September 1, 2025 • 34 mins
Titans of industry David Finch (Batman, New Avengers) and Robert Kirkman (Invincible, The Walking Dead) join Dave to discuss their long-awaited new project, Skinbreaker.
Eight years in the making, the comic reflects their shared creative impulses, dynamic world-building, and love of character design, with invaluable contributions from colorist Annalisa Leoni. They reflect on sources of inspiration, the power of simplicity in storytelling, and details behind the book’s deluxe newsprint treasury edition.
Dave shares with Robert why he threw Walking Dead across the room, plus, Metallica!
Skinbreaker is out September 24 at comic stores everywhere!
Join my new PATREON- https://www.patreon.com/davengersdirectedition
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
There's this two page spread in issue 2 where there's a crowd in
the background and I spend hourslike zooming in on that spread
and just looking at each individual character.
Because each individual character has their own way of
dressing and their own personality and these very
unique expressions on their face.
And I feel like there's a story to each and every one of these
(00:20):
characters, and that's not something that you see in most
comics. Hi there.
Welcome back to Direct Edition, a podcast about nothing and
everything. I'm your host, Dave.
Well, the anxiety and stress is finally settled on today's
interview with Robert Kirkman and David Finch.
(00:43):
Typically I don't even jump right into it this quick, but my
gosh, what an opportunity I had to talk to both Robert and David
at the same time about their newbook coming out September 24th,
Skin Breaker. I've had the chance to read the
book a couple of Times Now. It is beautiful.
It's God. David Finch's art is impeccable.
(01:09):
And big thank you to Shannon with Skybound for setting it up.
It's a shorter interview becausethey were on a press blitz
today, much like my first interview with Danny Warner
Johnson. But we got into depth about the
story a little bit, the characters, but the design, the
look of it, David's art. I really wanted to hear what
David have to had to say about the influences he had on his
(01:31):
sleeve while he was doing this. The work with the colorist that
was being done, Robert's genesisfor the story and the excitement
that they both share for this book.
I, I can't, I can't tell you howexcited I am for people to, to
get this in front of them, especially myself.
I can't wait to read the treasury size edition on the
(01:53):
deluxe new Sprint. I can't wait to see it and hold
it. And just in person.
I'm a big fan of Robert's work going back to The Walking Dead,
although I admittedly tell him how certain characters death
made me feel and the reaction that happened after it happened.
And he has been responsible for my favorite superhero book of
(02:13):
all time. And that's that bad boy over
there, Invincible, which I have read twice in its entirety.
I am in love with what's going on with the animated show, which
Robert is show running. And Robert's done so many great
books over the years. Outcast.
And now he's doing Void Rivals and soon to be doing
Transformers, taking over for West Coast Avengers Slash,
Direct Edition. Friend of the channel, Dana
(02:35):
Warren Johnson, that guy and David, his art I've been looking
at since I was probably in my late teens with the stuff he was
doing with Cyberforce and you know, they taking over for for
Sylvestre and doing some, some books with some other great
artists. But really exploded onto the
(02:59):
scene when he was doing the books for the Big 2, Moon Knight
and New Avengers. And he did some X-Men stuff and
obviously Batman. But the Moon Knight work really
stands out because Moon Knight is one of those characters does
not get the same kind of respectthat Daredevil gets.
But Moon Knight has been interpreted by so many great
writers and and more so great artists.
(03:22):
Bill St. Kevitch, Stephen Platt, David
Finch, Declan Shalvay. I'm probably missing one or two.
Alex Maleve. So, you know, just David's art
comes from that school of the, you know, Silvestri Top Cow.
And he's he just kind of seemed like head and shoulders above a
lot of others. And and he's such a great fella.
(03:45):
I use the word fella and Robert such an enthusiast for comics in
general, but obviously created two of the most popular creator
owned properties to come across in comics in the last two and 2
1/2 decades with Walking Dead and invincible.
And I think the the invincible pop culture status is just only
(04:06):
going to rise because the the animated show so good and the
battle beast book he's dealing with oddly right now is so good.
And you got a video game on the precipice and and just such a
fantastic, fantastic property. But this interview is about Skin
Breaker, and Skin Breaker is coming out, like I said,
September 24th, Image Comics andSkybound.
(04:27):
So why don't we just get to the interview with Finch and
Kirkman? Kirkman and Finch, Titans of
comics friends, welcome back today.
I have two Titans of the comic industry here today, David Finch
and Robert Kirkman. Just a couple of books that
they've been responsible for. David is an artist that has done
(04:49):
legendary work on Moon Knight, New Avengers, Batman, Walking
Dead Deluxe, and the guy Robert Kirkman.
He created Walking Dead as well as Invincible and the entire
Invincible universe. But we're here to talk about the
brand new book coming out September 24th and that is Skin
Breaker. Gentlemen, how are you doing?
Great. Yeah.
(05:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm excited to talk to you
both. And David, I just got back from
Canada actually not 24 hours ago.
So it was nice being in your country for a short 2 days.
Up in the West Coast, I'm. Guessing.
Yeah, I went to go see 9 Inch Nails up in Vancouver and then
ran back to do this interview. Awesome.
I wanted to talk a little about it now, but.
(05:32):
We'll do a later date later date.
So let's jump into it because this book is coming out next
month and I've read it twice nowand I want to just say a it's
gorgeous. I mean absolutely gorgeous piece
of work this first issue and I'mexcited to get to the second
because the story is extremely, extremely warranting me to flip
(05:56):
the page, except I'm done with the issue.
So I know you guys have wanted to work together for a long
time, and this book took eight years or so.
Robert, I wanted to ask you first, what's the seed of the
story like? Where does that come from?
Was it influenced by anything inparticular?
(06:19):
Some inspiration from Mad Max Fury Rd.
I like I like how simple that story is.
We have to go here to here and now we have to go here to here
and people are trying to stop us.
But as you're telling that story, it it it gets it, it
tells you so much more about theworld and it's like such a rich
environment that that's that's kind of fun.
I really love the movie Apocalypto.
(06:42):
That's that's definitely an inspiration.
I wanted to do something that had primitive characters and a
primitive society, but had a kind of brutality and, you know,
very simple story. And then when David contacted me
saying, you know, after years and years of us trying to get
together to work, that he was finally ready to do something.
(07:02):
I, I was looking at his recent work and was like, OK, what,
what, what's this guy like? Like, what, what is he?
What is he into? What's he drawing these days?
And he had done this run on Wonder Woman that had a swamp
thing guest appearance. And there is a splash page of
swamp Thing that I was just absolutely mesmerized by by.
And so I, I was looking at this page and I thought, I want an
entire comic book that looks like this.
(07:24):
I want, I want a jungle environment.
I want, I want scary looking creatures.
I, I want to do, you know, something like this.
And and that's kind of where it all came from.
Yeah, and it's for those of you that don't know, it's a tribal
family story that sucks you in pretty quickly, some power
dynamics and an interesting premise, which is the title of
(07:45):
the book Skin Breaker David for you influence wise.
I mean, I see certain things that I don't know are.
I see some Bernie, you know, on some of the backgrounds
especially, but yeah, in the design of it, the creatures I'm,
I'm more interested to know about your creature design and
(08:06):
where a lot of that comes from. That's actually a bit of a
tougher 1. I did a lot of looking around,
trying to find designs that I thought would, you know, work
for creatures. And I ultimately, I thought I
would rather that they look goofy than they just look like
everything else. And this is, to me, it's a real
(08:27):
problem with kind of the, the modern world, you know, not the
rail against modern, but yeah, it's hard to find something
different. And, you know, kaijus got
popular and everything looks like a Kaiju.
And I just thought, OK, I wantedthem to be different.
And so I just. But you know what?
(08:50):
I do know Frank quietly did authority, and there's a
creature in in the authority that is definitely an influence.
So there you go. Yeah.
So no, they're not totally out of my head.
I'm like giving you this whole story, but I made it all up.
Yeah, they're. You could.
(09:11):
It's, it's A and I, I will urge anybody that's reading this to
read it twice immediately, like almost within one day, because
reading it again, I started to notice some of the smaller
creatures you put in the background that are hopping
around or a bird flying in the background.
And it's and you know, I'm sure Robert, when you started to see
(09:31):
these pages, you're starting to notice stuff and you're like,
oh, oh, that's there and that's there.
I. I, I will say the, the, you
know, the eight years of production is, is becoming like
a key marketing thing that everybody's bringing up.
And, and it, it is a, a massive undertaking.
Like if you look at the, if you look at the pages, you know,
(09:54):
this is 567 pages worth of work on one page.
And that's kind of why the project took so long.
There's this two page spread in issue 2 where there's a crowd in
the background and I spend hourslike zooming in on that spread
and just looking at each individual character because
each individual character has their own way of dressing and
(10:16):
their own personality and these very unique expressions on their
face. And I feel like there's a story
to each and every one of these characters.
And that's not something that you see in most comics to have
so much detail put into background characters and little
creatures running around in the foreground and all, all all
these other things. It's a really rich and very
dense lived in world that David is built here.
(10:39):
It really, really is. And I urge everybody to just
really spend time looking at this artwork.
David, to you, was there a conscious decision so to to do
the artwork so large because these are, you know, double up
pages for single pages and quadruple pages for double
(11:00):
double splash pages. Did you just was that the
immediate thought to do it that way?
I'm a very impulsive person. It's and this was originally
going to be a much shorter story.
I was very excited to be able towork with Robert on this.
I didn't know that because it was short.
(11:23):
I thought this might be it. You know, this is kind of my
chance to to do something, you know, something that I can
creatively contribute to in a way that I can't drawing Batman.
You know, I love Batman, but so I, I just thought, OK, I, I want
to do everything I can to squeeze as much out of this as I
can. And so I, I thought I, I'm going
(11:45):
to draw on double size. And so I, I asked Robert and,
you know, apparently he's as impulsive as I am.
So he said, yeah, sure you want to do that, you know, And so
next thing you know, and you know, there, there have been
times that I've thought, wow, what's I thinking?
You know, but I've enjoyed it all eight years of it.
(12:07):
It's it's funny that we're bragging about 8 years now
because this has been like a shameful thing for me, for you.
Like, I can't believe it's takenso long and now all of a sudden
we're saying, yeah, see eight years.
Yeah, but it. Shouldn't.
It shouldn't be shameful though?It should be celebrated to To
put that level of care and effort into a project and see it
through to the end is remarkable.
You know, echoing that and talking about Bernie Wrights
(12:30):
and, you know, how long did Frankenstein take him?
I mean, and we all look at it like it's this, it's this thing
that how did another human do? That took him seven years.
Yeah, well, you're. Doing it up.
And I remember thinking, OK, first of all, I'm not Bernie
Wrightson, you know, and there'sno way this could possibly take
me that long. Here we are, eight years.
(12:52):
That that Frankenstein book doesn't have 200 some odd pages.
It's exactly. Illustrations here and there, so
there's there's not that many ofthem.
And to somebody, David, I mean some young people that didn't
don't know who Bernie Wrightson is, you are there, Bernie
Wrightson, you are that person that they've been looking at for
20 years wondering how does somebody draw like this?
(13:14):
Well, thank you, I. Well, hey, I'm, I'm here to, to
have some fun and, and you know,I'm, I really did love this book
and I'm excited for the for you know, what's coming the next
issue. So Robert, when you started
sending stuff, I know you've talked about it in interviews of
(13:34):
how much David's contribution started to shape the story even
more. Like I know this, you want to
talk about the sword. I mean, that seems to be the
biggest focal point of not just the book, but also one of the
changes that was made. Yeah, I mean, that was the
biggest addition when he drew that crystal sword on page just
232 page spread. Yeah.
(13:57):
It was just like, Oh my gosh, this is the coolest visual ever.
I, I, I want to know more about this sword.
I want to know what's happening with it.
And, and, you know, the book is called Skin Breaker.
It, it, that sword is the skin breaker.
And, you know, the ceremony that's in the first issue was
kind of present, but it didn't really involve the sword the way
it does. And, and then there's a lot of
(14:17):
mythology as the book goes on about the, you know, the
breaking of the sword and the shards from the from the larger
sword and, and all of that is from that image.
And that's the best example of David's influence on the book.
But it's far from the only one. You know, as the series went on,
yeah. I mean, different things about
different characters would wouldkind of influence the way I was
(14:40):
writing them. And, you know, it was a true
collaboration and that, you know, I'm writing stories and
inspiring his pages and his pages are then inspiring the
story. And as we're working together to
complete this project, we're, you know, volleying back and
forth and, you know, hopefully improving the product as we go.
But but yeah, I just took no endof inspiration from what David
(15:01):
was doing on this book while I was completing the story.
And David, when you first got the script, did you did you jump
into character design? I know we talked about the
monsters and creatures, but because the character design to
me was extremely unique as well,I'm looking at stuff that I can
be like, imagine these are images that people were thinking
(15:23):
of when they play Dungeons and Dragons, but there wasn't
anything out. Like some of these characters
kind of remind me of a what I would think of as a role-playing
character. Yeah, we, for a couple of months
before I really got started withpages, we went back and forth
with character designs and therewas a point where things got
(15:45):
much more inhuman, I guess. And I was pushing it pretty far
out there, just trying differentthings.
I, I don't know that I was really all that happy with any
of the the designs that I reallydid.
But I, I do know that they were starting to feel a little
(16:05):
unrelatable. And there's a point where I
think relatability and being able to, you know, put yourself
in the story was a, a factor we wanted to consider that Robert
wanted to consider. And so we, we kind of dialed
some things back and, and went with something a little bit, you
know, not human, but fairly close.
Yeah, close enough. And the story, this, this family
(16:29):
dynamic and the tribal, you know, trying to figure out who's
going to be the new leader, that's where the, you know, like
the relatability is. We all kind of feel that in our
families in one way or another, you know, and I know that's a
big portion of this is, is the family aspect.
Can readers expect a lot of the mix of the emotion and the
(16:53):
action throughout every issue? Is that something that was kind
of divvied up pretty evenly? Yeah, I mean, I think that's,
you know, that's kind of the secret sauce of everything that
I do, you know, making you care about the characters with some
fun family emotional stuff and then killing them.
Yeah, and destroying us. Yeah, you know, whatever I mean,
I don't mean to simplify it so much, but it is what it is.
(17:16):
But yeah, you can. Yeah.
I mean, the, the first issue is a very good indication of how
there's a balance of emotional storytelling and brutal action
and, and, you know, those dials move back and forth to, to, you
know, which one is going to be the dominant trait of the issue.
But you know, both elements are always present.
And I think that's important. You can't just do a book that's
(17:38):
all violence and action because then there's no meaning to it.
There's no feeling behind it. And you can't do a book that's
all emotion because then that's just going to be kind of dull.
And when you have that mix, whenyou have people invested in
these characters and worried about the outcome and, and, you
know, really loving them and, you know, feeling like you, you
(17:59):
understand them and why they're doing what they're doing, it
makes the, the hits and the, the, you know, down points like
so much more visceral and emotional and, and engaging.
So that's that's that's kind of the game.
Yeah, you've caused me to throw a couple of books across the
room. I definitely have.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of them was an omnibus.
It didn't really fare too well when it hit the wall, which
(18:20):
Omnibus did. You throw across the room.
It was the second Walking Dead. Glenn.
It was Glenn. Nice.
OK, so Glenn got you an omnibus throat.
I love it. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. But but I'm I, you know, I think
the this being an 8 issue, right?
It's an 8 issue mini or full story but I think.
(18:42):
I mean the issues are oversized and they're varying sizes and
page counts but but yeah it's a full 8 issues and the the first,
the last issue I think is the longest issue.
Yeah, I heard you talk about them all being varying different
page counts. So going into a little more of
the technical detail, we've got Annalise Leone, who's the
(19:04):
colorist on this, who did absolutely fantastic job.
And I know Robert, she's, you know, one of your your go to
favorites. But David working with her
because like, I've seen a lot ofyour original art and it's it's
amazing. And I think a lot of people have
gotten your work wrong color wise, or at least off.
I think this is exactly where it's supposed to be.
(19:25):
What were you working with her hand in hand?
Or did you just kind of let her RIP?
Or let her RIP. Yeah, yeah.
I keep out of the way. I, I really much preferred if,
you know, I can just do my thingand, and just have fun with it
and be creative and I'm willing to fix it when I go too far and
that happens. But yeah, having that freedom is
(19:48):
important to me. And it's important.
I, I don't think you can get a great colorist like Annalisa,
invest in her project if I, if I'm, you know, over her
shoulders. And it would have been a worse
product for sure because she hada vision with the colours that I
certainly didn't have drawing the pages.
None of the the really amazing, just in the trees, all the
(20:09):
different colours kind of going on in the patterning.
I wasn't thinking about any of that.
So yeah, I I keep out of the way.
What did you, how did you feel when you started seeing the
coloured work come back, Robert?Oh, I mean, I think Annalisa is
the greatest. I think that, you know, she's
she's European, she's from Italy.
I think that she has like such unique influences and tastes and
(20:33):
things that she's able to bring to these projects to, you know,
give them a, a unique style and an intriguing flavour that I, I,
I think is really remarkable. And, you know, I mean, that's
why she's, you know, working on Battle Beast with Ryan Otley and
I and colouring this and, and doing all kinds of various other
projects. I think she's just absolutely
spectacular. And, and yeah, I mean, you know,
(20:55):
this is an alien world and, and at a glance, everything that you
see here is, is very much not human.
It's not Earth, it's not recognizable.
It's somewhat vaguely familiar, but there's something a little
bit off to it that's just not not normal.
And, and you know, she was able to bring that to every single
panel, which is really amazing. Yeah, and a lot of the light
(21:18):
source work and just it, it felt, it felt like you said,
it's an alien world, but it feltlike you're inside of it.
It, it's kind of to make a comparison to how I felt the
first time I watched Avatar in 3D.
You're you're looking at a window.
It's right outside your window. And that's what a lot,
especially the first like 5 or 6pages of the book where they're
(21:39):
walking through the forest on the hunt.
It yeah, it she just did such a great job bringing that.
And if I could just say incredible light source work,
but also very strategic. All the, the light that she put
in is designed to make everything atmospheric, but also
so much more readable. It's, you know, she's just a
(22:00):
great compositional colourist too.
Yeah, and I'd be lying if I saidI, I want more of this world,
even outside this book. So, you know, I I, I think
unless we get, you know, anotherstory, just just, yeah, do
something else on that world because I love the way it looks.
(22:21):
So. OK.
All right, so with the large, you know, double up and
quadruple up artwork, you guys are releasing A Treasury edition
on the same day on New Sprint. Deluxe New.
Sprint Oh, what's what's the deluxe?
I mean, what's that terminology entail?
(22:42):
It's very thick, it's very, it'svery high end.
I don't know. It's, it's cool.
It's, it's like a, it's a flat toothy paper, but it, it, it
feels real cool. Yeah, I mean, I'm in.
I enjoy when they get it. I mean, I know you try to make
sure that everything's done right because you're able to.
Where is certain big two publishers don't really get the
(23:03):
printing right a lot. So would you say it's the
preferred way to read it? Do you encourage people to try
both? Well, obviously, but.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I, I encourage
people to select the format thatthat they prefer.
I think that the traditional comic is always going to be the
(23:26):
preferred format. You know, everybody likes to
have things that fit in bags andboards and are the, you know,
traditional comic. But I think that because this
was conceived as such a large presentation comic that the
Treasury edition made the most sense.
You know, there will eventually probably be some huge
(23:47):
collections somewhere down the road, but not anytime soon.
But but yeah. But for now, I think that the
Treasury edition is kind of the ideal format to read the book in
just because it does kind of portray the grandeur of what
David was able to accomplish andreally kind of presents the the
comic in a in a different light.You know, it is bigger, but
(24:11):
we're, we're not, we're, we're printing the art bigger, but
we're not printing the letteringbigger.
So the lettering is actually going to take up less space and
you'll get more of the art. So the Treasury edition and the
Standard edition are very different products.
That's actually something I did want to ask you about Robert, is
you're, it seemed like you're intentionally mindful with the
(24:32):
dialogue to give the space to for David's artwork to really
shine. And you know, your master with
dialogue. You've been doing this and we
all enjoy reading your books. Is that something that is that
something that you were intentional with?
Like let me make this dial back a bit on the amount of words.
(24:54):
Yeah, I think that I, I'm tryingto make these characters speak
as as little as possible. It is a, a primitive
civilization. They're not very verbose.
And so, so that helps a little bit.
But this is a, an image forward kind of kind of book.
I want to make sure that you areimmersed in the story through
(25:14):
imagery and are not just readingballoon to balloon to balloon.
If there's a panel that I can remove the dialogue from that
will stand on its own. I, I, I will do that if, if, if
I'm going through and preparing it for Russ Wooten to letter, if
I see a balloon that is taking up too much space, I, I will try
to reduce that dialogue to make it take up less space.
(25:37):
So yeah, it is. It is a mindful thing where I'm
trying to make sure that the imagery speaks first in this in
this series. And David, was there anything
that, you know, when you got this script, you're reading
through it, that you were like, oh, can we, you know, did you
make some directorial choices asthe visionary on this that you
were really excited about? Is there certain portions of any
(26:01):
issues that you're like, oh I cannot wait to draw this?
Oh yeah. A lot of things that I, I
couldn't wait to draw. And the problem is that it was
taking me so long that I had to wait to get to a lot of the
pages. I, I did them all in order, page
after page. I feel like I do a much better
job when I do that. It's more cohesive.
If I jump around, I, I lose a sense of my pacing a little bit.
(26:25):
Now the script is so solid that I, I probably could have done
that and I would have been all right because everything was
there. I did not take any kind of a
directorial role at all with this, you know, I would say
cinematographer, you know, yeah,I, I limited my choices to what
(26:46):
happens in a panel to present what is supposed to be in that
panel as well as I could. I, I, I there was really never a
time where I thought, OK, this isn't going to visually work.
And I'm going to have to, you know, take this panel here and
put it. I just never ran into that at
all. It just worked.
So I was able to just kind of focus on, you know, my part of
(27:08):
the job, which is so nice. Yeah, yeah.
Well, what a bang up job. I do want to say maybe a
different printing of this at some point, an artist edition.
I I know so many of us would be happy with it.
Or a black and white artist edition.
Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, especially after the
artist edition of this came out,you know, the extremity one.
(27:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
All much bigger than that book though.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Well, yeah, right. David Finch Skin Breaker Artist
edition would have to be yeah, somewhere around a four foot
mark. Yeah, Artist Edition slash
surfboard. But you know, we're here for it.
You know, there's so many of us that just love those, the, the
(27:54):
little extra that we get when weget an artist edition, which is
seeing this artwork, you know, and the pictures that David's
been posting of, you know, these, these arm's length size
pieces, it's mind body. I will say nobody wants that to
exist more than we do. Yeah, that's right.
That's right. And.
I made mistakes all over and I had to fix things and I've got
(28:15):
scans of things that got changedand so it'd be so nice to be
able to put in all the designs that went into it in the
beginning. It'd be great to have a format
where we can throw all that stuff in there.
Be good. Yeah, especially like, you know,
the years that have been put into this.
I, I think getting as much of the material out there, the
behind the scenes, the, you know, the the original art, the
(28:37):
sketches, I think would be great.
David, did you ever yell at Robert for?
I can't do any more Walking Deaddeluxe covers because I have to
do these. No, I just yelled behind his
back. I talk to them.
I say, yeah, it's great, I'm good.
No, I'm, I'm enjoying doing those covers so much.
(28:57):
So it's, you know, it's not a burden.
When I started doing them, I think it was only, well, it was
just one cover. And I said I will do these until
you make me stop. And yeah, it's been a blast to
do them so. Well, that's that's awesome and
I like I said, I can't wait for everybody to check this book out
September 24th. Don't forget to pre-order it at
(29:19):
your LCS. There's a bunch of varying
covers. I know Tony Moore, Otley,
there's a couple names I'm forgetting that are doing it.
Kenetti and Lenetti. OK.
And then there's incentives and CGC incentives.
It's you did a great job with the Battle Beast blind bag.
So, you know, I think the stuff that you're doing for these
(29:40):
books is great. Cool.
Now. Thanks.
Yeah, we love, you know, just trying to make the product as as
exciting and interesting as possible.
Well, The thing is, is in the 90's the gimmicks were behind
really bad books. The gimmicks these days doing
those types of things to get people to buy them are behind
really good books. So there's there's a difference.
(30:01):
The quality is there now. Books in the 90s do.
I. Hear what you're saying?
No, I know. I mean, look, I talk about how
much I love turok #1 because I think Bart's ears art is
amazing. The chromium cover, all that.
But like the writing was, you know, and the last thing I'll
(30:21):
say is I know you guys. We spoke about inspirations,
Apocalypto and and one thing I discovered after my second read,
if you put on Metallica's Unforgiven, it goes really,
really well with this book. Really well.
I can picture that. Yeah.
Lyrically and musically. So we'll, we'll look, it's a
(30:42):
short interview. I know you guys have a lot of
stuff going on today. I'd love to have you both back
on either separately or togetherat length.
But Skin Breaker, September 24th, Robert Kirk and David
Finch. Thank you both so much.
Thank you very much. Thank you for watching don't
forget to be in your comic storeon September 24th to pick up
skin breaker. You can get the regular size,
(31:03):
you can get the treasury size, you can get one of the variant
covers. Who knows if you have a chance
to get the incentive variants. You know, all that fun stuff,
which like I said during the interview, there is a huge
difference in growing up in the 90s with the gimmick covers and
none of the stories were all that great versus gimmicks in
this era from indie books with great stories behind them.
(31:26):
And no offense to, you know, Superman 75 and X Force One.
I love those books too, just like you did, just like they
did. But you know, going back and
reading that stuff now, not so good.
Going back and reading stuff like Invincible and Walking
Dead, just as good as it was when you first read it.
Maybe a little bit less of that shock factor wearing off makes
(31:49):
you able to digest the story a little bit more.
But thank you for watching this great interview with Robert
Kirkman and David Finch, and thank you both to them as well
as Megan, as well as Shannon from Skybound.
I really appreciate the opportunity that was given to me
here that I've worked hard to get, but it's still an
opportunity that I'm very, very fortunate to have for me.
(32:12):
You can find me everywhere that you're listening to me right now
or watching me right now and hitthe like button.
Drop a comment down below, but buy the book, support the store,
support the book, support the creators.
Let's keep comics kicking ass. Hello friends, it's your pal
Dave, and I want to introduce toyou my brand new Patreon, West
Coast Avengers and Direct Edition, all under one umbrella.
(32:33):
You can now support me by joining the Patreon for $5 a
month, and what you're going to get is me wearing this shirt and
nothing else. I'm just kidding.
You're going to get at least onebonus episode of West Coast
Avengers and one bonus episode of Direct Edition per month as
well. I'm going to let you vote on the
content of another West Coast Avengers video where I flip
through a rare book or a rare magazine or something that
(32:54):
you've never seen before and youget to part.
Part. Yeah.
And you get to participate in what book it is as well.
Every two months, I'm going to do a private sale right here,
Patreon exclusive. And you're going to have first
access to buying it well before it goes live on West Coast
Wednesday of my comic book claimsale.
So that's a little exclusivity for you.
(33:15):
So plop down 5 bucks a month. It's not that much to ask, is
it? I'm.
I'm waiting. No, it's not.
For five bucks a month, you can help support and grow this
community while we do some greatthings together.
West Coast Avengers and Direct Addition.
Who's fucking hell, let me do that one more part over again.
(33:42):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
There's this two page spread in issue 2 where there's a crowd in
the background and I spend hourslike zooming in on that spread
and just looking at each individual character.
Because each individual character has their own way of
dressing and their own personality and these very
unique expressions on their face.
And I feel like there's a story to each and every one of these
(00:20):
characters, and that's not something that you see in most
comics. Hi there.
Welcome back to Direct Edition, a podcast about nothing and
everything. I'm your host, Dave.
Well, the anxiety and stress is finally settled on today's
interview with Robert Kirkman and David Finch.
(00:43):
Typically I don't even jump right into it this quick, but my
gosh, what an opportunity I had to talk to both Robert and David
at the same time about their newbook coming out September 24th,
Skin Breaker. I've had the chance to read the
book a couple of Times Now. It is beautiful.
It's God. David Finch's art is impeccable.
(01:09):
And big thank you to Shannon with Skybound for setting it up.
It's a shorter interview becausethey were on a press blitz
today, much like my first interview with Danny Warner
Johnson. But we got into depth about the
story a little bit, the characters, but the design, the
look of it, David's art. I really wanted to hear what
David have to had to say about the influences he had on his
(01:31):
sleeve while he was doing this. The work with the colorist that
was being done, Robert's genesisfor the story and the excitement
that they both share for this book.
I, I can't, I can't tell you howexcited I am for people to, to
get this in front of them, especially myself.
I can't wait to read the treasury size edition on the
(01:53):
deluxe new Sprint. I can't wait to see it and hold
it. And just in person.
I'm a big fan of Robert's work going back to The Walking Dead,
although I admittedly tell him how certain characters death
made me feel and the reaction that happened after it happened.
And he has been responsible for my favorite superhero book of
(02:13):
all time. And that's that bad boy over
there, Invincible, which I have read twice in its entirety.
I am in love with what's going on with the animated show, which
Robert is show running. And Robert's done so many great
books over the years. Outcast.
And now he's doing Void Rivals and soon to be doing
Transformers, taking over for West Coast Avengers Slash,
Direct Edition. Friend of the channel, Dana
(02:35):
Warren Johnson, that guy and David, his art I've been looking
at since I was probably in my late teens with the stuff he was
doing with Cyberforce and you know, they taking over for for
Sylvestre and doing some, some books with some other great
artists. But really exploded onto the
(02:59):
scene when he was doing the books for the Big 2, Moon Knight
and New Avengers. And he did some X-Men stuff and
obviously Batman. But the Moon Knight work really
stands out because Moon Knight is one of those characters does
not get the same kind of respectthat Daredevil gets.
But Moon Knight has been interpreted by so many great
writers and and more so great artists.
(03:22):
Bill St. Kevitch, Stephen Platt, David
Finch, Declan Shalvay. I'm probably missing one or two.
Alex Maleve. So, you know, just David's art
comes from that school of the, you know, Silvestri Top Cow.
And he's he just kind of seemed like head and shoulders above a
lot of others. And and he's such a great fella.
(03:45):
I use the word fella and Robert such an enthusiast for comics in
general, but obviously created two of the most popular creator
owned properties to come across in comics in the last two and 2
1/2 decades with Walking Dead and invincible.
And I think the the invincible pop culture status is just only
(04:06):
going to rise because the the animated show so good and the
battle beast book he's dealing with oddly right now is so good.
And you got a video game on the precipice and and just such a
fantastic, fantastic property. But this interview is about Skin
Breaker, and Skin Breaker is coming out, like I said,
September 24th, Image Comics andSkybound.
(04:27):
So why don't we just get to the interview with Finch and
Kirkman? Kirkman and Finch, Titans of
comics friends, welcome back today.
I have two Titans of the comic industry here today, David Finch
and Robert Kirkman. Just a couple of books that
they've been responsible for. David is an artist that has done
(04:49):
legendary work on Moon Knight, New Avengers, Batman, Walking
Dead Deluxe, and the guy Robert Kirkman.
He created Walking Dead as well as Invincible and the entire
Invincible universe. But we're here to talk about the
brand new book coming out September 24th and that is Skin
Breaker. Gentlemen, how are you doing?
Great. Yeah.
(05:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm excited to talk to you
both. And David, I just got back from
Canada actually not 24 hours ago.
So it was nice being in your country for a short 2 days.
Up in the West Coast, I'm. Guessing.
Yeah, I went to go see 9 Inch Nails up in Vancouver and then
ran back to do this interview. Awesome.
I wanted to talk a little about it now, but.
(05:32):
We'll do a later date later date.
So let's jump into it because this book is coming out next
month and I've read it twice nowand I want to just say a it's
gorgeous. I mean absolutely gorgeous piece
of work this first issue and I'mexcited to get to the second
because the story is extremely, extremely warranting me to flip
(05:56):
the page, except I'm done with the issue.
So I know you guys have wanted to work together for a long
time, and this book took eight years or so.
Robert, I wanted to ask you first, what's the seed of the
story like? Where does that come from?
Was it influenced by anything inparticular?
(06:19):
Some inspiration from Mad Max Fury Rd.
I like I like how simple that story is.
We have to go here to here and now we have to go here to here
and people are trying to stop us.
But as you're telling that story, it it it gets it, it
tells you so much more about theworld and it's like such a rich
environment that that's that's kind of fun.
I really love the movie Apocalypto.
(06:42):
That's that's definitely an inspiration.
I wanted to do something that had primitive characters and a
primitive society, but had a kind of brutality and, you know,
very simple story. And then when David contacted me
saying, you know, after years and years of us trying to get
together to work, that he was finally ready to do something.
(07:02):
I, I was looking at his recent work and was like, OK, what,
what, what's this guy like? Like, what, what is he?
What is he into? What's he drawing these days?
And he had done this run on Wonder Woman that had a swamp
thing guest appearance. And there is a splash page of
swamp Thing that I was just absolutely mesmerized by by.
And so I, I was looking at this page and I thought, I want an
entire comic book that looks like this.
(07:24):
I want, I want a jungle environment.
I want, I want scary looking creatures.
I, I want to do, you know, something like this.
And and that's kind of where it all came from.
Yeah, and it's for those of you that don't know, it's a tribal
family story that sucks you in pretty quickly, some power
dynamics and an interesting premise, which is the title of
(07:45):
the book Skin Breaker David for you influence wise.
I mean, I see certain things that I don't know are.
I see some Bernie, you know, on some of the backgrounds
especially, but yeah, in the design of it, the creatures I'm,
I'm more interested to know about your creature design and
(08:06):
where a lot of that comes from. That's actually a bit of a
tougher 1. I did a lot of looking around,
trying to find designs that I thought would, you know, work
for creatures. And I ultimately, I thought I
would rather that they look goofy than they just look like
everything else. And this is, to me, it's a real
(08:27):
problem with kind of the, the modern world, you know, not the
rail against modern, but yeah, it's hard to find something
different. And, you know, kaijus got
popular and everything looks like a Kaiju.
And I just thought, OK, I wantedthem to be different.
And so I just. But you know what?
(08:50):
I do know Frank quietly did authority, and there's a
creature in in the authority that is definitely an influence.
So there you go. Yeah.
So no, they're not totally out of my head.
I'm like giving you this whole story, but I made it all up.
Yeah, they're. You could.
(09:11):
It's, it's A and I, I will urge anybody that's reading this to
read it twice immediately, like almost within one day, because
reading it again, I started to notice some of the smaller
creatures you put in the background that are hopping
around or a bird flying in the background.
And it's and you know, I'm sure Robert, when you started to see
(09:31):
these pages, you're starting to notice stuff and you're like,
oh, oh, that's there and that's there.
I. I, I will say the, the, you
know, the eight years of production is, is becoming like
a key marketing thing that everybody's bringing up.
And, and it, it is a, a massive undertaking.
Like if you look at the, if you look at the pages, you know,
(09:54):
this is 567 pages worth of work on one page.
And that's kind of why the project took so long.
There's this two page spread in issue 2 where there's a crowd in
the background and I spend hourslike zooming in on that spread
and just looking at each individual character because
each individual character has their own way of dressing and
(10:16):
their own personality and these very unique expressions on their
face. And I feel like there's a story
to each and every one of these characters.
And that's not something that you see in most comics to have
so much detail put into background characters and little
creatures running around in the foreground and all, all all
these other things. It's a really rich and very
dense lived in world that David is built here.
(10:39):
It really, really is. And I urge everybody to just
really spend time looking at this artwork.
David, to you, was there a conscious decision so to to do
the artwork so large because these are, you know, double up
pages for single pages and quadruple pages for double
(11:00):
double splash pages. Did you just was that the
immediate thought to do it that way?
I'm a very impulsive person. It's and this was originally
going to be a much shorter story.
I was very excited to be able towork with Robert on this.
I didn't know that because it was short.
(11:23):
I thought this might be it. You know, this is kind of my
chance to to do something, you know, something that I can
creatively contribute to in a way that I can't drawing Batman.
You know, I love Batman, but so I, I just thought, OK, I, I want
to do everything I can to squeeze as much out of this as I
can. And so I, I thought I, I'm going
(11:45):
to draw on double size. And so I, I asked Robert and,
you know, apparently he's as impulsive as I am.
So he said, yeah, sure you want to do that, you know, And so
next thing you know, and you know, there, there have been
times that I've thought, wow, what's I thinking?
You know, but I've enjoyed it all eight years of it.
(12:07):
It's it's funny that we're bragging about 8 years now
because this has been like a shameful thing for me, for you.
Like, I can't believe it's takenso long and now all of a sudden
we're saying, yeah, see eight years.
Yeah, but it. Shouldn't.
It shouldn't be shameful though?It should be celebrated to To
put that level of care and effort into a project and see it
through to the end is remarkable.
You know, echoing that and talking about Bernie Wrights
(12:30):
and, you know, how long did Frankenstein take him?
I mean, and we all look at it like it's this, it's this thing
that how did another human do? That took him seven years.
Yeah, well, you're. Doing it up.
And I remember thinking, OK, first of all, I'm not Bernie
Wrightson, you know, and there'sno way this could possibly take
me that long. Here we are, eight years.
(12:52):
That that Frankenstein book doesn't have 200 some odd pages.
It's exactly. Illustrations here and there, so
there's there's not that many ofthem.
And to somebody, David, I mean some young people that didn't
don't know who Bernie Wrightson is, you are there, Bernie
Wrightson, you are that person that they've been looking at for
20 years wondering how does somebody draw like this?
(13:14):
Well, thank you, I. Well, hey, I'm, I'm here to, to
have some fun and, and you know,I'm, I really did love this book
and I'm excited for the for you know, what's coming the next
issue. So Robert, when you started
sending stuff, I know you've talked about it in interviews of
(13:34):
how much David's contribution started to shape the story even
more. Like I know this, you want to
talk about the sword. I mean, that seems to be the
biggest focal point of not just the book, but also one of the
changes that was made. Yeah, I mean, that was the
biggest addition when he drew that crystal sword on page just
232 page spread. Yeah.
(13:57):
It was just like, Oh my gosh, this is the coolest visual ever.
I, I, I want to know more about this sword.
I want to know what's happening with it.
And, and, you know, the book is called Skin Breaker.
It, it, that sword is the skin breaker.
And, you know, the ceremony that's in the first issue was
kind of present, but it didn't really involve the sword the way
it does. And, and then there's a lot of
(14:17):
mythology as the book goes on about the, you know, the
breaking of the sword and the shards from the from the larger
sword and, and all of that is from that image.
And that's the best example of David's influence on the book.
But it's far from the only one. You know, as the series went on,
yeah. I mean, different things about
different characters would wouldkind of influence the way I was
(14:40):
writing them. And, you know, it was a true
collaboration and that, you know, I'm writing stories and
inspiring his pages and his pages are then inspiring the
story. And as we're working together to
complete this project, we're, you know, volleying back and
forth and, you know, hopefully improving the product as we go.
But but yeah, I just took no endof inspiration from what David
(15:01):
was doing on this book while I was completing the story.
And David, when you first got the script, did you did you jump
into character design? I know we talked about the
monsters and creatures, but because the character design to
me was extremely unique as well,I'm looking at stuff that I can
be like, imagine these are images that people were thinking
(15:23):
of when they play Dungeons and Dragons, but there wasn't
anything out. Like some of these characters
kind of remind me of a what I would think of as a role-playing
character. Yeah, we, for a couple of months
before I really got started withpages, we went back and forth
with character designs and therewas a point where things got
(15:45):
much more inhuman, I guess. And I was pushing it pretty far
out there, just trying differentthings.
I, I don't know that I was really all that happy with any
of the the designs that I reallydid.
But I, I do know that they were starting to feel a little
(16:05):
unrelatable. And there's a point where I
think relatability and being able to, you know, put yourself
in the story was a, a factor we wanted to consider that Robert
wanted to consider. And so we, we kind of dialed
some things back and, and went with something a little bit, you
know, not human, but fairly close.
Yeah, close enough. And the story, this, this family
(16:29):
dynamic and the tribal, you know, trying to figure out who's
going to be the new leader, that's where the, you know, like
the relatability is. We all kind of feel that in our
families in one way or another, you know, and I know that's a
big portion of this is, is the family aspect.
Can readers expect a lot of the mix of the emotion and the
(16:53):
action throughout every issue? Is that something that was kind
of divvied up pretty evenly? Yeah, I mean, I think that's,
you know, that's kind of the secret sauce of everything that
I do, you know, making you care about the characters with some
fun family emotional stuff and then killing them.
Yeah, and destroying us. Yeah, you know, whatever I mean,
I don't mean to simplify it so much, but it is what it is.
(17:16):
But yeah, you can. Yeah.
I mean, the, the first issue is a very good indication of how
there's a balance of emotional storytelling and brutal action
and, and, you know, those dials move back and forth to, to, you
know, which one is going to be the dominant trait of the issue.
But you know, both elements are always present.
And I think that's important. You can't just do a book that's
(17:38):
all violence and action because then there's no meaning to it.
There's no feeling behind it. And you can't do a book that's
all emotion because then that's just going to be kind of dull.
And when you have that mix, whenyou have people invested in
these characters and worried about the outcome and, and, you
know, really loving them and, you know, feeling like you, you
(17:59):
understand them and why they're doing what they're doing, it
makes the, the hits and the, the, you know, down points like
so much more visceral and emotional and, and engaging.
So that's that's that's kind of the game.
Yeah, you've caused me to throw a couple of books across the
room. I definitely have.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of them was an omnibus.
It didn't really fare too well when it hit the wall, which
(18:20):
Omnibus did. You throw across the room.
It was the second Walking Dead. Glenn.
It was Glenn. Nice.
OK, so Glenn got you an omnibus throat.
I love it. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. But but I'm I, you know, I think
the this being an 8 issue, right?
It's an 8 issue mini or full story but I think.
(18:42):
I mean the issues are oversized and they're varying sizes and
page counts but but yeah it's a full 8 issues and the the first,
the last issue I think is the longest issue.
Yeah, I heard you talk about them all being varying different
page counts. So going into a little more of
the technical detail, we've got Annalise Leone, who's the
(19:04):
colorist on this, who did absolutely fantastic job.
And I know Robert, she's, you know, one of your your go to
favorites. But David working with her
because like, I've seen a lot ofyour original art and it's it's
amazing. And I think a lot of people have
gotten your work wrong color wise, or at least off.
I think this is exactly where it's supposed to be.
(19:25):
What were you working with her hand in hand?
Or did you just kind of let her RIP?
Or let her RIP. Yeah, yeah.
I keep out of the way. I, I really much preferred if,
you know, I can just do my thingand, and just have fun with it
and be creative and I'm willing to fix it when I go too far and
that happens. But yeah, having that freedom is
(19:48):
important to me. And it's important.
I, I don't think you can get a great colorist like Annalisa,
invest in her project if I, if I'm, you know, over her
shoulders. And it would have been a worse
product for sure because she hada vision with the colours that I
certainly didn't have drawing the pages.
None of the the really amazing, just in the trees, all the
(20:09):
different colours kind of going on in the patterning.
I wasn't thinking about any of that.
So yeah, I I keep out of the way.
What did you, how did you feel when you started seeing the
coloured work come back, Robert?Oh, I mean, I think Annalisa is
the greatest. I think that, you know, she's
she's European, she's from Italy.
I think that she has like such unique influences and tastes and
(20:33):
things that she's able to bring to these projects to, you know,
give them a, a unique style and an intriguing flavour that I, I,
I think is really remarkable. And, you know, I mean, that's
why she's, you know, working on Battle Beast with Ryan Otley and
I and colouring this and, and doing all kinds of various other
projects. I think she's just absolutely
spectacular. And, and yeah, I mean, you know,
(20:55):
this is an alien world and, and at a glance, everything that you
see here is, is very much not human.
It's not Earth, it's not recognizable.
It's somewhat vaguely familiar, but there's something a little
bit off to it that's just not not normal.
And, and you know, she was able to bring that to every single
panel, which is really amazing. Yeah, and a lot of the light
(21:18):
source work and just it, it felt, it felt like you said,
it's an alien world, but it feltlike you're inside of it.
It, it's kind of to make a comparison to how I felt the
first time I watched Avatar in 3D.
You're you're looking at a window.
It's right outside your window. And that's what a lot,
especially the first like 5 or 6pages of the book where they're
(21:39):
walking through the forest on the hunt.
It yeah, it she just did such a great job bringing that.
And if I could just say incredible light source work,
but also very strategic. All the, the light that she put
in is designed to make everything atmospheric, but also
so much more readable. It's, you know, she's just a
(22:00):
great compositional colourist too.
Yeah, and I'd be lying if I saidI, I want more of this world,
even outside this book. So, you know, I I, I think
unless we get, you know, anotherstory, just just, yeah, do
something else on that world because I love the way it looks.
(22:21):
So. OK.
All right, so with the large, you know, double up and
quadruple up artwork, you guys are releasing A Treasury edition
on the same day on New Sprint. Deluxe New.
Sprint Oh, what's what's the deluxe?
I mean, what's that terminology entail?
(22:42):
It's very thick, it's very, it'svery high end.
I don't know. It's, it's cool.
It's, it's like a, it's a flat toothy paper, but it, it, it
feels real cool. Yeah, I mean, I'm in.
I enjoy when they get it. I mean, I know you try to make
sure that everything's done right because you're able to.
Where is certain big two publishers don't really get the
(23:03):
printing right a lot. So would you say it's the
preferred way to read it? Do you encourage people to try
both? Well, obviously, but.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I, I encourage
people to select the format thatthat they prefer.
I think that the traditional comic is always going to be the
(23:26):
preferred format. You know, everybody likes to
have things that fit in bags andboards and are the, you know,
traditional comic. But I think that because this
was conceived as such a large presentation comic that the
Treasury edition made the most sense.
You know, there will eventually probably be some huge
(23:47):
collections somewhere down the road, but not anytime soon.
But but yeah. But for now, I think that the
Treasury edition is kind of the ideal format to read the book in
just because it does kind of portray the grandeur of what
David was able to accomplish andreally kind of presents the the
comic in a in a different light.You know, it is bigger, but
(24:11):
we're, we're not, we're, we're printing the art bigger, but
we're not printing the letteringbigger.
So the lettering is actually going to take up less space and
you'll get more of the art. So the Treasury edition and the
Standard edition are very different products.
That's actually something I did want to ask you about Robert, is
you're, it seemed like you're intentionally mindful with the
(24:32):
dialogue to give the space to for David's artwork to really
shine. And you know, your master with
dialogue. You've been doing this and we
all enjoy reading your books. Is that something that is that
something that you were intentional with?
Like let me make this dial back a bit on the amount of words.
(24:54):
Yeah, I think that I, I'm tryingto make these characters speak
as as little as possible. It is a, a primitive
civilization. They're not very verbose.
And so, so that helps a little bit.
But this is a, an image forward kind of kind of book.
I want to make sure that you areimmersed in the story through
(25:14):
imagery and are not just readingballoon to balloon to balloon.
If there's a panel that I can remove the dialogue from that
will stand on its own. I, I, I will do that if, if, if
I'm going through and preparing it for Russ Wooten to letter, if
I see a balloon that is taking up too much space, I, I will try
to reduce that dialogue to make it take up less space.
(25:37):
So yeah, it is. It is a mindful thing where I'm
trying to make sure that the imagery speaks first in this in
this series. And David, was there anything
that, you know, when you got this script, you're reading
through it, that you were like, oh, can we, you know, did you
make some directorial choices asthe visionary on this that you
were really excited about? Is there certain portions of any
(26:01):
issues that you're like, oh I cannot wait to draw this?
Oh yeah. A lot of things that I, I
couldn't wait to draw. And the problem is that it was
taking me so long that I had to wait to get to a lot of the
pages. I, I did them all in order, page
after page. I feel like I do a much better
job when I do that. It's more cohesive.
If I jump around, I, I lose a sense of my pacing a little bit.
(26:25):
Now the script is so solid that I, I probably could have done
that and I would have been all right because everything was
there. I did not take any kind of a
directorial role at all with this, you know, I would say
cinematographer, you know, yeah,I, I limited my choices to what
(26:46):
happens in a panel to present what is supposed to be in that
panel as well as I could. I, I, I there was really never a
time where I thought, OK, this isn't going to visually work.
And I'm going to have to, you know, take this panel here and
put it. I just never ran into that at
all. It just worked.
So I was able to just kind of focus on, you know, my part of
(27:08):
the job, which is so nice. Yeah, yeah.
Well, what a bang up job. I do want to say maybe a
different printing of this at some point, an artist edition.
I I know so many of us would be happy with it.
Or a black and white artist edition.
Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, especially after the
artist edition of this came out,you know, the extremity one.
(27:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
All much bigger than that book though.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Well, yeah, right. David Finch Skin Breaker Artist
edition would have to be yeah, somewhere around a four foot
mark. Yeah, Artist Edition slash
surfboard. But you know, we're here for it.
You know, there's so many of us that just love those, the, the
(27:54):
little extra that we get when weget an artist edition, which is
seeing this artwork, you know, and the pictures that David's
been posting of, you know, these, these arm's length size
pieces, it's mind body. I will say nobody wants that to
exist more than we do. Yeah, that's right.
That's right. And.
I made mistakes all over and I had to fix things and I've got
(28:15):
scans of things that got changedand so it'd be so nice to be
able to put in all the designs that went into it in the
beginning. It'd be great to have a format
where we can throw all that stuff in there.
Be good. Yeah, especially like, you know,
the years that have been put into this.
I, I think getting as much of the material out there, the
behind the scenes, the, you know, the the original art, the
(28:37):
sketches, I think would be great.
David, did you ever yell at Robert for?
I can't do any more Walking Deaddeluxe covers because I have to
do these. No, I just yelled behind his
back. I talk to them.
I say, yeah, it's great, I'm good.
No, I'm, I'm enjoying doing those covers so much.
(28:57):
So it's, you know, it's not a burden.
When I started doing them, I think it was only, well, it was
just one cover. And I said I will do these until
you make me stop. And yeah, it's been a blast to
do them so. Well, that's that's awesome and
I like I said, I can't wait for everybody to check this book out
September 24th. Don't forget to pre-order it at
(29:19):
your LCS. There's a bunch of varying
covers. I know Tony Moore, Otley,
there's a couple names I'm forgetting that are doing it.
Kenetti and Lenetti. OK.
And then there's incentives and CGC incentives.
It's you did a great job with the Battle Beast blind bag.
So, you know, I think the stuff that you're doing for these
(29:40):
books is great. Cool.
Now. Thanks.
Yeah, we love, you know, just trying to make the product as as
exciting and interesting as possible.
Well, The thing is, is in the 90's the gimmicks were behind
really bad books. The gimmicks these days doing
those types of things to get people to buy them are behind
really good books. So there's there's a difference.
(30:01):
The quality is there now. Books in the 90s do.
I. Hear what you're saying?
No, I know. I mean, look, I talk about how
much I love turok #1 because I think Bart's ears art is
amazing. The chromium cover, all that.
But like the writing was, you know, and the last thing I'll
(30:21):
say is I know you guys. We spoke about inspirations,
Apocalypto and and one thing I discovered after my second read,
if you put on Metallica's Unforgiven, it goes really,
really well with this book. Really well.
I can picture that. Yeah.
Lyrically and musically. So we'll, we'll look, it's a
(30:42):
short interview. I know you guys have a lot of
stuff going on today. I'd love to have you both back
on either separately or togetherat length.
But Skin Breaker, September 24th, Robert Kirk and David
Finch. Thank you both so much.
Thank you very much. Thank you for watching don't
forget to be in your comic storeon September 24th to pick up
skin breaker. You can get the regular size,
(31:03):
you can get the treasury size, you can get one of the variant
covers. Who knows if you have a chance
to get the incentive variants. You know, all that fun stuff,
which like I said during the interview, there is a huge
difference in growing up in the 90s with the gimmick covers and
none of the stories were all that great versus gimmicks in
this era from indie books with great stories behind them.
(31:26):
And no offense to, you know, Superman 75 and X Force One.
I love those books too, just like you did, just like they
did. But you know, going back and
reading that stuff now, not so good.
Going back and reading stuff like Invincible and Walking
Dead, just as good as it was when you first read it.
Maybe a little bit less of that shock factor wearing off makes
(31:49):
you able to digest the story a little bit more.
But thank you for watching this great interview with Robert
Kirkman and David Finch, and thank you both to them as well
as Megan, as well as Shannon from Skybound.
I really appreciate the opportunity that was given to me
here that I've worked hard to get, but it's still an
opportunity that I'm very, very fortunate to have for me.
(32:12):
You can find me everywhere that you're listening to me right now
or watching me right now and hitthe like button.
Drop a comment down below, but buy the book, support the store,
support the book, support the creators.
Let's keep comics kicking ass. Hello friends, it's your pal
Dave, and I want to introduce toyou my brand new Patreon, West
Coast Avengers and Direct Edition, all under one umbrella.
(32:33):
You can now support me by joining the Patreon for $5 a
month, and what you're going to get is me wearing this shirt and
nothing else. I'm just kidding.
You're going to get at least onebonus episode of West Coast
Avengers and one bonus episode of Direct Edition per month as
well. I'm going to let you vote on the
content of another West Coast Avengers video where I flip
through a rare book or a rare magazine or something that
(32:54):
you've never seen before and youget to part.
Part. Yeah.
And you get to participate in what book it is as well.
Every two months, I'm going to do a private sale right here,
Patreon exclusive. And you're going to have first
access to buying it well before it goes live on West Coast
Wednesday of my comic book claimsale.
So that's a little exclusivity for you.
(33:15):
So plop down 5 bucks a month. It's not that much to ask, is
it? I'm.
I'm waiting. No, it's not.
For five bucks a month, you can help support and grow this
community while we do some greatthings together.
West Coast Avengers and Direct Addition.
Who's fucking hell, let me do that one more part over again.
(33:42):
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
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