November 3, 2025 • 61 mins
Dave reflects on 80 episodes of Direct Edition and shares the lessons, tools and methods that he’s picked up along the way. He looks ahead to Japan, reveals the season finale guest and the season 5 premiere guest and shares a healthy dose of gratitude.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
There is no obstacle in front ofme except me and I just get out
of my own way. Welcome back to Direct Edition,
a podcast about nothing and everything.
(00:20):
I am your host Dave and here we are episode 80.
We are. I am careening.
I am racing towards the end of Season 4 with such a just a
thankfulness and a feeling of gratitude to everybody who's
been here for the ride partiallyor the complete thing.
(00:44):
And I wanted to reflect on a little bit of this season.
Also talk about some of the guests that I've had on and look
ahead to the future and catch upon some things.
It's been a while since I've done a solo episode.
I think it's been a couple of months and today I I locked in
as the kids say the season 5 premiere interview with Jeff
(01:06):
Darrow. If you don't know Jeff, you're
you're going to get to know him real well.
But great comic artist and creator worked with Frank Miller
and Mobius. Also a driving force is a the
creative director on the matrix.He helped design the Matrix.
And I don't mean the actual program.
I mean the movies, the look of the movies with the Wachowskis.
So that's something to look forward to in December.
(01:29):
And we have, I have one more interview to share with you.
It hasn't been recorded yet. So fingers crossed that nothing
in the schedule changes. But man, so thankful to
everybody who's been a part of this, whether listening to it,
being a guest on it or my producers, because I've gone
(01:49):
through a couple and in the thumbnail you saw that I'm going
to share some things that I've learned in, in, in, in two years
of podcasting for anybody who's thinking about getting into it
or anybody who just wants to kind of know what it's like to
be the, I don't know, the all around creator of a podcast.
(02:11):
I, I do this all myself. I record everything myself.
I set up the interviews myself. I had to learn how to do the
lighting and set all this stuff up and it, it, it, it, it was a
learning experience and it's still a learning experience.
I never wanted to stop learning.But it has been with the help of
producers that I have hired friends that I've hired.
(02:34):
They're more than just their role.
There are friends of mine. And you know, Joe was, was
great, but he chose a different career path, which, you know,
that I, I couldn't, couldn't blame him.
And then Dan, who really helped out, but he also was great at
what he does, but our schedules didn't really work too well
(02:56):
together, which is fine because that's just part of life.
And now Phil Phil is an old friend, old oldest friend out of
the three of them and known Philfor over a decade.
And I think I finally found my person to help with this podcast
and help take it to the next level.
But that's probably thing one I want to talk about is finding
(03:21):
the person to help you bring thepodcast to the next level.
Like I, I look, I know nobody that on a personal level that's
really podcasted for a while anddone a show like this and gotten
to a level where you know, they're on that X level, which
which is where I'm trying to get.
But you can't do it all by yourself.
(03:42):
It becomes an insurmountable task.
Unless the only thing you do forX amount of hours a week, you
don't work, you don't do anything else is podcast, then
you might be able to do a lot ofthese things by yourself.
You might be able to record something that's more of a
narrative feel or storytelling feel where mine, this one serves
(04:05):
as an interview podcast as well as getting to hear my side of
things, my life, the things thatare going on, the stories that I
want to tell, the experiences that I've had.
I don't think I'm special for any reason.
I just do like, I like to talk and I like to share the
(04:26):
experiences and the things I've done in my life.
I do feel that I've personally, for me, I've lived multiple
lives and I don't mean like I was Joan of Arc and then I was
Jesus Christ. No, I've just, it's a lot of
points in my life where there's a lot going on And then I
changed and I shifted to this, that the other thing.
But finding yourself a producer or somebody to edit, somebody to
(04:49):
help you come up with ideas, somebody to bounce creative
things off of them and vice versa.
That's a huge part of this. I think that's maybe after you
figured out what you want to do,what kind of podcast you want to
record and what kind of, you know, for lack of a better term,
content you want to put out there.
(05:11):
I think it's good to find somebody who's focused, who is
determined, who is a hard workerand somebody that can work with
you because not everybody out there is meant to work with
everybody out there. You know, I mean, it's the same
thing that can be said for friendships or relationships.
(05:32):
You know, not everybody is supposed to be together.
Not everybody is supposed to be friends.
That's one of those things you learn as you grow up, especially
the the friendship part, becauseif you're going through
partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives,
whatever, over and over and over, I think maybe it's time to
just pump the brakes completely and access your own life.
(05:55):
But with friendships or partnerships or creative
partnerships, you really need toknow who you're dealing with
before you start dealing with them.
And Phil, I can talk about somewhat candidly because we've
known each other for a long timeand he wasn't in a place always
(06:16):
to do this. He's told me that.
And I feel like we're both in a great place right now where
we're able to communicate well and honestly, which is a huge
part of working with somebody. I don't know what it seemed, and
that's my problem. I had a very hard time finding a
producer, somebody who could do this full time.
(06:38):
And it was really tough. I obviously did not find
somebody that does this and thisis their only job, which I want
to give a shout out to to Jazzy Jamie.
Jazzy Jamie Wood. Jamie is a full time podcast
producer and a lot of you may know who he is.
He works with producing ink pulp.
I mean he kind of put the glue together to make ink pulp what
(06:59):
it is today. He works with Mark Miller,
Scotty Young. He is the comics podcast guru
and the the man of many hats also for Calf plus comic art
fans and and OAX and all that. Jamie and I, I am happy for him.
(07:20):
I am so happy for him because he's so good at what he does.
But I made the big mistake of well, maybe not a mistake, but I
wasn't able to justifiably to myself afford him when he did
have availability as a producer.And I'm glad that he is doing so
fucking well and producing all these great shows because he
(07:41):
deserves it. But unless you find somebody
like Jamie, you have to figure out a way to get a producer.
And I, I don't know how to just cold find a producer.
I'm, I'm one of those people that does recognize their people
in their lives, their talents, what they do and what they're
good at and what you know. And so I did talk to Phil before
(08:08):
I officially hired him and I really wanted him because he
used to produce this podcast andhe's good at what he does.
He was one of the two friends that I looked to when I started
West Coast Avengers. That helped me kind of
understand the editing style, kind of understand like YouTube
(08:28):
videos and stuff like that. Because before I did this or
West Coast Avengers, I really don't watch much YouTube outside
of cartoonist kayfabe. That was really, that was really
the beginning of me watching a regular YouTube show.
And anybody who's friends with me for more than maybe 5 or 6
years, when they suggest a podcast to me, I'm like, I don't
(08:51):
listen to podcasts, I don't enjoy them.
And it was a post office job that really turned me into a
podcast listener because I was always walking.
And so I've always wanted to listen to something and
sometimes I didn't want to listen to music.
So within getting Phil as a producer, I get kind of the
(09:12):
complete package of somebody. And you really need to look for
somebody. If you're thinking about getting
to podcast and you're looking for a producer slash editor, you
need to find somebody that understands social media because
you need to do reels, you need to do shorts, you need to be
able to market your podcast. Unless your name's Jason Bateman
or your name's fucking Joe Rogan.
(09:32):
But if your name's Joe Rogan, probably change it.
Or, you know, if you're Marc Maron.
People who have established names in an industry, whether
it's music, whether it's comedy,whatever.
Those people don't really need to worry about the social media
game as much as Joe Blow. Dave, who doesn't is nobody.
(09:53):
I am, you know, if you are thinking about starting a
podcast and you already have an established audience somewhere
else like I did with West Coast Avengers, you have to tap them.
You have to ask them to be a part of this community.
You have to ask for their support.
And you got to hope that you getsome people in there too who
believe in you because creating a community is tough.
(10:16):
I, it took me like 4 years to really get a really strong
community in West Coast Avengers. 3-4 years and it's the
backbone of everything you do and, and I would be nowhere
without them. My personality goes a long way,
but it only goes a long way if people are interested in
joining. Otherwise I'm just speaking into
(10:39):
the void of nothingness. And I think I needed to believe
in myself. And that's another big thing is
believing in yourself before youthink or even expect or ever
accept that people are believingin you.
I think that's the cornerstone to any strong quality of life in
(11:06):
building up your, and I don't mean this in the negative sense,
but building up your ego, building up the way you present
yourself is believing in yourself 1st and then people
will believe in you and people will come along for the ride
unless no, I, I, you know, people come along with for the
ride, no matter what sad thing is that they'll come along for
(11:27):
the ride If you're more negativeperson.
It's just the way of the fuckingworld, unfortunately.
But so yes, finding somebody whocan edit, produce, do social
media for you, or at least create the stuff for you.
Because I mean, like there are people out there that can do it
all. But I have not really met too
(11:48):
many people that are so good at,they're so good at selling
themselves personality wise and talking and all that.
And also being completely super,super social media savvy,
editing savvy, like all of thosethings.
I wish I was all those things. I wish I understood what the 25
year olds wanted to see as well as the four, the people my age
(12:10):
wanted to see. But I only think in a 45 year
old's brain, soon to be 46. But the goofiness is my
universal language. My humor that is.
That is also a big plus unless you're doing a real serious
thing, like leaning in with humor is always going to help in
(12:31):
every way, shape or form. And I try not to lean into the
offensive humor. That is definitely something
that I've grown away from. I mean, yeah, sure, people are
going to be offended, whatever, but I'm never going to
purposefully go after people unless they're bootlicking MAGA
ice cucks. But that's besides the point.
(12:51):
So yes, finding somebody you canwork with, somebody that can
help you, somebody that you alsocan, you know, make sure that
you can afford to to pay them. That's a big part.
I mean, I'm don't really make ita secret about this podcast
being a zero. I earn $0.00 from this podcast
(13:13):
for now. What I do earn money from is the
sales of the comics on the otherchannel.
And you know, want to say thank you also to any and all of my
Patreon subscribers. You are helping me just, you
know, with paying the bills thatI have for creating this podcast
(13:33):
time and the money that I'm paying Phil.
So remember, not every you don'thave to pump a ton of money into
a podcast, but you definitely need just like anything in this
world, you do need to spend money to have it.
That's just how it is. And if you want to consider it a
(13:53):
business, at some point, you gotto spend money to make money.
I've learned that and I've I've done really responsible things
on my end for West Coast Avengers.
Four years in running that business, I can count on one
hand how many times I spent money that I shouldn't have
spent. That's a big thing for podcast
(14:18):
In the 80 episodes I've learned.I'm still learning in sound.
I'm still learning on how far the microphone should be for me,
the gain certain just ways to not raise my voice too high and,
you know, to make sure that everything's well lit.
That's something you can watch all the videos on YouTube.
(14:42):
You could read all the threads on Reddit.
It's a trial and error thing. It's trial and error.
I mean, I still have a problem with the glasses.
You know what I can change the lighting, but it doesn't really
it's not really noticeable and you probably wouldn't have
noticed it if I didn't tell you that there's a glare on my
glasses right here in the in thecorner.
(15:05):
Now you're not going to be able to Unsee it, but that's OK
that's OK. We need a little light in our
eyes and dark times. So doing the trial and error
thing, you know, I recorded a couple of podcasts that sounded
like shit. Luckily, none of them were
interviews, but even the interviews that got messed up
the last season, I had a couple where the microphone clearly was
(15:26):
not being picked up and you know, it just didn't sound that
good. But you got to fix that and
post. You know what, Phil?
And a big echo in post right now.
Just when me going hello, OK, Soand and remember one of the
biggest things when you're working with somebody who's
(15:48):
editing for you is having an idea, a forward thinking idea of
how and what they can do and what they can't do and what you
want your podcast to look like or sound like or edits to be in
there. It really does harp on
communication. So that's that's that one of the
(16:09):
things that I've really learned about getting people on the
show. There's no reason to stop asking
somebody or stop pitching until you get a straight out no the
way that the podcast sphere and and everything's gotten very
podcast heavy in the last five years means that people are
getting interview requests all the time.
(16:31):
Emails aren't getting seen. Assistants aren't being
overloaded with that and they'llignore stuff or they'll just
plain out miss it or they'll read the e-mail.
Something will happen and they'll forget about it 30
seconds later. I've had countless numbers of
emails to publicist and the onlyone that yeah, I ever accept,
(16:55):
the only ones I ever accept through yes or no and the no I I
haven't really had too many flatout Nos.
They're very oh, you know, unfortunately their schedule is
full. Sorry, you know, maybe next time
or they're they're booked solid like Michael G Aquino.
(17:16):
I think it's G Aquino. He's the composer, slash
director, slash writer. He did the music, came out to
the scene and lost was the firstthing I noticed.
He did all of JJ Abrams stuff and then he went on to Marvel
and he directed the Werewolf by Night movie.
He did the score for Fantastic Four, amongst other movies.
(17:38):
He's a extremely talented human being and I finally got through
to his assistant very recently, maybe like 2 months ago or
manager, somebody with somebody like that.
And she said, you know, unfortunately right now is not a
good time. He is pretty much locked away
writing two different scores right now and will be for the
(17:58):
rest of the year. And I said, OK, I'll, you know,
I'll reach back at the end of the year and maybe we could set
something up for for next year, which I think with the in the
Hollywood kind of sphere, unlessthere's a press junket promoting
something, I think you have to book those kinds of interviews
while in advance, which is fine.I've got until I don't.
(18:22):
I've got all the time in the world and I'll be pitching
people as many as I can because I really am interested in having
conversations with people. And so in that pitching is it's
own fucking time suck. I mean, you are going to spend
tons and tons of time pitching. And if you're doing a podcast
where you're writing something or you're doing research, like
(18:45):
then your time is spent doing that and you're recording
episodes after you're done doingyour research.
One of the people that I talked to a lot about that is Chris,
Chris Piers Comic Tropes. I mean, he doesn't do a podcast
as much as he has his YouTube show and he will spend weeks
researching and then days, weeksediting an episode that may only
(19:07):
be 18 minutes long. But they are comprehensive and
they are very well thought out, well researched.
For me, because I don't, it's not my thing.
I don't have any interest in doing that kind of research.
My research goes into getting prepped for a conversation and
for example, the the Jeff Darrowepisode which I recorded today,
(19:32):
I watched, I re watched most of the episodes where he was on
Cartoon escape. I watched Chris Pierce's
interview with him. I watched Chris's episode on
him. But because this is somebody
that I'm interested, I was just reinforcing some of the things I
already knew, learning some stuff, hearing the questions
that were asked and figuring out.
OK, well, nobody talked to him about this.
(19:55):
So let's, you know, talk to him.Let me talk to him about this.
One of those prime examples is Iasked him about Andrew Vax, who
was a writer, who was an FBI investigator.
And he was Jeff's friend and mentor.
And they work together. And Jeff really never got to
talk about him in too many interviews, or at least any in
the YouTube era. And I could tell that Jeff was
(20:20):
very happy to talk to me about him.
And so that's. You know, that's what I want to
do. I want to give people the chance
to hear stuff they may not have heard.
Maybe they'll hear some of the greatest hits, the stuff that
they do know, but everybody's not OK.
There's always somebody who's listening to an interview and
hearing about this person for the first time.
(20:41):
So with a guy like Jeff Darrow, people are going to get to hear
how he met Mobius and how he meta Tomo and, and, and those kind
of stories which he's told before.
But it's going to be new to you.And the other thing about doing
interviews for me, I don't know what every anybody else's
(21:03):
process is like, but my process is I get really anxious.
I, I, I get, I, I lose sleep over how it's going to go.
I play it over my head 1015 times before it happens.
And then as soon as I hit the record button, all of that goes
away. And I think my anxiety that I
deal with helps me prep for an interview in the best way
(21:25):
possible. And then I just have a
conversation. I don't even consider it an
interview. I think some people I have to
structure it a little bit more and some people it's just a
conversation. I think Tyler, mean, I, I, I, I
feel like I had to structure that a little more.
But I think after about 15 minutes, we both got really
(21:47):
relaxed and just kind of talked it through.
But you know, my third interview, whatever, with Daniel
Warren Johnson at this point, it's just a conversation between
two guys. Hey, two guys and friendly, you
know, friends, Chip, I think Chip Siddarski.
I think by the next time I have them on the podcast, it's
probably going to devolve into ridiculous madness on both
(22:08):
parts. That's my goal for this, my goal
for my interviews, and you should set goals for yourself.
That's a big part of starting a podcast and running a podcast is
like setting goals. I mean, it's good for life in
general. And I'm doing it a lot more than
I used to because I'm starting to see this path.
(22:30):
But my, my goal is to just bringthese chats to people and have
people feel like, oh, this is just, this is just a very
relaxed, calm and comfortable environment.
And I, I don't get to create that in the world.
(22:51):
That is not something I could do.
I wish I could, I wish I could bring even just 10,000 people
together and feel like, wow, this is, this is what life
should be like. Very relaxed and calm and
community feel. But you know, maybe in five
years I'll have 10,000 people that actively listen to all this
(23:15):
stuff. I don't know, I have to, I've,
I've, I'm rambling a bit, but you know, I think if you're
listening to me and, and you have an interest in what I do or
you want to do the same thing. I think these are things that I
don't actively think about everyday.
But sitting down and focusing and staring into this camera
(23:35):
with this microphone, it's coming to me a little bit more.
I don't know if this is for everybody.
This what I'm about to say aboutif you're having an interview
focused podcast or it's something that you want to
incorporate into a show or whatever.
I don't really have any interestin just talking to anybody
(23:56):
because I could. That would be absolutely so
easy. I am a natural
conversationalist. I love verbally being around
people, communicating with people.
Like I'm not shy, but I often say to people like, oh, you
(24:20):
should have this person or you should have this person.
I, I get it. Like you want to you're, you're
saying like, oh, I would love tohear you talk to this.
I don't, I don't want to waste anybody's time.
I don't want to fake it. I don't want to fake being
interested. Now, I could, like I said, I
could probably find something, you know, interesting, a topic
(24:40):
to talk to anybody about, as long as I have something to say
about it. But I want to be interested in
the person. I want to pour the gasoline out
and I want to light the match and let the person be the flames
I want. I'm not saying I want them to
burn you sure about that. But I want to get out of the way
(25:01):
and let them do their thing. And for me to want to do that, I
have to be interested in this person and what they have to
say. I cannot obviously control of
somebody is boring or not. I myself can control myself and
that's it. But to have somebody on and sit
(25:22):
and do research, read their work, watch their movies, listen
to their albums, it's there's got to be a level of interest
for me in it to give you something that I find to be
interesting. You know, I, I often think, and
if anybody's listening to this that does interviews themselves,
it's kind of mind blowing that Iget to sit in my office, which
(25:45):
is in my house and have private conversations with people I
admire that are in the arts and the music, whatever it is.
And until I unleash it to the public, I've just had a private
conversation with that person. And I do get to definitely take
advantage of it. After I finish recording with
(26:06):
the person, I usually chat for alittle bit.
I try to, you know, break the ice if I don't know the person
when we first start, before we record.
But afterwards I can take ask questions that I'm like, this is
off the record or whatever. And I'm not going to talk about
specific things, but I've had conversation with artists about
(26:27):
their original art collection. I've asked them if, you know,
they would ever sell anything that privately.
And, you know, me and Matt Fraction shared a lot of, you
know, when, when I had him on, we, we shared a bunch of, we
talked some socio political stuff, you know, stuff that
we're both passionate about because we're, we live not too
(26:50):
far from each other. You know, it's, it's kind of
stuff like that. You know, Felipe Smith, I think
we, you know, we recorded for over 2 hours, but I think we
talked for close to three because when the cameras were
stopped, we just chatted. And it's mind blowing to me that
I'm in, I've created a position that I can do this.
So think about that. If you're interested in getting
(27:13):
into it. Like that's another by product
of, of interviews is like men not forming personal
relationships, but having a personal conversation with
somebody after. It's not guaranteed that you're
going to do it, but it it's definitely, once you get
somebody talking, you know, artists, That's the other thing
(27:35):
is a whole sneaky thing. If you really want to have an
interview podcast, do it with artists.
Because whether it's an illustrator, comic book
illustrator, a writer, a musician, I mean, maybe not film
makers, but probably like if they're comfortable, you know, a
lot of these artistic positions of these careers these people
(27:57):
choose are solitary things. I mean, shit, my, my job is
pretty solitary, but I do get out a little bit when I feel
like it. So I'm not chained to this desk.
So there's, there's just so manydifferent pluses to it.
There's so many different joys about it.
I think the hardest thing is doing episodes like this because
I'm trying to make sure I'm trying to refine my craft.
(28:20):
I'm trying to stay focused. And that is one of the hardest
things for somebody like me personally, because I could sit
here and I could fucking talk for an hour and a half.
And I've got this is just randomnotes of stuff that I've written
in the last couple weeks that I thought maybe would be good
topics to talk about. But I I I can stay focused.
(28:41):
It's just I can ramble. I can ramble better than almost
anybody, you know, even your grandma.
Even your grandma Trudy. Yeah.
Or your weird uncle Joey, who, you know, like he listens to way
too much, you know, Fox News. So those are just a a couple of
(29:02):
things that come off the top of my head about doing this.
And I think it's good to set work boundaries for yourself.
I didn't know I was going to do seasons until I hit that like
17th episode of the the the of the podcast where I'm like, man,
(29:22):
this is tough to keep doing thisevery week, but now we're
cutting the season. This season's going to be 21
episodes because it's my fuckingpodcast.
I can do what I want and I'm going to take three weeks off.
I'm going to be in Japan or going to record some stuff
beforehand so that I can get a nice workflow going.
(29:43):
But this season, thanks to my hard work and film coming on
board, it was kind of easier to to know that I was in good hands
once I was done recording. And, you know, once again, thank
you, Phil. And to know that it was going to
get done. And so it was easy for me to
(30:05):
just set all of these recording dates and be like, cool, once
it's done, once I have this interview done, it's just going
to go into a folder and he's going to take care of it.
And so I built up a nice cache. So that's, that's something that
you need to do unless you are once again one of these
celebrities or these personalities that has a built
in. You already have 3 producers and
(30:27):
you've got an editor and you've got this, that and the other
person. Yeah, I'm sure it becomes a lot
easier. You just go into the studio, you
sit down and you're like, Conan O'Brien needs a friend.
I fucking love Conan O'Brien. Conan come on the podcast and
then the other goals that I'm setting for myself is the
(30:49):
guests, you know, I I have been chipping away at the comic
stuff. It is once again Four Seasons in
I'm going to remind everybody this is not a comics only
podcast. I have other interests and I
want to interview people in those fields and it's just a
little more work. But you you all my audience has
(31:15):
really helped and it's been growing.
And once that's kind of the key to getting other guests too, is
just you got to show that your audience is growing and there's
more people. You know, I still think that I
can out conversationalize a lot of people that do interview
podcasts and do it differently, but that's me being very
(31:39):
confident myself and it's a confidence that grew with this
podcast. So I think that's other huge
thing. And one of those things that
I'll keep talking about is the confidence level.
You got to have confidence in yourself.
You got to believe in yourself because nobody else will.
Nobody else is going to come anddo the thing for you unless
you're doing it. So fuck, I, you know, I, this
(32:04):
isn't like a self help podcast. This isn't one of those things,
but I just wanted to talk about that because I honestly, I'll be
46 just after you hear this. Four years ago, I set myself on
this path, which started with the other YouTube channel West
Coast Avengers. It started with selling comics
and that part of it, but I knew there was always going to be
(32:26):
more. And I, I, I would often think
about like, what does this look like in four years?
What does my life look like? What do, what are the things I
want to accomplish look like? Do I have anything I want to
accomplish? Or am I just doing this?
And it comes, it comes to me. And I don't know how it comes to
you in your life, but it comes to me in I, for lack of a better
(32:50):
term, like little visions, little daydreams of me thinking
like, yeah, I could, I could do this.
You know, when I started the West Coast Avengers thing and I
interviewed Bob Hall. And then right after that was
Mark Wade. Those are my first two real
interviews that weren't friends.You know, I had Waycheck on, I
had Benitas on, I had Dave Koreaon.
(33:12):
But I would Daydream about getting this person on, that
person on. And, you know, then I got Tom
McFarlane on and it was like, whoa, I fucking did that.
I did that and I started to see like a little bit into the
future of what I wanted, and youreally need to envision where
you want to be before you can get there.
(33:34):
You're going to end up having bad days.
You can end up waking up 1 morning and you look at your
newest video or you're going to look at your growth in the last
28 days and it's going to feel like shit.
You're going to be like, wow, I,I shouldn't be doing this.
Like, this is a waste of time. Nobody cares.
I often, even just this weekend,I was like, nobody gives a shit
(33:57):
about the other channel. Nobody gives a shit about this
podcast. I have those thoughts that let
them creep in. I shake it off.
And I realized that there is no obstacle in front of me except
me. And I just get out of my own way
and keep doing what I'm doing. And yeah, I don't really like it
when people say, oh, if you workhard at something, it'll
(34:21):
eventually pay off because there's more than just the work.
It's the the believing in the work.
It's the believing in yourself. It's the believing that the one
asshole who comments on the video does not represent the
99.9% of the other people that didn't say that or, or, or the
people that said positive stuff or the people that just hit the
(34:42):
like button or watched or the message that you get or, you
know, or, or you know, the, the re, the, the, the sharing of the
podcast when the, the guest shares.
Like, I think one of the hardestthings, and I should loop this
into what I was talking about before that confidence also
(35:02):
comes with you really need to stand up and tell the people
that you're having on the show. Like, hey, if you don't mind
just sharing this like it reallyhelps, like explain to them how
much it helps when they share because I'm going to go over to
two separate episodes this season.
(35:25):
I'm going to use these two as examples.
You can have a you you can make sure that you're getting guests
that are concurrent with the industry that you wanted, you
know, you're talking about. So let's so in comics, I knew
that if I was able to get Matt Fraction on when his first issue
(35:47):
of Batman came out, that it would be pretty big for the
podcast. He is somebody that I've read
his books on and off for years. You know, Sex Criminals with
Chips Adarski very vocal about. That's one of my favorite comic
books of all time. And so after the second
interview with Chip, I asked Chip, I was like, Hey, can you,
can you connect me with Matt? I'd love to try and get him on
(36:08):
the podcast before or you know, or when Batman one comes out and
he's like, sure, I'll, I'll pinghim and see what he says.
And sure enough, he connected me.
Obviously the interview went well.
It was my first time talking to Matt.
But the one thing I had that I wasn't aware of at the time, but
I realized shortly after I was the only interview that he had
(36:29):
done for Batman and I, I knew itafter we recorded.
I was like, oh, shit, there's nothing else out there except
for some stuff he did in July way before the book came out.
And so I needed to make sure thethumbnail was good.
I needed to make sure that everything on it title, all of
the presentation for it was, youknow, was was top notch.
(36:52):
And that podcast, that episode just fucking skyrocketed this
community and you know, subscribers and all that stuff
to a new level. I mean, at this time of
recording, I think it's got 9000views on YouTube and you know,
it's got couple of 100 on Spotify.
(37:13):
It's the biggest one I've done to to date by numbers and
audience. But Matt's not on social media.
So Matt doesn't share it becausehe's just he doesn't have
anywhere to share it on. He's not on social media.
If he had shared that on social media, if he had social media,
(37:34):
probably would have had 25, thirty 40,000.
But I did some, I did some on the ground gorilla work on that.
I posted on Reddit. I posted it here and there.
Like I know there are certain episodes that I can slide in to
certain places to to get looks. So that's just doing everything
right and hitting at the right time.
(37:56):
Because I posted the Kirkman andFinch.
The interview was done couple months before skin breaker came
out. It did well.
But if I had posted it the week that skin breaker, the, the
first issue of skin Breaker cameout, it would have done
gangbusters. But you got to play certain
rules when you're dealing with publicity people and it's fine.
I, I Shannon really is awesome. She works for Skybound and she's
(38:21):
hooked me up with a bunch of interviews.
So no, no worries there. But this past week, the Jim
Woodring interview, Jim has not shared it on Facebook or
Instagram, but I did e-mail it to Tucker, who does publicity
for Fantagraphics, because I wanted him to hear it.
Me and him have been communicating for a couple weeks
(38:43):
about something else. He either yeah, he shared it on
Fantagraphic social media. I shared it in a couple places
and it's doing gangbusters because people who know Jim
Woodring haven't heard from him in a while.
And that's also like a big thing.
Like getting people getting guests on that maybe don't have
(39:06):
a lot of interviews out there isa really important thing for not
just your brand, their brand andalso fans.
The Stan Sakai interview, which admittedly on West Coast
Avengers didn't do as well as I wanted to, but over the last
couple months it's just gained more and more traction because
(39:26):
there's not a lot of interviews out there with Stan and not a
lot of good ones to boot. So there's a huge factor in
timing, you know, especially when you're talking about an
industry like music or comics that does not really have built
in mainstream media coverage like music does.
To a point, but not really anymore unless your name's
(39:50):
Taylor Swift, right? But, you know, I don't know if
I'll ever get her on, but I really would love to have Hayley
Williams on because her newest album, Ego Death at a
Bachelorette Party was fantastic.
And I, you know, I didn't reallyhave much experience with her
music. Not a huge Paramore fan but you
could see over the last month. How much traction she's gained.
(40:13):
Her name is is out there in places that probably wasn't
because the album's just so fantastic, like it's getting
different media coverage. She was on Fallon with that
performance, a true believer andit was just absolutely
fantastic. But it's a lot about timing.
So that's another add on to kindof a good suggestion to what
(40:39):
makes what makes for good ideas for a podcast and how you can
definitely help yourself. But you have to start off small.
You can't just expect to get. I mean, I definitely I'm always
shooting above my weight class or whatever the phrase is is.
I'm just trying to get guests that I admire that are probably
(41:01):
way out of my league. But you never know.
You really never know. I mean, one of the first big
confidence boosters for me was Iemailed Trent Register's manager
out of nowhere and tried to get him on the podcast before 9 Inch
Nails went on the tour this year.
It didn't happen, clearly, but Igot to try.
(41:22):
I got to try. Otherwise I'll never know.
And the answer is always going to be no if you never ask.
So there are some tropes that are, you know, those kind of
like sayings that we say that that I do believe in, but the,
you know, like, oh, if you work hard, you'll always succeed.
No, it takes a little more than just hard work.
It takes some creativeness. It takes consistency.
(41:47):
That's also a huge thing. And I need to keep myself
accountable to this podcast by being consistent by always doing
this and recording even if I'm not really in the mood for it.
Because it's funny. Once I turn this stuff on and I
set it up, hey, I've been talking for 45 minutes and I,
(42:08):
none of these notes have actually really been part of the
show. So I, I, I just, there was a
little insight, a little little insight to what I do my process.
And I'll also some tips to help you get started if you're
thinking about doing it. I think the one thing that I
(42:29):
could probably do better that's kind of a little out of my
comfort zone is to align myself with other podcasters or maybe
have other podcasters on. But it's tough for me because I
don't know, there's just a blockin there.
Like it's not really my interestis to interview other
(42:50):
podcasters. I like talking to them though.
So it's like maybe that is what I need to do.
I need to just think about it asa conversation talking and not
like having them as a guest is not the main focus.
It's like having somebody to talk to you on this podcast, but
I, I don't know what it's comingout, but it'll come out after
you hear this. I was a guest on the Dollar Bin
(43:12):
Bandits podcast. Michael Farah was kind enough to
invite me on, interviewed me. They have 3 hosts, but Michael
was one who invited me on and interviewed me and it was great.
I got to be asked questions thatI, I never get asked because,
and, and this is, I don't take offense to this.
If you're listening and I've been on your show before, but
(43:32):
there's a difference between having somebody on your show as
a guest and actually having a podcast invite you on to
interview you. And that felt real good, like
really good. And I cannot wait to hear it
because it's not real until it'sout in my head, you know, and
I'm excited to share that with everybody.
But dollar been banned. It's been around for, I think
(43:56):
almost they're in their fifth year.
Early on, when I started the West Coast Avengers, I wanted to
listen to other interviews to see how people other than Ed and
Jim talk to comic artists and writers.
And I listened to the Saint Cavitch interview on on Dollar
Bin Bandits. I was like these guys, I like
(44:16):
this one. This is a good podcast.
So yeah, that's just something that I was really happy about.
But that's another thing to keepin mind when you're starting
your own podcast. You're doing that kind of thing.
It's always good to align yourself with other podcasters.
I don't know any of them personally except for Botter,
(44:36):
but Botter does short box podcast, but then there's David
Harper on sketched and then Oblivion bar podcast.
Like those guys are all good. They they, they really host some
great shows and stuff. And obviously I talked about
Chris Peters, but you know, I'm trying to get like, I reached
out to try and get Sean. I can't remember his last name
(45:00):
from Hot Ones. I I heard back from his PR
person, but it was a no, he's too busy.
You know, I'd love, there's somebigger podcast people I'd love
to interview because they're inspirations to me.
So that's really what this podcast serves is like, oh, I'm
a fan of this person. Yeah, I'd love to love to have
them on. So that's that's what I have for
(45:21):
you on that subject, which, you know, it was.
It was plenty of me ranting, butI'm not done.
No, no, no, I'm not. I wanted to give like a really
nice chunky episode today because this will be the last
time you'll hear me talking to you without a guest for probably
a while. Maybe I'll do a solo episode in
Japan. But I'm going to be there with,
(45:41):
with Jim, the food with Dave Crossland.
I'll be staying down the block from where Sean Japan Book
Hunter lives. So it's probably the next couple
direct edition episodes are going to be with other people.
It's going to be interesting. I'm so fucking excited to go
back to Japan and experience it,especially this may not be.
(46:02):
This may be the last real comfortably cheap trip of Japan
because they just elected of right wing.
You know, I don't want to call her a Trump wannabe, but all
these, these conservative idiotsare just doing what they're
doing because the world is headed that way because of Trump
(46:23):
and because of people like him and Putin.
And you know, Boris, which obviously he's been gone.
But I'm not going to get into itbecause it's, it's just not
worth feeling. It's 10:30 at night here.
And I want to think about the bad shit that's going on right
now in this country in the world.
I want to think about the good stuff.
It's been a a fantastic year of having great guests on and I if
(46:47):
you're for some reason you haven't listened to the back
catalog or you know, you only joined for the last couple
episodes, I just I'm going to shout out all the people that
were on the podcast this season and thank them starting with Jim
Woodring. It was a great awesome time
talking to him. Stan Sakai, who I did that big
interview with, most of its on West Coast Avengers and then the
(47:08):
back end of it the last half hours on here, Matt Fraction,
fantastic to talk to him and it's amazing.
I will say this, it is amazing to see the few bootlickers who
of course voiced their opinions about Batman issue 2, because,
you know, Batman addresses police brutality and and police
(47:30):
murders of people, criminals or whatever they want to pretend
that they were, you know, and a bunch of like, yeah, people boot
lickers that were like, I hated the second issue.
And then in that I'll also mention a big thank you to
Daniel Warren Johnson. And after his interview, which
(47:52):
went over great, his Kickstarterwent great and I'll have Dan
back on the program again. But he recently during your
Comic Con posted a just a, you know, he does these art pieces
that they sell at the Felix comic booth, the art booth.
And it was absolute Batman choking out a, you know, giving
a chokehold headlock to to Ice agent.
(48:15):
And 90 percent, 9599% of us who are fans of Dan also understand
the kind of person he is. We've read his stories.
We understand the compassion andthe empathy that this man has.
But that like, little sect of bootlicking, you know, mega, you
(48:35):
know, blue, blue lives matter thing.
People chimed in like, yeah, nowBatman's killing Ice.
First of all, Batman's doesn't kill.
We all know that unless you're Zack Snyder and you know that
that's it. Or your Frank Miller and Dark
Knight, you know, Returns, whichis an alternate take on Batman.
(48:57):
But I was a chokehold. You know, Dan's a wrestling fan.
He did a a book called Do a Powerbomb.
And Dan's also a family man. And Dan spoke about it on his
live show that like he's tired of seeing ice agents at his
daughter's school lurking aroundthe school and stuff like that.
It's like, yeah, this is, this is really happening.
(49:18):
And so he decided to just do a great art piece to just voice
himself and voice how he feels through the life that he lives,
the career that he chooses through his artistic voice.
And that's why I love him, because he is doing that.
And I, I absolutely think that'sfantastic.
(49:41):
But getting back to the, I got like one or one or two comments
that were like kind of nasty on the stuff that I'd shared on, on
social media previous to that. Somebody found the reels from
the episode he was on couple months before this even
happened. And, you know, put some bullshit
in there, which I can't rememberwhat it was.
I just kind of laughed at them. And then I blocked them and,
(50:05):
and, you know, block the comments or whatever because
like it's Myspace anyway, fuck you.
You want to come into my house and say some insulting shit?
No, yo, you can go fucking form your own channel and do that.
But all props to DWJ for that. So big thanks to to Dan for
coming to the podcast, for beinga good dude.
Kelly Jones, another one. Just so delighted to talk to
(50:28):
him. That was such a fun one.
And to pair that up with the interview with him and Matt
Wagner on the other channel, that was great.
Felipe Smith, love that dude, sofriendly.
Somebody I will happily have back on the podcast and his
podcast is great. Cringe.
Moose May with DJ 5 duck. Maybe I'll have them both on.
(50:50):
Maybe I'll interview them while I'm in Japan.
We'll see. I'd love to go to Japan when
they're there because they wouldbe killer people to hang out
with. Stand Up Dan, Dan Schlissel of
Stand Up Records. We will be doing 1 again because
I had a lot of technical difficulties on my end.
So the interview was very start,stop, start, stop for me.
(51:13):
But I got to see Dan in Pittsburgh for the Eddie Peacon
and it was it was awesome hanging out with him.
We got dinner together the firstnight I was there.
It was one of those moments where yes, we're friends.
He buys books for me. We met once before, but after
having him on the podcast and sitting and hanging out with him
and having dinner with him, it felt like an accomplishment of
(51:35):
like, Oh, I, you know, I'm doingthe thing where this person's
been guest on my show and now we're having dinner.
You know, that's kind of awesometo me, like that friendship.
Tyler Maine, awesome to speak tohim.
That was that was fun. That was actually a lot of fun.
He's somebody that, you know, I watched him in X-Men when I when
(51:58):
that came out, which I was, you know, 20 or 21 when that movie
came out. It was really cool getting to
have him on the show and talk about wrestling and acting and
and comics. So and also a mutual admiration
for Jaws. Jimmy jams Jim the food that you
know, what have I, what can I say about the man that I already
that I haven't said already And good dude, good friend.
(52:22):
And another one, it's mind blowing that I didn't know him
two years ago and we're going toJapan together in like 2 1/2
weeks. You know, Eric Larson always
appreciate talking to Eric. Eric did not like the thumbnail,
but I did. So I changed it, but that's OK.
(52:43):
I've had I've interviewed him three times and I don't think
that's going to be the last time.
Let's just say that. And to my friend Johnny Phillip,
who I've known for over a decade, it was so delightful to
talk to him on the podcast and talk about sobriety.
We are both sober with over combined 2020 years of sobriety.
So and we get to talk music and it's somebody that I've always
(53:05):
loved talking to about music. David Finch and Robert Kirkman,
fucking delight. Too short.
I need more time with both of them.
So expect to see them both on the podcast again, maybe
together, maybe separate. I need like a good hour and a
half with Kirkman because Walking Dead, Invincible, Skin
(53:26):
Breaker, all this stuff that he's done, like and David Finch
anyway, that was awesome. John Way, Shaq, somebody I had
early on on The Avengers and like, I didn't really know how
to talk to people in the recording space like all this.
But oh, it was so much fun talking away Shaq and to see his
star rise, to see more people looking at his work, buying his
(53:50):
work, buying his art, reading the comics.
Like it makes me really, really happy.
I've always appreciated him as aperson and I've always
appreciated his art extremely tothe highest level.
So if you're not reading Cul-de-sac, I Yeah, you should.
Who else did I have on? Oh, Alice Darrow.
(54:13):
I opened up the season with Alice.
Alice is the daughter of Jeff Darrow, who's going to open up
Season 5. She released her first comic
this year, Tramps of the Apocalypse.
I'd be lying if I didn't say I was really excited for that one
because we had chatted for almost a year before that.
And just somebody that I became friendly with talking to on
(54:34):
Instagram because of that art piece that I got of hers.
And I, I gave her the art piece back and we started talking
about comics. And you know, she's a like
minded person very much. She's an Antifa terrorist,
right? Just like me.
And yeah, it was a delight to have her on.
And I really hope she gets to domore issues of Tramps.
(54:56):
I will be in LA in a couple Voltjeez a week and I'm going to
meet her because she's doing a small comics festival while I'm
out there. There's two comics festivals
while I'm out there in the same day.
I'm hoping this LA trip is goingto this well, it definitely
will. This LA trip is going to yield
some podcast guests. I know that.
(55:16):
And finally, the last guest thatI want to thank somebody who
have had on twice Chips Adarski,one of my favorite people in
general, one of my favorite comic creators, just a a gem of
a human to talk to and somebody that I plan on having on like I
said with him every year until Iam no longer talking.
(55:38):
Let's just say that or he's no longer doing comics, But I think
a chip check in once a year is much needed.
It's kind of like going to the doctor, except he probably won't
ask you to cough while he holds your balls.
He wrote Sex Criminals, so I don't know.
So yes, I, I know that was a little bit of a recap of all of,
you know, it was like a cheap 20minute fill in, but I felt like
(56:02):
doing it. I, I'm very honoured to have
these people on to have them also very much compliment and
say thank you and tell me that they had a good time.
I have one more guest coming up.I really, really hope that this
goes through and there's no cancellation, but it's Mark
Silvestri and you'll learn more about Mark Sebastian if you're
(56:25):
not familiar with him next week,but I I'll, I'll leave it at
that for the guests. I want to say a big thank you to
you. That's right.
You, you know what I'm talking about, you, the people that have
been keeping me going with this,and I mean, just giving me words
of encouragement, telling me that they list this on their
(56:48):
commute or, you know, they're playing catch up and they love
this interview or they love thatinterview.
I, I, I still deal with the imposter syndrome and thinking
that like this is just me fucking self flatulating, you
know, like just doing this thingthat nobody really likes.
(57:10):
But I, I, you know, I shouldn't think like that.
I should have the confidence that I talked about before.
So thank you to you for being a part of this.
Thank you to you for encouragingme to do this and to keep doing
this and to let me know that there is merit that you're
finding positive experience withthis.
(57:32):
It is would be very easy to makea podcast where I just bitch and
complain and negativity and justride that wave, which certain
sometimes I do, sometimes I really want to do that.
But it would be way too easy to do that on a regular basis.
I'd be just like the rest of these fucking assholes that are
(57:52):
bringing us down and I don't want to be.
I want to let uplift. I want to bring your day up.
I want to bring my day up. So thank you for that.
Before we do get going on this penultimate yeah, that that that
word, the ultimate episode of Season 4, I'm going to ask you
(58:13):
please, from the bottom of my heart, can you please rate and
review the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to it
on? Yeah, OK, I won't sing anymore.
But yeah, if you're watching on YouTube, like comment and
subscribe. If you're not, hit the bell.
So you're notified every time I drop an episode, which is Monday
(58:35):
morning. I don't think I'll ever do a
live stream on this channel, buthey, you never know.
And if you're listening to on Spotify, you can scroll up to
the top and you can rate it witha star review.
You can comment, you can rate iton Apple.
You can leave a word review on Apple.
I really appreciate it. Anywhere else you're listening
(58:57):
to it. Also, if you are listening to it
on one platform and you're like,hey Dave, why aren't you on this
platform, please let me know. I don't know where I'm not
because I don't know what I don't know.
And that'll be all I've got for you today.
I do have a Patreon. 5 bucks a month gets you extra episodes of
this, extra episodes of West Coast, The Avengers exclusive
(59:20):
sale of stuff over there if you're into that. 5 bucks a
month, come on join. We got like 65 members or
something like that, which is insane.
It's been going on like 2 months.
I know people have been doing over a year.
They don't have 50 Patreon subscribers.
I guess you like me. Anyway, thank you so much.
(59:41):
I hope you have a great week. I'll see you next week on Direct
Edition. I'm Dave and I'm out.
Hello friends, it's your pal Dave, and I want to introduce to
you my brand new Patreon, West Coast Avengers and Direct
Edition, all under one umbrella.You can now support me by
(01:00:01):
joining the Patreon for $5 a month, and what you're going to
get is me wearing this shirt andnothing else.
I'm just kidding. You're going to get at least one
bonus episode of West Coast Avengers and one bonus episode
of Direct Edition per month as well.
I'm going to let you vote on thecontent of another West Coast
Avengers video where I flip through a rare book or a rare
magazine or something that you've never seen before.
(01:00:23):
And you get 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.
So plop down 5 bucks a month. It's not that much to ask, is
(01:00:46):
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 of rigging. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
There is no obstacle in front ofme except me and I just get out
of my own way. Welcome back to Direct Edition,
a podcast about nothing and everything.
(00:20):
I am your host Dave and here we are episode 80.
We are. I am careening.
I am racing towards the end of Season 4 with such a just a
thankfulness and a feeling of gratitude to everybody who's
been here for the ride partiallyor the complete thing.
(00:44):
And I wanted to reflect on a little bit of this season.
Also talk about some of the guests that I've had on and look
ahead to the future and catch upon some things.
It's been a while since I've done a solo episode.
I think it's been a couple of months and today I I locked in
as the kids say the season 5 premiere interview with Jeff
(01:06):
Darrow. If you don't know Jeff, you're
you're going to get to know him real well.
But great comic artist and creator worked with Frank Miller
and Mobius. Also a driving force is a the
creative director on the matrix.He helped design the Matrix.
And I don't mean the actual program.
I mean the movies, the look of the movies with the Wachowskis.
So that's something to look forward to in December.
(01:29):
And we have, I have one more interview to share with you.
It hasn't been recorded yet. So fingers crossed that nothing
in the schedule changes. But man, so thankful to
everybody who's been a part of this, whether listening to it,
being a guest on it or my producers, because I've gone
(01:49):
through a couple and in the thumbnail you saw that I'm going
to share some things that I've learned in, in, in, in two years
of podcasting for anybody who's thinking about getting into it
or anybody who just wants to kind of know what it's like to
be the, I don't know, the all around creator of a podcast.
(02:11):
I, I do this all myself. I record everything myself.
I set up the interviews myself. I had to learn how to do the
lighting and set all this stuff up and it, it, it, it, it was a
learning experience and it's still a learning experience.
I never wanted to stop learning.But it has been with the help of
producers that I have hired friends that I've hired.
(02:34):
They're more than just their role.
There are friends of mine. And you know, Joe was, was
great, but he chose a different career path, which, you know,
that I, I couldn't, couldn't blame him.
And then Dan, who really helped out, but he also was great at
what he does, but our schedules didn't really work too well
(02:56):
together, which is fine because that's just part of life.
And now Phil Phil is an old friend, old oldest friend out of
the three of them and known Philfor over a decade.
And I think I finally found my person to help with this podcast
and help take it to the next level.
But that's probably thing one I want to talk about is finding
(03:21):
the person to help you bring thepodcast to the next level.
Like I, I look, I know nobody that on a personal level that's
really podcasted for a while anddone a show like this and gotten
to a level where you know, they're on that X level, which
which is where I'm trying to get.
But you can't do it all by yourself.
(03:42):
It becomes an insurmountable task.
Unless the only thing you do forX amount of hours a week, you
don't work, you don't do anything else is podcast, then
you might be able to do a lot ofthese things by yourself.
You might be able to record something that's more of a
narrative feel or storytelling feel where mine, this one serves
(04:05):
as an interview podcast as well as getting to hear my side of
things, my life, the things thatare going on, the stories that I
want to tell, the experiences that I've had.
I don't think I'm special for any reason.
I just do like, I like to talk and I like to share the
(04:26):
experiences and the things I've done in my life.
I do feel that I've personally, for me, I've lived multiple
lives and I don't mean like I was Joan of Arc and then I was
Jesus Christ. No, I've just, it's a lot of
points in my life where there's a lot going on And then I
changed and I shifted to this, that the other thing.
But finding yourself a producer or somebody to edit, somebody to
(04:49):
help you come up with ideas, somebody to bounce creative
things off of them and vice versa.
That's a huge part of this. I think that's maybe after you
figured out what you want to do,what kind of podcast you want to
record and what kind of, you know, for lack of a better term,
content you want to put out there.
(05:11):
I think it's good to find somebody who's focused, who is
determined, who is a hard workerand somebody that can work with
you because not everybody out there is meant to work with
everybody out there. You know, I mean, it's the same
thing that can be said for friendships or relationships.
(05:32):
You know, not everybody is supposed to be together.
Not everybody is supposed to be friends.
That's one of those things you learn as you grow up, especially
the the friendship part, becauseif you're going through
partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives,
whatever, over and over and over, I think maybe it's time to
just pump the brakes completely and access your own life.
(05:55):
But with friendships or partnerships or creative
partnerships, you really need toknow who you're dealing with
before you start dealing with them.
And Phil, I can talk about somewhat candidly because we've
known each other for a long timeand he wasn't in a place always
(06:16):
to do this. He's told me that.
And I feel like we're both in a great place right now where
we're able to communicate well and honestly, which is a huge
part of working with somebody. I don't know what it seemed, and
that's my problem. I had a very hard time finding a
producer, somebody who could do this full time.
(06:38):
And it was really tough. I obviously did not find
somebody that does this and thisis their only job, which I want
to give a shout out to to Jazzy Jamie.
Jazzy Jamie Wood. Jamie is a full time podcast
producer and a lot of you may know who he is.
He works with producing ink pulp.
I mean he kind of put the glue together to make ink pulp what
(06:59):
it is today. He works with Mark Miller,
Scotty Young. He is the comics podcast guru
and the the man of many hats also for Calf plus comic art
fans and and OAX and all that. Jamie and I, I am happy for him.
(07:20):
I am so happy for him because he's so good at what he does.
But I made the big mistake of well, maybe not a mistake, but I
wasn't able to justifiably to myself afford him when he did
have availability as a producer.And I'm glad that he is doing so
fucking well and producing all these great shows because he
(07:41):
deserves it. But unless you find somebody
like Jamie, you have to figure out a way to get a producer.
And I, I don't know how to just cold find a producer.
I'm, I'm one of those people that does recognize their people
in their lives, their talents, what they do and what they're
good at and what you know. And so I did talk to Phil before
(08:08):
I officially hired him and I really wanted him because he
used to produce this podcast andhe's good at what he does.
He was one of the two friends that I looked to when I started
West Coast Avengers. That helped me kind of
understand the editing style, kind of understand like YouTube
(08:28):
videos and stuff like that. Because before I did this or
West Coast Avengers, I really don't watch much YouTube outside
of cartoonist kayfabe. That was really, that was really
the beginning of me watching a regular YouTube show.
And anybody who's friends with me for more than maybe 5 or 6
years, when they suggest a podcast to me, I'm like, I don't
(08:51):
listen to podcasts, I don't enjoy them.
And it was a post office job that really turned me into a
podcast listener because I was always walking.
And so I've always wanted to listen to something and
sometimes I didn't want to listen to music.
So within getting Phil as a producer, I get kind of the
(09:12):
complete package of somebody. And you really need to look for
somebody. If you're thinking about getting
to podcast and you're looking for a producer slash editor, you
need to find somebody that understands social media because
you need to do reels, you need to do shorts, you need to be
able to market your podcast. Unless your name's Jason Bateman
or your name's fucking Joe Rogan.
(09:32):
But if your name's Joe Rogan, probably change it.
Or, you know, if you're Marc Maron.
People who have established names in an industry, whether
it's music, whether it's comedy,whatever.
Those people don't really need to worry about the social media
game as much as Joe Blow. Dave, who doesn't is nobody.
(09:53):
I am, you know, if you are thinking about starting a
podcast and you already have an established audience somewhere
else like I did with West Coast Avengers, you have to tap them.
You have to ask them to be a part of this community.
You have to ask for their support.
And you got to hope that you getsome people in there too who
believe in you because creating a community is tough.
(10:16):
I, it took me like 4 years to really get a really strong
community in West Coast Avengers. 3-4 years and it's the
backbone of everything you do and, and I would be nowhere
without them. My personality goes a long way,
but it only goes a long way if people are interested in
joining. Otherwise I'm just speaking into
(10:39):
the void of nothingness. And I think I needed to believe
in myself. And that's another big thing is
believing in yourself before youthink or even expect or ever
accept that people are believingin you.
I think that's the cornerstone to any strong quality of life in
(11:06):
building up your, and I don't mean this in the negative sense,
but building up your ego, building up the way you present
yourself is believing in yourself 1st and then people
will believe in you and people will come along for the ride
unless no, I, I, you know, people come along with for the
ride, no matter what sad thing is that they'll come along for
(11:27):
the ride If you're more negativeperson.
It's just the way of the fuckingworld, unfortunately.
But so yes, finding somebody whocan edit, produce, do social
media for you, or at least create the stuff for you.
Because I mean, like there are people out there that can do it
all. But I have not really met too
(11:48):
many people that are so good at,they're so good at selling
themselves personality wise and talking and all that.
And also being completely super,super social media savvy,
editing savvy, like all of thosethings.
I wish I was all those things. I wish I understood what the 25
year olds wanted to see as well as the four, the people my age
(12:10):
wanted to see. But I only think in a 45 year
old's brain, soon to be 46. But the goofiness is my
universal language. My humor that is.
That is also a big plus unless you're doing a real serious
thing, like leaning in with humor is always going to help in
(12:31):
every way, shape or form. And I try not to lean into the
offensive humor. That is definitely something
that I've grown away from. I mean, yeah, sure, people are
going to be offended, whatever, but I'm never going to
purposefully go after people unless they're bootlicking MAGA
ice cucks. But that's besides the point.
(12:51):
So yes, finding somebody you canwork with, somebody that can
help you, somebody that you alsocan, you know, make sure that
you can afford to to pay them. That's a big part.
I mean, I'm don't really make ita secret about this podcast
being a zero. I earn $0.00 from this podcast
(13:13):
for now. What I do earn money from is the
sales of the comics on the otherchannel.
And you know, want to say thank you also to any and all of my
Patreon subscribers. You are helping me just, you
know, with paying the bills thatI have for creating this podcast
(13:33):
time and the money that I'm paying Phil.
So remember, not every you don'thave to pump a ton of money into
a podcast, but you definitely need just like anything in this
world, you do need to spend money to have it.
That's just how it is. And if you want to consider it a
(13:53):
business, at some point, you gotto spend money to make money.
I've learned that and I've I've done really responsible things
on my end for West Coast Avengers.
Four years in running that business, I can count on one
hand how many times I spent money that I shouldn't have
spent. That's a big thing for podcast
(14:18):
In the 80 episodes I've learned.I'm still learning in sound.
I'm still learning on how far the microphone should be for me,
the gain certain just ways to not raise my voice too high and,
you know, to make sure that everything's well lit.
That's something you can watch all the videos on YouTube.
(14:42):
You could read all the threads on Reddit.
It's a trial and error thing. It's trial and error.
I mean, I still have a problem with the glasses.
You know what I can change the lighting, but it doesn't really
it's not really noticeable and you probably wouldn't have
noticed it if I didn't tell you that there's a glare on my
glasses right here in the in thecorner.
(15:05):
Now you're not going to be able to Unsee it, but that's OK
that's OK. We need a little light in our
eyes and dark times. So doing the trial and error
thing, you know, I recorded a couple of podcasts that sounded
like shit. Luckily, none of them were
interviews, but even the interviews that got messed up
the last season, I had a couple where the microphone clearly was
(15:26):
not being picked up and you know, it just didn't sound that
good. But you got to fix that and
post. You know what, Phil?
And a big echo in post right now.
Just when me going hello, OK, Soand and remember one of the
biggest things when you're working with somebody who's
(15:48):
editing for you is having an idea, a forward thinking idea of
how and what they can do and what they can't do and what you
want your podcast to look like or sound like or edits to be in
there. It really does harp on
communication. So that's that's that one of the
(16:09):
things that I've really learned about getting people on the
show. There's no reason to stop asking
somebody or stop pitching until you get a straight out no the
way that the podcast sphere and and everything's gotten very
podcast heavy in the last five years means that people are
getting interview requests all the time.
(16:31):
Emails aren't getting seen. Assistants aren't being
overloaded with that and they'llignore stuff or they'll just
plain out miss it or they'll read the e-mail.
Something will happen and they'll forget about it 30
seconds later. I've had countless numbers of
emails to publicist and the onlyone that yeah, I ever accept,
(16:55):
the only ones I ever accept through yes or no and the no I I
haven't really had too many flatout Nos.
They're very oh, you know, unfortunately their schedule is
full. Sorry, you know, maybe next time
or they're they're booked solid like Michael G Aquino.
(17:16):
I think it's G Aquino. He's the composer, slash
director, slash writer. He did the music, came out to
the scene and lost was the firstthing I noticed.
He did all of JJ Abrams stuff and then he went on to Marvel
and he directed the Werewolf by Night movie.
He did the score for Fantastic Four, amongst other movies.
(17:38):
He's a extremely talented human being and I finally got through
to his assistant very recently, maybe like 2 months ago or
manager, somebody with somebody like that.
And she said, you know, unfortunately right now is not a
good time. He is pretty much locked away
writing two different scores right now and will be for the
(17:58):
rest of the year. And I said, OK, I'll, you know,
I'll reach back at the end of the year and maybe we could set
something up for for next year, which I think with the in the
Hollywood kind of sphere, unlessthere's a press junket promoting
something, I think you have to book those kinds of interviews
while in advance, which is fine.I've got until I don't.
(18:22):
I've got all the time in the world and I'll be pitching
people as many as I can because I really am interested in having
conversations with people. And so in that pitching is it's
own fucking time suck. I mean, you are going to spend
tons and tons of time pitching. And if you're doing a podcast
where you're writing something or you're doing research, like
(18:45):
then your time is spent doing that and you're recording
episodes after you're done doingyour research.
One of the people that I talked to a lot about that is Chris,
Chris Piers Comic Tropes. I mean, he doesn't do a podcast
as much as he has his YouTube show and he will spend weeks
researching and then days, weeksediting an episode that may only
(19:07):
be 18 minutes long. But they are comprehensive and
they are very well thought out, well researched.
For me, because I don't, it's not my thing.
I don't have any interest in doing that kind of research.
My research goes into getting prepped for a conversation and
for example, the the Jeff Darrowepisode which I recorded today,
(19:32):
I watched, I re watched most of the episodes where he was on
Cartoon escape. I watched Chris Pierce's
interview with him. I watched Chris's episode on
him. But because this is somebody
that I'm interested, I was just reinforcing some of the things I
already knew, learning some stuff, hearing the questions
that were asked and figuring out.
OK, well, nobody talked to him about this.
(19:55):
So let's, you know, talk to him.Let me talk to him about this.
One of those prime examples is Iasked him about Andrew Vax, who
was a writer, who was an FBI investigator.
And he was Jeff's friend and mentor.
And they work together. And Jeff really never got to
talk about him in too many interviews, or at least any in
the YouTube era. And I could tell that Jeff was
(20:20):
very happy to talk to me about him.
And so that's. You know, that's what I want to
do. I want to give people the chance
to hear stuff they may not have heard.
Maybe they'll hear some of the greatest hits, the stuff that
they do know, but everybody's not OK.
There's always somebody who's listening to an interview and
hearing about this person for the first time.
(20:41):
So with a guy like Jeff Darrow, people are going to get to hear
how he met Mobius and how he meta Tomo and, and, and those kind
of stories which he's told before.
But it's going to be new to you.And the other thing about doing
interviews for me, I don't know what every anybody else's
(21:03):
process is like, but my process is I get really anxious.
I, I, I get, I, I lose sleep over how it's going to go.
I play it over my head 1015 times before it happens.
And then as soon as I hit the record button, all of that goes
away. And I think my anxiety that I
deal with helps me prep for an interview in the best way
(21:25):
possible. And then I just have a
conversation. I don't even consider it an
interview. I think some people I have to
structure it a little bit more and some people it's just a
conversation. I think Tyler, mean, I, I, I, I
feel like I had to structure that a little more.
But I think after about 15 minutes, we both got really
(21:47):
relaxed and just kind of talked it through.
But you know, my third interview, whatever, with Daniel
Warren Johnson at this point, it's just a conversation between
two guys. Hey, two guys and friendly, you
know, friends, Chip, I think Chip Siddarski.
I think by the next time I have them on the podcast, it's
probably going to devolve into ridiculous madness on both
(22:08):
parts. That's my goal for this, my goal
for my interviews, and you should set goals for yourself.
That's a big part of starting a podcast and running a podcast is
like setting goals. I mean, it's good for life in
general. And I'm doing it a lot more than
I used to because I'm starting to see this path.
(22:30):
But my, my goal is to just bringthese chats to people and have
people feel like, oh, this is just, this is just a very
relaxed, calm and comfortable environment.
And I, I don't get to create that in the world.
(22:51):
That is not something I could do.
I wish I could, I wish I could bring even just 10,000 people
together and feel like, wow, this is, this is what life
should be like. Very relaxed and calm and
community feel. But you know, maybe in five
years I'll have 10,000 people that actively listen to all this
(23:15):
stuff. I don't know, I have to, I've,
I've, I'm rambling a bit, but you know, I think if you're
listening to me and, and you have an interest in what I do or
you want to do the same thing. I think these are things that I
don't actively think about everyday.
But sitting down and focusing and staring into this camera
(23:35):
with this microphone, it's coming to me a little bit more.
I don't know if this is for everybody.
This what I'm about to say aboutif you're having an interview
focused podcast or it's something that you want to
incorporate into a show or whatever.
I don't really have any interestin just talking to anybody
(23:56):
because I could. That would be absolutely so
easy. I am a natural
conversationalist. I love verbally being around
people, communicating with people.
Like I'm not shy, but I often say to people like, oh, you
(24:20):
should have this person or you should have this person.
I, I get it. Like you want to you're, you're
saying like, oh, I would love tohear you talk to this.
I don't, I don't want to waste anybody's time.
I don't want to fake it. I don't want to fake being
interested. Now, I could, like I said, I
could probably find something, you know, interesting, a topic
(24:40):
to talk to anybody about, as long as I have something to say
about it. But I want to be interested in
the person. I want to pour the gasoline out
and I want to light the match and let the person be the flames
I want. I'm not saying I want them to
burn you sure about that. But I want to get out of the way
(25:01):
and let them do their thing. And for me to want to do that, I
have to be interested in this person and what they have to
say. I cannot obviously control of
somebody is boring or not. I myself can control myself and
that's it. But to have somebody on and sit
(25:22):
and do research, read their work, watch their movies, listen
to their albums, it's there's got to be a level of interest
for me in it to give you something that I find to be
interesting. You know, I, I often think, and
if anybody's listening to this that does interviews themselves,
it's kind of mind blowing that Iget to sit in my office, which
(25:45):
is in my house and have private conversations with people I
admire that are in the arts and the music, whatever it is.
And until I unleash it to the public, I've just had a private
conversation with that person. And I do get to definitely take
advantage of it. After I finish recording with
(26:06):
the person, I usually chat for alittle bit.
I try to, you know, break the ice if I don't know the person
when we first start, before we record.
But afterwards I can take ask questions that I'm like, this is
off the record or whatever. And I'm not going to talk about
specific things, but I've had conversation with artists about
(26:27):
their original art collection. I've asked them if, you know,
they would ever sell anything that privately.
And, you know, me and Matt Fraction shared a lot of, you
know, when, when I had him on, we, we shared a bunch of, we
talked some socio political stuff, you know, stuff that
we're both passionate about because we're, we live not too
(26:50):
far from each other. You know, it's, it's kind of
stuff like that. You know, Felipe Smith, I think
we, you know, we recorded for over 2 hours, but I think we
talked for close to three because when the cameras were
stopped, we just chatted. And it's mind blowing to me that
I'm in, I've created a position that I can do this.
So think about that. If you're interested in getting
(27:13):
into it. Like that's another by product
of, of interviews is like men not forming personal
relationships, but having a personal conversation with
somebody after. It's not guaranteed that you're
going to do it, but it it's definitely, once you get
somebody talking, you know, artists, That's the other thing
(27:35):
is a whole sneaky thing. If you really want to have an
interview podcast, do it with artists.
Because whether it's an illustrator, comic book
illustrator, a writer, a musician, I mean, maybe not film
makers, but probably like if they're comfortable, you know, a
lot of these artistic positions of these careers these people
(27:57):
choose are solitary things. I mean, shit, my, my job is
pretty solitary, but I do get out a little bit when I feel
like it. So I'm not chained to this desk.
So there's, there's just so manydifferent pluses to it.
There's so many different joys about it.
I think the hardest thing is doing episodes like this because
I'm trying to make sure I'm trying to refine my craft.
(28:20):
I'm trying to stay focused. And that is one of the hardest
things for somebody like me personally, because I could sit
here and I could fucking talk for an hour and a half.
And I've got this is just randomnotes of stuff that I've written
in the last couple weeks that I thought maybe would be good
topics to talk about. But I I I can stay focused.
(28:41):
It's just I can ramble. I can ramble better than almost
anybody, you know, even your grandma.
Even your grandma Trudy. Yeah.
Or your weird uncle Joey, who, you know, like he listens to way
too much, you know, Fox News. So those are just a a couple of
(29:02):
things that come off the top of my head about doing this.
And I think it's good to set work boundaries for yourself.
I didn't know I was going to do seasons until I hit that like
17th episode of the the the of the podcast where I'm like, man,
(29:22):
this is tough to keep doing thisevery week, but now we're
cutting the season. This season's going to be 21
episodes because it's my fuckingpodcast.
I can do what I want and I'm going to take three weeks off.
I'm going to be in Japan or going to record some stuff
beforehand so that I can get a nice workflow going.
(29:43):
But this season, thanks to my hard work and film coming on
board, it was kind of easier to to know that I was in good hands
once I was done recording. And, you know, once again, thank
you, Phil. And to know that it was going to
get done. And so it was easy for me to
(30:05):
just set all of these recording dates and be like, cool, once
it's done, once I have this interview done, it's just going
to go into a folder and he's going to take care of it.
And so I built up a nice cache. So that's, that's something that
you need to do unless you are once again one of these
celebrities or these personalities that has a built
in. You already have 3 producers and
(30:27):
you've got an editor and you've got this, that and the other
person. Yeah, I'm sure it becomes a lot
easier. You just go into the studio, you
sit down and you're like, Conan O'Brien needs a friend.
I fucking love Conan O'Brien. Conan come on the podcast and
then the other goals that I'm setting for myself is the
(30:49):
guests, you know, I I have been chipping away at the comic
stuff. It is once again Four Seasons in
I'm going to remind everybody this is not a comics only
podcast. I have other interests and I
want to interview people in those fields and it's just a
little more work. But you you all my audience has
(31:15):
really helped and it's been growing.
And once that's kind of the key to getting other guests too, is
just you got to show that your audience is growing and there's
more people. You know, I still think that I
can out conversationalize a lot of people that do interview
podcasts and do it differently, but that's me being very
(31:39):
confident myself and it's a confidence that grew with this
podcast. So I think that's other huge
thing. And one of those things that
I'll keep talking about is the confidence level.
You got to have confidence in yourself.
You got to believe in yourself because nobody else will.
Nobody else is going to come anddo the thing for you unless
you're doing it. So fuck, I, you know, I, this
(32:04):
isn't like a self help podcast. This isn't one of those things,
but I just wanted to talk about that because I honestly, I'll be
46 just after you hear this. Four years ago, I set myself on
this path, which started with the other YouTube channel West
Coast Avengers. It started with selling comics
and that part of it, but I knew there was always going to be
(32:26):
more. And I, I, I would often think
about like, what does this look like in four years?
What does my life look like? What do, what are the things I
want to accomplish look like? Do I have anything I want to
accomplish? Or am I just doing this?
And it comes, it comes to me. And I don't know how it comes to
you in your life, but it comes to me in I, for lack of a better
(32:50):
term, like little visions, little daydreams of me thinking
like, yeah, I could, I could do this.
You know, when I started the West Coast Avengers thing and I
interviewed Bob Hall. And then right after that was
Mark Wade. Those are my first two real
interviews that weren't friends.You know, I had Waycheck on, I
had Benitas on, I had Dave Koreaon.
(33:12):
But I would Daydream about getting this person on, that
person on. And, you know, then I got Tom
McFarlane on and it was like, whoa, I fucking did that.
I did that and I started to see like a little bit into the
future of what I wanted, and youreally need to envision where
you want to be before you can get there.
(33:34):
You're going to end up having bad days.
You can end up waking up 1 morning and you look at your
newest video or you're going to look at your growth in the last
28 days and it's going to feel like shit.
You're going to be like, wow, I,I shouldn't be doing this.
Like, this is a waste of time. Nobody cares.
I often, even just this weekend,I was like, nobody gives a shit
(33:57):
about the other channel. Nobody gives a shit about this
podcast. I have those thoughts that let
them creep in. I shake it off.
And I realized that there is no obstacle in front of me except
me. And I just get out of my own way
and keep doing what I'm doing. And yeah, I don't really like it
when people say, oh, if you workhard at something, it'll
(34:21):
eventually pay off because there's more than just the work.
It's the the believing in the work.
It's the believing in yourself. It's the believing that the one
asshole who comments on the video does not represent the
99.9% of the other people that didn't say that or, or, or the
people that said positive stuff or the people that just hit the
(34:42):
like button or watched or the message that you get or, you
know, or, or you know, the, the re, the, the, the sharing of the
podcast when the, the guest shares.
Like, I think one of the hardestthings, and I should loop this
into what I was talking about before that confidence also
(35:02):
comes with you really need to stand up and tell the people
that you're having on the show. Like, hey, if you don't mind
just sharing this like it reallyhelps, like explain to them how
much it helps when they share because I'm going to go over to
two separate episodes this season.
(35:25):
I'm going to use these two as examples.
You can have a you you can make sure that you're getting guests
that are concurrent with the industry that you wanted, you
know, you're talking about. So let's so in comics, I knew
that if I was able to get Matt Fraction on when his first issue
(35:47):
of Batman came out, that it would be pretty big for the
podcast. He is somebody that I've read
his books on and off for years. You know, Sex Criminals with
Chips Adarski very vocal about. That's one of my favorite comic
books of all time. And so after the second
interview with Chip, I asked Chip, I was like, Hey, can you,
can you connect me with Matt? I'd love to try and get him on
(36:08):
the podcast before or you know, or when Batman one comes out and
he's like, sure, I'll, I'll pinghim and see what he says.
And sure enough, he connected me.
Obviously the interview went well.
It was my first time talking to Matt.
But the one thing I had that I wasn't aware of at the time, but
I realized shortly after I was the only interview that he had
(36:29):
done for Batman and I, I knew itafter we recorded.
I was like, oh, shit, there's nothing else out there except
for some stuff he did in July way before the book came out.
And so I needed to make sure thethumbnail was good.
I needed to make sure that everything on it title, all of
the presentation for it was, youknow, was was top notch.
(36:52):
And that podcast, that episode just fucking skyrocketed this
community and you know, subscribers and all that stuff
to a new level. I mean, at this time of
recording, I think it's got 9000views on YouTube and you know,
it's got couple of 100 on Spotify.
(37:13):
It's the biggest one I've done to to date by numbers and
audience. But Matt's not on social media.
So Matt doesn't share it becausehe's just he doesn't have
anywhere to share it on. He's not on social media.
If he had shared that on social media, if he had social media,
(37:34):
probably would have had 25, thirty 40,000.
But I did some, I did some on the ground gorilla work on that.
I posted on Reddit. I posted it here and there.
Like I know there are certain episodes that I can slide in to
certain places to to get looks. So that's just doing everything
right and hitting at the right time.
(37:56):
Because I posted the Kirkman andFinch.
The interview was done couple months before skin breaker came
out. It did well.
But if I had posted it the week that skin breaker, the, the
first issue of skin Breaker cameout, it would have done
gangbusters. But you got to play certain
rules when you're dealing with publicity people and it's fine.
I, I Shannon really is awesome. She works for Skybound and she's
(38:21):
hooked me up with a bunch of interviews.
So no, no worries there. But this past week, the Jim
Woodring interview, Jim has not shared it on Facebook or
Instagram, but I did e-mail it to Tucker, who does publicity
for Fantagraphics, because I wanted him to hear it.
Me and him have been communicating for a couple weeks
(38:43):
about something else. He either yeah, he shared it on
Fantagraphic social media. I shared it in a couple places
and it's doing gangbusters because people who know Jim
Woodring haven't heard from him in a while.
And that's also like a big thing.
Like getting people getting guests on that maybe don't have
(39:06):
a lot of interviews out there isa really important thing for not
just your brand, their brand andalso fans.
The Stan Sakai interview, which admittedly on West Coast
Avengers didn't do as well as I wanted to, but over the last
couple months it's just gained more and more traction because
(39:26):
there's not a lot of interviews out there with Stan and not a
lot of good ones to boot. So there's a huge factor in
timing, you know, especially when you're talking about an
industry like music or comics that does not really have built
in mainstream media coverage like music does.
To a point, but not really anymore unless your name's
(39:50):
Taylor Swift, right? But, you know, I don't know if
I'll ever get her on, but I really would love to have Hayley
Williams on because her newest album, Ego Death at a
Bachelorette Party was fantastic.
And I, you know, I didn't reallyhave much experience with her
music. Not a huge Paramore fan but you
could see over the last month. How much traction she's gained.
(40:13):
Her name is is out there in places that probably wasn't
because the album's just so fantastic, like it's getting
different media coverage. She was on Fallon with that
performance, a true believer andit was just absolutely
fantastic. But it's a lot about timing.
So that's another add on to kindof a good suggestion to what
(40:39):
makes what makes for good ideas for a podcast and how you can
definitely help yourself. But you have to start off small.
You can't just expect to get. I mean, I definitely I'm always
shooting above my weight class or whatever the phrase is is.
I'm just trying to get guests that I admire that are probably
(41:01):
way out of my league. But you never know.
You really never know. I mean, one of the first big
confidence boosters for me was Iemailed Trent Register's manager
out of nowhere and tried to get him on the podcast before 9 Inch
Nails went on the tour this year.
It didn't happen, clearly, but Igot to try.
(41:22):
I got to try. Otherwise I'll never know.
And the answer is always going to be no if you never ask.
So there are some tropes that are, you know, those kind of
like sayings that we say that that I do believe in, but the,
you know, like, oh, if you work hard, you'll always succeed.
No, it takes a little more than just hard work.
It takes some creativeness. It takes consistency.
(41:47):
That's also a huge thing. And I need to keep myself
accountable to this podcast by being consistent by always doing
this and recording even if I'm not really in the mood for it.
Because it's funny. Once I turn this stuff on and I
set it up, hey, I've been talking for 45 minutes and I,
(42:08):
none of these notes have actually really been part of the
show. So I, I, I just, there was a
little insight, a little little insight to what I do my process.
And I'll also some tips to help you get started if you're
thinking about doing it. I think the one thing that I
(42:29):
could probably do better that's kind of a little out of my
comfort zone is to align myself with other podcasters or maybe
have other podcasters on. But it's tough for me because I
don't know, there's just a blockin there.
Like it's not really my interestis to interview other
(42:50):
podcasters. I like talking to them though.
So it's like maybe that is what I need to do.
I need to just think about it asa conversation talking and not
like having them as a guest is not the main focus.
It's like having somebody to talk to you on this podcast, but
I, I don't know what it's comingout, but it'll come out after
you hear this. I was a guest on the Dollar Bin
(43:12):
Bandits podcast. Michael Farah was kind enough to
invite me on, interviewed me. They have 3 hosts, but Michael
was one who invited me on and interviewed me and it was great.
I got to be asked questions thatI, I never get asked because,
and, and this is, I don't take offense to this.
If you're listening and I've been on your show before, but
(43:32):
there's a difference between having somebody on your show as
a guest and actually having a podcast invite you on to
interview you. And that felt real good, like
really good. And I cannot wait to hear it
because it's not real until it'sout in my head, you know, and
I'm excited to share that with everybody.
But dollar been banned. It's been around for, I think
(43:56):
almost they're in their fifth year.
Early on, when I started the West Coast Avengers, I wanted to
listen to other interviews to see how people other than Ed and
Jim talk to comic artists and writers.
And I listened to the Saint Cavitch interview on on Dollar
Bin Bandits. I was like these guys, I like
(44:16):
this one. This is a good podcast.
So yeah, that's just something that I was really happy about.
But that's another thing to keepin mind when you're starting
your own podcast. You're doing that kind of thing.
It's always good to align yourself with other podcasters.
I don't know any of them personally except for Botter,
(44:36):
but Botter does short box podcast, but then there's David
Harper on sketched and then Oblivion bar podcast.
Like those guys are all good. They they, they really host some
great shows and stuff. And obviously I talked about
Chris Peters, but you know, I'm trying to get like, I reached
out to try and get Sean. I can't remember his last name
(45:00):
from Hot Ones. I I heard back from his PR
person, but it was a no, he's too busy.
You know, I'd love, there's somebigger podcast people I'd love
to interview because they're inspirations to me.
So that's really what this podcast serves is like, oh, I'm
a fan of this person. Yeah, I'd love to love to have
them on. So that's that's what I have for
(45:21):
you on that subject, which, you know, it was.
It was plenty of me ranting, butI'm not done.
No, no, no, I'm not. I wanted to give like a really
nice chunky episode today because this will be the last
time you'll hear me talking to you without a guest for probably
a while. Maybe I'll do a solo episode in
Japan. But I'm going to be there with,
(45:41):
with Jim, the food with Dave Crossland.
I'll be staying down the block from where Sean Japan Book
Hunter lives. So it's probably the next couple
direct edition episodes are going to be with other people.
It's going to be interesting. I'm so fucking excited to go
back to Japan and experience it,especially this may not be.
(46:02):
This may be the last real comfortably cheap trip of Japan
because they just elected of right wing.
You know, I don't want to call her a Trump wannabe, but all
these, these conservative idiotsare just doing what they're
doing because the world is headed that way because of Trump
(46:23):
and because of people like him and Putin.
And you know, Boris, which obviously he's been gone.
But I'm not going to get into itbecause it's, it's just not
worth feeling. It's 10:30 at night here.
And I want to think about the bad shit that's going on right
now in this country in the world.
I want to think about the good stuff.
It's been a a fantastic year of having great guests on and I if
(46:47):
you're for some reason you haven't listened to the back
catalog or you know, you only joined for the last couple
episodes, I just I'm going to shout out all the people that
were on the podcast this season and thank them starting with Jim
Woodring. It was a great awesome time
talking to him. Stan Sakai, who I did that big
interview with, most of its on West Coast Avengers and then the
(47:08):
back end of it the last half hours on here, Matt Fraction,
fantastic to talk to him and it's amazing.
I will say this, it is amazing to see the few bootlickers who
of course voiced their opinions about Batman issue 2, because,
you know, Batman addresses police brutality and and police
(47:30):
murders of people, criminals or whatever they want to pretend
that they were, you know, and a bunch of like, yeah, people boot
lickers that were like, I hated the second issue.
And then in that I'll also mention a big thank you to
Daniel Warren Johnson. And after his interview, which
(47:52):
went over great, his Kickstarterwent great and I'll have Dan
back on the program again. But he recently during your
Comic Con posted a just a, you know, he does these art pieces
that they sell at the Felix comic booth, the art booth.
And it was absolute Batman choking out a, you know, giving
a chokehold headlock to to Ice agent.
(48:15):
And 90 percent, 9599% of us who are fans of Dan also understand
the kind of person he is. We've read his stories.
We understand the compassion andthe empathy that this man has.
But that like, little sect of bootlicking, you know, mega, you
(48:35):
know, blue, blue lives matter thing.
People chimed in like, yeah, nowBatman's killing Ice.
First of all, Batman's doesn't kill.
We all know that unless you're Zack Snyder and you know that
that's it. Or your Frank Miller and Dark
Knight, you know, Returns, whichis an alternate take on Batman.
(48:57):
But I was a chokehold. You know, Dan's a wrestling fan.
He did a a book called Do a Powerbomb.
And Dan's also a family man. And Dan spoke about it on his
live show that like he's tired of seeing ice agents at his
daughter's school lurking aroundthe school and stuff like that.
It's like, yeah, this is, this is really happening.
(49:18):
And so he decided to just do a great art piece to just voice
himself and voice how he feels through the life that he lives,
the career that he chooses through his artistic voice.
And that's why I love him, because he is doing that.
And I, I absolutely think that'sfantastic.
(49:41):
But getting back to the, I got like one or one or two comments
that were like kind of nasty on the stuff that I'd shared on, on
social media previous to that. Somebody found the reels from
the episode he was on couple months before this even
happened. And, you know, put some bullshit
in there, which I can't rememberwhat it was.
I just kind of laughed at them. And then I blocked them and,
(50:05):
and, you know, block the comments or whatever because
like it's Myspace anyway, fuck you.
You want to come into my house and say some insulting shit?
No, yo, you can go fucking form your own channel and do that.
But all props to DWJ for that. So big thanks to to Dan for
coming to the podcast, for beinga good dude.
Kelly Jones, another one. Just so delighted to talk to
(50:28):
him. That was such a fun one.
And to pair that up with the interview with him and Matt
Wagner on the other channel, that was great.
Felipe Smith, love that dude, sofriendly.
Somebody I will happily have back on the podcast and his
podcast is great. Cringe.
Moose May with DJ 5 duck. Maybe I'll have them both on.
(50:50):
Maybe I'll interview them while I'm in Japan.
We'll see. I'd love to go to Japan when
they're there because they wouldbe killer people to hang out
with. Stand Up Dan, Dan Schlissel of
Stand Up Records. We will be doing 1 again because
I had a lot of technical difficulties on my end.
So the interview was very start,stop, start, stop for me.
(51:13):
But I got to see Dan in Pittsburgh for the Eddie Peacon
and it was it was awesome hanging out with him.
We got dinner together the firstnight I was there.
It was one of those moments where yes, we're friends.
He buys books for me. We met once before, but after
having him on the podcast and sitting and hanging out with him
and having dinner with him, it felt like an accomplishment of
(51:35):
like, Oh, I, you know, I'm doingthe thing where this person's
been guest on my show and now we're having dinner.
You know, that's kind of awesometo me, like that friendship.
Tyler Maine, awesome to speak tohim.
That was that was fun. That was actually a lot of fun.
He's somebody that, you know, I watched him in X-Men when I when
(51:58):
that came out, which I was, you know, 20 or 21 when that movie
came out. It was really cool getting to
have him on the show and talk about wrestling and acting and
and comics. So and also a mutual admiration
for Jaws. Jimmy jams Jim the food that you
know, what have I, what can I say about the man that I already
that I haven't said already And good dude, good friend.
(52:22):
And another one, it's mind blowing that I didn't know him
two years ago and we're going toJapan together in like 2 1/2
weeks. You know, Eric Larson always
appreciate talking to Eric. Eric did not like the thumbnail,
but I did. So I changed it, but that's OK.
(52:43):
I've had I've interviewed him three times and I don't think
that's going to be the last time.
Let's just say that. And to my friend Johnny Phillip,
who I've known for over a decade, it was so delightful to
talk to him on the podcast and talk about sobriety.
We are both sober with over combined 2020 years of sobriety.
So and we get to talk music and it's somebody that I've always
(53:05):
loved talking to about music. David Finch and Robert Kirkman,
fucking delight. Too short.
I need more time with both of them.
So expect to see them both on the podcast again, maybe
together, maybe separate. I need like a good hour and a
half with Kirkman because Walking Dead, Invincible, Skin
(53:26):
Breaker, all this stuff that he's done, like and David Finch
anyway, that was awesome. John Way, Shaq, somebody I had
early on on The Avengers and like, I didn't really know how
to talk to people in the recording space like all this.
But oh, it was so much fun talking away Shaq and to see his
star rise, to see more people looking at his work, buying his
(53:50):
work, buying his art, reading the comics.
Like it makes me really, really happy.
I've always appreciated him as aperson and I've always
appreciated his art extremely tothe highest level.
So if you're not reading Cul-de-sac, I Yeah, you should.
Who else did I have on? Oh, Alice Darrow.
(54:13):
I opened up the season with Alice.
Alice is the daughter of Jeff Darrow, who's going to open up
Season 5. She released her first comic
this year, Tramps of the Apocalypse.
I'd be lying if I didn't say I was really excited for that one
because we had chatted for almost a year before that.
And just somebody that I became friendly with talking to on
(54:34):
Instagram because of that art piece that I got of hers.
And I, I gave her the art piece back and we started talking
about comics. And you know, she's a like
minded person very much. She's an Antifa terrorist,
right? Just like me.
And yeah, it was a delight to have her on.
And I really hope she gets to domore issues of Tramps.
(54:56):
I will be in LA in a couple Voltjeez a week and I'm going to
meet her because she's doing a small comics festival while I'm
out there. There's two comics festivals
while I'm out there in the same day.
I'm hoping this LA trip is goingto this well, it definitely
will. This LA trip is going to yield
some podcast guests. I know that.
(55:16):
And finally, the last guest thatI want to thank somebody who
have had on twice Chips Adarski,one of my favorite people in
general, one of my favorite comic creators, just a a gem of
a human to talk to and somebody that I plan on having on like I
said with him every year until Iam no longer talking.
(55:38):
Let's just say that or he's no longer doing comics, But I think
a chip check in once a year is much needed.
It's kind of like going to the doctor, except he probably won't
ask you to cough while he holds your balls.
He wrote Sex Criminals, so I don't know.
So yes, I, I know that was a little bit of a recap of all of,
you know, it was like a cheap 20minute fill in, but I felt like
(56:02):
doing it. I, I'm very honoured to have
these people on to have them also very much compliment and
say thank you and tell me that they had a good time.
I have one more guest coming up.I really, really hope that this
goes through and there's no cancellation, but it's Mark
Silvestri and you'll learn more about Mark Sebastian if you're
(56:25):
not familiar with him next week,but I I'll, I'll leave it at
that for the guests. I want to say a big thank you to
you. That's right.
You, you know what I'm talking about, you, the people that have
been keeping me going with this,and I mean, just giving me words
of encouragement, telling me that they list this on their
(56:48):
commute or, you know, they're playing catch up and they love
this interview or they love thatinterview.
I, I, I still deal with the imposter syndrome and thinking
that like this is just me fucking self flatulating, you
know, like just doing this thingthat nobody really likes.
(57:10):
But I, I, you know, I shouldn't think like that.
I should have the confidence that I talked about before.
So thank you to you for being a part of this.
Thank you to you for encouragingme to do this and to keep doing
this and to let me know that there is merit that you're
finding positive experience withthis.
(57:32):
It is would be very easy to makea podcast where I just bitch and
complain and negativity and justride that wave, which certain
sometimes I do, sometimes I really want to do that.
But it would be way too easy to do that on a regular basis.
I'd be just like the rest of these fucking assholes that are
(57:52):
bringing us down and I don't want to be.
I want to let uplift. I want to bring your day up.
I want to bring my day up. So thank you for that.
Before we do get going on this penultimate yeah, that that that
word, the ultimate episode of Season 4, I'm going to ask you
(58:13):
please, from the bottom of my heart, can you please rate and
review the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to it
on? Yeah, OK, I won't sing anymore.
But yeah, if you're watching on YouTube, like comment and
subscribe. If you're not, hit the bell.
So you're notified every time I drop an episode, which is Monday
(58:35):
morning. I don't think I'll ever do a
live stream on this channel, buthey, you never know.
And if you're listening to on Spotify, you can scroll up to
the top and you can rate it witha star review.
You can comment, you can rate iton Apple.
You can leave a word review on Apple.
I really appreciate it. Anywhere else you're listening
(58:57):
to it. Also, if you are listening to it
on one platform and you're like,hey Dave, why aren't you on this
platform, please let me know. I don't know where I'm not
because I don't know what I don't know.
And that'll be all I've got for you today.
I do have a Patreon. 5 bucks a month gets you extra episodes of
this, extra episodes of West Coast, The Avengers exclusive
(59:20):
sale of stuff over there if you're into that. 5 bucks a
month, come on join. We got like 65 members or
something like that, which is insane.
It's been going on like 2 months.
I know people have been doing over a year.
They don't have 50 Patreon subscribers.
I guess you like me. Anyway, thank you so much.
(59:41):
I hope you have a great week. I'll see you next week on Direct
Edition. I'm Dave and I'm out.
Hello friends, it's your pal Dave, and I want to introduce to
you my brand new Patreon, West Coast Avengers and Direct
Edition, all under one umbrella.You can now support me by
(01:00:01):
joining the Patreon for $5 a month, and what you're going to
get is me wearing this shirt andnothing else.
I'm just kidding. You're going to get at least one
bonus episode of West Coast Avengers and one bonus episode
of Direct Edition per month as well.
I'm going to let you vote on thecontent of another West Coast
Avengers video where I flip through a rare book or a rare
magazine or something that you've never seen before.
(01:00:23):
And you get 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.
So plop down 5 bucks a month. It's not that much to ask, is
(01:00:46):
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 of rigging. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
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