Sam Maggs talks The Wicked Trinity

[00:00:00] Your ears do not deceive you. You've just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti. So without further ado, let's get on to the interview.

[00:00:11] Hey comics fam! Whether you are a longtime listener or a veteran catching the show today, all are welcome here. When we started this podcast, inclusion and diversity were at the forefront of what we wanted to cover and promote with it.

[00:00:23] So in June, we'll be celebrating Pride Month for our second year in a row, featuring an amazing group of queer creators and their projects. One of those projects is from our friends at Lifeline Comics.

[00:00:34] Following their success with By Visibility Still Bye, Heralogy and Rainbow Canvas, Lifeline Comics is launching their newest queer anthology, Transphoria, a trans and non-binary anthology on May the 30th. The 90-page graphic novel will contain 19 stories all about trans and non-binary experiences of gender euphoria,

[00:00:54] crossing all genres like slice of life, supernatural, romance, science fiction, anime and beyond. Featuring a vibrant display of artistic styles and storytelling techniques, Transphoria is a testament to the creativity and talent of its contributors. From sci-fi striking stories to endearing romantic ventures,

[00:01:14] this graphic novel celebrates trans stories while delivering a powerful message of empowerment and affirmation. I'll put a link in the show notes so you can check it out. As always, thanks for listening and have a glorious Pride Month helping us celebrate. Y'all, Jimmy, the Chaos Goblin strikes again!

[00:01:34] I should've known better than to mention that I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media. My bad. He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know and now I have to get it in gear

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[00:02:34] I'll drop a link in the show notes for you and big thanks to Archonforge for partnering with our show. I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a Goblin Warlock just to get even. Hello everybody and welcome to the Cryptic Creator Corner.

[00:02:47] I'm Byron O'Neill, your host for today's Comics Creator Chat. I'm continuing my Pride Month coverage on the show today and I hope everyone is having a good time celebrating this month. I've got a new guest on me that I'm delighted to introduce Sam Max.

[00:03:00] Sam is a New York Times bestselling author who doesn't just call the comic space home. She's written in various mediums including books, comics and video game spaces and is currently turning at least some of her busy attention towards launching The Wicked Trinity,

[00:03:13] a dark fantasy one-shot from Archie Comics with line art from Lisa Sturrell, colors from Ellie Ray and letters by Jack Morelle. Sam thanks for hanging out with me on the show today and talking comics and things. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:27] Well, I think there's only one place to start and that's congratulations. That's in order for your Eiser nomination for the short story of Friendship is Forever in My Little Pony, the 40th celebration. That's very exciting stuff.

[00:03:40] Oh my gosh, thank you so much. It truly has been a lifelong dream career goal. It was incredibly surprising to me and I'm really grateful. So thank you. Yeah, yeah. Well, I have to admit, kind of on my front, it's a little while.

[00:03:55] I've had two women writing in comics on this show in the last few weeks who are both Eisner awards nominees this year and who both have penned Jim and the Hologram stories. That's like the secret gateway nobody knew about. That's so true. It's their own little magic.

[00:04:12] Isn't it weird? Yeah, cool figure. Yeah, yeah. It's very strange. Well, honestly, I kind of wish we had a chance to chat sooner. My son had a great high school project. I know you would have been very into as the writer of Wonder Woman 25, innovators,

[00:04:29] inventors and trailblazers who changed history. So basically in his AP history class, they were doing a fantasy draft of historical figures. And categories that you have on your team were political leader, a military leader, a social advocate or leader,

[00:04:44] a scientist, inventor or explorer, and a philosopher, an artist, and a female figure or leader, and a flex wildcard. So my wife and I got way more into this, I think, than he did.

[00:04:56] And we were trying to figure out women in every category to make an all-female team. I think his final draft ended up, he had Hedy Lamar, the mother of Wi-Fi, which is definitely a solid shout.

[00:05:09] But weirdly, nobody ended up with Joan of Arc, which felt kind of criminal. What a fun idea for a school project. And I love that. That's all very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we kind of hit the obvious like, you know, Erhard Curie,

[00:05:24] Kahlo Roosevelt, Tubman, Stanton. But really nailing down all those categories definitely took just a little bit of research, but it was a lot of fun. Yeah, I think that was really the fun thing about putting together both Wonder Woman and Girl Squad

[00:05:38] was, you know, being able to unearth all of these stories that had kind of gone under-reported or falsely reported. So it definitely takes a little bit of extra digging, but like you say, it is really rewarding. Yeah, yeah.

[00:05:57] Well, jumping into Wicked Trinity, I'm kind of fairly new getting back into the Archie universe myself. When I was a kid, you know, I picked them up. My grandfather had a small town grocery store and we got like the three packs of, you know, whatever.

[00:06:12] They were never sequential, which was kind of annoying, but that's where I was exposed to them as a kid. And then my interest kind of dropped off and more of this, I got into superhero books

[00:06:21] and then like DC's Vertigo, which kind of changed my life and blew my mind. But I'm a big horror fan and that chilling adventure straight paperback was kind of what pulled me back in. So what was your experience with Archie? What's kind of your origin story there?

[00:06:35] Oh, well, I started really getting into comics when I was in college. I was a kid, you know, in the 90s when there were a lot of comics that were made for young girls. Remember, what comics were like in the 90s?

[00:06:49] And when I started getting into comics in college, I was really looking for books that reflected myself, my life, people that I went to school with, a sort of younger audience and Archie really hit that nail on the head.

[00:07:06] And then especially with the introduction of the chilling line in kind of like the early 2010s, when I started to get more and more into comics and starting to get into writing the professionally, that was really big for me.

[00:07:17] I'd always been a really big fan of Sabrina, especially after having watched the show, like pretty religiously as a kid. That was really my gateway. So when they started to put out the chilling adventures of Sabrina books,

[00:07:30] that was, you know, I had been reading Archie on and off for several years at that point, but that was really what got me. So to be able to contribute to that line now is really exciting for me, really full circle.

[00:07:43] Yeah. Well, I know it wasn't your first Archie project either. You were a contributor on Terrifying Tales, which you'll have to forgive me. I haven't picked that one up yet. But you wrote a Betty short story. What was your story about in Terrifying Tales?

[00:07:57] Oh, yeah. So that one shot was a, the conceit was Betty Falls' Sleep Watching Horror Movies and, you know, extrapolates on them in her mind. So mine was based on my favorite horror movie, Your Neck, and Melody's Playing a Gig.

[00:08:14] And it's invaded by sort of home invaders, and she decides to kill them right back. So it was a lot of fun to work on. Okay. Yeah, nice. I'll have, I'm planning on picking that one up.

[00:08:27] So to give people a little bit of background on the Wicked Trinity, this focuses on Sabrina's nemesis, Amber Nightstone, and her coven of compatriots, Jade, I don't know, Kazane? Am I pronouncing Kazane correctly? Yeah, you got it. Okay, cool. And Sapphire Gill, who are all elemental witches,

[00:08:44] and have all made their debuts in, you know, various Archie titles over the last couple of years, like Sapphire and Jade. And did they bring you in with kind of a specific remit or parameters here for the Wicked Trinity

[00:08:56] or just kind of run with what you wanted it? Yeah, my really excellent editor at Archie, Jamie Rotante, had actually introduced these characters, like you said, in the last couple of years, but they'd always been guest stars in other folks' comics.

[00:09:10] So when they approached me about this book, the idea was this was the Wicked Trinity's first time to kind of like shine in their own project. And so we knew a little bit about each one of them, but Archie kind of asked if I would be able to

[00:09:24] expand on both their individual personalities and then their relationships with each other, both individually and as a group. So I got to put my own stamp on characters that didn't have a whole lot of backstory in them

[00:09:36] already, which you know, in a universe as expansive as Archie is a really unique and cool opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was hard for me to personally escape a comparison to, okay, I'm just totally going to show my age.

[00:09:49] The 1996 movie The Craft and maybe that's because I had a thing for like Farooza Balk back at the time. No, you're bang on. I was a lot of my inspiration was sort of late 90s, early 2000s,

[00:10:03] like Teen Witch Culture, you know, really inspired by Charmed, inspired by The Craft, inspired by Practical Magic, that sort of era of Teen Witch content was that I'm glad to hear you say that because it's very inspirational for me for those. Okay. Yeah.

[00:10:19] And there were definitely some analogs to, okay, this is about as cheesy as it gets, but the Winks saga that was on Netflix, which is kind of like a favorite family show with the elemental witch kind of thing. Oh yeah. Honestly, I was a little old for Winks.

[00:10:36] It was a little like after my generation, but I know how impactful that they were on like the next kind of generation of kids after me. And so I'm really glad to hear that. Oh yeah. Have you seen the new iteration?

[00:10:51] So the live, not the cartoon, but the on Netflix, it's been on Netflix the last couple of years. Oh, you know, I really haven't, but I've heard good things. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. Yeah. Winks is kind of a big one in the witchy realm for me.

[00:11:08] After reading an advanced copy that Archie was kind enough to send over, it's way more like Gen Z Mean Girls than John Constance. So I recently interviewed Megan Hutchison, the artist on Judgment Day, and that's a straight up horror book. This one is quite funny.

[00:11:27] They clearly are still fairly fledgling practitioners, not going into depth to give too much away, but I think scrying in a high school bathroom sink is a pretty accurate summation of what you're kind of getting at here.

[00:11:39] So I was trying to come up with a succinct, you know, a couple of adjectives to kind of describe it and punk pixie was what I came up with. Does that sound close? Punk pixie I think is the perfect description for it. I really love that.

[00:11:51] I was going for that kind of Jennifer's body style horror, which is very like, you know, it's still pretty set in the mundane. There's still girls going to high school, you know, there's still teenagers.

[00:12:02] Deal with your normal teenager issues, but when they do start to mess with the real shit, it does get a little gory and like pretty real. So I wanted to kind of play with the dichotomy of that.

[00:12:14] Okay. Yeah. Well, speaking of teen, I have a word of thanks that I owe you because reading this reminded me of the word chuggy, which I will never say again. I swear because it feels wrong coming out of my mouth.

[00:12:28] But I got into a dinner conversation with my son who is now 16 and he had no idea what it meant. So I getting to explain that provided me an almost perverse sense of satisfaction. Perfect. Perfect. Well, you have a hell of a creative team co-creating this with you.

[00:12:45] Could you have gotten more appropriate kind of than Lisa who made the modern witch tarot? So it feels very spot on. Oh, I was so honored to be able to work with Lisa. The modern witch tarot is one of my favorite decks. I've had it for years.

[00:12:57] I have her journal. It just felt so incredible. Yeah, I feel really fortunate. Was it a completely work for hire thing? Did you have input on the creative team? Oh, absolutely not. It was all Jamie's brilliance. Yeah, definitely. I was floored and flabbergasted when she let me know.

[00:13:18] And I think Lisa did absolutely an incredible job of capturing these characters and the vibe that I was going for. So really grateful. Good. Well, there's a very balanced kind of approach to the overall look of it.

[00:13:31] Lisa's line work is very evocative, kind of a modern interpretation of that classy Archie comics, Bob Mantoya, or Montana, sorry, style. And Ellie's color work is bold, but it's kind of more reserved on the facial profiles until

[00:13:46] you need it. And then you get these really nice lighting details. Like I was a theatrical and concert lighting designer for years and what feels like a former life, but I paid attention to such things a lot. All right. Let's take a quick break.

[00:14:02] Hey, comics fam. Itty comic book publisher Banda Bar's just got a level up and announced it is now a cooperative. This heralds a new era for them, including a partnership with Dollar Stories. And they added several new members to the ownership group. Marcus Jimenez is now chief

[00:14:18] operating officer Brent Fisher takes on the role of chief diversity officer. And Joey Galvez is introduced as head of Kickstarter ops and social media manager, which is sure to increase their capabilities overall as a publisher. And it further promotes their mission statement of advancing representation,

[00:14:36] inclusion and diversity in the media. They also established a new board of directors to help chart the new path of their journey with new projects in the works like Alaska by dropping in June, I'm broken soon launching on Kickstarter and pollen coming up with Donlass.

[00:14:50] Stay tuned to this space for more exciting news from the growing Bards family. Let's get back to the show. I know you're you're a bit of an authority on pop culture, especially women's pop culture.

[00:15:05] So if you'll allow me to kind of pick your brain a bit, the Archie universe is is a really fascinating case study. And I think other publishers could take a few notes from them on with respect to promoting diversity, right? So

[00:15:20] the bigger head Archie is pretty straightforward American high school or right. But they seem to embraced and cultivated a readership that includes loads of devoted women and is widely embraced by queer fans. And I think that's no in no small part due

[00:15:35] to recruiting the right creative teams to make sure to produce them. So if this is a blueprint of sorts with Archie, what is Archie doing right? The other publishers can learn from. Archie has never been anything but wonderful and accepting and welcoming of any suggestion

[00:15:51] I've ever made about, you know, a character's sexuality or adding queerness or adding more women. And I think that they're really good at allowing creators to reflect the world that they see around them as they see it. Okay. And also approaching the creators like

[00:16:08] they're not approaching me without knowing that I'm going to want to put women and queer characters into the story, you know? And so I appreciate that they then allow me to do that instead of like being shocked about it. What I have really, really appreciated that with them.

[00:16:26] And I think that's part of what has allowed them to create books that feel so modern and contemporary because they're they allow modern contemporary creators to really reflect their world back. Yeah. Well, I mean, topography seems like such an important

[00:16:43] thing to me in situations like that. So when you normalize something, whatever it is, it's a little snippet that allows you to kind of see yourself, right? So video games come to

[00:16:54] mind in your case, you've worked in the industry and, you know, in this case, the girls are portrayed in the Wiccan Trinity, you know, playing video games in the book. So it's these small things that are pivotal, right? To change cultural perception.

[00:17:10] Oh, thank you for saying that. Yeah, I really hope that's true. I think I like to think so. Yeah. Well, recently when I was thinking about this, recently I was chatting with Kelly Thompson

[00:17:21] and she mentioned reading a CBR article about women in the industry. So I looked it up and its comics are still failing their female characters and creators. It's a really good

[00:17:30] article. I'll make sure to include it in the show notes for listeners. A lot of what it pointed to was the big two numbers, which I wasn't surprised by but are pretty ugly, right? And I'm not picking

[00:17:40] on Marvel specifically here, but like April 2024 releases, there were 200 creators, 23 or 11.5% identified as female. DC was a little bit better, but not honestly that much. So as someone who's working in that space, how do we encourage more opportunities for women in the medium and,

[00:17:59] you know, people who identify as women who are queer? This is a really hard question to answer because I think that there's a lot that we can do as, I think it's really difficult as readers. We can vote with our dollar and we can speak directly

[00:18:16] to power using our social media platforms. But ultimately the onus doesn't rely on the reader or the consumer or even the writer so much. The onus is on people in charge and they're often not making decisions that promote or prioritize their marginalized creators.

[00:18:38] And I find that really disappointing. Yeah, I guess it's the question I keep coming back to. So when I first did this Bride Stuff last year and then we had those for June,

[00:18:50] a lot of my questions were around are we there yet? Or what is the glass ceiling? And this year, because it seems like even in the last year there's been a lot more

[00:19:02] in terms of queer representation in comics. But the question I keep coming back to is kind of what we've just gotten into here where it is, is there enough now? And it seems like

[00:19:15] we're hitting the glass ceiling is at the top, right? The editors have the desire for it. The writers, the creators, colorists on down. Everybody has that desire for it. The fan base has a desire for it because they're speaking with their dollars and I've seen

[00:19:30] crowdfunding projects that are just smashing it that have a queer focus right now. So people want it. What do we do? Is time just the answer? Do we just wait until those editors then in turn get the next stage of their career and they're a little

[00:19:48] bit higher and they're making decisions? Well, I would first say that I think that your diagnosis is in my experience and perspective exactly correct. I would say that you're exactly correct.

[00:20:02] And I think that the move is honestly doing what you kind of said, which is that we as marginalized and queer creators simply have to create our own work that is not based on

[00:20:16] corporate owned IP, which is a shame because corporate owned IP has a large built-in audience which helps bypass any number of barriers to entry to people picking up queer comics. But at the end of the day, I'm sorry if this feels kind of defeatist, but

[00:20:35] I've had so many projects canceled at big publishers because of the inclusion of queer characters or I've walked off a project because they've told me to remove queer characters. And it's really disheartening and I don't know what the bottom line is because we've even seen,

[00:20:57] you know, at the end of the day corporations only care about profit and when you threaten their bottom line even marginally, like we saw Target pull their pride collection shelves this year. Their vocal about like support pride until it like might

[00:21:11] potentially hurt their bottom line and then they won't touch it. And so it's like I genuinely don't know. I don't know when doing the morally right thing will outstrip corporate greed and baked in homophobia. Like I genuinely don't know and for me now the answer is

[00:21:30] A, work with publishers who have been good to me, you know, like Archie, which I'm really grateful for or B, make your own stuff because it will make a ton of money, you know, or it will

[00:21:42] find its niche audience who will love it deeply. And that's sort of the best we can hope for right now. I would I want to say the answer is wait. I just I don't know. I feel like it's like what

[00:21:57] we're all waiting for which is like what happens next in late stage capitalism. But I don't know what happens to the arts now. And it's scary, I think for a lot of folks.

[00:22:08] Absolutely. Yeah, I gotta say, I mean, I'm on the periphery now, but I'm kind of glad that I'm out of it that you know, my income isn't dictated by it. Because it is really frightening. And

[00:22:22] my next question, which you've already nailed in a bit of a bust, right? But I've heard from a lot of people that I've talked to that they have to tone down, you know, for the need to write

[00:22:38] to it to a straight audience, right? So because you're working across multiple entertainment mediums. Yeah, is it any better in anything like books, games, like beyond comics, is prognosis better there? Well, it really depends on how much corporate and executive interference is involved at any

[00:22:59] level with the art that you are making. So okay, so we're screwed. I mean, a little bit, right? Like, the more that there is, the less likely you are to be able to stray from the sort of quote,

[00:23:11] unquote default of like straight white male protagonist. So video games, I would say, would be the most difficult because they are like $400 billion and involve thousands of people. There's a lot of layers to get through there, right? I think movies and television are next on

[00:23:29] the difficulty scale. Comics are slightly under that because the money involved is so much smaller. You know, so people care a little bit less on the corporate side. But because these characters influence their like movie IP now, they care a little bit more. You know what I mean?

[00:23:47] The novels, essentially novels that are original IP and graphic novels that are original IP, those have to be purchased with a bio publisher with the full knowledge of like what they're about.

[00:24:00] So you're coming in like already good. You know, like if I pitched a novel about a queer character and the publisher buys it, they know exactly what they're signing up for. So, you know,

[00:24:12] when it's just you, you know, making a novel is just you making a graphic novel is just you and your artist. Sometimes that's the same person, you know? So really like this smaller and less

[00:24:22] like corporate involvement there are the more likely it is that you're able to get away with like making the stuff you want to make. And I think that goes of having a day job in this

[00:24:33] industry too, you know, as soon as you're beholden to shareholders or venture capitalists, there's a they get to dictate what happens with the art, you know, because at the end of the day it is

[00:24:46] a corporate product. Yeah, this is like really cynical and feels really shitty. It is sort of the world that as queer creators we have to navigate and like I do really want to reiterate

[00:24:58] that R.C. like never gave me any pushback about queer characters and if anything they were like make these characters more morally gray, make these women more interesting, you know, which has been

[00:25:11] just such a blessing and one of the reasons why I'm so grateful to work for publishers like them. And I, you know, there are many publishers in this industry that are so that are great. You know, you mentioned my Aisner nomination with IDW working with them

[00:25:25] over the past decade has been a dream also. You know DC Comics has never pushed back on any queer character I've ever tried to include like we really, we really are better than we were

[00:25:37] 10 years ago. Do I think that we're in a good place? No, but I definitely think we're in a much better place, which is great. You know, every journey starts with small step.

[00:25:47] Yeah. Yeah. So I guess the positive we can we can leave listeners with here is there is inertia you just got to wait on it right. Yeah, we gotta like keep working on it and we gotta

[00:25:57] keep making our own stuff right at the end of the day. If it is really about corporate profits, the more that we show them that you know, doing creating these kinds of characters and daring

[00:26:10] to anger the biggest doesn't necessarily have to affect their bottom line because there are zillions of gays out there who want to give you their money. So you know, it's a little bit

[00:26:22] of that we just got to keep making our own stuff and I think that more and more the message is to sort of shirk off corporate interference in art whenever you can. And to find the people and

[00:26:35] the places that are willing to do the dangerous and the risky thing if you are going to work under like the umbrella, you know, it's really dedicate yourself to that. And I think that

[00:26:45] that's it's doable. Do I wish I moved faster? Sure. But I think that your point about everyone on the low to mid tier rungs like just being ready for this and being enthusiastic about it is

[00:27:00] absolutely incredibly true. That has been my experience every step of the way in every industry that I've worked in. Yeah, I it's one of those things that for me, okay, like, okay, I'm on problem three outside anyway, right? I mean, obviously, I'm an ally,

[00:27:17] but I'm the straight white cis guy in the room. And I've seen having been in comics since like the mid 80s. Yeah. You know, it looks like things have changed pretty dramatically, but I'm old,

[00:27:32] right? And and so how do we give it's like how do we give the youth some positivity to latch on to and I feel like that's just, I mean, across the board, right? I don't want to get

[00:27:44] into political stuff too much. But like the election stuff and you know, kids feeling just disconnected, right? And that's that's where we lose it. But that's where we lose the inertia is is is in people just switching off. So yeah, there's a lot of nihilism in Gen Z

[00:28:03] that is really pervasive. And instilling a sense of hope in people through art is more necessary than ever. But I also think that instilling a little, you know, and something that I think we could Trinity does really well is instilling a sense of anger as well

[00:28:25] into into people and knowing that like being treated, you know, the girls in the Wicked Trinity chafed at the way that they're being treated because they're being marginalized. They're not able to be their true selves. They have to hide this massive part of themselves

[00:28:40] in order to make Riverdale and the rest of the world comfortable and to not arouse fear and suspicion in them. And they get sick of living like that. And that anger causes them to

[00:28:51] lash out. And, you know, I think in Sapphire's case, it causes her to retreat in words. In Jade's case, it causes her to cause chaos at words. And in Amber's case, it causes her to seek

[00:29:03] revenge. And I think that that's a really relevant metaphor for being queer, being a POC, being marginalized, which I think witchcraft and other esoteric kind of characters are often, you know, like the X men are often metaphors, right? For feeling out of place in society,

[00:29:23] which is very much what I was trying to do here with the girls. And I think that like the message of like, it's okay to be angry about this, to get angry about this is like, pretty valid. Does it mean that there are unintended, maybe extremely dangerous and

[00:29:38] scary consequences, which we do see in this book as well? Yeah, but is not doing anything also untenable? Yes. So I think that that's, you know, I hadn't really, I had not taken the time to kind of articulate that thought to myself. Although I knew I was

[00:29:57] having it while I was making it, you know, I knew I was kind of making this analogy. But thinking about the way that it points to that anger as maybe not necessarily an

[00:30:08] entirely bad thing, and more as a fact of what being treated like this does to people. Yeah, it does feel really like relevant right now. Like all people are angry. And I think just the presentation here in the Wicked Trinity, not like nothing I would have

[00:30:29] read like when I was a teen, right? So you have the three of them portrayed in high school in a witch club, right? With threefold laws on the chalkboard, right? Like you could have,

[00:30:41] you got gotten away with some of this. But it's crazy for me because, you know, we had a Dungeons and Dragons club when I was at school, right? But I couldn't tell my folks

[00:30:50] about it because satanic panic was a real thing in my household. Totally, totally, totally. Which is I think, you know, as you said, we have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time.

[00:31:01] But I do, I'm starting to see the kind of backlash to that. And I hope that we can push back against that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, issue one is in, out in stores now, right? Second week of June?

[00:31:19] Is that right? Yes, yes. It just came out. And I really appreciate all of your like really insightful questions and thoughts about the book. It's been such a delight to discuss with you.

[00:31:29] So yeah, it's out now. You can grab it in stores everywhere. And it is my sincere hope we get more from these girls. Yeah, that would be amazing. It definitely feels like an intro to a bigger

[00:31:41] project. So I'm crushing my fingers for sure. I mean, no spoilers. No spoilers, but it does end on a pretty big cliffhanger that just have pretty big consequences for all of Riverdale. So I think, I think there's going to be a continuation here. Yay. Well, what else

[00:32:01] you have cooking that you can talk about, of course? Oh my gosh. Well, my next graphic novel comes out with Dark Horse in the fall. It's a collection of short comics for Critical Brawl. Okay. That's where I work in my day job also. So if you're a critter,

[00:32:18] you can check that out. And my latest novel, Star Wars, Dead Eye, Battle Scars is out now. It was a New York Times bestseller and it really heavily features queer characters.

[00:32:28] And in fact, was like a major request of that book when the folks at Lucasfilm asked me to write it. So another delightful gay read if you're looking for that. But otherwise,

[00:32:37] grab Wicked Trinity and let Archie know how much you like it and how much you want to see more of Amber and Co. Exactly. We'll make sure that they go ahead and put the

[00:32:47] orders in there through the LCS for the next stuff. Right? Thank you so much, Byron. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, I always want people to pitch more on the show and you have a kind of a captive

[00:32:57] audience who's predisposed to support your work here. And in this case, if you don't mind me going this direction, would you tell everybody about how Tabatha, your cat is doing because

[00:33:07] I know that's a big thing in your life right now? Although I'm not a cat person in general. I had a cat that meant a lot to me as a teen, saved my life. He's a British blue.

[00:33:19] Wherever he is, I'm going to show up someday so he can protect me in whatever's next. But like my arms are covered in memorial tattoos for our animals. So tell me about Tabatha.

[00:33:30] Oh, thank you so much for asking. Tabatha is one and a half years old in February of this year. She got diagnosed with FIP, which traditionally has been a 100% fatal disease. But since COVID, they've developed a cure for it. It was an extremely difficult and trying process,

[00:33:46] but thanks to the incredible generosity of my community through GoFundMe and through the kindness of people helping me out, we were able to save her and she is now officially in remission and is doing amazing. And I think she's going to get to live a long,

[00:34:01] full, healthy kitty life, not quite. But thank you so much for asking. She's truly doing better than ever. And I'm full of gratitude about it. It's hard for me to talk about still, but yeah, thank you for asking. She's truly cute. She got her own Instagram. So

[00:34:19] Oh, okay. I'll have to check that out. Your camera's saying you're going to have a baller at Tim's The Brave. Yeah, it's amazing. You try to get traction yourself and it's like we were talking the

[00:34:28] other day. The easiest thing for us to just get a lot of traction would be we have a new adoptive dog named Lulu and she is the weirdest dog we've ever, ever had.

[00:34:40] So I was thinking about making some like what it okay, it's escaping me at the moment. The auditory sounds that are really soothing to people. ASMR. Yes. So I was thinking of making an ASMR channel of Lulu noises and it'll probably there'll be million people. Yeah.

[00:35:00] Instantly. Oh yeah, it's always the stuff that you spend the least amount of time on, you know, that like blows up. Ain't that always the way I think my most popular TikTok that got

[00:35:09] over a million views is about like pooping in a barns and noble. Sure. Cool. We'll go with that. Why not? Yeah. So okay on that note, where can people find you online to hear all about you

[00:35:22] pooping in a barns and noble? Well on my TikTok, my TikTok is at Sam writes a lot, but I'm on Twitter and Instagram at my name, which is just Sam bags, S A M M A GGS.

[00:35:32] I'm on Instagram a lot more these days. But you can find me there. I'm always down to chat about comics. And Byron, I appreciate you so much. Thanks for your time today. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for joining me on the show. It's been a lot of fun.

[00:35:46] Agreed. Have a great one. You too. This is Byron O'Neill on behalf of all of us at Comic Book Yeti. Happy Pride Month everybody. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Take care, everybody. This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner,

[00:35:59] brought to you by Comic Book Yeti. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff. It lets us know how we're doing, and more importantly, how we can improve. Thanks for listening.

[00:36:15] If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast into the comics Kate. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.