"Madcaps" with special guest Ray Jamison | Zombie Book Club Ep 91 - Zombie Book Club

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club
where the book is a comic bookand the comic book is inspired
by a D&D campaign, and, honestly, that's where so many of us
start telling stories.
I'm Dan, and when I'm notrolling polyhedral dice, I'm
writing a book that absolutelyhas character sheets for
everyone in it.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
And I'm Leah, and today we are chatting with my
fellow Canadian and comic bookcreator, ray Jamison.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
And Leah is still sick with the flu.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, so Dan's going to read Ray's bio and then we'll
get started.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Ray Jameson is
the comic creator and writerwhose storytelling is influenced
by his role as a DM forDungeons Dragons.
His current project is theMadcaps comic book series, which
is what we're talking abouttoday.
Welcome to the show, Ray.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thanks for having me Looking forward to discussing
this.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Me too.
I love all the D&Ds, I love thedices, so I think this is going
to be fun.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, dan was immediately excited when he
started reading about that.
Yeah, and it shows in the story.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
We have some rapid fire questions.
We will judge you by youranswers.
Um so no pressure right on.
Uh first question your choicefast or slow zombies um, uh,
fast zombies are scarier.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
One-on-one slow zombies are scarier because, uh,
in groups there's no way tostop them, just it's like a slow
torture of watching them comingslowly ripping your flesh apart
.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Zombies are scarier because in groups there's no way
to stop them.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
It's like a slow torture of watching them coming
Slowly ripping your flesh apart.
Love those scenes If they getto you.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, recently somebody has pointed out that
the question should be strong orweak zombies, and I never
thought about that before,because we're always thinking
about fast or slow, but strongwould be definitely really scary
if they're just strong.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Strong would be very scary.
The one thing I like aboutputting in these type of
dynamics is having some type ofbalance.
So if you have something that'sreally scary, there should be
some type of out.
And having that out isn'tnecessarily an easy solution,
but a potential one.
So if you have really strongzombies that are fast, well,

(02:29):
having them in smaller numbers,there's at least a chance, yeah.
But in larger groups, ifthey're a little bit slower or
weaker, again there's a chance,but your odds are still not in
your favor.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
You know, I'm curious how this one will work, because
your universe takes place inlike a medieval fantasy
environment.
But, uh, you have a choice, achoice you will make for all
humankind, whether or not youwant to work a 40-hour week or,
uh, be in a zombie apocalypse.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
So choose carefully well, it's kind of funny because
many people feel like they area zombie in a 40 hour a week job
, um, with that said, um, um,one of the things about having
structure and having the beingso fortunate as to be working a
job is you the devil, you know,as they say, is better than the

(03:20):
devil.
You don't know, if you're inthe middle of an apocalypse,
you're going to be very, veryfrustrated with things, that
which include, I don't know,soap, um, dental hygiene, um,
there's a lot of things you'llbe sacrificing just so you don't
have to work a job where youcan buy all these things you
want in the first place, thatyou would not have in an

(03:42):
apocalypse.
I think an apocalypse is a veryscary thing.
That, um, I'm a parent, I havechildren.
I would, I, I choose to workand make sure that they can eat
as much sugar as they want, aslong as they can brush their
teeth at the end of the day I'venoticed a trend that parents
often do not want the zombieapocalypse.

(04:04):
It says kidless people who arelike yeah all for ourselves and
it's funny you mentioned thatlike I don't, um, I don't want
to take away challenges for mykids, but I do want to stop them
from having what I would callunnecessary challenges.
So, uh, going out and finding ajob and finishing high school

(04:26):
and and all the things that theyshould do, which, at the times
they cross those thresholds,they're arguably the most
stressful things in their lives.
I I like that's tough enoughfor a kid and I want to be there
and make sure that they getthrough it without taking the
challenge away.
But I don't want to add on topof that some type of like
reanimated cannibal that'strying to eat them so that feels

(04:50):
how it is sometimes.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah I think next time your kids are ungrateful
for something you could tellthem.
You know, I chose the 40-hourwork week for you.
I'm not going to subject you tocannibals.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
I do wonder if our generation gravitates towards
the zombie apocalypse justbecause our entire time growing
up as life was throwing us allthese challenges, these
milestones that we're expectedto go to college, get a job.
They're also like and there's ahousing crisis and the

(05:25):
economy's crashing and there'sno jobs.
So, yeah, well, that's that'sanother interesting part.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
I mean, what we go through now, the challenges us
and and people younger than usgo through now, is very
different from, say, 1960 orsomething like that.
The most important thing is, uhand this is something I'm
telling my kids when they starthitting the teenage years you,
you've got a, you got a stiffupper.
It's a tough one to say becauseI don't want to just slap it

(05:54):
with a cliche and be like there,I've it, there's your solution
solved.
But at the end of the day, 20years from now, when you look
back, these things aren't goingto be that tough because you
have a hindsight.
But the most important thing isto ride through that roller
coaster.
Instead of getting off, youhave to stay on it and bear down
and do the tough stuff.
Some of the things in lifearen't tough, but again, this

(06:17):
definitely beats trying to findgas to get your vehicle going
and finding preserved foods atan abandoned grocery store while
cannibals try to eat you.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
I think I would love if you were my dad.
Ray but I'm pretty sure we'rein the same age range.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Well, I was born in the Orwellian year of 1984.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Me too.
I knew it, so you definitelycan't be my dad.
Yeah, twinning 2002.
2002.
Class of 2000.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Some short Canadian talk here, where you were
eligible to take oac yes, I was.
You were the last year yep, I,I did not take oac.
I graduated in grade 12 in 2002.
You were 2003 I was.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
I went to college in 2003, yeah, okay, a little bit
of explanation for people whoare not from canada.
Our generation from 1984 babieswere the last kids in Ontario
that had the option to do thisextra year called Ontario
academic credits in Ontario.
So it was up to five years ofhigh school.
Um, so it was, it was a verydramatic time and actually,

(07:19):
speaking of like things thatwere seen as really hard, there
was all this stuff around, likearound, like it's gonna get to
be so hard to find a job and toget into college because
everybody's doing things at thesame time instead of a little
bit at a time.
So that was my zombieapocalypse in 2002 was deciding
when to graduate yeah, and youknow what I?

Speaker 3 (07:37):
I really like how you put that.
Everybody's going through sometype of in their mind it's an
apocalypse, and then, when youlive through it, you look back
it wasn't that bad and this isactually something I'll be
telling my children when theyget older.
Um, yeah it.
It feels tough, but the themost important thing you have to
do is is try something.
When you finish high school,you have to try something, for
whatever reason.

(07:58):
My age, everybody my age andyounger, and probably before
whatever I pick, pick next afterhigh school.
I'm going to be doing thatuntil I'm 65.
So don't mess up.
Pick the right thing, andthat's not how it works yeah.
You got to try something andyou'll get some world exposure
to the working world, and that'shuge, as opposed to the snow's
melting.

(08:18):
You know what?
I'm not going to school thisSeptember, and then the next
time the snow melts, the samething.
And you to september, and thenthe next time the snow melts,
the same thing, and you've lostall those critical years.
In reality, uh, I heard oncethe.
The definition of bravery is touh, um, do the thing while you
crap your pants.
That's true bravery, but, yes,apocalypse.

(08:39):
If that were to happen, youwould, in turn, have to rise to
the occasion and do what youneed to do to live and keep
people safe.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, I think you actually mentioned trying to
find a shelf-stable food item ifyou're in the apocalypse, so
that'd be something your kidswould have to do.
Yes, and that's our second lastrapid fire question for you.
So unfortunately, you didn'tget your choice.
It is a zombie apocalypse andyou have found a warehouse of a

(09:09):
limitless, almost like lifetimesupply for you and your family,
of one unlimited shelf stablefood item.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
What do you choose If you could, if you could wave a
wand that's in that warehousewave a wand off the top of my
head anything that's high incalories, because calories is
what keeps you alive.
I mean protein's a good one,don't get me wrong, but you can
find animals.
You can't keep a field safewith crops in it, um, so I would
probably choose something thatwas easily edible but um, uh,

(09:38):
well-preserved, so like mice andstuff couldn't get into it.
And, uh, I wouldn't be picky aslong as it was highly caloric
and not too tough on the teethtough on the teeth.
Peanut butter would be a goodone.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Peanut butter I'm choosing butter because it's got
protein in it too peanut butteris a fan favorite.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
It is yeah, is it.
It's on my own.
I'm choosing peanut butter yes,yeah, peanut butter.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
You get a lot of things.
You get the protein, you getthe calories, you get the fats.
There's a lot of uh, a lot ofminerals in there as well.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
It's tasty, it's tasty yeah, the only thing
you're not getting is uh, uhcitrus to keep your.
I always talk about teeth, ofcourse, but citrus is good, so
you're not getting scurvy andstuff.
Yeah, but uh, that would bewhere you're looking for the
tang and the super stores andstuff yeah tang, the best source
of vitamin c okay, we have onebonus rapid fire question for

(10:35):
you, because we're bothcanadians here.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
So you yes, you grew up in ontario, but you live in
winnipeg, manitoba, and I'm froma small town north of toronto,
so we have to talk hockey.
Who would be more likely tosurvive a zombie apocalypse as a
team the winnipeg jets or thetoronto maple leafs?

Speaker 3 (10:56):
um the philadelphia flyers from the 1970s.
That's my answer.
I'm sticking to it.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
I like it the jets are the leaves.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
You said, yeah, the jets are the leaves.
That's a tough one, um, I um,gee, I don't know, man, that's
tough, I would say.
Whoever was a bigger fan of the1970s philadelphia, that'd be
my fan I did not expect thatanswer.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
I love it yeah I mean I'm gonna go with the smaller
city oh, just because of thelocation of winnipeg gonna go
with the location.
They both probably have apretty equal chance, but you
know winnipeg is a smaller citythan toronto, right, yes?

Speaker 3 (11:37):
you have an influence on my answer.
Winnipeg, it isn't even thesize of the city.
It's more like a large townthan it is a small city.
But the thing that's cool aboutWinnipeg is the further you
leave, the less population thereis.
So sure you've got places likePortageville, prairie and
Headingley and other places, butthere's a lot of wilderness.
So I would say culturally,especially if you consider

(12:01):
dynamics like the Métispopulation, the French-Canadian
population, consider dynamicslike the metis population, the
french canadian population, um,there's a lot of culturally
inherited um resiliency wherethe fur trader era winnipeg was
the hub of canada.
And I mean to live inconditions where it's uh.
In in the summer you can get ashigh as plus 40 celsius and in

(12:23):
uh in the winter you can get asjust a little bit lower than
minus 40 Celsius.
So minus 40 is 40 degrees belowzero.
But culturally I think there'llbe a lot of inherited
resiliency for survival there.
I'm going to go with Winnipegjets just off of that.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
I think you're totally right.
One of my favorite people inthe world, leona, actually lives
in in man.
Yeah, do you know Leona?

Speaker 3 (12:46):
Yeah, Leona, From the border right.
She has two eyes and a nose.
She does.
Yeah, it's true.
Yeah, she lives north ofBrandon.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
I told you, I knew her.
She lives north of Brandon,she's Métis.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
But anyway she's got some great land and it's part of
my backup plan.
She has an open offer to usthat at any point, we need to
get the fuck out of here.
We're going to go live withLeona in Manitoba.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Get the hell out of Dodge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think Winnipeg is a reallyinteresting area because there's
a lot going on that's non-city,and I think you always watch
any type of zombie related movie.
It's always people living inthe small towns or away from
everything that are doing well,be it the stereotype redneck

(13:33):
prepper or farmers that don'treally go into cities in the
first place, or many other typesof things.
I think there's a lot to besaid about lack of surroundings
and having basically asettlement that is more reliant
on itself.
I think that's an interestingthing to think about.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
I agree, manitoba's got a ton of great resources and
you have to be resilient tolive there, as you pointed out
already, because of the extremetemperatures.
Also, just how early the suncomes up in the summertime, oh
that was a treat for me.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Sky pretty much a 100 degree or 180 degree sweep
rather yeah, the sun coming offthe horizon plus the uh, the
prairie, you know, being able tosee a zombie coming from four
or five miles away the flattestprairie in in canada,
saskatchewan, and I heard fabledum.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
I lived in saskatchewan for almost four
years.
Um, I've tested this.
It's true.
If you stand on a stool, youcan see the back of your head
it's true.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Oh, take that.
Flat earthers ray has proventhat the world is indeed round.
Let's talk about the madcaps.
Uh, we're really excited, we,we both read the comic, the
first issue, the second issue,when this episode is out,
there's going to be akickstarter for it, so go check
that out immediately.
But could you, for those of us,uh, who are listening, who have

(15:01):
not heard of the madcaps before, can you tell us a little bit
about it and what inspired youto create this?

Speaker 3 (15:06):
story.
So the Mad Caps is athree-issue miniseries and the
whole thing takes place over onenight.
It's based off of a D&Dcampaign that I made over a
decade ago.
The whole purpose for me makingthis campaign originally was I
moved across country and Ididn't get to see family and

(15:26):
friends nearly as much as Iwanted to.
So eventually I came up withthis idea of why not play D&D
via webcam?
It's an excuse to hang out.
And because it was my idea, Ihad to be the dungeon master.
And because I was a tadoverambitious, I made everything
homebrew.
There was no modules, noreferences.

(15:47):
So that means all of the lore,the non-person characters, all
of the history, the creatures itwas all made up by me.
Uh, fortunately, after going tomake a comic book after this,
there's no copyrightinfringement, of course, but, um
, my friends really enjoyedplaying like this world I made
up.
I had multiple differentcampaigns that took place in

(16:11):
that reality and because of that, all my friends helped me
sculpt all the lore and historyof this place.
And the only main differencefor this comic book is I took
the characters that my friendswere playing as book is.
I took the characters that myfriends were playing as, and I
injected my own characters,ironically based off of the
players.
So, um, basically the wholetheme behind this.

(16:33):
Of course there's zombies in it, that's why I'm on this podcast
.
Um, the main theme is it's as uh, I'm sure you've kind of
figured this out alreadyeverybody has friends that they
don't get to see as much as theywant to.
Especially the older you get,there's responsibilities,
whether you move or you've gotwork or various other things.
Maybe a friend moved and you'restill in your hometown.

(16:56):
Anytime you get to see a friend, even if it's for just 15
minutes at a coffee shop.
When you leave, there's a pieceof you that says to yourself
you know what I really, reallyneeded, that it like it like
feeds your inner child, and thisbook is supposed to be an
homage to that level ofcamaraderie.
So this, this entire thing overthe course of one night.

(17:17):
You will see, you've seen it inissue one.
Each issue acts like adifferent act, essentially, um,
you will see how they interactwith each other, how they get
along, how they work well witheach other, how they get on each
other's nerves and a veryimportant thing is how they will
act in front of their friends.
So if you've got a loved oneand something bad happens, okay,

(17:39):
let's get away to safety.
If you're with your friends andyou might be a decade younger,
okay, let's see where thisrabbit hole goes.
It's a completely differentapproach.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
The same scenario and , uh, this homage, it's just
told through a medieval fantasytheme, uh, using the medium of a
comic book yeah, I really lovethat um, I mean, I've I've
played so many differentcampaigns and like, especially
when I was younger and I hadn'tquite grasped the that there's
like a pattern to storytelling.

(18:08):
You know, I'd play thesecharacters and then I'm like
this is like a movie.
I could just I could just writewhat happened and people would
want to read that and it's likeit's like tabletop RPG playing.
It's like opens a differentpart of your brain that lets you
know that this is possible.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
One of the best things I love about tabletop
RPGs, unlike a video game.
A video game.
If I want to pull a pipe offthe wall and use as a weapon, if
it's not programmed in the game, I can't do that.
Yeah, in a tabletop RPG, sky'sthe limit.
You can.
Even you can attempt to push abuilding over.
Your chances are ridiculouslylow, but you can.

(18:48):
In a game, you.
You can walk into a buildingand just be that polygon walking
on the spot facing a building,but you can actually do these
different actions and reactionsand interactions and all these
lovely little dynamics.
Um, one of my favorite uh, myfavorite times rather, are when
the players outthink me and theybring in a new dynamic.

(19:08):
I did not foresee.
That's one of my favoritethings.
And if it's a design video game, those unique thoughts wouldn't
happen.
They wouldn't play out, theywould just be thoughts.
Man, I really wish I could dothis in this game.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
But tabletop RPG you think you most likely at least
have the chance to attempt itand maybe even be successful at
it I I love when people try likesuccessfully break a game using
its own rules, both in videogames and in tabletop games,
like I've.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
I've broken so many video games, it kind of became
my thing for a while um well, injapan, that's a culture, yeah,
a whole culture of taking pridein exploiting a bug or finding
something yeah, oh wow, have youI?

Speaker 1 (19:51):
I forget what it's called and it's in.
It's in dnd.
I think it's called the peasantrailgun.
Have you heard of this?
Yes, oh yes, I know that one goahead explain it, I love it I
don't know the exact rules soI'm just kind of paraphrasing,
but basically a character canhand somebody an item as a free

(20:14):
action, and during a round ofcombat it's like three to five
seconds typically.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Six.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Okay.
So if you were able to recruitlike 2,000 peasants I forget
what the max is.
There's like a maximum numberthat you can recruit to do a
simple task for you.
If one of them is holding likea rock and they all stand in a
big long line with their arms atthe maximum length that they

(20:48):
could pass something off to eachother, technically you could
tell your peasants with a freeaction to hand each other that
rock.
And because there's physicsrules in Dungeons Dragons, there
is like a rate of accelerationand a velocity for this item

(21:08):
being passed between peasantsduring this six second interval.
So it's crossing an area oflike a couple miles within a few
seconds.
So it's actually like breakingthe speed of sound, oh, wow.
And then the last peasant justkind of like throws it, yeah,
and that'll destroy pretty muchany monster in the game wow,

(21:30):
yeah, I

Speaker 2 (21:31):
wish that was that would be a super efficient
weapon in real life peasants whoknew what one of my favorite
builds is.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
If you take a half giant, half giants although
they're considered medium insize, their lifting capability
is like they're large and thenyou give them the grappler feet,
grappler allows them to pick upone size larger of what they
are.
Um.
So instead of being a mediumcreature grabbing things, they
now act like a uh one size, onesize above large, and that way

(22:01):
you can like walk up to like apit fiend and throw them off a
cliff.
No problem, giant monsters,pick them up.
Be a zangie from street fighterspinning pile driver if you
want lots of good stuff um, soyou have.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
You have some zombies in your comic book I do called
deadheads.
Um, what?
What makes them stand out fromlike a typical zombie that you
would see in other other things?

Speaker 3 (22:25):
well, uh, to clarify, they're he only, they're only
referred to as undead, with theexception of dunnan, who calls
them deadheads.
That's just him, he.
He does a lot of like namecalling.
For example, um, the onlyperson that calls madrakus drac
is him.
It's kind of his own little wayof uh, uh labeling the world

(22:46):
around him.
So they're not the undead.
He calls them deadheads, but uh, with that said, one of the
interesting things about thesecreatures is they're, um,
they're very much wanting to,just as all zombies do.
They want or sorry, most zombiesare hungry and they go to eat
and, as a byproduct to that,they can can turn others into
zombies.

(23:06):
These ones, their goal is tomake zombies, so they'll go up,
they'll try and knock somethingdown, sink their teeth into it
and move on, and that's thewhole thing about them.
It's a little more terrifyingwhen you know imagine an
individual with a poison knifeand you know it's poison they're
trying to touch you with it.

(23:26):
It's very scary, as opposed tosomebody who wants to eat you.
Well, I'll just, I'll hit youin the head or something and
incapacitate you, but there'sthis looming threat of I want to
infect you.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
That's their whole thing and do they only infect
through bites or if they scratchyou, can you get sick?
Okay?

Speaker 1 (23:44):
uh no, it's just through saliva you know I've
thought about that quite a bittoo is like you know, you have
hungry, ravenous zombies.
They would probably tend toconsume more people than they
actually infect.
So it's actually not thatefficient and like it would make
sense that something that'sinfected with something would

(24:04):
want to spread that infectionoutward instead of, like,
destroy it in in regards to thezombies that want to eat as
opposed to spread their virus.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Um, ground zero is always very fascinating to me,
because the average person yousee somebody bite somebody else.
Well, maybe it's somebody who'smentally ill.
That person's already bit me.
I'm gonna go to the hospital.
Well, there's a bunch of peoplethat can't get away one zombie.
If they bite a couple people,they can't eat all of them.
So it makes sense at lowerlevels for that virus to spread,

(24:35):
but at the larger levels itflips and it's just people
getting consumed as opposed toadding to the zombie horde.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, were zombies a part of your campaign?
Um, or how did the?
How did?
They come into play.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
They are a focal.
They are a byproduct of a focalpoint of the story, so they're
Dude.
I wish I could tell you more,but I'd be spoiling the story.
But issue one has been out fora bit.
I have no problem talking aboutit.
So these four friends get backtogether in their hometown and,
before they can really catch upor reminisce, this outbreak

(25:12):
starts.
They're able to help the localguard stave off this outbreak,
but nobody knows what happenedof it.
In city policy, they have toburn the bodies.
These are infectious diseases.
These are infectious diseases.
So as the guards are roundingup the bodies, sarlacc the dwarf
.
He examines one of the bodies.

(25:33):
He says I recognize this oneindividual and he doesn't have
any bite marks on him.
So it's inferred that there'ssomething to do with this local
drug and this zombie outbreak.
But the kicker is out.
Of the three individuals thatSarlacc recognized, only one of
them was slain.
The other two were back at hischurch.
He sent them away.
Um, out of those two, only oneof them had turned, the other

(25:56):
one didn't.
So they're actually not exactlysure what this, where this
outbreak started.
Um, they don't even know ifthey've come across patient zero
or not, and so they decide toto um, after speaking to the one
individual that didn't turn,who was?
He opened up saying he wasselling the stuff.
They uh were able to convincehim, to put it nicely, that uh

(26:19):
to find where this, uh wheretheir supplier was, and uh, by
the end of the issue we havesome individual.
The four protagonists are, uh,in the end of the issue, the
four protagonists are in themidst of interrogating some of
these bandits that weretransporting some of this drug.
So it's really unknown,although there's something going

(26:43):
on between this drug and theundead.
That that's, that's what'sbeing inferred.
It's not actually known, so itcould be completely coincidental
and at that point, going intoissue two, it's not confirmed.
There's a couple of things thatare incongruent and uh,
basically without havinganything else to know about this

(27:06):
undead outbreak.
Okay, let's see where the thisuh, this drug takes us is this a
fun drug?
um, weave is um.
One of the byproducts of it is,if it's ingested too much, your
organs should start to shutdown, so you have a hard.
It's paralytic, so you can uh.

(27:27):
Your heart and your lungs willactually start having a tough
time functioning.
You could suffocate or die froma heart attack.
In regards to fun drugs, it'snot actually spoken about what
is so quote unquote fun about it.
It doesn't talk about thesensation so much.

(27:47):
It does say that it is highlyaddictive.
So, regardless of whether it'sfun or not, you want to keep
going.
One thing I I did want to sayfirst um, and this is a
disclaimer this this is a comicbook that happens to have drugs
in it.
It's not pro or anti-drug, itjust happens to be part of the
story.
One thing I try really hard todo is my political beliefs or my

(28:09):
religious beliefs or anythingelse.
I try not to cudgel people withthem.
So in this case it it the wholereason it's fictional is to
separate that much more fromreality to avoid.
I hate stories that are preachyand I try not to do that yeah,
I get that.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
I mean, this drug sounds like a good sleep aid
yeah, I can see that yeah I meanI've after after having the flu
, I feel like I've had a couplenights like this, where it's
just like you're so tired thatyour organs shut down yeah, uh,
it's almost like we took theweave when we had the flu.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
It was pretty close I was definitely contemplating my
mortality, but you have.
So you said you have four mainprotagonists and they're all
really fleshed out characters.
You mentioned that yourcharacters are inspired by the
actual people who have playedwith you this campaign, and I
want to start with Sarlacc theswamp trudger, because they have

(29:08):
this devotion to helping peoplewho are struggling with the
weave, and so I'm curious whatinfluenced or inspired his
character and what you're goingto say with his character?

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Okay, well, I'll just do a breakdown with Sarlacc
Sarlacc, his clan, the swamptrudgers.
They actually hail from a groupof dwarves that left the
mountain mining life and decidedto start farming.
Um, of course, dwarves being asstubborn as they are, they
decided to farm and terraformthe inside of a swampland.
So, being a fantasy setting,being a fantasy setting, that

(29:42):
would, of course, prove to bechallenging.
There's creatures and whatnot.
Um, over generations, they'vebeen able to essentially
terraform outward from wherethey're farming and and start
make draining out and cleaningup the swamplands.
Uh, a cool byproduct to this,just like we were talking about
with winnipeg and its resiliency, with its different inherited
skills, culturally, thesedwarves, the swamp trudgers, are

(30:04):
, uh, culturally, they're verygood at, uh, tracking down and
pacifying things that go bump inthe night.
Um, if I had to compare that todnd, he's actually two classes.
So the first one, whichreflects what we're just talking
about, is a ranger.
Um, I really like the cool ideaof an axe wielding dwarf in the

(30:25):
wild killing monsters.
I think that's kind of neat.
Not fully armored, he's got acloak, he has some like he's got
some scale mail on one of hisshoulders and stuff, but I, I, I
like the idea of someone, thatan individual like a dwarf that
doesn't live under rock andembraces the sky and and it is
in his element in not oftenwalked upon trails and he

(30:52):
worships a thing, somethingknown as the divine and the
divine.
He is so compelled to be a goodexample.
The short way to put this is hewanted to move into Ivyywood and
be a good example for thoseless fortunate.
So you mentioned weave and andother individuals that are in in

(31:13):
tough positions.
I'm sure we've all seen orrelated to or knows somebody
that that are going throughtough times right now and he is
an individual that he built thishumble church and he, he
doesn't want to uh, talk aboutwhat he believes and he wants to
show it.
So at the beginning of thiscomic, during what's called a

(31:34):
harvest gala, he's there givingout food to people and he, he,
uh, because of his heavydevotion to this deity, he
actually has some blessingsbecause of it.
Some of it you see in the firstissue, but you're definitely
going to be seeing more as issuetwo and three play out, and
that would be again D&D thesecond class there would be like

(31:57):
a cleric equivalent.
So you have this axe-wieldingwild holy man out in the woods
killing monsters.
It's something I wanted to dowhere, um, there there's a
stigma of people that are reallygood that they're they're not
capable I don't know how else toput that.
Yeah I wanted to show thiscapable individual that did

(32:20):
things for a better good, and Imean some.
Very seldom do you see thatvery successfully portrayed in.
In my opinion, a first one thatcomes to mind that is
successful, of course, would beSteve Rogers.
Another one would be Aragorn inthe Lord of the Rings trilogy.
But I wanted an individual thatcould do cool stuff.
It didn't matter if he was sogood-natured, he would be able

(32:46):
to do some stuff.
He would definitely appreciate,I'm sure, if anybody's ever
played any sports and there wasan individual that was really to
themselves and not very socialand you didn't see them outside
of the sport you were playing.
You might not have anything incommon with them, but when
they're on your team, oh, thankgoodness, this person's on our
team.
I wanted to portray that type ofan individual.
Yeah, and I'm really happy withthe outcome.

(33:10):
I was.
I didn't know if I wanted to gothe stereotype route with the
scottish accent, but I ended updoing that kind of love it and
uh, yeah, I I like.
Another thing I really likeabout sarlacc is he downplays
his accomplishments and hisabilities, and a good example of
that.
The first issue is he's just inregular clothes.
He's not a show-off um madrakiswe haven't spoken about yet.
When he first sees sarlacc, hesays you look a little

(33:32):
underdressed, making fun of himwearing clothes and sarlacc
saying unlike, unlike you, I, Idon't need to stand out in the
crowd, and I think that's areally important thing that, uh,
I think lots of people can drawfrom nowadays it's it's to a
fault.
A lot of people celebrate theirwins and I think there's a lot

(33:53):
of strength and a lot ofstatement for people that
downplay.
And it's really neat when youhear about somebody doing a task
and you've known them all theseyears and they never talked
about that.
I think there's a lot ofstrength of character that
reflects things like that.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, humility is an underrated quality and I think
connects makes a lot of sensewith a character like Sarlacc,
because they're very strong andthey know what they're capable
of and they're also able todefend themselves, but they
don't have to show it.
So I agree with you that thatis a really beautiful quality.
All four protagonists arelovable in their own ways and
scary in their own ways, becausethere's a lot of action in this

(34:32):
, uh, first issue.
And sarlacc, you know he mightbe a beacon of light for the
people of ivywood.
He is also going to kick yourass, you know I would not mess
with him, with his, because hehas his two.
He has two axes.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
If I remember correctly, he's got like a
regular axe well, when, whenthat outbreak starts, he's just
in civilian clothes, but he hehas a hatchet tucked behind him.
So, uh, at one point aftermadrakas is trying to tease him
when the outbreak starts,another fellow who we haven't

(35:06):
talked yet about, dunnan, saysto sarlacc, do you feel
underdressed now?
And he says you never leavehome without a good axe, as he's
smacking down another zombieinto pieces.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
I mean that is, that's good that's good life
advice, yeah definitely goodzone.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, now I kind of want an axe.
I've never wanted one reallybefore.
Yeah, let's get an axe.
I've never wanted one reallybefore.
Yeah, let's get an axe.
Yeah, now I'm like I want areally rad one.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
We have one in the garage, yeah, but it's not cool
like Sarlacc's.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
I need a cool axe.
So did an actual person.
Would you say that, like one ofyour friends is a lot like
Sarlacc, or is it sort of acombination of people that you
know and admire that helped youcreate him?

Speaker 3 (35:53):
Well, every character is based off of people I know
and the people who they're, thepeople who they are based off of
, they know, but I haven't toldanybody else.
I'll put it that way.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
I'm curious what their reactions are when they,
when they get to like, seethemselves in this mythological
character.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
I haven't heard anything negative yet oh well
they're.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
I mean you, you are portraying them in really like a
kind light.
So it's not like you, and I'msure that's why you tell them
too.
It's not like you've trashedyour friends in these characters
.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
It's funny.
It's funny you mentioned that.
Um, one of the best things Ilike about um being able to dive
into this and reflect theseindividuals is you get to play
up their strengths, which I'veobviously done, but I've also
played up their flaws.
And, um, sarlacc, you don't getto see too much of that yet and
, uh, we'll see.

(36:39):
Like this is a mini series whenit plays out.
There's actually some deepstories about these individuals,
but, um, one of the thingsabout having flaws with
characters is the stakes arehigher that way.
Um, a really great exampleduring the outbreak, three of
them almost get killed and, um,it's, it's almost in an
embarrassing way, and the reasonI say that is having three

(37:01):
individuals that are saved byguards is the equivalent of like
having captain picard saved bya red shirt.
It doesn't feel right, you know, yeah, and I really wanted to
highlight how these individualsare not the mightiest in the
realm, and there's somethingvery interesting when you hear
about somebody who has survivedthrough this terrible thing and

(37:22):
you find out the person is.
I'll give you a good example.
You're fans of zombies.
I assume you've watched thewalking dead.
Yes, when, uh, in the, in the,the tv show.
Uh, not to be confused with thecomic, they're slightly
different.
But in the tv show, um, whennegan finds out where rick and
his crew actually infiltratedthis prison and cleaned it out

(37:44):
and there and he finds out, ahow many of them there are and b
how deep they're into thatzombie territory, he's like how
did that happen?
Like how did those people getto that point?
Where they got there?
I want to know that story andthat is something I think is
very important.
Where here's these people?
They almost got killed in thefirst issue already, and there's

(38:04):
three issues to go um, by theend of it they're able to ambush
some bandits.
So they had some things ontheir advantage, but it wasn't a
one-on-one fight, it was a, asneak, a sneak attack or ambush,
as I already said.
So, okay, well, I I as thewriter, intend for every issue
to build upon the other and bebetter than the last.

(38:25):
So, if that's where it is,we've had, as you pointed out,
action, we've had a close call,we've had some essentially these
four kind of bumbling.
They're a couple of stepsbehind what's actually going on.
So when they catch up, are theygoing to bite off more than
they can chew All thesequestions I think are very
important in storytelling inorder for a person to be like,

(38:46):
okay, this is going to be tough,I now want to root for them.
If they're, if they're notsupposed to win here and they do
I, I want to root for that, andthat is something I really
wanted the reader to feelreading it.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, when, when we're talking about, um, like a
zombie apocalypse story,regardless of the setting, of
course, it's uh, I, I feel likea uh.
There's a rule that I that Ibelieve in, which is that if you
make your character toopowerful, that takes a lot out
of your story, because the onlyway that you can, that you can

(39:18):
match your overly poweredcharacter, is just throwing more
zombies at them.
So like, at some point it'sjust like well, he fought a
million zombies in the lastepisode.
Does he fight two millionzombies on this one?
Like it kind of loses itsmeaning.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
So like, having these flawed characters one million,
but he's missing an arm now.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah well, that would be a way to do it.
But if, if you have characterslike you're, describing that,
like they're not the toughest inthe world, they're not the most
prepared, but like and they andlike you see that they almost
fail you, you begin to think arethey going to fail in the next
one?
Are we going to lose people?
Which one's my favorite?

(39:57):
Are they going to die?

Speaker 3 (39:58):
yeah, yeah, they could.
The, the, the chances and thegravity are very real.
So I don't have to skip a bookfor a couple of issues, knowing
they're going to be fine.
This is a three-issue mini sortmini series rather it is.
I don't know if I'll writeanother one.
This is my first time writing acomic.

(40:19):
I just wanted to express thestory and get it out of my
system.
I don't, uh, I don't know ifI'll be doing anything after
this.
I definitely am open to it, butit's up to the readers and if I
have any type of following.
But my goal was, it would bevery arrogant of me to say I'm
going to do a monthly ongoingcomic and everybody's going to

(40:39):
love it, and then, uh, um, it'sup to the readers to just say,
hey, uh, I like this story, orhey, I didn't, and, uh, I'll
gauge where I go from there.
But with that said, it's onlythree issues.
If I'm not planning to doanymore.
Yeah, we, we could have somelosses here, you don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeah, no idea I mean, the good thing about that is
you're not, you're not going toleave this unfinished.
You know, like, regardless ofthe reception of it, like
hopefully you get like anincredible reception and you
know they, they have you drawncomics for the next 25 years and
then AMC calls you up and it'sa bidding war between them and
prime prime wants to animate it,amc wants to make a live action

(41:24):
and you got to make a choice.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
I'm team animation I don't know where you land, Ray
but'm team animation.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
but like you know, having this, this limited run,
like you, you know you're goingto get to the end of the story,
so you're not going to leaveanybody hanging I like, I like
that approach.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
I don't like when people choose to just drag
something on because they wantto keep dragging it on, yeah,
like it can be its completething, no matter what you decide
to do.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
If I do something after this mini series, I think
I'm going to just keep on doingthem in clusters of mini series.
Yeah, I think that's going tobe my plan yeah, I think that's.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
I think that's smart because, like it, if you just
keep on adding shorter, likethey can all add up to something
bigger, but like you know, uh,as long as, as long as you have
have a solid arc, like peoplearen't going to be left, um,
disappointed traumatized, likeseason 11 of the walking dead.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Yeah, like you're not going to do that to us I
appreciate you, ray yeah, onething I I try really hard to do
is I, when you, when you're abigger company, like the big two
, dc or marvel, um, there aretimes they'll a and B.
It's very obvious when you readan issue that it's a filler
issue because they need an issuefor that month but critical

(42:34):
parts can't happen until thefollowing month for various
reasons.
Being a network of othercharacters and stories, mine is
these three.
This originally we'll put itthis way I wanted this to be two
issues, but I couldn't condensethe story enough without
ruining it, so I made it three.
So it's the opposite.
I've actually added to itbecause all the cool stuff I

(42:56):
couldn't, I couldn't fit it allin.
I didn't stretch it out.
I actually condensed it as muchas I could, but then I had to
like stretch it out a bit justto fit on all the awesome had to
like stretch it out a bit justto fit on all the awesome.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
That's really, really cool.
To have that intentionality, Ithink, goes a long way in terms
of having readers that are goingto appreciate the story because
you can feel it when you readit and you can feel, even in
just issue one, you can feel thedepth of the characters with a
little bit, that you get to knowabout them right off the bat,
like madrakis.
The one I want to talk aboutnext with you, um, is a I I know
he's a descendant of the greatstorm worm, is that right?

(43:30):
Yes, uh, that's correct.
The way that I look at him assort of like a humanoid dragon,
ish, lizard, I don't know whereyou would basically you know
what I made him vague on purpose?

Speaker 3 (43:42):
um, the great storm worm is essentially a giant
kaiju electric eel that livesout in the oceans wow and
madrakis is basically adescendant of that and because
of that he's, uh, obviously avery hardy specimen.
He's over six and a half feettall.
His body weight clears 350pounds, but also he's able to

(44:03):
store lightning in his gizzardand vomit it out and it's
amounts just like a snake withits venom.
He can't do it all the time andhe was raised by humans.
He was hatched as an egg but hedoesn't know too much about his
kind.
Anything he can grab culturallyhe tries to, but it's very
limited.
That armor he wears is actuallyceremonial.

(44:26):
It's based off of the limitedwhat he knows about his species,
the species, the name.
When you look at Madraka's mouthit would be hard for him to
speak a human language.
And the reason when you see anyof his dialogue, the first time
you look at it it's hard tograsp, and then your eyes adjust

(44:47):
and you can hear itquote-unquote, hear it just fine
, and I wanted to have arealistic approach like that.
But even the pronunciation ofhis kind it's hard for humans to
pronounce.
It's spelled W-I-R and theclosest humans can pronounce it
properly is weir, but it doesn'tsound right.

(45:08):
I wanted it to sound like itdidn't fit in in a sentence On
top of all of that.
He's not a skilled fighter.
Many would confuse him for amercenary.
He can swing a sword hard.
Don't get me wrong.
You don't want to be on thebusiness end of something like
that.
But just because you can hitsomething really hard doesn't

(45:31):
mean you can do it well ofsomething like that.
But he, just because you canhit something really hard
doesn't mean you can do it Well.
It doesn't mean you're good atfootwork or parrying or anything
like that.
And the most dangerous thingabout him is actually his brain.
He is a amateur mage.
He dabbles in the arcane.
He doesn't get to study toomuch, but it is one of his
passions.
He's highly intelligent.
Um, one thing I hate aboutlarge individuals is the fact

(45:53):
that they're always dumb andthey're always meat shields and
nothing else.
And I wanted to just turn.
I wanted to completely turnthat on its head.
Um, another thing aboutmadrakas is, as he grew up, he
actually had some challenges inIvywood and you see, at the
start of the issue he referencesa couple of times not wanting
to be in Ivywood in the firstplace.

(46:14):
He doesn't have his memories,are not fond of Ivywood, and one
of the first things.
You see he talks about wantingto be somewhere with his nose in
a book, or when his name ismentioned.
As they're entering Ivywood forthe first time, the guards are
ready for a conflict andMadrakas reminds them that

(46:35):
Ivywood's charges against himwere dropped.
I don't give any details tothat, but you definitely get a
lot of feeling of depth.
One of the things I reallywanted for this mini series is I
wanted it to feel like theworld existed before and little
examples like that with madrakasand then when, by the time all
three issues are done, I wantedto feel like the world existed
prior.
But I also wanted the world tofeel like it's going on outside

(47:00):
of the story, that we're focusedon things like the harvest,
gala and and other things thatyou'll come across later on.
But madrakrakis, much likeSarlacc Sarlacc, as I mentioned
I forgot to say about Sarlacc ishe's a dwarf.
In a town that's predominantlyhuman, he shrugs off anything,
any type of issues where peoplecould bug him about being a

(47:23):
dwarf, madrakis, he can't hidewho he is, so the armor that he
wears is an example of him justembracing that.
He looks different, so he justgoes full throttle into it.
Um, you'll.
You'll actually notice that allfour characters there is a
theme of who am I in it andwhere they fit in in the world,

(47:43):
and it's all expressed verydifferently.
I, I, I very, I'm very worried,or rather, I was very worried
originally when I was makingthese characters.
I didn't I wanted them to havecommonalities, but I didn't want
them to be clones of each other.
So they all have flaws indifferent ways and they all have
, um, their sense of belongingor lack thereof is there
established, but they're they'redifferent in in their own

(48:06):
respects as well.
For madrakas, he stands out, hewants to be left alone.
People consider him a big,hardy, uh influence if you have
larger individuals.
There are some orcs that livein ivywood.
They're not shown too much, butthey look as madrakas as a
litmus test of how tough onecould be.
So madrakas, although he justhe wears this armor for cultural

(48:29):
reasons, um, he ironicallydoesn't want the attention
either he can't help it becauseof who he is.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
Right like right, he can't.
There's another character whohides who they are chasco
madrakas can't do that.
Um, but I, I hear you becausethere really is that theme of
belonging and who am I?
And like it's a fantasy worldwith fantasy creatures, but
there's this diversity inside ofit.
Uh, that feels very human andvery real for what it's just

(48:58):
like to be alive and feel alittle bit different.
And there are people likemadrax who stand out.
They can't, they can't hide whothey are, even if they might
want to.
And then there's others who canand have to navigate it.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
Sorry, the word madcap just means eccentric
person.
Oh so none of them are human,so the name just felt fitting
yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
You know, it feels true to life too.
If, if you're designing acharacter and an archetype, like
you know, if you're designing abig, burly fighter with low
intelligence, like you're like,yeah, he's big, he's a big guy.
But if you, if you go in thereal world and you're like I
need somebody to fix thisfucking printer problem.
I keep happening, keep having,uh, you know, you go the IT
office, you find somebody thatlooks like me, you know, like
like shoulders as wide as thedoorframe, big burly beard, and

(49:53):
they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, Igot to, I got to go update your
drivers.
I think.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
And, like like I, what I'm hearing is like this
that, like you're, you can'thelp who you're born.
As you know, he was born asalways that you would assume a
lot of things about him.
But he's like yeah, but I, youknow, I just want to read some
books.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, I can kind of imagine who your friend is based
on um madrakas's character andphysicality, because it's
definitely a dan like.
Dan walks around and people seehim incredibly differently from
who he is on the inside, like,yes, you are very strong and you
could kick some ass if youwanted to.
But the thing that I love themost about this guy sorry, I
have to.
I have to get at least onereason I love dan, in every

(50:39):
episode, that's okay, at leastone contractual.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
I'll give you, uh, twenty dollars later is his mind
like I.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
That's what I fell in love with, and so Madrakas
feels very relatable, and thefact that he was raised by a
species that's not his own andhad to figure out how to
navigate that, and that his like, even though he's speaking the
same language, it soundsdifferent.
No matter what he does, likethere's just, there's something
about him that I find really,really endearing and I think

(51:07):
something about him that I findreally, really endearing.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Um, and I think I think that might be like your
joking nickname now is drac,because you remind me a lot of
him it kind of reminds me alittle bit of um beast from
x-men, like where you expectedto be, like this, yes,
animalistic character he's likeactually very intellectual one
of the things about Beast ishe's had the opportunity to

(51:28):
pursue education and obviouslyMadrakas has the potential of
making some really great thingsin life through studies.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
He hasn't had that opportunity, at least as of yet.
And on top of that, unlikeBeast, madrakas went more so
through the school of hardknocks.
So, because of his size, a lotof his solutions usually come to
violence.
But usually, if if he's put ina place of violence, it's it's
never a good feeling when it'sdone, and one of the

(52:00):
repercussions which is inferredupon is he's had some issues
with authorities in the past.
When he says to the guards, ivywoods, charges against me were
dropped, you don't really know,but you get a feeling that this
guy has a bit of a rougherhistory and not necessarily
because of his own accord.
Yeah, beast.
Beast more so is a little morehappier.
Uh, he's had the opportunity touh dive deeper into his studies

(52:26):
and things that he loves, eventhough, yes, beast has had his
fill of ridicule for what helooks like and various other
reasons.
But I understand the uh the uhcomparison.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
That makes a lot of sense yeah, um, I want to talk
about chas go next, because chasgo is, in my mind, like I said,
sort of the opposite ofmadrakis in one way, which is
that he can hide and he'sintentionally hiding who he
really is.
Can you tell us a little bitabout him?

Speaker 3 (52:55):
yeah, so jasko chasco , rather, is a, uh, a very
specific variant of elf, um, hisversion of elves that refer to
as argors.
They live out in a mountainrange that is predominantly
riddled by silver deposits.
Now, in real life I don't knowif you guys ever seen this
before there are individuals inthe world if they eat enough

(53:19):
silver, it actually tattoostheir skin blue.
Oh, you ever heard of this?

Speaker 2 (53:23):
no, the one guy on oprah.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Apparently it shortens your lifespan.
Studies are showing One of thecool things about silver at the
atomic level.
With atoms, when things bondtogether they share electrons,
like they'll hitch togethertheir outside shell.
The one thing about silver isit only has on its outside shell
one electron.

(53:47):
So if you bond silver withsomething, nothing else can bond
with it.
That's why it's so resistant toeverything.
So the cool thing about chas gois, uh, just like humans in real
life, he's exposed to all ofthe silver his entire life.
He is a blue-skinned elf, butbecause it's a medieval fantasy,
uh, all of that silver runningthrough his veins also gives him

(54:10):
high resistance to magic.
His type of people.
They would be consideredxenophobic.
They're very primitive.
People steer clear of thosemountain ranges, something like
mages and mercenaries.
They want nothing to do withthat area.
Because you're dealing withhighly magic resistant, violent,
fast, quick, scary elves.

(54:30):
It's not something uh worthtraveling near.
Um, these individuals are thetype of these are the type of
elves that kids make scarybedtime stories off of um chas
go, viewed as people, as verydysfunctional.
He was approached by anindividual known as Annette.
Annette gave him an option ofleaving the mountain range and

(54:54):
giving other Argors the optionthrough his actions eventually
of if they wanted to leave themountain, they could.
So, chazgo, he was given thisrook.
It's a chess piece.
If he has that, he actually hasaccess to some magical
abilities.
So he isn't just resistant tomagic, he can also cast certain

(55:15):
things uh, through thisindividual and that, um, one of
the interesting things aboutbeing resistant to magic is
people would say, well, how doesthat work?
It's the best way to describeit.
Just like how the venomsymbiote was able to bypass
peter parker's spider sense, uh,when it bonded with him.
It's kind of a similar thing.
She's able to bypass the silverum, this, this rook, he

(55:40):
fashions as a necklace.
If you go through the comicagain, you'll see the, the rook
piece necklace, uh, around hisneck.
Um, he entered ivy woody dawned,a human persona known as zeno
or farron, and you actually seehim in the comic the first time
as a human.
And um, over time he's workedhis way up as a noble, uh,

(56:02):
representative, and it's kind offunny to me because he's always
dancing really close to danger.
If he was ever exploited,especially if there was guards
around a noble and this happened, he would probably be killed on
sight, and so one of his endgames that people are
speculating as they've read thestory and bounced back to me

(56:23):
their ideas.
They think chas go is trying toget a?
Uh close enough to this nobleand develop a far enough
relationship that he can revealwho he is without a hostile uh
reaction and just say like uh,this is who I am.
To begin a grounds of doingwhat annette had suggested to

(56:45):
him originally Using magic andkeeping himself concealed.
I think a lot of people canrelate to that.
There's many different thingsthat make one human a human
being and nobody's going tointroduce themselves and just
completely spill out everythingabout them.

(57:06):
They're going to hold backthings.
So if I said I shot skeet and Iknitted, I'm probably not going
to use that as my openingstatement to the average person
because that comes across asreally quirky.
Most people want to fit in.
Hey, my name is Ray and I dothis and I work here and maybe

(57:26):
I'll talk about I like writing.
I might write comic books, butunless you really have a good
gauge for the person, you mightturn them off right away.
Not everybody likes comic books, for example, and Chazgo, I
think, is a really good exampleof knowing how to fit in,
regardless of whether thatshould be the reality that we

(57:47):
live in or not and I'll just sayhe's good at playing the game.
So, other than hit the threeother individuals in the story,
nobody knows who he is, exceptfor a couple of surprises, as
you've seen one scene where heuses his appearance to actually,
uh, get some information out ofan individual.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
I like his original appearance.
It's pretty rad.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Yeah, it's.
It's supposed to be reminiscentof the phrase you don't judge a
book by its cover yeah, so whenyou see the concept art at the
back of the book, the person whodid all the concept art on
their bios is Jay Sloan, who'sdoing a cover for number two of
Jazzco.
Ironically, I think, jay SloanI usually don't play favorites

(58:29):
with who portrays who, but I cansay with conviction that jay
sloan does the best portrayal ofjazz go.
So when you see his face it'salmost like a resting, miserable
face.
It's not intended to beintimidating, but you see him
and you know nothing about him.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
You would veer towards staying away from him
just upon his neutral expressionalone, let alone everything
else about the guy yeah, he'sthe one I related to the most on
a couple of levels, like one,um, some of the culture where I
grew up, I think, was not sogreat without getting into it a
lot right now and it's, and Iwasn't part of a group that was

(59:06):
like discriminated against inthe way that it sounds like.
Is it an Arger or Arger?
How do you say the type ofArger?

Speaker 3 (59:15):
A side note, I don't think I've said this to anybody,
but the periodic table ofelements silver is A-G and
that's where his name comes from.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Oh cool, you heard it here first on Zombie Book Club.
But Arger, I think, is anexample of the fact that you can
come from a difficult place ora culture that has challenges,
and it's how do I say this Likeyou start to get painted with
the same brush as everybody elseand he's made different choices
and you can make differentchoices.

(59:44):
You don't have to be exactlylike everybody else in your
culture.
And then on the other piece ofhim that really resonates for me
is this idea that maybe he'swaiting to show who he really is
, when he feels like people willsee him for who he is because
they know more about him.
Like when I used to teachanthropology as a professor in
the south, I would deliberatelywait to tell my um students that

(01:00:07):
I was in a same-sex marriage,obviously divorced and not as
happy as my current one.
Right, but nothing to do withthe gender, the people I would.
I would wait until abouthalfway through the semester to
even mention that, because Iknew that at that point folks
had a perception of me, whetherthey liked me or they didn't
like me, but that wasn't thefirst thing.
They were learning about me andso his art feels very relatable

(01:00:29):
.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
One thing I've said to people that I worked with
when you're you have a bunch ofpeople of different, it's like a
platoon.
You have a bunch of people fromdifferent corners of the
country all working together.
You win them over after a while.
You can open up a bit and theindividuals just see you
differently.
A great example of this is Iwould be classed as Christian.

(01:00:54):
There's lots of bad Christiansout there, and I'll be the first
to admit it.
So when you have individualsthat can talk about the flaws
with their own groups, everybodyelse around just relaxes a lot.
And Chazgo, he's not there yet,but he's setting up
opportunities, or at leasttrying to be in those scenarios.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and thank you for
sharing that.
It reminds me.
Actually I think all myfavorite Christians are Canadian
.
I think I've said this story onthe podcast before so I'll be
brief, but one of thedepartments that I worked for
when I first went there, it wasled by a woman who was really

(01:01:38):
vocally homophobic and so I hadto hide my identity completely
and then she was replaced.
She left and it was a JapaneseCanadian man who came and ran
the department and veryChristian man and really, really
wonderful, and that was when Idecided to come out and I think
it's a good example of like.
Like you said, there can beimages of different kinds of
people or belief systems, butthey don't reflect who everybody

(01:02:01):
is and it's important to notmake an assessment just based on
somebody's religion, who theyare and what they believe, just
as much as their sexuality.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
You can be a good person about a person in between
yeah, one thing I really likeabout chas go is most people
don't have this opportunity, buthe's in a really prime position
where, if he does have an earthat will listen to him, he
actually is able to call out thesnakes in his own grass and, if
somebody listens to him, speakright away.

(01:02:32):
Okay, this guy doesn't line upwith the stereotypes.
Let's listen to what he has tosay.
I think that's a very powerfulthing to say.
I think that's a very powerfulthing and, um, I look forward to
assuming I get the opportunity,of course.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Uh, diving into that more in the story, me too.
We can't.
We can't have this conversationwithout talking about dunnan.
The last of the main fourprotagonists tell us about
dunnan okay, so dunnan is.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Uh, he has a dwarf dad and a gnome mom.
Uh, some people refer to him asa dwarf mutt.
He's a little bit shorter thanyour average dwarf, definitely
taller than a gn dad and a nomom.
Uh, some people refer to him asa dwarf mutt.
He's a little bit shorter thanyour average dwarf, definitely
taller than a gnome, and hecan't grow a beard.
Um, he draws from.
He draws from both uh,bloodlines, but he has a hard
time fitting in with eitherculture um, just like how his

(01:03:17):
gnomish mother has an odd ballor not odd ball, she has a a
magical influence on naturearound her, as many gnomes do.
He is discovered in it's notexplained how, but he's
discovered how he can has asimilar influence, but instead
of on nature, it's on metal andand crystalline structures such

(01:03:38):
as glass and gems and whatnot,because this is a very unique
set of abilities.
He doesn't understand it thatwell and he's kind of kind of
figured it out on his own.
One of the weirdest things he'sdone is he's made this
contraption, made from atelescope which hangs over his
shoulder, which can blast rawmagic out of it.
It's not refined, it's justthis concussive blast.

(01:04:00):
Um, he's able to heat up steel.
He carries with him a bucklershield.
He's a little guy but he'stough like a dwarf.
So he isn't about running andhiding per se, although he's
very agile for being a littleguy.
Um, he he's versed in combat aswell.
Um, because he decided to uhstudy as a metalsmith.

(01:04:23):
He obviously he carries ahammer with him, but through his
magic abilities he can actuallyuh do things metalsmiths can't.
Um dundon is the type ofindividual because again, this
is another another take on whoam I?
Because he, he uh doesn't quitefit in with family as deeply as

(01:04:45):
anybody else would.
Um, he has a bond just asstrong to a friend as he would a
family member and he's referredto in the trailer for issue
number one.
He's referred to as a socialfacilitator and, as it showed at
the start of this book, he'squote-unquote getting the band
back together because he, hewants to get them together for a
job, some employment.

(01:05:06):
But before he can even reallyelaborate, this outbreak happens
.
So you don't even get to knowwhat it is.
But, um, he is kind of um, heis more or less the facilitator.
I wouldn't really say if there'sa leader among the group, they
all have good influences fortheir own respect for making
decisions, but his best, one ofhis best social qualities, is

(01:05:28):
combining efforts and aligningviewpoints and getting things
done, putting things in people'sbest interest, and one of his
greatest strengths is his beliefin others.
One of his greatest strengthsis his belief in others.
One could argue, although heisn't playing music or anything
like that in D&D, he'd besomewhere between a bard and an
artificer, if you will.
Artificer makes a lot of sense,but for bard, his real, genuine

(01:05:54):
want to will an individual todo better you can really see
that shine through and even that.
You just saw the trailer forissue number two and he's just
speaking to the person they'reabout to interrogate.
You have two options you pickwho you're going to speak to or
I'm going to pick for you.
It's really good at simplifyingwants and means that again,
aligning goals to make a reallycool end result, whatever that

(01:06:18):
thing is.

Speaker 2 (01:06:18):
That's really.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
He's a great character too so you've
mentioned this hometown ofivywood, like is this, is this
based on, like your hometown oris this just like, uh, something
completely different?

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
um, it's based off of a handful of different
settlements in the real world,not one specifically.
So ivywood, in a nutshell it'sits beginnings uh start with a
settlement between humans andorcs.
It doesn't work a hundredpercent, in fact, when, when you
uh read issue one, you don'tsee any orcs at all.
There's a reason for that.

(01:06:54):
I haven't dived deep into it.
Um, with that said, um, there'seducational opportunities in
Ivywood that some will flocktowards to capitalize on, and
you'll see a lot of youthfulindividuals gather in that area
from surrounding places.
There's bigger cities way faraway, but Ivywood is a decent

(01:07:17):
option if you live close by, andbecause of that, you have these
four individuals that more orless uh didn't quite grow up
together per se, but they had alot of experiences in their
youth together.
Um, again, madcap just meanseccentric, so because they're
not quite human or becausethey're not quite orc or

(01:07:38):
something, they well, I guesswe're together kind of thing,
and I know there's lots ofpeople that can relate to that
kind of thing.
Yeah, um, ivywood is uh, in anutshell, it's um.
Coincidentally, I've describedwinnipeg like this, but I'm not
saying it's winnipeg um, it islike a large town, more so than

(01:07:59):
it is a small city so there'swell-established, there's a
surrounding wall protecting thecity.
For example, I alreadymentioned, there's a noble.
These are things that youwouldn't find in super, super
small towns.
So it is an establishedsettlement.
It's been around for a while,but it is not the largest of
cities either.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Yeah, I feel like I've lived in a lot of places
like that yeah, augusta, georgia, where we used to live.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
It feels like that, like a large town less than a
small city.
Yeah, because you, you can't goanywhere without running into
someone like it's.
It's honestly awful.
I'm like I just want to go tothe grocery store in my pajamas,
but if I do, I will run into mycolleague, so I.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
I've I've lived in, I've lived in towns that were
technically called cities.
I guess they like weregrandfathered into being called
a city, but they like had like26,000 people in it, so it was
like not a city.
Well, it's a city when you goto their state office building,
oh well, but it's it's very muchit's very much like a large

(01:09:03):
town, but, um, but it's has thename of being a city lies?

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
do you know where um the city of kortha lakes is ray
in ontario, like peterborough?
What's in here, peterborough, Iknow yeah, yeah, just briefly,
like a little town that I grewup in woodville, ontario, is
part of this thing called thecity of kortha lakes, and it's
like I don't even know, maybelike a two-hour drive and spam.
It's just a bunch of tinylittle towns I decided to call
city, so I get you it's likethat's not.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
That reminds me of that, reminds me of uh in k in
ontario, our cambridge, withlike two smaller settlements,
galt, and I forget the other one, but yeah, a similar thing yeah
, they just people call thingswhat they call it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
But ivywood looks like a cool place and I would be
down with going to the harvestgala if it wasn't for the zombie
outbreak.
That part doesn't sound so fun.
I wanted to hear from you about, like what um is, the origin
story of the team behind themadcaps um, so you're talking
about all the talent.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
Yeah, so, um, I wrote this story and originally uh
for issue one my interior artist, evan quiring.
He lives here in winnipeg aswell, and big shout out to evan
quiring.
Uh, you can see some of his ownstuff uh, murder city devil,
which is a modern take on springheel Jack as an anti-hero, um,
fighting lots of cool differentcryptid characters such as the

(01:10:26):
moth man and other stuff Reallyreally cool stuff.
Um, you could also find, uh, hehas another one called Lucha
mysteries, which is it is quitean eclectic combination of, like
Mexican wrestlers fightingaliens and like a whole bunch of
other stuff going down.
It's pretty wild.
Yeah, um, once I had Evaninquiring on board, he did all

(01:10:47):
the interiors for me, all thepencil and ink, and, uh, I was.
I was just very lucky to getahold of the guy and eventually
I needed a colorist.
So I looked online on socialmedia and I found a couple of
colorist options on that.
I was friends with One of them.
I didn't know this until afterI asked him, or no, until I

(01:11:11):
looked at his stuff.
I was looking at Dan Kemp.
He's the man who's coloredSpider-Man during the Civil War
era, late 90s, early 2000s,daredevil.
But one of his biggest crownjewels is he's colored over 100
issues of Spawn, from 50 to 150.
Wow, this guy's literallycolored the art of Todd

(01:11:34):
McFarlane, greg Capolo and manyother art.
John Ramada Jr for Spider-,spider-man like, really, really
like a cool portfolio.
And so when you, when you seethe color in that, the the
biggest compliment I get in theart it's always the color is so
vibrant and it's bright, but itisn't corny, bright, it works

(01:11:56):
and this man is definitely aninternational caliber colorist.
Uh, for my letter, um, andhere's the thing, I asked people
on social media.
I did get a lot of no's, but Iwas flattered to get somebody
who the last person I mentioned,dan kemp, there he said, sure,
why not?
Really, yeah, okay, cool,that's awesome.

(01:12:16):
So, um, uh, micah myers was thefella I got for lettering and,
um, he was really great to workwith as well.
I really I think there were twoamendments in the letters that
he put down on my work are onthe other people's work on these
pages, but he, he really knewwhat I was looking for.
I described certain thingssomething like madrakis.

(01:12:39):
I wanted it to seem a littleoff.
I wanted to look like somethingyou wouldn't quite get.
Another thing with chasco whenhe's speaking normally I want
him to have a deep, eerilysmooth voice, so he inverted the
colors, which I felt workedgreat.
Very, very, uh, very smart man.
You could tell he's veryexperienced.
I I'd cover artists.

(01:12:59):
So, uh, for the first issue Ihad, let's see.
Uh, chas goes cover was done byerica hollis.
She lives out in chicago.
Uh, the painterly one of dunand eny where he's blasting away
the tree or it's after theblasting he's looking at the
stump, kind of shocked that itworked.
Um, that was done by jennastark in a painterly style, a

(01:13:21):
digital, uh, uh, digital media.
She did a terrific job.
Um, the main cover of all fourwhich is in the, the digital
copy I sent you, that's jimbosalgado.
He's drawn for like batmanunhinged and like various others
.
Like he is, he's really good atdrawing covers.
Um, there was a mistake on thatend where he didn't leave

(01:13:41):
enough uh room at the top forthe title, but I I like how it
looked at by the end of it.
The title at the feet yeah, Ithink it looks really good.
Um, that one was colored by dankemp as well, and then the last
two artists.
There's the uh you guys everplay.
I assume you've played onnintendo nes yeah, yes, even
I've played nintendo.
Sorry, I said that again.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Right, shinobi, you've played on nintendo nes.
Yeah, yes, even I playednintendo, sorry I said that
again.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
Right, shinobi, you've played that game for
nintendo you know, I think Ihave, but it's been a really
long time so it's not stored inmy memory I definitely have not.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
I was just a mario player all good.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
So shinobi is like mario, except you're throwing
ninja stars.
Essentially, yeah, okay, thethe cartridge art for that game.
John zelesnik, I got him tomake a cover for, uh, issue one,
a variant cover, hand painted,of madrakas.
It's.
It's beautiful piece of work.
I'll send it to you guys later.
Um, I'm beside myself, that's.

(01:14:36):
That's somebody who's had apassive influence on me since I
was just a child, and the lastone, the first comic book I ever
collected as much as possibleback issues, every issue, and
follow the storyline, was, uh,the second volume of ghost rider
and the person who drew thefirst year of that run, where
dan ketch was the writer, I washarv salteras and I asked him

(01:15:00):
and he did a cover for me and,uh, his cover is the one of
sarlacc.
If you go through my socialmedia, you'll see sarlacc
holding the head of a slainmonster.
That's harv salter.
That's the guy who drewghostwriter.
A cool side note um, when yousaw the not so great nicholas
cage ghostwriter yeah, he playsJohnny blaze, but he's not

(01:15:23):
wearing the Johnny blaze personaof ghostwriter.
He's actually wearing the Dancatch ghostwriter garb.
So when you see, if you everwatch that, he's wearing that,
that outfit with the spikes onthe shoulders and stuff.
The guy who designed thatoutfit is the guy who made that
cover for me.
Wow, and for me, and for me andI've said this, another podcast

(01:15:44):
.
This is like having elvispresley perform a song that
you've written.
It's just.
These are these thoughts in myhead and these guys, like, made
it a reality on paper.
It's just so cool, man.
Um, for issue two um, interiorartist is victor medina.
Um, at the end of issue or atthe end of the trailer for issue
two, you'll see, uh, victormedina's work with dan kemp

(01:16:05):
coloring it.
Um, again, I have fivedifferent covers.
The first one of the entiregroup is done by kenny calderon.
Kenny is uh, um, he did a greatjob.
And again, of course, dan kempcolored that.
Um, it shows them.
Here's a cool thing I tried todo with all of my covers I try
to have some type of relevanceto the story that's going on.
So in that main cover you'llsee them walking in.

(01:16:29):
It looks like a pathway with alot of overgrowth and that's
supposed to allude that they'regoing somewhere.
Basically, they found thisdoesn't spoil anything, but
they've found the home base ofthe distributor.
So they're walking in on thisuncharted territory and it's
supposed to give a level ofseverity.
You can see all the mildlydifferent expressions on their

(01:16:50):
face, how they would react tothis.
And then four other covers.
They're all of each character.
So Dunnan was done by RussLeach in the UK.
He's got something out rightnow called the Atlantean, and
the Atlantean is one of the oldstories that inspired that of
stories like Conan the Barbarian.
It's about a prisoner whobecomes king.

(01:17:12):
It's really cool.
But he did one of Dunnan wherehe's right in the middle of an
undead horde and his telescopeis blasting off the arm of one
of the monsters and he'sknocking the jaw off the other.
It's really wild.
There's, after Dunnan, there'sSarlacc.
Sarlacc is a unique one.
It's going to be limitededition.
It's drawn by Jenna Stark,colored by Dave Kemp.

(01:17:33):
That's Dan's brother.
It's done in a glass, stainedglass depiction and we're going
to be making it metal foil,which is really going to make
that stained glass pop.
Oh nice.
So that one's going to belimited edition.
It's definitely worth pickingup.
It's a really beautiful piece.
Even the title the madcaps istreated like.

(01:17:53):
It's part of the stained glassdesign.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:17:55):
And that bloom in the logo actually is extended out
as part of the stained glass.
Look, you can check that outafter.
And also Dunnan Sarlacc.
And then who have I missed here?
Madrakas?
Madrakas was drawn by Rod RamosRodolfo, from Brazil, colored

(01:18:19):
by, of course, dan Kemp, and itshows a depiction of madrakas
pulling earth upward withouttouching it a little bit of a
sneak peek into some more arcaneabilities that he has.
And then the last one is ofchasco, drawn by jane's jay
sloan.
He's the fellow that did all theconcept work in the back of

(01:18:39):
issue number one.
Um, it shows him, uh, in aposition of solitude, just
milling about his thoughts.
And he has.
He has a pet.
It hasn't been shown yet.
So this issue, but it's sittingon his shoulder.
It's a three-eyed albino crow.
Oh my god, that's cool.
It is.
It's, uh, it's a veryinteresting.
The thing's name is emmix.

(01:18:59):
It's a very interesting uh,creature.
The reason I had this cover wasjust because we haven't seen
emmix yet.
So it it was fitting that I hadthat cover made, and it's all
of them are just beautifulpieces of art.
Um, on top of all of that, thecovers from issue one and issue
two will be available in regardsto different mediums, not just

(01:19:21):
comic books.
So, um, we have plushtapestries for this kickstarter.
We call them tapestries.
They're actually blankets, butanything that looked like a
painting be it the one ofmadrakas by john zelesnik or or
other ones um, they're going tobe shown in blanket format so
you could actually hang it onyour wall or hang it on yourself
if you're cold, of course.

(01:19:41):
But we also have t-shirts ofimages that look more like the
comic book style and, um, thosewill all be available on
kickstarter.
Uh, by the time this uh podcastlaunches.
It's all of april, so you cancheck it out right now.
Um, there's even and I'm sureyou like this one, dan there's
dnd character sheets of all fourcharacters.
That's fun, yeah, level five.

(01:20:03):
So, um, there's lots of coolstuff on there.
There's a map.
It was a stretch goal in thefirst one in in in this uh
second kickstarter for issue two.
You can buy the map, so it's uh, it generally shows everything
that, or the real estate ofwhere all three comics take

(01:20:24):
place, so it's well put together, as silly as it sounds.
Some people say, oh, it's a map, is a map, but it's actually a
beautiful, lot of detail.
It was drawn by Storm Wickhamand then, of course, dan put his
own flair on it.
It looks like something thatwas not made yesterday.
It looks like it's was not madeyesterday.
It looks like it's got some ageto it.
It's got the right conservativeamount of inks to give you that

(01:20:46):
flair that it is a well puttogether map.
There's so much stuff on thereand I know I'm going to forget a
bunch, but one of the thingswhile we're recording this this
is just before april.
It is torture not being able totalk about half this stuff like
I already I already have thescript done and three covers
three covers already done forissue number three.
They are going to be silenced tothe world for like what feels

(01:21:08):
is going to be forever formonths and I can't say a word
about them.
But by the time this comes out,you can look through all of
issue two's campaign.
You can get issue one, ofcourse.
You can get the physical copies, digital copies.
You can get issue one, ofcourse.
You get the physical copies,digital copies.
There is a lot of cool stuff onthere.
One thing I try to do is makethe add-ons worthwhile as
opposed to just filler fluffadd-ons.

(01:21:30):
Buy this for an extra buck,okay, I don't like doing that.
I just want stuff that peoplewould actually want to use like
a blanket.
For a canadian like myself,that's a big deal vermont with,
uh, something like a t-shirt.
You go to Comic-Con.
Everybody loves wearingt-shirts like that.
Well, why not wear one of mine,drawn by like pros that really
know what they're doing?
There's lots of cool optionsthere.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
I'm really looking forward to backing this campaign
, and I personally am a biglover of maps.
I think that they add so muchcontext, oh yeah, and would look
super cool on our zombie bunkerwalls, because that's one of
the things we're collecting isum awesome art from folks like
you who are pulling these thingstogether, so cannot wait to see
the kickstarter and for thoseof you who are listening, it's

(01:22:13):
out uh, go into the show notes,you will see the link.
We'll post it on social mediaas well, please, so many
campaign.
I cannot wait, yeah, to readthe next issue you really like,
uh, dynamic zombie images.

Speaker 3 (01:22:26):
Uh, there's a pinup poster on there by sean langley,
colored by dan kemp, and itshows all four in the middle and
there's like dozens in a hordesurrounding them amazing, coming
in and closing in.
Um.
It's also one of the plushtapestries, so you can have it
like we'll call it, fun sizedthat sounds incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
I I think that our house will just one day be all
really, really amazing zombieart and, uh, you know, I have to
ask this question of you, ofcourse, which is where can
people find you, ray?

Speaker 3 (01:22:58):
so, um, there are some links.
I'll say the one that's mostimportant and um, it's that
kickstarter link.
Have a look, even if you're nota fan, it's worth having a look
and just seeing all of thatawesome art.
So by all means, go on there.
But with that said, um, you canfind me on facebook as dm ray,

(01:23:19):
better known DM is just DungeonMaster.
You can find the MadcapsFacebook page.
Of course, it's a page, not agroup.
You can find me on Instagramand what I like to call Twixter,
as Raymond the DM.
Unfortunately, dm Ray was taken, and that covers all the

(01:23:40):
socials that I'm utilizing rightnow.
I'm going to look intoexpanding.
For video's sake, I think I'mgoing to be opening a YouTube
channel.
We'll see.
But all in all, facebook, dmRay, facebook, mad Caps page,
instagram and Twixters, raymondthe DM, and I believe that
covers all of them.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
I'm pretty sure We'll have all of those in the
description down and, uh, Ibelieve that covers all of them.
I'm pretty sure we'll have allof those in the description down
below yeah, I have one morequestion for you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
Can I ask it?
Do you have like one more?

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
yes.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Okay, I should say no and see a reaction well, I I am
a little blown away by all ofthe people that you have brought
together for this uh story thatyou're telling, and I just
wanted to hear a little bit fromyou about, like, what the comic
community means to you, becausewe got in touch with you
through laurie calcaterra, uh,creator of path of the rider,
and I think that it sounds likeyou've really created a

(01:24:33):
community of your own too.

Speaker 3 (01:24:34):
Um, yeah, well, one of the things is uh, as I said
to you in the green screenbefore we started, I'm, I'm very
much an extrovert.
I am, I'm not a fan of here's.
The best, the best way to putit is the world needs a lot more
ted lasso's.
We'll put it like that.
I don't know if you've everwatched ted lasso I haven't, but
I've heard everybody loves him,so I believe it one of the best

(01:24:57):
things about ted lasso is, ifyou hate soccer, it makes fun of
everything that you could hateabout soccer.
You'll like it for that.
If you love soccer, you willlove the show, because it it it
raises up and cherishes andcelebrates all the good things
about soccer too, everythingthat is good and bad about that
sport, the culture, everything.

(01:25:18):
It just it embraces the wholedang thing.
And um, um, this coach, um, inone of the episodes he makes fun
of himself.
He says I'm like ned flanders,trying to cosplay as ned
flanders, and he chooses.
He chooses to get along.
And doing good things is not anatural thing.
A lot of people in hit justinternalize that it's something

(01:25:41):
you just do.
It's not, it's a choice.
And it's actually tough tochoose to do good things,
especially if people aren't niceoriginally.
But one thing I found that ifyou're nice to people long
enough, they just look bad ifthey're not nice to you.
That's true In regards tocollaborating with other people.

(01:26:02):
One thing I try really hard todo is just celebrate the other
people's wins.
Lori Calcaterra is a greatexample that you brought her up.
Um, her story, path of the palerider.
I just love the, the reallyunique take on it's zombies.
But it's not like, okay, if, if, in her world, if I got shot
through the chest right now witha shotgun, my heart would stop

(01:26:23):
beating but I'm stillfunctioning.
Like that's a wild concept andI'm really happy to celebrate
those things and talk about them.
Sometimes, depending ondifferent industries, there are
individuals that treat everybodyas competition and I think it's

(01:26:43):
a form of weakness when peoplethink that it's.
It's a level of insecurity.
But if that same insecureindividual, if you have a
handful of individuals, they'relike, hey, that's awesome or you
did very good.
Well, they relax a little bit,they don't see at least that
handful of individuals ascompetition.
So I'm not saying that I havebeen the tenth lasso on

(01:27:03):
everybody that I've spoken to inthe comic industry, but
something I really try hard todo is give them the credit that
it's due and any time that I canhelp them, or vice versa.
The reciprocation is a lot morenatural and healthy and comes
from a good place.
A good example of this is I docomic reviews.
I've reviewed two of Laurie's.

(01:27:25):
The first two issues of Path ofthe Pale Rider I have over.
I've surpassed episode 30 on myreviews, but I'm a big fan of
just talking about cool stuff,and if you buy into things that
are that are really great andnot competitive, people tend to
want to buy into.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
That's uh, I guess the short version of it I agree,
and it's really truly apleasure to get the chance to
talk to you.
I still kind of want you to bemy dad, even though it's it's
biologically not possible.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
I don't think I can adopt you.
You live too far away I don'tthink I can apply to get a mail
order.
Daughter, I don't think I canadopt you.
You live too far away.

Speaker 2 (01:28:06):
I don't think I can apply to get a mail order
daughter.
I don't think that's possible.
Well, if the zombie apocalypsehappens and I end up moving to
live with Leona, I'll be comingto say hi, yeah, we'll be over
for dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
Yeah, Awesome Done.
We'll invite ourselves andwe'll bring all of our laundry.

Speaker 3 (01:28:21):
All of your laundry.
Oh boy, oh boy, are you?
You do sound like a child.
You do sound like one of mykids now, not that I have kids
but yeah, toothpaste,toothbrushes, a pillow and a
blanket, no mattress.
We're here to have a good time,not be comfortable yeah,
exactly somewhere, exactly,exactly.
Brad Boyk levelresponsibilities.

Speaker 1 (01:28:44):
Well, thank you so much for joining us in this
episode.
I can't wait to see what morecomes from Mad Caps and
everybody who's listening.
You should go check out theKickstarter, support it,
especially if you get a chanceto support it in the first

(01:29:05):
couple days, because that helpswhen you get a lot all in the
beginning.

Speaker 2 (01:29:09):
This is coming out in the middle of the campaign, but
we will promote it before that.
Go back in time.

Speaker 3 (01:29:14):
You know what?
The middle of the campaign iscritical because no matter how
long or short your campaign is,there's a dead zone in the
middle.
So you were you.
Talking about this in themiddle of time is actually very
beneficial.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
Glad to hear it.
Glad to hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
Yeah, laurie mentioned something similar.
Yeah, the the the horriblemiddle part.
But thanks everybody forlistening.
If you want to, if you want togive us some support, leave a
rating or review, either one.
Um, you can also send us avoicemail up to three minutes at

(01:29:49):
614-699-0006.
You know we also have a uh anewsletter.
Sign up for that, because welive in a fucking fascist
nightmare and, uh, we don't knowhow long uh we'll have the
ability to use our free speech,don't?
forget to get the ham radio, toget a ham radio communicating

(01:30:10):
yeah, that's the resistance willbe reaching out to you on ham
radio go full ham.
We're going going full ham, uh,full ham.
You also follow us on instagramat zombie book club podcast.
Um, also, we have a a discord.
All the links are in thedescription.
Um, thanks, thanks forlistening everyone yeah, and

(01:30:32):
thank you again, ray.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
The end is nigh, baby , bye, bye, bye, don't die
thanks for coming talk soon, bye, bye.

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"Madcaps" with special guest Ray Jamison | Zombie Book Club Ep 91

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}"Madcaps" with special guest Ray Jamison | Zombie Book Club Ep 91