All Episodes

September 26, 2025 49 mins
We sit down with Todd Rayner (https://darkspacestudio.com). We discuss the characters of Dark Space Studio, the business side of comics, and his Kickstarter, Luke Bloody Tooth. 
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Uh so we can talk as long as you need
to and ask away any questions.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
Yeah, which comics, by the way, where we trying to
do this for?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, I I've been writing comments for a while. The
current one I'm working on I'm writing is Luke Blodie Tooth.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Okay, I can send you a Kickstarter link if you
need it for it's in pre launch right now, so
it's not it's not live.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Okay, Well let's try. Let's just see how good I am.
It's this improv thing. That's some pretty scary improv. So
all right, Hi, is you James Joking, host of web
Comics Reviews and Interviews. Today were was Todd Rayner and
we're just going to be talking comics. So sit back,

(01:08):
relaxing at the geek fest be in don If you'd
introduce yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I am like you said, I'm Todd Rayner. I
am the founder kind of CEO with my wife of
Dark Space Studios, and I have been doing my own
comics for roughly eight nine years. I started with my
first creator own comic called ice Pick, and then from

(01:34):
there I wrote Annabelle and now I'm currently writing Luke
Bloody Tooth, which issue too is pre launch on Kickstarter
right now.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
Cool. So what got you into comics?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, that goes back long ways. I'm going to kind
of date myself, but like late eighties. I was a
teenager and you know, mid eighties, got into.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Like the G I.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Joe comics, as a lot of kids did. And then
you know, once the late eighties hit, I think there
was just this boom of like really over the top
kind of crazy artwork that was happening with some of
the early Image creators. And that really as an artist,
kind of a creative person, you know, growing up, it

(02:22):
always attracted me to that. So you know that really
pushed me into wanting to draw more. And I just
started reading more comics and Image hit, and you know,
it just really fired me up to read more comics,
draw more comic style artwork, and to just create my

(02:42):
own characters. And actually, when I was a teenager, I
readd ice Pick and all the most of the characters
in the ice Pick kind of universe.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
The early characters ice Pick.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Annabela, and Luke were you know, really originally created back
when I was a teenager.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
Cool, Okay, are you trying to do in particular commentary
in your comics or just do the best you can.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Everything. I guess I like writing. You know, ice Pick
is kind of my.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Throwback to ninety superhero comics, and Annabella is a little
bit more of the strong female character Lady Death bad
type of characters, and Luke is always kind of that
almost third wheel character. The story of Luke is actually
more of a horror book, So I kind of write

(03:37):
different genres just depending on the character. And you know,
I just I like, I enjoy what I do. I
enjoy writing comics. I was I did all the artwork
and everything for ice Pick Annabelle. I hired an art team,
the same with Luke, but I still do all the
main cover so I still write, draw and.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Enjoy all that.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yeah, I know that she had covers. You had almost
like a ninety spill to him, like with Jim, with
Jim Lee was doing.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
I mean he's one of my influences time at Farlane,
A lot of the early image guys, not just art wise,
but even like storytelling and just having that fun side
of comics.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
Right, we'll get we'll get to the heart to the
meat of your kick current Kickstarter, but when you really
but when you release comics, you basically do him on
a monthly basis, or you you went through its own kickstarter.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
I do them.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
I try to do them every few months, three to
four months on average. Sometimes they take a little bit longer.
A lot of it boils down to the artists and
and how quickly they can produce artwork, you know, being
an indie creator, as with many indie creators, all of
us most likely work full time job someplace else, right,

(04:55):
so comics are not our full time gig, and a
lot of the people that work on any comics that
is not their full time gig. So you know, we're
all kind of in a way always waiting for artwork,
whether it be the pencils, the colors, lettering. I do
all the lettering for all my books, and I always pick.
Took me quite a while because I was doing everything right.

(05:16):
It took me maybe ten to eleven months to write, draw, color,
letter publish an issue, and I thought I was doing
a disservice to the fans. So I was like, I
got to get an art team, and with Annabel it
was roughly three four months, five months maybe I was
releasing an issue same thing with Luke Issue one?

Speaker 3 (05:37):
What did I do that around July? Ish? I think
Dune July. And then you know, it takes a while.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
It takes typically six to eight weeks of promotion to
let people know you have a Kickstarter, to get the
fan base kind of excited about everything. The kickstarter's run
for a month, so you're two three months in already,
and then it takes the kickstarter will typically run about
thirty days, so you know, it takes three to four

(06:06):
months just to do everything for a Kickstarter, and then fulfillment, right,
and I just a few weeks ago finished fulfillment for
issue one, right, and then I'm right into issue too, right,
promoting issue too. So it's it's this constant circle of
finishing one thing, going right into the next project, rolling
right into the next project when that one's done.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Lost audio? Cool?

Speaker 4 (06:40):
How much does it you? I'man guess this is not
exactly cheap. What's that?

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah? Your audio is turning out?

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Can you hear me now?

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, Okay, we're back.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
Okay, I guess someone have to do some that eything
any rate, because you are an independent I'm curious how
much does it recently end up costing you per issue.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
That is really a wide range of costs. If we
just strictly talk like cost of making a comic, that
ranges on, you know, what it costs for the artists.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Some artists indie comics typically can run anywhere from I
don't know, thirty to one hundred dollars per artist. You know,
if you have a penciler, then you have an anchor
that inks over the pencils, and then you have a colorist,
you know, and if you hire a letterer, that's four
different people kind of just at minimum, probably three or

(07:44):
four different people.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
You know, a lot of.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Indie comics have editors as well. But for me, you know,
I try to keep my costs manageable.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
And if you hire multiple cover artists, you know, cover
artist typically in the indie scene can be any way
from like one hundred and fifty to upwards of four
hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
So when you kind of add all those costs together
to kind of give you a quick answer, it can
run anywhere from two thousand dollars upwards of even four
thousand dollars. And that's on a very very cheap end.
Sometimes it's it's considerably more. If you take that like
marketing in any ad you know, paid ads or things

(08:24):
like that. It can escalate pretty quickly.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
Okay, and what kind of market do you usually use?

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, A lot of it is is social media. That's
just to me, it's one of the easiest even though
there's a lot of back and forth on you know,
how effective is social media for advertising. I am looking
to a little bit more expand maybe get into like
Google ads or certain things. Talking with some marketers and see.

(08:53):
You know other indie creators, you know, what do they do.
Discords a really good one, and Reddit i've heard is
really good for indie comic scene. But you know, as
a guy, that is kind of a one man show
for doing my books at least, I know a lot
of other indie creators almost have a team, you know,
they will have someone that writes, they'll have an editor,

(09:15):
they'll have someone that kind of handles social media. And
I do all that, so I try to keep it
as compact as I can. That way, I'm not running,
you know, rampant, pulling my hair out, trying to advertise
on ten different platforms.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
I try to keep it pretty simple for my sanity.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
Yeah, I've heard the recommendation is like no more than
absolutely no more than like tourist groups social media platforms.
But yeah, it's milege varies. And what kind of printing
do you use? I mean, I'm obviously yes, and you're
not using like I'm giving guess you're using some sort
of op set press.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Uh yeah, gues to know, like there are quite a
few different printers. You know, I started out very early on,
you know, mid twenty tens, when I was just kind
of breaking into the indie comics scene doing working with
other people and their creations. You know, KaBlam was one
of those companies that emerged early on for print on

(10:16):
demand type of stuff. But I'm actually working with a
printer called Ready Comics, and they are in the US.
I think they're down in Arizona area. They do phenomenal work,
really high quality books. They're definitely not the cheapest, but
I'm a firm believer you get what you pay for,
and you know, I don't print a lot of books, honestly,

(10:38):
I you know, I maybe a couple hundred at the most.
So for me, like having a decent price that's super
high quality for me, that works out really well. If
I were to get into distribution, say, and I'm doing
a thousand books a month or possibly you know, five
hundred or more books a month, and I would absolutely

(10:59):
do offset printing because that's where your price really starts
to drop down price per.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
Issue, right, all right, so let's talk about the characters. Yeah,
I'm like, yes, let's go ahead and start with the
first one.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, ice Pick is superhero. I think, yeah, he's influenced,
you know, I can say from like Batman's Spawn, Punisher,
Casey Jones. I mean, those are kind of the big
influences of that character. And you know, I was young,
I was a teenager. I loved superhero stuff, and I
just kind of love the revenge story. I love the

(11:41):
anti hero type of character. And that's really what he
started out as he was there was an accident and
a lad that he was working in, you know, very typical.
I kind of played on some of the typical superhero
tropes I guess creating him, and that's just.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
How it ended up going. But you know, he ends up.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
Being in a scientific accident and kind of gets his
superpowers right, and that whole I structure my stories on
four issue mini series so they're not you don't need
ten twenty issues to really get the whole story. It's
four issues. You're kind of in and out. I think

(12:25):
that's easily digestible for people today. And so for that
four issues, it's basically his story. It's what happened to him.
He is on a revenge mission to find out who
killed his parents. I bring in a lot of the
supernatural things. There's demons and angel shows up. It's not
overtly religious, but there's definitely you know, in my world,

(12:46):
the angels and demons are kind of supernatural in essence,
so they're part of this world as well. And it's
a fun little story that's just unbashed nineties superhero And
then I introduce Annabelle and Luke. Annabelle is ice Pick's
fiance and we learned in the first four issues of

(13:09):
ice Pick that originally she thought he was dead, you know,
they when he realized he wasn't dead from this accident
in the lab, he kind of kept that from her
and regretfully so kept it from her. And we find
out later that they get reunited and you know, and
then I pick up from the end of issue for

(13:29):
of ice Pick into Annabelle and that is basically her story.
It is who she is, where she's from kind of thing.
And I introduced another villain, which is a dragon because
I love dragons. But it's a four issue miniseries again,
and basically she gets kidnapped by a dragon, right, his

(13:51):
name's Kerr. It was doing It was a lot of
fun doing the research for dragons because I wanted, you know,
for me.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Once I was done with the ice Pick, I felt
like I kind of had that up my game as
a writer, as a creator, I had to.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
I wanted to give the fans something a little bit
more with substance, I guess because superheroes writing in the
nineties was you know, they get a lot of criticism
for lack of substance, lack of good storytelling, and I
kind of fell into that a little bit with ice Pick.
You know, it was just a lot of phone action,
over the top craziness, right, And I wanted to focus

(14:28):
a little bit more on storytelling and more of that.
So I did that with Annabelt. You know, she gets
kidnapped by ancient Sumerian dragon. I did a lot of
research on dragons, found out that Samiria is one of
the earliest recollections of Dragon and Kerr was that dragon's name.
So you know, I started pulling from history and looking

(14:49):
at things and you know, doing my due diligence as
a writer to try to be kind of had some
history involved, but also have my own take on it.
And he captures Annabelle, he kidnaps her, and then you know,
Ice Picking and Luke have to kind of like go
help help her out, you know, trying to figure out

(15:10):
where she's at, how she got kidnapped, and who's this dragon, and.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
So those four issues really revolve around her story.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
We we kind of realized that her Annabel Luke and
Adam Adam is actually ice Pick's real name. He just
went by ice Picks. It's a cool superhero name. But
we realized that in the story of Annabelle, the Dragon
reveals that he has been hunted for centuries by what

(15:38):
is a witch coven and they were trying to basically
take him out, the dragon, because he was like this
leech on society and humanity and he was just an
evil thing. So we learned that like Annabelle, Luke and
Adam are actually descendants of this witch coven, that that
was their parents, and they live for hundreds of years.

(16:02):
So I start opening up and kind of pulling back
to bail a little bit and introducing more supernatural elements,
more you know, kind of esoteric fun elements into the stories.
And you know, they end up saving the day. I
kind of they defeat the bad guy, save the day.
And I like that that story. And Luke literally picks

(16:22):
up after right after Anna Bell. He it is the
story of Luke. He's trying to figure out who he is,
what's going on. It just the revelation of him being
like a son of a witch coven. Right, he's kind
of like thrown off by that, and what does that mean?
And you know, with all the stigma and in the
real world of you know, what witches are or could be,

(16:43):
or dragons or you know, angels and demons and all this, it's.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
A lot to take.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
So he ends up for Luke Issue one, he ends
up going to Salem, Massachusetts, because he thinks that that's
just isn't that where all the witches live in America.
He's he's that guy that's just not always the bravest, right,
He's kind.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Of a comedic relief, you know, he's always making smart
jokes and you know, trying to hook up with the ladies,
and he's just that suave kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
And so anyways, he travels to Salem and finds out
that there are fairies and vampires. So for Luke, I'm introducing,
you know, another supernatural villain, vampires.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
They are the bad guys, obviously.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
And my little twist to take on vampires and fairies
is that the vampires are kind of the scum of
all magical you know, creatures. The fairies are the protectors.
The fairies are the ones to kind of keep the
natural order of things. So Luke is being hunted by
the vampires. He finds out that empires are real, which

(17:46):
if we had to think about that in the real world,
that would be kind of terrifying. So that is kind
of how Issue one ends, and Issue one is literally
or Issue too is picking up right after.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
That, and we just keep telling this story. Cool. That
was a lot a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
I told you to talk. So when you're writing what
kind of message he is?

Speaker 3 (18:13):
What do you mean message method? Yeah, how I write?

Speaker 2 (18:19):
I I've been told that I'm a little unorthodox in
a way. I typically will write a loose outline for
the four issues. Uh, you know, what's the overall story?
What do I want to tell? Okay, good versus evil?
And what does that look like? I first do research.

(18:39):
I typically start writing around a villain. I will research
like what is a cool supernatural creature or what is
you know, things that we're familiar with, you know. I
started with angels and demons. I then went to dragons,
and now I'm on fairies and vampires. So I am
tackling some of the more common supernatural or you know,

(19:05):
lore type of characters. The method is basically, I just
write out and outline. I think of a good, you know, villain,
and okay, how can I make that villain interact with
the heroes. And once I have that loose outline like
this is the story I want to tell, I go
issue one. What do I want to tell? Issue too?

(19:25):
What do I want to you know, how does this
story kind of evolve? And from there I just dive
right in and I just start page one, panel one,
this is what's going on, you know, panel two, panel three,
page two, whatever. So I just kind of work that way,
and it seems that from working with other artists, they
seem to really like reading the scripts because they they've

(19:48):
told me that they're they're artistic friendly, right, They're artists friendly,
and as they're reading the script, they can visually kind
of see like what my vision is, Like how what's
the camera angle that they're or their needing or the
position of the characters, those types of things, And you know,
I think that kind of comes from my love of film,

(20:08):
you know, yeah, understanding, you know, placement of characters in
space where they're standing, what like the whole establishing where
they are to each other. So yeah, I mean it's
kind of maybe similar to how other people write. But
you know, talking with other writers, some writers don't even

(20:29):
do an outline, so me doing an outline seems to
be a little off the wall.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah. I pretty much live and die by my dive
by my outlines. Unfortunately, my characters have things to say
about my outlines. Sorry. I tend to go with a mantra,
I don't write, I report. Okay, So when you basically
when you're doing, do you basically in every FQ, the

(20:58):
cliffing or on actually in our purpose or do you
not even worry about it?

Speaker 3 (21:02):
I do everything.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
You know, one thing that I read years ago about
writing just in general, and in comic books are a
slightly different technique I would say than writing a script
or writing a poem or writing a novel. Comics are
a little bit different because you have a visual media
to help you.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
You have all the artwork on.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
The pages, and the cadence is a little bit different
in comic books, where you have the ability to have
two pages that kind of come together with one image
it two page spreads. I love that type of visual
storytelling with the words. So for me, it's kind of
like I do. I do try to end each page

(21:51):
that's a turning page. Let's say like page one is
typically a turning page, or page three, all the odd
number pages typically.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
Turning pages.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
And you know someone said years ago, They're like, you
always want to end one a turning page on something
to get the reader to turn. So I do think
about that consciously. It doesn't always happen because that could
be exhausting to a reader. You don't always want to
like be like an eleven on a page turn right.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
You you want.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Something interesting, you want maybe it's a conversation that's continuing
to the next page, but you want to be mindful
of those things. For issues, I absolutely try to leave
the issue with some sort of fun cliffhanger, because that
wants you know, you want the reader to pick up
the next.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
Issue, right, Yeah, obviously, I'm obviously going to the classic
Who and everything is based on four chapter episodes. H
So uh and he left each one of them with
a cliff cliffhanger instead of interesting to see how they

(22:57):
do it and all that. But yeah, my beliecher, I'm
not geek, honest, but uh, do you use the instcut
schools writing like, you know, the Path of a Thousand
Heroes or the Harmon Story Circle.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
No, I mean I am a self taught artist, self
taught writer, self taught everything I did.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
You know, I do have a degree. I did go
to art college.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
You know, I have associates in this small business and design,
so you know, I've been a professional designer for eighteen
plus years. I you know, in college, I learned how
to expand my knowledge base. You know, you end up
taking all the anatomy classes, all the color theory classes.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
But I was never really you know, formally trained, you
know I was.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
I didn't go to college, so a little bit later
in life, so I was already you know, ten fifteen
years teaching myself to draw before I went to college,
so I had a pretty solid foundation, and I think
college helped me refine that and taught me a lot
a lot more to think about when you're writing or
drawing writing.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
I literally just write comics, you know. I grew up
reading a lot of.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Comics, and I just was like, Hey, I'm gonna tell
this story how to other comic writers. I would pull
up like scripts from everything, and as the Internet has
kind of grown, it's so much easier now to learn
new things, and I just would pull up scripts and say, Okay,

(24:32):
this is their format, this is their structure.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
You know. My love of film kind of like made
me understand.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
You know, you have the kind of the three parts
right for film, you introduce it, you have the pinnacle,
and then you had.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Like the three acts of filmmaking. And I try to
do that with each issue.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
I try to introduce something in the beginning, you know,
had it reached kind of a pinnacle, and then end
on a cliffhanger. So I try to write into that sense.
It doesn't always happen again, It's it's very subjective, but yeah,
it's just like looking at what other people do how
do they set up a script? How does Marvel do it?
How does you know Tommy Farland write a script? You know,

(25:13):
how does anyone really write a script? And I just
take nuggets from that and kind of ended up writing
my own stuff.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
Yeah, I know, this is a definitely disparity among how
people script. So yeah, different companies have different styles that
sort of thing. So yeah, hmm, how's that business degree
of yours help?

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Uh? I'd say it's helped.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
It's definitely made me aware of the business side and
also like the design.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Side of things. It being like a.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Small business degree with design, you know, focus, It's like
if you put.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Out a good product.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
You know, it brought awareness as to quality, you know,
where you want to you want to understand all the
the ways that a comic has quality, whether it's writing, artwork, design, rent, uh, scheduling,
and the business side. Really, you know, it allowed me
to understand crunching numbers and figuring all that out, understanding

(26:23):
is there what's the profit margin? How does that help?
Am I losing money? Am I actually making a little
bit of money? A lot of indie creators, I mean,
we're happy if we break even, you know, and it's
not because there's a lack of interest. I think it's
just a lack of attention in today's market, There's there's
so many competing things out there that you know, to

(26:46):
get someone to read, uh into independent comic book, it's
it's pretty tough. It's a very tough industry to be
very successful at. I mean, the image guys had a
huge part in making it more accessible for sure. But
you know, I do local shows, and that business degree
helps me doing local conventions where it's like, Okay, this

(27:09):
is what i'm this is the finance, this is what
it's going to cost to do the show. This is
what I need to make to you know, break even
make a profit at doing a convention.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
So it definitely is how.

Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah, I'm just curious because a lot of going back
to this, why in the autis why in the artists
don't do so well is because they don't look at
the business side of things and you just look at
the art side.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, yeah, I would agree.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
I think there's there can be a disparity.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
In that and as artists, i mean, that's obviously that's
what we want to look at, you know, we don't
want to think about like like you asked, like, what
does it cost to make a comic book? I mean,
for the ice Pick books, that didn't really cost a
whole lot because I was doing it all myself, but
I still had printing costs, I still had shipping, I
still had you know, things like that I had to

(28:01):
factor into, you know, for Annabelle, Like, I mean, those
issues were costing me three thousand dollars a little bit
over three thousand dollars a comic. And again that's I mean,
you could say that that's cheap or that's expensive. I
know different people really in the indie community, Like I'm
an open book.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
I've always you know, been that way.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
And for me, like I don't have a problem talking
about the financial side of making comics.

Speaker 3 (28:30):
It can be very expensive.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And I think a lot of indie creators, I think
just in general, I think a lot of creative people
they want to do it as a business, Like what
I want to do comics full time, absolutely, but right
now it's not replacing my day time income right my
day job, and.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
It would take a lot for it to do that.
But I still have to know the business side of
producing comics, and you know, people spend all kinds of
money producing comics. And for me, like when people ask me,
how do you do it? How have you done it
for nine years? Roughly nine years? And I, well, I

(29:06):
save up. You know.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
I have a wife that's very supportive. We look at
our finances and we say what can we afford to do?
And I tell people that too, Like, if you want
to get into indie comics, or you want to get
into being a full time artist, you know, or working
with other artists, just save up.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
And not everyone can save.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
And it's definitely the economy and jobs and all these
things play factors into it.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
But if you're.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Serious about it, you know, take it seriously. Learn the
business side of making comics. Understand the costs of working
with other artists and what that looks like. You know,
understand the travel costs, the convention costs. I mean, there's
a lot involved in being an indie creator.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah, and a lot of them forget to keep the receipts.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Yeah, you know, I'm very fortunate once I started Dark
Space Studio as a LLC, I was able to.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
Have a credit card.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
And for me, like their whole receipt thing is is
kind of funny because you're right, like most people do
forget that, And that's a very simple thing that gets overlooked,
you know. For me, like every single purchase goes on
my credit card and then that's how I personally keep
it separate from any like personal expenses, and that's important

(30:28):
for taxes and all that. And it makes the business
side of doing independent comics much easier because I'm able
to track my expenses, you know, I don't have to
save receipts. So I mean that's just the fyi that
any indie creators out there, like, you know, if you
can have what even if it's a separate bank account

(30:50):
or a separate maybe a credit card or whatever, like
a separate way keep the indie comics separate, it's.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Gonna make it. It's gonna make under standing how much
it costs to produce comics that much easier.

Speaker 4 (31:05):
Right, Yeah, any comics is a weird business. Backing up
half step you mentioned with your day job.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, I'm actually a production artist designer for a financial
firm called Baker Tilly. So yeah, I'm again fortunate I
work from home. Like when the pandemic hit, you know,
with everything that happened with that, I ended up working
from home, and I just I create a lot of ads,

(31:40):
digital ads for conferences, financial conferences, stuff like that. So
I really love my day my day job, and I
enjoy the people I work with, and comments has always
been that thing I do when I'm not working, you know.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
Yeah, just emphasize they see that you that because the
companies haven't exactly taken off yet, you still have to
basically do the day job I do.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
And I and I'm okay with that. I know that.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know, what I make at my day job is
it's a decent salary and I'm very happy with that,
you know, and comics it would take a lot for
comics to replace that. So for me, you know, as
an indie creator, like a lot of indie creators, we
have to have that.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
That day job. We need that constant, consistent income.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
So basically, so one of minor things is basically if
you do go into college, basically have sort of at
least a split minor thing going.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Yeah, I mean if someone is doing that, I I
mean a lot of the indie creators, I know some
of them have gone to college, some haven't, you know,
I know a lot of artists that maybe they have
formal training.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Maybe they don't.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
I wouldn't say it's necessary by any means, especially today. Uh,
there's so much online courses, either paid or free. YouTube's
a great source for all the kind of pract that
YouTube gets, and and rightfully so sometimes, but YouTube's a
great source for learning. You know, there's so many websites

(33:17):
out there that will help teach people, whether it's writing, business, managing, anything, comics.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
There's just so many resources today.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
Yeah, and of course I'm gonna have to point out
blogs or not for obvious personal reasons, but you know,
yeah that's another.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
A well, yeah, absolutely, So.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
Basically trying to head just a minute. Is there anything
else you'd like to say about doing comics?

Speaker 3 (33:51):
No, I mean I think it's a great medium. I
love doing it, you know.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
For I would say, for anybody that you know wants
to check out Luke, they can go to Kickstarter search
Luke Bloody Tooth. It's the only thing that comes up,
so it's a pretty easy search. Issues one and two
are in pre launch. And what's nice about the stories
I write is that the prior characters and stories are

(34:17):
not required.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
So you know, if you like.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Horror, you like supernatural horror, feel free to check out Luke,
you know, but you don't need to read ice Pick.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
You don't need to read Annabelle.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
It's its own story, and all the characters show up
and you know, help each other out in all of
their other books. So you know, for fans of ice Pick, yep,
he's showing up in Luke, and fans of Annabelt, yep,
she's gonna be in Luke as well, and vice versa.
So yeah, I think it's a great medium. I think

(34:49):
more people really should, you know, check it out. Kickstarter
is a great way to you know, kind of see
independent talent and see what's new and different. You know,
the big three in comics are great their mainstream, but
there's a lot of indie creators out there writing really
really good books.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
And of course you have Leadred. Where are you on
the thumbnail debate? Use thumbnails when you're writing?

Speaker 2 (35:18):
No, I know, I mean I barely thumbnail when I draw,
which is probably I'm going to get a lot of
crap for that.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
I mean, I do.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Layouts digitally just because it's easier for me to draw
doing digital layouts, and I'll print that out and do
pencil on paper and I ink on paper, But as
far as writing, it's literally just an outline and then
I dive right into the script.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
Cool. Yeah, there's actually screw to a minor debate on
whether or not thumbnails are necessary. So I managed to
kick out a little bit of a storm when I
think you point out that my eye. When I write comics,
I don't use I use a real basic thumbnail, just
basically a panel, a out type situation, and some people

(36:09):
use a lot more let's just say a little bit
more detailed thumbnail.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Well, if we get into like kind of the details
of a script, For me, when I write scripts, it
is it's more panel one, and I'll give a slight
description of what I would like to see from an
art standpoint for panel one, and then I will shut
I will write out the dialogue.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
So and that really is maybe more of a film approach,
because you know, I'm giving the artists like, hey, this
is a medium shot, this is a close up, this
is a faraway shot. This is a long, skinny panel
with this going on, and these people are you know,
they're kind of roughly in this position doing something, or

(36:59):
this person is looking confused, and this is what's happening.
I will always give a description per panel, and I
think because I give that description that I don't need thumbnails,
and the artists they don't need thumbnails because I give
them all the information in my panel descriptions.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
Right, Yeah, which is actually pretty good. I mean a
lot of basically having a film background and woman that
helps a lot as far as doing the descriptions go.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
I did work on a fuffle films when I was
in college, so you know, I got to see really
like camera setups and ables and just kind of almost
like behind the magic of a film, what really goes on.
And they were small, independent films, but needless to say,
that was an invaluable experience for me, and I maybe

(37:50):
that helped writing comics a little bit. I mean, I'm
sure it did, you know. But yeah, and that's not
to say you have to do it this way, right,
I mean, as writers, like, everybody writes differently, everybody draws differently.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
It's just kind of my process and how I get
things done.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
Yeah, well, it definitely I think it's having a film
background actually healthy because you understand a lot more details
than a regular artist says, for example, the flow of
flow in motion, that sort of thing.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
And also like where because in a film, you'll have
a cut right. So for example, if two people are talking,
typically they'll have two cameras right, one looking at one
person and a reverse camera looking at the other person.
Sometimes they only have one camera, so they will film
one actor saying ten lines. Then they'll reverse that and

(38:44):
film the other actors, you know, saying their ten lines,
and then they edit the cuts back and forth. And
for me, like, that's how I will approach sometimes dialogue
and comics is I will like look at or I'll
think about, Okay, do I want I don't want always
floating heads because that gets kind of boring. But do
I want reverse angles to show the other person? Do

(39:07):
I do a over the shoulder stot to make it
a little bit more interesting as someone is talking? So yeah,
I think that definitely, not that you mentioned it, it
definitely had a way of influencing how I write.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
All Right, I guess I better let you go full boar.
Now you get to do a full board presentation on
Luke on the kick what people get for the Kickstarter.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah, so it's basically we I have three covers, which
is my covers. The main cover it has Luke and
Rose who Rose is the main fairy in this issue,
and they're in Salem, so you get that cover. Then
I have two other variant.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Covers from one cover is the interior artist Christian Navarro.
He did a cover, and then.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
Nick Caponi if I'm not mistaken, hopefully I didn't, Butcher's
last name he did another cover and then I also
so for those three covers, I also.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Have virgin covers of those, which is basically for those
that maybe don't know, it's just it's the same cover,
but it has none of the titles or any information
on it.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
It's literally just the art work, which personally, I like
those covers the best.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
When I back.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Kickstarters, I always see if they have virgin covers, I
think they're just beautiful. So there's those variations as well.
I'm offering original art of my cover for Luke, the
pencils and the inks, which is really nice. So there's
quite a few different rewards. I think there's a mystery

(40:47):
box and a if I'm not mistaken. I have some
of the other original art that I've offered, like ice
Pick and Anna Belle stuff too, so.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
There's quite a lot. There's also a digital version too.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
I think that's very important for today's market to offer,
you know, a digital issue of comics.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Hmm, are you surely do you offer a digital version
of regular comics or just print just the print version, just.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
A print right now? Like when I do kickstarters, I
offer a digital version. That's something I may add to
my website is the ability to download a digital version
for a couple of bucks. But yeah, right now, the
digital versions really only live during the kickstarters, So I
mean that's if you want one, that's really a good

(41:40):
way to get it.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Right.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
So on's the I know you mission hasn't gone live yet.
When's you're going to live? And when's it end?

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, we're going to launch October twenty second, and so
that's about a little over a month away. Right now,
we're sitting at around maybe eighteen people following the Kickstarter
the pre launch. What I'm doing for anybody that goes
to Kickstarter and finds Luke Bloody Tooth and just literally
clicks the link to be notified on launch. For every

(42:16):
ten people that I get to follow this campaign, I
am releasing a preview page of issue too. So the
more people we get to follow the book, the more
pages y'all get to see so I would, you know,
suggest getting over there, and we only need two more
people to get the next page unlocked, and it launches

(42:38):
October twenty second. It's going to run for about thirty days.
I will be doing a convention in early November to
really help promote and you know, get that going out there,
more visibility for it, and I will have fulfillment will
be rolling in December. I'll be able to get you know,
because the book's already done, I just have to letter
it and that's going to be happening here in the

(42:59):
next few weeks. So the book is pretty much it's
going to be one hundred percent done before I even
launch a Kickstarter, and I make sure I do that
with all my kickstarters. If if I end up, you know,
having to delay, maybe a kickstarter takes a little bit
longer to launch. I want to make sure the artwork
is done. I want to make sure that the book
is completed before I even launched the kickstarter. I know

(43:23):
there's a lot of kind of issues with people not
receiving kickstarters, right.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
I don't want to be that guy.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Uh So it's very important for me to have everything done,
ready to go once the campaign ends. You know, the
funds are there, so books already getting printed pretty much
before the campaign's over. I just I look to Kickstarter
to help kind of support that financial burden of publishing,
you know, printing, paying artists, you know, those types of things,

(43:53):
because like we talked about, it could get pretty expensive.

Speaker 4 (43:57):
Yeah, and of course the obligatory Which convention will you
be at?

Speaker 3 (44:01):
I will be at.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
It's called Grit City and it's in Tacoma, Washington, a
little bit south of Seattle.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
I've done that show.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
For a while now. It's a one day show. I
have to look up the day and time, but it's
a really great show. There's a lot of people that
show up and support it. So yeah, it's it'll be
it'll be a good show.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
I did it last year.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
It's November fifteenth, so that'll be kind of right towards
the end of the campaign.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
And you know, if you're.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
In the Seattle Tacoma area, November fifteenth, a couple months,
a few months away, you know, stop by, say hi
and enjoy good comic convention.

Speaker 4 (44:50):
And of course, about how many how many copies are
you planning for the Kickstarter.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
As many as Sel.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
I mean, I would love to sell one hundred hundred
typically you know, it depends on the Kickstarter, but you know,
anywhere from twenty five to fifty is probably a reasonable amount.
But I will say I've mentioned to anybody listening here,
the variant covers are exclusive to Kickstarter, So the only

(45:17):
cover that.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Will be available.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
There may be a couple extras, depending on like if
budgets get canceled, there's certain things.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
The variant covers are extremely limited.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
My cover will be the only cover that I will
sell once that Kickstarter is over. If you're on the campaign,
you like it, you like to cover the variant covers,
I would suggest like picking that cover up because there's
a really good chance it's not going to be available
after that Kickstarter.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
And the obligatory What kind of stuff is in the
mystery box.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yeah, there's going to be I have some random issues
of Annabelle ice Picks, some variant covers that are extremely
rare and exclusive to those those books and those campaigns. Uh,
you know, we're we're working out like all of the
fun stuff that's going to be in there. I'm potentially

(46:18):
going to add a sketch card, so for for those
that like original art. I worked for tops for years
on sketch cards for garbage pow kids and stuff like that.
Uh so we're we're kind of like, do I want
to do that? You know, but it's gonna be it's

(46:42):
gonna have all the issues of it's kind of like
a collector's box actually more than a mysteries box. So yeah,
it's more of a collector's box. So you know, it's
gonna have the variant, the standard variant covers of Luke.
It's gonna have one random vision cover, and you know,
it's going to have some mini prints and and the

(47:05):
sketch card which will be whatever character someone wants. So
there's it's it's quite a bit for that that that
collector's box.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
Okay, and just start closing things up. Any any other
word of advice that we haven't talked about.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Uh, get out there and do it, you know, get
out there, and if you want to make any comments,
go make them.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
If you know, people can find me on social media
whether the via ice Pick has a pretty decent following,
it's always easy for all one word ice Pick or
search my name Todd Rainer. I'm out there, you know,
I'm always willing to help people and talk to people
and you know.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Give them advice.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
So by all me, uh you know, get out there
supporting the comics and you know, hopefully we'll have another
successful kickstarter.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
Cool and with that, we're done. That was Todd Rainer.
He's got a kickstart. Please look into it, folks, and
I'll be talking to you later. Have a good evening.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
And that's it, all right, So do you no, it's
it's totally fine. Do you want me to I'll kill
this recording, but then I can I'll send you the audio.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
Okay, that works, and then once you get the audio,
it should be up with it, okay. And then once
I get the audio, it should be up within a
day or two.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
Oh yeah, fantastic. Yeah. And once uh you know, once
it's up, just let me know and I'll I'll share
it out and do whatever you know what we can do.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
So okay, all right, we'll have a good one man,
all right, take it easy. Thanks, hmm, no problem, Bye bye,
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Cardiac Cowboys

Cardiac Cowboys

The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.

The Joe Rogan Experience

The Joe Rogan Experience

The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.