 What are some of the comics that brought you to the medium? So I'll say like maybe you're like three to five things that you read as coming up that made you want to even, you know, make these things called comic books. Any way that it starts? Yeah, I'd go first. I first discovered comics when I was a kid and my uncle had a box of just like one little box of 70s era Marvel comics that was like Man Wolf and Iron Man and just some like random stuff. Right. And I fell in love with just like the art of it and when I was in middle school it was when those Marvel trading cards first came out. So I got into collecting those cards but I never really was that into the stories of comics. I was really just more into the art. So I would just like, I don't remember anything about the stories. I don't remember like what Man Wolf's deal was. I just remember like looking at the art and trying to draw like that. Right, right, right. And then I think when I moved to Portland which is like within a couple of years of meeting Dave for the first time in like the late 90s is when I first discovered. So I grew up in Susie, Iowa. So in Susie, Iowa there's like not a lot of access to any comics that aren't just like spinner at comics like Marvel and DC. And when I moved to Portland, Oregon I discovered Black Hole by Charles Burns which was the first time I read a comic that I was like, oh, like this is a legit thing that I think like I might want to try to participate in. So I think like Black Hole I would definitely count as like one of the big first formative things. And maybe like some of the Dan Klaus stuff that I would like Ghost World I think also is a big influence. Like maybe Adrienne Tomané also. But like those comics are the first stuff that I did. Like Chris Ware, like the early Chris Ware stuff. But like those are the first time I read comics. So I was like, yo, this is like more than superhero stuff that I read from my uncle's long box or whatever. They ain't just for kids anymore, kid. Yeah. This is totally true. So that was like a what, late night? Was it midnight? Yeah late 90s. Late 90s, yeah, yeah, yeah. I always drew comics and I always drew comics. Like I had a comic in my high school newspaper about a superhero circus troupe. The main character was named Psycho Clown, which was way before ICP was a thing. And I should look into it. You should sue them. Yeah, I totally should. Might as well. Might as well. They should be sued just on general principle alone. So it's like a suing app now. You could just go ahead and just do it. So what about you David? Oh man, I mean, my love of comics and my exposure to comics goes way back to the early 70s. But I think the really, some of the most formative stuff in the 70s Marvel was publishing a black and white Planet of the Apes magazine. And they were largely adaptations of the movies, the original Planet of the Apes movies. And then there was also these articles about filmmaking. And then there was original stories in there. And that was the beginning of my love, my true love of comics, but also my actual study of film began at about six or seven years old, reading articles, deep dives into film. So I was nerdier than any of you in this room could ever hope to be. So that was the beginning. And I was reading Marvel and DC stuff. I mean, I literally learned how to read with comics. And then in the mid-80s, a guy named Matt Wagner started doing a book. First he was doing a book called Grendel. But then he started doing a book called Mage. And Mage started coming out while I was in high school and into my first year of college. And that really changed everything for me because especially if you look at Mage, you can see his progression both as an artist and a storyteller. It was pretty amazing. And I'd gone to art school to be a comic creator. And then Kyle Baker did a book late 80s, early 90s, called Why I Hate Saturn. And that was the book that I actually stopped reading comics for nearly 10 years. Because after I read it, I said, I'm never going to read a comic better than this. And I didn't want to ruin the experience of reading comics. And it's now 20-something years later. And I still have not read a comic better than Why I Hate Saturn. It's still, I think, the single greatest graphic novel of all time. And that's saying a lot because, I mean, like Contract with God is an amazing graphic novel. And Blankets is an amazing graphic novel. And Mouse, there's a lot of great stuff. But to me, Kyle broke so much ground with that book. And it was ahead of its time then. It's still ahead of its time. It's out of print now, unfortunately. But I think it's available digitally. I think you can get it. On Comic Sology. Yeah, on Comic Sology. I've never even heard of it before. Oh, yeah, no. It's because you're young, man. You're a whippersnapper. Are you reading, like, Black Hole or something? I'm just messing with you. But really, yeah. And the interesting thing too is when we talk about graphic novels and the things that change the game, Matt Wagner is always left out of the conversation. I really like his work. Because they always talk about Watchmen. And they always talk about Dark Knight Returns, which was the exact same time as Maid was going on. And the difference was that Maid was groundbreaking in that it wasn't taking preexisting characters and putting a new spin on them. But then they don't talk about Kyle Baker either. They don't talk about Kyle Wally's show. They don't talk about why he sat in it. No one talks about Nat Turner. Brighter than Nat Turner beats, yeah. Yeah, so exactly. No, I totally agree with you. Yeah, I was going to say, and that reminds me of another book that was really formative for me, which was Kings in Disguise by James Vance and Dan Burr, which was put out by Kitchen Sink Press. And to me, that was my all-time favorite graphic novel. And I think a lot about why Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns are always in the conversations about the best graphic novels of all time. And it's because they're, Marvel and DC keep putting those books back out there. Yeah, they're in print. But there's better books than those books that exist that were put out by smaller publishers that just they're not. That's part of it as well. The independent always gets kind of run over. I always talk about that too, but actually we talk about representation. And of course, all types of identity. Because representation is a type of. I thought something else really profound. Can I just hear this? You do your thing, and then I'll do my thing. Oh, yeah, I was going to say that because Marvel and DC are pretending to be comic book companies, they're not really comic book companies, by the way. They're IP farms. And they're keeping alive these characters. But a lot of times they take the air out of the room when you have some really, really innovative work that is actually pushing, I think, the envelope. Like Mage, for instance, and Grindel, actually, too. Or Cerebus or what have you. Oh, the other thing about why I hate Saturn, which blew my mind, was when I got to the back of the book, one of the supporting characters was a black guy who was not like your typical black guy in comics. And so that kind of blew my mind. But then when I got to the back of the book and they had the About the Author picture, I was like, yo, I think that guy is black. And it's the same way a lot of you are looking at Ezra and I right now going, oh, what are these two guys? Kyle's like that. It's that Butterscotch effect where you're not quite sure. He didn't have his dreads when he took the author photo. But that also blew my mind. Because as it pushed me out of the comics world for a very long time, it also gave me this permission to do whatever I wanted to do. It was Kyle's work said, do not be afraid to just be yourself. Right, right, right. I mean, we were talking about this earlier, as far as how you write comics or make comics. There really aren't any set rules, as far as scripts or what have you. And because of the inherent seriality, to me, of the comics medium, you can do just about anything, because everything in the comic book is a symbol. And to that end, what is it about this particular medium? Well, let me back that up. So I really think that storytelling is a type of problem solving. To me, it's a technology for getting through particular types of issues, whether it be personal, societal, what have you. What is it about the medium of comics that you think lends itself so well to this type of dealing with problem solving in that fashion, the tensions of that as a storytelling? Well, because it's a particular medium, right? You see what I'm doing here, Alex? Yeah. I'm stalling for time. This is the, it makes me look like I'm smart. Because you're both so good at it. You're both really good at the medium. You understand it very well, right? And you get across a particular type of pacing, a particular type of representation. And a lot of people wrongfully say, like, oh, well, comics are like film, or comics are like this. It's like, no, comics are like comics. Yeah, they are. They behave in a particular way, and they actually are employed in a particular way to do storytelling. What do you think about the way that they do that, that is different for the type of work that you try to do? Well, for me, a lot of it is about the participatory process of both creating a comic and then reading a comic. So when I'm writing a comic, I'm first and foremost, I'm writing it for one person. I'm writing it for my artist. I'm writing it so my artist knows what to draw. It's all a suggestion. But then I'm also writing it, and then the artist and myself, we're working in tandem to create it for you, the reader. And it's what are you going to bring to it? We're bringing like 75% to it. And then you're bringing 25% to it. But that 25% is actually 100%. Because you're reading it, you're studying each image, you are probably hearing the different voices of the different characters in your head, and you are most importantly, and this is the thing I talk about all the time with my students, you are understanding what's happening in between the panels. It's one thing to look at a panel and see what's going on in the panel, but it's another thing to figure out what's happened in between panel one and panel two. And that's the part of it is the language of assumption and it's also the act of participation. We're going on a journey together and that's what I love about it. Now prose does that a lot. It actually does it even more than comics do. Film does it very little. And that's the thing I love about comics is that participation. And that's in the creative part of it is that that's sort of what drives me is knowing that, okay, I'm gonna start the journey but we're going on it together. That journey isn't complete until you come along with me. Or come along with us, I should say. Yeah, I would say that I don't have anything as intellectual as Dave had to say about it. A couple years ago I wouldn't have had it either but now I'm a teacher. I think you're a truth, brother. But I feel like I'm a pretty medium agnostic creator and I don't think that there's anything that comics necessarily do better for me as a creator. I think when I look at mediums, I look at the people who are consuming those mediums. So like if I have a story, the idea that I decide to make it as a comic book, I'm imagining who are the type of people that read comics and who am I gonna reach by making this story? So I think as a creator my ultimate goal is to, I mean I have things I think are important enough to say and to reach people with. And so yeah, I think, I just lost my train of thought but I'm just gonna let you. I'm a problem of participating and feeling the blanks. I'm feeling in the blanks of exactly what you were about to say. It is so fascinating. It's gonna be so amazing. It is so much smarter than that. So I'm working on an audio drama now. So I think the point I was trying to make was that I'm trying to say things that I think are important and I'm trying to reach certain groups of people. And so if I only make comics my entire life, I'm only gonna ever reach people that read comic books. So I think I definitely don't have any loyalty to comics necessarily. I feel like I've reached some people via comics and I'm looking forward to reaching people via other mediums in the future. That kind of leads to some other things I was thinking about as far as like medium and genre. Because again, you both have worked in various media. And I think have done some amazing things in both. Is there, you say you don't have a, do you have a favorite medium? I mean, is a particular medium that you prefer working in? I mean, you prefer working in film? It's just like, it's about the end result about what you're trying to get across. I love all mediums and I look forward to it. Like I wanna make video games. Like I said, I'm doing an audio drama now. I hope to get into film and TV. Fingers crossed, eventually something like that will happen. But I wanna do everything. Music, everything. Oh, that's awesome. How about you, David? Yeah, I don't... You're learning a huge film. Yeah, I'm a storyteller, first and foremost. So the medium becomes, I mean, one of the things I really wanna do and part of me, I'm just, I'm not gonna lie. I'm scared to do it. I wanted to take a story and I wanted to execute it in three different mediums. I wanted to do it as a pro short story and I wanted to develop it as a comic and get somebody to draw it. And then I wanted to do it as a film. So I wanted to do this exercise in telling the exact same story in three different mediums because you can't tell the exact same story the exact same way in all three mediums. In three different mediums, it's just not possible. And so I honestly think, don't be surprised if in the next two to three years I do that, I have the story. I know exactly the story that I wanna tell. It's non-fiction. It's up here. And I can't, but I can't figure it out for any one of those three, any one of the, whether it's film comics or prose. I just have not been able to, A, I'm scared and B, I'm lazy. And that is a deadly combination. It's like you don't even need three strikes. That's two strikes and you're out with lazy and scared. Or I'm scurred I should say. But like right now, I mean, I love, the thing about comics with prose is like the easiest entry point because all you need is, you don't even have to know how to draw. If comics, if you wanna do comics and you don't know how to draw, then you gotta partner with somebody. But with prose, it's just you and your imagination, your ability to write. And but comics is a pretty fairly easy entry point, I feel and yeah. I have to agree. I mean, it's a very different space right now where like, there was a one particular point where if you wanted to get into the comics industry you had that like almost like moved to New York. And now it's like, whoa, you can move from being like someone who's a fan of the medium to writing for comics or drawing comics because the access point has changed and the tools have become like more ubiquitous and you can actually get them a little more, it's a lot more transparency and process and things too. That's a couple of questions. So one is about genre. Cause I think that you both have a particular, affectation for a particular genres too. What are some of your favorite genres and why? Do you like working on them? And then a second part is like, how do those change the way you collaborate? Cause both of you have actually done collaborative works too. And to talk about, I guess like, your favorite genres and why? And then also talk about like the process around collaborative work. You go first. Okay. I'm a big sci-fi horror nerd. And I think similar to Dave, I got into sci-fi and horror mostly through film, I think. So I was a big film geek before I was a big comic book geek. And I think for me, I like working in those mediums just because I like them. I don't think that's like, there's anything more intellectual than that. I just like science fiction and horror. So I like to write stories like that. I think the deeper answer is that it's nostalgic for me cause my dad was a big sci-fi horror nerd. And also my dad was my black parent. And so I feel like sci-fi and horror to me are inextricably linked to race and my connection to race. So I think one of the reasons I try to play in those sandboxes is like a way to be closer to my dad. So yeah, I think there's like, that's like the emotional pull that keeps drawing me back to those genres. But I think also the thing that excites me about them intellectually is just the idea of using symbols and facsimiles for things that exist in the real world to affect people and to provoke people from behind in a way that they don't really expect. I think I always point to get out as like a recent example that everybody's seen, most people have seen that does such a brilliant job of like getting anybody immersed in this visceral horror story and then no spoilers, but at the end when like the flashing lights appear, everybody who's watching that movie has the same thought which is, oh shit, whether you're a Blue Lives Matter person, the Black Lives Matter person, whatever, everybody has that same thought. And if you are a Blue Lives Matter person and you've been sucked into the story and you see those sirens and you say, oh shit, gotcha. And like that to me is like the epitome of why I like to work in genre. Now what about the collaborative aspect? How do you go back? Oh, you know what? I'll tell you what, do the genre thing. Well he answered, he gave the exact answer I was gonna give, so I don't need to, yeah, no, that was, no, but I agree, I'm with Ezra on everything he said, but I mean I've been moving from genre to genre, now I'm working in, I've got one project that's superhero, yet it's superhero mystery, and I've got supernatural monster hunter story, but that's actually a family drama. You know, with the historical spice, I guess, added, 11 herbs and spices of history, but I'm also working in nonfiction now, which is incredibly challenging, incredibly daunting, but it makes me feel like that my work might matter a little bit and that there's a chance it'll live on beyond me, because I think about that, I think about when I'm dead, what are the people gonna be like? David Walker's top 10 books, and no offense, but I don't want it to be Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes, I don't want to be remembered for that, so I'd rather them say, oh, he was the writer of the life of Frederick Douglass, than co-writer of Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes, but that's just, but I have no control over that. Well, think about co-writing too, because comics is a medium, though, of course, if you're an all tour cartoonist, you can do all aspects of it, but because of the corporate side of things, as far as comics, I mean, you can have a creative team as much as eight people work on a book from various standpoints. What are the positive and negatives around that, as far as the people, I mean, people interested in making comics, or having made comics. Okay, some folk, all right. So yeah, yeah, so what are some of the aspects of doing that, because not all collaborations are awesome, and some of them are wonderful. Well, I can talk about the auteur side, I guess, because I write drama on stuff mostly. I think the only reason I make comics is because I happen to be good at two things, which is writing and drawing stories. And I think, to me, it's like the lowest bar of entry for me to tell the stories I want to tell. I actually moved to Portland, Oregon, to go to film school, because I wanted to be a filmmaker, and I made a couple of short films, and it was just so daunted by the process of collaborating with a crew of people and actors, and I just found it kind of off-putting where I could lock myself in my bedroom for six months and write and draw a story all by myself, and nobody could tell me boo about it. I guess I'd do whatever I wanted to do. I think, I don't know, I'm not gonna answer it too deeply, but this isn't it anyways. When I was in high school, I tried to play football my freshman year in high school, and I hated it, because when we lost a game, there was like a thousand different things that could have gone wrong, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around how to do better as a team when I had no control over how to decide to play. I don't know anything about football, so that was the first problem. So then I started running track. So then I ran track that same year, and I killed it at track. I was state champion at hurdles, and the reason I think I did so well is because when I lost a race, there's only one thing that you can do better next time, and that's run faster, and it's all on you, and it's not on the team. So I think that's why I like making comics, because I could like do everything myself. So you're that person when the coach says, there is no I in team, and you said, but there is me in the team, and me is leaving the team to do what I want to do. I'm a terrible team player. He's like, okay, so that's great. But you did do a great piece, bottom feeders, with Ben Passmore, so how was that? But that was, I think it was also a thing so I have this new book coming out, like John said on Fantagraphic, called Bottom Feeders that I wrote, and Ben Passmore, who did Your Black Friend, illustrated. And for me, that collaborative process was just like, I wrote Bottom Feeders as a film script, actually, and I was sitting on this film script, and I didn't know what to do with it, and I just fell in love with Ben as a cartoonist, and I loved his work, and I trusted him enough as an artist and creator to just give him the film script and be like, run with it. Just like, I'm not gonna give you that much direction to see what you can do with it. And he knocked it out of the park because he's just that talented. And I think the key for collaboration for me, and I've collaborated with a lot of people in the past on multiple projects, is to just like, what works for me is to have really clearly delineated veto structures where I'm the writer, I have veto power on this stuff, I'm working with you because you're an artist and you have better decision-making process or abilities than everything that has to do with art, and that's why I'm working with you. And so I think, especially I have a huge background in doing freelance illustration design, that's how I made my living as my day job for the past 20 years. And when I'm working with a client, and it's just some business major who's like, I feel like when I look at this, my eye wants to move in this direction because of this, I'm just like, shut up, why did you hire me? I'm the expert in art here. Oh, believe me. Totally. How about your eye move right over here? What about you, David? And I know you've had some ups and downs with collaborators. I mean, you don't have to elaborate. But how has that been? What's your process for dealing with those when you have hiccups in collaboration? I'm just really mean. I cuss people out, I yell at them, and I threaten them. And exactly. I mean, there's a lot of it is, for me, are you going to create a good book? That's it. That's the end of the game. And when you write comics, you can't be in love with your words. You absolutely can't. You can be in love with your story. You can be in love with what you're trying to convey, but it doesn't always come out that way. And you'll get your pages back, and there's, oh, suddenly there's not enough room for the text. And so you've got to cut the text. You've got to cut the dialogue. And the key is, is, well, you want it to be a good read. That's the thing. So it's always in service to the story. Excuse me. The collaboration is not easy for me. If I could draw well, I wouldn't be working with anybody else. But in going back to what Ezra's saying about film, it's like, to be 100% honest, making comics is actually more the collaborative art of making comics. It is more difficult than the collaborative art of making films. I've made more films, and as difficult as they were, they were so much easier, so much smoother, and they got done more quickly than any comic project I've ever done. I think that is. Because artists are crazy. No, I think that there's, look, as every artist, I don't care what your art is, whether you're a writer or you're drawing comics or you're a musician, there's also this level of insecurity. And I think that that insecurity can become so overwhelming. And there's this notion of, well, I got to get paid. And yeah, it's important to get paid. But the key thing is that at the end of the day, the work that you're doing, there isn't enough money in the world to pay you. That's it. I can tell you right now that even the worst work that I've ever done, I have not been paid well for it. I work so hard. And I can tell you, they're selling some of my books out there right now, and there's at least one of them that's total crap out there. And I will tell you, don't buy that book. And I can tell you later why I think it's crap. But it's still, I didn't get paid enough for all the hard work that I did. But in film, there's this sort of understanding. I'm still trying to figure out the dynamic of it, but I've met so many comic book artists where there's so many projects I have that aren't done because I've hired somebody, they've done some pages, I've paid them for those pages, and then they just disappear and don't finish the rest. And so the thing is, if you're doing, say, a 100-page graphic novel, we're even just, no, we'll get it down to like a 20-page comic. And you've got somebody and they've drawn 10 pages and you've given them your hard earned money, and you cannot track them down to draw those last 10 pages. It's so hard to finish it. But if you're making a film, you can, if your director photography acts up, you can fire them and hire a new director photography. Your only problem really comes with actors, if they act up. But you can, and it's just terrible to say, you can trick an actor into finishing, right? Or on the fly, you can rewrite the scene and then the next day show up on set and go, oh, I had this great idea and then kill that character off. There's so many ways you can fix it, but when you're working in comics, it's usually just you and one other person, two other people, so. I know I'm nuts, I'm sorry. You're all like getting ready to leave and get out of here. All right, all right. That said, though, when a collaboration works, I'm working with another writer and an artist on a book that comes out next week. The artist Jamal Campbell is so amazing. When I see this, yeah, Naomi, those pages come in and it's like I, he deserves a better writing team than he has, this is Jamal, our artist. And Brian and I talk about this every time we see pages, we are not, it's like we are not worthy of this artist. He's so amazing. I can't wait to read it. And so that, when it works, it feels great, you know. I was thinking about this, you know, I had talked, I spoke earlier, you just mentioned Brian, it's Brian Michael Bendis who is really well known for the Miles Morales character. Jessica Jones, yeah. Jessica Jones, a turn of the things. I was talking about this kind of rise in these characters that are representing, you know, a wider swath of the population, you know, that have become super popular and also this really kind of interesting underculture of black speckled culture or black speckled art and not just in comics but also in film, prose and also in music. So what do y'all take on what's happened in that particular piece? This has actually been bubbling up, I won't say for like maybe a decade or so, right? And then it kind of, of course, exploded into mainstream through like black, things like Black Panther and of course into Spider-Verse and other things. But we've actually already been watching those. Yeah, a lot of the stuff's been happening especially in the comics world for 15, 20 years. That's right, that's right. So what do you, so what's happened that you think that these particular, I mean, have you guys seen like the trailer for like for a fast color, for instance? Yeah, I mean it looks, I can't wait to see that here in March. Well, I think part of it is there was some people, you can point out something that's missing or something that's like, you know, like I'll just use myself as an example, right? I mean, I grew up in an era, I grew up watching James Bond movies, you know? We're not gonna get into how problematic James Bond movies really are because they're really, really problematic. But I grew up watching like white male power fantasies and only questioning them a little bit and usually only questioning them in terms of, well, how come it's not a black guy, right? But I seldom really thought about it from a standpoint of where the powerful women, that sort of thing. And but then the moment it's pointed out to me and I'd matured a little bit and gotten a little bit wiser, suddenly I was like, oh, wait a minute. Like now I see there's a problem here, right? I'm aware of it. And it's like, now I'm bored out of my mind when I watch the white male hero, right? And if I have to write the white male hero, I'm bored out of my mind, right? There's nothing, there's nothing interesting that 50 years old, I don't find those characters interesting to me anymore, right? And so as a writer, I wanna challenge myself to create heroes that I find interesting, that I find compelling, right? I also want to try to open the door for other creators to do that. But I ain't gonna lie, I gotta pay rent. So if it comes down to me writing that interesting, strong female character and getting rent and nobody else making money, I'm cool with that because I gotta pay the bills. But I also think that there is, but in all seriousness, there has to be a, and we talk about this a lot, there has to be a certain amount of mentoring, there has to be a certain amount of trying to break the door down. But, and I tell people this all the time, when no editor has ever asked me what artist do you want to draw this book? I always give my suggestions, my suggestions are never taken. And that's a whole other issue altogether. And just because people don't see the struggle that I'm having behind the scenes of the things that I'm trying to do, the doors that I'm trying to open, the opportunities I'm trying to create doesn't mean that it's not happening. And at some point it will happen, you don't give up on it. So, I don't even remember the question, but sounded moderately. Yeah, so I'm like, what's your take on it? What was the question? The question was dealing with this kind of like embracing of black culture or like other folk as characters who are doing these spectacular things. Yeah, well I think it's really interesting and obviously I love it and it's definitely opened up doors for me. So my personal story is that I've been working on my book Upgrade Soul for 15 years and every few years I would reach a milestone and pitch it to publishers. And as a person who's been making comics independently for 20 years, I made a lot of connections in comics. I know people at all the major houses, the publishing houses, and I have friends who are editors at these places. And every couple of years I would pitch Upgrade Soul to my friends and my contacts in the industry and I would get crickets, always crickets. And Upgrade Soul is a story about an elderly mixed race couple. The main character is a black man in his 70s and his wife is a Latina woman who's also in her 70s. And like the editors would look at him and be just like, no, like why do we do this? And then it took the success of something like Get Out for these people to suddenly see that there's money to be made into various stories. And I think it's like this conflux of call out culture where people like don't have a tolerance or patience for the same stories and these problematic stories over and over and over again and Hollywood and the gatekeepers seeing that there's money to be made and this stuff. So after Get Out came out, my career completely changed. Suddenly people are like, oh, black horror shit, that sells, like what do you got? And I'm like, I've been doing this for 20 years, where have you guys been? Where you been, exactly. So I think it's been really exciting. I think, and I think also like, this is something I struggle with as a person. So my next book, Bottom Feeters, stars a black woman. And I'm obviously not a black woman. And I also, I think this is something that you're getting at too, like is it okay for me to tell the story of a black woman not being a black woman? And what value does it have for me to at least create representations of these demographics even if it's not my own voice? And so that's something that like, we're getting to a point where there's like a lot of stuff coming out now that stars black female protagonists. And a lot of that stuff isn't being created by black female creators. And I think there might be a point that I first see coming up where people are like, we need more black female creators, obviously. And that's obviously- Yeah, we're here right now. I think it's, and I'm wrestling with that every day. What can I do to, you know. Yeah, right. But at the same time, I think like, I also would get bored by telling stories that are only about the biracial straight male experience. This is my experience. And I think there's also room for like, and it's necessary for people that are lucky enough to be in a position of like telling stories and communicating with people. Especially when like, we've been given this opportunity because partly because we look the way we look. Like we're straight dudes who like, I can walk into a room and pass as a white dude. So I've been given opportunities that a lot of people haven't been given. And I feel like, I definitely feel like a strong duty to be like, I'm gonna take these opportunities that have been given and I'm definitely not gonna write stories about white men. I'm gonna write stories about people that I don't see enough in media. And hopefully that'll just like, make it just more commonplace for people to see that stuff. It's such a difficult struggle because I just turned down a gig the other like a week ago. And I told the editor, I said, look, I know three writers who would be amazing for this gig and all three of them were black women. And all three of them are published comics writers. So it's not like they're coming like, I can hand work and crickets. It was like nothing like they just, it was like, and the attitude was like, well, I've never heard of them. And I was like, and I always say this when someone, this is since there was no response. I don't know if that was what they were really thinking but I've heard the, I've never heard of them response before. And I always say, yeah, there was a time you never heard of me, right? We have to take a chance at some point. And it's so infuriating and it's like, okay, so where do I have to be? That what sort of position do I have to be and where I actually have enough juice where I can say, hey, let's give, you know, let's give Shay Grayson a break. Let's give Regine Sawyer, let's give her this gig. You know, and cause it's like, Regine's been in the trenches forever, you know? And so it's created an entire organization around women in comedy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spike Trotman, Spike Trotman is more successful than anybody, then she's made more money than all of us collectively in this room together with her comics. And the interesting thing is, I tried to sell or tried to convince Marvel to hire Spike. And then I talked to her about it and she was like, why would I wanna work for them? Exactly. It would be, I would be making less money but everybody at Marvel was like, who? And I was like, yeah. Doesn't make a disconnect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, I feel like I don't wanna try to sound like bitter about comics because like I do love making comics but I definitely feel like and like what you just brought up with Spike is like a prime example of why I have no loyalty to comics. Like comics never showed me love until they saw dollar signs and the stuff I was doing. And like the comics industry ignores the success of somebody like Spike Trotman or Raina Telgemeier who's like the most successful comics creator of all time. How do you not say, I mean, I've heard this like, oh, comics don't sell. I was like, are you reading Raina Telgemeier? Exactly. Yeah, something like that as well. Yeah, but you can drop her name in meetings at the major comic publishers and they'll be like, who? Yeah. You know, it's like, come on. It's mind boggling. Yeah. Yeah, I understand it. I mean, I really don't. I'm gonna, let's have one last like geeky question. Okay. Let's do the geeky question and I'm gonna open it up. You know, professional geek. I feel like we've been up here for a long time. No, it's almost, we're about to close it down. Okay. That's cause the lights, it's like the little Vico technique. Anyway, yeah, so what are you into right now? Pop culture wise, what's something that's really like moving you as far? It could be film, it could be video games, it could be whatever. Like what's the thing that's kind of like, yeah, I'm really digging that right now. Or something that you're looking forward to engaging with right now. It could be anything. Is it how? Well, I just, no, I just got Rebecca's book, I can't remember the title of it now. Trail of Light and I just got that. And I got one of Daniel Jose Older's books and like those, both of them really sort of reinvigorated the creative spark. Being here this weekend has reinvigorated the creative spark, but I know there's stuff that you got going on that I'm like really excited to see come out and then with bottom figure I want to see that too. So, but I'm so caught up in the creative, creating my own stuff right now that it's difficult for me to, I don't have a lot of time. Like I'm still trying to get caught up on what else is out there. And I want to see what's at tomorrow, what other creators have brought. What more people are doing. Yeah, yeah, what you guys, anything that's. Well, I'm obviously really excited about us. Yeah. Excited about that. Come on us, so. Yeah, us, yeah. You mean the, or do you mean the Jordan Peele? Yeah, the new Jordan Peele. That new Jordan Peele joint. I got five on it too. But I tend to consume media that's related to projects I'm working on. So I'm working on a like a swamp noir crime story right now. Swamp noir. Swamp noir. Okay, which one's about that? That's really dope. So I'm like looking at a lot of like crime mysteries. Actually, one of my inspirations for this book, how I imagine it being done is the graphic novel adaptation of Daddy Cool. Oh, Alfredo Alcala and Don. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I imagine like that form factor being. There's a really great piece in that, you know, our book, The Black of the Ink that's on that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really good. Yeah, so I'm watching a lot of TV shows, listening to music. Okay. To get in that swamp mindset. Swamp mindset, you gotta get in it, man. Joe R. Lansdale, have you like a. No, I'm looking on the list. Yeah, check out like his happened Leonard books because that's sort of like a Southern fried swamps and gators and all that fun stuff. So any questions for these gentlemen? Oh, yes, ma'am. It's like peak blackness. It's a great question. Well, here's the thing. If you have a story to tell, there's nobody stopping you from telling it other than yourself. Right? It sounds sort of dismissive, but it's like, if you want to write a book, write the book. Like my first published novel was rejected by every single publisher, no lie. Every single publisher in North America rejected my book. So what did I do? I published it myself. I got more work because I published it myself. I've been self-publishing for nearly 30 years at this point in my career, right? And I'm going back to self-publishing this year because I'm so tired of established publishers saying, yeah, we don't think this is gonna sell. It's like, well, you can't sell it, but I'm gonna be able to sell it and I'm gonna do what I wanna do. Ezra's book Upgrade Soul, it wasn't like he was nobody who hadn't done anything. Like Upgrade Soul was like a dope book for years. It was a dope book for 15 years. He worked on it and I would see him and he was like, yeah, no, nothing, you know. And even after you won the, I mean, there was interest after the McDuffie Award, but you were still looking for a publisher, right? And so the thing is, is it sounds really, people think I'm being dismissive when I say just do it, right? Your first book will not be, or your first comic or your first film is not going to be your greatest work. If it is, you're in trouble, okay? But if you're waiting for somebody to give you permission or to open the door for you and go, hello, welcome to Marvel, right? The moment they let you in that room, you're already looking for the exit. It's like, it's not as great as one might think it is. And it comes with a lot of rules. And I've had people tell me, oh, well, I got this great idea for the X-Men. And I'm like, okay. And then they tell me, I'm like, you know they're never gonna let you do that. And they're like, no, no, they'll let me do it. And I'm like, yeah, I know seven people who had that exact same idea. And I've been in the room with five of those people and they've said, no, you don't get to do that idea, right? So the key thing is to create no matter what and to build your audience. I mean, I've worked for Marvel, I've worked for DC, and I've watched my books not sell. I've watched them get good critical response, but I've watched them do just poorly enough for editors to not return my phone calls, you know? And so there's a lot of people that might look at me in this position and go, oh, he's got it made. And it's like, I'm sitting there going, man, I hope I sell some books this weekend because rent is almost due. And that's the reality of it. It's not stopping me from creating stuff, but it's forcing me to look at other avenues, other ways to create and to never stop and go, oh man, if they just would give me a break. I just create my own breaks, you know? And that's the thing we always have to do. We always have to create our own breaks. I got nothing to add to that. I got nothing to add to that. I got nothing to add to that. What's your experience just like? Hmm. That's a David question. Because we haven't, have you written for a while? No. No, me either. No. So yeah, that's you. What? Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh. They say wrap it up. Wrap it up. Okay. We can do that. We're getting there. Okay, yeah, we're getting there. Okay. Okay, so the main challenge is this. The comics industry, and by the industry, I mean the publishers, and I mean the retailers, and I mean even the journalists who write about it. There's not a lot of them. It's a very small pond with some very big fish, and it's running out of food. And it's, it's, so you go to the indie publishers, and everybody's fighting for shelf space. They're fighting for attention, and they're fighting to make the bottom line, which is money. And the key is, is if you want to make comics, and you want to make money, and you want to survive, either you need to get another job, or you need to redefine how much money you want to make, and you have to be willing to go to conventions, and you shouldn't be trying to get published by somebody else. Because you're not really going to make money at these publishers. I mean that's the harsh truth. The harsh truth is that with the exception of Marvel and DC, most of them pay very low page rates. If you've created something that is your own, most of them want to own such a big piece of it, that if it were turned into a film or television show, you probably wouldn't get that much money off of that. But they're also controlling who they're negotiating with. And so, you know, you've written this great book, and it's got this incredible person of color, you know, this trans gender, you know, person of color. And then by the time Hollywood gets it, it's Tom Cruise playing that character. And you have no control over that, right? And so, but again, there's someone like Spike Trotman. Spike is living by her own rules, and she's making money. But if you go into most bookstores, and you go into most comic stores, they don't have her work there. They don't have her company, Iron Circus. They might not even have any books by Spike's publishing company, but she's found success. And the key thing is that each of us has to define success on our own terms. And if you're looking at whether it's a Marvel or a DC or some of these other publishers and going, success is going to be working for these companies, that's not necessarily the case. And what if it doesn't work out that way? What if, you know, what if, let's say hypothetically, all your life you wanted to write Luke Cage, you know, and you had this great idea for Luke Cage comic, and then you get to write Luke Cage for Marvel, and every idea they tell you, they reject, okay? And they say, no, the readers won't want this, or the readers don't care about this, and this is what you have to do. And you get the shit beat out of you so bad that after a while you realize you're either gonna have to quit the book or you're gonna have to write what they want. And then you write what they want, and then the book sells terrible, and then it gets canceled, and everybody's like, yeah, the book wasn't that good. They didn't listen to you about who the artist was to choose. They didn't listen to you about what would be a good story. They didn't listen to you when you said, people really care about the fact that Luke has a wife and a daughter, okay? And so all that shit doesn't make it into the book, and then the book is terrible, and then it doesn't sell. Then what do you do? You just go, okay, well, I had my shot at my dream, and I shit the dream shit the bed. You say it, I don't say that, because that's not what I'm saying. We're not talking about me right now. Are you sure? But then you also go, but this was just one little thing, and I have these other things over here, because you didn't tie all of your dreams and hopes and aspirations and your self-worth into this childhood dream. You also have this project over here. You also have this book that while you're watching your childhood dream go down the toilet, you've got this thing that you're laboring on that nobody even knows you're working on, and then two years later it comes out, and they're like, oh, I didn't know. And all the people who read your Luke Cage book and said it was terrible are never going to pick up your Frederick Douglass book. But the thing is that your Frederick Douglass book, hypothetically, is going to stay in print for the next 20 years, 30 years, and it's going to inspire young people to become historians or abolitionists, because slavery still exists. So, yeah, that's it. It's all about, you know... I think we're going to shut it down. They're going to kick us out eventually. So thank you so much, Ezra. Thank you. Thank you all so much. Thank you all. Thank you. That was wonderful.