Rylend Grant – Making Evel Knievel Comics & Indie Films

In this conversation, I sit down with comic writer and filmmaker Rylend Grant, the force behind Half Evil Comics. Rylend is currently running a Kickstarter campaign for an all-new Evel Knievel comic, created with artist Dave Acosta, and he takes us inside the creative spark and daredevil energy fueling the project.

But Rylend’s storytelling doesn’t stop with comics—we also dive into his film career, including his work on movies starring Emile Hirsch and Nicolas Cage. From the high-wire act of crowdfunding to the art of writing for both panels and the big screen we cover it all in this conversation. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's word Balloon. The Comic Book Conversation Show
John Centrist here Ryland Grant on the show last night.
Ryland has been on the show before talking about his
half evil comics that he puts out his creator own
books over the years, and right now is in the
midst of a really neat Kickstarter campaign. He has made
a deal to do an authorized comic about Evil Canevil,

(00:22):
the fantastic Daredevil of the seventies and eighties, a real
American folk hero, an incredible American success story and a
very very risky arravel that literally would put his ass
on the line for every motorcycle jump he ever did.
And the guy really had a spectacular, very long career
going from the sixties to the eighties. Well, I think

(00:45):
that's a great idea to make a comic book about that.
He and Dave a Costa are running a Kickstarter campaign
currently to fund the book, and it still has about
three weeks left, and it deserves your interest, and that's
why we're doing this talk. Are also talking a bit
about the couple movies that Rylan has made over the
years and just the environment of TV today. We even

(01:07):
get into a little Jimmy Kimmel talk. Here's a little
head start. I was against Disney taking him off the air,
and I'm happy to explain why in this conversation with
Rylan Grant on today's word Balloon. Word Balloon is brought
to you by Alex Ross Art dot com, the official
showcase for the legendary comic book artist Alex Ross. From

(01:27):
timeless Marvel and DC heroes to stunning original creations, Alex's
artwork captures the power and humanity of the world's greatest icons.
At alex Ross dot com, you'll find beautifully crafted prints, posters,
and exclusive one of the kind pieces you won't see
anywhere else, all direct from the artist himself. Celebrate your
love with comics and pop culture with art that defines

(01:51):
the medium. Visit Alex Ross dot com today and bring
a masterpiece home. Wardblain is also brought to you by
the League of Word Balloon Listeners. I'd love for you
to join us at my Patreon Patreon dot com slash
word Balloon. For just three dollars a month or more,
you'll get exclusive access to the Word Balloon e magazine
featuring transcriptions of some of my best conversations, plus you'll

(02:13):
be part of the Word Balloon Book Club, where Brian
Michael Bendison myself sit down every month with our listeners
and viewers to dive in deep into a great graphic novel.
It's a fun way to support the show and get
more content you can't find anywhere else. The League of
Word Balloon listeners. Check it out today at patreon dot
com slash word Balloon. John stuartris with you. Happy to

(02:37):
welcome Ryland Grant back to Word Balloon. Good to see you, right,
good to see you. We got a very fun kickstarter
campaign that I'm excited to talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Evil Yeah, not wrong with that, right, yeah, talk to me.
So yeah, this how did this happen? Is a great
It's a great question. It's a great place to start.
I mean, you know, well started.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Doing the comic books, you know, six.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Or seven years ago, and you write a few good books,
and the people start asking you what you want to write,
you know, and everyone assumes that when they're like, hey,
what you know, what you know? What is your dream project?
What do you want to write? Everybody assumes you're gonna say, oh,
I wanted to write Superman since I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
I wanted to write Iron Man, you know.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Since I was ten and I tripped over this comic
book that just wasn't me. And you know, part of
part of the math was that I was for a
very long time. I mean, my day job is I
write movies and TV shows, and so for a very
long time, I was so busy that I kind of

(03:49):
couldn't take a lot of these gigs. You know, when
when an editor would come to me and be like, hey,
do you want to do I don't want to name names,
but it's like, do you want to do you know,
a short arc on Property X? And the answer would
just always be no, I'm I you know, I'm sorry,
thanks for thinking of me, but but no, and and that,

(04:09):
you know, those for two reasons. One was because I
maybe didn't have.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
The bandwidth at that point.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
I was doing my own comics and I was written,
you know, the film and the TV stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
But uh, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
More than that, I think that I wasn't gonna take
something unless I was the guy to take it. And
so it was I think the third time that a
really good editor, an editor that I respected, came and said, hey,
we would like to get you on something. Do you
want to do this one shot, and and again I
was like, no, you know, thanks for thinking to me,
keep thinking of me, but but no. And then finally

(04:41):
he's like, man, well, what do you want to write?
You know, sooner or later you're gonna have to figure
it out. And part of it was that. Part of
it was that film and TV has slowed down for
obvious reasons. We can get into that if you want
to later, but well, but but but at some point,
you know this, This challenged me and I had to

(05:02):
sit down and figure out what I wanted to write.
And so I did sit down, and I made a
list of about ten, you know, ten characters, ten properties
that I was really excited about, and too many of
them did not have a presence in comic books. And
right at the top of the list was Evil Caniebel
and Evil Caniebel is. The beauty of Evil Canevel is

(05:24):
that he is this real life superhero. He actually did it.
You know, he was actually a wild man. He strapped
himself to a motorcycle and flew like Superman. He could
leap tall buildings in a single bound. And I got
really excited about it. And I had always been a
fan and and I a friend of a friend knew

(05:45):
Kelly Knebel, who is Evil Caniebel's son and the brand owner,
and put us in touch. And Kelly and I went
back and forth for a couple of months and I
don't know, you know, we kind of hit it off.
He's he's my kind of guy, and I think I'm
his kind of guy. And we bonded over kind of
grown up where we grew up and grown up how
we grew up, and we found a way forward on it.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
And I'm I don't know, I'm.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Excited, understood, well, you know, I'm I'm an O G.
Evil fan. I mean, I remember the comic book days
when the back cover was this very thing. Actually there
have been others as well. And it's funny because even
Jeremy here, who wants to comment, says Carrieus about the
project Evil can Evil Jump Snake River on my fourth

(06:29):
birthday and I still vividly remember it one of my
earliest memories. In fact, people, you can likely still watch
the coverage of Snake River with Howard Cosell play by
play on YouTube. Now I was again, I was that
age man, I was I think the same age as
Jeremy around eight or nine years old when it happened.
But you're you know, you're much younger. So what was
your first awareness of Evil can Eel?

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, it's funny. I was not alive when he was jumping,
but he was ever present, you know.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
And well, no.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Excuse me, Ryland howse so because again truly, yeah, I
beyond the documentary that I know they made it a
couple of years ago. I really don't know, like in
the eighties or nineties. Once he stopped, you know, he
kind of went away. So again, where did that awareness
for you come from? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well he never went away where I grew up at least.
I grew up in Detroit, and I grew up in
a bar. Oddly enough, my dad ran bars and clubs
my whole life, and so it was, you know, it
was kind of like the working man's Detroit Cheers was
where I grew up, you know, wood panel walls and
just guys who would like work working out of line

(07:38):
all day and then go work a stool at night.
And and so I watched Evil jump. That was not
Evil Live, but but it was. But well, I was
growing up. ABC Wide World of Sports was still on,
and here's the thing is like evil. Evil you know,
still has seven of the top ten ABC Wild White

(07:59):
Boldts programs. When he jumped at King's Island and and
and broke the world record, that was after he crashes
at Wembley trying to jump thirteen buses and then he
retires two days later he says, I'm going to jump again,
and this time I'm going to jump fourteen buses. And
then that was King's Island. And at that point four

(08:21):
years that was the highest rated program in the history
of television, like higher than any super Bowl, higher than
you know, then whatever. And so while I was growing up,
they would they replayed the hell out of those things,
and so and so I would be in this I
would be in this bar and you know, on a
Saturday afternoon or whatever, and and he would be on

(08:42):
and there was this thing that happened where you know,
these guys were you know again there these are drinking hard,
drinking root and touting, you know as kicking you know,
sons of bitches. And and they did not they did
not stop, They did not shut up for anything or anyone.
You know, if this Super Bowl was on, these guys
would talk through it and just motormouth and motormouth and motormouth.

(09:05):
But man, when Evil was on the TV, they would
shut the hell up. You could hear a pin drop
in this place. It was it was amazing, and I
was just I just it just did not compute to me.
It's like, what's going on? And they they knew, they
had seen these jumps before they knew what happened. It's like, oh,
it's someone where he did this, So it's someone where
he did that. And but man, they would watch it

(09:26):
on the edge of their seats like it was, you know,
two minutes left game winning driving the Super Bowl. They
would watch this stuff. And so there was that. The
other thing that happened in the bar was that these
guys did not they did not give respect easily. They
did not fear anyone, and Evil was immediately handed it.

(09:47):
And he wasn't handed it. He earned it every time
he jumped. I guess, but it was like, but you know,
you would get I had. I grew up with like
fifty uncles. All these guys were uncles, and they all
tried to teach me something, and they and they'd be like,
you know, hey, kid, like pop up on the stool
next to me when I was you know, I'm eight
years old and I'm at a bar pop up, you know,
next next to me at the bar, and they would

(10:08):
they would say like, this is this is the measure
of a man, right, Uh, this is what a man
does and and and this is this is what you
need to be like and this is you know, this
is courage, and this is.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
You know, uh, this.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Is just what we aspire to. And it was like
these weren't these weren't guys that feared anyone, uh, but man,
they would you know, they would hand fear over to
this guy there was, you know, there's the guy at
the bar, Gary that nobody would fight Gary, but Gary
wouldn't fight evil and evil you know. And and man,
does that stick with you when you're growing up? It
was just so formative and so and so it was

(10:43):
constantly he was constantly the measure of masculinity and a
man and all of that stuff, for better and for worse.
And so it was very soon after that when I
was ten, I started racing BMX bikes competitively and I
was I was sponsored. I was on a GT Dino
racing team and traveled all around and and you know,

(11:05):
and and whatever I could jump over on my bicycle,
I did, and and that would shout Evil canieval Well
was doing it. And it was funny because one of
the first things that Kelly, Kelly Canevel and I I
had the whole we announced the project at a big
panel at San Diego Comic Con. We had the whole
can Evil family in town. They were on stage with us.
We spent the weekend with them and was wonderful. But
one of the first things Kelly and I did was

(11:27):
we got together and we compared scars because his dad
had him on a dirt bike, wanted him to follow
in his footsteps right off the bat, and ended up
being Robbie that did it right.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
I knew there was in your devil brother Robbie, obviously,
but keep going yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, yeah, And and Robbie, you know, Robbie was jumping
on the right bikes. Robbie was the one that ended
up breaking all his dad's records and whatnot. But and
and what what what what? What Evil was fond of
saying was that Robbie got his Robbie got Evils balls,
and Kelly got his dad's brains. Uh so, and so Kelly,
Kelly got in the I can broke all the records,

(12:01):
and Robbie did. And then Kelly was the businessman who
again now runs the brand and is doing things so
so kill. But but when Kelly was a kid, his
dad had him on a dirt bike jumping over things,
and so he's got this scar and that scar. And
so we spent a big, you know, long bit of
San Diego comic com being like, well I got this
one on my shoulder because of this, and I got
this one on my leg and so so yeah, I

(12:24):
mean he was he was the guy I emulated when
I was a kid, and so it was natural that
I ended up doing this, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
All right, that makes sense. There you go, man. And
of course now I knew about your your skateboard career.
I didn't know about your BMX career. But it makes
sense because again they're kind of synonymous, they're in tandem.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
But and I and obviously I'll show images from the campaign,
which still has around two weeks left.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
I think we're three weeks. Yeah, we went to like
twenty three days.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, twenty three days as as of our recording, so yeah, yeah,
well here, yeah, I mean, as well bring up the
uh the page right there there it is everybody and
uh so there's a video. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, right,
I would have recorded the video, but uh yeah, yeah,
I was busy this afternoon. But you can see it everybody,
and Kelly is in the video as well. Uh yeah,

(13:16):
you go ahead.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, I was gonna say a lot yeah, yeah, like
a lot from you know, a lot from the Knieval family,
from Kelly and uh. And then we also have been
working pretty closely with the Evil Knievel Museum, uh, with
a guy named Joe Pennington who's a partner there, and
they have been very helpful and uh, what a wonderful
place they are in the they're in the throws right
now of moving from a spot in Kansas to a

(13:40):
spot on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, which is makes sense,
gonna be a wonderful place. They's had like a massive
facility and they're moving everything down there, and so they're
about to have.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
A grand reopening and you know, we're doing it.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Wow, that's that's going to be like the old Liberachi Museum,
for God's sake, in terms of the iconography between Evil
and Robbie that you can have in a place like that.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's a great vivated it's the perfect place for it,
and it's a perfect place. It's a perfect place for
a lot of that stuff. I remember. I remember talking
with like a really he was like a sports media
consultant who was just one of the smarter people I'd
ever seen in my life. And people will corner them.
And I remember him talking with the Baseball Hall of
Fame people, like they pulled them aside at a meeting

(14:20):
and they're like, you know, hey, we're having some issues
with attendance, Like do you think you could take a
look at things and and let us know if there's something.
He's like, I can tell you what you need to
do right now. He's like, pack up, move to Vegas
and you'll and you know, and you'll have you'll have
one hundred times more people to there every.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
Well, yeah, all the tourists absolutely, man, every week, every week.
I've even been down there in my sport days during
the dead period of sports, those weeks during Christmas before
the Bowl games really kick up mid December, and yeah, man,
no Vegas is still a rocking so yeah, and tons
of tourists.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Awesome, and it's like you Sai I mean it's like
the guy is like Liberaci, you know, like Elvis, like Frank, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Here from your from your website or if i'll if
I'll bring up the picture here sim is in the
Sam jumping over the fountain at Caesar's back in the
day and one of his first really big national stunts
and everything that really got him awareness, as I.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Reckon, yeah, yeah, that was the thing that made him.
And uh, and so that's what we do with the
you know, the the the original that the original take,
the original pitch to to Kelly Knievel was like, well,
let's make him an adventurer, right, you know, there's he's
going to be a comic book hero, so let's make
him an adventurer. And it's not sure, It's not without precedent.
There was a there was a Sam Elliott pilot back

(15:40):
in the seventies where basically Evil's traveling around with his
his stunt show. He rolls into town. Uh, you know
there's there's some there, you know, there's some some fitted
hooliganism that is, you know, set upon the town and
Evil has to knock out the bad guys you know
by the local showers.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah I saw, yeah, yeah, and also.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
The George Hamilton movie as well, and of course the
the one. As Dog points out Evil's own movie, Viva
can Evel I believe, where he acted with Lauren Hutton
and Gene Kelly. Right.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Well, so the the the George Hamilton movie was just
a straight biography, but Viva can Eeveel is a great
example of what I'm talking about, where Viva Knievel was
making him an adventurer. I mean, so yeah, Viva Canel
playing himself. Uh in what is like? You know, it's
it's this grimy seventies movie in a really great way,
almost like a Rockford Files episode. But Leslie Neil, Leslie

(16:33):
Nielsen plays like a slimy, you know, corporate guy who's
actually running drugs and he's trying. He tricks Evil into
doing jumps down in Mexico so he can run drugs back,
you know, in his caravan and again Evil Evil asked,
and I got the bad guy's bed, Lauren Hutton and
and uh and you know, bring toys to orphans.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
It was.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
It was awesome in its own way. It has its worts,
but I love it and so sure, and so the
idea is to kind of do something like that and
and uh and you know, my first question to the
Kelly is like, well, what is evils?

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (17:08):
You know, what is his no country for old men?

Speaker 3 (17:11):
What is his.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Uh uh smoking the bandit, you know that sort of thing.
And uh, that's two very different things. He said, well,
well totally, those are very different things. Yeah, and so
but but well with people, it's got it's got to
be fun. But it was like, but but that was
the beginning of the discussion, is right right, Like what
sort of what sort of adventure is he going to have?
But then the more we started talking about it, and

(17:33):
the more I'm talking to the museum, and the more
that I started talking with fans, like you know, again,
like we right off the bat, we got to oh,
I remember him jumping this. I remember him jumping that.
And it's like that was what we kept getting and
we realized that, like, well, people want to see the
actual history, right.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
And and and so.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
So if you go to see Journey uh in concert,
if you go to see Bonjob, if you go to
see Chicago, you want to hear the hits. You don't
want to hear the stuff from the new album necessarily.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
So we realized, well, uh.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
We should weaponize the new history. And it's twofold because
he got guys like us who actually grew up watching him,
who want to see that stuff. But then he got
all these young comic book fans who have no idea.
They've heard of them, but they don't really know the history.
And so we can teach them the history. We can
teach him why he's awesome. And so this first arc
there is an adventure in it, but it is set

(18:21):
against the backdrop of the actual history. And so we
start in issue one with the Caesars Palace jump and
then we end uh. Issue for this first arc ends
at Snake Laver Canyon, uh and with him in the rocket,
and we hit all of these kind of hotspots in between.
And the idea is the antagonist is an outlaw motorcycle
club historically evil uh you know, both rhetorically and physically

(18:48):
clashed with the outlaw motorcycle clubs. He sort of set
himself up as like the anti you know, motorcycle hoodlum Yeah, basically.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Like anti Hell's Angels and some of the others.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Okay, yeah, especially he actually physically brawled at the Hell's
Angels at the Kyle Palace in San Francisco and the
Wow in the early seventies, and and the and the
Hell's Angels ended up having to be the security at
at the Snake River Canyon thing when all helped with loose.
Snake River Canyon is an amazing story if you look
it up, like it was Woodstock ninety nine before Woodstock

(19:19):
ninety nine, like decades before and right in the wake
of Altamont was breaking loose, and they have to go
to the Angel. They have to go to the Hell's
Angels and be like, hey, can you be security? And
they brought order to everything. A lot of people, a
lot of people don't know that is that the Hell's Angel.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Specially Yeah, there is a couple of years in between
Altamont and Snake River, but still recent enough that yeah,
I mean seventy like am I right, wait a minute,
really really because again you'll forgive me, but seven and
then also it is a conversation seventy three right for
Snake River or seventy four, and and and ultimate was
like seventy or seventy one, I believe, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(19:56):
so now yeah again, sorry, man, you'll forgive me. That's
this nerd brain, you know, how it is.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Go ahead, no, no, you know, absolutely, but but but you know,
in the eyes of the public, I mean, we we
live in such a such an saturated Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Absolutely it was. It was recent enough under I give
you that. Absolutely, yeah, go ahead. So, I mean that
was the taste in everyone's mouth. But well, sure that
was the rep of the Hell's Angels at that moment,
you know. And yeah, they didn't rub it off, but
they they never rubbed it off. But yeah, it's a
long it's a long cry from Chuck Sito showing up
on Howard Stern with his Hell's Angel story. So I

(20:31):
get what you're saying, who I also met in Vegas,
but go ahead, yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, So I mean, uh, we
decided to honor the actual history, like the you know,
the you know guys that us will show up and
they'll get the greatest kits help them, but they'll also get,
you know, something new and something interesting and something very
distinctly evil, and and then the new people will learn
how and why this guy is just the baddest.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
Mouthful low down in any town. You know, I'm with you. No,
And here let's show some art from the Kickstarter page
that is likely going to be part of the uh
you know obviously in the book.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Dave Costa, y yeah, Dave Acosta great yeah. And Dave
a Costa is best known for you know, doing uh,
you know the Elvira books that dynamite right now. And
he's just he's a he's a wizard with the you know,
with the likenesses uh very much. She's really good with
mood and all of these things. But then also yuh,

(21:24):
he gets it in general. I mean, he loves doing Elvira.
It's tons of fun for him, and he wouldn't give
it up for anything.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
His general style is more actiony.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
And kinetic, and so he is getting to.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Have some fun with us.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
So that's great. Here another comment from Don Don says,
because Don earlier in the conversation said that Evil used
to come to Arty Arty G's in the eighties. That's
a Chicago bar. We watched v Evel uh together one night,
and then he said he landed in the Dunes parking
lot after the bike hit three times. He said they

(21:57):
didn't pay for the appearance. Jesus God. I remember. I
think it was the London one with the double decker
buses where Wembley and he spilled, but he got up
and he addressed the audience and then he passed out. Basically,
was that the event where that happened.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah, well so so not the only time that happened,
but it most famously happened at Wembley. I mean Wembley
was you know, there were one hundred thousand people there
in the seventies and yeah, yeah, man, he and Ali,
He and Ali owned the seventies.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
As far as why all the sports goes, so yeah,
I think the other times that well, the sports was
top rated. If it wasn't Evil Can Evil, it was
either Ali maybe the Harlem Globe Trotters, but more likely
an Ali fight and Evil can evels.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
So no, you're right, man, yeah, yeah, yeah, those are
the three definitely, yeah, but but yeah, I mean the yeah,
the the bouncing into the Dunes parking lot is like,
you know, they're just there were one hundred of those
where he was just a sound bite machine and uh
and and and people love those things. And again when
you're you're doing a comic book, he kind of collect
these things and.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
You and you drop them in, you drop them in,
and you.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Know, it just acted its people.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
In like a beautiful way.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
And yeah, well and also I I appreciate And is
this going to be in do you do you want
to make this an ongoing?

Speaker 2 (23:08):
What is what is?

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Or is it a miniseries you do want to make?

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Well? Yeah, yeah, So we're starting with one arc and
you know it's it's you know, it's about you know,
it's about contracts in the beginning and all that stuff. Uh.
And so we're starting with a four issue arc. But
if if Kelly.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Uh will uh you know, will let.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
Me, I will do this until I, you know, until
I slam into a bus myself. Uh and and and
and you're you're already picking it out, you know, and
your and your your listeners are already picking it out
where it's like, oh, well, you know, well you got
to do a Wembley thing and you've got to do this.
I would love to do give me four issues of
evil in uh in England. You know that is a

(23:47):
story because when he lands in England, uh, the promoters
had sold three thousand tickets and he was supposed to
jump in like a week and a half. He and
he's got but yeah, and he immediately fires a promoters
and takes it up himself and he starts this tour
where basically he does all these TV shows. He uh,

(24:10):
you know, he's insulting England and British customs and standards,
and he's hitting golf balls in the Thames River and
he's you know, he uh, but I'm there were one
hundred thousand people.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Sure, No, no, no, honestly, and also not ironically I
mentioned DOLLI I knew they were friends, and in fact,
I think they were even repped at one point by
the same publicity people and everything. And know they they
were the best promoters of their own stuff. So no,
it made it made perfect sense. And again I remember, sadly,
the last jump that he did before he retired finally

(24:46):
was here in Chicago and it was over over the
Shark Tank, which was yeah, which I understand live shark,
but you know it was it wasn't that spectacular. But
that's all right, man. You know he was near. He
wanted to end off on a win and make it.
You know what else is interesting, right? You know about
the movie that was on the Disney Channel streaming Disney

(25:07):
Plus called Stuntman where at my Frank Kurt Matila, the
filmmaker made a documentary about a guy who built a
jet bike to really cross the Snake River and everything.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
You know. Yeah, yeah, you know, you know, I met
a guy at San Diego Comic Con who who was
you know, who was some sort of producer on that film,
and yeah, the guy that actually went and did it afterwards.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, I need.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
To watch it. Yeah, that's good. That's yeah, that was
a good well.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
And and again growing up with Evil again, I had
the toy. I mean, come on, man, I mean it
was it was literally like one of the greatest toys
of the seventies. And you know, you'd crank it up
and it would pop wheelies and you could make you
could have it a run on your Hot Wheels track
and you know they jumps and everything. No, it was
a great toy. And again, like you said, he was,

(25:54):
he was a real life superhero, no question.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, I mean it's still you know, it's still maybe
the biggest selling toy of all time. There there are
Instagram accounts that are wonderful. There's there's one that is
the gold standard called Porter's Evil Jumps, and it is
just a guy who makes videos of you know, jumping
his evil can Eevil toys. He uh he sets up

(26:17):
ramps and he you know, puts interesting things between the ramps,
and he'll have him jumping out windows and and he
I mean, you know, and this guy has you know,
I don't know what he has, one hundred thousand followers
or something like that. It's like it's a wonderful account. Uh.
And yeah, those toys are still big business.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Well beyond beyond Dave, you have other uh you know,
great variant covers that you're offering as well. Who's this artist?

Speaker 2 (26:41):
That is John Pinto And that is a guy that
I just discovered online. John is a John is a
really great uh you know graphic artist in general, just
works professionally, and uh, he was he was drawing Evil
Canevil just just a huge fan like us. And he
was just drawn Evil can Evil in the spare time.
And you know, the first thing you do when you

(27:02):
are looking for artists to go to work on this thing,
it's like, okay, well what's out there?

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Sure I was.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
I was stunned at how little was out there, and
you know, fan art and whatnot, just guys drawn and.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Their But yeah, but again I can kind of because
again I honestly right, I think because you're a BMX
guy and stuff, it's not. And I'm saying, this is
an old guy who again experienced the original generation of it.
So yeah, unfortunately on a sight out of mind. So
it doesn't surprise me that even people that are into
bikes and everything may not think of it. But god,

(27:37):
look how if everyone's watching for the audio video viewers
video viewers, of course they're viewing their video. It's no,
it's reminiscent of reb Brown's nineteen seventy nine design of
his Captain America costume that he had in the terrible
made for TV first Marvel movie, you know, and thankfully
they fixed it. And do we know if Evil modeled

(28:00):
his costume after any sort of Captain America vibe? Obviously
very patriotic. Yeah, it's very patriotic.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
I mean, I think more than anything, he was trying
to get as far away from the black leathers as
seemingly possible, and he was trying to drape himself in
the red, white and blue more than anything. Yeah, I
don't know. I have never heard him talk about and
I've never heard Kelly talk about Captain America. Like, I
don't know that those are guys that you know, we're
big comic book people in general. Yeah, but but yeah,

(28:31):
I was gonna ask you drew this one that is
flops and and Flops has done some really amazing covers. Recently,
he did a cancer cover that everybody flipped for, and
he has just done covers from for some friends and
just has like a really interesting different graphic style and

(28:53):
and I mean he letters on his own and he
has just kind of like a you know, there's there's
just humor.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
And sas it all and uh, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I think he really captured something that you know, gives
a gives a different spin on it. And then this is, uh,
you know, this is gold standard. This is Ray Anthony Height,
Marvel DC artist and just a just a really close
friend and uh, one of just one of the best
guys I've ever met in comics and cool. And you know,
it's funny because it's like you, I I work with

(29:22):
a lot of foreign artists, right.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
And uh, and they draw the hell out of out of.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Out of stuff, but evil we've been hinting at this
is a distinctly American hero, right, And so you get
people who could draw him, but they don't get it.
But then there are certain guys like Dave Acosta, like
like Ray Anthony Height, where I just I just let
slip in conversation, hey I have the evil evil license,

(29:48):
and their eyes get this big and they're like, you know, Ray,
Ray's like, oh, well, you got to do this and
you got to make sure you get this in and
you gotta and He's going on and on and on
and then and the conversation ends with him basically.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
Being like, hey, uh, you and I are going to
fight if I don't.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Get to do a cover.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
So that makes it.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Easy, very nice.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yea god.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
I even remember that pinball machine that I was just
showing on screen. Uh now, he was a big, big
deal for for you know, more than a decade. Literally, Yeah,
I don't blame you, and I I was gonna say,
literally fifteen years something like that.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, okay, yeah, every now and then your microphone gets
soft on me.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
All right, no worries, man, we'll figure it out. But
I uh, I know I when I saw that you
were doing this campaign, immediately I'm like, well, how I
love talking about evil and evil, so I'm happy to
do it. You also have for the Kickstarter. I'm gonna
go back to it some really cool other things, including
your love of well first of all, here let's even
get to some posters and things that you that you

(30:55):
were offering. So bring that back up there we go.
But yeah, talk about these.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, so these were done. Uh, we have a we
have this. Uh she is actually the uh you know,
half Evil comics went from me doing some comics to uh,
to me doing a lot of comics, to me starting
to publish other people's comics. Were releasing a book soon
but from.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
David ABALONEI we have signed.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Another book that I can't talk about just yet. But
then also we started to acquire pieces.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Of of i P like Evil and Evil, and uh.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
We're actually we're closing a deal on a new i
P this week. That's bigger, that's batter, that's crazier, that's awesome.
And one of the key components of all that has
been our executive better editor, Arie Nelson, who's who's just great.
She was I knew her from the film world, was
a development executive for a really long time and just

(31:49):
uh just brings an energy and and but she's also
she's also like a top notch graphic artist, and so
these became her pet projects where she went and she
found these are actual historical event posters that were lost
to history, and sometimes there just exists, like a photograph

(32:11):
of one in the background or something like that. Sure,
and and she went in and she painstakingly restored these.
And so we have we have one poster from the
Caesars Palace and and the twist on that historically is
that he was supposed to jump three times and and
and and the poster says that repeaated attempts on January

(32:32):
third and January sixth, but obviously, like the first one,
didn't go, so he ended up in the hospital. And
you could talk about whether whether it happened or not,
but the story is he was in a coma from
twenty nine days up to the first jump, and then
the and then the other one is from his motorcycle
Daredevil's days, which is before he was jumping on his own.

(32:54):
He had a stunt show and he had he traveled
with a stunt troop and there was a you have
someone called Butch the midget Daredevil, which I know is
not the preferred nomenclature now, Butch was a little person. However,
that is what the original poster said. And so that
is what our poster says, and so sure, yeah, and

(33:15):
so these have been again painstaking me restored. They are
twelve by six. They're putting on archival paper. They are
going to look gorgeous in a frame. Behind me. I
have actually one of the original kind of hand drawn
Snake River Canyon posters all that.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Let me see. I will zoom in stand by.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, I can even I can maybe pull it closer.
But but yeah, yeah, so, I mean, these things look
beautiful and if you're a fan.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Wow, yea, yeah, look at that.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
But yeah, that's actually, you know, an original from the seventies.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Very cool.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, and it's beautifully framed. But we tried as hard
as we could to live up to that standard. And
so and so for the first you can kind of
see in the back and you know, I love my
I love my event posters. I have my Hogan and
Flair uh signed wrestling bill back there. We're trying to

(34:07):
give you something beautiful to hang on the wall, something
worthy of it.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Yeah that's great.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, kind of a museum piece. And I think that
if we kind of get our way, then they're actually
gonna sell these in the museum afterwards. Because we did
screw because Rachel because Alary Nelson did such a good
job restoring them. So so that's cool, definitely something.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
You're also you're also given you've also got pins that
you're that you're selling and these look great. They got
the van and the uh and again your your buddy's
caricature of evil as pins. That's cool.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, those are from John Pinto and yeah, a little
little gold trim, little silver trim. Yeah, great stuff.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Very cool. And then and then underneath it again I'm
not surprised given that you're a skape guy. Uh, show
the skateboards that you are offering here we are as
the first one, Yeah, that first one right underneath go
but yeah, tell us about please.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah. Well, and that first one is from the King's
Island Jump. That's that's when he jumped fourteen greyhound buses
and landed, you know, and then retired for the second time.
He retired a few times after that.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
And then and then you know, everybody.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Loves this Pinto drawing, so we did kind of a
cartoony checkerboard version of that. People seem to like a lot.
And yeah, and you know, if you told me when
I was ten that I would be designing Evok and
Evil skateboard decks. That would kind of lease my mind.
But yeah, so little dream come true there, so very cool.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
And then yeah, you can also get giant collections of
the extra stuff that the extra merch that Rise offering
here and get a swag pack for one hundred and
forty or even a nice mini pack with posters and
whatever cover you want in a pin for seventy bucks.
So that's cool. And then you get everything for one
hundred and eighty bucks. Now I don't blame you, man,

(35:52):
this is this is great. This is great. And then
even some original art hand run ink level prints as well.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, yeah, we got I'm well those are actually hand drawn,
handing drawing the originals. Ok, yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll get
the original.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Uh that that's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
But a lot of interesting art tiers we have if
you scroll down, Yeah, please go keep Yeah, yeah, one
of my this is one of my favorite ones. So
this is a photo with Evil, and so you send us,
you send us your picture and uh, you know, we
have an artist not be the ideas, who's who's doing
a lot of the Uh, there will be short stories
in the book. He's doing the short stories, but he

(36:32):
will actually draw you, you and yours in next to
in next to Evil, and uh he does a really
great job and it's really awesome and you know, we're
people are flipping for these and then you know, if
you know the history, evils obviously in his ear, but uh,
we meaning we and then that's uh, that is that's
already Nelson there, that's the executive the happy Evil executive editor.

(36:54):
We are in the motorcycle Daredevil's leathers, so we are
part of the Sun team. That's the idea. And so
if you know the history, it's a team photo with
evil and it has a lot of meaning and you know,
and you'll get your name on the on the leather
and and all that stuff, and people are having a
lot of fun with it. And after you.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Again, yeah, I'm sorry, guy, we got we have this delay. Obviously,
I didn't mean to interrupt.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
You.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Finish your thought and then I'll talk.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
No, no, no, go ahead, I think, yeah, we're we
are having a weird delay. Yeah, yeah, I think I
thin think I can finish my thought.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well after you cover. And again, if it sounds it
sounds like you might be spending several issues on each
jump leading up to it in the jump itself. But
I wondered would there be room to tell fictionalized stories
kind of like Viva Ca and Evil, because no, I
get it man again, Uh, he represents a great portion

(37:53):
of the country. And I always say that backdrop, that
smoky in the banded sort of backdrop is rife for comics.
For a while, it seemed like in the two thousands,
when I was getting into podcasting, there were attempts of
nicking country stars in the in the kind of guys
of like Burt Reynold's Bandit, that kind of guy that's

(38:14):
finding himself in the adventures. And I've always been surprised
that there weren't more of those. And I know that
there it doesn't matter where you're from regionally, there's a
lot of Ye again, you came from Detroit, love and
Evil and Evil. I'm in Chicago, so we're certainly not
in the South, but we love this shit. So yeah,
I'm surprised there are more things like that. But would
you do fictionalized adventures.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Of evil as well? But I mean, I think the
answer is we're doing it already. We're doing both. So
the idea is that we are doing Smoking a Bandit,
but it takes place against the backdrop of you know,
of Caesar's Palace, Like from from Caesar's Palace to Snake River,
there is the Smoking the Bandit like an adventure that
is happening, that is playing out piece by piece, And

(38:58):
so you're gonna get a little bit of both. How Iver. Yes,
the more we build it out, the more tangents will
be able to take and the less well, once we
have firmly established the history, the less we'll have to.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Kind of lean on it.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
But but yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Hear a couple of comments from the crowd here. T
two says he had the Marvel Evil comic as a
child in the seventies, and Jeremy says, as a kid
Evil and the Globetrotners where yeah, it must see events
on wide world of sports. And Carrie says this sounds
like so much fun. I'll put it in our crowdfunding
segments tomorrow night. Yes, carry is part of the splash

(39:37):
Pages podcast. You so there you go, man, Yeah, absolutely,
and yeah, she's impressed with the add ons that you're
doing so very cool man, excellent.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, that that original Marvel comic is funny. I mean,
I have it right here, and who.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Who was it? Yeah? Who drew it? Who wrote it? Uh?

Speaker 2 (39:57):
This is I think that Shana Ramada who did the cover.
Let me open it up. But yeah, but it is
where are the I think general monitored to cover, but
I'm looking for the actual so here. So here's the
thing is that this is not a standard Marvel comic.
This is this was so Ideal Toys, the makers of

(40:18):
Evil and Evil Toys we were talking about, uh, commissioned
Marvel to do this thing. It was never sold, it
was it was a single issue. It was given away
at basically like toy store events. It says, it says
free right there and yeah yeah, and so the story

(40:40):
isn't much Evil Classes Classes are the bad guy. But
really what it is is that it is an instruction manual.
It teaches you how to acquire and play with the
Ideal Toys. Hilarious, It's very hilarious. And it's like, you know,
a guy comes with a problem and he's like he's like,
you know, hey, join me inside my Scramble van, you know,

(41:01):
and we'll have some refreshments. And then the voice of
God is like evil canevils Scramble band is what is
available at fine you know, toys r US stores everywhere,
and so it's that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
The funny thing is as a historical document, uh, the
Evil Caneveland Museum. Guys and I have talked about this,
you know, we talked about this at San Diego Comic
on the stage, and this is it's it is this
important piece of history because when I was growing up
in the eighties, all of the children's programming. You talk
about he Man, you talk about G I. Joe, you

(41:32):
talk about transformers. It followed this model. It was like
it was, you know, here are the toys, you know,
here's the new line. Let's introduce new characters. Here's how
you play with them, go out and get them. That
was all of children's entertainment when I was growing up,
right down the curtain too, you know. Yeah, and uh
and and so but this is the O G Yeah,
they were figuring out how to do it well.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Also, I I've certainly talked over the years with a
lot of friends who have finally broken through with the
big too. And a lot of times Robert Atkins, great example,
wonderful G I. Joe artist and everything. I remember when
he was doing special comic projects for Marvel, and one
was an Avengers comic for dentists for the American Dental Association.
So yeah, those kind of things exist. But yeah, it

(42:15):
was smart, that ideal, you know, realize, And again it
was both companies. It wasn't just Marvel. When Marvel and
DC had those back covers of the stuff that I
showed before, you know, the ads like this, you know again,
I mean that was that was prime in seventy two,
seventy three, in that era.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah, so yeah, it's interesting. Look, they were doing them.
They were doing them not too long ago. Even I remember,
you know, my friend Dave DeLange was you know he
did he did some sort of NFL superhero thing like
you know, not even oh yeah eight years ago or
something like yeah, no, I remember that.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
And Subway Subway recently had a tie in like that. Yeah.
The best example, the craziest example, and I know my
friend Marty Pasco used to even have a couple issues
of it. Some wealthy guy, two of his sons, they
they might have been twins, but there was a bar
Mitzvah and they commissioned d C to make a special

(43:06):
Superman adventure with his sons in it, and it was
Kerry it was Kurt Swan. I don't know who wrote it,
but it was Kurt Swan and Kerry Bates or Kurt
Swan and Murphy Anderson art in the thing. So it
looked like a seventy Superman comic. You can find him
on eBay every now and then. But yeah, that's uh yeah,
those kind of real things. Joe thinks one of us

(43:26):
must be Evil can Eevil. He says, evil You stopped
at a local bar and some of Illinois called Chester's
book looks great, So there you go. Neither of us
are evil, but I'm sure the spirit of evil appreciates
your remembering. Joe. Kelly, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Man
about Kelly and everything? Is Kelly helping you out as
far as the kick started making the rounds?

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, yeah, Kelly and I are in touch every day,
and uh and Evil can Evel fans are.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Very uh, you know, they're they're.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Very enthusiastic and yeah, you know, yeah. It's the beauty
of this beating this from a business standpoint is that,
you know, comic fans get excited about it, and my
fans get excited about it. But being able to with
a normal Kickstarter campaign, right, well, your fans show up
on day one and then it's kind of an autopilot
and they trickle in slowly but surely, and you can't

(44:17):
really go out every day and grab fans. But with
this one, every day you wake up, go out and
activate new Evil Canevel fans in different places that aren't
necessarily used to going to Kickstarter or going to a
comic book shop that sort of thing. And and it
helps of course that well we don't just have comics,
we also have all this other cool swag and and

(44:37):
and these kind of really interesting, you know, evil experiences
that you can have. I mean one of the things,
you know, when you get down to our kind of
crazier tiers, you can actually there was a tier where
you get to, you know, have one on one zooms
with Kelly Kniebel and ask them all your even Canevil questions.
We have a kin to your Superman comic that you

(44:59):
were talking about. But uh, there is a tier where
we will make a we will do a five page
Evil can Eevil story set in the world of the
comic book where you are you are the star, you
are a member of the Motorcycle Daredevils and you are
interacting with people can eevil, you can be you can
be drawn into the book, you can uh And there
are a lot of people who are very excited about that.

(45:19):
It's like, oh, well I get to I get to
come in and so uh one of the kind stuff
and and so we're trying to give that. But but yeah,
so it's so every every day we wake up and
Kelly helps us activate some new people because you know,
he knows it's He's just like a matchmaker. It's like, well,
these people they want this stuff, they don't know it exists,
and so he introduces them to it. That's all he

(45:39):
does is he just leads in the water.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
So tell me about the movie side, Ryan, last time
I talked to you, you were heard heard from you.
I think you were in Italy film making Uh some
sort of action film, am I right?

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Uh? Yeah, Well we had a we had a film
that was a sci fi joint called State of Consciousness
that starred Emil Hirsch uh and that was the that
was the number two movie on Peacock Class summer. Uh.
I did another movie in Greece with a Spanish director
named Fernando Chueba, who won the Oscar for Foreign Language

(46:13):
Film a few years back with Bella Poke. We had
Matt Dylan in that one, and uh, I like that
film a lot better than the other one. Uh that
is on streamers now, you know, it was in theaters
for a while. What what streamers? You can find Haunted
Heart everywhere? State of Consciousness is at the very least

(46:36):
on Peacock, but it might be it might just be
everywhere now. Also, I haven't checked in a while.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Okay, but Unted Heart is it on Pluto? Is it
on Two B? Is it on you know?

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Yeah? I mean tell me, tell me the streamers? Well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
certainly Amazon Prime, certainly, ok yeah, yeah, yeah, certainly, it's
probably on Netflix. It's probably you know, it's some of
the bigger ones. I don't think it's on you know,
the Pluto's and the two B's when uh uh yeah, yeah,
those become different deals and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
But I know, I.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Really really well again, I do have I do have
other filmmakers on and you'll forgive me. But I assumed,
given that it was probably a lower budget film, even
with the Nicolas cage, that it might go to the
fast channels immediately, you know, and not and not beyond
the amazons of the Netflix and anything.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
So I apologize, no, no, no, there is there is no
sorting through.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
It, uh these days now, I mean.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Both both of them have theatrical releases.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
But the theatrical.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Businesses is you know, you know, yeah, I've been you know,
even Ghostbusters is flopping at the box office.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
So Spinal Spinal Temp too is flopping at the box
office the first weekend, and and it blew my mind.
It literally only made a million and a half bucks
its first weekend. And I know it's you know, a
limited audience per se, but you know, you figured maybe
at least ten million or something like that. So no,
I get it.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Nobody's going to the movie anymore. And the streamers have
made it really difficult to do anything. But I mean,
you know, that's the thing is, is you want to
talk about why I'm you know, why I get to
do Evil Caneveal comic books right now? It's so I
had I had what was about the best year of
my career, Like in Hollywood, I had two movies at theaters,
I sold the TV show with three big stars attached

(48:20):
to it, and it used to be that a guy
has a year like that and uh and he works
for about ten years off of that. Sure, but you
know that that at the very least he has a
little momentum strike streamer of the organization, COVID all the
stuff that's happening right now. Basically, I don't know how

(48:44):
to make money off the product right now, and so
there's very little being made.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
And you know, I know, I mean, you.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Know, Avaloni's wife is.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
A is a Union.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Seamstress, like top of her game, and she did like
she worked on like Star Wars Star Trek the Card
than then Loki and Or and has like Hall of
Fame run for her and then the next year she
worked twelve days.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yeah, and that's that's yeah, no, no, but all I
get it. What's your television show? Is that out there?

Speaker 2 (49:20):
It is not out there? It is it's still at
the studio, okay, you know you know, uh, the actors
are still lined up to do it, but there is
not there's not like it in Greenlit right now. If
you look at them, there are I don't know, like
a fraction of the of the TV shows that that
there were even two three years ago. Right now.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
No, no, I and and truly people that have gotten
consistent television made guys like Googenheim, who's very vocal about
how things are right now, and you know, he had
ten years with the CW and Eli Stone is ABC
Legal Show, and god, I even remember how COVID screwed
him over. He was going to reboot a law La

(50:00):
Law for ABC and they shot a pilot and he
showed me the photos of the cast all together and everything,
and it's and it's a shame because there are a
lot of the much like a lot of these reboots,
some of the originals are coming back in everything and yeah,
gone gone, you know Rucca, Yeah, great show, Rucca with Stumptown,
you know, kind of got screwed by the strikes or

(50:22):
again maybe COVID again eighteen so but anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
it sucks man, And uh yeah, I guess it was
COVID that screwed him up with Stumptown.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah. I mean, they can't make money with Late Night now.
And I promise this is not a political rant. They
just simply cannot make money with the Lake r.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
A. I am a bleeding heart liberal and a broadcast
former broadcaster, although now I'm a podcaster, but I am
absolutely for first amendments. And by the way, this is
a bipartisan thing of freedom of speech. Sorry, because there
are Republicans that agree with the Dems that have this
issue as well. It isn't binary, like a lot of
our issues are, as much as they'd like you to

(51:02):
believe that. No, and it's no, but but there is
this economic reality about Late Night. But you know, even
the people that make fun of made fun of Jimmy Kimbo.
Oh he only has a one point three million viewers. Yeah,
he's got twenty two million people on YouTube. They'll watch him,
not to mention Hulu and I don't know if he's
on Disney or not. But also the other clips on
Facebook and Instagram, and it's like, no, it's I mean,

(51:24):
that's where the Sarai live bits really live, is streaming.
And yeah, again we know it. That's that's why I'm
here on YouTube everybody, I mean, and that's why a
lot of people that get screwed and out of their
broadcast jobs find themselves on doing streaming video like this.
So yeah, but you're right, No, that is a financial reality,
and that's why even existing contracts. I don't know if

(51:47):
the late the Late Night tenth, you know, eleven thirty
talk show is going to exist beyond everybody's existing contract
because the numbers aren't there anymore.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Yeah, not in the way that not in the way
that we grew up with, right, not the way that
you and I have known it for decades. Yeah, it's
gonna be something else. It's going to exist on YouTube,
ban Instagram or.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
The networks will find ways to make that money online,
and I'm sure they do now to a degree, but
certainly not what traditional advertisers. Everyone's gonna have to change
their way of thinking viewers, the media companies and the advertisers.
And that's why I right, I don't know about you,
but I laugh that Pluto and even Amazon have running

(52:30):
ads and Peacock running ads and stuff. But you know
they call them the fast channels, the free advertising supported
television or is the thing that you and I got
grew up with television. It's like, you know, they've been
they were doing it since the forties here in America,
having ad supported television. I'm really glad it took you guys,
you know, about ten years ago. Oh you know what

(52:52):
we ought to do. Wait a minute, I think commercials
were a good idea, and it's like, yeah, dumbass. You
guys are the idiots that thought you were going to
like live fat on the hog with subscribers.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
It's like, no, not enough, man, No, not at all.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
I mean we're at this interesting place where it's you know,
and I feel like I feel like you and I
did some version of this year's before you ended up here,
and I started, you know, I started making books on
my own and.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
I described a book as you and David also have
your own podcasts, right.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Yeah, exactly. But you know, and I think it's what
it's what the Jimmy Kimmel's in the world will have
to contend with. Where it's like, well, so here's the
thing is, like, there is this misconception that Jimmy Kimmel
needs ABC as a platform, and he doesn't. I mean,
here's the thing is what is going to bring Jimmy
Kimmel back? And Jimmy Kimmel they announced, of course that
he's coming back tomorrow night, and I'm interested, I'm going

(53:47):
to be there. But the reason Jimmy Kimmel will come
back is because there are two hundred and fifty people
that worked for him that need those jobs, and because
of COVID, because of the strike, they did not have
those jobs for a long time. He feels the need
to protect those people, their livelihood, their families, and so

(54:07):
he will come back for a period of time at
the very least for them. However, the networks don't realize
is that Jimmy Kimmel is the platform. You know, you know,
ESPN did this. ESPN chipped away at itself for years.
It was the place for sports, and it was because
they had all the best people, you know, you know,

(54:28):
the Bill Simmons's you know, you showed up because that's
where they were, and that was where you were going
to get the top notch analysis, that's where you were
going to get the fun stuff, the debate, all that stuff.
And they slowly chipped away at it. They they were
defending a brand rather than the people, and the people
slowly but surely left and they all splintered off and

(54:48):
they all found their own way. And literally like two
years after Bill Simmons, they kicked Bill Simmons out the door.
He was selling his brand to Spotify for two hundred
and fifty million dollars. He revolutionizes podcasting, after revolutionizing the
sports documentary, after revolutionizing long form journalism in sports, and

(55:09):
really had him, yes.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Yes, and they didn't know what they had the Gramlin
his satellite website for sports journalism that he had under ESPN. No, man,
I saw the whole thing. And again, you know, I
came from sports broadcasting thirty years here in Chicago, and
so no, I get it. And it's a shame that
the big comedia companies don't. And also, yeah, I agree

(55:34):
with you. You know, they'll they'll write out whatever the
current cont crack they have with Kimmel, and that's great,
and Kimmel will be able to take care of his staff.
You know, the dirty little secret is you don't need
that big of a staff to do what we're doing.
And he will absolutely if he wants to, and he
wants to do some sort of I mean, look what
Katie Kirk is doing it herself. And you know, there
was a woman that always had networks behind her and stuff.

(55:56):
Now she does it on her own. I'm sure she
doesn't have more than ten people helping her with her podcast,
which really is no different than what you and I
are doing right now. Two video boxes talking to each other.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Yeah and yeah, and you know, you become the platform.
That's what happens. Is is what happened with comic books,
where it's like, we're you know, so for years you
had five companies. Those companies are run by you know,
fifty year old white guys that all had a specific taste,
and you step to go and ask their permission to
make your book. And if they didn't give you permission,
your book didn't get made. Nobody ever saw it. But

(56:29):
now you know, I can make this book, whatever book
I want to do, no matter you know, no matter
what kind of protagonists I want to have, what kind
of story I want to tell, who I love, what
my politics are, I will find an audience for it.
I can take it directly to the consumer. I become
the thing. And here's the thing is, like, you know,
it is almost impossible to make money putting comics in
comic book shops. There are a handful of people that

(56:52):
actually make money doing it, most of us.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
It is a a.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Love thing, a passion thing. But right now my evil
can Eevil book and I actually make some money making
my Evil can Eevil book myself taking it directly to consumer.
I became the platform. I get to pick which story
I write. I'm not writing something for money.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
I'm not, you know.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
And and because I feel like the I feel like
the readers, they see it the passion. You don't have
the love. I don't want to just write something. I
wanted to write something that I was in love with
and I wanted to share that with people who are
also in love with it. And and and they will
know immediately this is not some you know, this is
not just some rando who needed a job and is

(57:36):
getting paid fifty dollars a page to crank out an
evil can Eevil oil slick. You know, this is a
This is a labor of love. I put up my
own money to get the property, you know, pay the
artists myself. And there's just like a lot of love
and and you know, just enthusiasm in it.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
I get it. No, absolutely, man, that's great. And do
you want to should we release people to your your
in print? I'm sure half Evil Comics has their website
and your and in addition to that, there are also
tears for the Evil can Eevil comic that that you
are selling your other books as well. Correct, Yeah, you
can get the entire half Evil library, you know, and
uh and you know.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
We uh havepy evil comics.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
We want a Ringle Award.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
We were nominated for six others. We were nominated for
Best Series alongside Bitter Root and something s Killing.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
The Children, you know.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Uh, and so it is a it's a good library,
you know mostly uh you know, big poppy action books.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Uh you're all zoom in again.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah, okay, Well we did a uh yeah, I did
a uh you know, political thriller called Aberant that want
won a Ringle Award. Ban Jacks is our dark superhero
noir that was nominated for for four Ringos, including Best Series.
We did a Tokasatsu joint with Source Point Press called
Suicide Jockeys. And then also, you know, we we have

(59:00):
this uh we have this very real presence on on Kickstarter.
We do a lot of good kind of like Black
Marr Eskus five books. We have a National Projection.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
Thriller called The Jump.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
We have another kind of.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Black Marry joint called The Breach. And we did a
Fargo West crime drama called The Peacekeepers. Yeah, in line
with but but they're good books, uh, you know, great
artists and just a lot of love and enthusiasm in them.
So uh yeah, we're we're everywhere, uh you know, at
half Evil Comics at Ryland Graham is a good place

(59:34):
to look to, and yeah we're out there, and uh,
you know, we have her own YouTube channel. We do
the uh you alluded to it, but uh, David.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Abaloni and I do a we.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Do a business of comics podcast different from this one. Uh,
we're it's just kind of creators. Uh you know, Uh,
the conceit is it is creators grabbing a beer after
a day on the con floor and so just kind
of creators talking shop. And uh, we start out with
a business subcomics podcast and then usually we end up
arguing about Star Trek captains, which yeah, maybe isn't too

(01:00:06):
different from this one.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
But but but but.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
Yeah, I certainly did. There's certainly my share of Star
Trek talk on this channel. Absolutely. Who's your who's your
favorite captain?

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
I'm a I'm a Jeann Muckoocard guy.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
There's nothing wrong with that. I'm I'm a Ben Cisco guy.
But you know, I'm also OJ So you know, I
got room for both Kirk and Pickards, so that's all right.
And and Jay you know, I'm kind of the father
Flanagan of Star Trek. Well, I was gonna say there's
no such thing as a bad Star Trek. Captain New
Trek has proven me wrong. I will leave it at that.
And unfortunately, I will say, because I've certainly been shitting

(01:00:41):
on strange New Worlds this season, I'm so disappointed for
the promise of a great Captain Pike show. And I
can literally still on while on two hands now maybe
count six episodes of the three seasons that we've got
that I'm like, all right, that was good Star Trek,
not great Star Trek, but good Star Trek. And I'm
always I'm always hopeful. I'm always you know, maybe I'll

(01:01:02):
like next week's episode. And Prodigy knocked me out, and
you know, the Bens and sisters who were writing on
season one. I'm a tremendous fan of what Hageman did
with that show, and I think it's a very smart show,
especially given that it was made for Nickelodeon.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
I think it was smarter than a few of the
on camera shows. Frankly, so interesting. Anyway, Yeah, you know again,
but this is a rare thing. This is not a
Star Trek podcast, so I'll leave my countents there, but no, Rick,
congratulations man, I mean I know you you're more than
halfway over what you wanted to be at, but you
still have three weeks to go, and so there's plenty

(01:01:39):
of time for people to jump on this Evil can
Eevil kickstarter campaign. And again, I think it looks great.
Dave ad Costa's art looks fantastic, the variant covers look cool,
and it's a great subject that certainly I can attest.
It's one of my favorite twentieth cent pieces of twentieth
century pop culture history, and it's it's a fun story
and a lot of potential for great story ideas. So

(01:02:01):
I envy you, and then also good luck with it.
I think that's great man.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Yeah, thanks so much. Yeah, we had a lot of
fun doing it, and I think you'll see that. So
tune in, come make the jump with us. There you go, everybody,
thanks a lot. Tomorrow. I had a commercial earlier for
the Word Balloon Book Club. If you are a patron
of a part of the League of Word Balloon listeners
at the three dollars or higher tiers, we're going to
do a zoom. We're going to record a zoom tomorrow night,

(01:02:27):
so won't be live, but I will be playing it
once we record it. And we're talking about Brian Azerrello
and Eduardo Risso's one hundred Bullets Volume one with Dave
Johnson covers, and that's going to be a great subject.
It's Brian Venness myself. I know Mike Choy will be
joining us, I know Eric Plecki will be joining us.
And you can join us as well well if you're
a member of Venness's discord or a patron of word

(01:02:49):
Balloon Patreon dot com slash word Balloon.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
So that's coming tomorrow. Thanks everybody. Until next time, stay safe,
stay happy, stay healthy.