Steve Foxe Interview: New Champions

[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.

[00:00:10] Hey everyone, this is...

[00:00:13] Hi Byron.

[00:00:14] Who is this?

[00:00:15] I'm your fairy godmother.

[00:00:17] I have a fairy godmother?

[00:00:18] Of course you do.

[00:00:20] I'm 50 years old. Why haven't you shown up before?

[00:00:22] I appear when I'm needed.

[00:00:24] And I didn't need you in all these years?

[00:00:27] Do you want my help or not?

[00:00:29] Um...

[00:00:30] Sure.

[00:00:31] Exactly.

[00:00:32] I was just about to pitch our Patreon. Why would I need help with that?

[00:00:36] Because you're an idiot sometimes.

[00:00:38] That's hurtful.

[00:00:40] What were you going to put on there?

[00:00:42] We do comic stuff? So something along those lines?

[00:00:45] And this is why I'm here. You do know what people put on Patreon most of the time, right?

[00:00:52] Honestly, no.

[00:00:54] People need something a little bit spicy to entice them to support you.

[00:00:59] Nobody wants to see me shirtless.

[00:01:01] I doubt that's true. You are in pretty good shape considering your age.

[00:01:06] Thank you. Let's see. A little spicy. I've been bugging Jimmy to figure out what he's going to do.

[00:01:12] I know lately he's been playing around with his **** all the time.

[00:01:16] He loves to take it out and show it off. There's even a specific TikTok channel now. How's that sound?

[00:01:21] Not a bad start. People like Jimmy. What else you got?

[00:01:24] I told a story recently about being in a strip club with some of the four horsemen when I was working for WCW back in the day.

[00:01:30] I picked up an infection on my-

[00:01:32] Woo!

[00:01:33] From the experience, I hate strip clubs. Is that better?

[00:01:37] Getting there? But maybe spicy shouldn't include infections you get in strip clubs. That's not sexy. We'll workshop it.

[00:01:46] Like I need more meating.

[00:01:47] At least tell them where to find it while we figure this out. Mother goddess, help this poor man.

[00:01:53] You can find us on Patreon at Cryptid Creator Corner Pod. I'll put it in the show notes.

[00:01:58] Anything else you'd like to remind me that I'm bad at?

[00:02:01] How much time do you have?

[00:02:03] Why do you look like Rosario Dawson anyway?

[00:02:05] I appear the way you want me to look.

[00:02:07] Okay, that's disturbing. Wait, have you been showing up in my dreams?

[00:02:12] I'll never tell.

[00:02:14] And we're done here.

[00:02:16] Y'all, Jimmy the Chaos Goblin strikes again.

[00:02:20] I should have known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media.

[00:02:27] My bad.

[00:02:28] He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know, and now I have to get it in gear

[00:02:32] and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing.

[00:02:35] Another friend chimes in, are you going to make maps?

[00:02:38] It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together, so I guess, question mark?

[00:02:43] It was then that I discovered Arkhamforge.

[00:02:45] If you don't know who Arkhamforge is, they have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive.

[00:02:52] Allowing you to build, play, and export animated maps, including in-person Fog of War capability that lets your players interact with maps as the adventure unfolds while you, the DM, get the full picture.

[00:03:04] Now I'm set to easily build high-res animated maps, saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign.

[00:03:12] That's a win every day in my book.

[00:03:14] Check them out at arkhamforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off.

[00:03:20] I'll drop a link in the show notes for you.

[00:03:22] And big thanks to Arkhamforge for partnering with our show.

[00:03:24] I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even.

[00:03:29] Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner.

[00:03:32] I'm Byron Neal, your host for today's Comics Creator Chat.

[00:03:35] I'm joined by a regular around these parts, Eisner and Ringo nominated Steve Fox, who has a plethora, and I wouldn't say it was a plethora without knowing what a plethora is, of books coming out, which we will get to in a moment.

[00:03:46] But Steve, welcome back.

[00:03:47] It's been a minute.

[00:03:48] I guess it's been since the summer since we chatted last.

[00:03:51] Yeah, thanks for having me back.

[00:03:52] We get to kind of do seasonal check-ins at this rate.

[00:03:55] Yeah, yeah, I like that.

[00:03:57] Well, I saw in the newsletter that you were enjoying Halloween in the new house and your very walkable neighborhood with a 12-foot skeleton now in residence.

[00:04:05] Did you have lots of trick-or-treaters?

[00:04:07] We did.

[00:04:08] We got about 300 over the span of the night.

[00:04:11] I had never lived anywhere where trick-or-treaters come by in my entire life, so I was very excited about that.

[00:04:17] And my partners wanted one of those Home Depot skeletons for years.

[00:04:21] Yeah.

[00:04:21] He really wanted to do it when we had a balcony and an apartment, which was not going to happen.

[00:04:27] But now that we had a house, I had no excuse not to go for it.

[00:04:30] It was a big hit, surprisingly with the littlest kids.

[00:04:33] Like, toddlers were entranced by it.

[00:04:36] I thought they'd be terrified, but they thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

[00:04:39] And even after we left, because we went to see Halloween, the 1978 one that was playing downtown.

[00:04:46] Nice.

[00:04:46] Even after we left, we have a ring camera and people would come up and take photos with it all night.

[00:04:52] So that was cute.

[00:04:53] That's really cool.

[00:04:54] Yeah, we had less than last year.

[00:04:56] I think it was somewhere close to somewhere between 450 and 500 for us.

[00:04:59] But we had an adult sangria station, which we went through five gallons of booze.

[00:05:04] And I think next year, being on a Friday, we're going to have to double that, you know, kind of in preparation.

[00:05:11] But we didn't get a chance.

[00:05:13] I know we were doing the spooky season movie thing with the Dark Horse folks.

[00:05:18] And we were talking about that on email.

[00:05:19] Did you have any standout spooky season movie watches for yourself?

[00:05:24] I didn't get to watch like anything this year because of the way New York Comic Con fell.

[00:05:30] Sure.

[00:05:31] Double check if I oh, I finally saw Titan or Titan, however you pronounce it.

[00:05:35] The French movie with the car.

[00:05:37] Yeah.

[00:05:38] Which I feel like is a very reductionist way to explain that film now that I've actually seen it.

[00:05:42] But I really liked that.

[00:05:43] It's not really a horror movie, but I'm glad I finally saw it.

[00:05:48] Yeah.

[00:05:49] Yeah, that was a good one.

[00:05:50] I, I was doing a whole lot of werewolf movies, just kind of seeing how people interpret lupus, since it's something I have.

[00:05:57] And, you know, that idea of a virus kind of taking over and hacking your system and doing all sorts of weird things.

[00:06:04] So watch a lot of werewolf movies.

[00:06:06] I finally caught up with Bone Tomahawk.

[00:06:08] And yeah, that perfect buildup movie.

[00:06:12] There was a.

[00:06:13] Yeah.

[00:06:14] I want to spoil that moment for the people who haven't seen it, but but wow.

[00:06:17] Yeah.

[00:06:18] And my son, he wanted to to start getting into the Alien franchise, which I know was very formative for you.

[00:06:24] You know, Alien Paradiso is dropping in December.

[00:06:27] What's that been like to kind of add some DNA into this massively influential, you know, body of work that is across a lot of different media?

[00:06:36] Yeah, it was very intimidating, but also it's such a bucket list moment for me.

[00:06:42] I was exposed to the Alien franchise very young, like way too young.

[00:06:46] I think Resurrection was one of the first movies I saw in theaters.

[00:06:49] So I was probably like, I don't know, six or seven younger than I should have been to see that in theaters.

[00:06:56] Um, but my dad showed me the first two movies when I was a little kid.

[00:07:01] I don't think I saw three until way later.

[00:07:03] Uh, and the Kinner toy line was around when I was a kid.

[00:07:07] So I'd like the alien rhino, the mantis, the crab, you know, all of them.

[00:07:12] I was just in trance.

[00:07:13] Um, and I just grew up with it being a constant presence.

[00:07:17] I've seen the original two movies, especially, you know, 20 times.

[00:07:22] I consider the first movie probably one of the most perfect creations of cinema of all time.

[00:07:28] And for a long time I had an entire wall of posters that was just Jonesy the cat, like different iterations of Jonesy.

[00:07:35] Okay.

[00:07:36] Um, so to say that I'm like a fan is understating it.

[00:07:41] Uh, and when I got to contribute to black, white and blood, the anthology, that alone was like, okay, cool.

[00:07:49] Check Mark. I got to do it. How, how awesome. Right.

[00:07:52] Um, so when I got the email from Sarah Brunstad, that the subject line was just more alien question mark, it was like, uh, um, it is also very intimidating because right around that time was when the,

[00:08:05] the stuff for Romulus was kicking off like all the promotional materials.

[00:08:10] So I knew that we were going to go up against a brand new movie.

[00:08:14] I knew that we were going to go up against, um, aliens versus Avengers.

[00:08:18] Like we're going to have a kind of a resurgence of Xenomorph activity.

[00:08:22] And I really wanted to do something that was going to set us apart.

[00:08:26] And I had like probably a, uh, a month to put together a pitch.

[00:08:32] Uh, everything's been structured in like a very generous timeline for this.

[00:08:36] And I just, I spent like three weeks of that having no clue what I wanted to do because so many of the alien stories throughout the last 30 years, it's like, okay, you say alien, you picture a space station, you picture colonial Marines, you know, you, you picture kind of this, uh, certain fundamental.

[00:08:56] And I just didn't want to do things that you could get other places.

[00:09:03] Um, especially knowing that Fetty Alvarez's take was going to be back to basics in a lot of ways.

[00:09:10] Um, which is what Romulus certainly played out to be.

[00:09:14] It was like bringing the franchise back to a lot of the things, uh, fans would recognize from the older movies.

[00:09:20] So that's how I came up with the visual of just a Xenomorph on a beach with the sun behind him as waves crashed along its exoskeleton.

[00:09:30] And that's kind of where the whole pitch developed from there.

[00:09:33] Um, so we're set on a tropical resort colony, uh, for hyper wealthy patrons who can actually afford to go to one of these colonies.

[00:09:43] You know, the, the world of alien, a lot of it is uncharted.

[00:09:47] A lot of it's still flexible.

[00:09:48] When you get to work in this sandbox, the studio is actually a very willing participant about what you want to bring to it.

[00:09:57] You know, they, they obviously have their parameters and their rules, but it's not like, okay, you have to stay in this tiny little square.

[00:10:06] You have the opportunity to introduce, you know, new characters, new worlds, new, um, you know, people even done new takes on the Xenomorph and past Marvel comics.

[00:10:15] For me, it was really about a new setting and bring it to Paradiso, bringing it to this like tropical resort.

[00:10:24] I just thought like seeing it in the sunlit horror and bring it back to sort of like the stalk and kill horror roots of the first movie, but in such a different, uh, perspective in such a different setting.

[00:10:39] That to me was a fun combo that I could really build off of.

[00:10:43] Uh, and the other thing to me is I just wanted everyone to be helpless.

[00:10:45] So there's no colonial Marines.

[00:10:47] There's no pulse rifles.

[00:10:49] Like no one in the entire series, no one ever gets a gun.

[00:10:53] You know, no one's ever firing heavy artillery.

[00:10:56] No one's equipped to deal with these creatures.

[00:10:59] And in fact, no one in the entire series ever says the word Xenomorph.

[00:11:04] No one knows what these things are.

[00:11:06] Uh, there's never a scientist who comes in and says, ah, yes, this is what we're dealing with.

[00:11:11] We've had all these dealings with this before.

[00:11:12] Um, so that to me was really, because I'm so in awe and so respectful of the first movie, it was really important for me to have a restrained number of Xenomorphs and to really have a cast that was out of their depth.

[00:11:28] I thought you were going to tell me that, uh, you were planning a trip to the Maldives or you'd watch too much Love Island or something like that.

[00:11:36] I did.

[00:11:36] I did use some vacation photos from when my partner and I went to Mexico.

[00:11:40] Okay.

[00:11:41] Okay.

[00:11:41] So some of this was directly inspired by one of the resorts we stayed at.

[00:11:47] Well, it's definitely an engaging headspace for a reader to take in for sure.

[00:11:52] You know, it's, it's not purely a sci-fi vehicle, so it's not something we're accustomed to seeing with, with Alien.

[00:11:57] So, um, so I, yeah, I thought it was, was very fresh.

[00:12:00] Yeah.

[00:12:07] Yeah.

[00:12:09] So that's probably why you didn't get too many movies in.

[00:12:12] Um, that was a homecoming of sorts, getting to meet all your collaborators.

[00:12:15] I was reading from your newsletter.

[00:12:17] You know, you've been working with these folks for years now and you actually got to meet them in person for the first time.

[00:12:23] A lot of them, right?

[00:12:24] Yeah.

[00:12:25] That was really surreal.

[00:12:26] Um, including one of my Paradiso collaborators, Peter Wynn.

[00:12:29] Um, so he's doing the Xenomorph POV sections where we actually see through the eyes of the Xenomorph.

[00:12:36] Um, he was there.

[00:12:37] Uh, I should mention too, Edgar Salazar is the main artist on Paradiso.

[00:12:40] He's done an awesome job.

[00:12:42] He was not at Comic-Con, but I also got to meet, um, Ivan Fiorelli, who's doing New Champions.

[00:12:47] We got to speak a ton about the book.

[00:12:49] Um, Lynn Yoshi, who I did Psylocke with, uh, geez, Carlos Nito, who I did, um, Spider-Boy Annual with, uh, Carolla Borelli, who I did Spider-Woman with.

[00:13:02] Like, it's such a, uh, uh, surreal experience.

[00:13:04] All these people that I've only ever spoken to on email and who, for the most part, live in different countries.

[00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:10] Uh, across the world.

[00:13:11] And also collaborators who I've edited for years, uh, Fernando Blanco on World Tree, Martin Simmons on Department of Truth.

[00:13:18] I've worked with those guys, you know, in Martin's case for over half a decade.

[00:13:22] And this was my first time ever meeting them in person.

[00:13:24] So this was a very fruitful, very, uh, heartwarming New York Comic-Con.

[00:13:29] That's awesome.

[00:13:30] It sounds like also a lot of, uh, uh, social overload.

[00:13:33] You're not, you're not the con that like really enjoy like a lots and lots and lots of interaction, if I understand correctly.

[00:13:39] Yeah.

[00:13:40] Normally I avoid them like the plague and, uh, we were put up in Times Square for this, which is a nightmare for me.

[00:13:49] Uh, even, you know, when I lived in New York, I would have avoided Times Square as everyone who lives in New York does.

[00:13:54] Uh, and there was the, the first night, uh, Tiny Onion put on sort of a, uh, gathering, pre-show gathering.

[00:14:01] And walking through Times Square to the venue, there was a moment like three blocks in where I was like, you know what?

[00:14:09] Maybe I'll just turn around and go back to LaGuardia.

[00:14:13] But I, I, I toughed it out and the show ended up being a really great experience.

[00:14:17] And, uh, I, I feel like I got my, my social, uh, socialization in for the year.

[00:14:22] So I'll see everyone at New York Comic Con 2025.

[00:14:25] There you go.

[00:14:26] Well, and you got in, you were at the Tiny Onion booth and there was a revival of razor blades of a sort.

[00:14:32] There was like an exclusive newspaper or, or something.

[00:14:36] Yes.

[00:14:37] Uh, so we did, uh, Tiny Onion Presents, which, uh, Courtney Menard put together.

[00:14:43] She's our production, uh, head.

[00:14:45] And in that we did a, a selection of comic strips as one would find in the newspaper, but we did it under the razor blades banner.

[00:14:54] So they're all a little off kilter and upsetting and horrific.

[00:14:58] Uh, and we invited back a couple of my favorite contributors from the past, like Jenna Cha and Ezra Clayton Daniels and Joshua Hall Simmons.

[00:15:06] Uh, and we also invited some new people, um, like Caroline Cash, who had never done it before to, to make cool, messed up comic strips for this.

[00:15:17] And it is sort of a welcome back sign for razor blades, um, because we will be doing more in a very different form than what we did before.

[00:15:29] Um, so, you know, James and I are proud of what the first version was and we've spent a while now figuring out what razor blades 2.0 could be.

[00:15:40] And, you know, we're not ready to tell the world, but it's going to be a vastly different form than what you saw the first time.

[00:15:47] Okay.

[00:15:48] Well, you have another collaboration with old razor blades chums pewter.

[00:15:52] It's pewter.

[00:15:53] Is that right?

[00:15:54] As far as I know.

[00:15:55] Okay.

[00:15:56] Okay.

[00:15:56] So one of the joys of working with people across the world is probably getting their names wrong.

[00:16:02] Yeah.

[00:16:03] Yeah.

[00:16:03] I mean, it's okay.

[00:16:03] I, I butcher names.

[00:16:05] I, everybody, um, I, I have been called Brian my entire life.

[00:16:10] So I do my best to try to pronounce people's names correctly, but sometimes I fail, but you've got, um, let this one be a devil's four issue series kicking off with the true weird line from tiny onion with dark horse, which looks like a, a retailing of cryptid mythologies.

[00:16:26] Feels right at home to be talking about that here.

[00:16:28] Uh, is this a series of mini series then that are in production, like different ones that will be launching with different cryptids?

[00:16:35] Yeah.

[00:16:36] So, uh, let this one be a devil is, uh, James and I co-wrote it and, uh, killer Kowalski and Brad Simpson, who also colored all eight eyes with us.

[00:16:47] And Tom Napolitano, who's been lettering blue book.

[00:16:51] Um, we did this four issue mini series.

[00:16:53] It is our attempt to do a definitive Jersey devil story.

[00:16:58] And if you're familiar with Jersey devil lore, it is extremely fragmented.

[00:17:03] Like when it comes to cryptids slash folklore, the Jersey devil spans hundreds of years and you have versions of it that are cryptozoological.

[00:17:15] You have versions of it that are religious.

[00:17:17] You have versions of it that are pure folklore.

[00:17:19] So we kind of ran at that head on to tell an original story, an original narrative with our own original characters that also provides a framework of the whole Jersey devil lore.

[00:17:34] Explains the different versions of it as we have in other true weird projects like blue book.

[00:17:40] Um, but brings it into an actual story structure and it is the first of the true weird books.

[00:17:46] So, um, there will be other true weird books tackling other cryptids, um, brought to life by other creative teams.

[00:17:54] So you should expect to see other major cryptids tackled.

[00:17:59] We're probably not going to get to like, I don't know, the flatwoods monster,

[00:18:03] but other, other major cryptids are going to get their time to shine.

[00:18:07] Nice.

[00:18:08] Well, American mythologies, uh, if, if we go back past, you know, colonization, um, I probably have a really good handle on, right?

[00:18:18] I have a degree in anthropology.

[00:18:19] It's focused on, um, Native American mythologies.

[00:18:23] Um, but, but stuff that is colonial and, and more up to current times, I don't have a lot of basis in.

[00:18:31] So I had to do some digging on actually about the Jersey travel.

[00:18:34] Of course I've heard of it, but I didn't know a lot.

[00:18:36] So I ended up listening to an episode of the last podcast to kind of bring me up to speed on it.

[00:18:41] And it's really, really interesting.

[00:18:43] These real world dynamics influencing it that revolve around this Titan leads character and Benjamin Franklin and these pamphlet wars,

[00:18:52] including the, the famous like farmer's almanac.

[00:18:56] Yep.

[00:18:57] Um, so it sounds like you're going to be taking some facts, some fiction and sort of melding things together.

[00:19:03] Is that, is that about right?

[00:19:05] Yeah.

[00:19:05] And issue two actually dives into the Titan leads of it all a lot more.

[00:19:09] So you read issue one, which, uh, deals a little bit more with the, uh, catchier folklore issue two.

[00:19:17] We, we broached the, the historical precedent, which is really fascinating once you dive into it more,

[00:19:24] but it's not quite the same horror hook as, you know, mother leads and all of that.

[00:19:28] We, we couldn't lead with Ben Franklin, but it is interesting to dive into all of that.

[00:19:32] Um, and we want to really do it as a horror story too.

[00:19:37] So especially with someone like Piotr and Brad, you know, they have such horror chops that we wanted to,

[00:19:44] to meld fact and fiction and history and horror and kind of put that all in a melting pot.

[00:19:49] Um, and that kind of research is fun to me.

[00:19:52] You know, we also did wild fictions as part of department of truth.

[00:19:56] And a lot of that involves researching the history of cryptids and folklore.

[00:20:00] And like you said, when you really dive into them, there's that surface level, the, the fun

[00:20:08] anecdotes and the, the stories that get passed around a lot.

[00:20:11] And when you scratch beyond that, you start to find some really fascinating ways that these

[00:20:16] get kicked off in the first place, ranging from, you know, the weird rivalries to a lot of

[00:20:23] these have like problematic conspiracies at their roots.

[00:20:27] It's, it's just, there's a lot to dig into.

[00:20:29] Um, so I'm excited to see the other true weird books and to see those get uncovered as well.

[00:20:36] Yeah.

[00:20:36] I love that first issue.

[00:20:38] Historical horror is probably my favorite.

[00:20:40] Um, and Piotr's artwork comes off very wood.

[00:20:44] If that, if that makes any sense to you, you know, lots and lots of lines that create a lot of

[00:20:49] texture that really pops the characters, you know, not unlike all eight eyes and his other

[00:20:53] work there, but that was New York and had like these linear backgrounds that he was dealing

[00:20:59] with.

[00:20:59] So not as much cross hatching.

[00:21:01] Uh, it feels like a very elevated look that, that really, really worked for me in issue

[00:21:05] one, uh, given the time, time period that it was sudden.

[00:21:08] So.

[00:21:09] Yeah.

[00:21:09] Well, thank you.

[00:21:09] And he does some outstanding stuff in the rest of the series.

[00:21:13] And issue two is really the one that dives into the colonial history and he gets to actually

[00:21:18] do some, some stuff in the vein of like woodworking homage and all of that.

[00:21:22] And it's, it's just killer.

[00:21:24] I'll send it to you after this.

[00:21:25] It's just killer, killer artwork on his behalf.

[00:21:27] He's really gone above and beyond.

[00:21:29] Yeah.

[00:21:30] I, I, it's a great, great series.

[00:21:31] I'm definitely hooked on this one.

[00:21:33] I know that the leads family had, uh, 13 kids historically.

[00:21:36] So I counted the boys just to see if it was like maybe a thrown in seven son of a seven

[00:21:41] son element, but, uh, that's coming out in February in time for Valentine's day, just

[00:21:47] in time to dissuade anybody from actually having children.

[00:21:51] Um, at least that many of them.

[00:21:53] Yeah.

[00:21:54] God, I can't even imagine.

[00:21:56] All right.

[00:21:57] Let's take a quick break.

[00:21:58] I love comic books.

[00:21:59] Hey, children of the algorithm.

[00:22:01] I wanted to tell you about another great comics related podcast.

[00:22:03] Our friends, Dan, Dwayne and Sienna with comics over time.

[00:22:07] I have a great show that you should definitely check out.

[00:22:09] Dan has been a comic book, getting contributor since before I was around and the show delves

[00:22:13] deep into comics history, analyzing it from the wider cultural landscape at the time.

[00:22:18] I learned a lot just listening in and they are keeping it fresh too, with Sienna reporting

[00:22:22] in about the current Marvel offerings.

[00:22:24] I love seeing the next generation excited about comics and it's cool to see a family participating

[00:22:29] in comics journalism together.

[00:22:30] This season, they are focused on the history of everyone's favorite Hell's Kitchen vigilante

[00:22:35] daredevil.

[00:22:36] It's a fantastic show that you're going to want to add to your rotation.

[00:22:40] You can find them at comics over time on your favorite podcasting platform or at their

[00:22:44] website, comics over time dot pod bean dot com.

[00:22:48] I'll drop a link in the show notes to make it easy for you.

[00:22:50] He's a daredevil, Ned.

[00:22:52] After a string of unexplained disappearances in the southern parts of the United States,

[00:23:04] retired Detective Clint searches for his white trash brother.

[00:23:08] While searching for him, he ends up being abducted by aliens.

[00:23:12] He is now in the arena for big guns, stupid rednecks.

[00:23:16] An intergalactic cable's newest hit show, which puts him and other humans in laser gun

[00:23:21] gladiatorial combat.

[00:23:22] And his brother is the reigning champion with 27 kills.

[00:23:27] That's the premise for a new book from Band of Bards, Big Guns, Stupid Rednecks.

[00:23:32] I got a chance to see an advanced preview of this book and being from the south, honestly,

[00:23:36] I was a bit skeptical going in.

[00:23:38] But they won me over and nothing is more powerful than an initially skeptic convert in my book.

[00:23:43] In Jimmy's words, big guns, stupid rednecks is many things, but it isn't subtle.

[00:23:48] It tells you exactly what it is up front.

[00:23:50] Then it delivers with a great premise, fantastic art and a whole mess of fun.

[00:23:54] I had a great time reading big guns, stupid rednecks.

[00:23:57] And what I thought was going to be an indictment of redneck culture quickly showed it was actually

[00:24:01] a love letter, a family mystery, brother pitted against brother, aliens, fighting for profit

[00:24:07] in a big arena.

[00:24:08] This truly has it all.

[00:24:10] Issue one is out already, but you can still pick up a copy on the Band of Bards website

[00:24:13] and current issues are available via your previews or lunar order form, or just ask your LCS.

[00:24:19] Don't miss it.

[00:24:19] Let's get back to the show.

[00:24:21] You have another book dropping before that.

[00:24:24] So that's the new Marvel series, the new champions.

[00:24:26] And let me take a stab at bringing everyone up to speed and tell me if I missed anything

[00:24:30] important.

[00:24:31] So you've got the core four that show up in the pages of Spider Woman series on the second

[00:24:38] arc, and that's Liberty, Hellruin, Moonsquire, and Cadet Marvel.

[00:24:42] These were normal kids stolen from their families that were experimented on by Hydra, given superpowers

[00:24:47] that mirror those of famous heroes, and then brainwashed as they would forget who they are

[00:24:53] to become sleeper agents, essentially.

[00:24:55] All right.

[00:24:56] We're good so far?

[00:24:57] More or less.

[00:24:58] More or less.

[00:24:58] Okay.

[00:24:59] Okay.

[00:25:00] Okay.

[00:25:00] And then Jessica helps them regain their memories, and they commit themselves to finding the

[00:25:04] other young heroes and freeing them.

[00:25:07] We're close to on track, right?

[00:25:08] Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:10] Okay.

[00:25:10] Okay.

[00:25:11] But it felt like a very on-the-nose approach, having Jessica kind of help them out, a bunch

[00:25:15] of brainwashed children or child soldiers assisted by a former child soldier.

[00:25:20] And I know Spider Woman is sadly wrapping up with issue 10, and the platform for this to piggyback

[00:25:26] and launch off of is really unique.

[00:25:28] I don't think I've seen it before.

[00:25:30] 22 variant covers that dropped a year or so ago with all new heroes inspired by Marvel

[00:25:36] icons that are reimagined for a new generation.

[00:25:38] That was your source material.

[00:25:40] Did you pick any of them that you wanted to use for new champions?

[00:25:45] Yeah.

[00:25:45] Well, it's not completely unprecedented because if you think about it, this is also how we

[00:25:49] got Gwen Poole.

[00:25:51] Okay.

[00:25:51] And it's kind of sort of, it's similar to how Ghost Spider, you know, Gwen Stacy popped

[00:26:00] off as well.

[00:26:01] Um, yes.

[00:26:04] So Alana Smith is my editor on the project and she and I sat down with the whole list of

[00:26:11] covers and we went through and really discussed the potential of the different characters on

[00:26:19] these covers to have full characters behind them, full power sources, full, uh, you know, arcs and

[00:26:30] purposes in the universe.

[00:26:32] Um, because you know, when these artists did these covers, there was not the intent of launching

[00:26:40] a team out of it.

[00:26:41] You know, these were fun variant covers, but now that we're building this into a team in

[00:26:48] the 616 in the main universe, we do have to consider things like, okay, there's a female

[00:26:55] Wolverine teen girl, but we also have Laura Kinney.

[00:27:01] So is this too much of redundancy?

[00:27:04] So as of now that character, there's no plans to use that character anywhere that could change

[00:27:10] down the line.

[00:27:10] Someone else might have an idea for her, but she was one of the ones on the list where it,

[00:27:15] there really didn't seem to be a purpose for her that wasn't already fulfilled by another

[00:27:20] character.

[00:27:21] Sure.

[00:27:22] But characters like Liberty or Hellruin, you know, they seemed more unique visually right

[00:27:29] off the bat and characters like Cadet Marvel and Moon Squire, they just had fun enough designs.

[00:27:34] You know, there's just kind of potential leaping out about them and other characters you're

[00:27:39] going to meet, uh, in issue one and issue two.

[00:27:43] I don't want to give away all their names yet or give away all their, um, you know, everyone

[00:27:48] who's appearing just yet.

[00:27:49] It was just a combination of who we thought we could spin backstories out of and who we

[00:27:54] felt didn't already have a character really filling that role already.

[00:27:58] And you're also going to see characters that maybe you would look at that variant cover

[00:28:01] and think, oh, this character is inspired by so-and-so.

[00:28:05] So their story must be X, Y, Z.

[00:28:07] And we went in a totally different direction.

[00:28:10] Uh, and that was really part of the fun too, was, was spinning off of that and bucking

[00:28:14] expectations.

[00:28:15] So just because they look like a certain character doesn't mean they're going to be tied to that

[00:28:20] character or have the powers you think, or be good or bad or, you know, any of these things

[00:28:25] where we're going to kind of mess with what you're expecting here and there too.

[00:28:30] Yeah.

[00:28:30] After reading through the first issue you sent over, it's a pretty big world building endeavor.

[00:28:35] Really?

[00:28:36] You're doing, you know, it's an amazingly rare opportunity with Marvel to create and work

[00:28:40] on and develop so many characters.

[00:28:43] So talk to me about kind of reverse engineering the characters that jumped out to you the

[00:28:48] most, the, maybe the core four as I, as I put it.

[00:28:52] Yeah.

[00:28:53] Well, so I did put them in Spider-Woman originally because we talked Ellie Pyle and I'm my editor

[00:29:00] on Spider-Woman.

[00:29:01] You know, we got the first arc.

[00:29:03] The first arc was a gang war tie-in.

[00:29:05] And then when we started, we got approved for a second arc, we started thinking about,

[00:29:09] okay, how can we, you know, catch eyes, boost sales, see what we can do.

[00:29:13] Sure.

[00:29:14] Right when there was interest in bringing some of these characters in.

[00:29:17] So we're like, okay, let's jump on this.

[00:29:19] Let's be some of the first ones to do it.

[00:29:21] So we did that.

[00:29:22] And, you know, it did send issue seven back to print and there was interest in that.

[00:29:26] It didn't get us a third arc, but it did get me another series.

[00:29:30] So, you know, it worked out for me.

[00:29:33] It just didn't work out for Jess, unfortunately.

[00:29:36] But she's off in West Coast Avengers, so she's doing fine.

[00:29:40] It was such a unique experience.

[00:29:42] I've never, I've created original characters before, you know, Web Weaver, other smaller

[00:29:49] characters here and there.

[00:29:50] I've never taken an existing piece of art and stared at it and thought, okay, well, here's

[00:29:59] a blue power signature.

[00:30:01] That could mean this, you know, this character has this costume, so they could be inspired

[00:30:08] by Moon Knight this way.

[00:30:10] And it really kind of brought me back to childhood in a fun way when I just didn't know as much

[00:30:18] about comics, but I was so curious and excited that I would see something like Kingdom Come,

[00:30:23] you know, where Alex Ross had drawn 200 original characters in the background and none of them

[00:30:30] were ever going to get full stories.

[00:30:31] But you're kind of searching through the pages and you're just wondering, okay, who is this

[00:30:35] person who looks like Catwoman, but she has armor?

[00:30:38] Who's this person who looks like a walking cathedral?

[00:30:40] You know, what's his story?

[00:30:42] Um, and that was a fun way for me to kind of imagine things in a different way versus

[00:30:47] like Web Weaver where, you know, I got to build him from the ground up.

[00:30:50] That was the only prompt for him was a gay spider character who was more on the, you know,

[00:30:56] the flamboyant and outside.

[00:30:58] Sure.

[00:30:59] That was start from scratch.

[00:31:01] This was start from something that exists and figure out a way to retrofit it.

[00:31:05] So it was a really cool thought exercise.

[00:31:08] Um, and some of them were easier than others because some of them are blanker slates than

[00:31:13] others.

[00:31:13] You know, one of the characters, and I won't say who to single them out, but one of the

[00:31:18] characters who appears in issue two, we spent right up until we locked issue two figuring

[00:31:24] out what her powers were going to be.

[00:31:26] Okay.

[00:31:27] Because the, the power signature, you know, that was suggested by her cover was pretty

[00:31:35] vague.

[00:31:36] And we went back and forth on her name.

[00:31:39] We went back and forth on what the ability was going to be.

[00:31:41] We went back and forth on what was going to be most useful for the team dynamic, you know,

[00:31:46] really playing with it.

[00:31:47] Even though we had a very tight outline for the entire series, her power was still flexible.

[00:31:53] So there was room to kind of, you know, budge that around as we go.

[00:32:00] Um, which has been really fun and it's, it's great working with Alana.

[00:32:03] Um, she's been such a supportive editor on this and I think she's up for that kind of

[00:32:07] fun too.

[00:32:08] Uh, and she's also editing Scarlet Witch, which is where Amaranth appeared, which is

[00:32:12] the Scarlet Witch, uh, sidekick.

[00:32:15] So, you know, she's already had experience bringing these characters in and figuring out

[00:32:20] how to build them out.

[00:32:21] So it's been a really fun, wild process.

[00:32:25] And I think for fans and for readers, you know, whenever there's a new teen hero or new

[00:32:33] teen hero team introduced, there's such a shock to the system because it's very generational,

[00:32:40] right?

[00:32:41] And you get very attached to your generation.

[00:32:43] So for me, it was generation X, you know, skin chamber Mondo, all those guys.

[00:32:50] Sure.

[00:32:51] So when the next one's coming along, you're like, but wait a minute, why aren't my characters

[00:32:56] getting featured anymore?

[00:32:57] I don't like these new guys because now I'm not getting stories with chamber.

[00:33:01] And so there's always that cycle and there's always that kind of like defensiveness, but

[00:33:09] that's also part of the fun is introducing new faces and giving each new generation a chance

[00:33:14] to kind of glom onto their own characters.

[00:33:17] So hopefully we can do that with the new champions and give readers an opportunity to meet these

[00:33:21] characters and find something exciting about them and find something enticing about them.

[00:33:25] And also the old characters aren't going anywhere.

[00:33:28] You know, the existing champions, I'm writing an issue right now that the existing champions

[00:33:33] are in.

[00:33:33] You know, we're not, the champions aren't going anywhere just because they're new champions.

[00:33:38] They're called that because that's what the variant cover initiative was called.

[00:33:42] You know?

[00:33:43] Gotcha.

[00:33:44] Just because we've got these characters doesn't mean that there aren't plans for the other

[00:33:47] characters.

[00:33:50] But yeah, it's fun.

[00:33:51] It's been wild.

[00:33:52] And as far as the Spider-Woman launch of it all, that actually ended up becoming a real

[00:33:58] puzzle to crack too, because we don't want readers to have to go back and read issues seven

[00:34:04] through 10 of a book that's no longer running to be able to read issue one of a new book.

[00:34:10] So in issue one, there is a five page backup drawn by Iguara, who was one of my Spider-Woman

[00:34:17] artists that kind of bridges the gap and tells you everything you need to know about

[00:34:22] the Spider-Woman aspect of it.

[00:34:25] And beyond that, we're really kind of treating them as a fresh start.

[00:34:29] So Hydra is going to play almost no role moving forward.

[00:34:32] They're moving on past that.

[00:34:34] It's a fresh start for them.

[00:34:36] The goal for this is to really be a young, focused, bright, optimistic, fun, propulsive,

[00:34:45] manga-influenced in its energy.

[00:34:49] And it just didn't feel right to tie them to fictional Nazis long term.

[00:34:57] It made a lot of sense in Spider-Woman because she was dealing with the plot with her son and

[00:35:01] it ties thematically to her.

[00:35:04] But we gave them that out at the end of Spider-Woman that she sets them up with Nick Freary

[00:35:09] to get out of their immediate tie with Hydra.

[00:35:15] So the core four, you're still going to see the fallout that they're dealing with.

[00:35:19] And that's a big part of what kicks off new champions, especially for one of the characters

[00:35:24] who's not dealing with it as well as the other three.

[00:35:28] That provides a big part of the macro structure for new champions.

[00:35:33] But you don't need to have read Spider-Woman.

[00:35:35] And we're not going to have a big arc with Madam Hydra and everything that was already tied in.

[00:35:42] It's going to be a lot of new.

[00:35:44] So if you buy new champions, number one, you're going to be meeting new characters,

[00:35:48] new villains, new threats.

[00:35:50] Because we want people to feel a chance to own these characters and own this book

[00:35:54] and come in on the ground floor on something.

[00:35:58] Yeah.

[00:35:58] Well, I won't give anything away, but the beginning felt like an homage

[00:36:02] kind of as your time spent in the Spider-Verse, right?

[00:36:06] Of a sort.

[00:36:07] You're taking a group back to Peter's roots, if you will,

[00:36:10] with kind of a street-level hero introduction.

[00:36:15] And you're working on more champion stuff.

[00:36:17] You mentioned that.

[00:36:18] But that title has been around for quite some time at this point.

[00:36:21] That got fairly cosmic, right?

[00:36:23] They're helping the Avengers stop the high evolutionary.

[00:36:25] They're running around weird world.

[00:36:27] So I'm trying to get a feel for how this is kind of going to be structured moving forward.

[00:36:32] Is it street-level, secret wars, a bit of both?

[00:36:35] Magic is going to play a role as well.

[00:36:37] So kind of what's the pocket, if there is one?

[00:36:39] Yeah, it is more street-level, but also big.

[00:36:46] We're going to do big, fun, exciting things.

[00:36:49] Magic plays a big macro role, as you see teed up in issue one.

[00:36:53] That's part of the ongoing threat.

[00:36:56] But we're not going to be hopping universes.

[00:36:59] We're not going to be...

[00:36:59] It's not going to be secret wars.

[00:37:01] It's not going to be crazy clashes.

[00:37:03] Because to me, the appeal of the team is really, these guys are...

[00:37:08] And I'm not putting a canon age on anyone.

[00:37:10] We don't do this.

[00:37:11] But they are spiritually, you know, they're 14 to 16.

[00:37:15] These are younger characters.

[00:37:17] This is really...

[00:37:18] They're not as young as Spider-Boy.

[00:37:20] But they're not the same age as Kate Bishop or Wiccan or Hulkling.

[00:37:24] You know, these are really young heroes.

[00:37:27] And they're getting to experience that classic young hero age that was the kind of pure Spider-Man sweet spot for a long time.

[00:37:37] And we're going to get to focus on that era and that magic for a little while longer with these characters.

[00:37:47] Because we have seen other characters kind of age out of that faster.

[00:37:51] The new champions, they're going to stay in that age range for a little while longer.

[00:37:55] Because we have enough younger heroes who've aged up a bit and can go to the bar and, you know, not have to use a fake ID.

[00:38:01] These guys are...

[00:38:02] They're younger.

[00:38:03] They're in high school.

[00:38:04] They're going to stay in high school for a while.

[00:38:05] And we're going to get to see, you know, dealing with family life, dealing with young crushes, dealing with really the pressures of being a young hero, but also the excitement of it.

[00:38:17] The thing to me that I really want to capture is that they're very excited to be doing this.

[00:38:22] They had a really rough start to their heroic career.

[00:38:25] And they didn't get to make a lot of choices for themselves that was taken away from them because of what happened with Hydra.

[00:38:32] But they're resilient because they're young.

[00:38:35] A lot of young people are resilient.

[00:38:36] You know, bad things can happen to you at those ages, but you have a lot more elasticity to bounce back to.

[00:38:43] And they're kind of confronting life head on.

[00:38:45] So we do have the core four that had this Hydra experience, but we're also going to have two or three other members join right away who have completely other origins.

[00:38:55] They don't have any tie to that.

[00:38:57] So you're going to have a mix of characters who have all different things going on, all different drives going on.

[00:39:04] And it's going to be largely done in one-ish stories.

[00:39:09] So there's a macro plot.

[00:39:10] You know, everything's going to build.

[00:39:11] But each issue is going to give you like a big fun adventure with, you know, one issue is going to be kind of a gothic magic thing.

[00:39:19] One issue is going to be a little more space hero Avengers-y.

[00:39:24] And we're going to build that way.

[00:39:26] Okay, gotcha.

[00:39:27] Well, I know Amaranth, as you mentioned, was Scarlet Witch's new apprentice.

[00:39:32] She's showing up in Steve Orlando's Scarlet Witch number six.

[00:39:34] You know, Gang War was certainly an opportunity to hone your skills working within kind of the larger Marvel tapestry for big crossover event.

[00:39:44] Were the new champions sort of destined to start showing up everywhere?

[00:39:49] It feels like something that's not on an isolated island, right?

[00:39:52] And now the whole pool of Marvel writers can go, oh, great.

[00:39:55] I want that and that and that and make it more complicated for you.

[00:39:59] Yeah, no, it's been great.

[00:40:00] So the nice thing is that Alana is the editor who's kind of overseeing, like monitoring the kids.

[00:40:07] Okay.

[00:40:08] And we have a master list so we know who's going to appear where.

[00:40:12] And we've had that master list for a long time.

[00:40:16] It's also been fun to watch as like their names get solidified because I won't reveal them all.

[00:40:22] But they all had working names, too.

[00:40:24] And a lot of the working names were terrible because they were just, you know, placeholders for like behind the scenes.

[00:40:30] Sure.

[00:40:31] And so watching like the placeholders get updated with like actual usable names was very fun.

[00:40:38] But yeah, you will see some of them show up other places.

[00:40:40] I think it's, I'm pretty sure it's public knowledge now that like the black cat character is going to appear.

[00:40:48] And they're kind of slowly filtering out as writers have good ideas for them.

[00:40:54] You know, they're not being shoehorned.

[00:40:55] There's no mandate to use them.

[00:40:57] It's really just the same thing that happened with Spider Woman where I was like, okay, I want to pounce.

[00:41:02] I have an idea.

[00:41:04] These are the four I want to use.

[00:41:06] You know, Steve had an idea.

[00:41:08] He took Amaranth.

[00:41:10] It made sense for Scarlet Witch.

[00:41:12] So I think you'll probably see some more develop.

[00:41:15] I was talking to a writer the other day who has an idea for one of them who was asking me, you know, if I put this character in, would you want to pick them up in New Champions?

[00:41:26] It's like, yeah, if you put them in, I will use them, you know, provided, you know, we get the story runway.

[00:41:32] So there's already that kind of coordination behind the scenes.

[00:41:36] And it's fun.

[00:41:37] And even, you know, issue one and issue two, you know, issue one ends with seeing quite a assemblage of young heroes who've been introduced to the Marvel Universe in recent years or just in the recent year or two.

[00:41:54] But we have plans throughout the series to introduce other characters from this cover program.

[00:42:00] So just because you don't see them in issue one doesn't mean they won't appear for the first time before our current plans are done.

[00:42:09] So they're going to continue to appear throughout the series.

[00:42:11] We have fun plans layered throughout.

[00:42:14] Yeah.

[00:42:15] Very clever to put that massive group of characters on some of the variants, too, because it just makes the speculation, I will say, on Reddit is high.

[00:42:25] Well, good.

[00:42:26] Yeah.

[00:42:26] I mean, listen, I hope they take up the book.

[00:42:30] That's the point.

[00:42:30] That's why we do it.

[00:42:31] Yeah.

[00:42:31] Well, you sent me the version prior to color application first and said, just wait, this is going to blow you away, which was a dead on assessment.

[00:42:41] It felt like a bag of Skittles like blew up off the pages in my face.

[00:42:45] Like it was definitely a taste the rainbow baby moment.

[00:42:49] It's very fresh and youthful in a way I see lots of projects try to be and come close, but don't quite hit.

[00:42:56] And this does in the same way Strange Academy did for me when I first read that.

[00:43:01] And I know you write a lot with a focus on a younger audience.

[00:43:05] Has there been a challenge at all striking that balance of creating the right youthful feel while not grabbing it by the throat, if you will, with language choice?

[00:43:14] I have a son who's 17, and it came to mind in a discussion about Gen Alpha recently.

[00:43:20] And there's no guillot, which he made me promise never to say again, but I'm going to say it anyway.

[00:43:26] Or similar, you know, there's no chuggy or anything like that.

[00:43:30] So how do you manage that with that youthful feel without making it maybe too dated?

[00:43:39] Yeah.

[00:43:40] Well, first I will take the opportunity to say so much of I think the book's strength is Ivan Fiorelli and Arthur Hesley, the colorist.

[00:43:50] I got to talk to Ivan for a long time at Comic-Con, and it was so awesome to talk to a collaborator at the start of a project because, you know, we had exchanged emails.

[00:44:01] And whenever I start a new project, I kind of write my collaborator like a letter.

[00:44:05] And that sounds very formal.

[00:44:07] A note at the top of a Word document, you know.

[00:44:09] Sure.

[00:44:10] Kind of laying out my thoughts and also prompting them for questions or anything they want to do, etc.

[00:44:18] And it was so great to be able to talk to him in person several times throughout the show.

[00:44:23] Because one of the first things I told him when I started the book is that my goal for this is to bring a big manga energy.

[00:44:31] And when I say that, I don't mean the exaggerated feature.

[00:44:35] I don't mean visually looking like manga as in like a manga styling.

[00:44:41] I mean like the excitement, the kineticism, etc.

[00:44:44] And it turned out Ivan was extremely excited about that because he's always wanted to do that.

[00:44:50] But the previous books he's done at Marvel, it wasn't a good fit for those because he's been on stuff like Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.

[00:44:58] And so this was a chance for him to lock into that.

[00:45:01] And I think it really shows.

[00:45:04] And Alana and I keep talking about like when we get pages back from him, it almost fools us into thinking these characters have been around for longer.

[00:45:14] Because he's putting so much characterization into each of them.

[00:45:18] Like it really feeds me on a feedback loop where, you know, I'm writing like the second or third script some of these characters have ever appeared in.

[00:45:27] But when I see Ivan's art, it feels like I've known them for a lot longer.

[00:45:31] And it becomes easier to tap into their voice.

[00:45:33] It becomes easier to figure out what they would do in a scenario.

[00:45:36] It becomes easier to see how they would interact with one another.

[00:45:41] So, so much of that credit goes to Ivan.

[00:45:44] And he can really just draw anything, which makes me so excited for the series ahead.

[00:45:49] And even stuff too, like one of the characters designs a vehicle in the first issue.

[00:45:54] One of the characters has a secret base in the second issue.

[00:45:56] So, we're going to have stuff like that, like accessories and bases and just like cool accoutrements.

[00:46:02] And he's excited to tackle all of those.

[00:46:04] And Arthur, the colorist, I wasn't familiar with his work before.

[00:46:09] But he's brought like such a cool, vibrant, fresh touch to this that I do think makes this like one of the best looking things I've worked on in a long time.

[00:46:22] Which, you know, obviously not an insult to anybody else.

[00:46:24] It's just like, it's perfect for this book.

[00:46:27] I'm very excited.

[00:46:29] Regardless of how you feel about the writing, it's going to be like such a gorgeous looking book.

[00:46:33] And I appreciate the comparison to Strange Academy because that's one of my favorite books with a younger cast too.

[00:46:40] So, I hope folks will pick this up and potentially think the same.

[00:46:45] As far as writing younger characters, never use slang.

[00:46:50] It's like, there's no point.

[00:46:52] It is immediately dated.

[00:46:53] You always sound terrible.

[00:46:56] I have to catch myself just using my own slang or shortening sometimes.

[00:47:03] But really, I just try to give them authentic voices for their own characterization.

[00:47:10] And I worry less about them sounding young than just avoiding them sounding overly mature, if that makes sense.

[00:47:20] I think the pitfall is more when characters sound too mature for their age than when you try to write down and try to make them sound like a Gen Z, like a Gen Alpha, whatever.

[00:47:36] It just comes across as so forced.

[00:47:39] Yeah.

[00:47:39] Especially in a Marvel comic, a DC comic, any of these things, you're already working with a heightened reality.

[00:47:45] These are not real-life teenagers and no one expects them to be.

[00:47:50] So, I think attempting to really make them sound like someone you're going to go out on the street and talk to is such folly.

[00:47:59] You just have to give them the sort of heightened emotional reactions that a young person would have in these scenarios.

[00:48:05] And that's, to me, what's fun.

[00:48:07] Because, you know, a character like Captain Marvel or Moon Knight, they've been in these scenarios a thousand times.

[00:48:15] Yeah.

[00:48:15] They're not over-the-top excited when they see a Norse zombie.

[00:48:20] But Moon Squire and Cadet Marvel, these are the first times they've ever experienced these things.

[00:48:26] And that's where you can kind of tap into the excitement and, like, have the fun of a younger character.

[00:48:33] Well, coming from dealing with the teenager being the parent of a teenager.

[00:48:38] My teenager is great.

[00:48:39] Should he ever come back and listen to this?

[00:48:42] He really is.

[00:48:43] But there are grounding elements that are included in the story that I really, really enjoyed that really locked me into that timing of, okay, this really typifies where these characters are at in their lives.

[00:48:57] Without spilling the beans on too much, you know, when Moon Squire is interacting with his family, you know, there's a very family moment.

[00:49:05] So there are family spaces that just echoed our experiences and that immediately connoted, okay, I get where these characters are.

[00:49:14] I get the anchors that are important to them.

[00:49:17] And it read very well.

[00:49:19] Thank you.

[00:49:19] Yeah, I think that's an important thing too.

[00:49:21] And it can be difficult in superhero books to carve out the space to show a lot of personal life because you want to do all the big fun adventure stuff.

[00:49:28] But for kids and for younger people especially, you know, yes, you have the version of yourself you show at school, but you also come home and you have your home life and you have these different sides of yourself.

[00:49:39] And I think that was important to get into that first issue to start to show that these characters are multifaceted and, you know, they are balancing different sides of themselves.

[00:49:48] And that doesn't necessarily mean that classic Peter Parker like, oh, I can't let Aunt May see my suit.

[00:49:54] That's not really something we're doing here.

[00:49:55] These characters don't have secret identities with their parents.

[00:49:59] That's already been removed from them because of what happened with Hydra.

[00:50:02] It's just more about like they're 15, 16 years old.

[00:50:06] They're going home because they've got to do their homework.

[00:50:09] You know, it's like it's getting these different sides of them so that they're still relatable and they're thinking about what their parents are going to think.

[00:50:17] They're thinking about their other responsibilities in addition to beating up these, you know, random villains they have to tackle.

[00:50:25] Well, we don't have time to get into all the kids kind of oriented stuff you have dropping or younger reader stuff.

[00:50:32] There's like, OK, I'm going to go through this here.

[00:50:33] We got Kid Flash going rogue, which was recent.

[00:50:36] Beastly Buddies, which is on Marvel Unlimited right now.

[00:50:40] Spider-Man Homeroom Heroes, the Spider-Boy Annual.

[00:50:42] Then for the general audience, we have Time Slide with Cable and Bishop.

[00:50:47] Chasm, Curse of Cain.

[00:50:49] Spider-Woman, I think the trade for Volume 2 just recently dropped.

[00:50:54] That sounds right.

[00:50:55] Did I miss anything there?

[00:50:57] You might have.

[00:50:58] It's been a busy time and my brain is as scrambled as anybody's.

[00:51:02] Yeah, the big thing I would underline would be Beastly Buddies, which I'm doing with Armand Bodnar and KJ Diaz.

[00:51:09] That's running on the Marvel Unlimited app.

[00:51:11] And I'm very proud of how that's turning out.

[00:51:13] It's really fun.

[00:51:14] It's just a goofy, entertaining thing to do.

[00:51:18] And the more eyes we get on it, the more chance we have to tell more stories.

[00:51:22] And then, yes, Time Slide is the big end of the year one shot that Marvel does every year.

[00:51:27] The past three years, it's been called Timeless.

[00:51:29] This year we changed it because it's more X-Men focused.

[00:51:32] And I got to do that with Ivan Fiorelli.

[00:51:35] That was our first collaboration before we did New Champions.

[00:51:38] So it was really cool to kind of have a dry run on our collaboration

[00:51:42] and get to know each other before we started doing this longer book together.

[00:51:47] And that has been also a lot of fun to circle back to X-Men for a little bit

[00:51:52] with the two big laser gun bros and that sort of story for a bit

[00:51:58] and tease a lot of the things coming in the year ahead.

[00:52:00] Well, I'm always happy to see more Bishop.

[00:52:02] I'll do my reveal here.

[00:52:05] Oh, awesome.

[00:52:06] Yeah.

[00:52:07] Yeah.

[00:52:07] I've got the mini stand-up from 1983 for the audio listeners that's over my shoulder.

[00:52:12] I'm a huge fan of Bishop, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

[00:52:17] Yeah.

[00:52:17] So, yeah.

[00:52:17] Like, the week...

[00:52:19] Sorry.

[00:52:20] I was just going to say, the week before I was talking to a friend,

[00:52:22] and I was like, you know what?

[00:52:23] I got to do so many X-Men stories.

[00:52:25] I got to write all of my favorite characters.

[00:52:27] I feel so satisfied.

[00:52:30] I can't believe I got to do all of this.

[00:52:32] The only characters I'd really want to go back to touch would be Bishop or Cable.

[00:52:38] And then, like, the next day, Tom Brevoort emailed me about Timeslide,

[00:52:43] which was really, like, eerie.

[00:52:45] Like, he's tapping my phone or something.

[00:52:47] But I was very excited.

[00:52:48] Well, you get more cable, too, because David Pappos is working on that new series as well.

[00:52:52] Yes, which I got to read ahead because we obviously flashed a substantial amount

[00:52:57] teasing what he's going to be doing.

[00:53:00] Oh, very nice.

[00:53:01] Well, is it ever challenging to switch hats, you know, writing in the horror genre

[00:53:05] and combining it with all these kids' books?

[00:53:08] Is there a different headspace you have to get in?

[00:53:10] I mean, you're doing a lot at once right now.

[00:53:13] Yeah, I mean, I try not to do them on the same day if I can help it.

[00:53:16] But usually I have to.

[00:53:18] My main trick is you just have to, like, get up and walk around or do something else.

[00:53:23] You, like, walk the dog, you eat lunch, whatever.

[00:53:25] My other thing is I don't listen to anything while I write,

[00:53:29] but I do have music that I cue up to get into the mode to write something.

[00:53:35] So I usually pick, like, a single artist.

[00:53:38] So, like, Spy Woman, it was PJ Harvey.

[00:53:42] Yeah.

[00:53:43] When I did Dark X-Men, it was Nick Cave.

[00:53:46] So usually there's, like, one artist that I'll, like, really listen to,

[00:53:49] and that just kind of, like, helps me click into the project that I'm doing next.

[00:53:55] That's my little, like, you know, changing the train track trick.

[00:54:01] Okay.

[00:54:02] What was on the new Champions playlist, just out of curiosity?

[00:54:04] I don't really have one for that because it's such a big cast.

[00:54:07] I haven't figured out a great, like, vibe for that yet.

[00:54:11] I'm still working on it.

[00:54:13] It's easier when it's, like, the creepier stuff or the serious stuff is easier to do

[00:54:17] than the more fun stuff.

[00:54:19] So I'm still, if you have suggestions, let me know.

[00:54:22] Not for that one, but if you write more Alien,

[00:54:24] I don't know if you're familiar with Glenn Danzig's Black Aria.

[00:54:28] I mean, I'm very familiar with everything Misfits-related, so.

[00:54:33] So Black Aria, and this is a caveat, if you can find it.

[00:54:36] I don't know if it's out on all the major platforms or not,

[00:54:39] but this is a classical music album.

[00:54:43] Yep.

[00:54:44] Amazing.

[00:54:45] Yep.

[00:54:46] Yep.

[00:54:47] It's definitely worth a listen.

[00:54:48] I mean, I'm not going to say it's the best classical music at the time,

[00:54:51] but if you want to get a good, you know, just, like, gothic, brooding,

[00:54:57] yes, it's Glenn Danzig is kind of what it sounds like, right?

[00:55:00] Sure.

[00:55:01] It's the perfect soundtrack for that kind of thing.

[00:55:03] So check it out.

[00:55:05] Unsurprisingly for Alien, I mostly listen to the Alien OST.

[00:55:09] There you go.

[00:55:10] Yeah.

[00:55:10] Very on the nose.

[00:55:11] Yes, yes.

[00:55:12] Maybe for New Champions, I'll just listen to Kids Bob.

[00:55:16] K-pop.

[00:55:16] K-pop.

[00:55:16] There you go.

[00:55:18] Oh, I can't do K-pop.

[00:55:20] Oh, I said Kids Bob, but K-pop wasn't.

[00:55:21] Oh, I know.

[00:55:22] I know.

[00:55:22] But K-pop came to mind.

[00:55:24] It's like the thing I'm trying to escape from,

[00:55:26] because I get hit with K-pop everywhere now.

[00:55:30] Well, to recap what we touched on,

[00:55:32] we have Alien Romulus, which is dropping in December.

[00:55:34] We have New Champions, which is dropping in January.

[00:55:37] Let This One Be a Devil in February.

[00:55:40] And Steve drops from Exhaustion in March.

[00:55:42] Is that about it?

[00:55:43] I hope I make it to March.

[00:55:44] That's really optimistic.

[00:55:47] So do I, because selfishly, I want to see where all this stuff goes.

[00:55:52] So don't go having a heart attack on us.

[00:55:54] But Steve, it's always a pleasure having you on and seeing the plant kingdom.

[00:55:59] There's no plants in your background.

[00:56:00] I'm used to the plant kingdom slowly taking over your house.

[00:56:03] I know my partner's got a whole room downstairs now.

[00:56:06] So he's got it mostly isolated.

[00:56:08] There's some just off camera that have spread into my office.

[00:56:13] Was there enough light downstairs?

[00:56:14] There must be.

[00:56:15] He's got two full windows and a bunch of grow lights.

[00:56:18] Oh, goodness.

[00:56:20] Yes.

[00:56:20] Your whole house is going to be a jungle.

[00:56:22] You need to write Poison Ivy next.

[00:56:24] I think that's the ticket.

[00:56:26] Well, you never know.

[00:56:28] Okay, okay.

[00:56:30] So I have to stick with the bit then.

[00:56:32] So we've been teasing a color for the next unannounced thing.

[00:56:35] So what you got?

[00:56:36] Oh, okay.

[00:56:39] Burnt Umber.

[00:56:40] Okay.

[00:56:41] I like that color.

[00:56:43] That's a good color.

[00:56:44] All right.

[00:56:44] Well, everyone make sure to sign up for Steve's newsletter.

[00:56:47] For all the latest news, I'll put a link in the show notes for you.

[00:56:51] Blue sky is blowing up.

[00:56:52] Could you be tempted back?

[00:56:53] Absolutely not.

[00:56:55] Good for you.

[00:56:55] I don't blame you one bit.

[00:56:58] No chance.

[00:56:59] Not one bit.

[00:57:00] All right.

[00:57:01] Well, this is Byron O'Neill.

[00:57:02] And on behalf of all of us at Comic Book Yeti, thanks for tuning in.

[00:57:04] And we will see you next time.

[00:57:06] Take care, everybody.

[00:57:07] Bye-bye.

[00:57:08] This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner, brought to you

[00:57:12] by Comic Book Yeti.

[00:57:13] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast.

[00:57:17] Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff.

[00:57:21] It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve.

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[00:57:27] If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister

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[00:57:34] Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.