like just like circle and put like where you thought the text would be. You actually like kind of. Oh, I did. I did put circles, but I also put the text in the circle. So I kind of pre.

[00:24:49] You are a glutton for punishment. Yeah. Yeah. I learned very quickly. I was like, oh, no, that's not. Wow. Not doing that again. That was a little, a little too much work. Uh-huh. But at the time when I got the book deal, I decided I'm just going to completely quit freelance, quit job, quit everything and just have this comic be my full time job.

[00:25:15] Because, you know, when you're when your first book is going to be published by Penguin, you're I was really like I was really wanting to give it my best shot, as it were, and just kind of wanted to shoot for it. And so I dedicated all of my time and I lived off of savings for two years and the advance. And I just did my very best to make the book work.

[00:25:42] And so under those parameters, I it took me about a little under two years to finish all of the artwork, all of the writing. Okay. Yeah. Oh, man. I mean, that is, you know, it is quite an undertaking. But I mean, it is it's so wonderful. I just I absolutely love it. So I was just curious in terms of the timing of it.

[00:26:06] I mean, you know, for listeners, I think sometimes folks reach out to me and they're like they like to hear, you know, because we read all these comics and sometimes even comics, graphic novels, we read them so fast. It's like it takes so much time, so much effort, so much collaboration to make these things. But it really is a wonderful story. And before we started recording, we were talking about how it's been translated to France. And then you have an upcoming trip that you're taking. Yes. Yeah.

[00:26:35] So Stanky, the one of the big comic publishers in France, they ended up with the rights. They they wanted to buy the rights for the French translation of The Ghost Keeper, which was a huge deal for me because I spent all of my animation and art school education basically devouring French comics. And I was really deeply inspired by the style of a lot of different like Les Simones song.

[00:27:05] And he's the one who did the Kairos graphic novel. And Guillaume Saint-Gelon was also another big inspiration of mine. He made Frontier. He made PTSD, which if you haven't read those, they're fantastic. Now, I've heard of PTSD. Yes. PTSD is excellent. But I loved a lot of the French animators, French artists, French comic artists.

[00:27:35] And so I'm super excited that The Ghost Keeper is now in French. And it happened to coincide with the fact that I'm going to be I was accepted to do an artist residency at the Chateau Orcveux. And it's just in the east of France. You go to a chateau for three weeks and you are with a bunch of other artists and you work on projects. And that's terrible. I know. It's going to be it's going to be terrible. Oh, no. Yeah.

[00:28:05] Fully catered. Oh, it's going to be it's the worst. Oh, that sounds so bad. Yeah. So while and that happened to overlap with the release of the French edition of The Ghost Keeper, because the French edition came out in January. Oh, and my my little residency is going to be the end of April to the to about halfway through May. And so I just decided, like, hey, I'm going to be in France anyway.

[00:28:35] And I let my publisher know and they offered to. So I'm going to be a guest at the Rayon Verre comic festival on May 11th, which is really exciting. It's a small festival. Yeah, it's really cool because the whole thing takes place in like this little mini castle, which is really cool. So they were kind enough. The people at Edison Jungle are the ones who published The Ghost Keeper in French.

[00:29:04] And they arranged that for me to be a guest at that convention. And they've arranged about four other signings. There's going to be one in Nancy. There's going to be two in Paris, I believe. And then one in Chaumont.

[00:29:21] So it's been fantastic working with the folks at Jungle because they've been really wonderful about, like, contacting bookstores and getting everything logistically figured out while I'm over there. And so it'll be kind of like a little mini book tour while I'm now while I'm in France. Have you ever been before? Yes. So I was.

[00:29:46] So it's interesting because while I was working on the thumbnail pass of. So I just finished the thumbnail pass of The Ghost Keeper. A friend of mine got into the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. She's a director and actress. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that was that was her debut play. She got accepted to Fringe Festival. And I was like, hey, I'm writing. I'm working on a graphic novel.

[00:30:14] The artwork is inspired specifically by Edinburgh, Scotland. Can I, like, go see you perform at the Fringe Festival and also use that an excuse to just do a little research trip? Right. Plus it's the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Plus it's the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. If you don't know what that is, just Google it. Check it out. It's it's it's it's well, you know, it's world renowned. It's well known. And it's right.

[00:30:39] It's basically it's a giant film festival and like theater festival where a bunch of people got their start acting wise. So, yeah, I went over. I was able to see her play. I spent a lot of time in Edinburgh and took a lot of pictures. Just kind of like filling up my digital library of like references for the artwork. So, like the town of Rookwood is based directly on Edinburgh. Okay.

[00:31:06] And a lot of the panels in the story I took directly from the boy. Hi, Raven. This is Raven. She likes to eat my headphones. So that will probably be happening a lot. We don't mind pets. No extra charge for cats in the video. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

[00:31:26] So I was in I was in Edinburgh for a few days and then I hopped down to London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has just a bunch of Victorian era furniture and costumes and entire living room space arrangements. And so that was extremely helpful for me in terms of finding references, getting a feel for how I wanted everything to look.

[00:31:51] And in the time period that I set the Ghost Keeper in, you know, the fantasy version of like 1890s. Right. Scotland-y, London-y, that kind of aesthetic. And while we were over there, my friend and I just grabbed a ticket on the channel and went over to Paris for a couple days. Oh, wow. Fantastic. What a wonderful little trip. Right. So it was one of those things where we just were thinking, we're here. We might as well. Who knows if we'll ever be able to do this again.

[00:32:19] So we just bopped over to France for a while. And I actually got to visit Oscar Wilde's grave. Oh, OK. Yeah. I discovered that it was in France the day that I arrived in France. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, I should, like, go visit it. So I just hopped a train. I was just like bopping over to Oscar Wilde's grave for a little bit.

[00:32:44] And I also was able to get a lot of good reference photos for cemeteries and gravestones, too. That was the other part of my trip to Edinburgh and London was visiting graveyards, visiting cemeteries and that kind of thing. And also visiting a lot of bookshops. I took a lot of pictures of bookshops. Yeah. Like shelves. Yeah. Because, I mean, most of it's set in terms of for folks who haven't read it yet.

[00:33:14] It's set in Brody has a has a bookshop where, you know, a good part of it is set. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and cemeteries, you know, but pre-Victorian or older cemeteries, they are, you know, they're much more ornate and there's much more statuary than we think, you know, than we would think of like a modern U.S. cemetery. So, right.

[00:33:41] And especially in U.S. cemeteries, you just don't see a lot of the ornate kind of statuary monumental. And so that was something that was really helpful for me to visit the cemeteries, especially in Scotland and London and France, because they have some very, very old headstones. And I wanted to really encapsulate that because I just don't get to see that where I live in America. Yeah.

[00:34:08] Especially in the West Coast, most of the you don't get much older than 1800s in terms of like the gravestones, whereas in Scotland and England and France, you're getting like 1600s, 1700s, like and even older than that, depending on where you go. And it's really it's really cool. Yeah, it is kind of incredible. I've been to Ireland a few times and it's the same over there.

[00:34:36] Like, yeah, you know, it's hard to it's hard to, you know, get the concept of how like old things are like we. Yeah. You know? Yeah. We really don't have a lot of old stuff here in the U.S. Yeah, not really. And I feel like it's a little bit more normalized over there because they're surrounded by the oldness. Sure. But yeah.

[00:35:03] Oh, that was one of the things that I love the most about visiting Europe was just how old everything was. Because you just it's not the same in America because America is so new in in terms of history and in terms of just like stuff that you can trace back and actually like see the monument, see the artifacts.

[00:35:24] It's just it's so cool to see the legacy and the heritage of everything in Europe because it's so old and so well preserved. Yeah. Yeah. That you can walk in places and it's like, oh, my gosh, Shakespeare himself was here. You know, this is the original building or even the cathedrals. It's like they they worshipped in these these same cathedrals in the 16 and 1500s. Yeah.

[00:35:52] And it's just that's my favorite part about traveling, honestly, is experiencing the experiencing just the oldness. No, I agree. I felt the same way when I was in, you know, I've been to Ireland, been to Dublin, been to London. Yeah. And I agree. It is it is remarkable. If you I recommend anybody, if you can travel to just, you know, go to go anywhere.

[00:36:19] It is really worth it to, you know, see the world a little bit. Absolutely. All right, everybody, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Let's face it. The comics landscape is a mess right now. I'm the editor in chief of a comics journalism outlet, and I can't even keep track of it all. If you are as passionate as I am about indie comics and its creators, you should check out the Lantern Guide.

[00:36:41] Created on the premise of creating light in the dark, it's going to be the go-to resource to keep you up to date on the projects and the creators that you love. Don't take my word for it. I reached out to my friend Brian Lovell, Poison Ivy artist and indie comics creator, to get his take. Brian, what does The Lantern Project fix?

[00:36:58] I'm a dude who loves indie comics, and I know personally, like, I get very frustrated when something shows up in my social media timeline or something like that, and I feel like I can't keep track of everything. So, really, The Lantern Project was born out of that. It was an opportunity for me as a reader to kind of, like, have a place to want to consolidate all the stuff that I wanted to read.

[00:37:22] All the cool projects from cool creators that seemed interesting and kind of unique to, like, something that I would like, which is really not super represented everywhere else, but it's all over the indies. Having a spot to go to that felt like it consolidated a lot of those audiences and a lot of those places where I couldn't just get drowned out in the feed of social media seemed really valuable to me. What's the ultimate goal?

[00:37:47] It's really our hope with this project that creators feel like they're able to get in front of readers, and readers are able to get books that they actually want to read with a much easier time of keeping track of them. And accessing them. The catalog is scheduled for a quarterly release, so head over to thelanterncatalog.com to sign up now so you don't miss your next favorite thing. I'll put a link in the show notes for you. Y'all, Jimmy the Chaos Goblin strikes again.

[00:38:16] I should have known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media. My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know, and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing. Another friend chimes in, are you going to make maps? It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together, so I guess? Question mark? It was then that I discovered Arkinforge.

[00:38:41] If you don't know who Arkinforge is, they have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive. Allowing you to build, play, and export animated maps, including in-person Fog of War capability that lets your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM, get the full picture. Now I'm set to easily build high-res animated maps, saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign. That's a win every day in my book.

[00:39:09] Check them out at Arkinforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off. I'll drop a link in the show notes for you, and big thanks to Arkinforge for partnering with our show. I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even. Welcome back. So a couple of things I wanted to ask.

[00:39:31] To kind of get back, you had said while you were in school for animation, you read a lot of French comics. And I was kind of curious, what was it that drew you to them? Was it something about the subject matter, the style? Was there something in particular about French comics as opposed to, you know, U.S. or other European comics, Belgian comics, whatever it might be?

[00:39:59] Yeah, I think with French comics, there's something about them that's just effortlessly stylized. I guess they have really, really tight economy of line, and yet their characters are so pushed and so light. There's a lot of appeal to the character designs. It doesn't feel like cookie cutter, kind of like, oh, this kind of just looks like anime. This kind of just looks like Disney. Okay.

[00:40:27] It's French artists, like, you can kind of tell a French artist when you encounter them, but for the most part, they have very, very distinct styles from each other. And that's something that's always really fascinated me because I went to school for animation, and a huge part of my studies was in designing for appeal, designing for economy of line, economy of design, with the intent of, you know, creating characters that could move.

[00:40:54] Because when you've got characters that can move, you can't make them too ornate and too bogged down with too many details. Because there are things like you have to consider budgets, you have to consider pipelines, you have to consider is it going to be 2D or 3D? And I just, I always loved the simplicity and the, it's like, it's simplicity, but it's also really, like, intentional and planned.

[00:41:21] There's nothing, like, dumbed down about it. Okay. It's just like this, it's so hard to describe, but basically they economize so well, and yet with every stroke, everything is really expressive and really pushed and exaggerated. And that's something that I really love.

[00:41:44] And, yeah, that just really, more so than most influences that I had during school, that was what inspired me a lot. Okay. Because it helped me to kind of normalize breaking out of my comfort zone style-wise because, you know, before you're studying this sort of thing, you tend to think of styles as a shorthand for whether or not it's kid-friendly or not. Like, oh, if there's round, cute, bubbly characters. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:12] Yeah, you tend to think of, like, oh, the Marvel style where you've got the cut angles and the big, beefy, like, superheroes. Sure. Like, that's a shortcut, like, a shorthand for this is for adults. Or if you've got, like, the Rick and Morty style where it's kind of, like, ugly on purpose, and it's like, okay, that's for adults. But if it's cutesy, if it's soft and cuddly and simple, then that's code for it's for kids. Right.

[00:42:38] And I felt like French comic artists tended to break that mold a lot. Like, Guillaume Saint-Gelon is a great example, the guy who wrote PTSD. And his art style is very cutesy and very round and fun and kind of, like, almost Adventure Time feely, but not quite that cartoony. But the characters, like, they're addicted to drugs. They're war veterans. They're on the streets. They're dealing with poverty.

[00:43:08] They're dealing with really heavy subject matter. And the fact that the style is so cutesy doesn't detract from it. It adds to and creates an immersive quality to the story. But, yeah, I love French comics. I'm kind of fascinated by that. That's awesome. Right? I like to hear folks talk about what they're passionate about. So, no, that's great. It's incredibly fascinating. Yeah. I definitely recommend checking out some French comic artists.

[00:43:37] And I can send you some examples after the show. Oh, man, I would love that. Yeah, yeah. Especially stuff that still, you know, that I have not really been exposed to or haven't had an occasion to seek out. Yeah. I would love to check that out. Right. So I had two other things. I definitely wanted to make sure that I covered and asked you about. Okay. Back into some of the subject matter of The Ghost Keeper.

[00:44:04] One of the most poignant or maybe beautiful sections of The Ghost Keeper is when Dorian is talking to Lucy. And so Lucy is, she's a kid. She's a ghost kid. And, you know, a very important character, listeners. When you get it and read it, you'll understand. But Dorian is talking to her at one point. And he describes fear.

[00:44:33] And he talks about the difference between fear being a wolf. I'm going to have to, let me practice saying wolf. Wolf. Because my whole family makes fun of me that I say wolf like it's W-O-O-F. That's my Delco accent. So, very sure I got it right. Byron, you can leave this in. You can leave it in me struggling to say wolf properly.

[00:44:54] But there's this beautiful section where he's talking to Lucy about fear either being, not necessarily being a wolf, but being a crow. And I just thought that was so well written, so beautiful on the page. I guess I just wanted to ask, like, where did that kind of idea come from?

[00:45:22] Was that some other, I mean, was that something that you had come up with? Was that something that you took from, you know, like other things that you had heard? Like, it was just, I never heard fear talked about, like, quite that way. I just thought it was wonderful. Thank you. So, that exact analogy didn't necessarily, like, using the wolf and the crow specifically were kind of my own imagination.

[00:45:52] But I did take the core principle of the analogy from something that I learned while I was in therapy. So, my therapist at the time, the way he described it, he used a bear as the kind of the predator animal to compare it to. Just like, hey, when you see a bear, like, what does your body do? What is your mind thinking? And is that because you personally have been attacked by a bear?

[00:46:18] Or is that because you're used to the idea of bears being dangerous and your body's reacting to the idea that the bear might hurt you before it actually does hurt you? And so, he was using that as a metaphor to kind of get me to think about the difference between reacting versus responding. Where reacting is very passive. You're letting the world kind of happen at you.

[00:46:45] And you're letting your body and your mind kind of spasmodically take over and not really think the situation through. Versus responding, which is an active, like, everything you do, everything you, every action you take is very deliberate. It's decided ahead of time and it takes a while to really think it through and actually connect that to the action. Like, it's where your thoughts become the action.

[00:47:14] And that is where the coping really can kick in. Because we can be very reactive when we are beset with things that we don't understand or things that are just, like, monumental, like, grief or tragedy in any form.

[00:47:34] And so, I wanted to kind of take that wisdom and transmute it into something that fit the Victorian framework a little bit more. And that was what led me to Google, are there bears in Scotland? The answer is no, there are not. And then I was like, are there wolves in Scotland? And the answer is also no.

[00:48:01] But there were wolves a little bit before the Victorian era. So, like, such that if you mentioned wolves, like, people knew what wolves were. Yeah. They knew what a wolf was. But, yeah, I just thought that was such a wonderful section. Thank you. A wonderful way to kind of think about it. And, yeah. I appreciate that. It was a very beautiful part of the story.

[00:48:28] Really, probably some, you know, out of everything in The Ghost Keeper will probably be the thing that sticks with me, the way Dorian described fear to Lucy. Just thought it was very wonderful. I appreciate that. And I'm glad that that really resonated because the other thing that I wanted to communicate with that is the fact that fear is a neutral thing. Like, it's neither good nor bad. I think we get used to the idea of, like, oh, no, don't fear anything. You know, fear is the mind killer.

[00:48:57] Don't engage with it. You have to not ever experience fear. But in reality, fear depends on what it causes us to do. We can react to it or we can respond to it. But fear is a very natural response. It's a natural, like, emotion that we can feel. And usually it's just trying to communicate information to us in a way that we understand that gets our body to do something, whether that's fight, whether that's flight, whether that's freeze, you know. Yeah.

[00:49:27] I mean, sometimes fear, you know, can be helpful. There's, you know, something inside us that tells us that there is, you know, something potentially dangerous about a situation, you know, like you said. Exactly. And it comes back to the wolf analogy of is the wolf looking to hurt you personally? Maybe the wolf isn't hungry. Maybe the wolf doesn't see you, but your body experiences the fear anyway.

[00:49:54] And so it's really important to sit with that and kind of work through the internal logic of where the fear is coming from, giving it space to exist and not letting it tie you up and paralyze you. And kind of scare you out of acting. Okay. The other thing I wanted to talk about before I let you go, if that's okay. I do not believe in ghosts. I love ghost stories.

[00:50:24] Do not believe. I don't believe in ghosts. It's not. I'm not a ghost believer person. So I wanted to ask you, working on like the ghost keeper. Do you have any, do you have any ghost stories in your, in your, you know, actual real life? You do. You're shaking your head. Yes. You do. Oh yeah. It's actually funny that you bring this up.

[00:50:53] Like no one has ever asked me this and it's really surprising. Really? Because all the ghost keeper. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote a book called the ghost keeper. Yeah. I actually do believe in ghosts. Okay. I've had a lot of experiences that have led me to believe that ghosts are real and they can interact with people. In fact, there are a couple of things in the ghost keeper, particularly the climax.

[00:51:19] Like it, without getting into too many specifics, there's something that happens in the climax to Dorian where it's like, I based that off of an experience, a similar experience that I had with the paranormal. And it's, it's something that's really like, yeah, it's, I don't know.

[00:51:42] It's hard to describe where I stand because there's a little bit of like residual religion behind it. And there's also just kind of like, it's just kind of an instinctive thing. And it's something that's like nice to think about for me. Like I, I think of ghosts, not as like a malevolent thing, but as something that I, that is just like a neutral presence. They can either be evil or good or anywhere in between, but they just kind of coexist.

[00:52:12] But when I was in Edinburgh doing my research trip, we stayed at an Airbnb. That was this old Victorian house. And the Airbnb person told us, oh, by the way, the room that you're sleeping in is haunted by the ghost of a man named James. And he's probably going to rattle the pipes a little bit at 3 a.m. So if he does, you just say, go to bed, James, and, and she'll leave you alone. And I was just like, oh, okay. Ha ha.

[00:52:40] Is it, isn't this just the vibe? You know, I mean, my friend and I were just laughing about it. So we go to sleep and we wake up 3 a.m. It was about three or three 30 a.m. We're woken up to the sound of the pipes getting banged on. And I just kind of blearily, I'm just kind of like, go to bed, James. And did it stop? It stopped. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

[00:53:07] So that is definitely like, and I mean, there are all kinds of explanations for what it could actually have been. But I've always been a believer in the supernatural, especially ghosts. But I'm kind of, I think of it as like vampire rules. Like the more you seek out dealing with ghosts and the more you try to like antagonize them or summon them, that kind of gives them free reign to mess with you. And that's not something that I really want to invite into my life unnecessarily.

[00:53:37] And so I tend to just kind of leave well enough alone. If people tell me a ghost story, I usually take them at their word of just like, you know what, I'm not going to tell somebody that a spiritual or ghostly paranormal experience didn't happen to them. The same way that I would expect people not to tell me what I did or didn't experience. So it's more just like, I am open to the idea that ghosts absolutely aren't real.

[00:54:04] But for me, it's something that I have, I have experienced in ways that have convinced me, I guess. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm not like, you know, a debunker. I'm not like Harry Houdini who tries to show people seances and all that stuff. Sure, sure. I love to hear ghost stories. I love them. I, you know, and I'm not someone who is like, well, you know, excuse me what that actually was, you know. Yeah, yeah. I love to hear.

[00:54:33] Actually, the swamp gas of the, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, same. I love ghost stories. Yeah. I was talking to someone once about, you know, like one of those shows like Ghost Hunters or, they filmed an episode of one of those types of shows at Rockwood Museum in Delaware, not too far from where I live. And I've been to Rockwood a bunch of times. Rockwood has a huge history of people seeing ghosts there. Oh, fun. I was talking to someone about, like, they were doing a spend the night thing there.

[00:55:02] And I would like, I would love to do that. I would love, they're like, wouldn't you be, you're saying you wouldn't be scared? I'm like, no. I have the nervous system of a squirrel. I'd be scared of everything. But I would still like to do it. I would, you know. Oh, my gosh. I would probably be like, I like the idea of it. But I think once I got there, I'd be too spooked. It's just like, I don't want to mess with it. I don't want to upset the ghosts. I don't know. I just kind of. And I'm the same way.

[00:55:31] Like, I've gone on ghost walks before. Like, I did a ghost walk in Edinburgh where we went down into. Oh, that had to be awesome. Yeah, we kind of went down into Mary King's clothes, the undercity, which was kind of cool because Edinburgh was kind of built vertically. And so there's an entire undercity that was kind of closed off, especially when the plague hit. They that ended up being like a slum area that they kind of sealed off and quarantined.

[00:56:00] And so that was really that was really spooky to be able to, like, walk around and kind of point at all the spooky things. I was like, oh, my goodness. There's that. And I also was in the catacombs at Paris. Like, I walked through all the skulls and that was really cool. Like, I love the idea of ghosts and that all of the depth of experience that that implies, like the reasons people stay behind,

[00:56:28] the reasons that ghosts might be driven to haunt and the ways through which people can access. Right. Communicating with ghosts like that all is really cool to me. But if it but if it was given to me, like, hey, there is an evil presence in this room. OK, go stay the night. It'll be fun. I'm just like, no, no, no, no, no. No, my my my now. Well, we my wife and I, I don't think we were married.

[00:56:57] You know, we weren't married at the time. The first time we went to Ireland and stayed at a friend's farmhouse and she woke up in the middle of the night and she was like she taught. My wife has had a long history of talking in her sleep and saying just ridiculous stuff or having like seeing things that you like weren't really there. Like she.

[00:57:25] She woke up one time and she goes, there's somebody standing at the foot of our bed. And I was like, yeah, I'm awake now. I'm 100 percent fully awake. I assume she is also awake. She is not. She's still asleep. But I'm like, who is it? Who's standing at the foot? What do you mean? I don't see anybody. I'm like, who do you think is standing at the foot of our bed? And she in like a serious voice with her eyes open, she goes, Donald Duck. I said, OK, well, you go to bed. You go to bed.

[00:57:54] But our first night in Ireland, she woke up in a panic. And she was like, I think somebody's sitting in the chair in the corner of the room. And I said, no, there's, you know, I don't even want to look because I'm scared. I'm scared of everything. But I don't believe in it, but I'm scared of it. Just just in case, you know. So I'm like, there's nobody in the corner of the room. And I'm like the covers, you know, the listeners, you can't see. But I'm like, like put my fist up. Like I'm just like peeking over the covers.

[00:58:24] And I'm like, I don't think I see anything. She goes, no, there's definitely somebody in the corner of the room. And I'm like, no, there's there's nobody there. It's just pile of clothes. That's probably where I threw, you know, my jacket. I don't that's not a person. And she goes, OK, are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, I'm sure it's not a person. And like she goes back to bed. So then I'm up the rest of the night. I'm up the rest of the night staring at the corner, making sure it doesn't move. Making sure I don't see anything. Wake up the next day.

[00:58:55] It doesn't look like there was anything on the chair. Maybe it was just a shadow that appeared that way. We come downstairs to breakfast and the folks we're staying with. They're like, did you see the ghost in your room? My wife is like, I'm now not sleeping in that room the rest of our the rest of the week here. Because what are you talking about? And then they told us how like the farmhouse was haunted and they had a ghost. It's like some old lady that smells bad. And this whole story they had behind it.

[00:59:21] And my wife is, I think, convinced that she had seen the ghost in the corner and I didn't do anything about it. I was like, what am I going to do? How dare you? Yeah. How dare you? She did like she didn't. It was it was a it was a struggle. We had to like rearrange furniture in order and like move the chair out of the room in order for her to sleep in the room in the farmhouse the rest of the night. So I don't know. Maybe I should believe more. Because it seems like it's funny. It might have had a haunting.

[00:59:50] Yeah, it's objective, right? Like, that's so funny. But yeah, I just to get back to, you know, go from ghost to to the ghost keeper. I really just think it's an absolutely wonderful graphic novel. I love your art. Thank you. Michael Myers letters it incredibly. And just what a I mean, it's a very fun, engaging story.

[01:00:18] But what a wonderful way to have some of these conversations, especially with younger people that are going to read it about, you know, not just mental health, but grief and loss. There's there's so many really what we think of as like heavy topics that I think you handle

[01:00:34] in a very, a very interesting way, a very smart way, a very, a way that it gets it easy. It's easy to talk to because the parallels, you know, using the idea of the ghosts, it makes, you know, a lot of sense to be able to talk about some of these things. And especially about being a caregiver or about being somebody who tries to do everything themselves,

[01:01:01] about taking on too much, about, you know, burnout. Like, right. You know, I mean, this is all this. This could be a perfect analogy to, you know, what we think of in comics is like the freelancers lifestyle. Like every time that conversation comes up, like you got to grind, you got to do this, you got to do that. You got to sacrifice your health if you want it bad enough. It's like, you know, it's not great. It's pervasive.

[01:01:31] It's pervasive. And it's hard because what we were talking about before, comics is something that you don't really think about the work that goes into it because they're so easy to digest and so easy to consume that it's like you can read a graphic novel in two, three hours tops. Yeah. Depending on whether it's depending on how long it is and whether it's for kids or for more like the YA adult audience. But there's a lot of work that goes into it.

[01:02:00] There's like, and especially if you're writing and drawing it all yourself, you're kind of having to play 40 chess with yourself to really make sure everything works because you're having to thumbnail it all. You're having to write the script and then you have to think about even the words that you choose because your words are eventually going to have to fit into speech bubbles and those speech bubbles are going to cover up some art. Yeah. And so you have to think about where you're placing your panels, where your characters are

[01:02:29] taking up space in the panels and the size of words that you use. So they're not too long so that the speech bubbles don't cover up too much of the artwork. There's a lot of things that you have to think about when you're making comics that don't really come up in other disciplines. And it's really unfortunate because comics is chronically underpaid and underfunded and

[01:02:54] for how much work goes into creating the final product. And honestly, it's a miracle that graphic models get made at all because there's so many moving parts and there's so many points at which things can go wrong. Things don't work out. Things fall behind. And so anytime you see a comic book on a shelf, that's kind of a mini miracle of just a collaboration

[01:03:23] of human creativity, human ingenuity, and arranging all the pieces so that the end result is satisfying and delivers a narrative that's coherent for one and strong for another. And so that kind of jumpstarted an obsession in me and a fixation on comics because I just,

[01:03:46] the more I was reading and researching how to do comics, the more I realized, oh my gosh, this is so much work. This is just, I can't believe that people make comics. Yeah. And now, now, but now you've made a really, really great one, you know? Thank you. Yeah. I appreciate that, Jimmy. No, I, I, I appreciate you doing it. I absolutely love reading it. I'm going to make sure that, uh, I appreciate you sending the copy, but I'm going to make

[01:04:16] sure I buy a copy because I want my 12 year old to read it so we can talk about it. Then my other daughter. Awesome. When she's a little bit older, she's seven now. But, um, uh, I also want to let listeners know, uh, you were, you have a story in Wish Upon a Star, the Limit Break anthology. Uh, I, we love Limit Break at Comic Book Yeti. Um, I, uh, got to meet, I went, I was at Dublin Comic Con last year with my, my brother to

[01:04:42] celebrate my, um, my birthday and happened to run into and, and see, uh, Paul Carroll and some of the other, Gary Maloney and some of the other Limit Break guys. So, um, that's awesome. Their, their anthologies are, I don't have anything bad to say about them other than they, they, they have rejected all my pitches until the most recent one. So, uh, but I give them a hard time, but no, they, they always. Are you in Wish Upon a Star too?

[01:05:12] No, I'm not in Wish Upon a Star. I'm in the, the one they just recently announced for, uh, Bump in the Night. Their cryptid one. Oh, oh, congrats. That's awesome. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. I'm working with, uh, some really great folks, Sam Wise and, uh, Rob Jones is going to let her. Um. Oh, uh, that's awesome. I love that. But yeah, I, I, yeah, I pitched a Wish Upon a Star, um, uh, but they, I'm very excited

[01:05:38] to, to actually read all the stories in it, uh, cause they always do a fantastic job. I, all their other anthologies before then, um, the, uh, the, the, the down, down below and forgotten realms. They've done a couple, but you have a story in Wish Upon a Star. So if anyone has Wish, I, I, I think, I don't know if the, I think the digital one was just released recently. I don't know if they've sent the print ones out yet. Um. Um. Yeah, the print ones are actually going out.

[01:06:07] We got an email about it this week. Oh, okay. That they're starting to shift the physical copies. Well, if listeners, if you back that, then you'll, uh, and, uh, Johanna has a story in that, so you'll be able to read her story in that one. Yeah. And they usually, I think, sell them afterwards on the, the Limit Break website. But also, you have a story in another anthology, the, you, the Museum of the Uncanny. I think I got the title right. And that's going to be on the Kickstarter soon, right? Yeah.

[01:06:36] So, Museum of the Uncanny, it's coming out from Very Big Comics, which is another, a similar indie outfit. They're going to be publishing the Kickstarter on April 8th. Nice. So, that is coming up. But it's basically going to be a Twilight Zone-ish flavor. Like, it takes place in a museum where you get to see all of these artifacts and you get to hear the stories behind these mysterious artifacts.

[01:07:01] And we all kind of got to pitch what the artifact was and then, like, do a short comic about it. And so, I'm doing the artwork for the story that C.J. Leo, uh, wrote. And it's called Spooky Action at a Distance. And it's about, like, these pair of dice that determine the fate of the universe. And it's really fun sci-fi kind of. It's kind of got, like, a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy type tone to it. Oh, I love Hitchhiker's Guide.

[01:07:31] Yeah, yeah. So, our story is very Hitchhiker's Guide flavored. But the rest of the comics. Yeah, the rest of the comics are going to be really, really, really cool. So, I highly recommend checking out Museum of the Uncanny, their Kickstarter, on April 8th. I'm also in another anthology. I'm in the Sami Dune Comics for a Free Palestine anthology. Yeah, I was just going to mention that. I saw your name associated with that, too. So, yeah. Fantastic. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's awesome.

[01:08:01] Yeah, so that's a charity fundraiser for the ongoing conflict in Palestine and raising money for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which is delivering aid and health care to the people who are stuck in Gaza. So, definitely check that out. It's got a lot of really incredible stories in its spotlights, specifically Palestinian and Gazan comic creators. Okay.

[01:08:30] Yeah, I'll make sure to put a link to everything in the show notes for our listeners to check out. Awesome. Yeah, that's the Sami Dune one. Yeah, I think it's like a 64-page collection. But, yeah, some of the creators in that, I think Dave Marriott. Yeah, Dave Marriott, yeah. Marriott, yeah.

[01:08:54] I think that kind of was, I guess, the publisher or kind of putting that together. So, yeah. I'll put links to everything in the show notes and also, you know, to your website and social media so folks can find you and so they can get a copy of The Ghost Keeper. But, Joanna, this was phenomenal. I have so much fun in France and in your residency. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:23] If any of our listeners speak French, maybe go and try and track down a copy of the French translation of The Ghost Keeper. That would be pretty cool. Yes. If any listeners for Comic Book Yeti and Cryptid Creator Podcast, if any of you live in France and are going to be around the Paris area or within the region of eastern France or can reasonably travel to Paris, please come to my signings. Check me out on Blue Sky.

[01:09:50] I will post so much about all of my events happening in Paris and I would love to be able to connect with you guys. Well, that's awesome. I hope you have a wonderful time. Yeah, listeners, it's The Ghost Keeper. It is absolutely a fantastic graphic novel. Please check it out. Shout out to my brother Bobby. As always, the Cryptid Creator Corner's number one most dedicated fan. Bobby listens to all my episodes. And, yeah. Johanna, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

[01:10:20] This has been wonderful. Wonderful. And I'm a devotee of The Ghost Keeper now. I will spread the gospel of The Ghost Keeper. I really just thought it was just a wonderful story. And, you know, I wish in another life I could pull off some of Dorian's outfits because I really like the design. It's too. You and me both. You and me both.

[01:10:51] All right. Well, listeners, thank you so much for listening. You can find me on Blue Sky or TikTok or the Comic Book Yeti Cryptid Creator Corner website. Let me know what it is you're reading, especially if you go and get a copy and read The Ghost Keeper. So, for Comic Book Yeti, I'm Jimmy Gasparro. My guest today has been Johanna Taylor. Thank you. Good night. And I will see you next time. This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts of The Cryptid Creator Corner, brought to you by Comic Book Yeti.

[01:11:19] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff. It lets us know how we're doing and, more importantly, how we can improve. Thanks for listening.