Tananarive Due Interview - Moon Dogs

[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] I love comic books.

[00:00:11] Hey children of the algorithm, I wanted to tell you about another great comics related podcast. Our friends Dan, Dwayne, and Sienna with Comics Overtime have a great show that you should definitely check out.

[00:00:21] Dan has been a Comic Book Yeti contributor since before I was around and the show delves deep into comics history, analyzing it from the wider cultural landscape at the time.

[00:00:30] I learned a lot just listening in and they are keeping it fresh too with Sienna reporting in about the current Marvel offerings.

[00:00:36] I love seeing the next generation excited about comics and it's cool to see a family participating in comics journalism together.

[00:00:42] This season they are focused on the history of everyone's favorite Hell's Kitchen vigilante daredevil.

[00:00:47] It's a fantastic show that you're going to want to add to your rotation. You can find them at Comics Overtime on your favorite podcasting platform or at their website, comicsovertime.podbean.com.

[00:01:00] I'll drop a link in the show notes to make it easy for you.

[00:01:02] He's a daredevil, Ned!

[00:01:05] Y'all, Jimmy, the Chaos Goblin strikes again!

[00:01:09] I should have known better than to mention I was working on my DC Universe meets Ravenloft hybrid D&D campaign on social media. My bad.

[00:01:16] He goes and tags a bunch of comics creators we know and now I have to get it in gear and whip this campaign into shape so we can start playing.

[00:01:24] Another friend chimes in, are you going to make maps?

[00:01:26] It's fair to say it's been a while since I put something together so I guess? Question mark?

[00:01:31] It was then that I discovered Arkhamforge. If you don't know who Arkhamforge is, they have everything you need to make your TTRPG more fun and immersive.

[00:01:40] 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.

[00:01:53] Now I'm set to easily build high-res animated maps saving myself precious time and significantly adding nuance to our campaign.

[00:02:00] That's a win every day in my book.

[00:02:02] Check them out at arkhamforge.com and use the discount code YETI5 to get $5 off.

[00:02:09] I'll drop a link in the show notes for you.

[00:02:11] And big thanks to Arkhamforge for partnering with our show.

[00:02:13] I think I'm going to make Jimmy play a goblin warlock just to get even.

[00:02:18] Welcome to the Cryptid Creator Corner. I'm Byron O'Neill, your host for today's Comics Creator Chat.

[00:02:23] My guest today has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, a World Fantasy Award, has two Stoker nominations, and probably is on her way to win an Eisner.

[00:02:34] And add that to the award shelf down the road, I'm guessing.

[00:02:37] She's new on the comic scene and has a new project dropping soon, Moondogs, which follows an East African family of werewolves living in Miami

[00:02:45] that is a part of the larger Horizon experiment from Image Comics, a series of five one-shot comic books,

[00:02:51] each featuring original protagonists from a marginalized background set in a popular genre and inspired by pop culture icons.

[00:02:57] I've already had Terry and Pornsek on to discuss the Manchurian and Saber on to talk about the Sacred Dam.

[00:03:04] Shameless plug. I'll put a link in the show notes if you're curious about listening to those.

[00:03:08] And it is my pleasure to introduce Tanana Reeve Du onto the show. How are you? I ask that knowing it's been a rough week for all of us.

[00:03:17] I'm probably better than I've been all week, so it's good to feel a little bit better, I guess, with the passage of time and acceptance.

[00:03:24] Yeah, yeah. Hopefully that will sink in and will marshal to some action.

[00:03:30] And on that note, I don't want to devolve too much to a focus on politics here, but I'm a bit curious about the Scare Up the Vote initiative,

[00:03:37] because you were a part of that and that included Stephen King and Joe Hill and a former guest on the show, David Dasmalchian, I think, among others.

[00:03:45] Absolutely.

[00:03:46] So there were epic.

[00:03:48] No, it was epic.

[00:03:49] It was, you know, it's a little bittersweet now, given how the election went.

[00:03:54] But after I heard that Crime Writers for Harris had done an event, I thought, well, what the heck?

[00:03:59] It was October.

[00:04:00] It was spooky season.

[00:04:02] The horror community is very tight knit.

[00:04:04] And one of the things I've collected over many years is email addresses, right?

[00:04:08] So I reached out to Joe Hill and I said, hey, if I did something like this, would you be on board?

[00:04:16] And the next thing I knew, he had said, I'm on board.

[00:04:19] Dad's on board.

[00:04:20] Dad being Stephen King, for people who don't know.

[00:04:23] Mike Flanagan is on board and Scott Derrickson, who directed The Black Phone and Sinister.

[00:04:28] Okay.

[00:04:29] Mike Flanagan, I assume, needs no introduction, but he did Dr. Sleep and The Haunting of Hill House and, you know, one of the top horror directors.

[00:04:35] So with that starting bench, I was like, oh, we can really make something happen.

[00:04:42] And pretty much everyone I asked said yes, except for scheduling concerns.

[00:04:46] A couple people didn't want to stick their heads up, which I totally get, because I was kind of feeling that way too.

[00:04:52] But it just seemed like it would be a great opportunity for fans to be able to come together in a live stream, celebrate their heroes.

[00:05:01] And I was like, I don't know when there's ever been a public conversation between Joe Hill and Stephen King.

[00:05:06] I've never seen it.

[00:05:07] I was like, I don't know when I was a kid.

[00:05:08] So to give them that, to give them a very intimate view of Mike Flanagan and his wife, Kate Siegel, who's at home with their kids.

[00:05:15] And, you know, and just all of us sharing why we love horror, but also why this election was important to us.

[00:05:25] And the specific issues that were important to everyone, from Rachel Harrison speaking about sexual abuse survivors, to Cynthia Palayo talking about the needs of the disabled, to Max Gold talking about anti-Semitism.

[00:05:45] I mean, everybody, mine was protest because my first horror fan in my life was my late mother, Patricia Stevens-Dew, who was a civil rights activist.

[00:05:55] And I really think those two things were closely related because of the things she experienced as a civil rights activist, which dawned on me only in later years I saw the connection.

[00:06:04] And under a more right-wing government, the freedom to protest, which is already fragile, frankly.

[00:06:13] A lot of people go home with scars and bruises and tear gas and rubber bullets even now.

[00:06:19] In fact, the police are even more militarized now than they were in my mother's era, frankly, in the 1960s.

[00:06:25] But hard to imagine what would be even worse under a more authoritarian government.

[00:06:30] So that was my plea, was like, if we, you know, all these issues we care about, the things that are imperfect about the Democratic Party, all the things we want to agitate for change for will be harder if Kamala Harris doesn't win.

[00:06:43] And that is true.

[00:06:43] It will be harder.

[00:06:44] But I think it's important for people to understand and still go watch Scare Up the Vote.

[00:06:48] It's a little bittersweet for me.

[00:06:50] But if you haven't seen it, there's never really been an event like it.

[00:06:54] It's at ScareUpTheVote.com.

[00:06:56] You can watch the replay of the whole event, which was almost three hours.

[00:06:59] But plus that YouTube page has segments.

[00:07:03] So find, if you like Stephen Graham Jones, find Stephen Graham Jones.

[00:07:07] If you like Paul Tremblay, find Paul Tremblay and what he said.

[00:07:12] Clay McLeod Chapman did a great sort of mock radio broadcast that was channeling Jonathan Swift and a modest proposal.

[00:07:20] You know, so just have fun because I want to do it again and I want to do it with more planning.

[00:07:28] And next time I want to have like production value, maybe even create a movie or a project and just get more people invested because clearly not enough people voted in this election.

[00:07:40] Yeah.

[00:07:41] Yeah.

[00:07:42] Well, people who are regular listeners on the show will already know what they're getting with me, what they're getting with us.

[00:07:47] I want to personally thank you for encouraging people to get out there and vote.

[00:07:51] You know, when this happened the first time in 2016, I, like many people, was absolutely devastated after working through the feelings.

[00:07:57] And I encourage everybody, take the time you need to work through your feelings.

[00:08:01] Absolutely.

[00:08:02] Yeah.

[00:08:03] Sitting on the sidelines was not an option for me.

[00:08:05] So in a year's time, my wife had run for public office.

[00:08:08] Our family had knocked down over 8,000 doors, the three of us.

[00:08:11] That's great.

[00:08:11] I became an arts commissioner.

[00:08:13] I was on the board of a drug rehabilitation center and a local nonprofit.

[00:08:16] And I don't encourage everyone to go as hard as I did.

[00:08:19] But if you are able, find something in your community you are passionate about and get involved, please.

[00:08:26] And my soapbox is over.

[00:08:27] Yeah.

[00:08:28] It's very tempting to just go under the covers and say, okay, well, I'm going to watch Netflix for four years, but we can't really do that.

[00:08:38] I don't think it would be good if we did.

[00:08:40] No, I really would not be good if we did.

[00:08:43] Well, thank you for all you're doing.

[00:08:46] Before we jump into Moondogs, I want to hear a little bit about your journey with Comics.

[00:08:50] I know you're pretty new to it.

[00:08:52] So was it something you were exposed to growing up or is it just brand new?

[00:08:56] Just a little bit.

[00:08:58] You know, I can't claim that I was a great comics reader as a kid.

[00:09:01] I read Archie comics and every once in a while I came across a great, like at a garage sale, I would come across these great horror comic covers, you know, with monsters eating people.

[00:09:15] And that was probably my favorite kind of comic was the horror comics.

[00:09:19] But I never really did become a regular comics reader.

[00:09:23] As an adult, I played some catch-up teaching Afrofuturism, so I read the Black Panther comics by Reggie Hudlin.

[00:09:31] And oh my gosh, now I'm forgetting who did the one before Reggie Hudlin.

[00:09:35] But the initial standalone Black Panther comic came out before Hudlin's.

[00:09:42] But Hudlin created Shuri, the character of Shuri.

[00:09:45] So I had to sort of study it.

[00:09:47] And Reggie Hudlin also asked me to be a part of a project for Milestones in History Comics.

[00:09:54] So I did a very, very, very short, like eight-pager on Alexander Dumas and his father, General Dumas.

[00:10:05] But mostly biographical, you know, not horror or anything like that.

[00:10:10] So Moondogs is my first intentional comic, but I will say this in terms of horror.

[00:10:18] But accidentally, my husband and I published a graphic novel called The Keeper back in 2022.

[00:10:25] That when I say accidental, it was because I'm also a screenwriter.

[00:10:29] And we deeply wanted it to be a film.

[00:10:32] We got very, very, very close to setting it up with one of my favorite horror directors, but it didn't pan out.

[00:10:38] And then John Jennings, who's over at Megascope, said, hey, this will be a great graphic novel.

[00:10:44] So Marco Finnegan, the illustrator, just did an amazing job of unpacking that script and storyboarding it.

[00:10:52] He has a history as a storyboard artist.

[00:10:54] So he was very, very adept at just storyboarding that script for us, kind of writing it backwards.

[00:10:59] Then I had to come and write, like, the text for his images that were based on our script.

[00:11:08] So it was a very unusual process.

[00:11:10] But that was technically my first, was The Keeper.

[00:11:14] And that was a full-size graphic novel.

[00:11:18] Wow.

[00:11:19] So do you have anybody that is really, like, an influence in the medium then?

[00:11:24] I mean, you talked about Black Panther.

[00:11:26] And John, we've had John on the show before when he was talking about the Silver Surfer Ghostlight.

[00:11:31] So I had him on last year.

[00:11:33] Well, it's kind of like, you know, when I was in college, I was very briefly a guardian angel.

[00:11:37] It's a long story.

[00:11:38] For people who don't remember, guardian angels used to wear red berets and, like, patrol in cities.

[00:11:42] It's like a citizen's brigade, I guess, to look out for trouble.

[00:11:47] That's, like, the last thing I would do, except that my friends were guardian angels.

[00:11:51] Like, I would see them meeting in the hallway.

[00:11:52] So it was like, you come across the meeting and your peers are guardian angels and you kind of get sucked in.

[00:11:58] That's kind of what happened with comics.

[00:12:01] Because between John Jennings and my circle, my husband, Stephen Barnes, who had also written a Batman comic,

[00:12:07] and he also did a Milestones in History comic for Reggie Hudlin on Hannibal.

[00:12:11] So, he's much more of a comic reader than I am.

[00:12:14] My husband, Stephen Barnes.

[00:12:16] So I would have to say if anybody was kind of helping to pave the way, just by example, in terms of his own reading, it was Steve.

[00:12:23] But I will be the first to admit that I still consider myself a neophyte.

[00:12:28] And there are aspects of working on comics that are so different than what I'm used to in prose and in screenwriting that I think I may always feel like I'm just learning.

[00:12:42] Yeah.

[00:12:42] Yeah.

[00:12:43] I mean, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:12:44] There was a quote just kind of you're looking at your journey longitudinally, getting into becoming a writer.

[00:12:53] And this quote resonated with me a lot.

[00:12:55] It's like most people are more moved by storytelling than by statistics.

[00:12:59] And I know you have a background as a reporter.

[00:13:02] You're saying, hmm.

[00:13:03] Yeah.

[00:13:04] No, that's very true.

[00:13:05] I agree.

[00:13:06] I mean, is that ultimately what made you want to transition from your time into the beginnings of being a reporter there in Miami and becoming a writer?

[00:13:18] Let me make the record clear on this.

[00:13:21] I only studied journalism because my parents felt like I needed a stable field.

[00:13:28] That's pretty funny.

[00:13:29] Now, but back when I was in school, it was a pretty stable field.

[00:13:32] And so they were like, great.

[00:13:34] You want to be a writer?

[00:13:35] We support you.

[00:13:36] But you need to eat.

[00:13:38] And artists struggle.

[00:13:40] So I went to the Medill School of Journalism.

[00:13:42] I was just back there last summer teaching in the George R. R. Martin intensive workshop for journalists who also want to transition to writing novels.

[00:13:50] And that's what I did.

[00:13:51] I started publishing novels.

[00:13:53] I quit my job.

[00:13:54] I was a freelancer for 15 years.

[00:13:56] But I always wanted to write fiction.

[00:13:59] That was my first love.

[00:14:00] I've been writing stories since I was about four years old.

[00:14:04] And I guess technically the first thing I wrote was a comic, now that I think about it, because it was a picture book.

[00:14:11] It was a picture book called Baby Bobby.

[00:14:14] So I was drawing these stick figures of a baby.

[00:14:17] Baby Bobby is in his crib.

[00:14:18] Baby Bobby is drinking his bottle.

[00:14:20] You know, the whole nine.

[00:14:21] And then on the back I wrote Tananarive Dew.

[00:14:24] Baby Bobby is a book about a baby.

[00:14:26] The author is Tananarive Dew.

[00:14:29] So I was just proclaiming myself.

[00:14:30] And this is the first time I've made the connection.

[00:14:33] Okay.

[00:14:34] That my first story was in a comic form.

[00:14:38] You heard it here first.

[00:14:39] You heard it here first.

[00:14:40] Breaking news.

[00:14:41] Yeah.

[00:14:42] So that was my first, I'm telling you, from the crib, that was my first love.

[00:14:46] And it was a joy to go back to it.

[00:14:48] But, you know, a lot of artists have probably come on this podcast to tell you that the artist's life is not four wimps.

[00:14:54] Yeah.

[00:14:54] It's very uncertain.

[00:14:55] A lot of financial ups and downs.

[00:14:57] And I think I found a happy medium now between writing books.

[00:15:01] I'm working on a novel now.

[00:15:03] Working on comic projects as they come along.

[00:15:06] Working on scripts, whether it's a spec script or maybe when I'm lucky I get hired to write a script or write a polish as Steve and I did earlier this year.

[00:15:16] And teaching.

[00:15:17] You know, it's all those things.

[00:15:18] I teach at UCLA.

[00:15:19] And I teach black horror and Afrofuturism.

[00:15:21] And Afrofuturism I do.

[00:15:23] And in horror.

[00:15:24] I also do teach comics.

[00:15:25] I teach The Keeper.

[00:15:27] And I teach Destroyer by Victor LaValle.

[00:15:31] And I teach, you know, I teach other graphic novels in my class.

[00:15:35] So even though I'm not, I didn't spring forth as a comics writer, I do have a lot of respect for what comics do.

[00:15:45] Well, writing in the horror space specifically, we're kind of in a renaissance with horror in comics.

[00:15:51] And every publisher is cranking out books and horror anthologies or reappearing, kind of attempting to mimic what EC did in the 40s and the 50s.

[00:15:59] And around that time, civil rights movement was also underway.

[00:16:03] That was something, as you've mentioned, your family was a part of where real life horror and fear was ever present.

[00:16:09] My wife is a trauma psychologist.

[00:16:10] So my family's daily exposure to humanity's horror and tragedy is pretty high.

[00:16:16] And a big component of that healing journey is engaging with your trauma.

[00:16:20] So I'm curious.

[00:16:22] Why, given your background, why was horror as a genre specifically something that appealed to you so much?

[00:16:29] That is like a question in a courtroom from an attorney who knows the answer.

[00:16:35] Knows the answer.

[00:16:36] Okay, I tried.

[00:16:37] Yeah, yeah, right.

[00:16:39] But I like your game and you're absolutely right.

[00:16:43] The realization I had about my mother as an adult, and this was probably after the Horror Noir documentary.

[00:16:49] I was an executive producer in 2019.

[00:16:52] So it's been very recently that I figured this out.

[00:16:55] It was not some eccentric bug that my mother loved horror because she was a civil rights activist.

[00:17:02] I used to say, she's a civil rights activist, but she loved horror.

[00:17:05] No, it's all wrong.

[00:17:07] She was a civil rights activist, and therefore, she loved horror, in my opinion.

[00:17:12] And not just the activism and state violence and wearing dark glasses because a police officer tear gassed her when she was 20 years old.

[00:17:21] And she basically wore them even indoors almost for the rest, basically for the rest of her life.

[00:17:25] Her dark glasses were actually a part of an exhibit at the Florida Archives, you know, a civil rights exhibit, because that was a mark of her trauma.

[00:17:34] I was literally staring at that mark of her trauma in the face and didn't realize until I was older, ah, those emotions need somewhere to go.

[00:17:44] Yeah.

[00:17:45] Those emotions, that fear, that anger.

[00:17:47] And so she was always watching horror movies.

[00:17:50] She was watching horror movies with us from an inappropriate age.

[00:17:53] Of my three sisters, I was the one who took to them the most.

[00:17:57] Okay.

[00:17:57] And I just have great memories of enjoying lots of old universal horror movies, The Mummy, The Fly, The Wolfman, you know, all that stuff.

[00:18:05] The mole people, like the old black and white classics.

[00:18:08] No, they were not out when I was young.

[00:18:10] They were in reruns.

[00:18:12] But I'm not that old.

[00:18:13] We don't have to tell our age.

[00:18:16] It's okay.

[00:18:17] I don't think telling mine either.

[00:18:19] It's just like even now, perfect example.

[00:18:22] Perfect example.

[00:18:23] I told myself I would never be as shocked again as I was in 2016 at the outcome of this election.

[00:18:29] But I did expect it to go better or hoped it would.

[00:18:32] But actually, no, expected.

[00:18:33] By certain points of the day, I was seeing lines and sort of anecdotal things that were really making my hopes soar.

[00:18:42] And so that shock and crushing disappointment hit me by Wednesday.

[00:18:47] I spent the entire day and into the night working on my novel.

[00:18:51] And it just so happened that there were some pretty violent scenes happening to my characters.

[00:18:56] Like, it was a scene I had dreaded writing.

[00:18:59] Like, oh, how can I do this to them?

[00:19:01] This is going to be so hard to go through.

[00:19:03] But no, honey.

[00:19:04] When I was in my fugue state, I was like tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap all day long.

[00:19:10] And I love my characters.

[00:19:12] And I know what's going to happen in the end.

[00:19:14] But it was so healing to write about people who are confronting something completely unexpected.

[00:19:23] Like, you have no context to expect what's about to happen to you.

[00:19:28] And then it happens.

[00:19:30] And watching people, yeah, you freeze at first.

[00:19:33] Yeah, you stumble.

[00:19:35] Yeah, you do clumsy things.

[00:19:36] You scream.

[00:19:37] But watching every single character, and it's a family.

[00:19:40] It's family horror.

[00:19:41] Every single character act.

[00:19:44] And that is the North Star for me with horror.

[00:19:49] Learning how to act.

[00:19:51] Learning how to survive, even in the face of overwhelming circumstances and the unexpected.

[00:19:58] It's interesting to me how our relationships, and you just talked about it a little bit,

[00:20:04] to horror can change dramatically over time.

[00:20:07] You talked about the impact of seeing your mom's glasses.

[00:20:09] It's my favorite genre, and I absorbed it as a straight, white, cis male for most of my life.

[00:20:15] Until I developed lupus.

[00:20:18] And then, for a time, putting myself into these situations mentally made me feel vulnerable in a way I was really uncomfortable with.

[00:20:26] Not everybody has the stress relief reaction to horror.

[00:20:30] Yeah, yeah.

[00:20:32] I mean, especially in film, as a visual learner, it was really something that I had to kind of work through.

[00:20:37] But now, I look at it with a completely different perspective than I used to previously.

[00:20:44] And that's why I was so interested in the Horizon experiment in general.

[00:20:47] And when I saw Moondogs was coming out, you know, it allowed for that fresh perspective in my mind.

[00:20:54] And I was looking at things in a wholly different way.

[00:20:56] But with the Horizon experiment itself, how did Porn Sack pull you in and get you involved in all this?

[00:21:03] Porn Sack is so great.

[00:21:05] He's not only a great creator, but he's also a great community activist, as far as I'm concerned.

[00:21:10] And that's what the Horizon experiment is all about.

[00:21:14] He really wants to see more marginalized voices in comics and more marginalized creators get opportunities, especially, like, say, for adaptation.

[00:21:23] And he knows, and I know from experience, that very often you can go to a meeting with a great story.

[00:21:29] And the executive may not say it, but what they're thinking is, does a character have to be black?

[00:21:34] Oh, don't say.

[00:21:36] Look, just typical standard.

[00:21:38] Everyone's trying to reach, in their minds, the broadest possible audience.

[00:21:42] So if we could just make the characters white.

[00:21:45] They often won't say it out loud, but sometimes they will.

[00:21:47] So one of the mandates for the Horizon experiment was we're creating stories with marginalized characters where you cannot extract the race.

[00:21:56] You cannot just colorblind cast this story because then it would make no sense.

[00:22:03] And it's not always easy because, you know, at its core, all storytelling is about universal human experience.

[00:22:13] Just period.

[00:22:13] It absolutely is.

[00:22:15] And I think everything I write, even though I write black characters, you hope that that kind of specificity leads to the universal.

[00:22:24] It's through the prism of the specific that you can actually sometimes find the universal because I'm writing horror from a direction that you haven't quite seen before.

[00:22:33] And horror fans like novelty.

[00:22:35] In fact, without novelty, there's no such thing as horror.

[00:22:38] By definition, you almost cannot watch the same thing over and over again and get scared the same way.

[00:22:44] So I wanted to take a tradition of vampires that are slightly, I'm sorry, werewolves that are slightly different than the one that we know.

[00:22:53] I said vampires because I wrote a novel called My Soul to Keep, which was kind of similar in the sense that it was flipping vampires on their head and sort of retelling it through an African prism.

[00:23:04] And that's what Moondogs does.

[00:23:06] It's about what if sort of these East African werewolves, and actually they're where hyenas, the mother is anyway.

[00:23:15] I wasn't going to say it.

[00:23:16] You gave it away.

[00:23:16] But I'm really happy about that.

[00:23:18] It's a blended family with lycanthrope genes.

[00:23:22] And there are different traditions and different mythologies that I wanted to draw on where they're not as tied to the moon, first of all.

[00:23:33] And also I added sort of my little special herbal blend, which gives them more control over when they change or when they don't.

[00:23:43] So, you know, you could sort of extrapolate that out to kind of like a blade situation.

[00:23:48] Like if he's a daywalker, that changes the whole game, you know?

[00:23:51] Right.

[00:23:51] And if you could make all vampires daywalkers, that really changes the game.

[00:23:55] So this is sort of a question of, it's a family story.

[00:23:58] I love writing about families.

[00:24:00] But it's a conflict in a family about, A, what is power?

[00:24:05] How do you use your power?

[00:24:06] Who do you share these powers with?

[00:24:08] Who do you protect from these powers?

[00:24:10] Whose side are you on, basically, right?

[00:24:12] It's like, is there going to be a war between humans and lycanthropes?

[00:24:16] And if so, where are you going to stand?

[00:24:19] Yeah.

[00:24:19] And that's what Moondogs is about.

[00:24:22] It's about a young woman who is an investigative reporter.

[00:24:26] Actually, I was just looking at it.

[00:24:27] It starts with blood sprayed everywhere.

[00:24:29] Yep.

[00:24:30] Yep.

[00:24:31] It's not reserved.

[00:24:32] I will tell people that.

[00:24:34] Did I get your attention on page one?

[00:24:36] Now, great.

[00:24:37] You did.

[00:24:37] That's the goal.

[00:24:38] Let me tell you this story.

[00:24:39] But yeah.

[00:24:41] And then it turns out that, and I won't give the story away, but she does discover pretty

[00:24:45] quickly that this big blood spray that she's horrified by leads closer to home than she

[00:24:51] would like to believe.

[00:24:52] And I'll just leave it at that.

[00:24:54] It's a short comic, so I don't want to say too much about it.

[00:24:57] But it really is.

[00:24:58] It's about a mixed relationship, a human and a lycanthrope.

[00:25:04] It's about two different kinds of lycanthropes trying to blend as a family.

[00:25:07] So I was trying to really play with the genre and play with werewolves and create something

[00:25:14] fresh and different.

[00:25:15] And hopefully very scary.

[00:25:18] All right.

[00:25:19] Let's take a quick break.

[00:25:28] After a string of unexplained disappearances in the southern parts of the United States,

[00:25:32] retired Detective Clint searches for his white trash brother.

[00:25:36] While searching for him, he ends up being abducted by aliens.

[00:25:40] He is now in the arena for Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks, an intergalactic cable's newest hit

[00:25:46] show, which puts him and other humans in laser gun gladiatorial combat.

[00:25:51] And his brother is the reigning champion with 27 kills.

[00:25:55] That's the premise for a new book from Banda Barnes, Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks.

[00:26:00] I got a chance to see an advanced preview of this book.

[00:26:03] And being from the south, honestly, I was a bit skeptical going in.

[00:26:06] But they won me over and nothing is more powerful than an initially skeptic convert in my book.

[00:26:11] In Jimmy's words, Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks is many things, but it isn't subtle.

[00:26:16] It tells you exactly what it is up front.

[00:26:18] Then it delivers with a great premise, fantastic art, and a whole mess of fun.

[00:26:22] I had a great time reading Big Gun's Stupid Rednecks, and what I thought was going to be an indictment

[00:26:27] of redneck culture quickly showed it was actually a love letter.

[00:26:30] A family mystery, brother pitted against brother, aliens, fighting for profit in a big arena.

[00:26:36] This truly has it all.

[00:26:38] Issue one is out already, but you can still pick up a copy on the Band of Bards website.

[00:26:42] And current issues are available via your previews or lunar order form.

[00:26:45] Or just ask your LCS.

[00:26:47] Don't miss it.

[00:26:48] Let's get back to the show.

[00:26:49] I got an advanced look at it.

[00:26:51] I thought it was fantastic.

[00:26:52] And I was excited anyway.

[00:26:54] Don't tell Porn Sack, Porn Sack, if you're listening, sorry.

[00:26:56] But Moondogs was the one I was the most excited about.

[00:27:00] I've always loved werewolves.

[00:27:02] And lately, it's something I'm absolutely fascinated with.

[00:27:04] For Halloween, spooky season, a lot of my watch list was around werewolf movies.

[00:27:09] Because as somebody with lupus, at first, there's that whole Latin association there.

[00:27:13] But also, how can writers use lycanthropy where a virus or whatever hijacks your system in a largely involuntary way and makes you into something else?

[00:27:26] And there's a focus in the book on conflict.

[00:27:29] And that's just kind of where I locked in.

[00:27:31] It's not the usual conflict of turning or rage quelling that somebody would experience as they shift.

[00:27:38] But there's a sibling conflict, a conflict or clash with traditional family values, a wider conflict with what amounts to community identity and how werecreatures want to fit in to the larger society.

[00:27:49] So what made digging into those externalized dynamics compelling as a writer when most of what we see with werewolves is that internalized struggle with the self?

[00:27:59] Look, I love that internalized struggle with the self.

[00:28:02] But I've seen it.

[00:28:03] I've seen it before.

[00:28:04] Sure.

[00:28:04] I've seen it.

[00:28:05] I watched it with my mom, literally, back in those old black and white.

[00:28:09] The Wolfman.

[00:28:10] Holy cow.

[00:28:11] I'm still haunted by the Wolfman.

[00:28:13] And just this involuntary condition.

[00:28:16] An American werewolf in London.

[00:28:17] Oh, my God.

[00:28:18] Tragic.

[00:28:19] Tragic love story.

[00:28:20] Love it.

[00:28:21] I wasn't going to try to retread that territory.

[00:28:24] It's been well-worn.

[00:28:26] But also, there may be other storytellers who would even do a better job of telling that story.

[00:28:31] I wanted to tell a story that's very much in line with the same themes and questions that I engage with in my novels, which are much longer and more detailed.

[00:28:41] But really, once someone created a website for me, and the two words he had up top were fear and family.

[00:28:49] And that's kind of always where I go back.

[00:28:52] It's the domestic horror or horror that springs from a family, a family issue, and how they fit in their larger world.

[00:29:02] It's a fascinating read to absorb at this particular moment in time in America, too.

[00:29:09] This fear of the other is rampant.

[00:29:12] Yes.

[00:29:12] And this takes that one step further because you have another other or a minority within a minority.

[00:29:18] And I feel like we're at an inflection point in media where we can move beyond presenting characters as more than just one thing in terms of identity.

[00:29:25] But maybe we're not, right?

[00:29:27] While I was reading this, the recent question of Kamala Harris being black as an illustration or this backlash that's been happening with people wanting to use non-gender pronouns.

[00:29:38] Those things come to mind.

[00:29:39] I have a teenager, and that generation lives with a far greater fluidity in terms of identity than we do or especially than the boomers do.

[00:29:48] So this story comes off to me as quite youthful.

[00:29:51] And Nala is the primary protagonist of the story.

[00:29:54] So what did you want to specifically infuse into her as a character?

[00:29:59] Well, first of all, Nala is named after my grandpappy, who is a pit bull mix.

[00:30:04] Nice.

[00:30:05] I love pitties.

[00:30:06] That's Titan.

[00:30:08] All these tattoos are our dogs.

[00:30:11] Oh, well, yeah.

[00:30:12] And I was not a dog person, which is funny.

[00:30:15] You know, I was very afraid of dogs coming up.

[00:30:18] And so it's a real step for me to be able to embrace the name Nala.

[00:30:23] And I wanted, Nala is very sweet as a dog and also as a character.

[00:30:27] But she's, you know, pitties, you know, they've got there.

[00:30:31] They stand up for themselves.

[00:30:32] Let's just put it that way.

[00:30:33] So she's very strong.

[00:30:35] She loves, loves, loves her brother.

[00:30:39] And I mean, her primary concern is that.

[00:30:42] Her love for her brother, making sure he's okay.

[00:30:45] He's fallen into some bad company.

[00:30:46] And that is very typical with teenagers.

[00:30:50] They fall into bad company and their older siblings and their parents worry for them.

[00:30:54] But in this particular case, they have real reason to worry.

[00:30:59] Because there could be a war coming.

[00:31:02] And he could be wrapped up right in the middle of it.

[00:31:04] So I wanted Nala to have the, basically the wisdom to see the bigger picture.

[00:31:11] And I think making her a journalist is also an homage to my past.

[00:31:15] And it's set in Miami, which is not a subtle homage to my past since I grew up in Miami.

[00:31:21] And Miami is one of those cities that is very dynamic and it forgets you immediately.

[00:31:27] So I love the idea of being able to sort of have a homecoming in that sense, even if it's just in fiction.

[00:31:34] Is there a comfort there?

[00:31:36] I've spent a lot of time in Florida and in Miami.

[00:31:39] I was working with bands, doing scuba diving.

[00:31:42] And it's got that completely unique identity as an American city, as a hub of Latin culture, from food to music.

[00:31:50] And it's in its DNA.

[00:31:52] It is.

[00:31:53] So was it really comforting kind of being able to explore that again?

[00:31:57] I know you said a lot of things in your work in Florida.

[00:32:00] It is comforting to go back.

[00:32:02] And it's funny when you say Florida.

[00:32:04] I don't associate Miami with Florida almost.

[00:32:06] It's like Miami is this island in southern Florida, but it doesn't feel like the rest of Florida because of all the reasons you said.

[00:32:16] I mean, the street festivals with Haitian culture and Cuban culture and Puerto Rican culture and just the whole mix of humanity is just a very, very different feeling.

[00:32:27] And I'm so glad I had it as a young woman about Nala's age in this story.

[00:32:33] That's just the water I was swimming in.

[00:32:35] And this is what the world looked like to me.

[00:32:37] So, yeah, it was great to go back home.

[00:32:40] Were there locations that you just had to include?

[00:32:42] I'm thinking of the carniceria that was in the storefront and Little Havana at the beginning of the book.

[00:32:50] Heck yeah, Little Havana.

[00:32:52] There you go.

[00:32:52] Oh, my God.

[00:32:52] Yes.

[00:32:53] That's like Calle Ocho.

[00:32:54] Si.

[00:32:54] I had to start there.

[00:32:56] Lots of fun.

[00:32:57] Lots of fun.

[00:32:58] Lots of great food and friends.

[00:33:00] Lots of fun.

[00:33:01] I've experienced on Calle Ocho.

[00:33:03] So, yeah.

[00:33:05] Nice.

[00:33:06] Well, with Nala, there's even a bit of queer coding that I was sort of reading with the idea of her coming out, you know, sort of, if you will, to a significant other.

[00:33:15] And it's a fascinating aspect of our modern society that people engage in these parasocial relationships to be seen because there's little fear of rejection or emotional damage online as opposed to the people we know and or love in our physical lives.

[00:33:31] So, the idea of how one person living their truth can affect an entire community was an interesting sandbox to kind of use with her.

[00:33:40] And even how in a relationship where there's difference, right?

[00:33:47] Yeah.

[00:33:47] You can love someone and want to make yourself vulnerable to someone, but deep down you are afraid of that rejection.

[00:33:54] And I don't want to give away the moment because it's actually one of my favorites of the comic, but there's a moment where Nala has no choice but to fully reveal, like, he knows what she is, but he doesn't know, no.

[00:34:10] And that's always a scary, scary moment.

[00:34:13] And I think that is, and the idea of hiding, which is so toxic.

[00:34:19] And that is one of the ways I agree with her brother.

[00:34:22] Like, hiding doesn't feel like a healthy way to live and to move in the world.

[00:34:29] Yeah.

[00:34:31] I'm pausing there.

[00:34:32] I'm trying to kind of breathe all this in because it's a very deep read.

[00:34:37] And I was very surprised with the opening because you don't know what you're going to get going in.

[00:34:43] And then, bam, with the splash.

[00:34:49] And it was specifically Jose Villarubia's color work, really, that snagged me with all that.

[00:34:56] Because it was an unexpected splash page.

[00:34:58] And then there was the tonal portrayal of Miami was so on spot with the light because nothing – I always associate that city as a city of lights.

[00:35:08] There are some cities that just sort of never sleep.

[00:35:11] Yes.

[00:35:12] And that was a nice aspect of it that almost reminded me – you've almost got a Warriors vibe, like the movie, the Warriors vibe going on with this clash.

[00:35:22] Interesting.

[00:35:23] And it felt like it was happening there.

[00:35:26] But I want to give some oxygen to the rest of the creative team, too.

[00:35:29] So how did that get put together?

[00:35:32] I, again, coming as a newbie, didn't know anybody.

[00:35:35] So Porn Sack hooked me up with the illustrator, Kelsey Ramsey, who is fantastic and did such a great job with this.

[00:35:43] And you mentioned the colorist.

[00:35:46] And then there's a letterer.

[00:35:48] And I'm really still learning all these roles.

[00:35:50] Sure.

[00:35:51] Yeah.

[00:35:52] But the letterer was Jeff Powell?

[00:35:54] Yeah.

[00:35:55] Okay.

[00:35:56] So that – I'll give him a shout-out.

[00:35:57] A shout-out.

[00:35:58] Sorry.

[00:36:00] But, yeah, this is one of the things that's so great about comics in a non-stressful way.

[00:36:06] Hollywood has the same thing, but it's in a stressful way.

[00:36:09] And that's collaborating.

[00:36:11] And I say it's stressful in Hollywood because in Hollywood, when you're collaborating, you're often collaborating with people who are just going to change everything you say and do.

[00:36:21] Right?

[00:36:21] Like, no, it doesn't have to be this.

[00:36:23] Why don't we make it this?

[00:36:24] And sure, we had some of those conversations.

[00:36:28] Maybe just very slightly with Kelsey.

[00:36:32] But mostly it's everybody on the same team at comics just basically trying to bring the vision to life.

[00:36:38] Like, you wrote it.

[00:36:40] Let me bring this vision to life.

[00:36:43] You wrote the words.

[00:36:43] I'm going to create the actual story in images.

[00:36:49] And that is just awesome.

[00:36:51] It's just awesome.

[00:36:51] Like, I've never even met anyone in person on this team except for Porn Sack at the editor.

[00:36:56] Isn't that weird?

[00:36:57] It is weird.

[00:36:59] Yeah.

[00:36:59] But you're creating this thing together.

[00:37:01] It's just beautiful.

[00:37:03] Collaborative art is beautiful.

[00:37:05] It was the same thing with Scare Up the Vote.

[00:37:07] It was very much a collaboration with a committee and people who would just come out of the woodworks.

[00:37:12] How can I help?

[00:37:13] You know?

[00:37:14] And just to bring something to life.

[00:37:18] Yeah.

[00:37:18] I've talked to other screenwriters and it is consistent.

[00:37:22] Their reaction to how quickly comics can come into being even.

[00:37:27] Yes.

[00:37:28] Because you're used to these protracted timelines.

[00:37:31] Maybe you get it made.

[00:37:32] You don't really believe it until it even gets released into the world now.

[00:37:35] Because we apparently will shelf $50 million movies now.

[00:37:39] Oh, don't get me started.

[00:37:40] And never release them.

[00:37:41] So, yeah.

[00:37:42] Everybody is always blown away.

[00:37:43] Oh, it just.

[00:37:44] Comics are so fast.

[00:37:46] Yeah.

[00:37:46] Here it is.

[00:37:47] It's already here.

[00:37:48] That is a blessing.

[00:37:49] It is great.

[00:37:49] I'll tell you what's hard for me, though, in comics.

[00:37:51] It's finding those static moments.

[00:37:55] It's something as a prose writer and as a screenwriter, your characters are always in motion.

[00:38:01] In comics, you're writing to a still photo.

[00:38:04] Right?

[00:38:04] Every panel is a still photo.

[00:38:06] And I have had a tendency to want to cram too much in that photo.

[00:38:11] You know, what I wrote really would create more inset panels that are not there.

[00:38:18] Yeah.

[00:38:18] So, learning how to freeze frame in the title of the Jake Isles Band song.

[00:38:25] Freeze frame is the toughest thing.

[00:38:27] It's hard.

[00:38:28] It's hard to write in freeze frame.

[00:38:30] But I'm trying to learn.

[00:38:31] And I think I did pretty well with this one.

[00:38:33] The more I talk to people, the more I think, hey, this was pretty good.

[00:38:37] But it's so hard when you're on the other side of it, honestly.

[00:38:41] I thought it was fantastic.

[00:38:43] Did you get pages back and your mind was blown?

[00:38:48] It's every part of the process, you know.

[00:38:51] But, again, I'm such a newbie.

[00:38:53] Let me tell you a funny story, even.

[00:38:55] With The Keeper, because that was based on a screenplay and there's no interiority in a script.

[00:39:01] It's all what you see in here.

[00:39:04] When we wrote the graphic novel, we forgot that Aisha could think things privately.

[00:39:11] Like, I never had any panels of Aisha just thinking.

[00:39:16] That's hilarious.

[00:39:17] I'm telling you.

[00:39:18] So, then Port Sack was like, you know, you could have Aisha in caption just sort of thinking this.

[00:39:24] And I was like, oh, what?

[00:39:25] We could think?

[00:39:26] It's like, yeah, of course.

[00:39:27] I'm thinking back to all those comments I read when I was a kid.

[00:39:30] They used to have the little bubble bubbles, you know, leading to the bigger bubble.

[00:39:35] They don't do that anymore.

[00:39:36] But I was like, right.

[00:39:39] She can have private thoughts.

[00:39:41] So, that's where I am, Byron.

[00:39:43] I'm still, like, learning the range of how I can incorporate storytelling and comics.

[00:39:51] But I learned a lot doing this one.

[00:39:53] And, yeah, everything blew me away.

[00:39:55] The fact that they could think.

[00:39:57] Seeing the character designs, every step of it blew me away.

[00:40:01] Oh, I could have these inset pages where I explain things.

[00:40:03] It's like, oh, yeah, that's great.

[00:40:05] Good idea, Port Sack.

[00:40:07] Yeah.

[00:40:08] Yeah.

[00:40:08] But you can't have a jump scare so much.

[00:40:10] No, you can't really do a jump scare in comics.

[00:40:14] But that's okay.

[00:40:15] I think, you know, sometimes horror writers over-rely on jump scares.

[00:40:19] And the best jump scares, anyway, are coming from the character dynamics and the character journey.

[00:40:24] So, you do that without the jump scare.

[00:40:28] Well, you have some of the best editors working with you between Porn Sack and Will, which are both actually delightful people, too.

[00:40:35] So, that's really, really cool.

[00:40:37] Well, they were delightful to work with, for sure.

[00:40:39] Will Dennis and Porn Sack, Peach Head Schoet.

[00:40:41] So, yeah, that was great.

[00:40:43] Well, as someone with loads of plaudits in the prose world and as an established screenwriter, what's really exciting you about working in this medium?

[00:40:53] Are you jazzed about it?

[00:40:54] You want to do more?

[00:40:55] It sounds like it.

[00:40:57] I do.

[00:40:58] I mean, I'm thick in the middle of a novel right now.

[00:41:00] So, you get lost in a project and it's hard to think ahead.

[00:41:03] But I have another one coming out in the Shook anthology that's coming out a little bit, I guess, maybe next year, which is a different take on vampires and aging.

[00:41:13] What happens with an aging vampire?

[00:41:15] So, that was just kind of fun.

[00:41:16] And I co-wrote that with Steve, Stephen Barnes.

[00:41:19] So, yeah, I guess it's a matter of finding opportunities.

[00:41:24] I've had other people approach me about potential comics when it wasn't feasible because of my schedule.

[00:41:31] And I suspect that will happen more.

[00:41:33] And next time I'll be able to say, yeah, sure.

[00:41:36] I sure hope you can say sure because I want you writing more in this medium.

[00:41:39] This is the medium.

[00:41:40] You can see behind me.

[00:41:41] I love prose, but comic books, I think, are truly special.

[00:41:46] It's just a different kind of medium that requires a different kind of collaboration that nothing else does.

[00:41:54] It is.

[00:41:55] It's very special.

[00:41:56] It's very fun.

[00:41:56] Well, I will say this.

[00:42:02] I love most artistic communities.

[00:42:05] I can't say I've ever encountered an artistic community where I thought, oh, well, there are a bunch of a-holes.

[00:42:09] I can say that definitively.

[00:42:11] I worked with rock bands for 15 years.

[00:42:14] I can definitively say there are lots of assholes.

[00:42:17] Okay.

[00:42:18] Well, that's because I haven't worked in music.

[00:42:21] See?

[00:42:21] Don't do it.

[00:42:22] Don't do it.

[00:42:22] Among writers, especially horror writers, just the sweetest, most empathetic people.

[00:42:29] And I suspect comic writers, too, because deep down they're just big kids.

[00:42:34] I think that has a lot to do with it.

[00:42:35] I mean, how else are you a comic creator unless deep down you're a big kid?

[00:42:41] Sure.

[00:42:42] Yeah.

[00:42:42] I can go along with that.

[00:42:43] Right?

[00:42:44] It is a weird medium in that way because coming into it, I didn't expect the embracing community that was there because I had spent a decade and a half in music.

[00:42:56] And then I was a professional photographer for over a decade myself.

[00:43:01] And that is one of the loneliest roads ever.

[00:43:04] It's surprisingly cutthroat.

[00:43:07] Nobody wants to help anybody.

[00:43:08] Everybody's pulling the ladder up.

[00:43:10] It's a weird space.

[00:43:13] So comics was this really refreshing community to be able to come into.

[00:43:19] So I'm glad you've had a warm reception.

[00:43:21] That's fantastic.

[00:43:22] Do you like the idea of playing with Easter eggs in comics?

[00:43:25] I noticed the Octavia Butler poster on Nala's wall.

[00:43:28] Yeah.

[00:43:29] Oh, good eye.

[00:43:30] Yeah.

[00:43:30] I imagine that was somebody who was fairly formative for you, especially since you've been dubbed the Octavia Butler of horror.

[00:43:37] Well, I don't know who's going around calling me that.

[00:43:39] I've read it.

[00:43:40] I've read it.

[00:43:41] It's there.

[00:43:42] But absolutely.

[00:43:43] I was lucky enough to know Octavia for a brief time after I married Steve because Steve knew Octavia for 20 years.

[00:43:51] Oh, wow.

[00:43:51] Okay.

[00:43:52] And a lot of my knowing her was because she knew Steve, to be honest.

[00:43:55] But hang on.

[00:43:56] Just listening to them talk.

[00:43:58] I was just sitting there wide-eyed.

[00:44:01] I didn't come across her work until after I started publishing, which is actually unfortunate because I spent a lot of time writing works about characters who were not black and who didn't reflect my personal experiences as much.

[00:44:14] And I think if I had discovered Octavia sooner, I would have realized, oh, I can write black characters.

[00:44:23] But I did, and I am.

[00:44:25] And that's my personal strength, you know?

[00:44:28] Yeah.

[00:44:29] And, yes, I did like having the Easter egg of that Octavia Butler poster in there for sure.

[00:44:37] Well, I absolutely love the hell of this book.

[00:44:39] Selfishly, you know, I wish everybody would order it so that I can see where you develop this world.

[00:44:44] There's a bite, and I'm not saying that as a pun, but there is a bite to the narrative.

[00:44:53] There's a line that really stuck out to me, which was thoughts and prayers to my appetite.

[00:44:58] And I don't feel like that gives anything away, but it does encapsulate what you're doing with this book.

[00:45:04] And it feels fresh, and it feels risky in a way that I don't think people are going to find other offerings on their shelves do.

[00:45:12] You know, you have this mix of culture exposure that reads fresh and new.

[00:45:18] I think we're past final order cutoff at this point.

[00:45:21] So everybody needs to call their shop and let them know that you want it and to hold it for you because they're going to have limited supply.

[00:45:28] So make sure you call your shop.

[00:45:29] What else are you working on in transitioning into 2025?

[00:45:33] You're working on the novel.

[00:45:34] Is that your primary focus?

[00:45:36] I am.

[00:45:36] I won a World Fantasy Award last year for a short story called Incident at Bear Creek Lodge, which is historical horror.

[00:45:44] Well, the 70s.

[00:45:46] But it's a creature in the woods and a mean grandmother story.

[00:45:49] I'll put it that way.

[00:45:50] But it has its roots in Hollywood history.

[00:45:53] And I realized, I think even then, oh, this is a bigger story.

[00:45:56] So the novel, at least right now, is called Bear Creek Lodge.

[00:46:00] And it's set in that same world, but it's contemporary.

[00:46:02] Creature in the woods.

[00:46:04] But also, I am having the best time writing these old Hollywood scenes where I can show how difficult it was for Black actors and creators to be authentic and find any kind of foothold in early cinema that basically was still focused on minstrelsy and stereotypes.

[00:46:24] They even had, like, dialect coaches to help Black actors speak the way Hollywood wanted them to sound as opposed.

[00:46:31] Like, even Farina, like, going back to our gang, all that.

[00:46:34] I don't know if anybody's old enough to remember all that.

[00:46:36] He was from Boston, okay?

[00:46:38] He did not talk like that.

[00:46:40] So it's just, you know, basically, almost everything I do on some level when it's a historical component is just an homage to people who had a tougher road than the one I have.

[00:46:54] And I think especially now during disappointing, even terrifying political times, it's like my husband said, it's like it's not anything worse than he was dealing with when he was 10 years old.

[00:47:05] He's been here before.

[00:47:07] People have survived beyond it.

[00:47:09] Not everybody does.

[00:47:10] It's not true to say we will survive because we, it means a whole lot of people who died during COVID who did not survive in 2020.

[00:47:17] But you do have to hold on to hope.

[00:47:21] And I find that writing about the everyday lives and struggles of people who were moving through a world even more hostile, who saw them even less as human than the world we're in today, is very inspiring.

[00:47:34] And I hope readers will find it that way, too.

[00:47:37] I hope so.

[00:47:38] I'm looking forward to that.

[00:47:39] That sounds absolutely fantastic.

[00:47:41] I have, I will admit, vast holes in my knowledge about a lot of this stuff.

[00:47:47] Yeah, I've decided I want to take the Afrofuturism course that you have online.

[00:47:52] I want that as a Christmas present.

[00:47:54] Oh, great.

[00:47:55] To just kind of help fill in some of my knowledge gaps about it.

[00:48:00] That is fantastic.

[00:48:02] Go ahead.

[00:48:03] Well, as a teacher, you know, I can't help it.

[00:48:05] And I teach at UCLA, but we do public courses, like you said.

[00:48:08] So there's afrofuturismwebinar.com, the sunkenplaceclass.com, which is our Black Horror course.

[00:48:14] So, yeah, I welcome people to sort of fill in those gaps.

[00:48:19] Well, we need to.

[00:48:21] Us white men folk, especially.

[00:48:24] I said it.

[00:48:25] The more we know.

[00:48:26] The more we know.

[00:48:27] You know, the way I look at it is we're only here for a set amount of time.

[00:48:30] What a crime it is to leave this place before we've learned as much as we can about where we were, you know, where we've been.

[00:48:36] And other people's experiences.

[00:48:38] Right.

[00:48:39] But, yeah, by we, I mean the collective human experience.

[00:48:41] Yeah, yeah.

[00:48:42] Right.

[00:48:43] So, yeah, there's so much to learn every day.

[00:48:46] Well, where can people find you online?

[00:48:47] Or where would you like them to find you online these days?

[00:48:50] I am everywhere online.

[00:48:52] I'm on basically every social media, threads, blue sky, even Twitter, which I still call Twitter.

[00:48:59] I don't know for how long, but I had a fantasy that we would outlast the current ownership.

[00:49:03] I don't know if that'll happen now.

[00:49:05] But also, the best way to keep in touch with me is on my mailing list, which is TananaReeveList.com.

[00:49:12] Just my name like banana with a T.

[00:49:14] Reeve, R-I-V-E, list.com.

[00:49:17] Cool.

[00:49:18] I will put that in our notes to make it easy so everybody can join up with that.

[00:49:22] Tanana Reeve, thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about Moondogs.

[00:49:25] I really appreciate it.

[00:49:26] Thank you for having me.

[00:49:27] This has been a great conversation.

[00:49:29] Before I let you go, where's the best Cuban sandwich in Miami?

[00:49:33] And my son wanted to know.

[00:49:34] He loves them.

[00:49:36] You don't have to tell me if it's going to get you into trouble, though.

[00:49:39] I know people are very defensive about their Cuban sandwiches.

[00:49:43] You know what?

[00:49:45] I don't eat pork.

[00:49:47] I don't either.

[00:49:48] So for me, I would always get the edel con pollo, black beans and rice.

[00:49:56] You know, I would name a restaurant that I thought was my favorite, but they turned out to be Trumpers and I don't want to plug them.

[00:50:03] So I would say everybody use Yelp and find the one that best suits your taste because there's so much great food in Miami.

[00:50:12] I hate it when that happens.

[00:50:14] That's the worst.

[00:50:15] Yeah, what are you going to do?

[00:50:17] Yeah.

[00:50:18] You're going to not give them money.

[00:50:20] Exactly.

[00:50:21] That's how that is.

[00:50:22] I'm not plugging them.

[00:50:24] I may still eat there, but I'm not plugging you.

[00:50:28] Well, I will offer up my last plug and I say this with sincerity.

[00:50:32] With sincerity, when we started this whole podcast thing in the remit and it was by design is inclusion and diversity in the medium.

[00:50:42] So if you're listening to this and Moondog sounds like something you might be into, you have to buy it.

[00:50:47] If you want to see more diversity in comics, you must spend the money and tell the publishers that it is indeed something that you will pay to have.

[00:50:57] So please support this.

[00:50:58] Please support Tanana Reeve and her work.

[00:51:01] This is Byron O'Neill on behalf of all of us at Comic Book Yeti.

[00:51:04] Thanks for tuning in and we will see you next time.

[00:51:06] Take care, everybody.

[00:51:07] Thank you.

[00:51:08] This is Byron O'Neill, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by Comic Book Yeti.

[00:51:13] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast.

[00:51:17] Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff.

[00:51:21] It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve.

[00:51:25] Thanks for listening.

[00:51:27] If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast, Into the Comics Cave.

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