Mark Sable Interview - Boxed

[00:00:00] Your ears do not deceive you. You have just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti. So without further ado, let's get on to the interview. I don't know about you, but I've never considered a biting tarantula familiar a good thing? Then again, when it comes to necromancy, there's always a price for power, especially when raising the dead.

[00:00:23] Now you might be wondering why I'm thinking about that. Well, I just got a sneak peek at issue 3 of My Neighbor Necromancer, the witchy, wonderfully weird comic I've already been a backer of, and I've been eagerly awaiting more of our novice necromancer apprentice Jessie's adventures with her flying undead lizard, Bivitt. This story hits my sweet spot with this danger-just-be-on-your-doorstep kind of narrative. In this issue, Jessie continues her training with Sierra Reno and receives a mysterious invitation to the Body Farm.

[00:00:50] Now, I worked at the actual Body Farm in college, so when I heard that, I wonder what in the hell they were doing here. Will Jessie find friend or foe there? No spoilers here. I won't be accused of spilling the bones, so you just have to wait and see. This is Hands Down, one of my top crowdfunding comic picks of the last few years, brought to life by an absolutely stacked creative team. Yeti fam Jack Foster contributes an extra backstory rendered in jaw-dropping watercolor,

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[00:01:43] Hello, and welcome to Comic Book Yeti's Cryptid Creator Corner. I'm one of your hosts, Jimmy Gasparo, and I'm very excited to talk to tonight's guest. They're a writer, a futurist. They have been writing comics for, oh, I think 20 years now. Sorry if that's upsetting, Mark.

[00:02:11] But they have a new, well, it's not necessarily a new comic. It originally came out with Comixology Originals, but Mad Cave is going to put it out in print. It's coming out, I believe, September 9th. It is with artist Jeremy Hahn, whose work is incredible. I got a chance to read an advanced copy of this that they sent over, and I am so excited to talk about it. Do you love sci-fi? Please, welcome to the plot. Maybe you prefer action, how are you doing, or fantasy.

[00:02:41] I'm doing a lot. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And should be on your radio. Yeah, no, thanks for the whole universe of characters. By the way, I'm not insulted about you writing. It's going to be 20 years this summer. It'll be 20 years since my first book came out. Wow. Every weekly issue, you get five action-packed thrills from incredible creators, such as Garth Ennis, Rob Williams, Alex DeCampi, Dan Admin, and so many others. Get a print subscription, and it'll arrive to your door every week. I'm excited about it. And your first issue is free, or subscribed digitally.

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[00:03:37] Quite a decent run over that time period of some, you know, some really fascinating, interesting stuff. Thank you. Yeah, I love trying new things, and I've really, you know, I mean, I've been happy to do the, I was happy to work at DC and Marvel, but I love creator-owned stuff is my jam for the most part. And I've been very fortunate that people like, you know, whether it's Mad Cave or Aftershock before that or Image before that or a bunch of other publishers have been, you know,

[00:04:07] have let me do that and have let me try different things each time. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's, I feel very lucky. Yeah, I mean, it's, and the, like, the, not just the amount of work, but, like, kind of the different areas you have worked in, in terms of superheroes, but, like, kind of science fiction stuff, kind of, like, conspiracy thriller. Like, you've done, you know, a lot of different things. And also to kind of dovetail it into the series that may,

[00:04:36] that you did with Comixology Originals that Mad Cave is putting out boxed, you've kind of used your, your, your work, you know, because I said in the intro that you were, like, a futurist. Like, you have done work for a think tank about, you know, coming up with different scenarios. And I know you did, like, one comic, what is it, Unthinkable, that was kind of based on a real thing that happened after 9-11,

[00:05:04] which is kind of wild that the government would hire, you know, writers and other creatives, along with folks from other types of industries to kind of, like, think about what the next potential terror attack could be. Yeah, that was a, that was a fun book to work on. I did that with Boom. What's funny about that is, at that point, I was not a futurist, right? I had just read about this real-life think tank. So after, yeah, after 9-11, the government hired, like, writers, directors to try to, they said, oh, you know,

[00:05:33] people described 9-11, which I was actually in New York for. They described it as, like, you know, oh, it's a failure of imagination. And people would say, oh, it's, like, something out of a Tom Clancy novel or a, you know, a Jerry Bruckheimer film. So the idea was, oh, let's hire these creative people who come up with these out-of-the-box, you know, terrorist scenarios. And if we, if, like, the U.S. government can kind of think of them beforehand, this is the Department of Homeland Security, I believe. Like, the idea is, like, well, if we can come up with these scenarios first, then we can think of ways to stop them.

[00:06:02] And so I wrote, you know, the idea was a fictional writer that, that had a come up, it was kind of based on myself, that, like, oh, joins this think tank and, like, has to try to come up with ways to stop them. And then there's a conspiracy. And then that wound up getting me the attention of, of real think tanks, not the Department of Homeland Security. But I worked for a place called the Atlantic Council, which was sort of this bipartisan or nonpartisan, like, think tank in D.C. And then through them wound up working with, like,

[00:06:30] the National Intelligence Council, the Marine Corps. And that was, I haven't done it in a while, but it's been, I've loved doing it. It's always really surreal because I'll be in the room and there'll be, like, people who work for the CIA and Navy SEALs and astronauts and people who, like, you know, like, commanded a submarine. And then there's me who writes comic books. But it's been, I feel like, you know, but they wanted to hear, they wanted to, a lot of it was trying to teach them how to think creatively about the future.

[00:06:59] Not so much like, here's my ideas, because they will have a wealth of knowledge that I don't, but to try to have them use that knowledge to think creatively, because the military thinking especially can be very, very rigid often. So I think one of the things I'm most proud of was helping the Marines. Like, I went to Marine Corps University, which is down in Quantico, and helping them, I think it was called Future Unknown, where it was, like, helped them do some graphic novels

[00:07:27] that were written and drawn by Marines. And they really weren't, I mean, you can get them publicly. I think if you Google it, you can find it. But they really weren't meant for the general public. They were meant for, like, members of Congress and people who were funding the Marines or working with the Marines so that they could present, like, here's what we think the future of the Marine Corps might look like in a way that was interesting. Like, rather than a really boring paper, which, you know, if you're in the government, you've got to read, like, tons of those. Yeah. The idea was like,

[00:07:56] oh, well, here's a story, and it's got pictures in it. But I feel like I learned so much from those, you know, from working with scientists and military people. And, you know, that's where so many of the ideas I've gotten in recent years have came out of that. And Boxed is, you know, is definitely one of those. Right. So, you know, when someone hears or reads something about you that, you know, says futurist,

[00:08:25] I would think there might be an inclination like, oh, this is someone who's trying to, like, predict the future or predict trends or something along those lines. How do you describe it to folks who really, you know, a genuine curiosity about what it is you would do or, like, a practical application for it? Yeah, it's, I mean, part of the problem with the term, like, I almost, I use that word because I don't know a better word to describe what I do. And it, and as a result, the thing is that, like, there are people who are futurists who do do what you say

[00:08:55] who are predictive. I am sort of more skeptical of anybody who's predictive because, you know, unless they have some kind of psychic power, like, I feel like most predictions don't, you know, most predictions come true. If they did, you know, then, like, those people would be very, very wealthy. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's funny. It's almost like, I would say it's equally hard sometimes to describe, like, writing comics. Like, when I say that, people are like, oh, so what, do you just write the word balloons? Or, you know, they assume, oh, like,

[00:09:24] when you don't draw it, like, how does it happen? Yeah, I mean, what I do is basically, and it varies from sort of from job to job, but it's more of a consulting thing. And it's more, again, about helping people think creatively about the future. Right. Sometimes I do do some of that where they're like, okay, we want you to, we want you to come up with some scenarios or, and usually it's come in the form of, like, I've gotten hired or, you know, to write, like, short stories

[00:09:53] about a specific topic. Okay. So I did one for, like, the Center for International Maritime Security, which was about, like, you know, funny enough, AI, and this is years ago I did it, but, like, most of the things that I've done actually involve the AI in some capacity, but it was, like, you know, ships that were just completely automated. And in that case, they only had a captain on, it was about a ship that only had one human captain on it that was basically there just to, like, in case things broke

[00:10:22] and start, and it actually, it's funny because it happened, I believe it was set, like, it was in, it was off of, like, the Arabian Peninsula, so it was kind of around where, like, what's going on now with Yemen and stuff, and this was years ago about just, like, shipping being attacked by drones and, you know, the idea of, like, well, what happens when the AI sort of goes out and then she's forced to, like, override the system and, like, have to take human control of the ship and protect it.

[00:10:52] But, yeah, so I've gotten, that's sort of the more fun thing to do, but a lot of times it's just, like, kind of almost, like, teaching writing, which is another thing that I do professionally, but, like, to people who are in that industry and, like, you know, and help them be more creative. And so, like, they might have the idea for, like, this is what the future is like, but let me help them come up with a story because if they're having to present it to somebody, anytime you've got, like, a character that somebody cares about, you've got visuals involved,

[00:11:22] but even if it's just a short story with no art, like, it's just something that's much, like, more likely to make an impact on a reader. And when those readers are people that make policy decisions, you know, like, I think it helps. Again, you know, people who make those decisions are just unborrowed by information. So any way you can just cut through that and make it interesting for them, I think, you know, I think helps. Oh, that's fascinating. I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. But yeah, that's, you, I'd have to imagine any type of,

[00:11:52] like, legislature or somebody, you know, trying to change policy or affect some type of change is just inundated with things. So any, any edge you can give someone, I, yeah, I have to think that would, would kind of be key, you know, to getting their point across to being listened to. It's good. And that was something that impressed me. I think was really the, how much the people, the military people that I work with were,

[00:12:22] were actually open to listening. And it sort of gave me and I've, you know, I haven't done it in a while. I haven't done it in this administration, but I've, I, it was basically three administrations. So I guess like, you know, uh, you know, Obama, Trump, Juan and, and Biden and like, you know, whatever your political leanings were, it made me feel like, uh, oh, okay. Like the, the people I'm dealing with in the military, I mean, I've always had respect for people in the military, but like, they're really smart and they're really open

[00:12:51] to a variety of points of view. And it wasn't just, what was great is like when we would have these, these think tank meetings or, or, or seminars, like it wouldn't just be straight white men there. Like, you know, the groups that I was involved with was really good about getting women, people of color. And so that they were listening to a real diversity of opinions and they were really open to it. And I think it's not what a lot of people would necessarily expect about like, you know, Marine Corps officers or the air forces but they were really, they were really open

[00:13:21] to it. And they were just like, yeah, we want to learn. We want to know, you know, we want to, we want to have all the information we can and all the ways of thinking we can to add to our, to, you know, to their already pretty impressive skill sets. And, and again, and I learned things where just like, you know, you think, well, like, oh, okay, it's just, that's just, you know, that's just like diversity for diversity's sake. But it's like, it turns out like, when you look at like why countries fail, like a huge part of it is, you know, countries that don't

[00:13:50] have women employed, like Afghanistan, for example, just to use it as an example where like women aren't allowed in, you know, to really have jobs. And then there's like less extreme examples of that. But like, when you can't have half your population employed, like your country's going to struggle economically or like climate change, which is like, hugely affects, like affects us here in the States. But like, you know, if you're in, if you're in other parts of the, you know, parts of the developing world, like, you know, where there's massive drought and famine and like those problems aren't being dealt with.

[00:14:20] You don't think of that as being a traditionally like a military issue. Like, what do they care about? Like, you know, alternative energy and this stuff. But like, you know, they're being sent to places that have oil and like, you know, and then they're going to places that are having energy shortages and seeing, or other effects of climate change and seeing like the disruption that that presents. Because ideally, you'd rather deal with these problems by like investing some money to, you know, for women's education or things to mitigate climate change than sending troops over and,

[00:14:50] you know, having them like risk their lives. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's like remarkable the things that you don't, you know, we sometimes just have our own little view, you know, we're kind of, not to make a pun off the name, but kind of boxed in by like the way we were raised and the way we see things and, you know, it's true, like, you kind of get into seeing things

[00:15:19] just one particular way and then when you start to branch out and look at some of those types of issues, especially like that's a perfect example like climate change and trying to attack the problem before it gets to a point where you would need military intervention. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of fascinating and so you mentioned AI and AI is, you know, a huge part of boxed and you've talked about it and, you know, other stories

[00:15:48] you've used that as a concept. I found boxed to get in, to just jump right into it, I found it absolutely fascinating and, you know, I think, you know, I'm pretty familiar with, I think Terminator was probably like my first, you know, foray into some type of like AI and Skynet and all that, you know, rigmarole. But I really think that's like the first approach to AI that I was like familiar with.

[00:16:19] Some type of artificial intelligence where the robots are going to take over, you know, like a Terminator type story and I've seen that stuff a lot. What I really liked about boxed and we can talk about the character element to it and the relationship story which I think is great but you have a, you've developed a scenario but like your AI, your kind of like antagonist in it takes over something that I think

[00:16:48] you know, you wouldn't necessarily expect in terms of taking over the CDC and the other ways that the AI kind of starts off the problems in your story. You know, you don't head right to the robots come and take on all the humans and I know that originally it was going to be I think a short story you did in terms of like taking over traffic but just this idea that yeah,

[00:17:18] this could be hugely convenient. There's these AI things that like help us and just by taking over like one system or one thing the problems like you don't have to create an army of sentient robots, you know? So in any event that was my long way of saying I've seen a lot of variations of AI. I don't know that I've seen something exactly like this in terms of like how the AI kind of

[00:17:49] begins to present itself as a problem and Hippocrates and I just I thought it was a great way to kind of get into it. Thank you. Thanks. I mean it's yeah, like it's hard to it's definitely I probably have the same influences that you do. I was just thinking I was like was Terminator my first experience with AI? And I think it probably was because I think I saw Terminator before I saw 2001 or certainly I saw Terminator before I understood 2001 to the extent that I understand it. Yeah,

[00:18:19] I'm the same way. You know, and I love Terminator and that look, you know, there was a this is I think was probably influenced a lot by 80s sci-fi in that like or late 70s early, you know, where like just Blade Runner is in there. Yeah. Even even Aliens and Alien like which you know Aliens is also James Cameron was like but like the idea of like you know, the androids in that and I've always been sort of and I think to me

[00:18:49] that's always been like the creepier the creepier AI to me has always been like like another another couple influences where there's a movie called Ex Machina that came out that was an Alex Garland movie that I was Alex Garland yeah yeah and and he also did a series called Devs that was really that was really cool and sort of also deals with some of that but there was a movie called Her by Spike Jones and it's with like Joaquin Phoenix Joaquin Phoenix and like Scarlett Johansson and she's like a

[00:19:20] she's like a like basically almost like a digital girlfriend and to me that was like and without spoiling it I'll just say like to me there's something I felt was much more scarier and intimate about like the idea of like a digital girlfriend breaking up with me than like Skynet you know raining destruction from the sky for no you know for not really any apparent reason that's not a shot at Terminator I just was watching the last Mission Impossible movie which has I mean I think if you you go into it in two seconds you know AI is sort of the threat in that

[00:19:50] but it's like there's they never really explain the motivation of that AI which kind of bugs me a little bit but yeah so the idea was with with Boxed was to on the one hand like the way I've pitched it I mean the way I pitched it to get it made but also to as a comic but also you know when I'm describing it to people and trying to sell it is like it's I like say Blade Runner meets Silence of the Lambs where it's so it's a very and I use those examples

[00:20:20] because I think it's very it's the idea is hopefully it is very human focused but at the same time it's and it is a thriller but at the same time like I'm trying to make it more both more like I guess more realistic I mean you still have a sentient AI which at this point as far as we know doesn't exist but in terms of the way that AI is used in the world is maybe a little bit more realistic and yeah it was the idea was trying to find trying to find something that was a threat but that hadn't we hadn't

[00:20:50] really seen before like you said originally when I was writing it and this was prior to the pandemic it was started as a short story and then a pilot which in the Mad Cave edition there is excerpts of the short story or the entire short story I think and then the pilot part of the pilot is in there there's some extras that are not in the digital edition but yeah originally it was going to be the traffic system in LA and just like oh wow because when I was envisioning it as a pilot or a short story you can have the stakes be a little lower then what happened is when

[00:21:20] Jeremy Hahn who's the artist and co-creator and I started talking about doing this for real we were like and he had read the pilot and he's like I like it but I think we need a bigger threat and so we sort of went back and forth on a lot of them and then you know the pandemic was just starting to happen and so it was kind of almost obvious to say like okay what would happen if it took over the CDC and was responsible for dealing with a potential pandemic

[00:21:50] and you know as with most AI stories I don't think this is spoiling anything it's like and this goes back to like Frankenstein which isn't maybe you could say is the first artificial intelligence story right like it's sure you know it's like it always exceeds its programming right so like what happened you know like and I wanted there to be I wanted it to have a motivation where like the AI Hippocrates that you mentioned like who is the villain of the story or certainly the antagonist is like

[00:22:19] he actually doesn't he doesn't have he has a motive and one that makes sense which is like he's been programmed to protect people from themselves really right it's it's not just you know it's it's not it's not like about like vaccinations in this case but it's about like okay quarantining people and I wrote this when we were you know the actual comic script you know while I was while we were in lockdown you know and so it was very much thinking about like okay like what are the balances which I think I don't know as a society I'm not sure like any

[00:22:49] any of us have figured out not just in America but across the world and you would see different responses I mean I have students that are in China and were like you think we were locked down like they had like surveillance cameras and all this stuff and that all just sort of fed into it and so I wanted there to be like okay well here's this AI threat but like actually the AI threat has a point maybe it's right and you know and you know then you've got the protagonist who's Frank Savage who's this works for this agency called RAID which is Rapid Response

[00:23:19] Artificial Intelligence Division and you know their job is to just anytime an AI approaches sentience just shut it down because it's so dangerous like it can get so much smarter than we can so much faster and so I like the idea of pitting those things you know pitting those two people against each other and then there's we can talk about Pandora too who's an AI that's somewhere in the middle and I think is

[00:23:49] I'll put a link in the show notes but Mad Cave you know has it up so you can preorder volume one on the website so you know and so I must they have like a I don't know I

[00:24:19] I read that like four times and I'm like am I missing a word does it say his ex is an AI it's like okay I'm like okay I'm a smart person like I know how to read I've been doing it a long time you know 40 years so I

[00:24:50] for whatever reason it so surprised me that would be part of it and I was like how does that and when you read it though it makes total sense it does such wonders for the story itself and you really get that Blade Runner meets like Silence

[00:25:20] of the Lamb like you really kind of get this weird Buffalo Bill Clarice you know Lecter triangle of these three characters and I was just I thought it was so good but yeah it took me by surprise reading that blurb I just I don't know why I just did not expect that to be part of it and was delightfully surprised by how it played out yeah it's funny I mean you know

[00:25:50] again I think some of that I'm Pandora who's who is the character you know we're talking money you

[00:26:19] know there's politics or it's sex right and so she was created and he was an FBI counter intelligence agency agent when this started and they tested her on him and thinking oh he's incorruptible and he'll be able to do it and like but they wind up falling in love and

[00:27:16] I writing yeah got five years ago would have been six actually when I if you count the you know the short story and stuff but it's like I don't think we're very far off from like digital companions you know maybe not sex robots yet but like but and even just the idea like as somebody who's single and I go on dating apps I don't you know who I'm talking to like you know it's you know like sometimes it's a real person sometimes it's it's somebody

[00:27:46] you know in another country pretending to be you know catfishing me but it can very saying I predicted it at all it just seems like it seems like that's the direction that things are going in

[00:28:16] and then it gets right you looks fantastic yeah the rest of the creative team too I think Nick Velarde did colors and Thomas Mauer

[00:28:46] designed and lettered yeah Nick and I've been lucky like I've gotten to work with that crew Jeremy's done a bunch of covers on my Aftershock books we also we did a Batman two face year one many years ago Nick colored my very first book grounded he's colored my work probably more than my work but he's colored books that I've been on more than anybody else Thomas is an excellent letterer he's also I think lettered more of my books than anyone else so I was so fortunate to get this team together and you know Comixology and Mad Cave were really awesome

[00:29:15] about that all right everybody we're going to take a quick break we'll be right back y'all jimmy the chaos goblin strikes again 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 could start playing another friend chimes in are you going to make baps it's fair to say it's

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[00:30:19] at arkham forge dot com and use the discount code yeti five to get five dollars off I'll drop a link in the show notes for you and big thanks to arkham forge for partnering with our show I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a

[00:30:51] services aren't going to have a commercial for a digital companion if they don't already I just haven't seen it but it definitely seems like that's where the push is and you have this scenario where you have this I mean a really fantastic thriller this story in terms of trying to stop this AI and stop this problem within the comic but there are a

[00:31:21] a ton of issues that it also brings up and you're kind of tapping into with AI not just in terms of comic books and generative AI and the issue of companies stealing from creators in order to train AI but the slippery slope of the convenience of AI and the type of things that some AI companies are predicting that the AI will

[00:31:51] doing this because a lot of people I think most people at least in the US will choose convenience over almost anything else maybe I'm wrong maybe I'm being cynical it's a huge worry and I always feel like people will say there is some panic around AI but I'm like I don't know if I feel like that panic for the most part is pretty warranted I

[00:32:22] don't think that's happening in our lifetime I can't say but I feel like it's more when I started writing this I was thinking about AI when I was talking to people in the military it was more about drones and we can automate this stuff and what are the trade-offs because you're saving just even having a human operated drone but when you're using AI in the military you're sparing a life but now are you going to trust AI to make decisions over life and death

[00:32:51] but in the time since then I talk about this in some of the back matter of the book even from the time when the digital edition came out until the print edition which will wind up being two years I I think I have seen what AI can do and I am very worried for my colleagues who are

[00:33:22] artists and even though I feel they're irreplaceable as humans and at this point I don't think AI can do great art at what point is it good enough for a company to be like it's not great but our job is not to put out stuff that's good enough I'm not talking about a company and then I teach writing and this semester for the first time I had somebody hand in

[00:33:51] AI generated not just art but chat GPT stuff I was teaching a class for writing for role playing games which is so cool and I got to say my and I didn't notice it it took another student pointing it out to me and then it became really obvious and you

[00:35:11] know well and now is being replaced not only just by Uber but I live in Los Angeles we now have that waymo the driverless car thing which is just super creepy just to see somebody riding in the back seat and there's nobody in the front I'm still not used to it and then even you know I walk on the streets here I'm like I'm from New York I'm still one

[00:35:53] mostly I just think oh that was somebody's job once and maybe it wasn't a high paying job and maybe it wasn't a fun job but regardless they now have to find another one and you know that's I think in the same political

[00:36:23] parties but it's like the government is worried about this and they're worried about immigrants taking jobs and it's like yeah let's worry about the AI and how we're going to educate people that have

[00:36:53] taken over so many jobs and I'm not an economist I don't know if that's actually a good solution or not but it just seemed like well you know if AI is that prevalent in this world then that's probably you know people are probably just going to get paid a certain amount just to live and then certain people who are very skilled can make more than that but it is very frightening it's not to say that AI can't still do cool things and I don't once in a while see a video that's Star Wars

[00:37:23] figures animated and I think it's pretty cool but we are in a brave new world yeah I know I went to a conference in February and there's a lot of discussion in terms of the legal field like in AI and how AI can help you as an attorney

[00:37:52] in terms of streamlining things like discovery and things along those lines but also the dangers of it somebody who turned in you know but the one thing that I don't know it takes a lot to surprise

[00:38:22] me or annoy me or make me mad or whatever but one of the things that I just there were so many attorneys that did these presentations at the convention that used AI to generate the graphics for their talk and they were just absolute dog shit absolutely terrible it was like a bunch of people sitting in the jury seats and they just all looked off like it was so obvious

[00:38:52] that it was like AI and I'm like I get the novelty of it you know like you you're not an artist you think you can crank something out but it looks terrible but at some point it won't you know at some point it won't yeah that's what's scary about it is I mean look and it's still people have explained to me why it's not going to be able to do certain things humans can and whether or not that turns out to be true I don't know look I'll admit when Mid Journey first came out

[00:39:31] I said that about you know okay just using you know any kind of digital tools it's the stealing part that gets me and the idea that I remember even though I had stopped using it before this happened like the you know a list had come out of like all the artists that I don't remember if it was Mid Journey or another company that was like you know that they scrape the data from for all the AI artists and you know you'd see people like Picasso and whatever

[00:40:01] else on it but then I'd be like hey here are comic creators that I know and work with and yes some big names but other names that maybe your average comics fan wouldn't know and I'm like these are people I know and that really drove it home for me is there a list that hasn't been released that the scraping my writing for stuff I mean I think comic scripting is a pretty niche thing but I'm sure they're doing every prose novel that's ever been

[00:40:31] written or short story has been scanned by AI and stuff and I do think and again people will say well but what's the difference between that and having influences like I've mentioned all these movies that influenced it but I still think at this point there are legal differences right there's being influenced by something and then there's copying something and not compensating somebody for it I

[00:41:16] know thing I can be proud of is we did an analog book about a digital subject the coloring is done digitally and Jeremy does use his pencils digitally but inks physically but it's less about it being digital but I feel like I have to keep saying I swear I

[00:41:46] and sometimes it's true but I've also seen people be falsely accused of it and I certainly don't want to be part of a witch hunt and doing that and again it's becoming harder and harder to tell and that gets scary yeah I just I mean I guess ultimately where I wish I were smart enough to or knew more about it to have more of an intelligent

[00:42:16] conversation on my end I'm generally terrible with technology so I think that kind of helps with certain things but I mean besides just it as someone who loves comics but isn't an artist I guess the temptation to like oh I can just feed into some prompts and take this story that I've written and come up with something but I guess for

[00:42:46] me I kind of think what's the point somebody writes something or makes something or a painting or a movie or whatever it is they're putting so much of themselves and their experience into it and to have a machine crank something out I don't know it seems like cheap entertainment but that's about as far as it goes for me you know what's interesting that made me think of

[00:43:16] sort of coincidentally I wrote the script for Box the comic graphic novel during the pandemic but the other thing I did during the pandemic is yeah I was never really an I always loved to draw but I was never really an artist and yet I've had the privilege of working with these amazing artists for 20 years my god but I've really been very lucky with the artists I've worked with but I

[00:43:55] seriously and I had a five year plan this is 2020 that I wanted to draw my own comic maybe it'll only be at conventions and I'll print up 100 copies and so I started taking drawing lessons and started with YouTube and then started taking real one-on-one or group classes one of the good things about pandemic is more of that stuff began being offered on Zoom and so my goal is still by the end of this year to have a comic out I'm in

[00:44:25] the penciling stage I storyboarded out a 20 page comic and I really have not talked about this anywhere else you're getting exclusive out there too because it's like now I have to do it and finish it but I have to say it's frustrating I've been now drawing five years and to me really taking it seriously and taking at least one class a semester and drawing all the time to the point where I have

[00:44:54] carpal tunnel and all this stuff and then I look at it and I see the gap between what I'm drawing and what the artists that I've worked with are drawing and it's so huge and yet you it's been really enjoyable in a way in a different way than writing is and I will probably never get to where I want to be as an artist

[00:45:24] or even to where I am as a writer as an artist in a way that I learn about panel composition and storyboarding and

[00:45:54] things like that it's made me appreciate how much work goes into a single comic page even more than I did which I didn't think was possible but also hopefully I'm writing better now I always try to give my artists a lot of freedom but I'm also thinking it's going to be hard to draw you're not thinking of the space fully and you're not

[00:46:24] thinking of where all the characters are in relation to one another those are just some simple examples I think I've gained an appreciation for it I think I would say the same thing I say to my students which is it's different when your job depends on it but it's just like whether it's art or writing or anything else if you're letting a computer do it you're sort of cheating yourself ultimately more than you're cheating anybody like you're definitely I think cheating your customer

[00:46:53] or your reader but I think you're cheating yourself of this great experience of learning how to do something whether it's something you share with the world or just is for yourself art is such a great thing that if you enjoy it in whatever way whether it's as an amateur or joy yeah well I mean well said and I can't wait to see when you

[00:47:23] get through with your project I will you'll be one of the people that will get to see it I would love to I think that's awesome I yeah well Mark I don't want to keep you any longer I do want to project chaotic neutral which looked like you kick started it looked

[00:47:53] fantastic I love D&D and I love tabletop and role playing games and yeah so I want to make sure that people know that they can still go and get your comic chaotic neutral yeah if I can just really quickly pitch that to people it's a combination fantasy comic drawn by illustrated and co-created by Chris Anderson who's a great artist that's meant to look like evoke sort of like early 80s Dungeons

[00:48:23] and Dragons like sort of what would have happened if the satanic panic you know didn't happen and people were kind of allowed to do more edgy stuff but it's also a Dungeons and Dragons module it's both in one so that you can read the comic and play play an adventure that's set in the same world and hopefully we're going to do another one it was a ton of fun to write and trying to do something really different so I guess in some ways the two projects couldn't be

[00:48:53] more opposite where it's like one is this hard science fiction and about the future and this other is a sort of retro very much analog tabletop role playing thing but again I'm lucky that I've found collaborators that are willing to try different things with me that's awesome and I love the title of it I love chaotic neutral which is probably one of the more fun alignments to play in the troublemaker

[00:49:23] alignment I think so I didn't play D&D when I was younger I heard about it I've told this story on the podcast before but we started in 2017 and then we took like a year or two break we didn't mean to it's just you know I somebody else said this but the biggest villain in D&D is scheduling oh my god absolutely so hard to play with at a consistent time

[00:49:52] yeah but but it does remind me it it was great you know I think he had a lot of fun but like two years into a campaign and you're still awful good I think Kevin was excited when we switched things up and he could roll a new character

[00:50:22] I know I totally understand I mean that's the fun of it is getting to play you know it's the fun of being a writer I think is the same fun of role playing getting to be somebody that's not yourself thank you for sharing that out no no I'll have a link for people to pick that up and get boxed September 9th I believe it's out on Mad Cave and yeah I mean Blade Runner meets

[00:50:52] Silence of the Lambs I think is kind of like a great this meets that for it I thought it was a wonderful story I really liked Pandora I just thought it was just a fun character to read and I thought that it was really great in terms of her interactions with the other AI but also with Frank Savage I just thought it read really well and made for a very interesting story amongst everything else that was going on so really

[00:51:22] kept my attention and I just thought it was great and Jeremy's artwork is awesome again so thank you so much Pandora is one of my favorite characters that I've ever written and yeah like Jeremy really kills it the amount of detail and the amount of time he spent but just the amount of detail he puts into the page that is just like hand you talk about why people want to use hand just like hand drawing stalactites in a cave and things like that he really did an amazing job on it right

[00:51:53] but you have with your characters for some of them in the beginning they're just on a screen they're in like a government building you know and like but Jeremy makes everything look exciting he makes all these details pop so I mean that's not that's not the easiest thing in in the world to do when you're you're you're dealing with you know digital characters and it just all looks great well thank you no and I will pass that on to Jeremy too

[00:52:23] yeah please do but listeners Fox it's out September 9th from Mad Cave and also check out Chaotic Neutral if you're into role playing if you're into Dungeons and Dragons if you're just into like really good fantasy D&D 80s satanic panic storytelling you know if you're old enough like I'm sure Mark is like me to remember that the Tom Hanks Dungeons and Dragons movie

[00:52:53] Mazes and Monsters absolutely oh my gosh it was like what is it that he gets he it had to was it like produced by by by somebody who hated D&D it was based on a novel and it was based on there were some like you know there was somebody who really like disappeared for a while they later found them but like and they blamed that disappearance on D&D because they thought they were

[00:53:22] like kind of live role playing in the tunnels of like I think University of Michigan or something they were using that they found maps they found D&D maps and they were like oh these D&D maps look like the steam tunnels and like and it turned out the guy just went to another you know just didn't like college and just like went to another city and you know it was back before the internet so it was easier to disappear but like so they yeah they made this movie bit and like in the movie like a young Tom Hanks I mean a young Tom Hanks like gets so into D&D well they

[00:53:52] it's not called D&D but it's D&D gets so into it that he loses his concept of reality and he has to be institutionalized and like it's you know it is but that was people were really scared of this thing they didn't understand that had like you know demons in it and it's you know so it was fun to sort of kind of poke fun at that a little bit and like we have there there used to be these things if you've ever heard of like a chick track this guy named Jack yeah right who do

[00:54:22] these like religious pamphlets saying Halloween is evil but like in the book is a Ryan Brown who's known for like God hates astronauts and curse words and 8 billion genies so he drew yeah he's and he's just the funniest person in comics I think or certainly one of them and he he and I did this like fake pamphlet that's like

[00:54:51] set sort of like in the real world but pretending like oh that like the people are and it's like oh this is the our tagline in the Kickstarter was like this is the Dungeons and Dragons that your parents warned you about and you know but it is and it's edgy but it's tongue in cheek it's not really

[00:55:22] evil I love that well Mark this has been fantastic so thank you so much for coming on the podcast I really appreciate it thank you so much for having me genuine pleasure for my end as well and well all right listeners you know what to do rate and review us all those things I tell you to do about podcasts you can find me on blue sky or tick tock I think let me know what it is you're reading especially if you read boxed or any of

[00:55:52] Mark's other other comics and you want to talk about them or if you go and pick up chaotic neutral thank you so much for listening and I will 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