 Hey America, I'm Phillip Kennelly Johnson. I'm a soldier, musician, teacher, father, and comic book writer. Before I got to the Army I was playing in the Glenn Miller band. I was there for about a year and a half and while I was there I kind of had my eye on the military for other jobs. It's great to have a job where you not only get to do what you love but you're doing it for reasons that really matter. So rehearsal's over and now it's time to put on my other hat. So now we're at Ariel's house. She's one of my favorite students. I've been teaching her trumpet for several years. We're working now on variations on a theme from Norma. Okay, back to work. We're going to get back to this lesson and I'll catch up with you guys later. So obviously I have two careers going right now. Music and then writing. The more I learn about both, the more I feel like they're connected or at least they're similar rather than connected. Getting better at one has made me better at both. Actually my way in to comic, like everyone's got their own story about how to break into comics. I mean there's an adage that once a person breaks in the comic, that path in is forever closed to everyone else. Everyone has their own unique way to break in and it's hard for anyone. My way was I actually wrote a blog post basically that kind of an essay comparing the comics medium to jazz and how they're similar. Writing comics, you are basically making small group jazz. You've got maybe a horn, piano, bass, drums, and if you replace any one person, the product completely changes. From comics, when I was just a little bitty kid, by the time I went off to kindergarten, I was already using words like nuclear reactor. Like I knew I had such a leg up on every other kid because I had read so many comics already. Who's on that one? Batman. Who else? Ace and Robin. This is on an old newsprint, that's why it smells like that. It smells like old paper. Time for us to make one more change, eh Batman? Yes, the change back to our other identities. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. So right now we're going to Third Eye Comics. I love this store. So when I first started getting back into comics, six or seven years ago, I saw a flyer just stuck in the median somewhere near Annapolis. For Third Eye Comics, I had an address and I checked it out and the store owner, a guy named Steve and his wife Trish were unbelievably helpful and just super into it. They're clearly in it for love of the game. Just awesome to talk to. I didn't know anything about comics anymore. I knew what I knew from the old days when I was a kid. A new take on the X-Man called Astonishing X-Men that Joss Whedon had written and Steve was so excited about that one. He ripped the plastic off of it to show it to me just to like flip through, like no pressure to buy it. He just wanted to show me the artwork by John Cassidy and he was so into it. It was just really infectious. One very cool thing about this job is coming to a store and seeing your work on shelves. It's really exciting. It never really gets old. They have a couple copies of Last Sons of America. The Last Sons was my first published graphic novel. It's basically a world in which Americans can't have kids anymore. I try to tell stories that matter to me and then dress them up in exciting comic book-y ways. So writing original stories, like your own stories, it's extremely exciting and super fun. It's also really fun to do license work. I didn't know how I was going to feel about that if that opportunity ever came, but when it did, it was incredibly fun. I think my first one was Adventure Time. Yes, I love Adventure Time and I'd never seen it and I just started mainlining the show and it was really fun to get into a show that I didn't know I was going to like, but I ended up really digging it. So that was a fun opportunity and that led to an opportunity to write The Power of the Dark Crystal, which was a huge thrill, because I'm the biggest Jim Henson fan ever. I mean, it's the guy whose whole life is just about making beautiful things and being creative and just putting beautiful things in the world, making it a better place. I love his work. So getting to write The Power of the Dark Crystal was ridiculous. Okay, America, thanks so much for spending the day with me. I'm Phillip Kennedy Johnson. It's been a pleasure. Batman is getting a little wiped here. I think I'm gonna get him back to the cave.