Murewa Ayodele talks Storm and Akogun: Brutalizer of the Gods

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

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

[00:00:10] Kicking off our 250th episode of the podcast, we wanted to thank a few people. I wanted to let Jimmy go first. Jimmy?

[00:00:18] Hey, it's Jimmy and I can't believe that we are on episode number

[00:00:23] 250 of the Cryptid Creator Corner podcast. I am blown away

[00:00:27] by the response to the podcast. I hear from folks

[00:00:31] quite a bit who really love the podcast, who want to come on the podcast.

[00:00:37] Not just my brother Bobby,

[00:00:39] but shout out to Bobby, the Cryptid Creator Corner's number one misdemeaned fan.

[00:00:44] But I really want to thank you, the listeners.

[00:00:47] You're the reason we do the podcast. We hopefully are bringing you some really fun, interesting, informative

[00:00:55] comic creator interviews. I want to thank all of our guests.

[00:00:58] We've had some incredible guests on, in particular the past year, some comic creators

[00:01:04] that I really respect and admire.

[00:01:08] And not only find interesting to talk to but you know learn from. I've gotten to interview Tom King and Scott Snyder,

[00:01:16] David Peppos,

[00:01:18] Jared Luhan. It's just been

[00:01:21] fantastic. I also want to thank Byron, the other host of the Cryptid Creator Corner who does so much work

[00:01:28] to make the podcast what it is in terms of the editing, putting together little graphics, posting on social media,

[00:01:35] coordinating with comic shops and

[00:01:40] advertisers. He does so much to try and get the word out about the podcast.

[00:01:45] And lastly, but certainly not least, I really, really want to thank Matt Leggetti

[00:01:50] who started Comic Book Yeti. He is the comic book yeti.

[00:01:54] He brought me in to be a reviewer. He reached out to me on social media.

[00:01:58] I became the interview editor doing written interviews and you know now

[00:02:04] one of the hosts of the podcast and I just absolutely

[00:02:08] 100% on the bottom of my heart love doing it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:02:15] This podcast has been one of the strangest blessings of my life.

[00:02:19] I started it in a time. My health was probably the worst it has ever been after a huge autoimmune event.

[00:02:26] Now as a disabled person, my life looks way different than it did prior and this outlet has given me the opportunity to

[00:02:32] connect with the community in a way I would not otherwise have been able to do.

[00:02:36] I'm forever grateful to the creators who have taken the time out of their busy schedules and lives to answer all my questions.

[00:02:42] I'm grateful to the listeners, whether this is your first time with us or to the veterans who have been with us all along.

[00:02:48] Thank you.

[00:02:49] I'm grateful to my co-host Jimmy for keeping me grounded.

[00:02:52] When I have a tendency to focus too much about the numbers, his enthusiasm for indie comics remains boundless

[00:02:57] and he has jumped in and carried the load several times from my health inevitably tanked for a bit and kept us going.

[00:03:03] I'm grateful to Matt Leggetti who started Comic Book Yeti for creating a platform for lots of people and for always putting up with my zany ideas.

[00:03:11] Lastly, I'm grateful to my family who understands how important this is to me and lets me sacrifice some of my good hours to keep this going.

[00:03:19] Yeah, grateful.

[00:03:21] Rest assured we aren't slowing down.

[00:03:23] Thanks for listening and now on to the show.

[00:03:26] Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of The Cryptic Creator Corner.

[00:03:30] I'm Byron O'Neill your host for today's Comics Creator Chat and I'm welcomed by a new guest on the show today.

[00:03:35] Marewa Ayodeli.

[00:03:37] He's a rising writing star in the medium with 2023's I Am Iron Man and the ony press series Akogun, brutalizer of the gods with artist and friend Dotonakande,

[00:03:47] hitting stores and pull lists right now, including my own.

[00:03:50] I'm really enjoying that series.

[00:03:52] And this October he will be writing everyone's favorite Elemental Mutant Storm, a solo ongoing series with artist Lucas Werneck for Marvel that launches the X-Men franchise as a part of the larger from the ashes storyline.

[00:04:05] I'm going to do my best here.

[00:04:07] Okay, so Marewa is a Ekabo, Bawani, Osewa.

[00:04:11] So welcome.

[00:04:12] How are you doing?

[00:04:14] Yeah, I'm doing very good.

[00:04:15] You're good at very good.

[00:04:17] Yes.

[00:04:18] Yes.

[00:04:19] Okay.

[00:04:19] I bet you didn't expect that.

[00:04:21] Like I know.

[00:04:22] Yeah, I had to polish up on it.

[00:04:25] Like I know a little bit of Yoruba just a little bit from from my university days.

[00:04:31] Like I might be able to find a bathroom, but like one of my degrees is anthropology.

[00:04:35] And I took several African religions and cultural classes when I was there and I was supposed to go to Nigeria.

[00:04:41] And then I broke my tibia.

[00:04:43] I was going to do like a summer like a residence there in Lagos.

[00:04:47] So I missed the trip, but I've been to Nigeria several times like working concerts and stuff throughout the years.

[00:04:54] So I absolutely love the country.

[00:04:55] It's beautiful country, beautiful people.

[00:04:57] That's nice to hear.

[00:04:58] Thank you.

[00:04:59] So I'm on family business.

[00:05:01] Yeah.

[00:05:02] Well, I'm trying.

[00:05:03] I do my best.

[00:05:05] Um, so I actually like to kind of start with Nigeria and its comics footprint.

[00:05:12] You know, we've had other African comics creators on the show.

[00:05:15] I've talked to Isaac Mohajani chatting about Land of the Living Gods with Aftershock.

[00:05:20] And my co-host Jimmy recently interviewed Juniba, you know, whose work I adore.

[00:05:24] Yeah, I actually just finished Mobilis.

[00:05:27] And but I don't really have a great perspective on what a reasonable footprint looks like there.

[00:05:32] You know, like what kids are growing up with these days.

[00:05:35] You know, we have kind of our American superhero tradition and Europe has like Tintin and Asterix.

[00:05:40] Japan gave this manga.

[00:05:41] You know, what does the scene look like there?

[00:05:45] It's changed over the years.

[00:05:47] Well, when I was growing up, the most popular comic book where you could get physically anywhere.

[00:05:54] Usually petrol stations, banks, not comic shops there are no comic shops.

[00:06:01] Basically, I will get in front of the bookshops to both petrol stations, restaurants,

[00:06:07] banks, you could find this book called Stupor Strikes.

[00:06:10] It's basically a comic book series that we studied every every issues a standalone about soccer players.

[00:06:20] OK, and it's really, really fun.

[00:06:23] A lot of people love that and enjoyed it.

[00:06:27] I I just start out as a soccer fan.

[00:06:31] I love soccer for a little while as a teenager, but then kind of love kind of died off a little.

[00:06:37] Sobo, I know lots of friends.

[00:06:40] They love it.

[00:06:41] Everybody knows that.

[00:06:42] So that was very, very popular in Nigeria and also here in a lot of other African

[00:06:47] countries that South American country.

[00:06:50] It tells millions of copies per issue.

[00:06:53] OK, I'll have to check that out.

[00:06:55] And you don't have to call it soccer.

[00:06:57] You don't have to recognize it.

[00:06:58] I know it is football.

[00:06:59] I love the sport, so it's all good if you say football like the rest of the world does.

[00:07:07] Well, is that kind of what you grew up with?

[00:07:10] You know, finding whatever you could in, you know, a gas station or whatever,

[00:07:15] you know, kind of what heavily influenced your comics DNA?

[00:07:20] I think this is also the same thing in some other countries, even like in the US.

[00:07:25] You know, things like comic books and movies that are easy to access

[00:07:30] when you're living in a city or when you're living in a very small town

[00:07:34] that it becomes less accessible to watch.

[00:07:37] Maybe I think Rob Lifer was saying I think it has to go to a comic

[00:07:42] or to watch a movie is that I drive in a town or something like that.

[00:07:46] So I live in a very small town called Osho Book in Osho State, Nigeria.

[00:07:51] So I didn't really have access to that growing up.

[00:07:55] I think I only had a few DVDs of like

[00:07:59] classic Disney movies like Cinderella and Snow White.

[00:08:05] So I didn't really have access to cartoons.

[00:08:07] I didn't have access to comic books or and at that time

[00:08:12] also I was born with an art deformity.

[00:08:16] So I was always a very sick child and it took a while before my parents knew.

[00:08:21] They saw that I was misbehaving a lot.

[00:08:23] So the girls thought I was a problem child and it was years later

[00:08:28] that the doctor said his problem is being because he's uncomfortable.

[00:08:32] He's constantly uncomfortable.

[00:08:34] The oxygen in his blood is not always sufficient.

[00:08:37] So I play hard and it's always just very strange.

[00:08:43] So my parents were also saving money.

[00:08:46] They were to have the surgery.

[00:08:48] So they can take me to have a surgery for my heart and the procedure is not done in Nigeria.

[00:08:54] The closest place that he gets was Ghana.

[00:08:57] And for the best place that the doctor suggested was in Israel.

[00:09:02] So they were kind of struggling for money because of that.

[00:09:06] They eventually couldn't afford the government to step in.

[00:09:10] So after that, after that, that was when I was four years old.

[00:09:14] So I think at around seven,

[00:09:17] you were more comfortable getting promotions in the works.

[00:09:21] And we could finally afford cable.

[00:09:25] OK. And at that time it was called DST.

[00:09:27] So Patune Tsok was like my first introduction to anything illustrated.

[00:09:33] So I was like and I immediately fell in love with Gendi

[00:09:36] but that pops keys Sam Raejak.

[00:09:38] Yeah, I loved Sam Raejak so much.

[00:09:40] I was always watching it all night long.

[00:09:43] And that kind of got my interest in animation and drawing and coloring.

[00:09:49] So I started experimenting and playing around with a lot of things.

[00:09:52] Trying to draw my own comic, colors or coloring books.

[00:09:56] And later I discovered Supairo's and I'm not sure how

[00:10:01] I learned that they came from comics first

[00:10:05] before they were adapted to this animation stuff.

[00:10:07] So I knew I had a rough idea of what comics were.

[00:10:11] So and very quickly, there's that Supairo comic

[00:10:15] that was very popular at that time too, that now got introduced

[00:10:19] because a lot of people are not watching this cartoons.

[00:10:22] It's called Indomitables.

[00:10:24] OK. I'm sure you know,

[00:10:27] I think it's a Malaysian noodle called Indomitables.

[00:10:31] So yeah, they're very popular here.

[00:10:34] That's basically the household noodles everybody eats.

[00:10:37] So just to further like, children love it the most.

[00:10:40] Adults didn't like it.

[00:10:41] Adults thought noodles were made from strange chemicals.

[00:10:44] OK.

[00:10:45] Like I had this batch for you.

[00:10:47] Shouldn't eat stuff like that.

[00:10:48] So only kids kind of liked them.

[00:10:50] So in an attempt to market to kids,

[00:10:53] they started this comic called Indomitables

[00:10:56] and they were basically like fantastic food repos.

[00:10:59] But it was a little fun.

[00:11:04] They by bit I when I left second

[00:11:08] just when I got to the university,

[00:11:09] there are the next guys that knew how to access this comic

[00:11:13] because there was no physical comic.

[00:11:14] I could not get access to them.

[00:11:15] So when I went to the university,

[00:11:17] there are the next guys that had like tons of like

[00:11:20] digital files.

[00:11:22] They are probably pirated by the way.

[00:11:24] A lot of digital files on their laptops

[00:11:26] and I'm like, yes, finally.

[00:11:28] So that's when I got into about my comics,

[00:11:31] Iron Man comics,

[00:11:32] is what's part of me off on that love of comics.

[00:11:37] And very quickly, I started writing my own

[00:11:40] trying to ask the tune to join me

[00:11:42] because it was a much better artist than I was.

[00:11:46] I was terribarded.

[00:11:47] I can't go to say my life anymore.

[00:11:50] So I would beg and please illustrate some of these things.

[00:11:53] But we always said no,

[00:11:55] because we were both like failing in our courses.

[00:11:59] So it was like I want to graduate.

[00:12:01] I still want to graduate at the right time.

[00:12:03] So please, after we go to school,

[00:12:06] I'll help out with this.

[00:12:08] So while I was just always writing,

[00:12:09] I've given up on having the grades my parents wanted.

[00:12:12] So yeah, that's my journey to comics.

[00:12:16] It started later, but mostly because of accessibility.

[00:12:20] OK, yeah, similar.

[00:12:22] Well, similar to similar story.

[00:12:24] Like I dropped out of school getting my anthropology degree

[00:12:27] and I dropped out of school to go work with rock bands.

[00:12:30] So like I feel what you're talking about

[00:12:32] with that like pull to do something different.

[00:12:35] You were in computer programming, is that right?

[00:12:38] Yeah, complex sciences. OK.

[00:12:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:12:41] Well, I can see kind of the talking about some of those influences,

[00:12:45] kind of the clear blueprint then,

[00:12:48] especially with the samurai Jack in Akogun,

[00:12:51] you know, which is hitting stores now.

[00:12:53] Yeah, yeah. I picked up the first two issues.

[00:12:56] They're fantastic.

[00:12:58] You know, I know the obvious analog here would be, you know,

[00:13:01] like something similar like a black cone.

[00:13:03] Right. But yeah, there's there's way more nuance

[00:13:06] than that kind of generalization describes, you know, among other things.

[00:13:10] It's got a real cosmic flavor and a mythology to it.

[00:13:13] You know, more than just, you know, a typical

[00:13:16] during adventure type book, you know, I got Beowulf kind of vibes from it.

[00:13:20] So so talk to me about, you know, what you and and Doton were thinking

[00:13:25] about when you sort of developed that story.

[00:13:29] Yeah, when we started

[00:13:32] probably both in in Nigeria,

[00:13:36] we started with science fiction stories

[00:13:40] because we were deeply connected to like the backstage things

[00:13:45] happening in the US about how a lot of people were fighting

[00:13:50] diversity in comics and stuff like that.

[00:13:53] And we wanted to kind of replicate our own idea,

[00:13:56] even though we're predominantly black,

[00:13:58] they are white immigrants, they are Asian immigrants.

[00:14:01] So we started trying to tell like futuristic stories where

[00:14:06] I think maybe for the first time there's like an Indian commissioner

[00:14:09] in Lagos and we'll tell you some of the stories.

[00:14:14] And we saw that.

[00:14:17] The market here was also connected to the US

[00:14:20] but in a different way, in a different way where

[00:14:24] why the US was trying to promote the minorities like black people.

[00:14:29] We're trying to do the same here, even though we're not the minority here.

[00:14:33] So it was all about, yeah, having black faces and stuff like that.

[00:14:37] And that kind of affected how our work was being accepted.

[00:14:42] There were some awards that for you to get nominated,

[00:14:46] your character has to be your protagonist has to be a black character.

[00:14:51] And we found out, I found out very, very strange,

[00:14:54] like I could be telling stories about like talking animals.

[00:15:00] So I wouldn't qualify for the award, you know, so stuff like that.

[00:15:03] So and we got upset and were like,

[00:15:07] we're so we were being very prideful about it.

[00:15:10] So like, see, we're so good if we should leave this sci-fi thing

[00:15:14] and come to tell like these African stories about God.

[00:15:19] I'm going to be better at it than you are.

[00:15:22] You like you guys, you guys are city folks.

[00:15:26] You live in Lagos.

[00:15:27] You've not seen any of these things.

[00:15:29] I live in the hub of Andorusha called Oshun.

[00:15:34] There's an Oshun called Oshun. I live in Oshun state.

[00:15:37] Like I see these things every day.

[00:15:40] I know about these gods.

[00:15:41] I know about these things.

[00:15:43] I speak your rubab better than any of you.

[00:15:46] If I go, if I go into this, I'm going to kick your asses, you know?

[00:15:52] So yeah.

[00:15:53] So yeah, so I go and go about it.

[00:15:56] So I started telling like a lot of Oshun stories

[00:15:59] and immediately they kind of picked up

[00:16:02] and we actually have noticed some of our work

[00:16:07] in Newman, that was the superhero stuff.

[00:16:09] We worked on that and we now did something called

[00:16:14] my grandfather was a god. Sorry, it's a long story.

[00:16:17] That's great. I'm asking.

[00:16:18] I want to know which was a free

[00:16:22] the free comic on Webtoons.

[00:16:24] Yeah. And even though the readership is about one thousand

[00:16:27] two hundred five episodes, it comes from a diverse location.

[00:16:30] There are people from the UK, people from Nigeria,

[00:16:33] people from South America,

[00:16:36] because these gods are worshiping in South America.

[00:16:39] They really, really love the comic.

[00:16:41] They loved it a lot.

[00:16:42] That was the comic that Tom Brevert read,

[00:16:45] that asked us to come on board to work on Moon Night.

[00:16:49] Moon Night, Black, White and Blood.

[00:16:51] So we've always been in this zone.

[00:16:54] So after I am Iron Man, only press reached out to us.

[00:17:00] And what wanted to pitch was an African story.

[00:17:03] Well, before we could talk

[00:17:06] they basically said, gave us a pitch of OK,

[00:17:09] can you guys do Black Conan?

[00:17:12] And we felt a little offended like

[00:17:15] say African Conan, it feels weird.

[00:17:19] They use Black Conan.

[00:17:20] So like so.

[00:17:23] So we're like, yeah, that's basically what we're working on

[00:17:26] already. So Dotto and I came together

[00:17:30] and we tried to analyze it,

[00:17:34] not trying to make Conan African, but what is

[00:17:39] what's the equivalent of the Conan story here in Africa?

[00:17:44] OK, because we have Southern

[00:17:46] Soccery stories too that are folk tales.

[00:17:49] So what's the equivalent and the equivalent was

[00:17:54] Hunter story.

[00:17:55] Yeah, any stories about warriors?

[00:17:58] Yeah, tell stories about hunters

[00:18:00] because warriors, warriors, they put

[00:18:03] on today's time for war and they go in massive

[00:18:07] to dance really adventures.

[00:18:09] But the hunter goes where no man has done before,

[00:18:13] goes to forest that they have

[00:18:17] spirits and beast and creatures that

[00:18:20] have weird screams that nobody knows what creature was making the sound

[00:18:24] that he wants to see the things that eyes are not supposed to see.

[00:18:28] You know, that's how it's described.

[00:18:30] So those so we're like, OK, our protagonist

[00:18:34] wouldn't be a warrior like Conan.

[00:18:35] It would be a hunter.

[00:18:37] So and and then we start playing with your robot mythology.

[00:18:42] There are there are like two popular mythologies about how the world was

[00:18:46] covered slash created.

[00:18:48] And the first one is about a drunk God.

[00:18:52] Yeah, a God that is full of drinking.

[00:18:54] Yeah.

[00:18:54] And that came to Earth and the Earth was

[00:18:59] towards and did all the creation story things.

[00:19:03] And there's another one way is like.

[00:19:06] The gods were were looking for a place to go to

[00:19:11] and only one God could lead the way.

[00:19:13] And the God was the God of war and basically because

[00:19:17] he had met all destroy anything that was way.

[00:19:20] And we found it very strange that.

[00:19:26] These two stories are very weird.

[00:19:28] Yeah, unusual.

[00:19:30] We have a lot of stories about creation.

[00:19:31] This one's our usual number one, a drunk God and about to a war God.

[00:19:36] What God's are not usually the God's that part.

[00:19:40] Creation.

[00:19:41] So I was like, OK, what if those two stories are the same story?

[00:19:46] What would bring a war God over?

[00:19:49] What if the drunk God was a criminal God?

[00:19:52] So and that's where the story began.

[00:19:55] So a mix of a comic book history, trying

[00:20:00] to trying to one up competitors in Nigeria

[00:20:04] and the Euroband mythology and everything mixed together

[00:20:07] and I had to watch a lot of old samurai Jack episodes

[00:20:11] and primal on adult swing, both by against the cops.

[00:20:16] He just gets in the Berserk.

[00:20:18] OK, yeah, I really enjoyed the creation myth adaptation

[00:20:24] because I'm an anthra major.

[00:20:28] My focus was in specifically Native American mythologies,

[00:20:32] but mythologies are something that I pay a lot of attention to.

[00:20:35] You know, so I really like the way you did that with

[00:20:39] with the drunken God minus the chicken,

[00:20:41] because I don't know how you would have fit the chicken in there.

[00:20:44] Yes.

[00:20:46] That was so well done.

[00:20:48] I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:20:53] Let's take that out.

[00:20:55] Yeah, climbing down the road with the was it a snail shell?

[00:20:59] Like sand and a snail shell drops from the shell.

[00:21:03] Yeah, the chicken spreads it right.

[00:21:05] See.

[00:21:07] So yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:21:09] And in my read through what the thing that really stuck out there

[00:21:13] when you touched upon that was a hunter as opposed to more of like a warrior,

[00:21:19] right? Because you do get the opportunity to explore isolation

[00:21:25] in a different way, in turn kind of a hero's journey with a different lens

[00:21:31] because it allows you to bring out these introspective moments

[00:21:34] and these moments of a self analysis that a hero will never get

[00:21:39] because they're in the mix of the fray and can't be seen to be weak

[00:21:43] and all these different things.

[00:21:45] So you get a much broader range of the human emotive experience.

[00:21:51] And I really enjoyed that about the story.

[00:21:53] It was really cool.

[00:21:54] Yes, yes, because Conan has to be surrounded by warriors and hot chicks.

[00:21:59] Right.

[00:22:00] When you are.

[00:22:02] Well, I think there's a way you're about a danger

[00:22:04] that shows even don't as I respected,

[00:22:08] you're also fear.

[00:22:10] There's this parable that basically says a hunter that is so powerful,

[00:22:14] that is so good, that could use his heart, throw it and kill an elephant

[00:22:21] will only be celebrated for a day.

[00:22:23] Basically, if you are so powerful, you could kill an elephant with a heart

[00:22:28] after people celebrate how powerful you are, they become scared.

[00:22:31] That means if you should just get angry or anything,

[00:22:35] maybe just by a slight wave of your hands, you feel thousands of people.

[00:22:40] So there's also this fear of them too,

[00:22:42] because they are the ones that face this powerful beast in the forest.

[00:22:46] They are the ones that explode the unknown.

[00:22:48] So there's always this fear of them as well.

[00:22:50] OK, but narratively, in and of itself,

[00:22:54] the cadence of the book is really interesting.

[00:22:57] You know, I have a background working with musicians.

[00:23:00] So I have this tendency to see that kind of storytelling is lyrical.

[00:23:04] You know, it makes sense to me as like a fable, you know,

[00:23:08] with a verbal storytelling route, you know, sung around the fire,

[00:23:11] something like that.

[00:23:13] You know, so you have these, you know, multiple chapter breaks

[00:23:15] and a single issue without kind of a singular ending crescendo, if you will.

[00:23:21] You know, is that a byproduct of you working

[00:23:24] in this sort of more loose style narratively with the script or

[00:23:31] generally, or is it something more adapted to this project?

[00:23:37] The combination of many things.

[00:23:39] And when it comes to when it comes to me,

[00:23:41] some of these are usually like grudges I have against some people.

[00:23:45] So

[00:23:48] there was a time where someone wanted to create some comics

[00:23:52] and was supposed to work with them.

[00:23:54] They wanted to create like a series of web comics.

[00:23:57] Yeah. So we're planning to like produce five pages each.

[00:24:02] So they'll so when you read comics to get five pages per week

[00:24:05] as I read them, that was also supposed to be on the platform.

[00:24:09] And it didn't pay and some strange arguments started.

[00:24:14] They wanted to represent of your rights and stuff like that.

[00:24:17] So we're like, OK, you know what? We're not working with you anymore.

[00:24:20] So we took those comics and we pitched it everywhere, everywhere

[00:24:26] in Nigeria, in Africa, in America,

[00:24:30] in the state. Everybody basically said no.

[00:24:34] And there was this publisher, which I would not name

[00:24:38] because I want people to give it back to other people that pitch as well.

[00:24:42] Is they said.

[00:24:45] The story doesn't work because

[00:24:49] there's there is no crescendo because it ends so shortly every time.

[00:24:55] Basically, they didn't like the fact that they were chapter breaks.

[00:24:58] They felt that it was impeding the flow of the story.

[00:25:01] And that felt strange to me because we have their collection of short stories.

[00:25:07] You you have people that put web comics into like

[00:25:11] why that students impede the enjoyment of a story.

[00:25:16] And then there was this comic called Absolute Carnage by Donny Kates.

[00:25:21] Yes. And the first issue were broken down into chapters.

[00:25:26] And I'm like, see, Donny Kates did it. It's worked. Why?

[00:25:30] Why?

[00:25:33] So when only said they really wanted something oversized

[00:25:37] for this comic, like they don't want the typical 20 pages.

[00:25:40] They want like 40 page chapters like, you know what?

[00:25:43] I'm going to do that for this project.

[00:25:46] Because I think it works for this project and I just want to prove those guys wrong

[00:25:51] that you can do stuff like this and make it work.

[00:25:54] And I was happy when I got to reviews that kind of reflected why

[00:26:01] I think it's such a good idea.

[00:26:02] It's you have in initially basically three last pages,

[00:26:06] you have three cliffhangers, you have so and you have three puzzle pieces

[00:26:11] where you get to have fun and put the story together.

[00:26:14] You're like, oh, yeah.

[00:26:15] And just have like cool titles in the middle,

[00:26:19] like in issue two where you have a chapter breaks,

[00:26:23] like called 3D God, you know, and Obatala makes no mistakes.

[00:26:27] You know, so different cool titles like that.

[00:26:31] Yeah. I liked the outcome.

[00:26:35] And that's why I came up with that format.

[00:26:39] OK, I love this.

[00:26:40] So you are pushing the medium and you are trying to prove people wrong

[00:26:44] and you are hungry.

[00:26:46] Like, I love this so much.

[00:26:47] I love people who try to do different things.

[00:26:49] I don't know if you have read or been exposed to bear pirate Viking Queen yet.

[00:26:55] I've had a lot of people, but I'm not able to get to it yet.

[00:26:59] OK, yeah. And sounds very exciting.

[00:27:00] You have the same thing also.

[00:27:02] Yeah, yeah, they're really pushing the envelope

[00:27:04] with all kinds of different things.

[00:27:06] So I love people who are pushing the media.

[00:27:09] But, you know, the word choices there reinforce

[00:27:13] kind of this timelessness in the narrative.

[00:27:15] For instance, you have you have prose that feels like it was written a long time ago,

[00:27:19] like maybe Edgar Rice Burroughs, something or similar.

[00:27:22] Like under the moonlight, it's steel, hard skin turns invisible.

[00:27:26] It's demonized for ever, prowl for unsuspecting.

[00:27:29] So in most cases in modern comics, less tends to be more

[00:27:33] and exposition would have been edited out in, you know,

[00:27:36] in favor of a cleaner presentation.

[00:27:38] But here it works and it actually feels necessary.

[00:27:42] You know, I listened to your chat recently with David Harper,

[00:27:44] which is a very good one that people should check out if they've missed it.

[00:27:47] And he pointed out, you know, that computer programming background

[00:27:50] and you kind of went into this

[00:27:53] thing as an unlimited scroll the way you kind of visualize the narrative.

[00:27:58] Yeah, yeah. Well, I knew how to program in three languages

[00:28:01] when I graduated high school myself.

[00:28:03] And I think most people think that, you know,

[00:28:05] programmers grains must be very analytical.

[00:28:09] But, you know, mine isn't at all.

[00:28:10] It's very abstract.

[00:28:11] And I constantly think in pictures.

[00:28:12] I hate words, right?

[00:28:14] Because they just feel so restrictive.

[00:28:18] Anyway, I'm rambling a bit, but it's, you know,

[00:28:21] something in that interview I thought was fascinating about scripting

[00:28:23] was that unlimited panel.

[00:28:25] So tell me more about that and how you work on editing this specifically

[00:28:29] and those inclusions of like making sure

[00:28:32] there's all these really fine touches that I really enjoy.

[00:28:35] Like even the word bubble choice has created these beautiful zags,

[00:28:39] you know, there's a curve to them, you know,

[00:28:43] that you just don't see that kind of thoughtfulness all the time.

[00:28:47] So yeah.

[00:28:50] OK, I think these are like three questions.

[00:28:53] Yeah, I'm sorry, I gave you a lot, my bad.

[00:28:55] Yeah. So let me see if I can remember everything

[00:29:00] and if I forget anything, just feel free to call me back.

[00:29:04] Yeah. And.

[00:29:06] Growing up, I think I'm not sure what was done in America,

[00:29:10] but in Nigeria, there's like something called

[00:29:13] like junior secondary schools, like junior high school.

[00:29:16] Yeah. So there they teach you all the courses.

[00:29:20] Like science stuff, social science stuff and humanity stuff.

[00:29:26] And then you get to senior high school, like senior secondary

[00:29:29] school, senior high school and you are forced to either pick

[00:29:33] social sciences or call business sciences,

[00:29:38] science class and then art class, which is basically humanity.

[00:29:42] And my parents were so shocked that I went to sciences.

[00:29:46] Everybody in the family was shocked.

[00:29:48] Like once you're like.

[00:29:50] You talk a lot, you express yourself a lot, you are very artistic.

[00:29:53] Why not choose the arts and humanities?

[00:29:56] Sure. And that's always I've been not I've been someone like that.

[00:30:01] There's always been this balance of arts and sciences and.

[00:30:06] Arts and sciences, yes, basically those two.

[00:30:09] And when I was in science class to my mom,

[00:30:11] got very angry when I dropped the course to pick up literature

[00:30:14] from the arts department and she had to come to school

[00:30:18] and say, stop him from going to that class

[00:30:20] because it's going to affect how I get into university

[00:30:23] because I want to have enough courses,

[00:30:25] enough science courses to get into computer science.

[00:30:28] So stuff like that.

[00:30:29] So I think being analytical and creative,

[00:30:33] they don't have to be mutually exclusive.

[00:30:36] They can go together and I tend to analyze a lot

[00:30:41] in when it comes to like I read people's comic

[00:30:44] and I analyze them and when you talked about narration,

[00:30:48] it's when I was reading books about writing,

[00:30:51] there was one thing they kept saying like.

[00:30:54] Narration is like this bad thing that ruins your stories

[00:30:58] because it's basically exposition.

[00:31:01] And in cinema scenes, this YouTube channel,

[00:31:04] like the first scene, he always gives a movie is narrating

[00:31:07] and stuff like that.

[00:31:09] And I hear a lot of writers talking about

[00:31:11] narration is bad, it's lazy.

[00:31:14] You are saying what we are seeing and strange things like that.

[00:31:18] So I.

[00:31:20] I.

[00:31:21] I kind of stopped it in my own writing too,

[00:31:24] because I felt it was bad.

[00:31:25] But I was like, I read Sin City by Frank Miller.

[00:31:30] It's heavily narrated.

[00:31:32] It kind of works, but I deleted it from my brain.

[00:31:36] Like, you know, like as those cities do not exist.

[00:31:39] OK, let's follow the rules.

[00:31:41] And then I discovered Edwubaker

[00:31:44] and I'm like this guy hardly has dialogue in some of his comics.

[00:31:48] It's all narrated and it's and it works.

[00:31:50] Why does it work?

[00:31:52] And then I discovered Jason Aaron

[00:31:54] and I'm like, it works too.

[00:31:58] So I was experimenting with it, but I still didn't like

[00:32:02] devoid myself of that rule against narration.

[00:32:06] And then Doni Kates comes up and is like,

[00:32:08] oh, this guy wants to take narration to an old new level.

[00:32:11] You have like Edwubaker, Jason Aaron, Doni Kates.

[00:32:13] Like now it's not like a fluke.

[00:32:15] It's not like an exception.

[00:32:16] Now you have like this large number of people that have made their

[00:32:19] careers almost narrating the story to you.

[00:32:23] And like Frank Miller, Edwubaker, Jason Aaron, Doni Kates

[00:32:28] and I'm like, OK, let's analyze this.

[00:32:31] Why does narration work in some comics

[00:32:34] and it doesn't work in some comics?

[00:32:36] And not to do like this serious breakdown.

[00:32:39] And it's all about there are some things that help you perceive the story

[00:32:45] that yes, don't see what you see, but there are so many things

[00:32:48] that you don't see that I can still tell you.

[00:32:50] And you see that in the front, like since it's it might tell you how the

[00:32:55] S knows like you can't see it.

[00:32:59] And if a character suddenly says the S knows like this, just you string

[00:33:03] by narration, it kind of works and I started learning it and stuff like that.

[00:33:08] And my dad is also a pastor.

[00:33:10] So I came from a Christian OK from

[00:33:14] Mr. Byron Way and there's this Bible version called the King James version

[00:33:19] where they talk in like this old English and stuff like that.

[00:33:23] So there was that also there and just mixing everything up together.

[00:33:28] And I was able to like pick one or two things from everywhere

[00:33:32] and try to like get.

[00:33:36] That's why this narration style was birthed from.

[00:33:40] That's why I was able to like it's a mixture of so many random things

[00:33:44] elsewhere that I put together.

[00:33:46] And so that's basically the answer to everything is I tend to analyze things

[00:33:52] when I was working in the vertical scroll webtoons, I had to read a lot of stuff.

[00:33:56] Why does this work in vertical scroll but doesn't work in flip books?

[00:34:01] Why does this work in flip books, but not in vertical scroll?

[00:34:05] There are so many fun things that you can do in vertical scroll

[00:34:08] that people don't know like one single panel

[00:34:10] can have multiple layers of information as you scroll.

[00:34:13] So you can so you can have reviews in like the bottom half of the same panel.

[00:34:20] So you can have like a serene scene in the sky where you scroll.

[00:34:24] You see that there's been a massacre down below.

[00:34:27] You might not be able to have that on a comic book

[00:34:30] because if you open it, you've seen all the pages and everything.

[00:34:33] So and there's also no page turn reveal

[00:34:36] like you see on where you have this big image and you can see all at once.

[00:34:41] So those are basically it's basically from constant analysis and discussions.

[00:34:47] Sometimes I call my friend dot two and I'm like, I read this comic book.

[00:34:52] It's not good. It's not bad. Why?

[00:34:56] Why is it not work?

[00:34:57] And we discuss it to analyze it and we're like,

[00:35:00] oh, the reason why it doesn't work is because it did everything right.

[00:35:04] But it's milk toast.

[00:35:07] Storytelling is usually a word of extreme.

[00:35:13] Like it's not bad enough if a woman cheats with someone just in her mind or something.

[00:35:22] Let's take it to an extra level.

[00:35:24] Let's make the cheating extremely disgusting in the sense that he does it on

[00:35:29] their matrimonial bed while he was sick in the hospital.

[00:35:33] So, you know, you know, like, oh, my God, that's just terrible.

[00:35:39] Yeah, yeah.

[00:35:40] Yeah.

[00:35:41] And that's that's what makes those things really stand out to you.

[00:35:46] And you remember those for a lifetime.

[00:35:49] So it's true analysis, constant analysis of stories by other people

[00:35:55] because it's hard to analyze your own stuff.

[00:35:57] Yeah.

[00:35:58] So you try to analyze other people's stuff to kind of improve yourself.

[00:36:01] Yeah.

[00:36:01] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:36:02] So it's still computer science thing happening because in computer science is

[00:36:06] basically analyze it, troubleshoot it, break it down to its components.

[00:36:11] Then find a way to represent those blocks, those blocks of understandings

[00:36:16] into blocks of codes and then you have a system to like why does this work?

[00:36:21] That's always the question.

[00:36:22] Why does this work?

[00:36:23] How can I incorporate it into my ass now?

[00:36:26] All right, let's take a quick break.

[00:36:29] Hey, comics fam.

[00:36:30] Itty comic book publisher Banda Barge just got a level up and announced it is now

[00:36:35] a cooperative this heralds a new era for them, including a partnership with

[00:36:39] Dallas Stories and they added several new members to the ownership group.

[00:36:44] Marcus Jimenez is now chief operating officer Brent Fisher takes on the role

[00:36:48] of chief diversity officer and Joey Galvez is introduced as head of Kickstarter

[00:36:53] ops and social media manager, which is sure to increase their capabilities

[00:36:57] overall as a publisher and it further promotes their mission statement of advancing

[00:37:02] representation, inclusion and diversity in the media.

[00:37:06] They also established a new board of directors to help chart the new path of

[00:37:09] their journey with new projects in the works like Alaska by dropping in June,

[00:37:14] unbroken soon launching on Kickstarter and pond coming up with

[00:37:17] Dallas, stay tuned to this space for more exciting news from the growing

[00:37:20] Bards family.

[00:37:25] Let's get back to the show.

[00:37:27] One of the things I really loved about the mythological presentation here is

[00:37:32] there's a very familiar link between the flawed nature of the gods and kind of

[00:37:37] the Yoruba, Pantheon and the the Greek ones that are so pervasive in Western culture.

[00:37:42] Right? You know, so I'm curious about, you know, we already talked about the

[00:37:46] the drunken God creating the world.

[00:37:49] But was there anything that that you and Doton were concerned about,

[00:37:54] you know, in terms of portraying any of them in this non-traditional way?

[00:37:58] You know, if your dad's a pastor, you know, you got you got to play it pretty close.

[00:38:03] Right? You don't want to make him mad.

[00:38:05] Yeah, I grew up in the church too.

[00:38:08] So yeah, they're like, yeah, yeah, very correct.

[00:38:12] There are two things that two things do it like

[00:38:16] even if my family, I think my brother, he got worried along.

[00:38:21] He was always saying that this one that you're telling stories about these

[00:38:23] gods, have you started worshipping them?

[00:38:26] Are you going and I've not been going to church like that.

[00:38:29] So it's always like go to church to cleanse yourself from all these demon things

[00:38:33] you've been writing about and stuff like that.

[00:38:37] So yes, there's that.

[00:38:39] So there's a limitation to things I can say.

[00:38:43] I know that my no one wants me to say this, but

[00:38:47] Doton is in a relationship now where the mother of the girlfriend was very scared

[00:38:53] because the books because of the books he was working on with me.

[00:38:57] Oh, wow.

[00:38:58] Because they were this orisha gods and stuff like that.

[00:39:01] So there's that part.

[00:39:03] Then the other part is compared to like some other mythology.

[00:39:07] These gods are still being worshipped to things.

[00:39:11] Yeah.

[00:39:12] So there was this fear of if you misrepresenting God or if people get angry,

[00:39:18] like it's not about somebody to return from online.

[00:39:23] People actually can reach out to you and

[00:39:26] you know, yeah.

[00:39:31] So yeah, so it's real.

[00:39:36] Well, we try to be creative as much as possible and to be respectful.

[00:39:41] But at the same time, Doton and I have like something we said we would always

[00:39:45] say if people challenge us about this.

[00:39:48] So even if it happens, we know what to say and stuff like that.

[00:39:53] So yeah, there's there's that.

[00:39:55] But yeah, but the reason why we're not too too worried is that in like Judeo-Christian

[00:40:04] religion, it's about God is perfect.

[00:40:08] Yep. And same thing in also Islamic.

[00:40:11] So if you write a story that portrays the perfect God as imperfect,

[00:40:17] there's a problem.

[00:40:19] But in your religion, the gods are not.

[00:40:24] And that's the point.

[00:40:26] In fact, that's why you pray to that.

[00:40:28] That's why you try to suit them.

[00:40:29] That's why you have like things,

[00:40:31] sweet words you have to say to them so that they might be biased towards you

[00:40:36] positively.

[00:40:37] So it's one of the stories of Ogun, for example, the God of war.

[00:40:42] Is that it got so freaking angry one day, so freaking angry.

[00:40:48] It killed the enemy and killed his own men to like, yes, yes.

[00:40:54] He was pissed.

[00:40:57] So it's that.

[00:41:00] So yeah.

[00:41:02] So I don't think there's also the expectation to portray them as flawless.

[00:41:10] OK. Yeah.

[00:41:12] I mean, yeah, the analog is Greek, so it makes so much sense.

[00:41:16] It's just really interesting when we have that Western cultural overlay

[00:41:20] that I'm coming with where just like you mentioned it, God is perfect.

[00:41:24] God is everything and without those fallibilities.

[00:41:29] It's just so much more approachable, so much more reachable in this fashion.

[00:41:34] And I don't want to stay too much in the weeds in terms of process,

[00:41:38] but I did read about how Nigerian playwright and novelist Wule Solinka.

[00:41:43] So Solinka, yes?

[00:41:44] Yes. Yes.

[00:41:45] Yeah. He's a Nobel Prize winner and he had an influence on the book.

[00:41:51] You know, I was a technical theater actor

[00:41:52] and spent time on the road doing Broadway stuff.

[00:41:54] And I've seen a couple of his plays actually met a long, long, long time ago.

[00:41:58] I adapted into like small black box and I did some research for this.

[00:42:02] And I had no idea he was honestly related to Feliciti as well.

[00:42:06] But I can say that.

[00:42:09] Yeah, yeah, I was like that's really cool.

[00:42:12] And on my read through, I can see kind of the parallel between the protagonist

[00:42:15] having everything taken for them and Wule is imprisonment or criticized in political

[00:42:20] elites. So could you just kind of expand on how his work

[00:42:23] influenced Akogun and, you know, kind of more broadly you?

[00:42:29] I mostly said that to like make the work sound more eye class.

[00:42:37] I can edit.

[00:42:39] I can cut this really bit of bad.

[00:42:41] It's like it's it's fine.

[00:42:43] It's like OK, that's awesome.

[00:42:45] This is yeah.

[00:42:46] So I've read like like like very little of Wule Shoyka's work, very, very little.

[00:42:52] And what I like about his work is basically the complexity and the tone.

[00:42:59] There's there's this there's this dark serious tone.

[00:43:07] To his work and Ogun has also been a protagonist, one of the story.

[00:43:11] And it's complexity like it said here that oh, you don't read like Wule Shoyka stuff.

[00:43:18] If you're an illiterate, like you have to be like real learned and patient,

[00:43:22] able to pick his work and we kind of.

[00:43:28] Dato and I kind of suffered from that on our work because when people see our

[00:43:32] books and see this difficult to pronounce names,

[00:43:37] they automatically just assume we're diversity hires.

[00:43:41] Like some people say like, oh, yeah, they just put them on the workers.

[00:43:44] They have weird sounding names.

[00:43:46] And if you read our work with without that patience,

[00:43:51] without the understanding that, oh, maybe they are competent,

[00:43:54] you would assume that our work isn't because you just read a surface value.

[00:44:00] Like like a lot of people, for example, just read the words.

[00:44:03] They don't even look at the images and the images are very important to us.

[00:44:09] Like you see like my script, for example, they are very precise things.

[00:44:15] That's where you will read Watchmen about.

[00:44:16] There's so many visuals that you have to see in Watchmen.

[00:44:19] Like noticing that in like in the first couple of scenes,

[00:44:23] you already see Roshak without his mask before he's reviewed later.

[00:44:27] Stuff like that.

[00:44:28] That's what we put in our stories.

[00:44:30] You know, repeated and cyclical imagery and stuff like that.

[00:44:36] So

[00:44:37] we want people to be able to like pay close attention.

[00:44:41] Like we're not saying we're like gods, like we're like these people that can't

[00:44:45] write a bad story, but it's always very strange when it hurts when you get

[00:44:50] a bad review, but the bad review based on you just didn't read it.

[00:44:54] Like, for example, I think there was a review I got once.

[00:44:59] Like I take reviews just like a computer scientist, by the way,

[00:45:02] and analyze them like I don't feel like hurts by them.

[00:45:04] I just analyze their books.

[00:45:06] Sometimes you're like,

[00:45:07] I wish you come to your karma with this book.

[00:45:13] So, for example, there's this thing I do in my writing where there's a little

[00:45:19] opening scene and then you have like the title slash credit page.

[00:45:23] Then the story, just like a TV show.

[00:45:26] It's easier before the thing.

[00:45:28] And there's a review that he taught.

[00:45:32] He probably taught those first couple of pages were ads or something.

[00:45:36] So he started after the teaser

[00:45:39] and it was criticizing the story that why would it start that way?

[00:45:43] And I was like, because there are a couple of pages there.

[00:45:47] I was like, the story just starts with Iron Man under water.

[00:45:51] How did they get there?

[00:45:52] What's the story behind it?

[00:45:53] There are like three pages before that, because in a lot of Marvel books,

[00:45:57] the story starts after the credits page.

[00:46:00] But in my books, even for Marvel, there's always a story before the credits page,

[00:46:05] even in short stories, you kind of do that.

[00:46:07] There's always a story, a little story before the credits page.

[00:46:11] So and I was like, man, so we have to say some of these things just so

[00:46:17] that calm down, read our stories the way you would read the Wale Shoring Cars

[00:46:21] work, a distant stuff.

[00:46:24] And I promise you there's a lot of depth and thought put into these pages.

[00:46:30] They're not just a silly, put together pages.

[00:46:32] So yeah.

[00:46:33] Yeah, I mean, it's a comparison stuff.

[00:46:36] OK, yeah, it's a it's a big personal

[00:46:39] beef of mine when people are immediately out to criticize.

[00:46:45] And I hate that about comics fandom and in the community.

[00:46:48] It drives me absolutely nuts.

[00:46:49] There are things I don't like.

[00:46:51] I don't go to great lengths to preach about how much I don't like them.

[00:46:55] Right? I leave it be.

[00:46:57] It's not for me.

[00:46:58] And that's OK.

[00:46:59] You know, I mean, that's just my personal perspective.

[00:47:02] But you know, people are putting their heart and soul into their work.

[00:47:05] And it's just heartbreaking to see if they go to read their reviews.

[00:47:09] And I know a lot of people who just simply won't do it

[00:47:12] because it's just so soul crushing.

[00:47:15] But it just it just really bothers me, you know, because it's hard.

[00:47:19] You know, art is hard and we don't need to have people who are intrinsically

[00:47:23] supportive of the community who are spending dollars to support it,

[00:47:27] you know, to simultaneously just create a culture of trying to break it down

[00:47:32] and break people who are trying to create down.

[00:47:35] It's just it's really weird.

[00:47:36] Yeah, like even if you would do it, be accurate.

[00:47:39] Like.

[00:47:41] I'm not a lot of creators, it's criticism.

[00:47:44] And like I said, because I'm coming from a computer science background,

[00:47:46] like I'm going to give I'm going to bring out a product.

[00:47:49] There's a better version.

[00:47:51] That's how apps work.

[00:47:52] They they are begging you to give them bad reviews.

[00:47:55] Tell me what's wrong so I can fix it.

[00:47:58] Right? But the problem that I have with some reviewers is not the bad.

[00:48:04] Feel free to insult me.

[00:48:06] Go pass on if you want.

[00:48:08] But at least be accurate.

[00:48:11] If you are accurate, I can learn and improve.

[00:48:15] So that kind of thing.

[00:48:16] And also by being inaccurate, so you've also let some people away from the book,

[00:48:20] even though that's not really the truth about it.

[00:48:25] So imagine imagine someone says, because, for example,

[00:48:30] there's this thing that gets me angry from some Nigerian reviewers when they

[00:48:33] review Marvel movies, there are some that think Thor is not a real

[00:48:37] mythological character.

[00:48:39] They think Marvel, they think Marvel saw

[00:48:43] Shungu and stole the idea of Shungu and made him Thor.

[00:48:50] And because I know both mythologies, I know that yes,

[00:48:53] they are very similar in a very strange way.

[00:48:57] One has like a short arm and others a short axe,

[00:49:00] both double ed ed ed kind of hammers and axes.

[00:49:04] They both control lightning.

[00:49:06] They're both fierce warriors.

[00:49:08] And like, yes, I know they are very, very similar, but trust me,

[00:49:12] it's another mythology.

[00:49:13] They didn't take it from Shungu.

[00:49:14] So imagine someone now wants to like give a review of

[00:49:21] Akogon and says, oh, they stole Thor and made him black

[00:49:27] and called him Shungu in this car.

[00:49:30] A lot of people are like, they just they've ruined the story and they

[00:49:33] just don't read it.

[00:49:35] But that's not what happened.

[00:49:38] So that's my only issue.

[00:49:40] Like you can give a bad review, but don't be wrong.

[00:49:44] Like just as accurate as you can.

[00:49:46] Yeah, I mean the the prose nature of Akogon, I can that I really enjoyed,

[00:49:52] but I can see how for certain people that may not be there for them.

[00:49:57] And it's fine, but it's very purposeful and methodical as to its inclusion

[00:50:01] and why it's there.

[00:50:02] You know, so acknowledge that and then it's fine.

[00:50:05] If you don't like it, OK, cool.

[00:50:06] You don't like it. Not everything's for you.

[00:50:08] Doesn't have to be not everything's written for me.

[00:50:11] So yes, yeah, yeah.

[00:50:13] So have you gotten a whole lot of that?

[00:50:15] Like, oh, it's just a diversity hire.

[00:50:17] I'm thinking about Storm, obviously.

[00:50:23] OK, in Kreuzer's own work.

[00:50:28] You don't get much of that.

[00:50:30] People just don't read the book for in

[00:50:34] Moon Night, Black, White and Blood, I didn't get that.

[00:50:38] OK.

[00:50:39] I didn't get that.

[00:50:41] I'm not sure why.

[00:50:43] I think people bought the book because of Ikman.

[00:50:46] So because the issue because of Ikman and for some reason we even got

[00:50:52] like the better reviews of all the three stories.

[00:50:55] We've got the best review of the three stories.

[00:50:58] So that didn't come up in Iron Man.

[00:51:03] I think it came up like twice.

[00:51:05] It's not much.

[00:51:06] It's not like I'm going out looking for them.

[00:51:08] I mostly read reviews, like I said,

[00:51:11] so analyze them.

[00:51:13] Why am I doing wrong?

[00:51:14] How can I improve?

[00:51:16] So the only reviews that have been like completely useless while

[00:51:20] like there's one that just said, oh, yeah,

[00:51:23] if I am into the diversity, I asked what it was that one.

[00:51:26] And it was another one who said he felt like tearing the book into pieces,

[00:51:29] into shreds, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:51:32] But the reason why I was upset with that was because someone in the video

[00:51:36] said, wow, you ate it that much.

[00:51:37] That means I'm going to buy the book.

[00:51:39] So I was like, yeah, well, it convinced someone to buy it.

[00:51:41] So I'm not upset.

[00:51:43] Oh, yeah.

[00:51:45] You know the way of the bank, right?

[00:51:49] So for Storm, I've not been getting that because

[00:51:52] I think people are more aware of being called racist too.

[00:51:56] So they're just like, yeah, Storm,

[00:51:58] they'll cancel it to like two issues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:52:01] That's the only thing about mostly everybody has been like super excited.

[00:52:06] Like the Iron Man fans love that I am Iron Man to a fault.

[00:52:09] Like they still like chat me up and stuff like that.

[00:52:13] Storm fans are here.

[00:52:14] Like the book is not even out yet.

[00:52:16] And I really feel like family that I really support in the book pushing the

[00:52:19] book. So people have like pre-order like 25 copies each saying that I

[00:52:22] give everybody they know and stuff like that.

[00:52:25] And I try to give like a little

[00:52:26] little hint on what to expect.

[00:52:29] So people are really loving that, getting new followers by the day.

[00:52:33] So it's been overall positive.

[00:52:35] It's been overall positive.

[00:52:37] It's

[00:52:39] the only problem I don't even think it's racism.

[00:52:42] There is this thing that it's it's perfectly normal.

[00:52:45] It's just when you're a creator, it might hurt, but it's perfectly normal.

[00:52:49] The thing about the comic book industry is this.

[00:52:51] It happens in other industries, too.

[00:52:54] Music, movies, but stronger in comic book industry.

[00:52:58] It's

[00:52:59] when you are a newcomer,

[00:53:02] people don't give you the benefit of the doubt.

[00:53:06] And I think it's perfectly normal.

[00:53:09] So it's you can see it in music.

[00:53:12] Someone has never made a song before, but the song is good.

[00:53:15] A lot of people can admit, yes, this song is good.

[00:53:18] A movie.

[00:53:19] Someone has never directed a movie before.

[00:53:21] Get out is like the first movie

[00:53:25] Jordan Peele would direct.

[00:53:27] I'm like, yeah, it's good.

[00:53:29] But in comics for some weird reason, if you don't have backlog and the book is good,

[00:53:35] they don't even say a lot of people don't admit it's good.

[00:53:38] They don't even talk about it.

[00:53:39] They don't even so there's that.

[00:53:41] So until you have backlog, once you've made comics in the past,

[00:53:45] that's when they're like, there's what they can easily admit that.

[00:53:47] Yeah, you're good.

[00:53:48] In fact, if you want to write a bad story,

[00:53:51] they'll say that it's done.

[00:53:52] It's done good works in the past and we'll let him go.

[00:53:56] We'll forgive him for this bad one.

[00:53:58] But if it's your first time, it's bad.

[00:54:01] Like it's like this unforgivable.

[00:54:02] Say like, yeah, you are done.

[00:54:04] Right.

[00:54:06] So so yeah.

[00:54:07] So so I know that with time.

[00:54:12] Those things will die off because

[00:54:14] I'm getting more backlog.

[00:54:16] Like now I can say, oh,

[00:54:18] minus the stuff I've done in Nigeria have published like maybe like four to five

[00:54:22] comic books in the US.

[00:54:24] So there's like this cross a lot of storm fans or X-Men fans wanted to like

[00:54:31] see if I was good or you know, there was this doubt.

[00:54:34] But when they went to read I am I am I am like, oh yeah, this guy can write.

[00:54:37] So that's that's the benefit.

[00:54:40] So as you have more in your backlog,

[00:54:44] you are forgiving easier and less.

[00:54:48] So that's just basically.

[00:54:51] OK, yeah.

[00:54:51] I just started out.

[00:54:53] Yeah, so like I'm not just starting out now.

[00:54:56] People don't say, oh, is that style?

[00:54:58] People just say, oh, yeah, it's a bad.

[00:55:00] But if you've drawn a lot of comics, people

[00:55:03] know, oh, yeah, that's the style.

[00:55:05] Like, you know, you have like artists that are like very popular now

[00:55:09] that are praised for being the greatest of all time.

[00:55:12] And like, yeah, not only is one kid, the perspective is bad and stuff like that.

[00:55:16] But people don't talk about it.

[00:55:17] You say, oh, yeah, that's that style.

[00:55:19] Yeah, not only is off for a reason.

[00:55:22] So that's comic book industry.

[00:55:25] Why the movie industry might have made like 100 good movies if you make a bad one.

[00:55:29] Sorry, this is not good.

[00:55:30] I'm not going to like lie on this review and say it's good.

[00:55:33] So those are the small, small differences.

[00:55:36] We are more forgiving and also more unforgiving.

[00:55:39] So it's a weird paradox for the comic book industry.

[00:55:44] Yeah, I mean, I feel that 100 percent like I

[00:55:48] have been pretty vocal, not in a bad way, but just when I have people have asked

[00:55:52] like the whole Hickman Cracowa thing was not my thing.

[00:55:56] Like I recognize all the cool things that were done.

[00:55:59] I recognize the swing.

[00:56:00] I'm a huge advocate for big swings in comics.

[00:56:03] So great, good job.

[00:56:05] I love to eat east of West like just absolutely fantastic.

[00:56:08] I love other Hickman stuff.

[00:56:10] Right. So absolutely, I will return to reading Hickman stuff later.

[00:56:14] But, you know, Cracowa wasn't so much for me.

[00:56:16] So I'm really glad to see the reboot happening.

[00:56:20] I picked up X-Men last week.

[00:56:21] Thought it was really, really good.

[00:56:23] Great, great grounding point.

[00:56:24] You know, and my first exposure to Aurora was like the Claremont era.

[00:56:29] You know, and I love the punk

[00:56:30] phase of Storm in the early 1980s with artist Paul Smith.

[00:56:35] So kind of what was your first exposure to Storm?

[00:56:40] Oh, yeah, I think I wrote.

[00:56:41] I just wrote the letter speech for issue one couple of a while ago.

[00:56:44] I only know don't remember.

[00:56:47] It's just strange.

[00:56:48] It's so yeah.

[00:56:50] I've.

[00:56:51] Aurora is not like other characters where they have like your own series

[00:56:55] that you can point to.

[00:56:56] So it's just like from picking out from most most is.

[00:57:01] You get so number one from the movies.

[00:57:04] The movies were probably like my first exposure

[00:57:08] because I go into college when I was in university, which was 20 times.

[00:57:12] So from and that was around the time that Marvel 2 was basically almost

[00:57:16] reducing the publication of X-Men stuff.

[00:57:21] Yeah, so it's from Osmosis, maybe a Black Panther book.

[00:57:27] Watch some videos that analyze comments like comments explained

[00:57:32] from the movies, the animated series, you know, so different.

[00:57:37] And they all came a far.

[00:57:39] Sadly, I'm not sure which one would I would say came first,

[00:57:42] but the combination of different ones have had exposures to and yeah.

[00:57:47] It's always been this fun face character for.

[00:57:53] Especially the Krakowan era, I kind of enjoyed some of the directions,

[00:57:58] especially a new zone.

[00:58:00] And so yeah, Greg Paxson was also a very good one.

[00:58:04] They've been different ones, but I'm not sure exactly which one was the first

[00:58:09] my first exposure.

[00:58:11] It's all combined in a way that it's probably the animated series.

[00:58:15] OK, well, how did you get pulled into the project from the jump?

[00:58:19] How do you end up writing Storm exactly?

[00:58:23] I think when I was done with I am Iron Man,

[00:58:27] someone asked me online like what characters would I like to write?

[00:58:33] And I said Storm.

[00:58:36] And also when after my grandfather was a god, the webtoons,

[00:58:47] I was working when Tom Breaver reached out before he

[00:58:52] offered moon nights, he asked what characters did I like?

[00:58:56] And Storm was part of the characters I liked.

[00:58:58] I want to do is why I liked that was not because she was a badass,

[00:59:01] but because she was also African.

[00:59:04] So yes, from Kenyan.

[00:59:06] So I really like that.

[00:59:08] So I said, yeah, and Shuri are like my favorite black women in Marvel.

[00:59:14] OK, and Shuri.

[00:59:16] I love them to death.

[00:59:19] And in the tweets, why said Storm again?

[00:59:24] Some rivers now replied noted.

[00:59:27] Ah, OK.

[00:59:29] So I guess it's always kept it in mind.

[00:59:33] So when the from the ashes thing came and

[00:59:36] I finished with Akko Gunga, I reached out to

[00:59:40] the Marvel Ricky Podding is a child of like managing creative resources

[00:59:46] like, oh, yeah, I'm free now.

[00:59:48] There's anything on ground.

[00:59:49] So I think it reached out to Tom like, oh, yeah, he's free now.

[00:59:53] He's done with Akko Gunga.

[00:59:53] Like, yeah, you want to come and put on Storm?

[00:59:56] That's awesome. Yeah.

[00:59:58] So she broke onto this scene in kind of the mid 1970s with Giant Size X Men

[01:00:02] and an era where black superheroes, especially black women, was really,

[01:00:07] really rare. So let me drop you a stat here.

[01:00:10] So I had to look this up.

[01:00:11] So Storm ranks eight in the number of comic book appearances with a staggering

[01:00:17] blew my mind over 7500 comic book appearances.

[01:00:21] This is ahead of Thor.

[01:00:23] This is ahead of the Hulk.

[01:00:24] This is ahead of Wonder Woman and Professor X.

[01:00:27] Absolutely blew my mind.

[01:00:29] So you're taking on right, right?

[01:00:32] You're taking on one of the big heavyweights in the medium

[01:00:35] and omega level mutant here, right?

[01:00:37] So as an African, what does it mean to you to be able to add to an African X

[01:00:44] Men's characters legacy?

[01:00:46] Yeah, like I've said a lot of times when

[01:00:51] Marvel reached out, when Top Rewards reached out, I planned to say no.

[01:00:55] OK, because I was so scared.

[01:00:59] Yeah, I get that.

[01:01:01] Yeah, because I know how much she means and I'm like.

[01:01:06] She even though like she has so many appearances,

[01:01:09] she hasn't had like her own run that's gone incredibly long.

[01:01:13] Like even these are Lewin's run.

[01:01:15] It's X Men right?

[01:01:16] It's not Storm and the second longest is Greg Parks, which was just 11 issues.

[01:01:23] So most of it has been when she has been on the X Men.

[01:01:26] She has been an Avengers for a little while.

[01:01:28] Once when she was a Wakandan character, when she married

[01:01:31] her child, when she was on the Fantastic Four,

[01:01:36] different, different comics, that's where our parents has been.

[01:01:40] She hasn't really had a long run.

[01:01:41] So I'm like, man, this is going to be a lot of weights.

[01:01:45] So even when Storm reached out, I was almost like doing things where it

[01:01:51] would make him get angry and say, you know what?

[01:01:54] I'll ask someone else.

[01:01:55] So I'll be like, do I get to pick a costume?

[01:01:58] Do I get to?

[01:01:59] I was just.

[01:02:01] So I say, OK, thank you.

[01:02:02] Let me get back to you.

[01:02:04] Can I?

[01:02:05] I'll say, can every issue be like 30 pages long?

[01:02:08] You know, I was just asking where stuff.

[01:02:11] So I was basically self sabotaging it.

[01:02:14] So and when I was thinking about it, I'm like, man, this is really scary.

[01:02:21] And I told my sister, my sister said, see,

[01:02:25] number one, you don't have any job right now

[01:02:29] because you finished a Kogun and there's no new projects.

[01:02:32] And you're kind of broke, too.

[01:02:35] So even if

[01:02:37] be a true Nigerian and at least do it for the money.

[01:02:41] There you go.

[01:02:43] That's hilarious.

[01:02:44] You're talking with the more creative one.

[01:02:46] He said, if you say no to this project.

[01:02:50] They may ask.

[01:02:53] A quote unquote, worst writer to undo this series.

[01:02:58] And every single issue you're going to hate yourself and say,

[01:03:01] I would have come up with something better.

[01:03:03] And it's like, yeah, why didn't why didn't you he get so like,

[01:03:08] OK, let's give this a try.

[01:03:10] That's a good friend.

[01:03:12] That's a good friend. Yeah.

[01:03:14] So like, let's give this a try because another thing why it was also scary

[01:03:19] was this is also like the first major comic book I would be writing.

[01:03:24] And that's when he's not drawing it.

[01:03:26] Right. So there's also that and like we've established in this conversation is

[01:03:31] I'm a very visual storyteller

[01:03:35] in I am I am there's even no narration.

[01:03:37] Everything is visual dialogue is sparse.

[01:03:41] It's not bendy.

[01:03:42] It's not so it's very, very sparse.

[01:03:45] So I'm like, what if the artist I'm paired with?

[01:03:49] Because I didn't just look at them.

[01:03:51] They hadn't brought look as on the project yet.

[01:03:53] What if the artist.

[01:03:56] Can't represent the visual thing?

[01:03:58] What if he's a strong visual storyteller?

[01:04:02] I would get out to be all those writers that have

[01:04:07] positions in their dialogue and all those stuff.

[01:04:10] I don't know if I would be able to do that and do that well.

[01:04:13] It was so it was very so there were so many layers to the fear.

[01:04:17] The character is so big.

[01:04:19] I know what that character means to the black community,

[01:04:21] to the African community.

[01:04:23] And this is the first time I'll be working with another artist at Marvel.

[01:04:27] So it was a lot of layers.

[01:04:31] So I did a lot of research.

[01:04:36] I came up with about.

[01:04:38] I started coming up with episodes, different episodes because Tom said,

[01:04:44] number one, he wants an interaction between Storm and Dr.

[01:04:49] Doom.

[01:04:51] OK, so that's one.

[01:04:53] Number two, Tom is going to be based in Atlanta.

[01:04:58] Yeah.

[01:04:58] So that and then three, he wants to in one way or the other, except I have a better idea.

[01:05:07] He wants to one way or the other where Storm is heavily involved

[01:05:12] in the politics on the world stage.

[01:05:15] OK.

[01:05:16] Physically representing mutants.

[01:05:18] So those are like the three things.

[01:05:21] So and go to the crafting the characters,

[01:05:26] characters I like from the X-Men from the one thing I didn't like about a lot

[01:05:31] of X-Men books, why?

[01:05:34] In if you had to look at books I've read, I read more books in the Avengers

[01:05:38] office than in Spider Office or in X-Men office.

[01:05:42] And it's because a lot of Avengers office books you can just jump on.

[01:05:47] They every story does have to be linked to this like long law of things.

[01:05:53] Like when I found out that when Stacy died in the comics,

[01:05:56] like before I was born, I was surprised and like, are you guys to talk about

[01:06:00] when Stacy till now?

[01:06:04] So X-Men stuff, like they are linked to like things from like.

[01:06:09] Nineteen, yeah.

[01:06:11] Yes.

[01:06:11] So and so many things.

[01:06:13] But like you can just jump on like other Avengers books.

[01:06:17] Like, oh yeah, just read this all crown, just read this.

[01:06:20] They have run and you don't have to like know anything.

[01:06:22] Yeah, King Ping is the big villain again.

[01:06:26] And you know, you're good and you read it.

[01:06:29] So like I didn't need to know anything before I jumped on chips.

[01:06:32] That's just their devil run stuff like that.

[01:06:35] I didn't need to know anything before I jumped on Jason Aaron's story.

[01:06:40] But it didn't seem that way in X-Men books,

[01:06:43] including in the late Cracow era, it felt like I needed to know a lot of things.

[01:06:50] So this time I was speaking on characters, not just in the X-Men

[01:06:53] office, but the Avengers office in the Spider office, what are the

[01:06:56] characters I loved most and what rules I want them to play.

[01:07:00] I was doing the analysis thing.

[01:07:02] What are storm strength and weaknesses?

[01:07:04] What characters can play with a strength?

[01:07:06] What characters can play with our weaknesses?

[01:07:08] Oh, she's connected to this spirit or this entity.

[01:07:12] You know what other characters are connected to it?

[01:07:14] So I had my plots, I had all those character sheets.

[01:07:18] OK, so let's start putting the stories together.

[01:07:21] I wrote an issue one like, OK, it's cool.

[01:07:25] And it was an issue two, like just outlines.

[01:07:28] Like, OK, cool three, like cool four, cool.

[01:07:32] Because I said it to Doton as well.

[01:07:33] And then I wrote five and Tom said, wait,

[01:07:37] I think we have something here.

[01:07:39] I think we have something here.

[01:07:40] Five is awesome.

[01:07:43] And Doton said the same thing.

[01:07:44] They're like, you know what?

[01:07:46] Let's make five.

[01:07:47] Let's make it our issue one.

[01:07:50] I like this.

[01:07:51] Cool.

[01:07:53] So so it took a while for me to get the angle of it.

[01:07:56] So now five is one and I'm not moving from there.

[01:08:00] And playing around with all the things

[01:08:01] Tom told me to play around with,

[01:08:03] like Atlanta base and everything.

[01:08:06] And then trying to see how I can make

[01:08:11] an X-man what people people that love X-men, why they love Storm

[01:08:17] and the things I love from the Avengers

[01:08:18] office about those characters, how their stories are very approachable.

[01:08:23] You know, all the and all those elements.

[01:08:25] Let me tell you, I can bring them together and make Storm

[01:08:28] a compelling X-men protagonist, but a solo protagonist as well.

[01:08:34] So this is not like, oh,

[01:08:36] the story just got focused on Storm, but she's still an X-man.

[01:08:40] This is Storm Storm.

[01:08:42] This is Tom as a solo hero and

[01:08:44] he's like reading a devil book, a Spider-Man book, a Thor book.

[01:08:49] That's how it's going to feel.

[01:08:51] So and that's how we're moving forward.

[01:08:53] So that's the plan for this series.

[01:08:56] That is awesome.

[01:08:57] Yeah, I was wondering how much it was going to tie in because I know she's joining

[01:09:00] the Avengers in I think it's next month, like August, right?

[01:09:05] Yes, August.

[01:09:05] Yeah, next month.

[01:09:06] Had McGaes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:08] So I mean, I'm super excited about it.

[01:09:11] She's absolutely one of my favorite characters.

[01:09:13] So I'm definitely looking forward to hitting shelves this fall.

[01:09:16] I'm so glad.

[01:09:17] I feel like Marvel got the casting right and you have this great

[01:09:22] group of editors behind you that it sounds like are working with you,

[01:09:26] including Dotun. So it's nice to see that, you know,

[01:09:29] his voice is certainly being included in there.

[01:09:32] So I think Tom can't say it, but I've been

[01:09:36] I've been feeling that vibe from like

[01:09:38] story notes and things has been saying, I think is a big fan of Storm.

[01:09:44] But he's not allowed to say so it doesn't be like he's speaking for a right.

[01:09:48] But I'm getting a sense of that.

[01:09:51] I'm getting a sense of that because

[01:09:53] like look at the cover artist on the project,

[01:09:55] Mathew Mananini, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, is the cover artist on Gods.

[01:10:00] You know, Lucas Warnick,

[01:10:02] when I saw the email he sent to Lucas Warnick to invite him,

[01:10:05] it's like this is your chance to like have your prints on a big property

[01:10:10] in Marvel and make it your own.

[01:10:12] You know, that was like his pitch to Lucas Warnick.

[01:10:14] And Lucas Warnick is

[01:10:17] drawing some of the best images you've seen,

[01:10:20] like better than any stuff is done in the Cracow and Eri, I think it's awesome.

[01:10:26] It's like

[01:10:28] it's a little like getting like his marvelous covers as interiors, you know,

[01:10:32] and it was like, yeah, like I know this colorist, he colors my work best

[01:10:36] and Tom is like, yeah, bring him on board, you know, and stuff.

[01:10:40] So like it's everyone working at like the pig.

[01:10:45] I'm quite a plot thing.

[01:10:47] It should seven to ten, because I'm not sure we get to seven to ten.

[01:10:52] So like I'm not even allowed to like start working on it.

[01:10:55] But I really, really want to work on it.

[01:10:57] And yeah, but I just want to have an idea of how far I've gone.

[01:11:00] And Tom calls me back and says, you know, that issue too.

[01:11:04] I'm thinking this, this, that, that, that, that.

[01:11:07] I'm like, he's still in his mind.

[01:11:09] That's why I do is a storm fan.

[01:11:11] And I'm like, OK, OK, OK, OK.

[01:11:13] So I jumped on the script with like

[01:11:15] switch those little things again, improve some dialogue and stuff like that.

[01:11:18] Yeah, let's go.

[01:11:19] So he sends it to look us again like, OK, yeah, start working on it.

[01:11:24] Like everyone who works on this project is like really excited.

[01:11:28] Just started it on the project.

[01:11:30] Annalisa Bisa says she can say that her favorite character is Tom.

[01:11:35] So so there's a lot of love on the project.

[01:11:39] I love it.

[01:11:40] I mean, like you're getting me hype about it,

[01:11:42] like just your enthusiasm for the character.

[01:11:44] That's what you want to see.

[01:11:45] You want to see people who are really,

[01:11:47] really invested, who are recruited to write the characters you love.

[01:11:51] Nobody can ask for more than that.

[01:11:53] That is just hearing all this fills me with a little bit of joy.

[01:11:56] So I'm really, really looking forward to it.

[01:11:59] And you have Brutalizer the Gods with Oni,

[01:12:03] which I've picked up through issue two.

[01:12:05] I think issue three is set to drop mid August.

[01:12:07] Right. Is that correct?

[01:12:09] I think it's early August.

[01:12:11] OK, I'm not sure.

[01:12:13] OK, August 6th or August 12th.

[01:12:15] I'm not sure I forgot it.

[01:12:16] I knew it, but I kind of forgot.

[01:12:19] OK, was that so I really, really enjoy the long form storytelling of

[01:12:25] Akagun.

[01:12:27] So was that a hard transition when you started running Storm to like, OK,

[01:12:31] now I'm in Marvel, now I've got to deal with a restrictive number of pages.

[01:12:37] Yes, yes. Yes, that's correct.

[01:12:39] I just remember that's correct because I told you like this is like issue five.

[01:12:44] Issue one issue five then was not is not issue one now.

[01:12:47] Right.

[01:12:48] And all the issues I was writing,

[01:12:51] I was writing like, yeah, I'm going to tell like these characters back story

[01:12:56] is mother daughter and then some story will be going on this route.

[01:13:00] I was like playing out of stuff and some was like,

[01:13:03] eh, you're kind of making Storm feel like she's a guest star in our own book

[01:13:09] because there's so many things happening.

[01:13:12] I was like, OK, OK, OK, OK, let's give this another try.

[01:13:16] And I said, oh, the first three issues are going to be like 30 pages each.

[01:13:22] And like, sorry, I can only get to 30 pages for issue one.

[01:13:25] I'm like, OK, OK, so it took a lot of adjusting to because I really wanted

[01:13:31] to say those large number of pages and everything.

[01:13:35] But and Tom helped like

[01:13:39] put me back in like the Marvel style and yeah,

[01:13:42] and remember how to write it in Marvel style and no Marvel style as part of script

[01:13:47] for writing for big two comics and remind me of the strengths that I had there

[01:13:53] and try to use them there and stuff like that.

[01:13:56] So yeah, it took it took a lot of adjusting to then some people

[01:14:00] also as like this Bible that has for the entire X-Men books.

[01:14:05] So and I hope everybody is able to adjust to it because I'm kind of a little

[01:14:10] familiar with that mode, that's what I did for Iron Man and some writers might not.

[01:14:16] Tom is of the group of oh, yeah,

[01:14:19] every issue should every issue can be someone's first comic.

[01:14:23] So while you're writing this serialized story of this grand epic,

[01:14:28] each issue should be very, very approachable.

[01:14:31] Each issue should tell its own self contained story.

[01:14:35] And you would see it in some of the books

[01:14:37] was editing before in Moon Nights.

[01:14:39] Every issue in Moon Nights feels like a standalone story.

[01:14:43] Is also the one editing Fantastic Four.

[01:14:48] Fantastic Four's every story feels episodic.

[01:14:51] So it says he has been trying it and has

[01:14:53] been getting a lot of positive responses.

[01:14:56] Like Fantastic Four is at issue 29 or so and it's still going strong.

[01:15:00] And so it says he wants to have that episodic nature.

[01:15:07] And funny enough is I want to I was planning to work away from that.

[01:15:12] I wanted to tell more serialized stories

[01:15:15] because just to prove that I can,

[01:15:19] I want to have stories where at the end, at the last page,

[01:15:24] it's not all the end.

[01:15:25] The next episode, it is to be continued.

[01:15:30] I want you to have that feeling of, oh, my God,

[01:15:33] I want to see what happens in the next issue.

[01:15:35] So I have to find a way to balance it where

[01:15:38] each issue tells its own self contained story like Tom once.

[01:15:43] And you also have that to be continued,

[01:15:46] that after the last page, I like, yeah, yeah, let's see what's going to happen.

[01:15:51] So I've tried to balance that.

[01:15:52] I think a lot of the X-Men books in the last pages I've seen,

[01:15:56] you just see next then the title of the next page.

[01:16:00] So far, I think I'm the only one saying to be continued thing

[01:16:02] because I loved it from all those old cartoons.

[01:16:06] Anytime one episode, the cartoon was to go big.

[01:16:09] They did not tell this epic story and you see it because I just die like,

[01:16:13] oh, my God, next you can come soon enough.

[01:16:15] So I'm trying to do that for this Tom series too.

[01:16:18] It's good to tell yourself content stories,

[01:16:20] but also build up this large story.

[01:16:24] I mean, that's the dream.

[01:16:25] I think that's what a lot of the big two are struggling with right now is how do

[01:16:28] you get that book written that people leaving their comic book shop want to sit

[01:16:32] in their car and they just immediately want to crack it before they get home?

[01:16:36] Right? You know, I want to read it now.

[01:16:39] So yeah, yeah.

[01:16:41] I think in the interview that Matt Miller had with some comic shops,

[01:16:45] they said one thing that Dotto and I was

[01:16:48] still analyzing last talking about the parking lot books.

[01:16:50] Just like you said, like books that, yeah, they buy a lot of books,

[01:16:54] but there's this book where they can't leave the parking lot.

[01:16:57] They have to read it before they go and that's what I've been trying to

[01:17:01] analyze it with not cracked the code yet, but we're still trying to analyze

[01:17:04] like what makes that and we have a little hint of what it is.

[01:17:11] So I'll start to try.

[01:17:13] I'll start including them in like issues six onwards and hope it works.

[01:17:18] OK, that's funny because I was thinking about

[01:17:21] in the discord with my co-host Jimmy and I, they're always we're back and forth.

[01:17:26] Hey, you interviewed Marewa.

[01:17:29] What what what is the synopsis?

[01:17:31] What is what is he like as a writer?

[01:17:33] And I'm going to be like, because he can.

[01:17:36] That it that

[01:17:38] that's how I'm going to how am I to leave that? Right? Right?

[01:17:42] That sounds so cool.

[01:17:44] Yeah, because he can't outside is.

[01:17:46] Yeah. Well, what else you got cooking that you can talk about?

[01:17:49] Of course, I know you're really, really busy with Storm,

[01:17:51] but it sounds like Akogun has has more to tell

[01:17:55] unless I'm missing something right?

[01:17:59] Yes.

[01:18:01] I think if only allows us the last text you see in Akogun,

[01:18:06] brutalize of God is going to tell its own complete story.

[01:18:09] We're going to see to be continued in Akogun, revenge of the gods.

[01:18:14] But hoping we can have a sequel series

[01:18:18] for that where we continue to see the stories of Akogun and the gods.

[01:18:23] But this story will be complete and

[01:18:25] it's going to be 100 pages in total.

[01:18:28] So there is that.

[01:18:32] Ony said they want to have a conversation with us.

[01:18:35] So we're not sure what it is yet.

[01:18:37] So maybe it's another book or anything.

[01:18:39] I'm not sure yet, but I think they are still opening.

[01:18:41] They're still open to working with us again.

[01:18:44] And that's why I'm trying to.

[01:18:48] Like take a little break and

[01:18:51] because I need to take a break because

[01:18:54] until they see the sales figures of issue one, they can't green light.

[01:18:57] Like issue six to ten.

[01:19:01] So we've been we've been having like some

[01:19:04] Hollywood producers reaching out to us like, oh, yeah,

[01:19:08] this cartoon stuff and stuff like that.

[01:19:11] And I've been and I've been both scared and too lazy to like work on animation

[01:19:15] script, scared because I'm like, man, what if I can only think in comic books?

[01:19:21] What if you get what if I can't break like the animation code?

[01:19:24] And because of this.

[01:19:27] You know, animation that played a bigger role in my childhood than comic state.

[01:19:32] So there's also like this fear and respect

[01:19:36] that over respect I have for animation to have been too scared.

[01:19:41] Even though I can come up with nice ideas that people say, yeah, it works.

[01:19:44] Now write the script like there's this big producer,

[01:19:47] probably the biggest producer in animation that said, write the scripts.

[01:19:51] And it's been a year.

[01:19:53] I've never written it.

[01:19:54] I've been too scared to start.

[01:19:56] So I'm hoping I'm hoping I could.

[01:19:59] That's why I would be able to work on that and hope the producer,

[01:20:04] we still be willing to like accept the script after like wasting more than a year

[01:20:11] on working on it.

[01:20:12] So you got this.

[01:20:14] They take animation takes time.

[01:20:17] Like it's makes an animation are not the same.

[01:20:21] Like I talked to a lot of people in animation is just, you know,

[01:20:24] you can start to finish with a comic book, you know,

[01:20:27] in six months, especially with the big two, you're you know,

[01:20:30] it's you're knocking stuff out.

[01:20:31] Animation is like five years, six years.

[01:20:35] So you got it.

[01:20:38] Yeah, for example, like in comics,

[01:20:41] sometimes I believe that sometimes an editor is not sure if only if your

[01:20:46] script is good or not.

[01:20:48] But you know what?

[01:20:50] Let's see it in a comic and someone puts

[01:20:53] it on and like, oh yeah, it's good.

[01:20:55] For animation, if it's not good in script form, it's not going past that level.

[01:21:02] You need to be able to entertain me at the script level from the first page.

[01:21:07] So that's that's why I'm a little hesitant and scared.

[01:21:12] Like sometimes I might tell an editor like a special

[01:21:15] group of like, are you sure about this?

[01:21:17] And I'm like, I'm sure.

[01:21:19] And then the two draws it and like, oh yeah, it works.

[01:21:21] They're correct.

[01:21:22] Yeah, for animation and not good past that level because it's too expensive to prove

[01:21:27] your concept right?

[01:21:31] So that's that's why I feel like there are lots of people working in.

[01:21:36] OK, like now in the Marvel office,

[01:21:39] not I mean the X-Men office, I get to read up a few scripts.

[01:21:43] Gil Simone, Jed McKay, everybody's script.

[01:21:46] And I noticed that in the script form, I'll be like, oh yeah,

[01:21:50] writer A is like way hotter than writer B.

[01:21:55] And then the final comic comes and I'm like, oh my God,

[01:21:58] writer B is actually the one that is better.

[01:22:00] Like, ah, like these stories are

[01:22:03] boys because in the script form, you can't see it.

[01:22:09] Some people are better at making their scripts more interesting.

[01:22:12] But when you draw what they've described and you see it,

[01:22:16] you're like, oh, I get it now.

[01:22:19] Especially people that are playing with a lot of ideas.

[01:22:22] You play with a lot of ideas.

[01:22:24] You can't see it in script.

[01:22:25] But when it's drawn, you're like, OK, OK, OK, so this guy is supposed to be like

[01:22:28] we get to this guy and all this stuff.

[01:22:30] So.

[01:22:32] I get it.

[01:22:33] Yeah, I saw something relatively recently in Marvel book.

[01:22:37] I'm not going to say when because I don't know if I'm supposed to or not.

[01:22:40] But I got to see the advance of it.

[01:22:43] So before everything was completion,

[01:22:45] so you had a couple issues on that were in script form.

[01:22:47] And then you had a couple that had editors notes and everything.

[01:22:50] It was just it blew my mind.

[01:22:52] So fascinating to see behind the screen and see how things work.

[01:22:57] And yeah, yeah, it's it's amazing when you really think about all of the facets

[01:23:01] that make these books that we love.

[01:23:04] It's just crazy.

[01:23:05] Yeah.

[01:23:06] Well, where would you like people to find you online these days?

[01:23:10] Um, I currently I prefer to be there because I think so that's people

[01:23:15] ask questions like I'd be able to like interact with them and stuff like that.

[01:23:19] So it's it's more friendly when it comes to like interaction with

[01:23:23] readers and people that want to know more about the book

[01:23:26] compared to like other social media.

[01:23:28] So just I think it's at Iodile Murewa.

[01:23:32] Are you a daily Murewa?

[01:23:35] Yeah, I'll put a link in the show.

[01:23:37] I'll put the show link in there so everybody can find you no problem.

[01:23:41] If you are like your names just imagine as Japanese names

[01:23:45] just pronounce all the powers on your good.

[01:23:48] OK, OK, well, I'll give it my shot here, right?

[01:23:50] So Eshe Maudupe, it's like so thank you.

[01:23:54] I really appreciate you.

[01:23:55] Yeah, yeah, yeah, well thanks so much for coming on the show chatting with me today.

[01:23:59] I hope I didn't butcher the Yoruba words too much.

[01:24:01] So no, no, no, no.

[01:24:03] It sounds awesome. Thank you.

[01:24:04] Awesome. Yeah, no problem.

[01:24:06] Well, this is by the name.

[01:24:08] Yeah, absolutely anytime.

[01:24:10] Well, this is by Roneon on behalf of us at Comet Book Yeti.

[01:24:13] Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time.

[01:24:15] Take care, everybody.

[01:24:16] This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to

[01:24:21] you by Comet Book Yeti.

[01:24:22] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast.

[01:24:26] Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff.

[01:24:30] It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve.

[01:24:34] Thanks for listening.

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