Kat Calamia and Phil Falco Interview - Lifeline Comics

[00:00:00] Your ears do not deceive you. You've just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti. So without further ado, let's get on to the interview. Hey everyone, this is... Hi Byron. Who is this? I'm your fairy godmother. I have a fairy godmother? Of course you do. I'm 50 years old, why haven't you shown up before? I appear when I'm needed. And I didn't need you in all these years? Do you want my help or not? Um...

[00:00:30] Sure. Exactly. I was just about to pitch our Patreon. Why would I need help with that? Because you're an idiot sometimes. That's hurtful. What were you going to put on there? We do comic stuff? So something along those lines? And this is why I'm here. You do know what people put on Patreon most of the time, right? Honestly, no. People need something a little bit spicy to entice them to support you.

[00:00:59] Nobody wants to see me shirtless. I doubt that's true. You are in pretty good shape considering your age. Thank you. Let's see. A little spicy. I've been bugging Jimmy to figure out what he's going to do. I know lately he's been playing around with his **** all the time. He loves to take it out and show it off. There's even a specific TikTok channel now. How's that sound? Not a bad start. People like Jimmy. What else you got?

[00:01:24] I told a story recently about being in a strip club with some of the four horsemen when I was working for WCW back in the day. I picked up an infection on my- From the experience? I hate strip clubs. Is that better? Getting there? But maybe spicy shouldn't include infections you get in strip clubs. That's not sexy. We'll workshop it. Like I need more meating. At least tell them where to find it while we figure this out. Mother goddess, help this poor man.

[00:01:53] You can find us on Patreon at cryptidcreatorcornerpod. I'll put it in the show notes. Anything else you'd like to remind me that I'm bad at? How much time do you have? Why do you look like Rosario Dawson anyway? I appear the way you want me to look. Okay, that's disturbing. Wait, have you been showing up in my dreams? I'll never tell. And we're done here. Y'all, Jimmy the Chaos Goblin strikes again.

[00:02:20] 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 Arkhamforge.

[00:02:45] If you don't know who Arkhamforge 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.

[00:03:14] Check them out at Arkhamforge.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 Arkhamforge for partnering with our show. I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even. Hello and welcome to Comic Book Yeti's Cryptid Creator Corner. I am one of your hosts, Jimmy Gasparo, and I have two guests that I am very excited to talk to.

[00:03:40] Please welcome to the podcast Phil Falco and Kat Kalamia. They are the two behind Lifeline Comics. And listeners, I think you might have heard Phil was on the podcast before. Kat was on for, I think, the second Yeti Ice Awards. I was, yeah. And if you've heard me talk about the comics I've written before, Kat and Phil gave me my first opportunity to write a comic in By Visibility,

[00:04:09] their first, one of their first anthologies that I was aware of. I worked with Beck Kubrick. And, yeah, that was very exciting. I love that story. And, you know, I probably still wouldn't be writing comics today if it wasn't for Kat and Phil. So I'm so excited to talk about them and get into their comics, talk about Slice of Life, and talk about the Ever Afterverse and the things that they've been doing on Kickstarter.

[00:04:39] So, Phil, that's kind of a long introduction. But, Phil, Kat, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Yeah, and, you know, again, your stories is one of our favorites. And, yeah, By Visibility was our first anthology ever. So it's kind of cool to see where things have gone. It feels like yesterday, even though it was probably, like, what, three, four years ago? Four years ago. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah, no, it's really great to be on here again. I feel like Phil to talk to you. And we really love, like Kat said, we really love your story in By Visibility. We always...

[00:05:08] Everything you do for comics as well, so... Everything. Oh, thank you. So, you know, it's just one of those things where first hearing about you guys and being involved in that anthology, you can't help but kind of keep track of the stuff that you guys have had, you know, going on. I mean, Kat, I know that you have had... You've written for a bunch of different outlets in terms of covering comics, but, you know,

[00:05:34] other things within pop culture and being on YouTube and Twitter and Blue Sky and social media. Phil, I know that you've, you know, kind of been the same in terms of, you know, promoting the comics that the two of you have done. I've seen you at conventions before. But it's always nice when you feel like I've kind of had a front row seat to seeing like the past four or five years.

[00:05:59] And it's an incredible, the response that you've had to, you know, some of the campaigns, not just to the ever after verse, which we'll get into and tell listeners like what that is all about. But some of the anthologies, anthologies can kind of be hit or miss on Kickstarter that I've seen. But I think one of like maybe your second biggest campaign has been like the Transphoria anthology.

[00:06:24] So I guess I kind of want to start to talk a little bit about just generally, you know, talk to me and the listeners who might not be familiar about Lifeline Comics and kind of your approach to, you know, making indie comics. Want to go first? Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Um, yeah, but Lifeline Comics is Kat and myself, our publisher that, you know, we originally was just working at each other, working together as Kat and Phil.

[00:06:53] And, you know, I think we've been Lifeline Comics now for about two years. No, we went to Disney once and we decided we need a company name. And we had this like inside joke about, I mean, the Disney band, it's your lifeline. So we're like, oh, she kept saying that to me. I was like, that's the company. And it's laughed with all this time. So it's funny how things start. Um, and now you don't even think about the story when you say the name. But anyway, uh, we, uh, like you, like you said, Jimmy, we, uh, we're best known for, we have our Ever Afterverse.

[00:07:21] It's a shared universe of mature fairy tale books. Uh, it's comprised of The Beast in Snow. It's our vampire snow white werewolf bell book. The Witches of Oz, which is very topical right now. It's sapphic, uh, Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda. And then Nightmare in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty meets Alice in Wonderland. Those are mature books. But, you know, we have, between Kat and myself, we, uh, have probably like 12 or 13 titles at this point. A mix of. Launch monthly on Kickstarter.

[00:07:49] A lot of times two campaigns a month, which is kind of crazy. Now that we're in like December, January land. So. We're settling down a little bit for the moment. At least for the month. Yeah. But we have a lot of different books. And like you said, Jimmy, we tend to do at least one anthology a year. It's one of our favorite things to do. We love. Uh. There are two already coming up. Yeah, for next year we have two plans. We love getting to work with a lot of different creators from like all, uh, of all sizes. Whether you're like a seasoned veteran or you're doing like your first story in comics.

[00:08:18] One of our favorite things to do. We're actually literally right now in the process of reviewing submissions to our asexual anthology that I'll be launching in, uh, in mid 2025. Jeremy Whitley on that one who, um, are the community. So, uh, yeah, no, it's so exciting. Because like all the reasons you said you work with people you never would expect. Like Gail Simone. And then you have, you could, a lot of people have told us like, yeah, that's our, you know, like you, Jimmy. Uh, that was the first story I was able to write. And then I made a career out of it. So that's, you know, that's what we want to do.

[00:08:47] And also a big part is we want to pay people. That's something that, you know, I see what I didn't love about anthologies, especially when they were at their height, was that no, the writers had to put the team together and like pay for the artists. And it's like, oh, that feels kind of unfair. Yeah, go on. Sorry to interrupt. Um, we've both been in that position working for other anthologies where you kind of have to put the whole team together and then front the cost. Not really know how much you're getting paid and then find out, oh, I actually fronted more costs than I'm getting paid.

[00:09:14] So we try to have a very specific process where everyone, it's very upfront. Everyone's getting paid for their distinct tasks. Yeah, wholesale. So you get opportunities to do. You could sell your books too if you table at conventions and get them from us at wholesale price. And then, you know, people have the option to apply as a full team if they want. But if not, you could apply as a writer and artist and you're accepted. We pair you up. And it's worked out really well. We've, uh, we've had a very positive relationship with everyone we worked with. And we're really happy with the, with the model that we found for it. And we want to make it easier.

[00:09:44] Again, for those newcomers who might not know how to make a comic or they're in a different medium, that's, you know, that's the easiest way. It's like, oh, you get paid to do this. And also we kind of do all the, the artist side of it and the lettering and all that, all that work. That's like the hardest part of making comics. So if you could do that for the first time and like us kind of holding your hand, then you could kind of do it yourself if you enjoy it. Yeah. We got sidetracked in our intro. So I'll round us out by saying that we talked about anthologies, the mature books. Uh, I said we have a bunch of safe workbooks.

[00:10:14] And then the other thing we're probably most known for is webtoon. We have a place of life. It's our, uh, queer romance web comic. And that's been running for about, uh, three and a half years now. Around the by visibility time. Around by visibility. We, we purposely launched them back to back. And that was very beneficial for, for the launch of that webtoon. All right, let's take a quick break.

[00:10:41] After a string of unexplained disappearances in the Southern parts of the United States, retired Detective Clint searches for his white trash brother. While searching for him, he ends up being abducted by aliens. He is now in the arena for Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks, an intergalactic cable's newest hit show, which puts him and other humans in laser gun gladiatorial combat. And his brother is the reigning champion with 27 kills.

[00:11:08] That's the premise for a new book from Banda Barnes, Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks. I got a chance to see an advanced preview of this book and being from the South, honestly, I was a bit skeptical going in. But they won me over and nothing is more powerful than an initially skeptic convert in my book. In Jimmy's words, Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks is many things, but it isn't subtle. It tells you exactly what it is up front. Then it delivers with a great premise, fantastic art, and a whole mess of fun. I had a great time reading Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks.

[00:11:38] And what I thought was going to be an indictment of redneck culture quickly showed it was actually a love letter. A family mystery, brother pitted against brother, aliens, fighting for profit in a big arena. This truly has it all. Issue one is out already, but you can still pick up a copy on the Band of Bards website. And current issues are available via your previews or lunar order form. Or just ask your LCS. Don't miss it. Let's get back to the show. I want to talk a little bit more about the titles, but I'm just kind of curious for, you know,

[00:12:07] listeners who are familiar, you know, because I cover, you know, quite a few of folks that have kick-started books and crowdfunded. You know, with, and you, you know, all the different titles that you've done. And I mean, The Dancer, Like Father, Like Daughter, Haunting, and The Anthologies, and The Ever Afterverse. You know, it's very, seemingly very different markets, right? In terms of like some of the readers.

[00:12:36] Do you find or have you found that like one particular comic or one particular thing kind of like feeds the others? Or are they all like a disparate audience? Ever Afterverse, I would say, is probably the one that, even though you would think it's mature sapphic audience, a lot of people backslice life because of it. A lot of people caught up with like probably Daughter and Haunting because of it.

[00:13:03] Like those campaigns did like $5,000 more than they were doing before the Ever Afterverse. And like over 100 backers more. And I would say that's because of that bump. Yeah, I think we obviously, Kat and myself, we love everything we put out. And it just shows the wide variety of genres tones, shows that we have a wide interest when it comes to like different types of stories. And I think our audience has proven that they're in the same boat that, you know, someone might jump in because they're like,

[00:13:32] oh, I really want that vampire book. And then they're like, oh, I like the style. I like the writing style. I like the content they're putting out. I mean, the next jump over is, oh, this is a supernatural horror book. I like vampires. Let's try that. And then it's like, oh, each time they like a new book, it's like it's a smaller jump to try something else out. So we've gotten comments to people who may follow this. So they probably Daughter or Haunting. I remember one of our fans for C2E2, who you know very well.

[00:13:59] But he's saying like, oh, like this is not actually usually my thing. Like the mature like fairy tale. But you guys just do such a good job. I mean, that was just like you make it a story. What we always say is story comes first. And the not safe work element is because we want to hide in the story. And I think that's always been important to us. So I think that's why it's an easy jump too. Stories always come first in all of them. So if you like good character work, you know, it's always at the core. That's always our biggest thing is we love characters.

[00:14:27] And when we watch, that's always the thing we gravitate to. So that's always where we start with the writing. We work from character outward. Yeah, and it does seem like, you know, you see a fair number of books on Kickstarter that might be not safe for work. But I would have to imagine like the conversation will come up whether or not that's, you know, like the key to success. And I think you guys even addressed this in one of your newsletters talking about it. And I've heard other creators talk about it.

[00:14:55] And I kind of err on the side of similar to you, both of you in the newsletter, that I think you still have to make a good comic. Like you just can't say, hey, we have this random character. Like, you know, you can get a special variant cover and they're naked and it has, you know, sex in it. And just think it's going to sell. Like, you have to have good art. You have to have a good story. You have to have all of those elements to it.

[00:15:22] Because, yeah, you go to a comic shop in the direct market, there really isn't anything like that. I think you have to put out a good book in order for people to keep coming back. Which, you know, you have done, you know, with Beast and Snow and The Witches of Oz, your campaigns continue to grow. It's really cool to see. Yeah, and I love that you mentioned that too because that's such a big conversation we've seen around and why we even did the newsletter.

[00:15:51] Because it's that conversation of a lot of people are like, well, it's just not safe work. That's why you're doing well or that's why any of these campaigns would do well. But if you study Kickstarter, you can look at Kickstarter in there. I would say out of the 10 not safe work books, most of them aren't doing well. You know, it's just the ones that have a good product, a good audience, and, you know, are doing it, I would say, for stories. So, you know, I think a lot of people could see through that.

[00:16:16] I think the word we used in that newsletter, which was one of our most popular newsletters because it's such a hot-button topic, not safe for work. Yeah. I think the word we used is, it's not a cheat code. Like, a lot of, we used, like, super battery or super charger where, like, we had, by the time we launched our first not safe for work book, The Beast and Snow, we had a pretty solid audience, pretty dedicated audience, especially in the queer romance space. We'd already done Slice of Life. We'd done several queer anthologies.

[00:16:45] So, you know, putting out the not safe for work book kind of turbocharged it. We, it was our most backed campaign. We had, like, 2,000 backers on that. And previously, our record had been 1,300, I believe. Yeah, I think it was, I still got issue one. But at that point, it was just by visibility. And same thing for all those other books, you know, like, The Beast and Snow helped charge those other titles to do well. Like, The Witches of Oz, which did almost, not backer-wise, but money-wise, the same.

[00:17:15] And, you know, hopefully, as titles go on, we'll continue to see that. But, yeah, no, it's such an interesting conversation because we just see a lot of that. And I think, obviously, nothing's a monolith, but I think it's been nice seeing, you know, a few months of, I think, the conversation you would see everywhere. It's like, oh, not safe for work is the cheat code. And now I do feel like the conversation's evolved a little bit. But I think, like you said, Kai, I think a lot of people have seen, oh, there are ones that don't do as well, like flooding live at any given time.

[00:17:44] So, you know, I think hopefully there's a little more respect coming for mature content because it's so popular for a reason. People want it. I'll say the conversation that now has shifted to how can my Kickstarter do better? I think that's been, which is, I think, a much healthier conversation because I think it's more look inward. You know, look at your product. And we do that to this day. You know, we could be happy with our numbers, but I'm like, well, I want to do better. And I want to keep looking inward and challenging ourselves. Yeah. So I think that's always the answer.

[00:18:14] And, again, I think you can have a whole conversation about where Kickstarter is at or whatnot of how to find an audience if you don't have an audience. But I continue to say look inward because if you have a good thumbnail and a good live line, you will find a small audience that can grow to be a bigger audience, I would say. And if you do something different every time. One thing Kat and I say all the time is like, we'll look at, you know, a campaign and then that does really well. And then the next issue pitches the book the same exact way. In some cases. Thumbnail.

[00:18:43] Same thumbnail. Yeah. Or very similar, same headline. And it's like every new issue is like a chance to reinvent your series. And, you know, you want to obviously not like be misleading, but maybe lean into a different element. Beast and Snow will lean on as an example. The first issue we really leaned into the vampire angle. The second issue we really leaned into the werewolf angle. And, you know, you hit a different crowd that way. You find different people.

[00:19:05] And if you're telling a good story, the goal is that every time you bring in a new set of people with your new marketing strategy, they'll, the ones who really like it will keep coming back. And your art's important. Honestly, I see so many people want to rush into a campaign and be like, well, I need to release this. I'm like, why? Why not just wait? They're like, well, I have to. It's like find that good varying cover artist. Like make sure, honestly, if you're trying to invest in yourself, I'd much rather you invest in a really good issue one than saying I need to do all these 12 issues and the art is on the cheaper side.

[00:19:34] So I think find artists that you want to spend money on and make that first issue the best you can be because then you'll be able to get that money back in my opinion. Because that's something I've definitely seen a lot as well. I agree.

[00:20:12] Yeah. And I think, you know, the two of you have really kind of kind of shown that in terms of how you've grown over the years. With the ever after verse. I'm kind of curious.

[00:21:00] You know, we did really well on Kickstarter. How can we do that to tell our own story? Like how can we do that in a Lifeline Comics way? But yeah, Public Domains did really well. It was really like, how do you do that? And we kind of crafted it together. Yeah, we obviously we have a passion for, you know, these stories and the queer romance stories especially. Right. You know, we did sit down at the time and it was very much a strategy. I mean, it was, you know, we spend a lot of time on Kickstarter. We back a lot of Kickstarters. What's doing? What's popular? Like what can we pull from?

[00:21:30] People love public domains. People love mashups. Like two things that, two properties being put together. People love vampires and werewolves. At the time, not safe for work. Not safe for work. It was and continues to be very big. So we kind of mashed it all together, which is not our usual strategy. Usually we work from like, you know, concept outward. Here we kind of worked from like, oh, let's like, let's pull everything together and then we'll kind of figure out what this story looks like. We didn't know we're going to do more past pieces. No, we didn't. Oh, really?

[00:21:59] No, we didn't know how hell it was going to. Yeah. We was wondering if the genesis of this also happened at Disney. Wake shit up. Everything goes back there. Um, when we did Beast in Snow. Yeah. We, uh, we had a feeling it would do well, but we did not know how well it would do. We, we didn't know it would be almost three times our highest, uh, uh, funding at that point at that time. Um, or that it would have, you know, almost double the, the highest backer count.

[00:22:28] But again, we also put pieces together. Like Dory's art was crazy good. We had Cedric, Stefan Cedric, who did the cover. Like you just, there's, again, building block. Yeah. Do that. That cover is phenomenal. Like you're scrolling. Like if you're just on, you know, Kickstarter's page and you're going through, you know, comic projects or projects we love. And that cover for Beast in Snow comes up. Like it's just, you got to stop and pause and ask yourself like, what is this?

[00:22:56] Like it's just the, the framing of it. It looks awesome. We were really, uh, we were really happy to work with Stefan. It was such a great experience. And then getting Terry for witches, like Terry Moore on witches. Like we got really lucky with that. And when you kind of get that precedent of like, you work with these people, it's a little easier to work with other people where you're like, well, I worked with Terry and I worked here. And like, look at the stuff we've done. And, you know, it's a little easier to get those varying covers, but also like, you know, you have to have to try to get the capital as well.

[00:23:22] If you're trying to make the decision of like, should I spend money on Facebook ads or should I spend money on a really cool cover artist? I always say go for the cover artist and not. Especially with Facebook ads these days. Sure. Yeah. And I've, I've always hear the argument on that one, but, um, yeah. So originally Beast in Snow was just a one, like we didn't really know, like we thought it was gonna be a mini series. And then we, we had other ideas though. So when we were trying to come up with it, cause again, the concept was more, we had like one big one was like,

[00:23:51] like Sherlock Holmes and like Dracula. That was like our big one for the beginning. We were both like, I don't know about this. That was the one we were like really going to go for. And then one day, I don't remember how it happened, but it was that Snow White and Beauty and Beauty. I don't remember. I know it started with a vampire Snow White. Cause I, we were racking our brains with, for public domains. And I thought like Snow White and I was like, oh, like, you know, skin white as snow. She dies and comes back. I'm like, she's a vampire. Like has this not been done before? And by and large it hadn't.

[00:24:19] Like, I mean, you could see like maybe like a one-off story here, but it seemed like such a, such a no brainer. And then from there it was like, oh, Kat's like, why don't we do werewolf too? And it's then, it just kind of came together from there. And I'll say we've been working together a few years now. We're pretty good at bouncing off each other. So once you, once you find the pebble starts rolling, it's really easy to, to keep it going. And to be honest with each other. Right. I think a lot of times, you know, we won't come up with the idea of it. That's great. Yes, man. Yes, man. We're like, no, it's not there yet. Or, you know, we have to always be honest with each other too.

[00:24:49] And sometimes, sometimes we'll have the same idea. I remember with the, with Witches of Oz, um, we came up with like the whole book and we hadn't named it yet. And I was like, how about like the Witches of Oz instead of the Wizard of Oz? And she's like, let's put a pin in that. And like a month later, she texts me. She's like, I got a title. It's the Witches of Oz. I was like, are you doing okay? Or it came up. Like, is this a, is this a bit? Like, I kind of was a, but we come to the same thing all the time too. My edit shows I have no memory.

[00:25:19] It would also be a thing that we can learn. We have. Well, and, and perfect timing for the, I think as we record this, I think the campaign for Witches of Oz one to two is just like two days away from ending. So, you know, as, as Wicked is, uh, climbing up the box office at the theater. Yeah. Yeah. That's like just so, that's so random. Oh, that we're getting glad about.

[00:25:45] Um, yeah, but, but, uh, you know, brilliant strategizing, you know, again, to kind of, uh, capitalize on that while Glinda and, and, and Elphaba, um, fever runs amok. Uh, it's, uh, my wife sold twice, two days in a row. Wow. She went to sell the movie. I'm in your wife's boat. I'm, uh, I'm listening to the soundtrack all day. I only saw it once, but I'm definitely going again. My mom wants to see it again. My mom said, I like the movie a lot. I think it's solid, but it's a very long movie.

[00:26:14] I'm like, oh, there's other movies I want to go see. And then my mom's like, I want to see that one again. Cool. You want to come? I might be in Kat's mom. We'll go see it with her brother. Nice. No, I'll go see another movie. Yeah. Send her to New York. She can come with me, Kat's mom. There you go. Okay. We're not that far. We're in Delaware, you know. Okay. We can make one happen. We, yeah, certainly. We can, uh, we can try and arrange it. Yeah. I want to see it.

[00:26:42] I, I, I really liked the Broadway show. Um, but we, my wife dug out our, our old playbill from when we saw it. I think we saw, uh, in it, we, we saw it in 05. It was still Idina Menzel, but it was Laura Bell Bundy and not Kristen Chenowell. That's amazing. We got Idina Menzel. But, yeah. But Laura Bell Bundy, you know, she went on to star in a, plenty of Broadway shows. I'm a, my favorite musical ever is actually Legally Blonde and she was the star of that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she did. Yeah.

[00:27:12] She, um, yeah, she originated, uh, the Elle Woods on Broadway role. Sure. Yeah. I'm a big musical fan. So comics and musicals for whatever, some reason, um, you got to have us on your musical podcast. Yeah.

[00:27:53] Yeah. But, uh, you know, uh, it was, I, it was, I think I always feel like it was a worthwhile experience. And you know what? I didn't hate it as much as everyone else. I'll say it's the only time I've ever been in a theater and been like covering my head to make sure no one falls on me. So it was fun. You saw the original when they read, like when they redid it? I don't remember. Oh, I saw when they redid it. So it wasn't, they closed it for a little while and reopened it. Right. So I saw when they read, I might've seen it when they read it. I don't remember.

[00:28:22] It was very bad before that. Then it just was fine. Well, I'll, I'll work on doing it, uh, on, on setting that up. Uh, so listeners are, uh, they can be ready for the, the comic book slash musical podcast. We also have to talk about one of my favorite star mites, which I think was from like the early nineties. And it's basically, yeah, I haven't heard of that one. It's like a girl who she likes comic books, but I think her mom wants to throw them all

[00:28:51] out and then she goes on a magical adventure. So it's like a comic book musical. I think it was from the early nineties. I want to say Nell Carter was in the original. I like that. But yeah, we got fun home and stuff like that. So, oh yeah. Yeah. So we have lots to talk about. Listeners are already zoned out. They're like, what musicals? No, trust me. Listeners. Trust me. Come along with us. It'll be great. Um, so what, what kind of like, what can you tell us about what you have planned coming up?

[00:29:20] Is there anything you can talk about yet? Uh, for 2025? We already teased that we're doing a little mermaid book. So we're doing that. We already teased. Oh, okay. That one's coming in, uh, in January. So we're going to be sharing, uh, The pages are blowing us away. It's, uh, It's actually crazy. It's, uh, it's honestly, it's phenomenal. I think people are really going to like it. It's a, it's a, I think we can say a little bit. It's like, uh, a mermaid ex pirate book.

[00:29:47] So it's, it's, it's all, it's also a, a queer romance, like all of the Ever Afterverse books. And, uh, it's, it's kind of a good artist on it that we might've worked in the past. We might have a variant cover from someone we worked with in the past. So, uh, it's, uh, yeah, no, we're really excited for that one in January. And then, uh, we'll be, we have the ace anthology, the asexual and aromantic anthology in June. We have a second anthology. That's a surprise one. We've been working on in the background in February.

[00:30:15] Um, and we're going to maybe on another one after that. As they also be opening some submissions for one, another open submissions one in, uh, in the spring at some point. So anyone can apply to that one, but we've been doing our planning for the whole year. So that's been really fun. That's been a big transition is that, uh, you know, we, we've been doing the monthly campaigns for about a year now. And now it's like at the point where it's like, oh, keeping up with this schedule means that we have to plan things really far in advance. Uh, we are, yeah, yeah. Plans for 2026, which has gone a while, which we can't too much talk about.

[00:30:45] But, uh, yeah, I mean, mostly just like a lot of our other titles continuing to, it's like expect more slice of life. But it's all a daughter, more beasts and snow. That's one of the most important things to us is that you could be like a, a launch forum where you just keep putting out issue ones. But, you know, it's the reason we do comics is because we love long form storytelling. So it's important to us to make sure that we continue all of the series every year. So we have a pretty, a pretty regular schedule for that. So I feel good about that. That's awesome. Well, I think readers appreciate that, you know?

[00:31:15] I mean, they want to, they like to, they get their hooks into a story or it gets, it's hooks into them and they want to stay with it, you know? When you have something that's kind of popular. Um, the nice thing about the Ever Afterverse now about having, about to have four titles is that you kind of like roll from one to the other where it's like, oh, we can have an Ever Afterverse campaign. Almost. Every two months. Pretty much every, every month, every other month or so. And, uh, you constantly get content in that universe.

[00:31:42] And then, you know, by the time you get through a couple of them, the next issue of your favorite is coming. So that's going to be really cool to settle into. Mm-hmm. So where do things stand with, um, like the haunting and like father, like daughter? Cause, uh, like father, like daughter, was it issue seven, the last one? The last one was issue nine, but we haven't fulfilled it yet. But, um, that one just ended, I think like two weeks ago. Yeah, last week. Yeah. So that one. Oh, okay.

[00:32:10] Our plan, honestly, is to hopefully and always release one issue at least a year. So that's for a while. Oh, wow. Uh, like if all my daughter issue 10, believe it or not, is almost done. Oh, uh, and then haunting your, you're working on more too. So mostly just trying to release one a year for those. Those are our oldest series. So they're obviously. And our babies. Yeah. And our babies, they're always very close to our hearts. So I think we could pretty reasonably commit to at least 20 year. And we're always working on those in the background.

[00:32:36] And it's very, very heartening to see them grow over time when you look at like your first campaign. And then now, you know, like we were saying earlier that the rising tides affect where, you know, because our, our other books are succeeding, it brings up these, these books that have been around for so long. Yeah. Books that used to get me like 250 back. Oh, sorry. There you go. That's okay. 250 backers or even like when I started a hundred. No, we were getting like a hundred, around like a hundred backers. And now we are able to pull, you know, like 500 backers, 600 backers, I think. Yeah.

[00:33:06] On a, on. The graphic novel. On like, or one of the issues. Mop princess, maybe. Mop princess, maybe. But you know, that's something we want to say too, to anyone who's like a creator, like, yeah, like I've been doing this since college. You've been doing this since you, like pretty much when you got out of college. COVID days. Since the COVID days. Like we started with a hundred backers later than, I think that's the thing when you see like, uh, you know, many people see Lifeline Comics, like, oh, they're doing it for a year. That's when the Everactivers started. And it's like, nah, we've been doing this for like a decade.

[00:33:35] You know, when was your first like Fall Out of the College? Was that in college? 2016. Wow. Yeah. We were in high school. Not that. Sorry. You're right. No, not that. 2000. What was her junior year? Right. 2015. 2015 was the, was my first comic book. And then Beast in Snow was 2023. So, you know, you put in a lot of time. Yeah. Wow. Um, I think it was, I want to say I was talking, maybe, maybe it was David Pepos.

[00:34:01] I was, I'm, I'm not sure the creator was, you know, who had crowdfunded some things before. Cause David has that, um, that he's done like a, a Wizard of Oz type story, the OZ. Um, but I think he had said, you know, or whoever the creator was talking about crowdfunding, like, you know, you got to have a plan if it doesn't go well. Um, but they were surprised. They were telling me how they were kind of, they, they had never planned for their campaign

[00:34:29] to be as successful as it ended up being. So how do you feel in terms of that end of it? You know, it's great having 600, 700 backers, but now you have to fulfill, like to do all of that legwork. Like some, I think sometimes, uh, readers, you know, might not realize exactly how much work goes into putting all those physical comics into like, uh, you know, Gemini backers and mail to mail.

[00:34:59] Because we have his family, my family, but a lot of his family, um, helping us and his dad, every single time he comes over, he said, this is going to a real person. Cause once you do like, you know, in a spitting like a hundred packages, you kind of lose sight of that. And you have to remind everyone, like every, every one of these is going to a real person who is going to hold this in their hand. We say that almost every session, but honestly, yeah, no, that's actually been the big adjustment of us becoming the small company to this big company with him.

[00:35:27] You know, we have, uh, we were fulfilling, right? Like before we talked to you today, we were filling like a two hours ago. So we kind of had to settle into the constant fulfillment cycle. We like cats that we use, our friends and family into it. Um, it's, and we're still adjusting. We're still learning the best ways to like. Because you went to 500 to 2000 backers every month. See how is the big difference? It's been, uh, it's been crazy. And, you know, we, we think we've done a pretty good job keeping up for the most part.

[00:35:55] The, the worst it got was in October when we were juggling New York Comic Con. I got COVID. I got COVID. Um, we had planned vacations towards the end of October, early November. And we were, we were desperately trying to finish sending out all of the first issue of Witches of Oz before the second issue came out because we needed to have the wicked hype train. So that was honestly the only time that's ever been really, really hard. And now we, we padded a lot of time, which is great. Well, like put the estimated delivery.

[00:36:22] We'll give ourselves like an extra month or two than what we actually think we'll need just so that, you know, no one, no one gets their package late as much as we can avoid it. We're really proud that we are able to put out all those packages and not be late. That's something that we really, really are proud of. So we, we try to do that. But yeah, I, I want to be transparent. It is so much for, like, constant. It's constant. Like we used to go to the movies every week. We don't do that anymore. We, uh, but, and again, you know, one fun thing is like we get friend time as friends.

[00:36:51] And like, no, that was, that was something we were trying to be more grateful this week, uh, in terms of the way we talk about things we don't love. So like, cause like fulfillment's manual work, but we were like, oh, like it's nice. Cause it's an excuse where you all get to kind of like laugh and like do, do, do almost mindless work. Or like catch up with the week or whatever. Like if we didn't have that, maybe we wouldn't see each other as often. And then you're like, oh, that's actually cool that we get to see each other so often. With like our whole team who shit fills with us.

[00:37:16] So, you know, even, even in the parts that we don't love of, uh, of, of all the stuff that we do, you know, you find the things that you enjoy. But it is a lot and there are humans behind it for anyone who's acts. Every time you open a package, I want you to just picture Kat getting a paper cut or picture me accidentally cutting myself on a roll of tape. Uh, it happens constantly. I have bruises everywhere. My favorite thing to do in the beginning of every packing session to show my bruises, no one. She's like, you want to see my scars from last? All right.

[00:37:45] Um, that's great. Uh, well, I, I can't thank the two of you, uh, enough for coming on the podcast today. I'll put links in the show notes so you can find them on social. You can find listeners. You can find Kat and Phil on social media, follow Lifeline Comics. And you've heard me say it, listeners of the podcast, and I, I've said it a ton that it's a golden age of comics right now.

[00:38:10] I think no matter what you are looking for, and here, here's a perfect example to creators who are kind of delivering that. Whether you want like a superhero or an action comic, like a dancer or, uh, like father, like daughter, you're looking for something a little supernatural, um, like haunting or a queer romance with a bit of an anime twist,

[00:38:36] like slice of life, or you're looking for more mature stories, like the ever after verse. They, they really are. I mean, you know, we, we talked a little bit about like the not safe for work of it all. And I was saying like, people aren't going to come back if you don't have a good campaign, um, and, and a good story. And then that's what these are. The art for this stuff is wonderful. The story is absolutely exciting. Um, and there's just, there's not, you know, there, there's not enough of stories like this.

[00:39:04] And especially, even with all the anthologies, not only are you telling stories for, you know, with by visibility or with the new, a romantic, asexual anthology, hairology, the transphoria, you're giving creators who might not get an opportunity to tell these stories, to tell their own stories.

[00:39:24] And you're, you're opening up readers who might not have a chance to experience, um, somebody else's perspective from reading a story. And that's really what all, I mean, I think that when it comes down to it all great art does kind of gives you a different perspective of how somebody else lives their life. And you're, you're taking these like four, five, six, eight page stories and your anthologies are like absolutely incredible.

[00:39:51] I just don't, I just think nobody else is really doing it quite like the two of you and doing so much for not only your, your fans, your readers, but the indie comics community. Thank you. And, um, I really appreciate you guys coming on. I think, I think the world of the two of you and, um, I just wish you much, much more continued success. Right back at you too. Again, I, I, you're always so thoughtful and, and again, just you being able to list out our catalog probably better than we can.

[00:40:21] Isn't just a bit. You, you mentioned, uh, hairology and transphoria, which neither of us mentioned today. Those books. No, thank you. We really appreciate it. We, we love everything you do for the comic community. You're such a, a positive presence. So our pleasure to be on here. Oh, that's very nice of you to say. Um, but yeah, listeners check out Lifeline comics, check out Kat and Phil and check out the ever after verse and all of the stuff that they do. Um, but yeah, I really appreciate listeners.

[00:40:50] You listen and let me know, find me on, on blue sky or Tik TOK. Let me know what it is you're reading and, uh, yeah, really appreciate you listening. Thanks very much. And I will, uh, I'll see you next time. Good night. This is Byron O'Neill. One of your hosts of the cryptic creator corner brought to you by comic book Yeti. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. 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.

[00:41:21] If you enjoyed this episode of the cryptic creator corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast into the comics cave. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.