September 13, 2018 • 38 mins
On this special episode we had the opportunity to hang out with comic book writer and content creator Ashley V. Robinson. She tells us all about her new comic she is writing with her husband, Jason Inman, called Science! Ashley let us know all about their kickstarter and gives us great advice on writing comics! We had a blast, we learned stuff and Science! Join us!
Learn more about Science! www.ScienceComicBook.com
Learn more about Science! www.ScienceComicBook.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Oh Oh, feeling by Tacos,beer and Bloody Mary's, the only show
featuring Baby Jesus with a nail gun, The Pride of Pa and the Show
with the Eye of the Tiger,The Ladies and Gentlemen Punch Fire. Hey,
(00:26):
friends, welcome to Punch Farm.Alicia and we have a very very
special guest with us today, AshleyV. Robinson. She makes comic books,
she's an actress, she does reallyamazing awesome things on YouTube. Ashley,
welcome to the show. Thank youso much for having me back.
Yeah, you know, like lasttime you're a one, was like maybe
(00:47):
we'll go like a year, yearand a half ago, you had a
comic book coming out with Jason calledJupiter Jet. Yeah, a little baby
thing which yeah, you know,which we helped, well, we helped.
Yeah, we helped kickstart as webought it. Yes, really enjoyed
it. And now you have anew graphic novel coming out. I guess
(01:07):
your Kickstarter starts today. That's right. It's called Science to Lean Away from
the Microphone. It is all abouta fourteen year old girl named Tamsen Kontracrue
who guess accepted into the Prometheus Institute, which is only the greatest science school
(01:29):
in the entire world by the namePrometheus might harold something that's going to happen
to her, and she is veryexcited to go there, or so you
would think, because while she's there, she has an ulterior motive because her
father had previously been the headmaster thereand he died under mysterious circumstances, you
(01:52):
know, but being a super smartscience person, he downloaded his consciousness into
her glasses. So he's living insideher crazy glasses, guiding her through her
adventures there so that she can helpand figure out the mystery of what actually
happened to him. Now, thedownside about something like that is when you've
got a cute roommate who you havea crush on and your dad is there
(02:13):
offering commentary, things don't always workout the way you want them too.
There's also a subplot where all ofthe students are working toward winning the Prometheus
Institute Award for superior Science. Andso you see, if you go to
the kickstarter right now, you cansee the opening seven pages there's a character
making rocket boots and he gets theratios for rocket fuel wrong. So we
(02:38):
have characters called stats which is scienceand technological assistant teachers. They're kind of
like if Herbie and Skeets had ababy. They will teach you actual science
that the comics based on. Sowe tell you the correct way to make
rocket fuel through the use of ourstat facts, so you can take that
to the bank and you'll maybe learnedsomething reading it. But while all the
(03:01):
students are working on these projects,garn who's her cute roommate, discovers something
that might tear a hole in thefabric of time and space, and so
Tamsen has to decide if she's goingto stick with the cute girl and do
you know what she wants her todo to help her out, or if
she's going to have to protect Prometheusand her new found family, even if
(03:24):
it's maybe not what she thought shewas going to get into. So it's
about learning who you can trust,that first love that you have when you're
a teenager, and ultimately you're goingto learn that you can only ever trust
science. It's really fun to say, like a fifties baseball at it,
right, How long did it taketo write? It's not completely written yet,
(03:47):
Okay, because we came to Kickstarterin order to fund the creation of
it. Like I said before,and I'm sure you guys know by now,
making comics is an expensive endeavor.Yeah, and so it's important to
us that we pay our creative team. So we've only we have everything mapped
(04:08):
out and we're starting to write itnow that the kickstarters underway, But we
only have the first ten pages complete, and it's going to be an eighty
page original graphic novel. But we'vebeen working on this for two years and
change now. We were actually developingthis at the same time that we were
developing Jupiter Jet. Jupiter Jet wasjust the thing that went first. It
(04:32):
was the thing that got picked upfirst. And our publisher Eisner nominated Bedside
Press for Science, was very understanding. Hope Nicholson, who's the owner and
publishers. She let us have thetime that we wanted to be able to
focus on Jupiter Jet and then toturn our focus to science so that we
could tell the best story possible.But so it's taken a minute. Yeah,
(04:57):
yeah, I know, we weretalking a little bit before we started
recording. Uh. We finally wrotea comic book based on our one podcast,
Parallel Punchers, and it took Idon't know it. It took twenty
page comic. It took us likesix months, yeah, and which and
then of course I felt like theartist was able to well, she did,
(05:18):
appreciated a great job. And lasttime it took us to write it.
Yes, yeah, So when you'recoming up with these ideas and you
have to put you know, pento paper, as they say, like,
you know, what roadblocks are yourunning into? How do you get
through them? What are the whatis the brainstorming strategy to continue? So
(05:39):
many, so many problems, somany things. Um, I mean,
the main thing is always conquering theblank page. You know, the hardest
thing to do is to get thefirst draft down. I'm a big believer
in writing the first draft and fixingit later because especially working with a co
writer. I'm not sure what yourguys experience has been, but I know
(06:00):
we're at least doing three drafts becausewe're each going to do a pass at
it and then we're going to goover it together. So it's only theoretically
getting better every time and other passis done at it. So I don't
go into it feeling nervous about messingstuff up. But Jason is a big
planner, so before we even startsort of the hardest creative process, which
(06:24):
is writing everything down for the firsttime, we always have really extensive meetings
where we plot everything out, likewe have a ten page document. The
outlines kind of the major beats,twist and turns, lines of dialogues,
jokes, character appearances that are goingto happen in ten page chunks throughout science,
kind of like when you outline anessay that you're going to write,
(06:45):
so that way, when you goin, you do have a starting block.
But for us, once we getto the idea, it's a lot
of sitting down and hammering out thatoutline until we're happy with it. And
then on average we average between threeand I think as we've done as many
as seven drafts on something before itgoes to the artists. And then in
collaboration with the artists, sometimes youfind stuff that really works that you want
(07:09):
to retouch on, or stuff thatdoesn't work and you have to go back
to the drawing board. But wework very collaboratively and I think we compliment
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Sothe nicest thing about that is whenever I'm
feeling stuck, I can always goto Jason for inspiration, for clarity,
(07:29):
anything like that, and I hopethat he feels the same way. Yeah,
I hope. I won't speak forhim now, you know. With
Jupiter Jet, I feel like,if I remember the story, you came
out with this really just cool namekind of idea of the story, and
that's what launched into actually writing thecomic. Yeah, totally. It was
like this half baked idea that Ihad. And science is really funny because
(07:54):
it's the same thing but sort ofin reverse. Okay, Okay. Jason
and I were walking around a partand he was like, I really want
to do like a science fiction storythat's rooted in science, that has a
family vibe, like the Fantastic Four. And I was like, well,
it's obviously you got to be ata science school, because I think that
everything should be said at a school. For some reason, it's been a
(08:15):
theme, running theme throughout different projectsthat we've developed, and we're like,
maybe not a school this time,okay, um, And we knew we
wanted it to be really female drivenbecause particularly when you look at Fantastic Four,
that's a very like male heavy teamand STEM and women in STEM is
very topical and very trendy and veryimportant. And I say that as someone
who doesn't want to work in STEM. We definitely need more ladies working in
(08:39):
STEM, and that's sort of howwe blew out the world from there.
But a lot of our pitches arelike one of us had like a half
a seed of an idea and thencoming together and you know, other people's
creative enthusiasm is so infectious. Youget the oh, and then and then
and then, and then you realizethat you have to stop and make an
iPhone own note or else you're goingto forget everything and be a room out
(09:01):
about it later. YEA. Now, why do you think or what compels
you to write about kids in schoolor youngsters not youngsters, teenagers, youngsters
youngsters? Is that kind of stemmingfrom like a love of maybe X Men
comics when they were all in schoolwith Professor X, Or what compels you
(09:22):
to write these stories about students learningtheir craft. I'm a huge legacy character
and sidekick fan Robin is my alltime favorite hero, so I think I
definitely default to that mode. Ireally like seeing I love an origin story,
and I love a hero's journey,and I like seeing characters have to
(09:43):
come into their own and really discovertheir own strength. I also don't know
because I hated being a teenager andI hated being in high school. So
maybe this is subconsciously you might goaround at like fixing what that experience was.
Like I'm being like, no,maybe you could actually be great.
But when we look at future projectswe are we do have things that are
(10:07):
like a little more adult, alittle more grown up. We need to
have something with a mail in thelead because this is two dynamic female leads
that we've started in a row,so we want to broaden those horizons.
But some of my favorite stories,like Harry Potter's obviously a big influence X
Men, are set in schools,and that's probably why I want to gravitate
to that, even at a jumpingoff point, even as just a trope
(10:30):
to visit and maybe to discard later. Okay, excellent, So I got
a question that good. We're talkingabout comics, so like, what currently
are you reading? So I'm abig trade waiter, so I don't read
a ton of comics weekly, althoughI am really enjoying X Men read,
which I was surprised by. Ithink Tom Taylor's really stellar and he can
(10:54):
do no wrong. I also havebeen really enjoying the Supersun's books that have
been like canceled and restarted and rebootedall in the space of the last couple
of years. I think the SupermanFamily is like on fire right now at
DC, and I don't think it'sbeen this good in a long time.
I think the main book is great. Any Action comics is great. I
(11:15):
haven't read a ton of the NewBendus stuff, but I like that in
Action we're doing more of a dailyPlanet thing. I think that's super cool.
I'm trying to think of what wasthe last comic that I The last
book that I read an awful lot, but I've been reading a lot of
true crime lately, so I'm tryingto think, is something I read that
wasn't murder? Oh, I justSpider Gwen just ended. So I just
(11:37):
reread that entire series, and Ithink it's so fantastic and it's such a
It was such a throwaway character thatshould have only existed in Spider Verse,
and it was really cool to watchher like claim her world and claim her
place in the larger mythos. Youknow, I'm still like I feel like
a kid inside. I still readThe Hawk right now. It's called The
(11:58):
Immortal Hawk. Yeah, and Ireally love it. And I picked up
Rick and Morty and Dungeons and Dragons. Oh nice. So it's like I
don't know, like I'm still readinglike like as a twelve year old kids,
just having a good time grabbing whatmakes me smile? Oh I love
that. Now back to your newgraphic novel science. Do you have an
(12:22):
artist lined up or is there likesomeone dedicated, is going to be multiple
artists or we do um our artistsas a cartoonist from Portland illustrator from Portland
named Des Pittman. We actually wentthrough four or five different artists on this
project from the time of its inception, Like we have three or four different
versions of concept art from a bunchof different artists who are no longer on
(12:46):
the book. Some people made commitmentsthat they couldn't live up to. Some
people had school or other things popup in the way. One person didn't
meet their deadline. But we werereally lucky to find Dez because we table
beside her and her husband, whosename is also Jason. Earlier this year
at Up was a World Portland,and yeah, it was a great con.
(13:09):
I had an amazing time. Imet my favorite actor of all time
there, Billy Boyd, who playsPippin so much, and he was so
nice. But so we tabled besidethem, and we knew we wanted to
collab on something, and does justhappened to have open time in her schedule
that worked out for science, Sowe were really fortunate that we met her.
(13:31):
She was so cool and so willingto like jump in as quickly as
possible. She also had to workbased on someone else's page rate. So
if we do hit a stretch goal, our first stretch goal is going to
be to pay her more money,because she's completely worth it and giving us
so much of her time and talent. Nice. Now, with the first
Kickstarter, did you get you hityour some stretch goals right? Yes?
(13:54):
For Jupiter Jet, I think wehit two or three stretch goals. I
have to look it up, butwe overfunded. And then when we did
an Indigoga campaign a few years agofor our web series The rent Er Diaries,
we were funded for that as well. At the time of this recording,
gets only our day one, SoI don't want to count my chickens
before they catched. But I wouldlove if we could get to that because
(14:16):
the number that we're asking for isn'teven what we would need. We are
asking for enough money to cover ourartists, our colorists, our letterer,
and shipping that doesn't include Jason andI are not taking a page Riot,
so we probably won't get paid.We did the same thing on Jupiter Jet.
We've never been paid for Jupiter Jet. Our publisher is not taking any
(14:39):
money. We're not taking any moneyfor the creation of the rewards. Like
Jason and I have sunk our ownmoney into this project because we believe it
and believe in it. We justdon't want to go into debt over it,
right because as much as I lovecomics, it's not worth going into
massive amounts of debts over. Sowe're looking for enough, basically to finish
the project and to get the bareminimum, so anything that goes over allows
(15:03):
us to pay people more money.Like I alluded to, um, there's
always the possibility of more stories,and there's always the possibility of tagging on
more rewards, but that might bea decision I have to make a little
further down the road now. Iknow, I'm gonna try to jump in
here before the Early Bird special goesaway. It's only going to be on
(15:26):
today. Yeah, it's like theonly it's like just fifty people, So
probably I'm going to launch this episodeas soon as I possibly can. Yes,
but chances are you've missed it becauseI got the emails from Jason today,
Like you know, he sent outsome message of Patreon people, which
I happen to be a Patreon supporter. Hell, yes, thank you so
(15:48):
much. Absolutely, it's not it'sit's a buck a month. It's not.
I'm not giving you huge amounts,but but it's the same. It's
the same thing with a Kicker,though I think people don't always see the
value in that, and there issuch tremendous value, Like more kickstarters are
funded on one dollar donations, Soif people want to give us any kind
of support, I am thrilled beyondmeasure. And if you know, are
(16:11):
you get the digital PDF of Scienceof fifteen the after today. The standing
price for the graphic novel is twentyfive dollars. If that's too much for
you, that's great, that's totallyfine. I've been there. If you
can't even give us a dollar.I've also been there, Like, that's
a reality. But I would askif people would, if they look at
it and they dig it, ifthey would consider sharing it. Sharing that
(16:33):
link is incredibly valuable as well,because we all have a circle of people
around us, and I want yourcircle of people. Okay, you know,
I never thought about that, Like, so maybe maybe you can't.
You know, this month doesn't allowyou to have an extra buck or two.
But if you share, yeah,that link, you could find people
that do want to buy that.I never looked at that way, like,
(16:56):
sometimes the sharing is just as importantas the contribution. It definitely is.
And then bully your friends into buyingit and borrow it from them out
as long as as long as peopleare interested in it, in reading it,
that's fine by me. Also,Jupiter Jet went through a traditional publisher.
It went through Diamond, It wentto comic bookshops. Bedside Press,
(17:17):
which is Publishing Science, is anon traditional publisher. They are kickstarter based,
which means that our kickstarter is apre order at the time of this
recording. Unless something amazing happens,which hopefully it does, jubiter Jet will
not be going to traditional publishers.It's just available through Kickstarter. We do
have a retailer package and a librarypackage if you are one of those people
(17:40):
and you'd like to check it out, but it will not be available later
on through through Diamond. So I'mreally trying to encourage people if they think
it sounds cool to donate early andoften. Oh I wonder if the Bedtime
Press could be and rest in ourcoom. I know, should redoubted them.
They're amazing. I should because weself published it. I'm sure you've
(18:03):
heard of is a kaboom or complammpluh. So yeah, that's how we
got. We just self funded andgot some stuff printed. I thought the
quality was pretty awesome. Uh,your your graphic novel, the quality was
outstanding. Yeah, and then wehad nothing to do that. Shout out
(18:23):
to uh, shout out to ActionLab for the great work that they did
there with us. We're very fortunate. Yeah, and I got I think
it came with like a print anda postcard. I think that was inside.
Yeah. What kind of level?What kind of packages you got this
time with your Kickstarter the levels whatevercalled? So you can, like I
(18:45):
said, you can get the justthe book for twenty five, which I
think is very reasonable. We alsohave two exclusive prints that will, as
far as I know again only everbe available through the Kickstarter. We have
a print by Brent Schoonover, whoyou may know as the artist who rebooted
to the Scotland ant Man series becauseMarvel was like, oh, we're gonna
put him in a movie, maybehe should have a comic book, and
(19:07):
he recently finished a Captain Marvel series. He's absolutely incredible and I've been trying
to trick him into working with usfor a long time, so we're very,
very grateful for that. And wehave another print by Ryan Sands.
Ryan Sands is one of the starsof Marvel's Runaways. He plays Jeffrey Wilder,
who is Alex's Daddy's a very tall, hands in African American man.
(19:29):
He's also a comic book artist.He has He actually has a comic that
comes out today, Runaways thirteen.He did the variant cover on, so
we also bullied him into helping usout with that. And then we like
with Jupiter Jet, we have cameos. You can get a student or a
teacher cameo. They're at two differentprice levels because like I said, I
(19:52):
get it. Finances are a veryreal thing. But I look at Kickstarter
as a community, end of family, and I try to look at Patreon
in the same way. And Iwant to include as many people as possible
who help us, you know,hit our creative goals in the actual medium
so we can draw people's likenesses.Des Ar artist is very well known for
(20:15):
the zombie portraits that she makes,so she's excellent at likenesses, So if
you want to see your face ata comic, we can do that for
you. We also kind of onthat same idea about the community. I
want as many people as possible whoare fans and want to write comics to
have access to that opportunity. BecauseI started out as a fan. I
(20:37):
won the Topcoat Talent Hunt, likethat's how I got into comics. So
I want to try and extend thatI heard before we started, that you
guys had a comic and I boughtit, so now you have to send
it to me, Like, Iwant nothing more than to support everybody who
has supported us. So we havea lot of script reviews and portfolio reviews
available from like big two contributors,we had one and only one from a
(21:03):
little independent writer Tom King. Heworks on his book called Batman, but
I think that was the first rewardthat someone bought, so it's gone now.
I'm really sorry. But we havea script review from Schaefontana, who
writes DC superhero Girls and wonder Woman, Colin Bunn who's writing X Men Blue
sixth Gun, which is amazing.And if you're an artist, if you're
(21:26):
on the other side of the equation, we have a portfolio review from Mitch
Garrett's recent Eisner winner for Mister Miracle, Artists of Sheriff of Babylon also Batman.
So we want to give people theopportunity to have their work looked at
and critiqued by prose. Hopefully they'llbe able to get something valuable out of
that. Turn it around and they'llbe on your podcast promoting their kickstarters.
(21:51):
And also, I think you know, not only because we're offering it,
but I really think that's invaluable becausewe're giving you an opportunity to forge a
relationship with the creator and you neverknow, you never know what might happen,
So those always go quickly. Wedid a bunch of them on Jupiter
Jet, So if that's something thatyou're interested in, go and go check
out our dats on that. Yeah, and like I'm going to start looking
(22:14):
at the different packages because like,oh my god, some of this sound
amazing. I would love to beable to talk to somebody, I guess
a feedback on what we're working onfor issue two. I just saw my
Gmail lit up actually bought a comicsas she just said, but wow,
thank you so much. You don'tyou don't know if this means to us.
That's awesome and I really hope youenjoy it and feel free to give
(22:37):
us a critique. Absolutely, yeahI will. I'll talk about you on
my spoilers because so cool. Yeahyeah, And this is what's great about
the comics community is so small thatwe all we all have to support each
other because more comics means better comics. Hey, now, you know,
(22:59):
and it's growing up, uh youknow, as a kid and loving comic
books and loving Scooby Doo, uhyou know, the and loving the paranormal.
This comic kind of comes from thatdirection. But more in than anything,
I feel like I always said asa kid, it's probably to my
mom or my friends, I'm gonnawrite a comic book, and I eventually
did you and Jason are doing that, and I know there's a lot of
(23:22):
people out there that might want towrite a comic, don't know where to
start, don't know how to eveneven you know what to do with a
blank page. Um. I alwayslike to ask people to come on a
show for advice to inspire well numberone me and sure, but also inspire
anybody listening, because I know wehave a lot of listeners that are filmmakers
(23:42):
and and creators and just you know, we all hit those brick walls and
we might get defeated sometimes. Whatadvice you have to to write your own
comic to or just to do yourown thing? What do you what?
Just give us some advice? Actually, Okay, anything creative is hard man
(24:03):
at whatever level you want. Ifyou're an editor, being an editor's hard
man. I hate editing. Ashout out to everyone who loves that and
is able to be creative that way, because I just think it's a goddamn
nightmare. The answer is, ofcourse too, if you want to make
a comic, make a comic.That's complicated, right, because comics in
particular can be an expensive undertaking.What I always recommend people do is to
(24:27):
go and look at a scene thatyou really love. So if you love
the dark Night, then go andfind whatever sequence is most meaningful to you,
and then write it out on thepage as you would have scripted it.
Page one, Panel one. Howwould you describe what Batman's doing?
How would you describe what Kerry Kelly'sdoing. That's the best way that you're
(24:48):
going to learn the craft of comicwriting, because it's it's a little less
set in stone the way like scriptwriting screenplay writing, there's a format in
comics. As long as you're orunderstands your artist understands you, let her
understands, you can't write it howeveryou want. The other cool thing about
comics is because the community is sosmall. If you support people's Patreon,
(25:11):
or if you spend enough time onGoogle, you'd find a comic script,
find one from someone that you like, Email me, I'll send you one
of ours and just copy their style, like I write comics in the style
that Tim Seely writes comics. Becausewhen I was learning how to write comics,
I found a Tim Seely script online. I loved his writing, and
(25:33):
so I format my scripts the sameway that Tim Seely does. And I'm
sure that he formatted his based onsomeone else. And then my other advice
is don't be afraid to ask forhelp, even from people who are like
super you think are super out ofyour league. Like when we made Jupiter
(25:55):
Jet, we cold emailed Nicholas Scottand she drew a print for us because
she's a lovely woman who just wantedto help us out. You'll be surprised
who will help you out, orwho will point you in the right direction
and stuff like that. And itis a small community. And then I
would say, don't censor yourself.It's hard enough to come up with an
(26:15):
idea, much less an original one. So even if you don't think it's
the greatest idea, just commit toit, Like pick something and stick with
it. Don't write more than onething at one time unless Marvel or DC
is paying you. To stick withthe thing that you're doing and see it
through to the end. Because whenyou have the thing, if it's a
(26:36):
comic, if it's a movie,if it's a song, other pros will
treat you differently and you'll kind oflevel up with all these people that you've
admired for so long, Like wehad our first issue of You bridget printed
at Santeo Coma com not this pastbut the year before. And being able
to like have it in our handsand show it to other people. You
graduate a little bit, even ifit's from a small publisher, even if
(26:56):
it's self published, but like havingmade a thing shows people that you're dedicated,
that you're creative, and that you'rewilling to put yourself out there.
And I can't express enough how importantit is to follow through on stuff like
that. Yeah, yeah, youknow, well, thank you very much
for that advice, and just curious, like you know, you know,
(27:17):
when you do create a comic likeyou guys got published by Action Labs,
you know, any advice on likeyou know, we'll just use me for
example. You know, should Isubmit my comic to these places to get
published? Should I self publish?Should I be afraid to submit to certain
places? I mean, yeah,I don't know if, like how it
is with you and Jason, butyou know, you write something, you
(27:41):
get it published, and you feelvery it's very personal, like I don't
it is I don't want to submitit and has somebody rejected? Right?
Uh? You can't take rejection personally, man, which is a hard lesson
to learn. It's easier for menow because I do work a lot as
an actor in a host, solike I audition for things regularly, and
like I am my product. It'smy body and my brain. And sometimes
(28:03):
you never hear back from people orthey tell you know, and you just
learn eventually like, Okay, that'sfine. It's not personal. Sometimes you're
not the right crayon that they're lookingfor. But hopefully if you're professional and
you make a good show of itand you keep producing, then someday you
will be the right crayon that theywant to pick up. Right. As
far as submitting, it depends reallyon what what do you want out of
(28:29):
a publisher. So for Jupiter Jet, we wanted to be in Diamond,
We wanted to be in previews,we wanted to be in comic shops,
and we wanted someone to take careof printing the book. We didn't want
to be responsible for that. Andthen we wanted to be associated with a
publisher that had great ya stuff.So we have a list of publishers that
we approached. We pitched it foralmost a year. We did everything from
(28:53):
cold emails. We emailed people thatwe knew, we got connections Action.
We approached their head of development withan iPad with five pages on it at
a convention, and then we followedup at the next convention, and then
we sent them an email and thenwe follow it up and so like.
It was a process. But wewanted to be with them because they have
(29:17):
great ya they have they had PrinceLess, they had Molly Danger. We
liked what they were about and theyseemed like they were on an approachable scale
for us. I wouldn't suggest pitchingyour first thing to Vertigo unless you're best
friends, Je Rich, you knowwhat I mean. Some people can do
that. Um, I couldn't dothat. And then if you just want
(29:42):
if you just want a book becauseyou want to have a comic with your
name on it, and you're okayhustling and selling it at CON's because like
a con is really a hustle.I think there's nothing wrong with self publishing.
I think Comicsology has a great platformfor it. There are great places,
um like kableam that will that willprint it for you at a decent
(30:04):
price. You know, obviously theywant you to order more and they'll give
you better deals. But it's it'sit used to be called vanity publishing.
You know, now it's called selfpublishing. It's less weird and it's more
respected now than it ever was.And between I mean, web tunes has
some amazing content, you know,like there's so many great places. Um,
(30:27):
OMG check please started as a onethree day a week a web comic
on Tumblr and now for second isyou can You can definitely do it on
your own. I just think you'vegot to be in it for the longer
haul. Um, and you're gonnabe doing more of the work. And
even when even when you're working withan indie publisher like Action Lab for example,
(30:49):
UM, you're still doing most ofthe work. Like Jason and I
were the marketing team. Um.And you have to know that you're when
you make comics, you're taking onlike another full time job. But it's
a cool job. So what Iwould say about like is it worth going
to a publisher depends on what youwant out of it. And it depends
on if you think going to apublisher will give you what you want or
(31:11):
if you want to work with theirfan base. Like there's a number of
things to consider. We offered.We had Jupiter Jet at bedside press,
but they stand they like more diversestorytelling, they like stuff with educational content,
and we ultimately decided that we wantedto work with them on science just
because it takes more of their boxes. Hope is a publisher that I've admired
(31:33):
since she started, and so wewere looking at them specifically, and we
were looking for a project that wecould work on with her and with her
team. So that's how that cameabout. It's a complicated process, and
I know that's not an easy answerfor people, but I do think.
I do think it's more. Ittakes more, maybe self vectation than just
(31:57):
like, well, who's going toset the most for me? Or what
logo do I want on my book. Also, you'll sometimes be surprised.
We approached a fairly big publisher withan editor's name, and we had a
connection to them and whatever for JupiterJet, never heard back from them,
which is going to happen with alot of a lot of publishers, like
(32:17):
with an unsolicited submission if they don'thave open since and then when we published
it, somebody asked us why wenever sent it to them, and I
was like, I can tell you. The editor's inbox that it's sitting in.
But that opened that too, canopen opportunities, like now we have
an invitation to pitch there, whichis really cool. And I do think
that whatever route you decide on,it's way better to have made a thing
(32:44):
than to be sitting at home beinglike, well, if I made a
comic, I would everyone does that. We all think we can create,
and we all can. It's justreally hard. I would also recommend Alex
Sagura, who is a big archyguy. Um, he does a pitch
comic pitch writing class and we tookthat and we developed the Jupiter jet pitch
(33:08):
that got green Let in that class. So we like to call Alex the
he's our granddaddy. Um. Wealso used his template for the Jupiter.
I'm sorry the science pitch, it'snot it's a I think it's called comic
craft. I think it's the platformthat host set. Um. It's not
terribly expensive. Um, there ishomework, but if you do it,
(33:29):
and you do it seriously, Ithink it's really valuable. And it got
us to comics, So if I'llhave the time and resources, I think
it's really great. Class. Awesome, thank you for all that. Now,
one thing, one thing I definitelypicked up is that you're always working.
Now you're hustling. You're hustling.I don't I don't sleep much like
(33:52):
a joke. Even going to likethe Comic couns and uh, you know,
being there at your booth and youknow, talking to people trying to
push your comic. That just seemsthat's part of the independent comic world.
It doesn't have to be if youdon't want it to be. I mean,
but it's it sounds fun. It'sfun up to a point. You
(34:14):
know, your feet really hurt afterthree days. But it is that thing
of like go to con is fun, and having people tell you that they
think you're amazing, it's like reallyfun. It's hard to argue with that
as a way to spend your timeand then objectively, you know, to
also make money and to promote yourwork. Like it's great. And I'm
(34:35):
very, very fortunate that I getto do that and that I can even
qualify that as work, and thatI'm even in a position to be like,
yeah, your feet hurt, itsucks. It's not lay In ricks
Man, but some creators don't.Um. I'm gonna be Kelly Thompson,
who's writing West Coast of Vengers rightnow, who I've been a fan of
for ages. She just doesn't doconventions, um and it works out for
her. And she's very talented andthat's that's her prerogative and that's her model,
(35:00):
and she's way more successful than Iam, so I guess she's right.
But I like I like going toconventions. I have my pro friends
who I see there every time,like some of my friends. Mitch Garrett's,
who is doing our portfolio review,is a good friend. I only
ever see him a conventions, likeI never see him socially, which probably
(35:21):
speaks to the fact that we allwork too much and we should maybe make
more time to travel to our friends. But you get a little family there,
and being able to interface with yourwith your fan base directly is truly
the most amazing thing. And Imean just honestly, Like two years ago,
I wasn't in a position to bebehind a booth, So to be
(35:43):
able to do that and to chatwith other people, I'm really grateful for.
You know, it's fun to beable to take your experiences as a
fan. But well, well,yeah, I know you're very busy,
so I don't want to keep askingyou tons of questions because, believe me,
I could do this all night.You are welcome to I have nothing
on the schedule after this, sobut I really enjoyed Jupiter Jet. I'm
(36:08):
looking forward to getting science. Yes, you said it right, and you
know you and Jason have been puttingout a lot of great content. You
definitely are an inspiration to me andI'm sure a lot of people. But
for anybody listening, why don't youlet them know one more time about science
(36:29):
and where they can go get theirhands on this material. You can find
it at Science comic book dot com. Think of what if Harry Potter went
to Star Treks School. That's myelevator visual for We have a twenty nine
days left in the campaign, sohurry check it out. Like I said,
share it. Any support is deeply, deeply appreciated. Ashley, Thank
(36:54):
you so much. I had agreat time till you. Thank thanks for
the advice, Thanks for buying ourcomic book. Yes, I'm so looking
forward to it, and thank youso much for having me back. Oh
yeah, and definitely feel free tosend some critigues. It's like our first
and we're actually in it like weare the characters in the comic book.
Oh, I would have learned somuch. It's like I said, it's
(37:19):
goofy because we're goofy. Yeah.I hope you dig it. Like I
said, I enjoyed you, bridJet. I know I'll dig science.
Um, I'll be there to art. But thank you, thank you,
Thank you very much. Tell Jasonwe said Hi, Yes I will,
and I can't wait to talk toyou again. You're always welcome to come
on this show, even if you'rebored. You can come on and talk
(37:42):
about a movie with us. Yeah, ooh, I might just take you
up on that. All right,you better. Thanks, Thank you very
much. You have an awesome night, and I can't wait to talk to
you soon. Thank you you too, all right, take care, bye,
b bye,
Oh Oh, feeling by Tacos,beer and Bloody Mary's, the only show
featuring Baby Jesus with a nail gun, The Pride of Pa and the Show
with the Eye of the Tiger,The Ladies and Gentlemen Punch Fire. Hey,
(00:26):
friends, welcome to Punch Farm.Alicia and we have a very very
special guest with us today, AshleyV. Robinson. She makes comic books,
she's an actress, she does reallyamazing awesome things on YouTube. Ashley,
welcome to the show. Thank youso much for having me back.
Yeah, you know, like lasttime you're a one, was like maybe
(00:47):
we'll go like a year, yearand a half ago, you had a
comic book coming out with Jason calledJupiter Jet. Yeah, a little baby
thing which yeah, you know,which we helped, well, we helped.
Yeah, we helped kickstart as webought it. Yes, really enjoyed
it. And now you have anew graphic novel coming out. I guess
(01:07):
your Kickstarter starts today. That's right. It's called Science to Lean Away from
the Microphone. It is all abouta fourteen year old girl named Tamsen Kontracrue
who guess accepted into the Prometheus Institute, which is only the greatest science school
(01:29):
in the entire world by the namePrometheus might harold something that's going to happen
to her, and she is veryexcited to go there, or so you
would think, because while she's there, she has an ulterior motive because her
father had previously been the headmaster thereand he died under mysterious circumstances, you
(01:52):
know, but being a super smartscience person, he downloaded his consciousness into
her glasses. So he's living insideher crazy glasses, guiding her through her
adventures there so that she can helpand figure out the mystery of what actually
happened to him. Now, thedownside about something like that is when you've
got a cute roommate who you havea crush on and your dad is there
(02:13):
offering commentary, things don't always workout the way you want them too.
There's also a subplot where all ofthe students are working toward winning the Prometheus
Institute Award for superior Science. Andso you see, if you go to
the kickstarter right now, you cansee the opening seven pages there's a character
making rocket boots and he gets theratios for rocket fuel wrong. So we
(02:38):
have characters called stats which is scienceand technological assistant teachers. They're kind of
like if Herbie and Skeets had ababy. They will teach you actual science
that the comics based on. Sowe tell you the correct way to make
rocket fuel through the use of ourstat facts, so you can take that
to the bank and you'll maybe learnedsomething reading it. But while all the
(03:01):
students are working on these projects,garn who's her cute roommate, discovers something
that might tear a hole in thefabric of time and space, and so
Tamsen has to decide if she's goingto stick with the cute girl and do
you know what she wants her todo to help her out, or if
she's going to have to protect Prometheusand her new found family, even if
(03:24):
it's maybe not what she thought shewas going to get into. So it's
about learning who you can trust,that first love that you have when you're
a teenager, and ultimately you're goingto learn that you can only ever trust
science. It's really fun to say, like a fifties baseball at it,
right, How long did it taketo write? It's not completely written yet,
(03:47):
Okay, because we came to Kickstarterin order to fund the creation of
it. Like I said before,and I'm sure you guys know by now,
making comics is an expensive endeavor.Yeah, and so it's important to
us that we pay our creative team. So we've only we have everything mapped
(04:08):
out and we're starting to write itnow that the kickstarters underway, But we
only have the first ten pages complete, and it's going to be an eighty
page original graphic novel. But we'vebeen working on this for two years and
change now. We were actually developingthis at the same time that we were
developing Jupiter Jet. Jupiter Jet wasjust the thing that went first. It
(04:32):
was the thing that got picked upfirst. And our publisher Eisner nominated Bedside
Press for Science, was very understanding. Hope Nicholson, who's the owner and
publishers. She let us have thetime that we wanted to be able to
focus on Jupiter Jet and then toturn our focus to science so that we
could tell the best story possible.But so it's taken a minute. Yeah,
(04:57):
yeah, I know, we weretalking a little bit before we started
recording. Uh. We finally wrotea comic book based on our one podcast,
Parallel Punchers, and it took Idon't know it. It took twenty
page comic. It took us likesix months, yeah, and which and
then of course I felt like theartist was able to well, she did,
(05:18):
appreciated a great job. And lasttime it took us to write it.
Yes, yeah, So when you'recoming up with these ideas and you
have to put you know, pento paper, as they say, like,
you know, what roadblocks are yourunning into? How do you get
through them? What are the whatis the brainstorming strategy to continue? So
(05:39):
many, so many problems, somany things. Um, I mean,
the main thing is always conquering theblank page. You know, the hardest
thing to do is to get thefirst draft down. I'm a big believer
in writing the first draft and fixingit later because especially working with a co
writer. I'm not sure what yourguys experience has been, but I know
(06:00):
we're at least doing three drafts becausewe're each going to do a pass at
it and then we're going to goover it together. So it's only theoretically
getting better every time and other passis done at it. So I don't
go into it feeling nervous about messingstuff up. But Jason is a big
planner, so before we even startsort of the hardest creative process, which
(06:24):
is writing everything down for the firsttime, we always have really extensive meetings
where we plot everything out, likewe have a ten page document. The
outlines kind of the major beats,twist and turns, lines of dialogues,
jokes, character appearances that are goingto happen in ten page chunks throughout science,
kind of like when you outline anessay that you're going to write,
(06:45):
so that way, when you goin, you do have a starting block.
But for us, once we getto the idea, it's a lot
of sitting down and hammering out thatoutline until we're happy with it. And
then on average we average between threeand I think as we've done as many
as seven drafts on something before itgoes to the artists. And then in
collaboration with the artists, sometimes youfind stuff that really works that you want
(07:09):
to retouch on, or stuff thatdoesn't work and you have to go back
to the drawing board. But wework very collaboratively and I think we compliment
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Sothe nicest thing about that is whenever I'm
feeling stuck, I can always goto Jason for inspiration, for clarity,
(07:29):
anything like that, and I hopethat he feels the same way. Yeah,
I hope. I won't speak forhim now, you know. With
Jupiter Jet, I feel like,if I remember the story, you came
out with this really just cool namekind of idea of the story, and
that's what launched into actually writing thecomic. Yeah, totally. It was
like this half baked idea that Ihad. And science is really funny because
(07:54):
it's the same thing but sort ofin reverse. Okay, Okay. Jason
and I were walking around a partand he was like, I really want
to do like a science fiction storythat's rooted in science, that has a
family vibe, like the Fantastic Four. And I was like, well,
it's obviously you got to be ata science school, because I think that
everything should be said at a school. For some reason, it's been a
(08:15):
theme, running theme throughout different projectsthat we've developed, and we're like,
maybe not a school this time,okay, um, And we knew we
wanted it to be really female drivenbecause particularly when you look at Fantastic Four,
that's a very like male heavy teamand STEM and women in STEM is
very topical and very trendy and veryimportant. And I say that as someone
who doesn't want to work in STEM. We definitely need more ladies working in
(08:39):
STEM, and that's sort of howwe blew out the world from there.
But a lot of our pitches arelike one of us had like a half
a seed of an idea and thencoming together and you know, other people's
creative enthusiasm is so infectious. Youget the oh, and then and then
and then, and then you realizethat you have to stop and make an
iPhone own note or else you're goingto forget everything and be a room out
(09:01):
about it later. YEA. Now, why do you think or what compels
you to write about kids in schoolor youngsters not youngsters, teenagers, youngsters
youngsters? Is that kind of stemmingfrom like a love of maybe X Men
comics when they were all in schoolwith Professor X, Or what compels you
(09:22):
to write these stories about students learningtheir craft. I'm a huge legacy character
and sidekick fan Robin is my alltime favorite hero, so I think I
definitely default to that mode. Ireally like seeing I love an origin story,
and I love a hero's journey,and I like seeing characters have to
(09:43):
come into their own and really discovertheir own strength. I also don't know
because I hated being a teenager andI hated being in high school. So
maybe this is subconsciously you might goaround at like fixing what that experience was.
Like I'm being like, no,maybe you could actually be great.
But when we look at future projectswe are we do have things that are
(10:07):
like a little more adult, alittle more grown up. We need to
have something with a mail in thelead because this is two dynamic female leads
that we've started in a row,so we want to broaden those horizons.
But some of my favorite stories,like Harry Potter's obviously a big influence X
Men, are set in schools,and that's probably why I want to gravitate
to that, even at a jumpingoff point, even as just a trope
(10:30):
to visit and maybe to discard later. Okay, excellent, So I got
a question that good. We're talkingabout comics, so like, what currently
are you reading? So I'm abig trade waiter, so I don't read
a ton of comics weekly, althoughI am really enjoying X Men read,
which I was surprised by. Ithink Tom Taylor's really stellar and he can
(10:54):
do no wrong. I also havebeen really enjoying the Supersun's books that have
been like canceled and restarted and rebootedall in the space of the last couple
of years. I think the SupermanFamily is like on fire right now at
DC, and I don't think it'sbeen this good in a long time.
I think the main book is great. Any Action comics is great. I
(11:15):
haven't read a ton of the NewBendus stuff, but I like that in
Action we're doing more of a dailyPlanet thing. I think that's super cool.
I'm trying to think of what wasthe last comic that I The last
book that I read an awful lot, but I've been reading a lot of
true crime lately, so I'm tryingto think, is something I read that
wasn't murder? Oh, I justSpider Gwen just ended. So I just
(11:37):
reread that entire series, and Ithink it's so fantastic and it's such a
It was such a throwaway character thatshould have only existed in Spider Verse,
and it was really cool to watchher like claim her world and claim her
place in the larger mythos. Youknow, I'm still like I feel like
a kid inside. I still readThe Hawk right now. It's called The
(11:58):
Immortal Hawk. Yeah, and Ireally love it. And I picked up
Rick and Morty and Dungeons and Dragons. Oh nice. So it's like I
don't know, like I'm still readinglike like as a twelve year old kids,
just having a good time grabbing whatmakes me smile? Oh I love
that. Now back to your newgraphic novel science. Do you have an
(12:22):
artist lined up or is there likesomeone dedicated, is going to be multiple
artists or we do um our artistsas a cartoonist from Portland illustrator from Portland
named Des Pittman. We actually wentthrough four or five different artists on this
project from the time of its inception, Like we have three or four different
versions of concept art from a bunchof different artists who are no longer on
(12:46):
the book. Some people made commitmentsthat they couldn't live up to. Some
people had school or other things popup in the way. One person didn't
meet their deadline. But we werereally lucky to find Dez because we table
beside her and her husband, whosename is also Jason. Earlier this year
at Up was a World Portland,and yeah, it was a great con.
(13:09):
I had an amazing time. Imet my favorite actor of all time
there, Billy Boyd, who playsPippin so much, and he was so
nice. But so we tabled besidethem, and we knew we wanted to
collab on something, and does justhappened to have open time in her schedule
that worked out for science, Sowe were really fortunate that we met her.
(13:31):
She was so cool and so willingto like jump in as quickly as
possible. She also had to workbased on someone else's page rate. So
if we do hit a stretch goal, our first stretch goal is going to
be to pay her more money,because she's completely worth it and giving us
so much of her time and talent. Nice. Now, with the first
Kickstarter, did you get you hityour some stretch goals right? Yes?
(13:54):
For Jupiter Jet, I think wehit two or three stretch goals. I
have to look it up, butwe overfunded. And then when we did
an Indigoga campaign a few years agofor our web series The rent Er Diaries,
we were funded for that as well. At the time of this recording,
gets only our day one, SoI don't want to count my chickens
before they catched. But I wouldlove if we could get to that because
(14:16):
the number that we're asking for isn'teven what we would need. We are
asking for enough money to cover ourartists, our colorists, our letterer,
and shipping that doesn't include Jason andI are not taking a page Riot,
so we probably won't get paid.We did the same thing on Jupiter Jet.
We've never been paid for Jupiter Jet. Our publisher is not taking any
(14:39):
money. We're not taking any moneyfor the creation of the rewards. Like
Jason and I have sunk our ownmoney into this project because we believe it
and believe in it. We justdon't want to go into debt over it,
right because as much as I lovecomics, it's not worth going into
massive amounts of debts over. Sowe're looking for enough, basically to finish
the project and to get the bareminimum, so anything that goes over allows
(15:03):
us to pay people more money.Like I alluded to, um, there's
always the possibility of more stories,and there's always the possibility of tagging on
more rewards, but that might bea decision I have to make a little
further down the road now. Iknow, I'm gonna try to jump in
here before the Early Bird special goesaway. It's only going to be on
(15:26):
today. Yeah, it's like theonly it's like just fifty people, So
probably I'm going to launch this episodeas soon as I possibly can. Yes,
but chances are you've missed it becauseI got the emails from Jason today,
Like you know, he sent outsome message of Patreon people, which
I happen to be a Patreon supporter. Hell, yes, thank you so
(15:48):
much. Absolutely, it's not it'sit's a buck a month. It's not.
I'm not giving you huge amounts,but but it's the same. It's
the same thing with a Kicker,though I think people don't always see the
value in that, and there issuch tremendous value, Like more kickstarters are
funded on one dollar donations, Soif people want to give us any kind
of support, I am thrilled beyondmeasure. And if you know, are
(16:11):
you get the digital PDF of Scienceof fifteen the after today. The standing
price for the graphic novel is twentyfive dollars. If that's too much for
you, that's great, that's totallyfine. I've been there. If you
can't even give us a dollar.I've also been there, Like, that's
a reality. But I would askif people would, if they look at
it and they dig it, ifthey would consider sharing it. Sharing that
(16:33):
link is incredibly valuable as well,because we all have a circle of people
around us, and I want yourcircle of people. Okay, you know,
I never thought about that, Like, so maybe maybe you can't.
You know, this month doesn't allowyou to have an extra buck or two.
But if you share, yeah,that link, you could find people
that do want to buy that.I never looked at that way, like,
(16:56):
sometimes the sharing is just as importantas the contribution. It definitely is.
And then bully your friends into buyingit and borrow it from them out
as long as as long as peopleare interested in it, in reading it,
that's fine by me. Also,Jupiter Jet went through a traditional publisher.
It went through Diamond, It wentto comic bookshops. Bedside Press,
(17:17):
which is Publishing Science, is anon traditional publisher. They are kickstarter based,
which means that our kickstarter is apre order at the time of this
recording. Unless something amazing happens,which hopefully it does, jubiter Jet will
not be going to traditional publishers.It's just available through Kickstarter. We do
have a retailer package and a librarypackage if you are one of those people
(17:40):
and you'd like to check it out, but it will not be available later
on through through Diamond. So I'mreally trying to encourage people if they think
it sounds cool to donate early andoften. Oh I wonder if the Bedtime
Press could be and rest in ourcoom. I know, should redoubted them.
They're amazing. I should because weself published it. I'm sure you've
(18:03):
heard of is a kaboom or complammpluh. So yeah, that's how we
got. We just self funded andgot some stuff printed. I thought the
quality was pretty awesome. Uh,your your graphic novel, the quality was
outstanding. Yeah, and then wehad nothing to do that. Shout out
(18:23):
to uh, shout out to ActionLab for the great work that they did
there with us. We're very fortunate. Yeah, and I got I think
it came with like a print anda postcard. I think that was inside.
Yeah. What kind of level?What kind of packages you got this
time with your Kickstarter the levels whatevercalled? So you can, like I
(18:45):
said, you can get the justthe book for twenty five, which I
think is very reasonable. We alsohave two exclusive prints that will, as
far as I know again only everbe available through the Kickstarter. We have
a print by Brent Schoonover, whoyou may know as the artist who rebooted
to the Scotland ant Man series becauseMarvel was like, oh, we're gonna
put him in a movie, maybehe should have a comic book, and
(19:07):
he recently finished a Captain Marvel series. He's absolutely incredible and I've been trying
to trick him into working with usfor a long time, so we're very,
very grateful for that. And wehave another print by Ryan Sands.
Ryan Sands is one of the starsof Marvel's Runaways. He plays Jeffrey Wilder,
who is Alex's Daddy's a very tall, hands in African American man.
(19:29):
He's also a comic book artist.He has He actually has a comic that
comes out today, Runaways thirteen.He did the variant cover on, so
we also bullied him into helping usout with that. And then we like
with Jupiter Jet, we have cameos. You can get a student or a
teacher cameo. They're at two differentprice levels because like I said, I
(19:52):
get it. Finances are a veryreal thing. But I look at Kickstarter
as a community, end of family, and I try to look at Patreon
in the same way. And Iwant to include as many people as possible
who help us, you know,hit our creative goals in the actual medium
so we can draw people's likenesses.Des Ar artist is very well known for
(20:15):
the zombie portraits that she makes,so she's excellent at likenesses, So if
you want to see your face ata comic, we can do that for
you. We also kind of onthat same idea about the community. I
want as many people as possible whoare fans and want to write comics to
have access to that opportunity. BecauseI started out as a fan. I
(20:37):
won the Topcoat Talent Hunt, likethat's how I got into comics. So
I want to try and extend thatI heard before we started, that you
guys had a comic and I boughtit, so now you have to send
it to me, Like, Iwant nothing more than to support everybody who
has supported us. So we havea lot of script reviews and portfolio reviews
available from like big two contributors,we had one and only one from a
(21:03):
little independent writer Tom King. Heworks on his book called Batman, but
I think that was the first rewardthat someone bought, so it's gone now.
I'm really sorry. But we havea script review from Schaefontana, who
writes DC superhero Girls and wonder Woman, Colin Bunn who's writing X Men Blue
sixth Gun, which is amazing.And if you're an artist, if you're
(21:26):
on the other side of the equation, we have a portfolio review from Mitch
Garrett's recent Eisner winner for Mister Miracle, Artists of Sheriff of Babylon also Batman.
So we want to give people theopportunity to have their work looked at
and critiqued by prose. Hopefully they'llbe able to get something valuable out of
that. Turn it around and they'llbe on your podcast promoting their kickstarters.
(21:51):
And also, I think you know, not only because we're offering it,
but I really think that's invaluable becausewe're giving you an opportunity to forge a
relationship with the creator and you neverknow, you never know what might happen,
So those always go quickly. Wedid a bunch of them on Jupiter
Jet, So if that's something thatyou're interested in, go and go check
out our dats on that. Yeah, and like I'm going to start looking
(22:14):
at the different packages because like,oh my god, some of this sound
amazing. I would love to beable to talk to somebody, I guess
a feedback on what we're working onfor issue two. I just saw my
Gmail lit up actually bought a comicsas she just said, but wow,
thank you so much. You don'tyou don't know if this means to us.
That's awesome and I really hope youenjoy it and feel free to give
(22:37):
us a critique. Absolutely, yeahI will. I'll talk about you on
my spoilers because so cool. Yeahyeah, And this is what's great about
the comics community is so small thatwe all we all have to support each
other because more comics means better comics. Hey, now, you know,
(22:59):
and it's growing up, uh youknow, as a kid and loving comic
books and loving Scooby Doo, uhyou know, the and loving the paranormal.
This comic kind of comes from thatdirection. But more in than anything,
I feel like I always said asa kid, it's probably to my
mom or my friends, I'm gonnawrite a comic book, and I eventually
did you and Jason are doing that, and I know there's a lot of
(23:22):
people out there that might want towrite a comic, don't know where to
start, don't know how to eveneven you know what to do with a
blank page. Um. I alwayslike to ask people to come on a
show for advice to inspire well numberone me and sure, but also inspire
anybody listening, because I know wehave a lot of listeners that are filmmakers
(23:42):
and and creators and just you know, we all hit those brick walls and
we might get defeated sometimes. Whatadvice you have to to write your own
comic to or just to do yourown thing? What do you what?
Just give us some advice? Actually, Okay, anything creative is hard man
(24:03):
at whatever level you want. Ifyou're an editor, being an editor's hard
man. I hate editing. Ashout out to everyone who loves that and
is able to be creative that way, because I just think it's a goddamn
nightmare. The answer is, ofcourse too, if you want to make
a comic, make a comic.That's complicated, right, because comics in
particular can be an expensive undertaking.What I always recommend people do is to
(24:27):
go and look at a scene thatyou really love. So if you love
the dark Night, then go andfind whatever sequence is most meaningful to you,
and then write it out on thepage as you would have scripted it.
Page one, Panel one. Howwould you describe what Batman's doing?
How would you describe what Kerry Kelly'sdoing. That's the best way that you're
(24:48):
going to learn the craft of comicwriting, because it's it's a little less
set in stone the way like scriptwriting screenplay writing, there's a format in
comics. As long as you're orunderstands your artist understands you, let her
understands, you can't write it howeveryou want. The other cool thing about
comics is because the community is sosmall. If you support people's Patreon,
(25:11):
or if you spend enough time onGoogle, you'd find a comic script,
find one from someone that you like, Email me, I'll send you one
of ours and just copy their style, like I write comics in the style
that Tim Seely writes comics. Becausewhen I was learning how to write comics,
I found a Tim Seely script online. I loved his writing, and
(25:33):
so I format my scripts the sameway that Tim Seely does. And I'm
sure that he formatted his based onsomeone else. And then my other advice
is don't be afraid to ask forhelp, even from people who are like
super you think are super out ofyour league. Like when we made Jupiter
(25:55):
Jet, we cold emailed Nicholas Scottand she drew a print for us because
she's a lovely woman who just wantedto help us out. You'll be surprised
who will help you out, orwho will point you in the right direction
and stuff like that. And itis a small community. And then I
would say, don't censor yourself.It's hard enough to come up with an
(26:15):
idea, much less an original one. So even if you don't think it's
the greatest idea, just commit toit, Like pick something and stick with
it. Don't write more than onething at one time unless Marvel or DC
is paying you. To stick withthe thing that you're doing and see it
through to the end. Because whenyou have the thing, if it's a
(26:36):
comic, if it's a movie,if it's a song, other pros will
treat you differently and you'll kind oflevel up with all these people that you've
admired for so long, Like wehad our first issue of You bridget printed
at Santeo Coma com not this pastbut the year before. And being able
to like have it in our handsand show it to other people. You
graduate a little bit, even ifit's from a small publisher, even if
(26:56):
it's self published, but like havingmade a thing shows people that you're dedicated,
that you're creative, and that you'rewilling to put yourself out there.
And I can't express enough how importantit is to follow through on stuff like
that. Yeah, yeah, youknow, well, thank you very much
for that advice, and just curious, like you know, you know,
(27:17):
when you do create a comic likeyou guys got published by Action Labs,
you know, any advice on likeyou know, we'll just use me for
example. You know, should Isubmit my comic to these places to get
published? Should I self publish?Should I be afraid to submit to certain
places? I mean, yeah,I don't know if, like how it
is with you and Jason, butyou know, you write something, you
(27:41):
get it published, and you feelvery it's very personal, like I don't
it is I don't want to submitit and has somebody rejected? Right?
Uh? You can't take rejection personally, man, which is a hard lesson
to learn. It's easier for menow because I do work a lot as
an actor in a host, solike I audition for things regularly, and
like I am my product. It'smy body and my brain. And sometimes
(28:03):
you never hear back from people orthey tell you know, and you just
learn eventually like, Okay, that'sfine. It's not personal. Sometimes you're
not the right crayon that they're lookingfor. But hopefully if you're professional and
you make a good show of itand you keep producing, then someday you
will be the right crayon that theywant to pick up. Right. As
far as submitting, it depends reallyon what what do you want out of
(28:29):
a publisher. So for Jupiter Jet, we wanted to be in Diamond,
We wanted to be in previews,we wanted to be in comic shops,
and we wanted someone to take careof printing the book. We didn't want
to be responsible for that. Andthen we wanted to be associated with a
publisher that had great ya stuff.So we have a list of publishers that
we approached. We pitched it foralmost a year. We did everything from
(28:53):
cold emails. We emailed people thatwe knew, we got connections Action.
We approached their head of development withan iPad with five pages on it at
a convention, and then we followedup at the next convention, and then
we sent them an email and thenwe follow it up and so like.
It was a process. But wewanted to be with them because they have
(29:17):
great ya they have they had PrinceLess, they had Molly Danger. We
liked what they were about and theyseemed like they were on an approachable scale
for us. I wouldn't suggest pitchingyour first thing to Vertigo unless you're best
friends, Je Rich, you knowwhat I mean. Some people can do
that. Um, I couldn't dothat. And then if you just want
(29:42):
if you just want a book becauseyou want to have a comic with your
name on it, and you're okayhustling and selling it at CON's because like
a con is really a hustle.I think there's nothing wrong with self publishing.
I think Comicsology has a great platformfor it. There are great places,
um like kableam that will that willprint it for you at a decent
(30:04):
price. You know, obviously theywant you to order more and they'll give
you better deals. But it's it'sit used to be called vanity publishing.
You know, now it's called selfpublishing. It's less weird and it's more
respected now than it ever was.And between I mean, web tunes has
some amazing content, you know,like there's so many great places. Um,
(30:27):
OMG check please started as a onethree day a week a web comic
on Tumblr and now for second isyou can You can definitely do it on
your own. I just think you'vegot to be in it for the longer
haul. Um, and you're gonnabe doing more of the work. And
even when even when you're working withan indie publisher like Action Lab for example,
(30:49):
UM, you're still doing most ofthe work. Like Jason and I
were the marketing team. Um.And you have to know that you're when
you make comics, you're taking onlike another full time job. But it's
a cool job. So what Iwould say about like is it worth going
to a publisher depends on what youwant out of it. And it depends
on if you think going to apublisher will give you what you want or
(31:11):
if you want to work with theirfan base. Like there's a number of
things to consider. We offered.We had Jupiter Jet at bedside press,
but they stand they like more diversestorytelling, they like stuff with educational content,
and we ultimately decided that we wantedto work with them on science just
because it takes more of their boxes. Hope is a publisher that I've admired
(31:33):
since she started, and so wewere looking at them specifically, and we
were looking for a project that wecould work on with her and with her
team. So that's how that cameabout. It's a complicated process, and
I know that's not an easy answerfor people, but I do think.
I do think it's more. Ittakes more, maybe self vectation than just
(31:57):
like, well, who's going toset the most for me? Or what
logo do I want on my book. Also, you'll sometimes be surprised.
We approached a fairly big publisher withan editor's name, and we had a
connection to them and whatever for JupiterJet, never heard back from them,
which is going to happen with alot of a lot of publishers, like
(32:17):
with an unsolicited submission if they don'thave open since and then when we published
it, somebody asked us why wenever sent it to them, and I
was like, I can tell you. The editor's inbox that it's sitting in.
But that opened that too, canopen opportunities, like now we have
an invitation to pitch there, whichis really cool. And I do think
that whatever route you decide on,it's way better to have made a thing
(32:44):
than to be sitting at home beinglike, well, if I made a
comic, I would everyone does that. We all think we can create,
and we all can. It's justreally hard. I would also recommend Alex
Sagura, who is a big archyguy. Um, he does a pitch
comic pitch writing class and we tookthat and we developed the Jupiter jet pitch
(33:08):
that got green Let in that class. So we like to call Alex the
he's our granddaddy. Um. Wealso used his template for the Jupiter.
I'm sorry the science pitch, it'snot it's a I think it's called comic
craft. I think it's the platformthat host set. Um. It's not
terribly expensive. Um, there ishomework, but if you do it,
(33:29):
and you do it seriously, Ithink it's really valuable. And it got
us to comics, So if I'llhave the time and resources, I think
it's really great. Class. Awesome, thank you for all that. Now,
one thing, one thing I definitelypicked up is that you're always working.
Now you're hustling. You're hustling.I don't I don't sleep much like
(33:52):
a joke. Even going to likethe Comic couns and uh, you know,
being there at your booth and youknow, talking to people trying to
push your comic. That just seemsthat's part of the independent comic world.
It doesn't have to be if youdon't want it to be. I mean,
but it's it sounds fun. It'sfun up to a point. You
(34:14):
know, your feet really hurt afterthree days. But it is that thing
of like go to con is fun, and having people tell you that they
think you're amazing, it's like reallyfun. It's hard to argue with that
as a way to spend your timeand then objectively, you know, to
also make money and to promote yourwork. Like it's great. And I'm
(34:35):
very, very fortunate that I getto do that and that I can even
qualify that as work, and thatI'm even in a position to be like,
yeah, your feet hurt, itsucks. It's not lay In ricks
Man, but some creators don't.Um. I'm gonna be Kelly Thompson,
who's writing West Coast of Vengers rightnow, who I've been a fan of
for ages. She just doesn't doconventions, um and it works out for
her. And she's very talented andthat's that's her prerogative and that's her model,
(35:00):
and she's way more successful than Iam, so I guess she's right.
But I like I like going toconventions. I have my pro friends
who I see there every time,like some of my friends. Mitch Garrett's,
who is doing our portfolio review,is a good friend. I only
ever see him a conventions, likeI never see him socially, which probably
(35:21):
speaks to the fact that we allwork too much and we should maybe make
more time to travel to our friends. But you get a little family there,
and being able to interface with yourwith your fan base directly is truly
the most amazing thing. And Imean just honestly, Like two years ago,
I wasn't in a position to bebehind a booth, So to be
(35:43):
able to do that and to chatwith other people, I'm really grateful for.
You know, it's fun to beable to take your experiences as a
fan. But well, well,yeah, I know you're very busy,
so I don't want to keep askingyou tons of questions because, believe me,
I could do this all night.You are welcome to I have nothing
on the schedule after this, sobut I really enjoyed Jupiter Jet. I'm
(36:08):
looking forward to getting science. Yes, you said it right, and you
know you and Jason have been puttingout a lot of great content. You
definitely are an inspiration to me andI'm sure a lot of people. But
for anybody listening, why don't youlet them know one more time about science
(36:29):
and where they can go get theirhands on this material. You can find
it at Science comic book dot com. Think of what if Harry Potter went
to Star Treks School. That's myelevator visual for We have a twenty nine
days left in the campaign, sohurry check it out. Like I said,
share it. Any support is deeply, deeply appreciated. Ashley, Thank
(36:54):
you so much. I had agreat time till you. Thank thanks for
the advice, Thanks for buying ourcomic book. Yes, I'm so looking
forward to it, and thank youso much for having me back. Oh
yeah, and definitely feel free tosend some critigues. It's like our first
and we're actually in it like weare the characters in the comic book.
Oh, I would have learned somuch. It's like I said, it's
(37:19):
goofy because we're goofy. Yeah.I hope you dig it. Like I
said, I enjoyed you, bridJet. I know I'll dig science.
Um, I'll be there to art. But thank you, thank you,
Thank you very much. Tell Jasonwe said Hi, Yes I will,
and I can't wait to talk toyou again. You're always welcome to come
on this show, even if you'rebored. You can come on and talk
(37:42):
about a movie with us. Yeah, ooh, I might just take you
up on that. All right,you better. Thanks, Thank you very
much. You have an awesome night, and I can't wait to talk to
you soon. Thank you you too, all right, take care, bye,
b bye,
Popular Podcasts
Spooky Podcasts from iHeartRadio
Whether you’re a scaredy-cat or a brave bat, this collection of episodes from iHeartPodcasts will put you in the Halloween spirit. Binge stories, frights, and more that may keep you up at night!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.