It is a rare treat because both hosts are on the show today to chat with fellow Yeti and comics writer Wells Thompson about his new NSFW project SMUT funding on Kickstarter. Smut is an erotic comedy about three friends facing relationship problems, the promises they make to resolve them, and the sex they have along the way so what better way to discuss it than three friends on a podcast. Issue one follows Dakota, a personal trainer attempting to clean up her act and get to know her date before jumping his bones. There's just over a week left so make sure to get on over to Kickstarter to back SMUT. You know you want to.
Make sure to check out our monthly crowdfunding comics feature book: Super Kaiju Rock n Roller Derby Fun Time Go!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
[00:00:00] Your ears do not deceive you. You've just entered the Cryptid Creator Corner brought to you by your friends at Comic Book Yeti.
[00:00:07] So without further ado, let's get on to the interview.
[00:00:11] Skirt of Good Muts sound like something spoken by a Cthulhu cultist for the name of a weird craft beer brand,
[00:00:16] but it's actually the shorthand for this new wild crowd-finding comics project
[00:00:21] Super Kaiju Rock and Roll Derby Fun Time Go from creator David Hedgecock.
[00:00:25] This is a mash-up of Jim and the Holograms meets Roller Derby with Kaiju with a twist of 70s pop culture thrown in.
[00:00:32] Harmony, Lyra, Melody, Cadence, and Biola are a struggling 20-something band
[00:00:38] and a Roller Derby team fleshed with talent but broke as a joke.
[00:00:42] The burnouts are thrilling concertgoers with their killer looks and vibe until a music mishap
[00:00:48] drops a curious ancient artifact into their hands.
[00:00:51] Cheeky, lighthearted and fun.
[00:00:53] It will be launching soon and there's an early bird special if you catch it in time.
[00:00:57] This course you would discount and a VIP wristband.
[00:01:00] I'll drop the link at the show notes.
[00:01:02] I read the advance for this and honestly, it reminds me of my own carefree days
[00:01:05] giggling on the road in the music industry but with way better shower scenes.
[00:01:09] The only thing missing is more cowbell.
[00:01:16] Hello and welcome to Comic Book Yeti's Cryptid Creator Corner.
[00:01:19] I am one of your hosts, Jimmy Gasparo, and guess what?
[00:01:22] I have the other host here, Byron O'Neill.
[00:01:25] Hi, Byron. Say hello to our listeners.
[00:01:27] Hello, listeners.
[00:01:29] It's very rare.
[00:01:30] It's weird.
[00:01:32] Normally this is only at the end of the year.
[00:01:34] I'm excited.
[00:01:35] But yeah, but we're here for a very special reason that one of our other
[00:01:39] favorite little squatches and that's what we call some of the other people
[00:01:42] that work for Comic Book Yeti, a former editor and now a big time comic book writer.
[00:01:52] Wells Thompson is here to talk about his newest Kickstarter for SMUT.
[00:01:56] And it is going on right now.
[00:02:00] If you're listening to this episode, when it came out,
[00:02:02] you're going to be able to go to one of the show links and check it out on Kickstarter.
[00:02:06] It's, I believe, a 32 page original graphic novel or graphic novella.
[00:02:13] And yeah, it sounds absolutely awesome.
[00:02:16] It's a little spicy.
[00:02:17] So, you know, if that's not your thing,
[00:02:20] you know, just listen anyway, this isn't going to get too, too weird.
[00:02:23] But you know what?
[00:02:24] I shouldn't make any promises in any event.
[00:02:28] Welcome, Wells.
[00:02:29] Thanks for being here with Byron and I.
[00:02:32] Thank you for having me on.
[00:02:33] I appreciate that.
[00:02:35] I will say correction. It's a mini series.
[00:02:37] This is the first issue of.
[00:02:39] But I think I classified as a graphic novella when it's complete.
[00:02:45] So fantastic.
[00:02:46] So but the first issue I'm corrected is going to be like a little oversized
[00:02:50] and what you'd expect from a normal floppy, like 32 pages.
[00:02:54] Yes, 32 page first issue.
[00:02:57] That mostly just wound up being because it's a little bit anthology style.
[00:03:02] So I had to set up the three stories that were going over in each issue
[00:03:08] in the first 10 pages and then the next 22 are the first issue.
[00:03:12] If that makes sense.
[00:03:13] So it's it's prologue and first issue kind of crammed together.
[00:03:16] All right. So why don't we just let's just like,
[00:03:21] you know, dive right into this, but and just our listeners
[00:03:26] a little bit about what the series is.
[00:03:29] Sure thing.
[00:03:30] So Smud is a erotic slice of life comedy
[00:03:36] about three women working together to sort out their incredibly messy love lives.
[00:03:41] The first issue is about Dakota, a personal trainer
[00:03:45] who is attempting to exercise self restraint
[00:03:49] and discipline on her first date with a hot photographer
[00:03:56] that she is very excited to meet for the first time.
[00:04:00] It's about first stage itters.
[00:04:01] It's about holding trying to hold yourself to a high standard
[00:04:04] and when it's OK to slip past that boundary and say, you know what?
[00:04:09] This is actually working out.
[00:04:10] I don't have to stick by this arbitrary thing that I set myself up for.
[00:04:15] Um, and it's a lot of fun.
[00:04:20] It's it's very character driven and goofy.
[00:04:23] And is it true the hot photographer was based on one time
[00:04:26] hot professional photographer Byron O'Neill?
[00:04:30] Um, I mean, I don't know or deny.
[00:04:35] Byron, did you how long have you been shaving your head?
[00:04:38] Is is the the leading question there? I guess.
[00:04:42] About 20 years.
[00:04:44] OK, so probably not based on you.
[00:04:48] Thought I'd ask.
[00:04:51] I just appreciate that you have a hot photographer in there.
[00:04:54] We don't get enough representation.
[00:04:55] No, I appreciate that.
[00:04:57] No, I mean, everything sort of thematically ties together.
[00:05:00] One of the varying covers is a
[00:05:04] meant to be kind of a thirst trap photo that he took of her.
[00:05:08] So they go at all.
[00:05:10] It all ties in.
[00:05:12] But yeah, this.
[00:05:16] This comic was a lot of fun to write and co-writing it with my wife, Brianna Thompson.
[00:05:22] It's being drawn by Bianca Melanes,
[00:05:26] super talented comic book artist from originally from Brazil, now there's
[00:05:31] a Portugal, DC Hopkins letters.
[00:05:34] Our common little squash friend,
[00:05:38] Krista Herodder is the editor on it.
[00:05:43] And yeah, there's just way too much talent on this book.
[00:05:47] And I'm excited that it's getting some attention and getting the
[00:05:52] what I think the recognition deserves.
[00:05:55] Yeah, I mean, you pulled off the unthinkable here with a very bold move.
[00:05:59] I have to say so instead of convincing your spouse to support you,
[00:06:03] yet another crowdfunding comics project and the ensuing stress
[00:06:08] and financial pressures that bring in a brilliant twist,
[00:06:11] you brought them in as a co-writer.
[00:06:14] Correct.
[00:06:16] That's right.
[00:06:17] Yeah, I figured that the only way they would ever
[00:06:21] understand what I go through is to live it.
[00:06:25] No, but she was kind of an invaluable voice
[00:06:30] for.
[00:06:32] Particularly the third, the third issue, we sort of
[00:06:37] we worked on it all together.
[00:06:39] This first one I would say is like 80 percent me, 20 percent her.
[00:06:42] The next one very 50 50 and then the third one is like 80 percent
[00:06:46] her, 20 percent me.
[00:06:49] But yeah, I think she was really insightful.
[00:06:53] I the only reason I felt confident enough to come forward and say
[00:06:57] I've written this book and I believe that it's worth your time
[00:07:01] is because of how rock solid our relationship is and how well we
[00:07:05] communicate and and the story, the horror stories that I've
[00:07:10] constantly heard from her and her friends and
[00:07:14] sort of what a typical relationship looks like versus what ours looks like.
[00:07:20] I remember when we were getting married,
[00:07:23] we were planning our wedding.
[00:07:26] We would be on the phone with florists and wedding, you know,
[00:07:32] people who whose job it is to like make weddings happen.
[00:07:37] And every single time they would take a moment to just be like,
[00:07:40] you know, it's really unusual that both of you are on here
[00:07:43] and like contributing and talking to each other and coming to a decision
[00:07:46] on the spot. Like you exclusively work with people who are about to get
[00:07:50] married. That's a horrifying thing to say.
[00:07:53] It's like we are not used to people
[00:07:55] taking an interest in this sort of thing together.
[00:08:00] So we really I really wanted to bring that sort of energy of,
[00:08:05] you know, this is what makes a good relationship work into a comic.
[00:08:11] And I just as long as I've been in Kickstarter,
[00:08:16] I guess I was going to always try the not say for work thing
[00:08:19] eventually. So it all just kind of came to a head and that
[00:08:24] not to get too like inside baseball about it.
[00:08:26] But how did that work?
[00:08:28] Like practically, I mean, you've co-written things before, you know.
[00:08:33] But how did that work?
[00:08:34] You know, because that has to be a different dynamic.
[00:08:37] It's not just a co-writer or a friend like when it's your spouse.
[00:08:41] Yeah, I was worried about the realities of putting it together.
[00:08:44] For sure. I was worried about it first simply because
[00:08:47] when you when you have a like creative partnership with someone,
[00:08:51] it's a very different dynamic than
[00:08:54] their relationship or friendship or anything else.
[00:08:57] And even my longtime partner, Dalton and I, we fight constantly
[00:09:02] about like the direction that series are going in.
[00:09:05] We we want the best for the series, but we obviously we have
[00:09:09] disagreements just because what we're ultimately talking about is
[00:09:12] like this is how I see the world.
[00:09:14] What do you mean that's wrong?
[00:09:18] So I was a little bit nervous about bringing her in there.
[00:09:21] But she we work pretty well together, all things considered.
[00:09:28] She isn't a scriptwriter, so she left that part up to me.
[00:09:31] But she we would dive into the characters and talk about what we wanted
[00:09:35] the kind of overall plot to look like.
[00:09:39] She would pitch me jokes and ideas and stuff that could be going on in the comic.
[00:09:43] And then I went to a coffee shop and wrote a script and made it work,
[00:09:47] brought it back.
[00:09:48] She gave me really extensive notes and we just kept swapping back and forth
[00:09:52] until we were both proud of it.
[00:09:54] Then we handed it to Krista, our editor, and they told us that we were
[00:09:59] idiots and we started from square one.
[00:10:01] But then, you know, eventually you need someone to tell you that you're wrong
[00:10:08] and that person is Krista every time.
[00:10:11] Cabbage will always do that.
[00:10:13] I mean, especially if you're working with your spouse, I mean,
[00:10:16] it really does help to have that objective outside opinion.
[00:10:20] Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:21] Yeah. The infuriating thing is when I disagree about something
[00:10:27] and then say, well, you know what?
[00:10:29] Let's let the objective third party come to it.
[00:10:32] And then they say, oh, no, you're the other person who's right.
[00:10:35] You're wrong. Damn it.
[00:10:38] You were going to lose that more times than not.
[00:10:41] Yeah. Yeah. You had to know that.
[00:10:43] No, I should have seen it coming.
[00:10:45] Yeah, but it is what it is.
[00:10:48] So is this your first stab?
[00:10:51] If I'm not mistaken, you have more of a film.
[00:10:53] You kind of went to school for film.
[00:10:55] You went that. Is that correct?
[00:10:57] Or I would say what I have the most experience in is prose.
[00:11:02] I went to school for kind of creative writing more broadly,
[00:11:08] but I did spend a lot of time doing screenwriting, doing and and
[00:11:13] most of my friends were digital filmmaking majors.
[00:11:17] They were making films. They wanted to be directors.
[00:11:21] So I wound up making a lot of movies.
[00:11:23] That wasn't sort of what I intended to do, but they, you know,
[00:11:27] they wanted material to work off of and I was happy to write anything.
[00:11:31] So I made a bunch of movies and short films and stuff
[00:11:37] when I was in college and managed to win a couple of awards
[00:11:41] in some film festivals, which was awesome.
[00:11:42] But and I would have gladly continued to do that and continue to make movies.
[00:11:48] But movies even more so than comics are very expensive and very difficult to break into.
[00:11:55] And ultimately, it wasn't even really what I, you know,
[00:12:00] really wanted to do. I wanted to be a novelist.
[00:12:02] So I went deeper into that territory and then eventually it was
[00:12:08] it was Dalton who showed me the way of of the graphic novel as it were.
[00:12:15] And I started doing that more as a writing exercise and anything
[00:12:18] that thought tearing down the prose and just getting to the action might help
[00:12:23] kind of develop better pacing and just be, you know,
[00:12:27] a good way of getting some stories told and then just fell in love with the format,
[00:12:31] fell in love with the collaboration of it all, getting to work with artists,
[00:12:35] getting to see it come to life in really interesting ways.
[00:12:39] And ironically, you can get more away with
[00:12:43] comic now in terms of like sex positive forward than you could on film.
[00:12:48] 100. Yeah.
[00:12:49] We're having all these disputes of like no sex on film now.
[00:12:52] So yeah. Well, I think the
[00:12:55] at least for me, the
[00:12:58] cry of like, I don't want sex scenes in film isn't necessarily
[00:13:03] like sex scenes are inherently bad.
[00:13:05] It's I don't we don't need scenes that don't move the plot forward
[00:13:10] that are there purely for audience gratification or,
[00:13:16] you know, titillation or whatever it is.
[00:13:20] And I agree with that in, you know,
[00:13:24] on in principle, I don't think any
[00:13:28] like not sex scenes in particular, but just any scene needs to exist
[00:13:31] that doesn't tell you something about the character,
[00:13:35] you make the make the vibe or the
[00:13:40] tone or the theme more apparent
[00:13:43] or otherwise tell you something interesting about the character.
[00:13:49] And I think sex scenes get used a lot as
[00:13:55] a very cheap way of making a movie, a comic, anything
[00:14:01] like more sellable, like this is something we we can attach a,
[00:14:05] you know, not safe for work label onto it and it will get more eyes naturally
[00:14:09] because the Internet is like that.
[00:14:12] And don't get me wrong, I like a black bag variance every now and then
[00:14:16] some are really, really good.
[00:14:19] But I think we at the risk of of pissing off some vault editors
[00:14:24] like we I think I've had the conversation with either one of you or another
[00:14:28] yeti of like the black bag, like money shot variance
[00:14:34] were warranted because that book was about sex.
[00:14:38] It was about relationships that and is overall that book
[00:14:43] is just a great example of like how to use sex to tell a story,
[00:14:46] how to use sex to to bolster your characters and to to really
[00:14:52] create a comic that
[00:14:55] has something to say about the subject and isn't just using it as a
[00:14:58] cheap thrill.
[00:15:01] But then they started doing it on every comic and it was like, why does,
[00:15:05] you know, creature feature need a
[00:15:09] or what creature double feature?
[00:15:11] I don't remember what that one was called, but like, why does that need a black bag?
[00:15:13] That doesn't make any sense.
[00:15:16] I will say that they did shoot down my pitch for the plot black bag variant,
[00:15:20] which was just like the bog monster with a really nice rack.
[00:15:24] And I thought I want to say it probably would have sold a lot.
[00:15:28] But I think that detracts from the overall like, you know,
[00:15:33] I mean, it was just my idea.
[00:15:34] I wouldn't have drawn it.
[00:15:35] You know, we could have gotten like I know you should have drawn it.
[00:15:38] I would love to see Jimmy Gaspero's the plot rack monster.
[00:15:46] It's just a stick figure with.
[00:15:48] Yeah, that's what it would have been.
[00:15:49] That's what it would have been.
[00:15:51] So did you find that there was a line for you?
[00:15:53] So let me give a little bit of backstory on myself.
[00:15:55] So as kind of a spectrum kid myself,
[00:15:58] that the this whole genre is a little odd to me.
[00:16:03] It's not something I typically read.
[00:16:05] I really enjoyed, you know, the preview pages that you sent along.
[00:16:09] It looks great because it's story driven, right?
[00:16:11] But I'm curious about the line and like where you found it.
[00:16:16] Because I remember back in the day working in the comic book shop,
[00:16:18] like before the whole any black bag, any of that stuff,
[00:16:21] we had a short box that was behind the counter
[00:16:25] that had the adult books in it, like bondage fairies.
[00:16:28] And I was like, you know, so so so where did you find if if indeed you did,
[00:16:33] you know, a line because there's a at least I think one of the covers,
[00:16:38] you know, has a vibrator on it. So yeah.
[00:16:42] And I think.
[00:16:44] I think I think just about anything is fair game.
[00:16:50] So long as it's being used in a way that makes sense with the character and story.
[00:16:57] To give an example, Love Sick is a pretty wild comic
[00:17:05] that was at times difficult to read.
[00:17:08] I read it mostly on train, which I don't recommend.
[00:17:10] Do not read that public.
[00:17:14] But I didn't find any of it particularly offensive or crass
[00:17:18] in the sense that like.
[00:17:21] In the sense that I sometimes feel in light,
[00:17:25] is superhero like covers where the obvious goal of the cover
[00:17:32] was to objectify and sexualize the character.
[00:17:37] Catwoman power girl.
[00:17:39] Yeah, you get a lot of those those covers at less.
[00:17:43] A lot less now, but definitely you can pull some trashy ones from like
[00:17:47] two thousands that haven't aged well at all.
[00:17:53] And yeah, I think that as long as it feels like
[00:17:58] the character is empowered to be doing what they're doing
[00:18:01] and we're using it to tell an interesting story
[00:18:05] and make an interesting point either about the character or about sex itself.
[00:18:10] I think most anything is fair game.
[00:18:13] Obviously there are limits you need to like
[00:18:16] there are things I wouldn't talk about just from a point of view of like.
[00:18:20] I either don't have enough experience with it or it would be really easy to
[00:18:26] you know, say something that winds up being either wildly offensive
[00:18:31] or hurtful for a group of people.
[00:18:34] So knowing like where your personal boundary is as a storyteller is important.
[00:18:42] But yeah, I wanted
[00:18:44] a big part of this project was like I wanted to be able to
[00:18:48] like show characters having sex without it feeling like we're spying on them.
[00:18:54] Like it's a voyeuristic thing.
[00:18:57] We're learning about them and the relationship dynamics
[00:19:01] that are coming to light are more interesting than the act itself.
[00:19:08] If that's at all,
[00:19:10] you know, it makes it makes a lot of sense. It's like a.
[00:19:13] What wasn't if I didn't watch all the episodes or anything like that,
[00:19:17] but you know, I'm trying to associate it with something and there's got a
[00:19:20] you know, a sex in the city feel where it's definitely.
[00:19:22] Yeah, yeah, I get I didn't.
[00:19:25] I never thought about sex in the city as an analog until like.
[00:19:29] Way after I actually committed to making it.
[00:19:32] And I was like, God damn it, it's sex in the city.
[00:19:36] Oh well, you know, sometimes good ideas or people themselves, I guess.
[00:19:41] And you know, as a former bartender, I can appreciate sex in the city at the very
[00:19:44] least for sparking the cosmopolitan new wave cocktail craze.
[00:19:48] So if I'm following in those footsteps, I'm happy.
[00:19:52] All right, let's take a quick break.
[00:19:55] Hey, comics fan.
[00:19:56] Itty comic book publisher Banda bars just got a level up
[00:20:00] and announced it is now a cooperative.
[00:20:02] This heralds a new era for them, including a partnership with Dallas
[00:20:06] stories and they added stars to the series.
[00:20:10] And they added several new members to the ownership group.
[00:20:13] Marcus Jimenez is now chief operating officer Brent Fisher takes on
[00:20:17] the role of chief diversity officer and Joey Galvez is introduced as
[00:20:21] head of Kickstarter ops and social media manager, which is sure
[00:20:25] to increase their capabilities overall as a publisher.
[00:20:28] And it further promotes their mission statement of advancing representation,
[00:20:32] inclusion and diversity in the media.
[00:20:35] They also established a new board of directors to help chart
[00:20:37] the new path of their journey with new projects in the works like Alaska
[00:20:41] by dropping in June, a broken soon launching on Kickstarter and pollen
[00:20:45] coming up with Dallas. Stay tuned to this space for more
[00:20:48] exciting news from the growing Bards family.
[00:20:54] Let's get back to the show.
[00:20:56] Piggybacking off of something you just said there, Wellesley.
[00:20:59] We said, you know, when you committed to making it.
[00:21:02] And I was kind of curious in terms of how this fits in
[00:21:06] with some of the other stuff, you know, you've done so far.
[00:21:08] And I'm always curious if writers think about their work like along those lines,
[00:21:13] whether or not it's like, well, I haven't tackled this genre yet.
[00:21:16] Or this story has been, you know, in my head for a while and now
[00:21:20] is just the right time for one reason or another.
[00:21:22] Like kind of how do you think in terms of what, you know,
[00:21:25] that the next project is whether or not it's I want to tell it or,
[00:21:30] you know, the stars have aligned and the creative team I want is here.
[00:21:34] But, you know, you've had mechaton and Frankenstein,
[00:21:37] the unconquered, the Catskin and the Rose in terms of, you know,
[00:21:41] your Kickstarter project.
[00:21:42] So kind of, you know, how did this kind of fit in with all of that?
[00:21:47] And what kind of were the factors that made
[00:21:50] SMUT the next, you know, the next the next Kickstarter?
[00:21:55] I think most of my work starts from a place of like,
[00:22:00] I'm interested in this genre and I haven't tried it before.
[00:22:05] And I wonder what I would do with that.
[00:22:09] And not everything pans out.
[00:22:10] I've definitely written some stuff that will that will never see the light of day.
[00:22:14] And that's a good thing.
[00:22:16] Um, but the stuff that sticks, the stuff that like comes about is usually
[00:22:22] there's some kind of like anthology call or there's just an idea
[00:22:27] or a book that I've read that really stuck with me.
[00:22:30] And I think, you know, what would I do with that project, that idea?
[00:22:35] And it usually starts like, oh, I could do like a short
[00:22:38] thing where this small thing happens and then over the course of a couple days,
[00:22:44] it will just stick in my mind and I'll start writing it.
[00:22:48] And it'll turn from a four page short into a 70, 80 page monster.
[00:22:53] And I realize, oh, I actually have a lot to say about this.
[00:22:57] Maybe maybe this is worth pursuing.
[00:23:00] That that's sort of been the process.
[00:23:02] That was certainly the process for the Catskin and the Rose.
[00:23:05] To an extent, it was what happened with Smud.
[00:23:08] It could be happening.
[00:23:10] I just wrote a anthology submission that really
[00:23:17] kind of got me smiling and wanting to go in further on that subject matter.
[00:23:22] I won't say what it is just because who knows what will happen.
[00:23:26] If the story gets in, I want to keep it, you know, I want to keep it fresh.
[00:23:30] But.
[00:23:32] But yeah, it's.
[00:23:34] As you noted with my work, it tends to not stick around any one thing
[00:23:39] for a long time.
[00:23:42] And yeah, I think a lot of what I have to say
[00:23:47] could be said in any genre and it's just what genre
[00:23:50] is capturing my attention at the moment.
[00:23:54] Do you think something like Smud has been
[00:23:58] maybe more freeing?
[00:24:00] Maybe that's the wrong way of putting it.
[00:24:02] But with something like Mechaton when it's geared towards
[00:24:04] maybe a particular audience or Frankenstein, the Unconquered,
[00:24:07] where maybe you're kind of bound by that character and that setting.
[00:24:12] Was there anything more, you know,
[00:24:14] freeing about kind of writing something
[00:24:18] modern day and, you know, with these types of characters?
[00:24:21] I weirdly, yes.
[00:24:24] I think my normal mode of writing,
[00:24:28] like how I normally operate is I'm usually writing.
[00:24:34] You know, normal characters in a normal setting,
[00:24:36] kind of in a modern day thing with like kind of a literary twist to it.
[00:24:40] That's how most of my prose fiction leads.
[00:24:43] And there's usually there's maybe like a magical realist kind of bent to it.
[00:24:47] But it's usually not as extreme genre fiction as Mechaton,
[00:24:51] as Frankenstein, the Unconquered, which is to say,
[00:24:54] I don't love writing those books, but those are definitely like outliers
[00:24:57] in what I normally do.
[00:24:59] Um, so, yeah, getting back to basics and just writing people talking
[00:25:04] in a coffee shop did feel great and freeing in a way, because it
[00:25:08] it frees me up to just worry about things like, you know,
[00:25:11] dialogue and sight gags and and building up characters.
[00:25:16] Um.
[00:25:19] And while you can definitely do that when they have a broad sword
[00:25:21] and are hacking things apart, it just has a different flavor and texture to it.
[00:25:27] But yeah, I if I if I have a choice,
[00:25:30] if I have the choice of anything to do in the world, most of the time,
[00:25:33] I will default to,
[00:25:35] uh, you know, two characters hanging out in a coffee shop on a train,
[00:25:40] you know, and sorting out their life through dialogue and minimal action
[00:25:47] which is one of the reasons why comics has been really good for me,
[00:25:50] because it's forced me to think about action in a broader sense
[00:25:54] and make sure that things remain visually interesting.
[00:25:59] Yeah, I'm really curious and lessons learned, right?
[00:26:03] I don't know how you've got three issues.
[00:26:05] I don't know how far you are along in terms of like full completion at this point.
[00:26:08] But, you know, as you're as you're writing the script,
[00:26:11] were there things that just like in this genre just did not work?
[00:26:17] Or was that was that Krista's role?
[00:26:19] You know, I don't I don't think there was
[00:26:23] the closest that we got to anything like that was
[00:26:27] we had.
[00:26:30] Like our the original pitch for issue three
[00:26:34] was going to be kind of a.
[00:26:38] A journey of self discovery,
[00:26:41] someone was going to sort of
[00:26:44] clumsily discover that they were non binary
[00:26:47] and and sort of help build up
[00:26:51] what was a degrading relationship based on that new information of like,
[00:26:54] oh, this has been off because you haven't been expressing who you are.
[00:27:01] Which I thought and I still stand by was like
[00:27:04] a really touching concept and one probably
[00:27:09] someone out there needs to hear.
[00:27:11] But it was also too complex and too nuanced of an idea to do justice.
[00:27:17] And, you know, twenty twenty two pages.
[00:27:21] It probably needed a full graphic novel and it probably needs
[00:27:26] like a dedicated non binary author to write it.
[00:27:30] I don't often like I don't often see that like
[00:27:35] topics are off limits for certain people.
[00:27:37] I think there are boundaries for sure.
[00:27:40] And I wouldn't necessarily hesitate to write a non binary character.
[00:27:44] I've certainly written a lot of non binary characters before,
[00:27:46] but that's sort of very personal self discovery of like,
[00:27:49] this is how I discovered I was on binary.
[00:27:52] Isn't something I feel comfortable like assuming the role of
[00:27:56] assuming the authorial voice for.
[00:27:59] So yeah, that that I would definitely say
[00:28:02] as much as I want to see that written out in play out, probably not.
[00:28:08] But other than that, like in terms of
[00:28:11] plot in terms of genre stuff, no, we didn't find anything that like
[00:28:16] didn't work because it was slice of life.
[00:28:19] I tended I tend to work very from the character.
[00:28:23] So what makes sense for them to do?
[00:28:27] And everything, the plotting just came out extremely naturally
[00:28:32] and throughout most of it.
[00:28:36] That's awesome.
[00:28:37] Yeah, so what kind of can we expect?
[00:28:39] I think I've seen the first six pages.
[00:28:42] Beluded to the dialogue in the coffee shop.
[00:28:44] You've got the friends.
[00:28:46] So is it going to be kind of focused on her relationship journey?
[00:28:51] Just self discovery with a photographer kind of thing or?
[00:28:56] Yeah, well, Dakota's Dakota is very
[00:29:01] self possessed and high confidence knows what she's about.
[00:29:07] She's young. She's living her best life.
[00:29:09] She just wants to sort of get to a place where if something good happens,
[00:29:15] she would be comfortable settling down.
[00:29:17] So she's starting to try and set up boundaries for herself
[00:29:21] rather than reflexively being like this state isn't going anywhere.
[00:29:24] I'm just going to sleep with you so that I get something out of it
[00:29:26] and then never call you again.
[00:29:28] Yeah, her goal is I'm going to go on a full date with this guy.
[00:29:32] I'm going to get to know him no matter how much he sucks.
[00:29:35] I'm going to sit through it.
[00:29:37] I'm going to say goodbye at the end and then later we'll decide if we want a date to.
[00:29:42] And then as the date happens,
[00:29:46] first of all, she realizes for the first time that she's nervous
[00:29:48] about the date for the first time in a while,
[00:29:51] which I think is a really endearing and funny scene.
[00:29:55] But as she meets Lance, as she goes on the date with them,
[00:29:58] she starts to realize that she actually really likes him.
[00:30:01] There's a lot of chemistry there and she starts to wonder,
[00:30:03] you know, how important is this rule that I don't have to
[00:30:07] that I can't sleep with him on the first date?
[00:30:09] How, you know, can we shut that aside for the sake of I really like this guy
[00:30:14] and I want to ask.
[00:30:16] And given the direction of the book, you might have guessed how that turns out
[00:30:19] already, but I'll say it's a really fun and kind of satisfying.
[00:30:24] A very otherwise wholesome story about just getting to know someone really well.
[00:30:31] Yeah, I mean, that's what I really love about Scythe of Life.
[00:30:33] It's funny, you're talking about the nervousness of dating.
[00:30:38] As it isn't usually again kind of kind of my genre, but I went through that
[00:30:43] this past week, a good friend of mine stopped by and visited,
[00:30:46] hadn't seen in a while.
[00:30:47] He's in his 40s recently divorced and he's talking about
[00:30:50] the nervousness of dating in his 40s.
[00:30:53] And then I got anxious because that sounds like the scariest thing imaginable
[00:30:58] to be in your 40s and try to date.
[00:31:00] Oh yeah.
[00:31:02] Yeah, no, that's one of the books that really inspired, you know,
[00:31:08] me going out to write this one was Sun Stone, which is I
[00:31:14] write as a comparison in the in the pitch as well as just talk about openly
[00:31:19] a lot.
[00:31:20] It's not hard to see like where it came from.
[00:31:22] But what I love about that book in particular is that it sort of sells
[00:31:27] itself as this is a hardcore BDSM, you know, lesbian bondage book.
[00:31:34] And like it is that but as you're reading it, you're not thinking about
[00:31:39] the titillating elements as much as you're thinking this feels like I'm
[00:31:43] in high school and falling in love for the first time and I have no idea
[00:31:46] what the hell like it really captures that nervous energy.
[00:31:50] And it's it's completely infectious.
[00:31:53] I love the book for that.
[00:31:54] It's that isn't exactly what I wanted to capture here, but it was definitely
[00:31:59] an inspiration for Oh, that's what that's what Smut can do is kind of take
[00:32:04] you out of yourself and make you relive, you know, very fresh experiences
[00:32:10] like like falling in love for the first time.
[00:32:16] So why kind of curious, like with this story and the way you tell it
[00:32:23] and hearing you talk about it now, why Smut?
[00:32:28] OK, before you why the title Smut.
[00:32:31] Yeah.
[00:32:33] But before you answer that for listeners who are not getting
[00:32:37] the full video version of this first Wells like leans in
[00:32:42] and he's on he's got his hand and his on his chin like Tommy Jimmy.
[00:32:48] Yeah, I know that was the preface here.
[00:32:50] I needed to give that to the people who aren't seeing the video.
[00:32:53] Anyway, oh God, why did I call it Smut?
[00:32:58] Truthfully, it was it was more of a joke
[00:33:01] than it started out that way anyway, because people would ask, you know,
[00:33:05] I would I went from like very depressed
[00:33:10] having just moved to a new city and working a job I really hated
[00:33:14] and feeling really creatively drained.
[00:33:18] Um, so I was I was not in a good place.
[00:33:21] And suddenly I went from that to really visibly excited about something.
[00:33:26] So I got a lot of, oh, you know, what's happening?
[00:33:28] I'm like, oh, I'm working on this project and it's it's really cool.
[00:33:31] It's it's just making me I'm just I'm a lot happier now that I'm working.
[00:33:36] They're like, oh, cool. What's it about?
[00:33:37] And I'm like, it's mine.
[00:33:40] And that's like that's all I can think to say about.
[00:33:43] That's you know, um, and the longer the more time to set it,
[00:33:48] the longer I laughed about it, the more I couldn't
[00:33:51] think of a better way to describe what it was.
[00:33:56] It's, you know, it's something fun, something really fun
[00:34:01] and interesting and funny kind of layered over
[00:34:05] something that looks very crass from the outside or layered under.
[00:34:11] Um, so I, you know, if.
[00:34:15] Maybe the answer is that I'm a hack, I don't know, but I
[00:34:19] I've never been like the best with titles and the
[00:34:24] the more I said it, the more fun it said, the more
[00:34:27] yeah, fun it sounded and the and the
[00:34:30] it sort of got to the point of what it was going to look like
[00:34:37] faster than me trying to come up with a clever title
[00:34:41] and then you try and give hints at what it would be.
[00:34:46] Which pose its own problems because as as we've established,
[00:34:49] you know, I have a bunch of genre work and
[00:34:54] it sometimes is very difficult to get
[00:34:57] people from genre A over to genre B.
[00:35:00] So I wanted to very quickly say, hey, this is what this book is.
[00:35:05] If you're not into that, just walk away.
[00:35:08] Like you can you can mute the emails now.
[00:35:10] It's OK.
[00:35:13] Very clear picture of what it is you're going to be getting.
[00:35:17] But it's all still like I don't, you know, things can change.
[00:35:21] Things can always go in weird directions.
[00:35:24] I don't know what my future micro looks like, but I don't
[00:35:27] intend to like stay doing this kind of thing forever.
[00:35:32] It's not my intention to like make this my brand.
[00:35:35] So I kind of wanted it to stand out and be like, oh, this is a weird thing he's doing.
[00:35:39] And now we're going back to more frigging time or whatever.
[00:35:42] And maybe I'm completely wrong and maybe this is all I'm writing in 10 years.
[00:35:45] But yeah, I just wanted it to kind of stand out.
[00:35:52] Yes. So like Smut Volume 9, Smut in Space or whatever.
[00:35:57] OK, you're just describing money shot now.
[00:36:00] You're right. I guess I guess I am.
[00:36:04] And speaking of moving to a new city, if like where you are now in,
[00:36:11] I think, Chicago.
[00:36:14] Is your experience so far been more Ferris Bueller's Day off
[00:36:18] or Blues Brothers or some other Chicago based film?
[00:36:26] Yeah, no, it's it's very Blues Brothers in that
[00:36:30] a lot of things are happening and it's difficult to explain how it all jives together.
[00:36:36] And if you've ever been if you've ever been on a train in Chicago,
[00:36:42] it is both the most liberating thing in the world and you're going to see some shit.
[00:36:47] So I so just prepare yourself for that is all I have to say.
[00:36:52] No, I do love this city.
[00:36:54] I love being here.
[00:36:56] It's just, you know, when you move somewhere, it's very stressful.
[00:36:59] You're uprooting your entire life.
[00:37:02] Yeah, it took a while to adjust.
[00:37:04] But but you have is there more to that?
[00:37:09] Or you just.
[00:37:12] I feel like you have adjusted is where that was.
[00:37:16] I really love the city and I wouldn't want to move anywhere,
[00:37:19] which is good because my wife politely informed me
[00:37:22] that she is dying in this house.
[00:37:24] We are not moving for any reason. So.
[00:37:26] Right.
[00:37:29] That settles that.
[00:37:30] So you're going to be seeing this background for a while, is what I'm saying.
[00:37:33] Hey, that's that's fine.
[00:37:35] You got some you get some stuff on your walls, you know,
[00:37:38] there's some stuff back there listeners.
[00:37:40] Yeah, no, there's all kinds of it.
[00:37:42] So what you're missing is there's three rows of my books
[00:37:46] that I have published, my comics and then the other wall has
[00:37:50] a mini comic that I made, a fan comic that I made with Rachel Dessler
[00:37:54] and a picture that my friend in high school drew for.
[00:38:00] Well, it's a photocopy of the original drawing, but still.
[00:38:06] So how much are you pulling from your own personal experience?
[00:38:10] And I'm not getting into your business.
[00:38:12] One hundred percent of the sex is sex.
[00:38:14] That's real life.
[00:38:17] Let's this is what I this is the only reason I showed up for this episode.
[00:38:21] Let's get into it.
[00:38:24] No, I.
[00:38:26] I.
[00:38:28] It wasn't it wasn't so much like I was pulling
[00:38:32] directly from my own life.
[00:38:33] It was more I wanted to capture the spirit of like
[00:38:37] what it's like to have friends that are so close
[00:38:41] that nothing is off the table.
[00:38:43] They are just willing to talk about anything
[00:38:46] which worked better with women than it does with men,
[00:38:49] at least in my experience, men don't tend to be as open about this sort of thing
[00:38:54] and particularly as like comforting with each other about this sort of thing.
[00:38:58] Whereas women, the moment that they have decided that you're a part of the group
[00:39:02] and you're not a threat to them at all, they will just tell you
[00:39:05] the most outlandish things about their personal lives
[00:39:10] completely without judgment or expectation,
[00:39:14] which is sort of liberating and freeing in a lot of ways.
[00:39:16] And I think more people should should experience that having
[00:39:20] your best friend tell you the most personal intimate thing
[00:39:24] you've ever heard in your life in a coffee shop in the middle of the day.
[00:39:29] But yeah, in terms of like
[00:39:33] the action of the book itself, it was
[00:39:37] you know, based on
[00:39:41] the things that I've learned in my long life and things that
[00:39:47] there's no way to get around it like, you know,
[00:39:51] I think part of the experience of making the book was like,
[00:39:58] how do I, you know,
[00:40:01] how do I avoid making this like my own creepy personal diary?
[00:40:05] And once I got over that hump and realized, you know,
[00:40:09] there's a lot of books like this, I don't think anyone reads it that way.
[00:40:13] Almost more of like, how do I make this a subtle how to guide
[00:40:16] for people who just truly have no guidance?
[00:40:19] Because if I'm using these scenes, I may as well like explain some technique.
[00:40:24] That makes sense.
[00:40:27] Oh, absolutely.
[00:40:27] And it makes perfect sense that you you recruited some help because
[00:40:31] I would fail miserably in. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:40:35] Yeah, Krista, incredibly useful in this regard as well,
[00:40:39] was was happy to point out
[00:40:42] where improvements could be made.
[00:40:44] Ah, OK.
[00:40:47] And so in terms of when you when you say, you know,
[00:40:52] in terms of guidance and technique,
[00:40:55] have you already sent a copy to Matt Leggetti?
[00:41:00] Once it is completed, I will be sending it to him with a note that says,
[00:41:07] thank me later.
[00:41:11] We can cut this fire.
[00:41:12] And if it's too big, we can cut it.
[00:41:14] This is a fire.
[00:41:16] You you need this.
[00:41:18] I made this for you, Matt Leggetti, comic book yeti.
[00:41:24] Floundering man.
[00:41:26] I think that's very sweet.
[00:41:28] But no, that's what I wanted.
[00:41:30] I want to own a preface.
[00:41:31] I've met Matt in real life and I love him and I wouldn't make fun of.
[00:41:36] But I love that you have something that's digging into those things that
[00:41:40] OK, so you have all the TNA material on Kickstarter.
[00:41:44] And I just gloss over all that.
[00:41:47] I just there's no interest at all.
[00:41:48] But but this is sounds so great because I've had these these very same
[00:41:53] conversations with with very good friends.
[00:41:55] And when you get past that threshold,
[00:41:58] whatever that threshold or that barrier is, right,
[00:42:01] and you can really get down to it, it was like,
[00:42:03] oh, the Hitachi one, you've got to have one of these.
[00:42:06] I remember the breakthrough that it made in a friend's marriage
[00:42:10] because I was like, dude, we were on.
[00:42:12] I think we were in Phoenix or something on some kind of photography thing.
[00:42:16] And we're running around going to a sex shop and he's like, what the hell is this?
[00:42:22] And I was like, dude, buy this.
[00:42:24] Just like this will make your marriage.
[00:42:27] He comes back two months later and was like, thank you.
[00:42:30] And so it is.
[00:42:32] Yeah, no, I think more people need to have the door open to just say
[00:42:38] it's OK to have those conversations.
[00:42:40] And, you know, it's OK to seek out that level of vulnerability with,
[00:42:45] you know, people that you know and light and respect and love, obviously.
[00:42:50] But I don't know that's true.
[00:42:52] I was raised Catholic.
[00:42:54] Well, that's what I'm saying.
[00:42:56] But Jimmy's going to strangers on the Internet.
[00:42:58] People were raised Catholic.
[00:43:00] Don't clip that.
[00:43:03] Um, no, I think there's there's a lot of of hang ups and and stigma, guilt, shame.
[00:43:12] You know, I'm sure I'm Jewish.
[00:43:14] I understand. I get it.
[00:43:16] The guilt is there.
[00:43:18] But you especially as adults, like
[00:43:22] I think we sometimes need to be reminded that, like, it's OK
[00:43:25] to explore that territory and to be open about it.
[00:43:29] And the more that we're open about it,
[00:43:32] very often, yeah, the more things that you discover that you never would have had
[00:43:36] a window into otherwise and the richer your life is.
[00:43:41] And that doesn't just apply to sex.
[00:43:42] It also applies to wages.
[00:43:45] Talk about your wages at work.
[00:43:47] Make sure that you're all getting paid fairly unionized if you can.
[00:43:51] And that's my that's that's my tangent for the episode.
[00:43:55] Did you just take away from talking about smut to plugging unions?
[00:44:00] Absolutely, I did.
[00:44:03] OK, who are we going to get to draw that variant cover?
[00:44:09] I have an answer.
[00:44:11] But unfortunately, they're too busy to draw a cover.
[00:44:14] So we will never see that cover
[00:44:17] reach the line of day.
[00:44:19] Shame, shame, shame.
[00:44:21] It's a shame.
[00:44:22] How was it working with DC Hopkins?
[00:44:24] DC is great.
[00:44:26] DC doesn't.
[00:44:30] DC disappears for like a week or two.
[00:44:34] Like he won't say I'll have it to you when X.
[00:44:37] He'll just say, great, got the script going to start working on this.
[00:44:41] And then at some point in the undetermined future,
[00:44:44] he will give you the best lettering you've ever seen in your life and say,
[00:44:48] hey, is this good or do you need adjustments?
[00:44:50] And I'm like, you know what, honestly, prefer this.
[00:44:53] I don't have any stress.
[00:44:54] I know it's going to come at some point and it's going to be excellent.
[00:44:57] And it's going to be excellent.
[00:44:59] Awesome.
[00:45:00] Yeah, he.
[00:45:02] He completely nailed the tone.
[00:45:04] He figured out a style that works for the book and absolutely ran with it.
[00:45:12] Nice. Fantastic.
[00:45:14] Yeah, I really like, you know, always try and shout out the letter.
[00:45:18] But I like DC's work.
[00:45:20] DC is fantastic.
[00:45:21] He I mean, in the half of time he's going by like and world design
[00:45:25] or, you know, hiding under that umbrella,
[00:45:28] which it's, you know, it's his company.
[00:45:30] So every right to do that.
[00:45:32] But I think people maybe don't realize how much stuff is lettered by him.
[00:45:38] He's extremely prolific and really, really good at what he does.
[00:45:44] Awesome.
[00:45:46] I'm waiting on the safe for public library version where the letters,
[00:45:50] the letter bubbles are in different places than this this regular.
[00:45:53] That would be fun.
[00:45:56] Yeah, yeah, the safe for work version.
[00:46:01] Um.
[00:46:03] Yeah, I suppose if there's ever a market for that, we could make that work.
[00:46:08] But, you know, that will probably be at a point when, you know, someone I,
[00:46:15] you know what, I'll call my shots.
[00:46:16] I will say image when image picks up this book, maybe they'll ask for
[00:46:20] a safer.
[00:46:21] Some letter from some board balloons around.
[00:46:25] You're so creative effects going so that it covers all the important bits.
[00:46:32] Nice.
[00:46:32] Don't do it.
[00:46:34] I was mad when they changed this place, the Kyle Starks image book that
[00:46:38] just broke my heart.
[00:46:39] I was like, I love this.
[00:46:41] I don't need an I hate this place version.
[00:46:43] The real thing.
[00:46:44] Give me the real thing all the time.
[00:46:46] Yeah.
[00:46:48] I'm always curious when there's like editorial decisions happen because
[00:46:51] like, I mean, you think about with a bigger company, all the steps it
[00:46:56] has to go through before it publishes.
[00:46:58] You know, what was it Batman damned when it was like they showed the
[00:47:02] battle Wang and then like subsequent reprints, they got rid of the battle
[00:47:07] Wang?
[00:47:08] I think they just deleted the story.
[00:47:10] I don't think you can find the story.
[00:47:14] Yeah, I know in my that's another reason like I didn't bother coming up
[00:47:18] with another name for smut because I like doing things my way first.
[00:47:23] So smut is going to come out.
[00:47:25] It's going to be smut and then I imagine whoever, you know, if a publisher
[00:47:31] winds up picking it up, the first thing is we can't call it smut.
[00:47:36] And so yeah, we'll change it at that point, but I don't care.
[00:47:39] I made my version already and I'll always have that.
[00:47:43] I think Iron Circus would be just fine with it as it is.
[00:47:46] Oh, for sure.
[00:47:47] Yeah.
[00:47:47] No, there's some, you know, I don't see I don't see ZetaSkill having a problem.
[00:47:52] But other than that,
[00:47:56] depending on the publisher for sure.
[00:48:00] So I mean, with projects like this, do you take one thing at a time
[00:48:03] in terms of Kickstarter?
[00:48:05] It's funded.
[00:48:06] You have to do all the fulfillment or like, do you are you moving on
[00:48:11] to the next thing as well?
[00:48:14] Oh, I yeah, I've already started building the page
[00:48:17] for the next one.
[00:48:18] The the pace of Kickstarter is on the one hand, it's glacial because,
[00:48:24] you know, we're doing smut number one right now.
[00:48:28] It takes an entire, you know, two weeks to a month of build up
[00:48:33] for a campaign, a month of doing the campaign.
[00:48:36] You don't get your funds until two or three weeks after again,
[00:48:39] I don't want this to be like super inside baseball.
[00:48:41] But like it's hard to do.
[00:48:44] Like I couldn't put out smut as a monthly book on Kickstarter,
[00:48:48] if that makes sense.
[00:48:49] I can't do smut one in April, smut two in May, smut three in June.
[00:48:56] The individual issues are going to, you know, it's going to take
[00:49:01] about a year, probably like around this time this year,
[00:49:04] we might be doing smut three maybe if we're if we're lucky
[00:49:09] and turn around all of our our thing, our deadlines quickly.
[00:49:16] But the the other thing about it is that like I can be working on
[00:49:21] multiple books at a time, so I can do this one and then I can be
[00:49:24] working on on a Frankenstein book and then I can be working on
[00:49:28] whatever the next thing is, maybe I'll throw some enamel
[00:49:31] pins in there who knows.
[00:49:32] But like you can stagger things out in such a way that
[00:49:35] something fresh and new is always happening on the horizon.
[00:49:39] So yeah, it requires you to be like fulfilling something,
[00:49:44] running something, working on the next thing, all the same.
[00:49:49] And you find that you're like.
[00:49:52] Capable, not capable, but like.
[00:49:55] In terms of the time management,
[00:49:57] does that ever get tricky for you or you somebody that can really,
[00:50:00] you know, drill down on keeping that schedule?
[00:50:02] As long as I don't also have a day job I have to do,
[00:50:06] which is part of the reason why, yeah, I'm really,
[00:50:10] really want this.
[00:50:13] You know, I really want to start
[00:50:16] making books on like I want to be able to put out a book,
[00:50:21] you know, or a Kickstarter a month and have that concert
[00:50:24] station.
[00:50:27] And I do view this as a job
[00:50:30] and yeah, I'm constantly moving forward and trying to grow
[00:50:34] and really aggressive about making sure that people see what books I'm on,
[00:50:38] because, you know, I don't want to go back into the restaurant industry.
[00:50:43] They destroyed my heel.
[00:50:45] They destroyed my self confidence.
[00:50:47] They don't deserve any of me anymore.
[00:50:51] All right.
[00:50:52] On that note,
[00:50:57] as we get into the spring and summer before you go,
[00:50:59] because I know you're big into cocktails,
[00:51:02] what do you have something for the summer?
[00:51:04] What should all our listeners who who like to buy be drinking summer?
[00:51:08] What do you got to read, Smut and drink great.
[00:51:11] Yeah, Reed's the mud and what should we make?
[00:51:13] What should we make with it?
[00:51:14] I'll put you on this one.
[00:51:15] Oh God, I feel like
[00:51:18] don't tell me sex on the Cosmo would be a good good pairing for it.
[00:51:24] I, you know, I what I like about it is that
[00:51:27] particularly in the beginning, the tone that set is very like
[00:51:31] you're having brunch with your friends.
[00:51:33] It's a very open, relaxed environment.
[00:51:35] So I think like a Paloma or a Mamosa or something like that
[00:51:39] will be a great direction to go as well.
[00:51:44] Personally, my favorite.
[00:51:46] I like a Paloma.
[00:51:47] Yeah, Palomas are great.
[00:51:49] My favorite cocktail is the last word,
[00:51:52] which is a prohibition here, a cocktail.
[00:51:56] It is the cocktail from which all of their great cocktails
[00:51:58] or four are made, in my opinion.
[00:52:01] It's gin, lime juice, green chartreuse and what's out of her, she know,
[00:52:05] and it is beautifully nuanced and
[00:52:09] and herbal and a little bit sweet, touch nutty.
[00:52:14] It's it's great.
[00:52:17] So I can definitely recommend that.
[00:52:20] But yeah, if you have any other cocktail questions,
[00:52:24] you can hit me up anytime.
[00:52:25] You can follow my newsletter,
[00:52:27] Comic Scouts and Cocktails, where we are always publishing
[00:52:30] cocktail recipes, among other things, such as comic pages.
[00:52:36] Also, are you are you going to come to Charlotte
[00:52:39] for the con this year?
[00:52:41] And I'll ask you a question.
[00:52:43] Hero.
[00:52:44] Yeah, I'm not going this year.
[00:52:46] I am going next year.
[00:52:47] OK, OK, because I got to show up
[00:52:49] from a local con here when you're there
[00:52:51] because I want to hang out at your table
[00:52:53] and watch you explain this various array of narrative leaps
[00:52:57] that you have been making.
[00:52:59] So I've got Mechaton here and you have the little girl
[00:53:01] is like, oh, Daddy, this looks so great next to Smut.
[00:53:04] This is going to make it.
[00:53:06] Well, yeah, no, I've mastered the well, what do you like?
[00:53:10] What kind of stuff do you like to read?
[00:53:11] And then and then hearing the pitch toward that.
[00:53:17] But yeah, it's it's a blessing and a curse on the one hand.
[00:53:21] I'm very rarely going to have people pick up every single book
[00:53:25] just because it is so scattershot.
[00:53:27] On the other hand, almost everyone that comes by
[00:53:29] has something that they're interested in
[00:53:31] that they would they would like to know more about.
[00:53:33] So yeah, I I think the nature of creating stuff
[00:53:38] is you look back and go, damn, I should have done it differently.
[00:53:41] No matter how you did it, you know, I on the one hand,
[00:53:46] I sometimes look back and wonder if I should have built
[00:53:50] like a stronger brand, if I should have done a lot more like
[00:53:53] horror stuff or sort of built out the Frankenstein
[00:53:57] the unconquered universe more and made a whole thing about that.
[00:54:01] And on the other hand, I'm sure there are a lot of people
[00:54:04] that are like, yeah, I wish I wasn't telling the same story
[00:54:06] for nine years in a row.
[00:54:08] So, you know, ultimately, it's about enjoying the journey.
[00:54:12] And and I think that the people who do read my books
[00:54:16] really enjoy them.
[00:54:18] So I have no regrets about putting out the books that I put out.
[00:54:24] Nor should you. Nor should I. Jimmy, what you got?
[00:54:27] I was I got nothing.
[00:54:29] I think we're I mean, I should you are you going to do the
[00:54:33] are you going to do the outro?
[00:54:34] So I did the intro.
[00:54:36] Oh, one is right now on Kickstarter.com slash.
[00:54:42] Yeah, yeah, I'll make a note because I will edit that bit.
[00:54:46] No, I don't even all in these people deserve to know how the sausage is made.
[00:54:52] And then we have no plan when I am here.
[00:54:58] I have done a great job so far in all these words like sausage
[00:55:02] that you have said, I didn't snicker one time when we're talking about.
[00:55:06] It's very mature panel.
[00:55:08] It's been a very mature talk.
[00:55:10] Byron, you started it and I kept my mouth shut when you said full completion.
[00:55:16] Go back and listen to it.
[00:55:19] You said full completion and I nothing.
[00:55:22] Not a it's important for everyone listening to know there are three men
[00:55:28] over the age of 30 having this conversation right now.
[00:55:32] Yeah, thank God it's not live.
[00:55:34] I mean, and I fully expected I I'm not kidding, right?
[00:55:38] I fully expected somehow we were going to talk about prostate tickling
[00:55:42] in this recording.
[00:55:44] Actually, now that you mentioned.
[00:55:46] No, Chris, to one when when we sort of broke down issue three
[00:55:50] and was like, oh, that's not going to work because of this reason
[00:55:53] that was the first thing that Chris suggested was like, well, what if we
[00:55:56] changed it to like to like male insertion?
[00:56:00] And I was like, I don't I don't think you're wrong that that's
[00:56:05] interesting or that that's like interesting.
[00:56:06] I think that could be an interesting angle to take it.
[00:56:09] I just think we should do something else.
[00:56:11] Maybe the number, you know, some issue for
[00:56:17] at least I know what I want it.
[00:56:19] At least I know what by what do you at least I know what Byron's
[00:56:22] audiogram will be when we tease this.
[00:56:25] It'll just say prostate tickling.
[00:56:27] And here's us with Wells Smut.
[00:56:32] Don't tempt me, man.
[00:56:34] Twitter is such a dumpster fire right now.
[00:56:36] I very well might do it.
[00:56:38] OK.
[00:56:40] Exactly. We'll tease we'll tease that.
[00:56:42] That'll be our teaser for it.
[00:56:45] Yeah, this is all gold.
[00:56:47] All gold.
[00:56:50] Golden what?
[00:56:51] What? No, no, I'm not now.
[00:56:54] OK, I'm saying it.
[00:56:56] I found your line.
[00:56:58] I found your line.
[00:56:58] That was my ultimate goal here.
[00:57:00] That's all right. Yes.
[00:57:02] Hey, all right.
[00:57:03] Well, well, thanks so much for hanging out with us on the show
[00:57:06] and putting up with both Jimmy and I, which I know was was
[00:57:10] quite the fun, enjoyable time for you.
[00:57:12] Oh, I got a big smile on my face, guys.
[00:57:14] It's always a pleasure to be here.
[00:57:15] And yeah, I appreciate you making time for me and both coming on.
[00:57:18] That was very sweet.
[00:57:20] Yeah, always always love being with the squash fam.
[00:57:24] And yeah, hope you guys have a great day.
[00:57:27] All right. So where can people go to back it?
[00:57:30] We got to know this.
[00:57:31] Yeah, go do Kickstarter and look for Smut
[00:57:35] or go to my website.
[00:57:36] And it's the first thing that pops up.
[00:57:38] You just click that or go to my Twitter and annoy me there,
[00:57:41] or I will annoy you there.
[00:57:42] Either way, you can find me at Wells Thomp.
[00:57:46] It's just my name with the last three letters cut off.
[00:57:49] Alternatively, I have a sub stack,
[00:57:52] comics, cats and cocktails where we talk about all those things.
[00:57:56] And I think that's the last of it.
[00:57:57] I think I have a co-fi if you want to buy me a copy.
[00:58:00] Nice. Yeah.
[00:58:01] And I put links to all those things in the show notes.
[00:58:03] And if you're listening to this on the day the episode comes out,
[00:58:07] the Smut campaign will have ended yesterday.
[00:58:11] If you do have a listen to us after the campaign is do hang on,
[00:58:16] because in all likelihood, we're going to open up a post campaign store
[00:58:21] out of that page.
[00:58:22] So you'll still be able to get the book even while it's production.
[00:58:26] So we'll be able to.
[00:58:27] Awesome.
[00:58:29] All right, I get to do it since you always do it, Jimmy.
[00:58:32] Shout out to Bobby.
[00:58:33] Bobby, thank you for being our number one listener.
[00:58:37] I appreciate it just as much as your brother does.
[00:58:40] This is Baroneal.
[00:58:41] And on behalf of all of us at Comic Book Yeti, thanks for tuning in.
[00:58:44] And we will see you next time.
[00:58:45] And I apologize, folks, but hey, this is what you get.
[00:58:49] Hope you enjoyed it.
[00:58:51] That's a wrap.
[00:58:52] This is Baroneal, one of your hosts of the Cryptic Creative Corner
[00:58:56] brought to you by Comic Book Yeti.
[00:58:58] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast.
[00:59:01] Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff.
[00:59:05] It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve.
[00:59:10] Thanks for listening.
[00:59:12] If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptic Creative Corner,
[00:59:15] maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast into the comics.
[00:59:18] Kate, listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.