Matt Wagner & Kelley Jones Interview - Dracula: The Brides

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_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.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_06]: You ever been to a martial arts tournament like this?

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_04]: When I was a kid, there was a used bookstore in town. I begged my mom to drop me off all the time. They had a loose stack of comics that I used to thumb through searching for secret gold.

[00:00:21] [SPEAKER_04]: One day, I came across Daredevil 189. That's that Frank Miller cover that's iconic with Dee Dee flying through the air and a hail of arrows.

[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_04]: The book was a complete snobber knocker throwdown with the hand and Stick sacrifices himself to save Matt at the end.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Ever since that moment, I have loved martial arts comic books. So when fellow Yeti Alex Green reached out about his Kickstarter project From Within, I was excited to find out more about it.

[00:00:44] [SPEAKER_04]: It's a 240 page martial arts revenge graphic novel about a slave fighting his way through a deadly tournament where the rules shift according to the whims of, you guessed it, a tyrannical emperor.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Full of high impact fight sequences, it's sure to delight any fan of action focused fiction.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Artist Renzo Podesta kills the genre. See what I did there? And the whole project is already complete.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_04]: So the hardest part, the one that makes you wait is already done.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Bounce on over to Kickstarter and search for From Within.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_04]: That's it. I'll drop a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. Make sure to check it out.

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it's good!

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_04]: 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.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_04]: 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.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_04]: 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?

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_04]: It was then that I discovered Arkham Forge. If you don't know who Arkham Forge is, they have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_04]: 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.

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Now I'm set to easily build high res animated maps saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign.

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_04]: That's a win every day in my book. Check them out at arkhamforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off.

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_04]: I'll drop a link in the show notes for you. And big thanks to Arkham Forge for partnering with our show.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Byron O'Neill, your host for today's Comics Creator Chat.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_04]: I've got two amazing guests hanging out with me today to talk about the second volume of their new graphic novel series adapting the classic Dracula myth.

[00:02:46] [SPEAKER_04]: So it is my pleasure to introduce Comics Legends. And if there was a comics fantasy team, they would both be on mine, Matt Wagner and Kelly Jones.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Are you both doing mid campaign funding? Looks like it's going pretty well.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, going great. Going great. And more importantly, we're still both just on fire for this project.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, we this project came about as a result of, you know, Kelly and I have known each other for over three decades and we always said to each other, hey, we got to do something together someday, you know, and and we knew we meant something, a big thing, you know, something significant, not just a little one off or something.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_06]: And finally, several years ago, after a similar sort of exchange, I, I contacted him directly and said, hey, man, are you serious? Because I've been brewing on this idea about Dracula for a long time.

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And I think that would fit us both like a glove. And luckily hit Kelly just the right time and hit me at just the right time.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_06]: And we were both able to commit to it because it's, you know, we're doing four volumes at least. So it's five years or so of effort, you know?

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we could never we could never have done it earlier anyway, because the way we're doing it, no publisher could.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_01]: They they they would have a hard time. Right. And and and and that in and of itself is a wonderful thing, is that, you know, doing it, at least for me, I never sit down.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And and it's like to Matt's point about still having the the real excitement of doing it is I never think each day.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I got to get through this or I got to do that or whatever. It's it's what will happen today.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And if I'm doing that, I just assume the readers doing that, too. What's going to happen?

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's always been my and Kelly shares, as I know, you know, it's always been our kind of mantra so far as creators go is it has to be thrilling for us first before it's going to be thrilling for our our readership.

[00:04:42] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, and you come into every project and you just you want to feel thrilled.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_06]: You want to feel thrilled with the the act of creating something, you know, and this really is thrilling for both of us.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, I think I think when it just hits all the notes, you know, I think Matt writes.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the best. Individual scenes that link to each other.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So when you're reading the first one, it's just it just mounts and mounts and mounts.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that when you put a reader through a very believable place and you're entertaining the whole time, that's a rare thing to do.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt doesn't say one idea and then we'll wait to see the revelation at the end.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like ideas and ideas and ideas all the way through.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's fascinating.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And when you're drawing it, you don't feel I never feel like I'm I know these are big, long projects, but I don't feel that way.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I always see him in in these segments that he does.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And that that translates to reading it.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the same thing.

[00:05:50] Yeah.

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm a big vampire fan, like a lot of people are.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I did a reread prepping for the interview the other night and kind of bookended the Impaler flipping through some Simon Marsden photos before bed.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Are either of you familiar with Simon Marsden or?

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_04]: OK.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Check his stuff out online.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_04]: He's an English photographer who specialized in these surreal black and white landscapes of haunted houses and locations throughout Europe.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I do think I know that.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I know him.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_01]: He did something where they used it for an M.R.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_01]: James thing.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: You're right.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_04]: And everything was in infrared that he shot.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_04]: So it created these really, really strong highlight spaces and areas that otherwise wouldn't have them.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And he was shooting during the day so he could the infrared film will capture that heat.

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's a lot of stuff with with statues.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And what it did is it created the weird moody depth that people just hadn't seen because the perspective of where the highlights landed were very, very different.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And you felt like you were in one realm and out of the other.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_04]: He had a book called Vampires the Twilight World, which has images of Romania and like lesser known spots like the Isle of Dread and Venice and stuff.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_04]: But it's cool stuff if you guys get a chance to check it out.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, that's you know, you mentioned there about things people hadn't seen before.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_06]: That's, of course, one of our challenges with this is, you know, everybody feels they already know Dracula top to bottom.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's right.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_06]: It's pretty well trodden material, you know.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_06]: And and like I said, I had been kind of stewing on this idea.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I've vampires have shown up in my work a lot over the years and Grendel.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_06]: And I always wanted to try my hand at the OG vampire, you know.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Sure.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_06]: And I just couldn't get a handle on it.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And then finally I figured out, oh, the handle is we don't tell the novel.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_06]: We take all the little tiny hints and tantalizing bits of information and we expand on those.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_06]: We tell all the stories around the novel.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_06]: So our series here won't we will not be doing an adaptation of the novel.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_06]: You will not see the events of the novel.

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_06]: No Jonathan Harker's trip to the castle.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_06]: No Van Helsing, no Mina, no Lucy.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's still plenty of material for us to tell because of, again, how mysterious Stoker keeps the Dracula character in the book itself.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Because he's not on screen all that much in the book.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, the first scene in the castle, he's there quite a bit.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Once he gets to London, he's just kind of this shadowy presence that the heroes are chasing after all.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think anyone would want to see us just do a straight up adaption anyway.

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I think after the CDs.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_01]: They've done that.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, not only many times in film, but a ton of times in comics too, you know.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd say certainly after you see Impaler and then read Brides.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_01]: That would be a letdown to just simply see a retelling of the novel then.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's done it.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: We've seen it all before.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like a great song in a concert.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's mouthing the words as you do it.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So this will be something utterly different.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And as it has been.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's going to be its authenticity.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Is this will be a completely unique Dracula experience.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Yet it's Dracula.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: We're not making up stuff.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt certainly isn't adding anything to it.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: He's just doing who's there.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_06]: We're sticking strictly to the book.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, for instance, volume one, The Impaler is all about how he becomes a vampire.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:09:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And and in the book, I noticed that, you know, we don't see many other vampires in the book,

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_06]: but none of them seem to exhibit the extraordinary powers he does controlling the weather and commanding animals and a variety of other things.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And Stoker mentions twice in the book by Van Helsing expounding about vampires to the heroes that Dracula attended something called the Scolamance,

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_06]: which is a Romanian legend of the seminary for the dark arts that Satan himself hosts up in the mountain.

[00:09:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was just like, why has nobody ever done anything with that?

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: That's that's the possibilities are very deep for narrative.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And Matt had told me once, he says, you know, we don't when when you're talking about the novel, we only focus on the one box of verse.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: There's 49 other boxes of earth.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: He deposited God knows where.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And and that was like, oh, yeah, you're right.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt does a lot of those.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, you're right.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I remember reading the novel and I remembered the it's a paragraph or so of him going to the Scolamance.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And you just breeze by it because he doesn't do anything more with it.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And Matt turned.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, my other my other big challenge was I had to figure out a way, you know, he he couldn't just get bitten by another vampire so far as becoming an origin because that makes him ordinary.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And he is not ordinary.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_06]: He's fucking Dracula.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Dracula.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_06]: He's, as I said, the OG vampire, the most, you know, I argue the most famous literary character of all time all around the world.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_06]: If you say the word Dracula, they they have an image in their minds about what that is, you know.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I had to come up with something extraordinary as the way that he is turned into a vampire.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_06]: And if you've read book one, you know, it is some extraordinary method, you know.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And all that's true.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you get lots of blood and gore and all these things.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you're reading it.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And I like thinking that what Matt has done is a really good if he was an alchemist, he made French fries healthy, you know.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, if only I could, my friend.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you're going through this and it's exactly what I would want as a heavy metal reader in the late 70s.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_01]: It's exactly what I would want.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yet I'm coming away with it with something more than what I expected.

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, the whole project was not only our deep love of all horror literature and Dracula and all that sort of stuff, but also an homage to the comics that meant a lot to us in the 70s.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, creepy and line of horror comics that Marvel did.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_06]: Son of Satan, Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night, Dracula.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_06]: So we really wanted to capture that flavor, you know.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And I will say somebody that really helps us in that regard is our colorist, Jose Villarubia, who really just brings kind of an old school vibe to it that just sings.

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Just really makes me feel.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I work in such heavy lighting and backlighting, and I'm always using lighting.

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes I have to go back on a page and say, you know, I have to add some ink because I've so enjoyed Jose.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going, well, maybe I'll leave this area because I've been digging his choices, stuff I never thought of.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the fun part of comics is you get this second, third, fourth artist depending on who you're working with.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'll go back and I say, no, I've got to I've got to this.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: This is how I work.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: But there have been times where the story necessitated something more open, and that's where I'm uncomfortable.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So I got to concentrate on.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: But he does great stuff with that.

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, for instance, in the first book, there's a scene in the woods with a wolf.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And then Kelly has two negative shapes of branches just stretching across that panel.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_06]: They're just white, bare spaces.

[00:13:10] [SPEAKER_06]: And Jose chose to color those like a pale blue.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_06]: It's the last thing you would choose for most colors.

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And it works so beautifully.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It does.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It does.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I trust that when I when I'm drawing, I tend to think in terms of how it would look color wise when he gets back to me.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, even when it's something that he's that it's an agreement on, it's different.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I love that it is because he'll go off like Matt says and do something completely different than what I was.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And he keeps it simple.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't over render.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't rely on a lot of computer tricks.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's primary colors.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's primary.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's applied as if he was watercoloring.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's I love that.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, I've talked about this before, but I, uh, I, uh, I've always kind of hated the various color jobs that have ended up on Kelly's work because people want to make him color him dark and moody.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm like, he's already done that.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_06]: That's that part's already there.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_06]: He's rendered all the shadows.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_06]: He's rendered all the side lighting in the drama.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, what you need is something bright.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And I said, look, go look at, uh, Dario Argento's, uh, Suspiria and go look at, uh, uh, Mario Bava's, uh, Black Sabbath, two horror movies that, you know, were lit up like pinball machines so far as their color palettes go.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And yet are still incredibly creepy.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I think, uh, you know, it's like, I, uh, the only thing I told Jose was think of a stained glass window, just bright.

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And then Matt said, uh, here's stuff to go look at.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, and then Matt also would say as to me, he says, be aggressive, go for try.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't worry about anything else.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Just let's see what we get.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, and we've, I remember the first, uh, I don't know, batchy center was 10, 12 pages.

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it knocked me out.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it knocked me out the way Matt scripted where I'm like going something good is happening here.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: This is really good.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I've worked on things where you're happy, but things where you kind of have to take a breather,

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, uh, go have a cigar and just think, wow, is, is this really happening?

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, every time I get a batch back from Jose, that happens.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Every time I see when, when everything's placed that happens and that you just know that has to translate.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, and to kick that down the line one notch, uh, it's the same with me.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I'm, I'm writing these scenes that I'm just like, Oh, Kelly's going to fucking kill it on this one, man.

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_06]: This is awesome.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and it comes back and it's better.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_06]: It's better than I was hoping.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_04]: As a former theatrical lighting in every regards, you know, as a former theatrical lighting designer,

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_04]: it's very rock and roll.

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Very much.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Yep.

[00:15:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Cause you get that Congo blue and those reds.

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it feels like it was.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad you say that because it feels like a musical thing to me.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It feels like everyone gets together and it just works.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's, it just works.

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe it is the fact that we've all been doing this individually a long time.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think this stuff rattled in the back of all our heads.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And so when we get a chance to say, let's do this thing of, uh, uh, and, and I feel honestly, this is the kind of thing that yes, it's the sum of our influences, but it's brand new.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_01]: That too.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, and I, and I think that first starts with Matt.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: He wrote something that we're all familiar with.

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet I, I know Dracula and I know these things.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I'm doing this, um, I feel it's absolutely authentic, familiar and brand new.

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And that is incredibly rare because, um, if you're doing on Batman, you know, there's all these years of doing Batman and you, you, you, the best you can do is bring your own style to it.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: But when you can pull something out is when Batman works.

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's the same thing with Dracula.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's something new.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think anyone's done what Matt's done.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the level of scholarship on this is exciting.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not dry.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not a lot of Dracula.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a, it's not this dry dissertation of the facts.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a completely blood soaked story the way it should be yet.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all within Canon.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And it gets more into the facts, right?

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_04]: What sucked me in was, was finally, we have something that's actually viewed a little bit more using the historical lens.

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and, and those things, those touchstones in Vlad's life that, that made him who he is and motivated him as a human.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And there was a quote, there was a quote that, that Matt had to defeat the godless.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_04]: One must become godless.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_04]: And so it goes back into his hatred for the Ottoman Empire when he was essentially traded and kept as collateral when he was young.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And, and so there's a sense of patriotism that kind of motivates that zeal that he has.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_04]: And then the, the personal quest for power, which creates this really mighty combo to kind of develop him into a character.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_04]: And then you're diving into the Skolomance, which has always been really like fascinating to me, which I've thought is kind of the Hell's Hogwarts of Hermstadt.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_04]: So, so that, that's where you chose to take it.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And that historical lens was, was really, really, really nice.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Like I just had, we have a nice little bit in the second part, which I won't spoiler too much, but where he talks about his captivity amongst the Turks when he was young.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_06]: He was part of a hostage exchange, you know, uh, he and his brother.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, and it's a great, great moment.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_06]: And Kelly, uh, there again, you know, I, I kind of wrote something and Kelly added a visual punch that was just magnificent.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, that's great.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_06]: But, but, you know, uh, to now like turn the focus toward the brides book to the, you know, here again, I'm working off something that's, uh, extremely brief, but extremely powerful and resonant in the novel, which is the appearance of these, uh, vampire women at the castle.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Which, uh, only kind of in retrospect have become thought of as his brides.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_06]: That they're never referred to that, uh, particular term, um, in the book itself.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_06]: But, uh, again, that's such a searing narrative moment that they show up in almost every adaptation, uh, uh, over the years.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And they're only there for three, four pages, something like that, you know?

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that's a, that's a big thing.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and there's three of them and there's not much background, if any revealed about them.

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Other than the fact that one of them seems to be a little more aristocratic or upper class than the other two, because they, they defer to her to feeding first as if it's her right to go first.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, so that just really opened this narrative, uh, well for me that here were these three women.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, I had to come up with three completely different women and make them real and make them accurate to their time period.

[00:20:04] [SPEAKER_06]: So not contemporary women shoveled into, uh, that timeframe.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_06]: And I had to come up with three completely different reasons why Dracula would choose them to be part of his harem, you know?

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, and I think we really hit it.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's, it's, I do.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I know he has because I, I, I, fascinating and I've let a few women read this and I always preface it now.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Horrible things are going to happen to them and they're going to do horrible things just, and they come out of this and they love them.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: They love what Matt's done.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_01]: They're fascinated by it.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_01]: They're all okay with it.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, this is what they wanted, you know?

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and I, I, I'm not saying I'm surprised, but I didn't get anything but other, other than just complete fascination with it.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and I think that's the natural thing.

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we love Dracula and we question these things, but I think a lot of people that just come to it go, oh yeah, that's, yeah, that it's that thing.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, where you go, I should have thought of it, or I never, oh, that's interesting.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I should have looked into that more, thought about that more.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, obviously Stoker had his main thing he was trying to tell.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but boy, that it's, they're not just window dressing.

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_01]: They are absolutely.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_06]: And yet at the same time, you know, there's, make no mistake, he does not, Dracula in no way thinks of these women as his equals.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_06]: He's, he's the Lord of the Manor, you know?

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and that's, uh, that's not only to the book, but to the time period, you know?

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's true of anyone around him.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_06]: He's in charge.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_06]: He's in charge.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, and, and I think.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_06]: And the other thing is to, you know, the, the real balancing act here is to make you intrigued with Dracula.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And to make you kind of like him and, and always remind you that he's an absolute monster.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I refer to it as the Tony Soprano effect, you know?

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_06]: How, you know, you, you really grew to love Tony.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And yet every, every once in a while they would remind you, no, he's a fucking monster, you know?

[00:22:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Over and over and over again.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_01]: When I'm, when I'm doing it, whenever you get into a character, no matter how much they're, they're awful, you have to find something to identify with or whatever.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, uh, I, I can honestly say that that's hard to do with this character.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So what you do is you try to work on what your reaction would be to this.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, that's how I draw things is the reaction to this guy that you never know what he's going to do next.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and that is working for me because it, it is, he is, um, like a time bomb.

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and you never, and, and it's not, Matt doesn't do it like, ah, I'm going to do this thing.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's a casual thing.

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes other times it's more violent.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, other times it's seductive.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but he was known as the impaler.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.

[00:22:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Congratulations on that anatomical correctness.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_04]: That's by the way.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01]: From the job, I was like, yeah, that's, we nailed it.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Good job.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt was doing a lot of stuff for the first time.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So I figured I needed to, I have not seen that, you know?

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Yep.

[00:23:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Nor have I.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_04]: All right.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Let's take a quick break.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_04]: After a string of unexplained disappearances in the Southern parts of the United States,

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_04]: retired detective Clint searches for his white trash brother.

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_04]: While searching for him, he ends up being abducted by aliens.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_04]: He is now in the arena for big guns, stupid rednecks.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_04]: An intergalactic cables newest hit show, which puts him and other humans in laser gun gladiatorial

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_04]: combat.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_04]: And his brother is the reigning champion with 27 kills.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the premise for a new book from band of barns, big guns, stupid rednecks.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_04]: I got a chance to see an advanced preview of this book and being from the South, honestly,

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_04]: I was a bit skeptical going in, but they won me over and nothing is more powerful than an

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_04]: initially skeptic convert in my book.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_04]: In Jimmy's words, big guns, stupid rednecks is many things, but it isn't subtle.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_04]: It tells you exactly what it is up front.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Then it delivers with a great premise, fantastic art, and a whole mess of fun.

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_04]: I had a great time reading big guns, stupid rednecks, and what I thought was going to be

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_04]: an indictment of redneck culture quickly showed it was actually a love letter.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_04]: A family mystery, brother pitted against brother, aliens, fighting for profit in a big arena.

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_04]: This truly has it all.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Issue one is out already, but you can still pick up a copy on the band of bards website

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_04]: and current issues are available via your previews or lunar order form, or just ask your LCS.

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Don't miss it.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Let's get back to the show.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_04]: You don't need Vlad to be portrayed as a vampire to see him as a monster.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And vampires allow us, we're fascinated by them because we can mentally play with more carnal,

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_04]: hedonistic versions of ourselves, right?

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_04]: So he helps us out with that.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_04]: But you have to question, okay, well, he is a vampire.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Is it really his fault?

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_04]: So in fiction, that progression kind of tends to be one where they eventually mature and

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_04]: sort of face their own demons and the regrets of the past.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_04]: So I was just curious between the Impaler and the Brides, you know, is Vlad going to cool

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_04]: his heels a little bit?

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Is the Brides going to be a more mature?

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Fucking no way.

[00:25:20] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_04]: All right.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_06]: There is, you know, there is a realization of, you know, he's gained all this remarkable

[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_06]: power, which is what he sought.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And yet power comes with limitations, specifically the power of vampirism.

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_06]: But, you know, we were talking the other day about the big archetypes in horror are Dracula,

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Frankenstein, and the Wolfman, you know?

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, the seductive death is the vampire.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_06]: The thing with no name is Frankenstein.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And the rampaging beast within is the Wolfman.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_06]: And the big difference is Frankenstein and the Wolfman both regret their circumstances.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Dracula doesn't.

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Dracula is like, there's no regrets, you know?

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_06]: No.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_06]: He's unapologetic about what he is.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Which makes him absolutely fascinating to see how he sees himself as a, I always draw him

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_01]: as him thinking himself as a highly moral man.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_01]: He's not.

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_01]: He's a moral.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_01]: He's, he's, he's, he's completely unaware of, and he's not some simple narcissist or anything

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: like that.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: He feels he has a responsibility, something to live up to.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's the guy, and he's going to do it.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And the ends justify the means in to as far as you want to take that.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: He's the guy who can walk by an impaled woman and not give a damn.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's only compounded in the brides because, uh, you know, the, the true Vlad

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_06]: the Impaler, the historical personage, uh, was married twice, never had any kids, never

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_06]: had any offspring.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_06]: So in the brides, uh, these, uh, these women, uh, are the first things he's ever created.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And he finds himself, uh, feeling a sense of responsibility to them that he didn't expect

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_06]: himself to have.

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_06]: Ah, gotcha.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_06]: There again, he's still the boss, but, uh, but there is, he does feel some responsibility

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_06]: to them now as, as if they are, well, they're his harem.

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, when you read, when you read the real one, you know, when he, uh, to, to drive off

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_01]: the Ottoman army and to put 20,000 guys to a stake in a crescent form.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So when they come there, they don't even want to fight.

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: He didn't have any supernatural stuff when he was doing that.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_01]: He, that was, that was part of the challenge of the first book as well.

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt would take those things and say, okay, we know what he is.

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So now his progression to be one isn't say, yeah, I want to, none of the, none of it is

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01]: in, in impaler.

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you see none of that, uh, lore of the vampire has been worked out yet.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It, it develops with his curse and each thing that he does turns on him and, and, and it just,

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_01]: it perfectly fits.

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Now, when you get to the brides, that doesn't stop.

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: What Matt does does not stop.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so it, it isn't a fairy tale.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It isn't some kind of badger.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's like, Hey, Matt does look, this is how it goes.

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_01]: This is what happens.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's horrible.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and they're vampires.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's like, it's not, you know, he's not a romantic figure.

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, a lot of the film versions try to make him romantic, you know?

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, uh, uh, you know, the, the Coppola version, Bram Stoker's Dracula, you know, has

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_06]: this whole thing about, uh, Mina being the reincarnation of his lost love.

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And Coppola was quoted during the PR tours as saying, you know, the original novel isn't

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_06]: a horror novel.

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a love story.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_06]: No, it fucking isn't.

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_06]: There is no evidence of that in the book at all.

[00:29:12] [SPEAKER_06]: That's, that's a contemporary reinterpretation.

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_06]: The only, he's, he's a monster and we never forget it.

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_01]: No, he only, he only laments for himself at times.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't think of anyone else.

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's a man of his time.

[00:29:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And that time is passing him by because he can't, which necessitates the brides.

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_01]: He's, he's now everything's moving on.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and by an eventual change of locale.

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and so he is, he is, uh, one of the beautiful things is it's not a curse in the

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_01]: sense on him that, okay, there it is.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And we all know it, it develops with his existence and it changes with his circumstance.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And that is so good that you're not, Matt does not trap us in, in just the simple lore and

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_01]: what we know and whatever.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever.

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_01]: He's he, what he's doing is well, to me, at least it's like, well, this is what would

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01]: happen.

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there is something changing though.

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's the world around him.

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_01]: There is something changing.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's Dracula didn't start saying, God, I'm going to be lonely.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_01]: He never did that.

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_01]: He said, I'm going to do conquer.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to take, I'm going to do.

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And then when this starts, he's lonely, but he's not going to sit around and go, Matt doesn't

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_01]: write a, I'm so dull.

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_01]: He's not that.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, uh, it's, there's a lust there that isn't just blood.

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_06]: He accepts it as his, what he knows his role is, you know, the line in the second one, something

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_06]: about how, uh, uh, come, you know, uh, being an aristocrat is being lonely and, you know,

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_06]: camaraderie is the purview of soldiers and peasants.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And then to add to it, you're trapped in a castle with three women.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_04]: A remote.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and it does.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And as, as it would happen if we were, it's not going to work out the way you think.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's wonderful.

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_01]: That's wonderful.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Matt doesn't play.

[00:31:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course the gals are going, when's dinner?

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's an obvious question, right?

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_04]: You got to feed them.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I was, when I was digging into and doing a little bit of background, uh, historical

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_04]: perspective for the interview, it's come to light, I guess that fairly recently that a

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_04]: lot of the brides were inspired by the three witches in Macbeth.

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Sure.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, from that, that manuscript found in Pennsylvania that now I think Paul Allen owns or something

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_04]: like that.

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and Stoker's time at the Lyceum theater and all that.

[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_04]: And I guess, uh, Macbreath, it was one of the first plays that they did after Henry Irvin

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_04]: bought it.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Yep.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_04]: So did you, did you take any of that history and inject the brides with any of that?

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, just in the fact that as in Macbeth, there's not much distinction between the three

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_06]: witches, you know what I mean?

[00:32:18] [SPEAKER_06]: So, so, you know, I had to come up with all that.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and in fact, if anybody has seen, uh, Ethan Cohen's really remarkable recent film adaptation

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_06]: of Macbeth.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, the three witches are all played by one actress who, who, uh, triplicates herself

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_06]: at certain points in the, in the camera work.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and it's, it's incredible.

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_06]: But, uh, but the, the whole point there is the witches are meant to represent, even though

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Shakespeare never really, uh, describes it as such, but they're meant to represent, uh,

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_06]: the three stages of womanhood, you know, like a maiden, uh, a matron and a crone, you know?

[00:32:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, uh, there again, here I had to come up with three completely different women.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and we, we have three completely different women with motivations in their relationship

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: with him and why and how they become vampires and what they're like after they become vampires.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and it is something that, that, uh, I think is one of the most enjoyable things I've

[00:33:17] [SPEAKER_01]: ever worked on is the sequence of him courting.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: It is, it is absolutely fascinating.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I think, I think it, it's one of the most interesting things, if not the most interesting

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_01]: thing that I've drawn is this sequence of how each one of these women come to his life.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Because as Matt said, they're very different and very different circumstances.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, to see, to see, uh, Vlad not just play the vampire card right off the bat, you

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_01]: know, um, is he's going through how an aristocrat would do it, you know, uh, each at their own

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_01]: station, each is, uh, each one having to respond differently to, to his wooing, um, all ending

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_01]: the same way.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, Matt, Matt does this nice thing.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Evil as it, as it's expressed and used always diminishes those that do it.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It just does.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And every time it gets, uh, even if they become more powerful, they become smaller.

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting to see that each girl, uh, that what those things are that, that get

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_01]: bring him to him, he diminishes it.

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It, it starts becoming, they become less of that thing.

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, because their humanity.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:34:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And they, until they're just about their lust and he has all these big plans.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they don't, their, their plans were small.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Their needs were smaller.

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and that is interesting.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and it does, it does color who they are and they are women of their time.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's even more fascinating.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_04]: So you don't have a whole lot of, of mythology there that you have to adhere to in any way.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, they've been elaborated on in film, you know, starting in 1931.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_04]: So Kelly, I'm curious about form language for the three.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Was there anything that inspired you?

[00:35:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Is there anything that you already knew?

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew, I knew I wanted to be influenced by nothing because Matt was creating them

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_01]: out of whole cloth.

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_01]: We knew who they were.

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And so what happened was I knew I couldn't go look at anything that had been done in film.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to look at any, anything in books, any, nothing.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So I started basing it on women.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I knew, so I have their body language and I was very fortunate in reading this.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, that just sort of hit me was I was thinking I need something new.

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_01]: What am I going to do?

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_01]: What am I going to do?

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And I can't, you know, Matt's doing this thing.

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to follow that lead just like, uh, uh, uh, anything you want, you want to

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: live up to what you're getting or at least give it a shot.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I read one and I went, well, God, this seems like this, uh, uh, gal, my wife knows,

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, and then it, and that kept happening.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So I, I read it over and I thought, you know, it got to a point where I just, I just wanted

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_01]: to spend a little time with them all and see how they move.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And just see how they hold themselves.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of warned them.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I said, if you don't want to, that's fine.

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I described it to him, what Matt had done and they all went for it.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_01]: They all want it.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_01]: As soon as I said, they want, yes.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And I went, well, no, horrible things are going to happen to you and you're going to do

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_01]: horrible things.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you okay with that?

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And not like I'm doing portraiture, but it's them.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And just, and it was, it's how did I get them to move, how they hold themselves.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, and it really helped.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't normally do that.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I, um, I can play act it in my head, but this Matt had done something really unique

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_01]: here.

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's, uh, that him bringing those individualistic inspirations to the three characters

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_06]: absolutely reflects what I was trying to do, which is to give it these three individual

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_06]: women.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, you know, when you look at the cinematic interpretations, they don't really get

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_06]: individualized very much.

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_06]: They tend to be a collective unit, the three, you know, um, in the Lugosi version, they're

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_06]: all very ethereal.

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_06]: They all wear kind of the same white shroud.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_06]: They move very slow and ghost-like, um, in the Christopher Lee versions, uh, they tend

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_06]: to be very feral, uh, lots of low bodices and, uh, big, big teeth and lots of feral hunger,

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_06]: you know, um, the, uh, the, uh, BBC adaptation with, uh, Louis Jordan.

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, they're very cat-like there.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_06]: They're, they're, they flit around and they, they're laughing and teasing Jonathan Harker

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_06]: as they're trying to seduce him.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_06]: And then of course in the Coppola one, they're just incredibly sexualized.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_06]: They absolutely materialize out of the bed to draw Harker down.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, at one point, one of them is very obviously, you know, feeding on his penis.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And another one, uh, at one point is licking his bare nipple as it sprays this stream of

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_06]: blood up into her mouth, you know?

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so all of those things didn't really give an individual, um, uh, identity to each of

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_06]: those women, but they're, those are all very, very cool, fascinating interpretations of, of

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_06]: that, uh, that motif, you know?

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so, you know, we tried to, we tried to incorporate all of that and, and yet still do

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_06]: it our own unique way.

[00:38:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to apologize.

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I, I'm hoping that I'll have to apologize to all the girls I used as models in this when

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_01]: it's done.

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I want it.

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I want it that bad.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, sorry.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_01]: This is for art.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_04]: I was going to ask if any of those, uh, you were part of the, the, the women that screened

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_04]: the book for you after you used them as models.

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I I've let, uh, two of them actually read parts of the script because they're fascinated by

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: it.

[00:39:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and what they all wanted, and this is fascinating because I was very blessed to

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_01]: about what Matt was doing.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I showed them the first book.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_01]: They all wanted to, it didn't matter.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_01]: The worst, I said, no, really, it's bad.

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Look.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And they go, Ooh, more.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So they kept, you know, uh, and they all.

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_06]: There's a certain Halloween mode that comes in there, right?

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_06]: They want to dress up as monsters, you know, their own real life.

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and it, but it, it has been so helpful to me, uh, because I found something that was,

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_01]: that was unique and just how, like I said, how they talk, how they move, how they, how

[00:39:56] [SPEAKER_01]: they hold themselves.

[00:39:58] [SPEAKER_01]: They became alive because Matt had them alive in a script.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was, you know, usually when you read something and, uh, you go, well, this'll be

[00:40:07] [SPEAKER_01]: the tough part.

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_01]: That'll be that.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_01]: That was the tough part to me.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It was just body language, not the locales, not any, all this stuff that should be hard

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_01]: was easy.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_01]: But the play, the acting they're doing, the, the stuff they do, um, Matt wrote them so

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_01]: differently.

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_01]: They had to be different.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So I, you know, I would say, well, you know, you're kind of a, this girl, this, this kind

[00:40:28] [SPEAKER_01]: of, they were fine.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I, and, and I do think.

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_01]: You actually give them names too.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and so now, um, you know, I, I do think that, that it, it has made those pages

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_01]: where you see them introduced really, really work because both Matt and I are on the same

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_01]: page on, on how I'm making them that original.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And frankly, it make, it cranks up how horrifying they are and how horrified you are when you

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_01]: see what happens to them.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's, it's like I said, there's a, there, there's a touch of sadness there as well.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_06]: There is.

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_06]: They each lose something.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_06]: They each lose something and it's real evident what it is too.

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And it is kind of a mistake.

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt makes it bloody and erotic at the same time.

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So yes, you're sad and then you go, wow.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, but that's, but that's the story and that's what they are.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, it, it strips away.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt, Matt has it be that this curse extends beyond him and it absolutely works.

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So of course, like I said, the women who are on basis on it all dig this.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, but I think it's entertaining and, and like you said, kind of, there's a tragedy

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_01]: to it.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, there it's, it's because they're women of their time, it becomes more fascinating to

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_01]: me.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_04]: I was going to ask you about where they sort of land in time because Coppola's interpretation

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_04]: really felt like, um, we're just trying to go 90 miles the opposite direction from

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Victorian repression, you know?

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and of course the vampire mythology and Stoker's book and everything was, was a response

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_04]: to it at that time, um, of, of that sexual repression and, and exploration of it as they

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_04]: were able to do without going too far.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_04]: So kind of where, where do they hit, you know, kind of in a spectrum?

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Well, as Kelly said, it's pretty, uh, you got to figure this is, uh, um, Victorian England's

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_06]: one thing.

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_06]: This isn't taking place in Victorian England.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_06]: This is taking place in the, in the privacy of a castle high up on a mountaintop in Romania.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_05]: And they're not too repressed.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So they feel, they feel pretty free and entitled to just behave however the fuck they want,

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_01]: you know?

[00:42:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And they're from Eastern Europe 500 years ago, 400 years ago.

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So they're going to be according.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Yep.

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, Matt, you've hinted about a fourth bride, uh, and other interviews that I was reading.

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_04]: So maybe there is.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say, is that something you can like dance around without giving it away?

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_06]: It's surprising.

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_06]: It'll be cool.

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_06]: It's a neat, it's a neat development.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Yep.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, and keeping with, uh, with, uh, what we lay down in this one and, and everything

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_06]: was gone before.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_01]: So nothing new.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Everything Matt does is from Mr.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Stoker.

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And then he expands on it.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, as, as a student of the lore myself, a little bit of the historical, um, I'm curious

[00:43:31] [SPEAKER_04]: about one thing that was in the, the impaler, um, in, in the Skoloman's lore itself.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_04]: And that's the weather maker.

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_04]: So we have this, this gorgeously rendered beast of the apocalypse and the sleeping dragon

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_04]: that Kelly did beautifully.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, but as a graduating student, Vlad is supposed to ride, or perhaps in this case, it's metaphorical

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_04]: that he becomes the dragon.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_04]: I was just curious about that.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_06]: It, it, uh, he won't ride it until the end of days.

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Satan says my, my champion will ride out on this if he survives that one.

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_06]: When, when, uh, when Satan's reign on earth, uh, uh, comes to fruition, then the beast will

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_06]: awaken and supposedly his champion will.

[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_06]: So, you know, you have to figure Satan's done this, um, uh, you know, once every seven years

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_06]: and, and he keeps one as his champion.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_06]: And so he's, he's got some more champions lingering around.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_06]: He's just kind of waiting to see which one lasts and which one ends up being the most heinous.

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, the one that will represent his, uh, his infernal desires the best.

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, but yes, of course there's the metaphor of the fact that he is known as the son of the

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_06]: dragon.

[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Dracul is, uh, uh, I just love that.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I know none of his students tried to kill Satan.

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_06]: That's what I love.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_01]: None of them, none of them, you know, took a shift.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_06]: That was another big point in writing it when I was getting towards the end, I was like,

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_06]: all right, he has to get rid of those other students somehow.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, wait, he has to impale them.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_06]: His go-to.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_01]: His go-to.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It isn't just cut their throat or poison them.

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, make them suffer.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And that, that, that scene where he's out in the woods with that sled and he's chopping

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_06]: trees and he suddenly realized, oh, he's making a bunch of huge steaks.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_06]: That was a great moment.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_04]: That is a great moment.

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, you both have different covers for the projects.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm curious here.

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Is there an inside bet on, on who will get more sales?

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_04]: There's got to be a lot of sales.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Kelly, Kelly's on this.

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_06]: Mine's, mine's just to appeal to my particular fans.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, Kelly's, Kelly's the main cover for.

[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I really don't care who does as long as it's a lot of them.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure.

[00:45:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I was a backer for volume one and I'm a backer for volume two.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_04]: I absolutely love these.

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_06]: I will say with, you know, when we, when we come to our covers, we do talk about them

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_06]: quite a bit and, you know, try and hone them down.

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, there's, there's a, there's a, there's a precedent for what Dracula

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_06]: illustrations look like.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And we wanted to get up close and become very symbolic.

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, so for instance, with the brides, we both decided early on, we don't see

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Dracula on the cover of the bride.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_06]: It's the brides, you know?

[00:46:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_06]: And, and, you know, with the, with the cover for number one, we, we decided

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_06]: thanks.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_06]: Fucking focus on those fangs, you know?

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Sure.

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_06]: For, for again, the reason that he's not really a vampire towards the end of the

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_06]: book.

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and, and Matt is a, is more of a designer.

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So I prefer his input on that because I will illustrate.

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm afraid it'll look like every other color cover that you do for a

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Batman thing.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_06]: And we, we have a good, we have a good balance and relationship in that

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_06]: interchange, you know?

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, uh, similarly the, the first page of, uh, both book one and book two, we went through

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_06]: several different versions of Kelly illustrated it.

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And I came back with, okay, from a storytelling point of view, here's my concerns about this

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_06]: imagery and why we should make.

[00:47:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And I, and I look, I love being an illustrator.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So I get inspired by the design thing that he does.

[00:47:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I figured, well, I'll do, uh, end papers on the book just for fun, just to see.

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And if no one wants them, that's fine.

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just thinking when you open it, it would be better than just, you know, whatever,

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_01]: uh, map finish inside, you know, black or whatever.

[00:47:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I just thought, Oh, that'd be interesting because some of the nice old volumes I have,

[00:47:26] [SPEAKER_01]: have these kinds of cool end papers.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_06]: And let me point out, you only get the end papers in the Kickstarter hardcover edition.

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Which is why we do those things.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, this is a good opportunity to talk about the dark horse edition, which is coming out

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_06]: in, uh, about a week or so, about a week or so.

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's the 23rd.

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, uh, we always knew we wanted to try the Kickstarter model.

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_06]: It being such a new, uh, phase of the comic book marketplace.

[00:47:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but at the same time, we knew we wanted to reach a bigger audience as well.

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So, uh, so, you know, I've had this long, long, long running relationship with dark horse

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_06]: and they were very happy to step in and release the trade paperback edition.

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's a very pretty edition.

[00:48:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, it has French flaps.

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Do you know what I mean by that?

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, but it does not have the, uh, the end paper.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_06]: So the only place to get the hardcover and the end papers is by the, uh, pledging to

[00:48:19] [SPEAKER_06]: the Kickstarter camp.

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_06]: Is there any difference in size formatting at all?

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Nope.

[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_06]: So as we, we knew, uh, also from the beginning that we wanted to go European album size.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Right.

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, part of that was, uh, Dracula is so distinctly a European narrative.

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, uh, and I just always felt, I had never seen Kelly work at that size.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_06]: And I felt Kelly's art would really, uh, uh, benefit by having an extra room to breathe.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And he bitches about having to cut his own paper size.

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I had to buy a paper cutter.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I had to buy all this paper.

[00:48:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And I, and I, and I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm, I'm so stupid.

[00:48:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm listening to Matt say, I want to try this size.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Here's the book.

[00:48:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going, yeah, that sounds great.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that sounds great.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you sit down and you realize you just can't go and pull a piece of paper.

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't do it.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So I order like this big stack and then I go, well, I'll just cut it.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I realized I can't cut it.

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And you know, we, we, we see the art on screen and everything and it looks great.

[00:49:14] [SPEAKER_06]: But then once I actually saw it in print, I was like, man, was this the right call?

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_06]: It is.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_06]: It really, it really, it really has that, that scope.

[00:49:22] [SPEAKER_06]: And that is worth all the effort.

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And it does, it does feel like you're getting something because you are getting something

[00:49:29] [SPEAKER_01]: different from, from every aspect of it.

[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And it echoes creepy and eerie.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And again, heavy metal and that era of comics that meant so much to both of us when we were.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh no, look, I would love, I'd love to get, you know, in my silly head, I'd love to get

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_01]: like a foreign version in another language, you know, because then it would be like, there

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_01]: we are.

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_01]: We, we, we've entered that realm with.

[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_01]: We are, we are negotiating for that, by the way.

[00:49:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, man.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Very cool.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_01]: There you go.

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, that's right.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I forgot all about that.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I would.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:50:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, uh, but that was always my thing was like, you know, uh, one day when matter

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_01]: and I are on our grand tour of Europe, there will be these additions for us to sign.

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_04]: That's, that's the dream.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Nice.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, you have two more volumes after the brides.

[00:50:17] [SPEAKER_04]: So that's assuming Kelly's, Kelly's wrist hold up.

[00:50:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause like.

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_01]: That has to be tremendous.

[00:50:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what Matt has is a good ally on this is my wife is the one keeps saying you have

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_01]: to keep doing this because she never cared about comics.

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Never.

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, she was a civilian and in this project, she's all of a sudden become an expert on what

[00:50:37] [SPEAKER_01]: we should be doing.

[00:50:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and it is, it's charming because I'll be sitting there and she'll just start dropping

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_01]: questions.

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And I know she's read this thing.

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, really read it.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it is.

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, and that's unique for me because normally we talk about everything but career stuff.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Me too.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I know.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_06]: As Kelly's term, a civilian, my wife's a civilian too.

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:51:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And she has been for many years.

[00:51:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just, she's at first it started because she saw me happy all the time and I'm a happy

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_01]: guy, but she said, no, you're, you're happy when you're doing this.

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, there's a lot of stuff in here that, that makes me that way.

[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So she goes, well, let me see.

[00:51:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, because I would say, God, Matt did this thing.

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_01]: This is so different.

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_01]: She knows this stuff.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_01]: She's, she's read it.

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she got a degree in English literature, so she knows this stuff and I hand it to her

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_01]: and she comes back to me.

[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_01]: She goes, this is really good.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Like for comics, this is really, you know, and it wasn't that for comics thing.

[00:51:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It was, this is just really good on its, on its face.

[00:51:41] [SPEAKER_06]: And we have four, we have four volumes planned because I have ideas for four volumes.

[00:51:47] [SPEAKER_06]: If we get to the end of volume four and all of a sudden I, I, I have more good ideas,

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_06]: we may end up doing more.

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, that's, that's, that's what I do is sit around and think up ideas.

[00:51:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So hopefully that will all come to fruition.

[00:52:00] [SPEAKER_01]: The best books, the best anything are the ones where the tale grows in the telling.

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and that's what it, it means anything can happen.

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Things will grow.

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, um, and, and I appreciate that.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I like that myself.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I, I don't like being trapped by stuff.

[00:52:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to be, um, uh, held accountable as it were for something.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, if I feel there's a better idea or a new angle we can take or something, uh, Matt

[00:52:29] [SPEAKER_01]: will figure out how to make it all stitched together.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's fine.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, that, that's what he's, his job is.

[00:52:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Mine is, is to simply make sure that what he says, that emotion is on the page, that

[00:52:40] [SPEAKER_01]: emotional impact.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_01]: However, I can get that.

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:52:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I won't try to pin you down, but I'm personally hoping that you get to explore

[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Elizabeth Bathory at some point, given kind of their mutual family connection to the

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Order of the Dragon historically.

[00:52:55] [SPEAKER_04]: So, um, are there any other recommendations that either of you have to go into this

[00:53:01] [SPEAKER_04]: process, uh, for people who are just interested in, in Dracula?

[00:53:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Like book recommendations?

[00:53:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, you can't lose, you can't lose with the OG.

[00:53:09] [SPEAKER_06]: The original, uh, novel is, is still really, really tremendous.

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, um, I'm extremely excited by Robert Eggers, uh, new upcoming, uh, version of Nosferatu,

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_06]: which is going to drop on, uh, Christmas day this year.

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, it, that strikes me as a, when he announced years ago, just after he had done the witch

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_06]: that he was thinking about doing a, uh, remake of Nosferatu, I thought, God, that guy could

[00:53:39] [SPEAKER_06]: pull it off.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_06]: That guy could really pull it off.

[00:53:42] [SPEAKER_06]: And you look at, that would mean that you've got the 1922 F.W.

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Murnau version considered one of them, if not the greatest silent film of all time.

[00:53:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Then you've got the Werner Herzog version in the seventies, which just so shockingly

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_06]: is, is absolutely as magnificent as the original, even though it's different.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_06]: You're right.

[00:54:03] [SPEAKER_06]: No, you're right.

[00:54:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And then this one looks to be great too.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Has there ever been a film done three times that each one would be judged as objectively

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_06]: great?

[00:54:12] [SPEAKER_06]: Now I'm jumping the gun a little bit there on the Eggers version because we haven't seen

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_01]: it, but the look of Nosferatu, you can say it, though it's not adaption, Salem's

[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Lot uses it really well there.

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_06]: It's influenced the appearance of vampires far more even than the Lugosi version.

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_06]: I do.

[00:54:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Not far more, but equally because, you know, most of the books do in the Hungarian accent

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_06]: and the widow's peak and the cape and all that, you know, which is not how he appears

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_06]: in the book at all, you know.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_01]: That one, that one with my kids who I've put through the ringer watching everything, that

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_01]: one always disturbed them, you know, the black and white.

[00:54:48] [SPEAKER_01]: When I showed him the Herzog one, my youngest son, because if you remember, you see Bruno

[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Gantz ride off, Harker rides off on the horse at the end.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that was Herzog saying it won't end.

[00:55:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So my son who was totally, he was a little kid at the time, loved it, goes, all right,

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_01]: put in Nosferatu too.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_06]: He grew up in the era when, of course, there's sequels.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_06]: There's got to be a sequel.

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_01]: He was like about eight or nine and he loved the Herzog one.

[00:55:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, okay, number two, I'm ready.

[00:55:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's go.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I'm sorry.

[00:55:23] [SPEAKER_01]: That's how it ends.

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_01]: He was, he still hopes that we get big enough, Matt, to complain to Herzog about no Nosferatu

[00:55:30] [SPEAKER_01]: too.

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Wow.

[00:55:33] Wow.

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_06]: I want to point out too, the first one is where we get the first instance of sunlight

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_06]: being deadly to vampires.

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Previously to that, they didn't like the sun and they tended to stay out of it, but Dracula

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_06]: walks around in the daylight.

[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_06]: He's just not as powerful.

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_06]: He can't transubstantiate into a mist or change shape into a bat or a wolf.

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And thus he's not as physically powerful.

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_06]: His power is diminished during the day, but sunlight does not burn him to a crisp, which

[00:56:00] [SPEAKER_06]: has become the norm in almost every vampire narrative ever since Nosferatu.

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, you look at something like-

[00:56:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it just makes him vulnerable to his enemies far more.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:56:09] [SPEAKER_06]: You look at something like Near Dark where they have that great shootout in the motel.

[00:56:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And as the bullet holes are coming through the wall, the real danger is the sunlight streaming

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_06]: through the bullet holes.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_06]: But again, in the original Vampire Legends, that's not the case.

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Carmilla, one of the first contemporary vampire tales, she moves around during the daylight.

[00:56:28] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, so that's just an interesting yet another addition to the, uh, the mythos from that

[00:56:34] [SPEAKER_06]: very first screen adaptation.

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:56:37] Cool.

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, everyone get those, uh, pledges in folks.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, this book is absolutely fantastic.

[00:56:42] [SPEAKER_04]: The first one I love.

[00:56:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, I, I honestly think it's Kelly's-

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_06]: We've got a lot of cool merch this time around.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Let me get this.

[00:56:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:56:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_06]: The boys got-

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_06]: We have a, we have a whole, uh, a whole swath of really great t-shirts.

[00:56:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, we didn't want to go too overboard with that kind of thing on the first one because

[00:56:59] [SPEAKER_06]: we were an unproven entity.

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, you know, we, we really wanted to make sure everything shipped on time.

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_06]: It did.

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_06]: And now we have a proven track record and we felt entitled to do some merch and there's

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_06]: the t-shirts look great.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_06]: The hats are totally cool.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_04]: I love the hats.

[00:57:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'll, I'll throw a link in the show notes to make it easy for everyone to find

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_04]: it so they don't have to hunt.

[00:57:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and Matt, what else, what else you got cooking?

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_04]: I saw some more Grendel coming down the pipe.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, uh, an ongoing Grendel thing.

[00:57:28] [SPEAKER_06]: The, uh, uh, it's a long story arc called Devil's Crucible that Dark Horse is releasing

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_06]: in four issue chunks per year.

[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_06]: So the, the fourth issue of the first series of Devil's Crucible Defiance comes out, uh,

[00:57:43] [SPEAKER_06]: today, in fact.

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, and then next summer will be, uh, the next one, which is called Devil's Crucible Sedition.

[00:57:49] [SPEAKER_06]: And then there'll be two more parts after that.

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm writing and drawing.

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_06]: It's the direct sequel.

[00:57:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, it's being colored by my son, uh, Brennan, who's my regular colorist.

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Uh, it's the direct sequel to the previous Grendel, uh, prime tale, uh, Devil's Odyssey.

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_06]: It's what happens when Grendel Prime comes back to earth from his, uh, sojourn into space,

[00:58:06] [SPEAKER_06]: which didn't pan out.

[00:58:08] [SPEAKER_06]: And, uh, and we find out things have been kind of turned on their ear and there's lots

[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_06]: of vampires.

[00:58:13] [SPEAKER_06]: So I'm, I'm deep.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm up to my knees, my balls, my, my vampires these days.

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_04]: So if you'll allow me a little bit here, um, I brought a visual aid last time you saw

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_04]: one of those, but that was a recently unearthed from the, the most, uh, cliched place ever,

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_04]: which was my parents' attic.

[00:58:33] [SPEAKER_04]: So it was from back in the day when I worked in, worked in three comic book shops in my

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_04]: teens.

[00:58:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, and I'm, I'm a huge Grendel fan.

[00:58:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I, I loved, I love those books back then.

[00:58:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the, and Matt did not tell me DC sent it to me.

[00:58:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I was, I, they got him ahead of time and there was, uh, an issue.

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt used to do the letters page and there was an issue where he had given me a great review

[00:58:58] [SPEAKER_01]: for Batman, uh, just doing regular Batman.

[00:59:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And that meant a lot to DC when they saw that.

[00:59:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember their marketing people said, we've got to do something with this because this is

[00:59:07] [SPEAKER_01]: really good.

[00:59:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, and they said, do you know, Matt?

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had to question for a minute, do I say I do or do I lie and say, God, never heard of

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt Wagner.

[00:59:21] [SPEAKER_01]: So, so I kind of chosen.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I said, well, I, you know, I know, I know people who know Matt.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I think.

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause they were so excited.

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, for me, uh, one of the things, one of the things that, that I like is that Matt does keep

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_01]: doing that and, and that it is, it has its, its, uh, uh, legacy.

[00:59:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's one of those things where it, it again keeps growing.

[00:59:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It's still as good as it always was.

[00:59:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And it keeps going.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, uh, that part, that part of it, it kind of makes you comforted in a, in the world of

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_01]: comics.

[00:59:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Now it changes so much and everything that there's something that naturally grows, has its own

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_01]: thing.

[01:00:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, well, and part of it is I established from the beginning was I was going to keep changing

[01:00:08] [SPEAKER_06]: it, you know?

[01:00:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_01]: It has its own life.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, as a fan, I am very, very happy to see it continuing to be, to be developed and

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_04]: expanded upon Kelly.

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_04]: What about you?

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_04]: I thought I saw some recent detective comics.

[01:00:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, those were, yeah, those were, I did a big stack of covers and stuff like that

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_01]: a while ago and they just released some, they said, can you send us 10 or 12 of them?

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And you just, um, yeah, how about that?

[01:00:33] [SPEAKER_06]: They, they're, they're outlined to Kelly's just do whatever you want and we'll burn it.

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what I did was I kind of told the story.

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't tell him.

[01:00:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I was kind of telling a little story with each cover, but cause it, it wasn't to relate.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't even have an idea of what they were going to do on the inside.

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_01]: No, most of what I look, what I'm doing is Dracula.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_01]: The most I can say is, uh, they just re-released, uh, the Batman Dracula stuff.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I did.

[01:00:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, I have to write some essays.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to draw anything really, but I have to do some essays and remembrances of

[01:01:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Len Wein for, uh, Swamp Thing.

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_01]: They're doing a big book of his Swamp Thing.

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, stuff, the stuff that, uh, the stuff I had done with him.

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_06]: So they-

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yes.

[01:01:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So, um, so that's a big volume of stuff, but that's not work intensive.

[01:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: That's just, that's my homework at night, Matt.

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I, you know, Lynn sits there and I kind of tell her and she types.

[01:01:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, um, but no, this is a big thing.

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So as soon as I'm done with Brides, I go on to, I don't know what he's going to call it,

[01:01:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Dracula London or something.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea, but it's, it's, it, that's my placement title now is people, people will

[01:01:46] [SPEAKER_01]: say, what are you doing next?

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I, well, I'm doing Brides and then I think it's Dracula London, but I don't know the title

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_01]: yet.

[01:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Just call it book three.

[01:01:53] [SPEAKER_01]: That'll do.

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Book three.

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I said that it, it's going to be, these are big and they are, uh, uh, where my

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_01]: real happy heart is.

[01:02:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't mind, I don't mind that at all.

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it, it's, I think what, what's great is hearing people say, I think this might be

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: your best work when you're at this end of my career rather than the other side.

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think it is.

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_04]: I think it is for sure.

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I utterly concur.

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'll always say story, story, story, story, story, story.

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: It's always story.

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and you can, there's nothing more punishing in that you feel you did a good job and nobody

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_01]: gave a damn because the story is just not there or it's mediocre or it just didn't catch.

[01:02:39] [SPEAKER_01]: This is one of those where I do feel the story in totally pump.

[01:02:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It totally pumps up.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So I, I never know what's going to happen.

[01:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the best, that's the best thing.

[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to, I don't rely on any of my former skills.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just, I've got to follow this.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, so Matt will throw stuff and I go, okay, how do I figure this out?

[01:02:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Or how do I do it?

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, but needless to say he manages.

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's because it's that exciting.

[01:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I walk around thinking like you method act for me.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And so to me, I'm thinking like, what would Vlad feel or what would he think or, or how would

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_01]: people react to him?

[01:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I love Matt writes him with frustration.

[01:03:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Cause that I am good at that one.

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's just this frustration, you know, uh, even when he gets what he wants, it's

[01:03:27] [SPEAKER_01]: not what he thinks he wants.

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So it just, these things draw themselves.

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_04]: You're probably too humble to call yourself a master, but coming from the perspective of

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_04]: a visual artist myself, once you get to that point of comfort and you know, just what

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_04]: you're doing and you just, you're in the zone and you don't have to think about it.

[01:03:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's two guys.

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_01]: There's this one that's talking to you and the one who sits at the drawing board.

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I, I have reconciled that fact because my family has all looked at me like, Oh God,

[01:03:55] [SPEAKER_01]: here's that one who sits at the table because I'll be consumed with it while cooking.

[01:04:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be thinking and I'll be frustrated with something not going right or whatever.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think they're, I always think they're making fun of me.

[01:04:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I finally had to reconcile.

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_01]: No, that's true.

[01:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I'm sure that's true of a lot of people, but it's, but there are two guys

[01:04:16] [SPEAKER_01]: and this guy doesn't think of anything up.

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: He just reacts.

[01:04:19] [SPEAKER_01]: He's a fan boy.

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: The other one, he, he will go in there and do that.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I sound like the Hulk or something, but you know what I mean?

[01:04:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I've, I've, I never worry when I can't think of something like this because I, I can

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_01]: trust that that will come on, on the paper.

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it will happen there.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Matt sets me up really well, you know, and, and at that point, what I'll do is what's

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_01]: my tagline is that two things, really there's Stanley Kubrick's great adage of you either

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: care or you don't.

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So I have no trouble with putting in a long day.

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You either care or you don't.

[01:05:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And Matt's, I'm doing something new.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_01]: So when I sit there, I go, I can't just rely on my tropes and my tricks and my stuff.

[01:05:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I've got to think of something different.

[01:05:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, or I've got to think of at least presenting it with that, uh, verb that Matt

[01:05:20] [SPEAKER_03]: has.

[01:05:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Matt has a great, um, underlying, uh, confidence in his story.

[01:05:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not saying the one sitting here, I mean, when he writes it, it's just, this is

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_01]: it.

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And you have to, you have to rise to that.

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you have to rise to that.

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, I think that the, the most frustrating thing I had on this is when we, and the first

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_01]: one, we had it virtually done and I'm like, oh man, I can't fucking show this to anyone.

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_01]: This is trying to be nuts.

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_06]: We did the first one kind of far in advance.

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, normally if you're working for a publisher, it's pretty fast.

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_06]: You get a, you get a reaction because it's not long after finished till it's in the.

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and even so you're, you're, it's in house.

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So you're, you're, your editors are seeing it and you, I'll always hear from you.

[01:06:10] [SPEAKER_01]: From, from various people at DC, they'll always get ahold of me.

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but this one, no one was seeing it.

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, just, I would hear.

[01:06:19] [SPEAKER_06]: It was indeed frustrating.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_01]: No.

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And, and then I'd get these tantalizing bits for like from Rob Lee who works on everything

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: saying, I think this is the best book I'm lettering right now.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's all he would say.

[01:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: He would just drop that.

[01:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is the best one.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And Matt, he doesn't give compliments too much.

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but he would, he will tell me that.

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I think this is the best thing I've done.

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, or I'm on.

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So, but then you hear that and you're really high and you realize, well, Matt's seen it.

[01:06:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Rob's seen it.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: My wife has seen it and that's it.

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_01]: You know?

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, there's a little sadness when it goes out because then the whole world gets to own

[01:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: it.

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[01:06:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but, but I have.

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But so far the response has been great.

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I have never had a response like this.

[01:06:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Frankly, I've never had a response.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I can measure it against, I can measure it against great responses.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: We're like career changing responses.

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I haven't had one like this.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It has been that good.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I really love seeing the sample pages that you've been posting on Twitter X, whatever

[01:07:17] [SPEAKER_04]: we're calling it this week.

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_04]: As a fan, I'm excited for sure.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and, and not too, I think they're terrific, but they're the lesser when we get to the

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_01]: greater.

[01:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course.

[01:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And you can't, like Matt says, we can't give it away.

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: We can't give it away.

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's, you know, all publishers, I go, well, this is just storytelling or this is

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: just whatever.

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, they have been getting a lot of good reaction.

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like what you don't want to hear is, oh, it's not as good as the first or you're losing.

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not this, this as Matt amped it up.

[01:07:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I, and it's not amping it up.

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: What I think is, is it grows in the telling.

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I went back and looked at the first one.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't looked at it for a while and I was like going, wow, we did good on this.

[01:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: This is good.

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_01]: But I hadn't looked at it for, for quite some time.

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, and, and.

[01:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: This is healthy.

[01:08:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to dwell on stuff.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: No, you don't.

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I, I don't really.

[01:08:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I go forward, go forward, go forward.

[01:08:11] [SPEAKER_04]: So.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, you have the Brides that is funding now.

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_04]: I'll have the link in the show notes.

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_04]: You have the Impaler that is dropping with Dark Horse.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_04]: You said the 20.

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's a week from today.

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay.

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_04]: So everybody look out for that.

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Kelly and Matt, I appreciate you both coming on the show so much.

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of a comic stream come true for the young 18 year old.

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_04]: I know that makes us feel all old, but you know.

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_06]: We've, as Kelly says, we've reconciled to that part.

[01:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's just be glad I'm working on someone undead at my age.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: There you go.

[01:08:44] [SPEAKER_04]: There you go.

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks, man.

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_04]: This is Byron O'Neill.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And on behalf of all of us at Comic Book Yeti, thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time.

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_04]: This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner, brought to you by Comic Book Yeti.

[01:08:57] [SPEAKER_04]: We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff.

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[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_04]: And more importantly, how we can improve.

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