A Geek History of Time - Episode 379 - SPECIAL Interview with Kevin Garcia for NightAxe and Golden Girl Part I

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because obvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the appeal. That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because, you know, who's the boss? You know what? I'm going to keep my head down and be as inoffensive as I can to many.

to everybody possible. And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. Eat history of time. My name is Ed Laylock.

I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And today, my wife is down in the Bay Area visiting a friend. and that meant that today was a just, you know, Father Sunday for me and my son. And he got to try Mongolian barbecue for the first time. He had brought up, he somewhere saw a video about a Mongolian barbecue restaurant, and he wanted to go there, and I said, well, we can't go to that one, because that one's in San Francisco, but I know of one we can try. And he rated the food 4.6 out of five.

He was very impressed. At one point, he did say, I could go back and just do mushrooms. And that would be awesome. So, but he had fun. And so as we record, know that I am struggling to stay awake, mostly because my, my stomach has stolen all of the blood from my head because I ate way too. much and loved every minute of it. So how about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony.

I am a U.S. history teacher up here in Northern California. And in terms of things that I've got going on, we are, how to put this, we are having a crisis of bandwidth at my house. And that is, my kids are getting closer and closer to adult age, which is, one. wonderful and you know how much I'd love that. Yeah. Also, as such, I'm running out of time to show them all the things that matter and keep up with the other things that matter. So, for instance, we are way behind on X-Men 97 season two.

We are way behind on Box Machina season, whatever the fuck. We, I finally finished the Marvel Netflix up through Luke K. and now we're watching Iron Fist. Oh, gee, Christmas. I know. And so, like, because I want to get them all caught up on all those so that then Daredevil Reborn will make sense, or Born Again will make sense. And then on top of that, like, we finally finished the Muppet show a while back.

And so I've just been saying, okay, well, for me, it's going to be Marvel Netflix series, right? There's just so much. And then on top of that, I'm trying to get them to get all the way through the next generation. So that then we can watch DS9, which means I'll have to bounce back to watch the triples episode and show them one episode of TOS so that the trouble with tribles make sense to them. But like we did Darmac and Jalada at Tanagra.

We just finished the game. Yeah. We're into season five. I think we're about to see the one where like the little boy patterns himself after data after he loses both of his parents. Oh, right, right. Yeah. You know, and like there's some really fucking good shows in season five.

we're even going to get to my favorite chain of command. But I'm running out of time because we used to be like, oh, we'll watch our three tonight. We haven't been able to watch our three for like three weeks where I pick, they pick, or I pick, he picks. Yeah. And so we're just slogging. And oh, my God. Okay. So I'm going to, I'm going to suggest something that may be heretical.

Okay. That may, like, bother you to the absolute core of your being. but as your friend, I feel like it's important. You may need to let go of your urge to completionism to prioritize. No, they have to see Beverly Crusher fucking a ghost. They have to see this. They have to see the alpha and the omega,

the good and the bad. Okay. So what I'm saying, though, is you can show them the high points and the low points of the wavelength and leave the stuff in the middle out. I don't know. I'm just saying. You know what?

You know what? Here's what I recommend. We have a guest tonight. And I don't think there's any better way to bring our guest in than to just pull his string and let him talk about all these shows before I even introduce him officially. Okay. So, and then I'll swing around to actually introducing why he's with us tonight. So Kevin Garcia, you look like you've been chewing through your tongue. Welcome back.

And what do you think? So I have so many thoughts here. Like number one, I appreciate that you're showing Iron Fist because like it's not good. But I really love the second season. Yes. Again, not because it's good. But because they were aware of how bad the first season was that they're completely self-aware. Yeah.

Like spoilers for your kids. They don't know. I know my students are the same way They're like you make comics we don't care But like There's a The bad guy in the first season It's basically just knock off Harry Osborne

Like 100%. And in the second season He basically says in episode one of that season Like yeah I decided I didn't like being a bad guy anymore So how can I help you? Like he just says it Like he just like that And I'm like you know what?

Cudos Yeah And they just went off the rails And then Star Trek Two things on that Number one I have a buddy who's obsessed with Star Trek but for some reason

never watched Deep Space 9 and I was like that's the best of the Star Trek and he's like but no it can't be like no just just watch it so finally he got around to go episode by episode to watch it and he's now he's not through it yet but he's getting there

but with my fiance I'm telling her the same thing but I'm not going to show her every single episode because that's a long lot of bandwidth so instead I'm going to do triage and find like good episodes to show her of DSpace 9 enough to until we get to the to the Dominion War, then you have to watch everything, you know, like that.

And same thing with TNG, although it's interesting. We're talking about introducing people to stuff. Over the past, like, you know, we've been living together for a couple of years now. And I've been catching me up on certain things. I've been catching her up with like old movies. Like we watched explorers and we watched Inner Space. So like I've been like introducing these things to her as we go. And so I just appreciate that as a concept.

Also, Darmock, my favorite episode of all time. But yes, you're an anthropologist. And even if you're if you're triaging, the Beverly Sleaps with a Ghost episode is still required. Not because it's good. No. But because it's not. Again, not because it's good.

Yeah. Yes. Because there's bad episodes you shouldn't watch just because they're bad. But sometimes they're so bad you need to have seen it. Well, and this one is like because like the first two seasons, like you find good episodes. Yeah, there's a lot of really bad ones. There's bad ones, right?

I've told her flat out, don't watch the Africa planet. It's just, it's embarrassingly bad. Oh, my God. So sad they put that together. Oh, my God. But they get better. They get better. Yeah, they do.

They do. And as season three, they find their feet in season four. They really get going in. Then Gene Roddenberry dies and it gets really good. And then they're able to really let loose, which I was talking about the day. They didn't believe me. I'm like, no, he put rules down. I'm like, even though even the limited amount of control he had toward the end,

he'd be like, you can't have the future be a bad place. Right. And I'm like, but sometimes. is you need bad things to happen so people can stand up to it. So yeah. But that being said, Subrosa occurs in season seven. There is no excuse. No, no, there's bad episodes later on too.

But I'll give you an example of something that's so bad that you don't need to watch it. At least so far for me. In humans. I tried so hard to watch that. It's only like six episodes. I couldn't get past three. I've never seen the rest of it. I swear I'm the only one who liked it.

Well, I even saw the premiere at Sandy O Comic-Con. They had a big IMAX premiere The director was there, like, it needed to be an IMAX Because nothing else could contain this story And I'm like, this was not good, man Yeah, why? Why are you doing this?

No, bad, but why? And I was so hyped for it. I was telling everybody like, as soon as this comes out, you're going to love the dog As much as you love Rocket, you're going to like, no, man. I just need that dog to show up in an Avengers movie.

You know, I also actually. My son actually made dog biscuits. They're called lockjaw dog biscuits because we had a Marvel cookbook. And what's funny about it is that he didn't realize that they weren't, hey, there's lockjaw.

He didn't realize that they weren't biscuits for for dogs. Oh, I would have assumed too. We all crumbled them over our ice cream and it was decidedly pumpkiny. Yeah. I mean, it's not going to kill you. Yeah, well, yeah, I know, yeah.

A little extra crude fat. I think going to hurt you. It's just one of those things that it's like, now that you know it makes you feel bad about it. Right. Yeah, I remember seeing the previews for the inhumans. And I remember seeing the way they were doing the effects for Medusa's hair. Or the fact that they gave up. Yeah.

They shaped her head. Yeah. And I remember seeing those effects and thinking, this is a bad omen. Yeah. And I just kind of stayed away because the thing is the inhumans was going to be hard. Yeah. To make work in a TV, I think in a TV format anyway, because it's decidedly, they are, they are truly, I think, the weirdest group of heroes as a faction in the Marvel universe just because of. the particular world that got built around them.

Yeah. And like trying, it's weird enough when they're on the page. Yep. In the same universe with the X-Men, right? But then trying to put that on, on the screen, live action. There's only two ways you do a live action of humans, in my view, and they didn't do either. Okay. So first off on the hair, yeah, I can live with that.

special effects. It's fine. But the issue is, is like, cutting it off. Because like in the comics, she was around for like 40, 50, no, 40 years, like 40 years before they cut her hair. Yeah, exactly. And the idea that at that point is like, wow, I can't believe they did this to her. That made it dramatic. Right. But if it's episode two of her ever being on screen, you're just being lazy and also didn't want to animate it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. But, so I'm not worried about the animation. I just, that's a choice. But now, here's the thing. What you were saying is exactly. on the nose. They're literally inhuman. Like it's not just a description of their bodies, description of their entire society. The idea is that they, excuse me, they formed a civilization before

humans were completely, you know, using language, you know. And the idea there is that you cannot make the main characters of a show. Even if you had changed their personalities for movies, it just won't work with them. So there's two ways to do it. One is make Crystal the main character and make the entire thing about her learning human culture. Yeah. That would be fun and exciting.

So the humans show up in humans are in the background. They're the antagonists, not evil, but they're the antagonists, you know, and so on. Number two, make Kamala Khan your main character and have her learning about their culture. Like, so either way, you're not centriced around these people that are not acting in the way human beings should act. Like, they literally still have slavery. Right. And it's like, and that's, even if you ignore that for the show, the reason it exists in the

comics is because their whole setup exists and that that is how they function. Right. What gets me is when Marvel was fighting with Fox and they couldn't use X-Men as well, they kept trying to push in humans in the comics to make them a bigger deal than they were. And it didn't work because they were trying to. Yeah, they were trying to push them to act like X-Men and it just didn't work. Right. The way I explain to people is X-Men, mutants rather, in Marvel are kind of a metaphor, a stand-in for the idea of family or education or being an outsider.

Cool. In humans are more of religion, society, and coming from the outside, you know. So, like, if you don't do that, like, you could easily use in humans to tell stories that are, that are, like, post-9-11, you know, reality where you're, like, you know, trying to. deal with somebody that you're afraid of, but they shouldn't be because they're still human beings. So you can do stuff like that. You can't just say, it's a school now for mutants because that's literally not the inhumans. Right, right, right, right.

Yeah. So everybody, you just heard our guest of our podcast tonight, the host of the My Primos podcast. Yes, well, co-host. Co-host, co-host. The editor and contributor to the official handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z, volumes 1 through 14. writer and contributor writer and did do editing they never gave me the title of editor which is which is kind of still a stick in my craw there but you know okay oh you got to get that cleaned out you don't want an infected craw yeah craws are very important yeah especially for daddies craw daddies especially exactly making go back and if if anything i strive to be a daddy whenever i can there you go yeah this became a whole other kind of podcast no it's the same we always do he also has uh helped to contribute and write on a whole bunch of other handbooks for Marvel, including Avengers, Defenders,

X-Men, Phoenix Force, and so on. He is the author of Dragon Lee and the Monster of Salty River. He is the author of World's War Comics and Teowat. Which you said fairly well. And again, I don't speak, not what? So, like, I definitely going to have a horrible accent on that, but I think that's probably as close as either of us are going to get right now. Yeah.

And then also countless articles in interviews. with comic book luminaries and creators. And now most consequential thing he's ever done, he is a two-time guest to our podcast. Wow, for some reason I thought this was a third time. Wow. I think I just like you guys. There were two episodes.

Oh, that's what else. We just talked forever and I cut him in half. So episode 344 and 345, I'm counting on it. Because that's less research for us. And tonight, Kevin Garcia, comic book genius has his own TikTok page, which is phenomenal and you should go look for it. And trying to build a YouTube now.

So I've got one episode. I'm working out the second one right now. They take longer to put together than TikTok episodes, and they're going to be longer episodes, but I'm working on it. That'll be great. For anybody who needs to do their dishes by hand and listen to cool comic book shit.

Yeah. But Kevin Garcia is here today to talk to us about Night Axe and Golden Girl, Chicano Monster Romance Superheroes. That's the idea. Well, no, no. Chakano Monster, Romance, Superhero, Comic Book. Comic book. Because they do not consider themselves superheroes.

They just have all the trappings of superheroes. Yes. Yes. And boy, do we have questions. I can imagine. Not the least of which. Where did you get the idea for these characters? Oh, my God.

It's from everywhere. So I've been working on variations of this story for several years now. But I didn't really find a way to make it all. come together until about a year ago. Maybe, yeah, actually about a year ago this summer, pretty much. And so I'm not going to get into all of that. But like, basically there's this. We got two things that are the main primary builders of this in terms of history.

And then the third, which is why I'm doing it. And the two things are this. There was a comic book in the Golden Age back in the 40s, 1945, called Golden Lad. And it was about a little blonde boy that had basically Superman-level powers. Like he could destroy a submarine with his hands, bulletproof, fly the light speed. He even had x-ray vision in one issue. But, and then there was a golden girl in the last issue that got a knockoff of his powers. And his powers were already a knockoff.

But anyway, but here's the thing, Golden Lad and Golden Girl, these two blonde kids, their powers come from dead Mexicans. Okay, wait. Like literally. Okay, so. What kind of Bracero program shit is this? So yeah, these two white kids get their powers from dead Mexicans, specifically indigenous ones. All right.

So what happens is, is he has this golden heart and it gives him these powers. And basically it's kind of like a Shazam kind of thing where you hold the powers and say, golden, or no, heart of gold, make me golden lad. And then he'll say it differently the other times. I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to how he says it. But he gets the thing. And he's like, where did these powers come from? And then the heart kind of reveals its origin to him.

and 500 years ago, the Spaniards conquered at Tenoislan. Now, the comic says 5-7-15-15. It's actually, would have been after 1519, but don't worry about it. Yeah. And whatever.

And it reveals that there was a good conquistador. And while that sounds kind of weird already, it's explicitly said he is killed because he's the only one. He has a heart of gold. Well, not yet. So basically, he comes in to see his boss, presumably Hernan Cortez, literally putting

Aztec warriors into a giant vat of molten gold. Like he's killing them by throwing them alive into I looked up how hot molten gold would have to be. It's something like 5,000 something degrees Fahrenheit.

And it's on a wood fire. So I'm like the hottest, I look that up to. The hottest you get a wood fire is 2,000 degrees, but let's not worry about that. Anyway, throws them into the gold. And this one guy's like,

this is wrong. These people just want to be free. Why are you doing this to them? And they show them away. He comes back. that night to take some of the gold and give it to Aztec rebels as a peace offering. And I'm like, this is literally gold made from the dead bodies of their friends and family, but okay.

Okay. And just a piece of it. He takes it. And as he's trying to take it to them, he gets shot by other conquistadors. And he goes to the rebel camp and he tells them, you know, here's what happened. And literally, there's a line where they go, he's one of the good ones. And the thing is, is that as weird as this all is from a modern context, I read a question. I read a crapload of comics

from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I also read a lot of pulp and like dime novel stuff from the 1850s all the way to the 1950s. And with that context, this is extremely self-aware and progressive comic book.

So they're trying. But man, is it weird? It's what Dr. Cruz would refer to as a problematic step forward. Yes, exactly. that extremely problematic, but definitely a step forward. And all the Aztecs are drawn as if they were people, Plains Nations people, like, you know. And the thing is, but that actually is a step up from other depictions of seen of Aztecs.

Because think about it, this is 1945. You could not easily access reference materials, you know? Like you can go to a library, but they're not going to have a picture of the Aztex. You're going to have descriptions of them and written down, and that's it. So anyway, they take the gold, and while he's dying on a mat, they, make a heart out of it. And of course, the heart is shaped like a European heart because, you know, there's a combo for 1945.

But they bring it to him saying, literally, this will make you the strongest and wisest man ever. And you're like, why are they giving it to the first white guy that was nice to them? I don't know, but whatever. I don't worry about it. But he doesn't even try. He's like, nope, I'm dying.

But hopefully someday in the future, a good person will get this and that'll become that person. And then he dies. And he writes a letter to the future, apparently. All of this was in a letter, too. And then he's like, and then he puts the name, and then he dies. Like, I'm surprised he didn't put a in the letter, but whatever. He would have said it.

He wouldn't have written it. No, no, because literally the whole thing is, is him writing it. And then, like, as he says the last lines, he goes, ah, and dies. I'm like, wait. So did he just write? Ah, you know. But, all right. So all that, again, an attempt was made, right?

Yeah. And then no indication of what happened in the intervening 500 years. But then it ends up in some box in an antique store owned by this little boy's grandpa. And he finds it, fights some gangsters and shenanigans. But the thing about this comic is two things. Number one, it was extremely progressive for 1945. And in fact, I'm doing a video about it, which I will hopefully be posted on YouTube by the time this comes out in podcasts. And the creator of him, Mort Meskin, is.

probably the one of the most important not the but one of the most important comic artists that most people haven't heard of outside of comic historians um like he's the guy that taught steve didco everything he knew he's the uh he uh he uh jack kirby considered him his true rival in terms of skill and and and quantity of art um you know that kind of stuff um as a person and that politics went into his story so in the comics uh the little boys nineteen forty five is going after fascists after World War II. He's going after racist. He's trying to

stop people from he wants to make sure everybody has a home and that nobody is price gouging people that are in desperate need of a place to stay. All of these things are things that he does. I found an unpublished story that I think even has an interracial couple in it. They don't really, it's not explicit, but he's helping out a couple.

The man is clearly a white soldier and the wife is we'll say coded Chinese clothing for art of the time. So it's not explicit, but it's definitely applied. So this was very progressive. But here's the thing about it.

There's never another Mexican in the story after the first origin. And I'm like, this power really should go to a Mexican. Now, by the way, I did find one of the unpublished stories that does have Mexicans in it. In fact, Aztecs in it. And I'd get into it if you want me to. It has a lot of the really negative tropes that also has some positive reactions to those tropes. But not once in the entire story do they say, hey, I got this heart from you guys. or hey, that's the heart we made.

You know, none of that comes up. Right. But anyway, so I wanted to bring that heart to the present. That's half of it. You're right. I do talk a lot, don't I? Yeah. It's a night off for us.

We get to hear a really cool shit. You know what? Yeah. For the second half of it, because there's two halves and then a reason. So for the second half of it, I'm going to tell you a story, but then ask you a question. Such a tease. All right. Oh, shit.

Okay. So you are walking in the forests of Mexico. at night, as you should not be, but you're doing it anyway, for you sure. And you hear, and it's getting louder and louder and closer to you. And even if you try to get away, you can't. It's going to show up. And then, standing before you is this giant man with no head, and he rips open his chest. And you realize that sound you've been hearing that sounded like an axe chopping wood at night

was his heart beating. Now, here's my question for you. Standing before you is this giant. He ripped open his chest. You see his beating heart there on all its goryness right in front of you. what do you do? Ed, I'm going to let you handle this one. Now, you both have to answer.

Ed, you go first. I'm immediately going to be reaching for anything that might, if I happen to have my St. Martin or St. Michael medal on me. I'm grabbing them. And I am going to start reciting Patrick's breast. plate at the absolute top of my lungs because every Catholic superstition I have ever tried to get away from has just basically been proven true. And I'm going to back away abjuring it because this is not a good situation, but whatever

this is, this is a bad situation. So, yeah. All right. We'll get to that in a second. Okay. What do you, but now, uh, our, hold on a second. I lost the, the thinger. All right.

So, um, where is the, there it is. All right, Damien, your answer to. Where are you? So I'm going to hopefully not just shit myself. Fair enough. Or while shitting myself. I think, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. I will remember what was discussed on episode 345 on our podcast. And I will reach in and grab his heart. Oh, you do you remember. Did I talk about it last time? Yeah, you did. Oh my Lord. Last time.

I ran this for a while, haven't I? Yeah. Last time I ran and died. So, like, I quick saved. Nice. You did a good job. Yeah. What was it called?

Save scumming? You did a good job. Yeah, yeah. I'm a salescomer. Oh, all the time. All the time. I just forgot to save my game. See, this is what I've been saying.

I've been working on elements of this for a while. Yeah. But it's finally coming together for this story. Yeah, the correct answer. And by the way, I tell this story. story to random people whenever they meet me at conventions and stuff. And I'm like, I've had out of like dozens of people that I've told this to, maybe four that have told the right answer. And the first

one was like a little 10 year old boy. And it's like, oh, damn. Okay. And the right answer is, grab the heart and don't let go until he agrees to grant your wishes. Yes. And they're not, they're not wishes like, I want a new car. They're more esoteric wishes. Like, I want success in my job. I want to find love. I want, you know, that kind of stuff. And for every throne, he puts it, Thorne, he drops into your hand, that is a wish that will later come true. All right. So that guy's character is,

his name is a Wistiputli. Potsli, again, my accent's going to be bad. But it translates to the night axe, right? Okay. And I am combining those two stories into one, essentially. So I've got, oh, and the original golden lad story, that Golden Girl had a smaller piece that had come off the bigger heart. And what I've done is I've decided to, if that heart had been actually designed by the Mishika artisans, the people we call the Aztecs, then it wouldn't look like at a European heart.

It would look like there's a statue card called the Heart of Coppil that's in Mexico City Museum right now, the National Museum of Mexico, rather. And it, well, it looks different than what we think of, but it's like a stylized thing inspired by what a physical heart would look like, right? It's about coconut size, give or take, right? And then the smaller piece, I'm just keeping that being part of the Golden Girl thing. We'll get to that in a second. But I'm taking that heart and I'm making it the heart of the night axe. And since my main character has become the Night Axe, that heart, because his magic, floats above his neck and becomes his head. So there's a little circle in the center of it that looks a lot like an eye and it behaves like an eye, but it is not technically an eye.

It is technically a severed aorta. You know, but because it looks like an eye, people can stare at it and think they're looking at his eye. And he's fine with that, you know? Okay. When I was drawing a stylized version of the heart of Copiel, the statue, I realized this kind of looks like a face. Yeah. This kind of looks like a face. So I could basically emote with it.

Because originally when I first designed the character, I thought, well, he's going to have a static statue for a face. And as I was doing it, I was like, wait, this works even better. Yeah. So that works. be having a heart attack and one of his arteries shuts down but it looks like he's winking yeah well it's basically

serving the role of both his heart and his head right which interestingly in Azte mythology would mean his soul is in the wrong place which I think is cool I was going to say in Latin the word for your your soul or your heart is your anima and the word for your brain your mind is your

animus yeah well very similarly the the now cosmology has basically your soul in the three parts and it's like the top of your head your heart and your liver

and so the head and the heart part for him are just mixed up and one of them is missing but so that's his visual and why he looks the way he does so he still kind of has some of that golden light power he doesn't fly or have super speed or anything

but like he's got strength he's kind of say Hulk strength but we'll get to that in a minute and now for Golden Gurb in the original one, the heart broke, a piece of the heart broke off, and they never really show it well enough to know what it looks like, but she puts it inside of a heart-shaped locket, and that's her heart now, right? Okay.

Well, I have decided that while his heart, the giant thing that he's using as a head, is designed as if a Mashiko or Nawa artists had made it, her heart I'm making as if a Maya artist had put it together, and it is the glyph for heart in Jol Maya. Okay. So, and that's kind of the idea here is that I want, which gets me to the reason for doing this kind of comic, is that I really want to have a story where, A, the main characters have these incredible powers, but no need to go get in other people's business. They're not going to be, you know, patrolling the streets looking for criminals or something. And, like, Nightax, his day job is he's basically an Uber driver, you know? If you order your groceries be delivered or a guy to pick you up a ticket to the airport, it could be him with his giant body and no head.

You know, and it's just that's just what he looks like all the time. And for her, she works from home. And when she gets off job, she can, you know, say the magic phrase, fly out in the air and just go sightseeing. You know, just see the world. Because why not? She can fly around the world and just enjoy things. Yeah. She's not there to get in people's business.

That being said, if monsters show up and they hurt and they're going to, you know, endanger people, they're going to get involved. Sure. So I wanted that. the idea being that I'm giving these powers that were literally in the story created by the Aztecs to people that are Mexican-American and maybe experiencing some of this kind of Latin American diaspora, the idea that people in various Latin American countries are often disconnected from their ancestral roots and people in the U.S. are disconnected from that plus often from the countries that their families came from. And so I want them as they learn about their powers to learn more about

where they come from, essentially. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, all the people that led to where they are today, you know, um, so I, for that reason, I didn't want it to just be, oh, Aztec, you know, I wanted to, and so I'm not like mixing and matching willy-nilly. I want it to establish that no, their heritage is basically all of, of, uh, indigenous Mexico, but also, you know, to a greater extent Latin America, you know, and the southwest United States, you know, Yeah. But all of that, you know, kind of leads to who they are today. Importantly, you know, I always mention about the other two being blonde kids, which, you know, that could be, anybody could be, you could be Latino and be blonde.

Right. But like, but it's very distinctly not Mexican, Mexican-American. Like that's, you know, they're just not, right? So I wanted the main characters to be modern-day Latinos. She's black, right? she's Afro-Mihicana and, you know, I'm very light-skinned, you know, obviously. And then growing up on the border, I would have, I would date like a Latino girl and I could hear her parents saying, hi, miha, you found a good one.

And I'm like, why? And then I'd have cousins and siblings that are much darker and they'd be like, I'm poor a seat though. Why are they? And I'm like, a colorism. Black, exactly. Colorism is a thing in every culture. Black Mexicans exist.

A lot of, uh, Times they are either ignored as a concept or denied as a concept. And I just, to me, it didn't matter. All that mattered is that they are of Mexican descent. And who they are today is not related to their appearance. You know? And so for her, yes, the black Mexican ancestry is also part of her past. For Nidex, you don't even know what he was.

as before his head exploded, you know, because he's got this gray skin now. And it doesn't matter. What matters is that he has this ancestry. I say this because I recently, for the first time ever, paid for an ad on Instagram. You know, like, I was like, well, let's try it. Let's try it like a boost to post.

And I got, I did it for 48 hours and I got a few decent comments. And then I got a few comments that were basically very racist, but why is there a black girl in the story? Well, that tells you that there's exposure, unfortunately. And didn't get any new bites, I guess, from that in terms of, like, supporters. So I was like, you know what? Not worth it. Yeah, is what it is.

It's finding out your neighbors are racist. Yeah. And it's like, well, we knew that already. They didn't have to tell me. Yeah. But like, yeah, I just wanted to have these characters who are just very, you know, at ease with themselves and chill and not superheroes. you know, basically, I mentioned earlier that he probably has Hulk strength.

I say probably he's scared to death of hurting anything. So like, like, like, if he knocks on a door and it comes out, boom, boom, boom, it's because he's doing it as light as he possibly can. Right. You know? And so like he might fight a monster, but even then he doesn't want to hurt it, you know.

So like, and she also is like, I'm not going to get it in other people's business. It's their business. But if somebody needs help, she will help, you know. So I get, About your world building. Mm-hmm. I have a question.

So, so Nightaxe, the character that has become Nightaxe in your story, you're saying that, you know, during the day he has, you know, delivery driver or another kind of job. Yes. Well, at night, too. He doesn't have to worry about what his hours are because you think about those gigs is you work whatever hours you're available. Yeah. So when, for example, somebody gets in his car when he's driving Uber. Mm-hmm. In your universe, is the miraculous, magical, supernatural...

Is it weird? Yeah. Is it common? Is it a thing where, like, the people get in his car, does he have to deal with them panicking? Or is it like they notice it, but something about the magic makes them, like, not care? I like that second theory and that does actually apply to her in a way which I'll get to in a second

for him I would like you to imagine your Uber driver shows up and he's covered in face tattoos is that unheard of no would it be weird for you that's up to you

this is a universe that superheroes exist got it okay so there could be like a horseman walking down the street it's not going to be common but they're out there and so people will see these two

like oh you're superheroes And he's like, no, I'm just here to deliver your groceries. You know, or are you a villain? Are you going to rob this bank? He's like, no, I'm literally just making a deposit, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. But like, but like it's just, you know, that is what that is. So like, it's freaky, definitely.

But like, it's not in this world. Like, imagine you're in the Marvel universe and there's a dude who has fire coming out of his ears. You're like, oh, that's a mutant, you know? And is that a racist thought? I don't know. Right, right. Yeah. But like, so it.

it's not unheard of that very strange-looking people exist in this world, but it's definitely not what you might expect. Okay. And then that comes up in the story, because I have him doing a couple, you know, gig jobs. Okay. I also want to point out the, we'll say villain for the issue is Satan. Okay.

Yeah. But specifically, and again, I don't need to pull from the Golden Age. just love the idea that you could, if you wanted to, go read the other adventures of these characters. Because I love the idea that you can go back and do reading if you want to. You're like, oh, I loved this. I want to know more about it. Go for it. So this guy is an actual character from the Golden Age of Comics who was called Satan, but I'm calling him Satanico because of a very specific reason. And that is his origin. Because he's a hilarious character. He is one of those kind of like evil characters that's like cacklingly evil. Like every other word is like, he-h-he-he. Or like,

oh, yes, I did an evil thing. Why? you know, that kind of stuff. He's just ridiculous. And he's very, I would say completely incompetent, but definitely, like, why are you doing these things? So he appeared in four issues of a comic called Pocket Comics back in the 40s, back in like 40, 41. And in each issue, he's got a different either hero or civilian trying to stop him.

And one issue is just a teenager, like a street kid stops him. But he doesn't really. personally kill anyone. Instead, what he does is he enables Nazis and terrorists to kill other people, but then he kills them. And the reason he does that is he's like, well, they're like, why are you killing me? He's like, well, you betrayed your country. So how do I know you won't betray me?

Die. Or like, well, you're a Nazi anyway. So I'm going to kill you. Die. So like, I mean, yes, these people might have killed somebody anyway and he helped them. I don't know. But I'm not going to call him a good guy, by the way. I just want to say he's not.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But there's one death in the entire four issues that he definitely did all by himself. And it's hilarious because in the last issue, he meets his evil twin. And I want you to realize he's Satan. So like, what? Yeah. But whatever.

And the two of them have a competition to see who is more evil. And they're trying to do evil things. And then the first thing Satan does is he goes to this guy and goes, hey, you won a peace prize, right? And he goes, yes. I'm going to strangle you and kill you. He literally says that before doing it. And then he kills him. And then that's where this panel that I love goes,

score one for Satan. And it's just hilarious. So that's the one death that he actually does. Right. And again, I'm not saying he's anything. He's 100% evil. He's just almost incompetently evil. Comically evil.

Comically evil. Yes. Now, here's why he's so perfect. Because, yeah, he's a goofy, funny villain that you could be like, okay, he's evil, but he's also kind of stupid. It's funny. but his origin in his second appearance

we learned that he is not a demon he is not the devil he was a human and specifically he was a conquistador and he was tricked into drinking from the wrong fountain

and he got immortality but as a deformed red-skinned demon-looking guy and now he cannot die basically imagine how insane Deadpool is over time when he heals back from every wound Yeah.

Imagine that for 500 years. Okay. And so he is insane from being unable to die and unable to look like a normal human for 500 years. I mean, he does put a rubber mask on at one point, but like, you know, still. So he's crazy. And so the idea of not only is he a fun, incompetent villain, but he's literally a Spaniard who kept tricked by the indigenous people. You know what? He's perfect for this story.

I like that. Yeah. So you're pulling characters from the 30s and 40s. And from 500 years ago. We need to get to that part too. But in terms of like, you know,

these are references to golden lad and golden. Yeah, of course, of course. Is this because they're now public domain? Well, here's the thing. Or did you have rights?

No, they're public domain. But like, so like with Worlds War Comics, I had originally written it or a treatment of it, I guess, with completely original but obviously generic characters. Right.

Because it wasn't important who, like what their powers were, their origins. It was just important that they were familiar seeming superheroes and that they had experienced World War II and were still around today. That was the only thing that was relevant, right? But I realized that if I was going to do a story about history, why not have characters that actually have history? Yeah.

So you don't need to have read their earlier stories to read World War Comics, but if you wanted to that's still technically their origins now maybe the details of it would have been different because of you know the way stories are written in the 40s or things that like that is just not right but it would have misinterpreted it whatever

you got all this things but but they have a history and the idea is like they'd been around for that long and then the same thing here is that like with Golden Ladd just the idea of Golden Ladd having Superman level strength speed

and everything and that he got the powers from literally dead Aztecs. I want to address that, you know? Yeah. But as terms of Nightax, I didn't need. In fact, when I originally started working out, I remember I said I had multiple stories that didn't quite work, and I put them together for this.

It originally had nothing to do with any Golden Age superhero, you know, at all. And believe it or not, I did have a devil character that I had written as a guy that was not the devil, but kind of acted like one. And then when I was going through it, I was like, wait, there's literally a character that does that and he's a conquistador, screw it, let's do it. Yeah. So I didn't need any of those things.

I mentioned the 500 years ago thing. That thing I did want to use also technically public domain. And that is, there are monsters in this book that are all, as I've been putting it, based on Spaniard misinterpretations of indigenous folklore. Basically, there was a monk who went and Sagan, I'm saying his name wrong, but there was a monk, a priest rather. There was a priest who went to some Nawa people and asked them, tell me about the animals and the plants and everything around here.

And he just made a list of everything they said and described them. And they would say, for example, butterfly fish. And so they would literally draw a fish with butterfly wings on it in the Spaniard thing. And it's like, that's funny because as far as modern researchers are concerned, they were talking about a stingray, right? Oh, okay. It's like if you told somebody catfish and they thought you literally meant a house cat that's a fish, You know what I mean?

Yeah. So that's part of it. And I just love the idea, because you'll find if you look for cryptids and stuff, people will list some of these if they were cryptids. And it's like, no, they're just, most of them, some of them are not normal. Some of them are actual, like, you know, creatures and folklore. But a lot of them are just normal animals that the Spanters just didn't get and this drew it wrong, you know? So I have those guys as monsters.

But then there's one that, that is like the main monster for this. He's on the cover for the main cover. And he looks like basically a street shark with a saw in his head. And the reason for that is, Asi, Asipakli, I can say his name, Asipakli, there we go. Basically water crocodile.

The drawing is drawn like a regular normal swordfish, even though I'm going to get to the description in a second. And modern researchers say it's probably a sawfish. Right. But then I read the description. It says, it has claws on its hands and feet that can tear apart anything. It's got a tail that when it swings it will knock down trees. It is a mouth that can swallow a human hole.

How is that a swordfish or a sawfish? Right. So I'm taking that description from the indigenous people, but combining it with the Spaniards thinking it's a sawfish, and, you know, that's what I got. So it goes both ways, I guess. Either way, it's misinterpretations. Over many hundreds of years, too.

Well, no, that's a misinterpretation from 500 years ago. Right. But I'm saying like 500 years ago and now like here we are. Oh now we're cryptic, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So. Exactly that. Now, mind you, there are creatures in that description that are like, because they'll

go back and forth between creatures that are definitely real creatures to things like the Awezolt, which showed up in my Dragon Lee book, which is a creature that kind of like dog size. I was a monkey hand on the end of a tail and pulls things down. Yeah. So those things like that. There's one creature. I don't remember the name right now to look it up, but it's basically like a Pikachu that

causes earthquakes. And I'm like, this, this character should be a thing. more often. We need more of this. We need this right here. Well, like, I just told you the story of the night axe, and it's like, this is essentially the story of like one of the urban legends you hear about from Japan or Korea where like, what do you do?

What is your choice? You know, that kind of a thing. But like, people don't talk about them from Mexico. And it's a thing, you know. So I have all that. But I want to add something real quick earlier because you were asking, like, how people react to them is there a magical thing. Golden lad in the original comic was a magical girl. By that I mean literally when he transformed, he'd be like, I want to transform. He'd hold up

the heart-shaped thing. And then golden, not golden, a rainbow light would swirl around him so bright that it might blind people looking at him. And it would swirl. And the description, like, they only show a rainbow thing, but the description there says, the rainbow light swirl around him and blah, blah, and then he transformed. And then even if you watched him transform, even if you were staring at him the entire time, you'll go, where did Tommy go? Where did you come from? Even his grandfather, who raised him, goes, where's Tommy? You know, and I'm like, the hell?

Basically, like, Sailor Moon, when she transforms and she just looks like herself, but with the tiara and two little things on her, on her buns, you know. So she technically does have an aura around her when she transforms that you would not know that she is herself, you know, and, but like, there's like, a few people that she could like make them recognize her. But for the most part, it's like, if she transforms, even right in front of you, you will not know she was the same person, which I find hilarious. And I'm like, I'm keeping it. You know, it's so dumb. I need to keep it. It's like, yes. So she does have that effect, but he can't transform. He's just stuck that way.

He's stuck that way. And I'm not dealing with an origin. I'm just kind of moving past all that. It happened like a year ago. They met the day it happened. So she has never met him with the head. But they've been dating since then. So, you know. Okay. All right. About the magical girl thing. I saw a study that was actually a physicist in Japan actually took the time to do the math. You know, it's like why in the middle of this, you know, 30 second or longer transformation sequence that happens every time they do this.

Why doesn't the bad guy just rush in and clobber them? and a physicist actually looked at it and said, you know, based on the luminescence. Yeah, because the light lifts them up into the air, right? Yeah, yeah. The fact that they're, you know, elevated and whatever. The amount of energy being expended is so great that anybody else getting within like three feet is going to be instantly vaporized. And this was a scientific peer reviewed paper. And I write in the midst of writing my own.

master's thesis right now. I find that, I find that hysterical. It's gorgeous. It's beautiful. Yeah. Well, I will say that for Golden Girl, since she can do a magical girl transformation sequence,

she does. So as far as I'm concerned, her whole transformation could be anywhere between 15 to 30 seconds, which is about, which is about average, I looked it up about, the average transformation time is about that time.

Yeah. Some of them go full minutes. Some of them go five minutes, because that's when they have the whole team transforming. but like um but yeah so 15 to 30 seconds of transformation right and the thing is she doesn't have to but she can but she can so she does well i mean yeah yeah like if there's an emergency she's like okay i'll do a five second transformation but like she she can so she does sure and it's like look if you could do a radical transformation yeah you would indulge it like just go for it yeah yeah

thousand percent yeah why would do yeah so so yeah so yeah so yeah So as far as I'm concerned, like, it's just like, yeah, why not? It's kind of like there's a great indie project that you find on YouTube called Pretty Pretty Please. I don't want to be a magical girl. And it is about a magical girl who comes to Earth and just wants to be a normal teenage girl. So when she does have to transform, the girl next door is like, oh, you're going to do a transformation. You're going to do transformation. She goes, poof, transformed.

And you're like, oh, man. But then at the end of it, when she's done doing the magical girl stuff, she does a giant transformation back. into her normal teenage girl self because that's what she really wants to be you know so the idea there is like she transformed as she wanted to not just because she had to and i'm right i was already writing that when that came out i was like oh man that's just so you know that's perfect yeah there's another one that did the same thing that was uh i think it's called laundry day if you look it up it's a short animated film uh short animation it's like five minutes long and it's i don't want to spoil it just just google laundry day uh animated short and watch it some time it's it's quite good

Okay. But yeah, so I got all that. Okay. Let me ask you this since you're talking about, like there's some, there's clearly some lateral thinking going on there, right? Like you had that and somebody else came up with that. Golden Girls alter ego, the prehero version of her. Nichelle.

Nishel. Yeah, Nichelle, Nishel, yeah. Okay. I love that you went with the alliteration. I had to, although I realized something unfortunate in that Nightax's real name is Santiago Sevia, and I was like, wait, SS. So I've decided his middle name is going to be like an O or something.

So it can be SOS. I don't want him to be. I'm not going to worry about that right now. It'll be in the final product. Sure. Yeah. And then, yeah. So.

But anyway, her civilian identity, yeah. Yeah, her civilian identity. I noticed in the this is eventually going to get to one of the reasons that we've got you on here, but I noticed in the description of her that it was a very, I want to say present description of a character

in terms of like, oh, wow, I know students like this. Yes, exactly. And so could you please touch on as much as you feel comfortable with her relevance to people today and what people are going through nowadays? So both of them are very much just people that I know, people that you know, but especially

people living in Latino communities in Texas, you know. So she is Mexican-American. She's the first in her family to get a degree in the States. Yeah. Being very specific with that wording. And for him, he's probably like several generations removed from the border. So it's like there's that disconnect there. But at the same time, it's still such a big part of their culture.

Right. As they are as being individual, they, not like they're the, you know, group. And for her, I also put in that she probably has a, she would have like a higher degree than Santiago. They both have a college degree. She's got like a master's. She's got like a bachelor's. But neither of them are using their degrees for anything useful. Because that's just the way the world is.

That's just the way the world is. Yeah. Sorry about you getting your master's right now. I apologize. I have a master's myself. But, um, yeah. I'm, I'm,

I'm working for a district that's going to give me a pay raise for it. That's why. That's like, same. Same. Yeah. Thousand percent mercenary educator right here. I,

he's a mercenary illuminator. Elucidator. There you go. All right. I'll take it. I don't, I don't light people up. I tell them things.

I think it lights them up. I think you could take on both. Yeah. There are some people I'd like to light up. also true i have uh what my friend who has a doctorate calls a useless degree uh it is a master's it is a master's in literally everything it's called a a master's of interdisciplinary studies which is supposed to have three fields mine has like five just go with it right sure nice yeah i like it's it's useless because if i want to get a doctorate i'd have to take a lot more courses in whatever it is i

want to take just to catch up um and and my friend keeps telling me get a doctorate and i would love one but it's it's a process um um and but the upside is no matter what they have me teaching, I can argue that this is a master's that applies to it. Right. So I have gotten a bonus that every district I've worked at no matter what they have me teaching. So. Reliant.

Go team. There you go winning. So you have this young lady who has gone through the time in trouble to get a degree in the states, as you said, first in her family in the states, first in her family to get said degree in the states, highest level in the states that anybody in her family has gotten. Yes. And she is unable to find work within that. Yes.

There's something so I'm going to compare it to Peter Parker. There's something so Peter Parker-esque about you are really good at this thing and nobody gives a shit. Scientific genius and nobody's hiring. Yeah. But I would argue that that's more of Peter's fault. And yeah, you can't blame him for. being Spider-Man for needing to help people. I get it. Or for taking care of Aunt May.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But for her, it's more of a realistic of like, she has a degree in arts kind of a thing. And like, that's hard to get that into a job sometimes. Yeah. You know, even if she's really good at it too. But like, so. Yeah. That's what I put in there. She works from home, IT, something like that. Just like not what her degree is. You know, that kind of a thing. Nothing involving computers at all, you know, but like she got that job. somehow and now she just keeps it, you know. Yeah. You know, and for him, I actually put some, I haven't put it down into the, into the

description or in the story, but in my head, he has a degree in social work. And he tried it for like five seconds, realized he couldn't actually help people and didn't do that anymore. So he's an Uber driver, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, uh, both of them have degrees that they would love to have actually used for

things. But they can't. And as a teacher who works with students a lot, it is a sympathetic thing. Yeah. Yeah. I remember reading recently, there's a teacher shortage, do not to retirement, but rather to attrition. And so the people who were supposed to replace the retirees are also leaving in droves. And then they get into the Y and stuff like that.

but I also remember in the slightly after the return from shutdown time how many teachers were going on TikTok for instance to talk about their experience becoming a manager at Costco. Yep. And all kinds of other things where they're just like, it is so much easier on this side, guys. I

promise you. You know, and it's a lot of stress and they're doing everything and you guys know what it's like. They're doing everything they can to make it harder. And this is especially true in Texas, although I will say it could be worse. I could be teaching Oklahoma or Florida. Yeah. I'm not.

But it's still Texas. And they are doing everything they can to make it difficult. Yeah. And it's really affecting all of us on a personal level. Yeah. In Florida, again, like I said, it could be worse. It could be Florida. It's so bad that the governor,

decided to write a new law or what the hell it was, saying that if you have any military degree, you're automatically qualified to teach, which I don't see how that applies, but sure, you do you, man. And that didn't help either. They still don't have, you know, enough teachers. Yeah, well, because, you know, anybody who's, anybody who has acted in any kind of a leadership position in the military, like anybody who's made it to E5, E4, right? Well, okay, not E4, E5, who's had responsibility over anyone and then goes into your average public school and sees the restrictions that are placed on our ability

to assign consequences to students is going to say this is bullshit and like I can find other things to do I'm not going to put up with this you know yeah um in because the thing like you say okay well you know we'll bring we'll bring you know veterans and former soldiers and like veterans and former soldiers have been in one of the

few organizations in public life that is consistently driven to hold at least lower level people accountable for misbehavior yeah and and that's that's that's that's that's sadly not the public schools anymore. Yeah, it's a defining feature of like, oh, literally there is a thing called discipline. Yeah. It all depends on how you view it too. So I used to teach on the border for about nine years, and I've been about nine years here in Austin, and then a couple years in the middle, give or take.

It's 20 years total, so clearly I'm not a math teacher. But anyway, I taught on the border, and I taught in what I found. out over my course of my time there was the most economically disadvantaged high school in all of Texas the reason I say that is because while I was researching something else I found a list of the most economically disadvantaged schools in the country and districts and I was not surprised to see our district as number two because I kind of knew that but but I was surprised to see our high school as the only one in Texas on the list was number three of high schools and I was like well

that tracks and you have a lot of kids there that are first generation. A lot of kids. We were literally a quarter mile from the border. You know? And there's the struggles that are there are very specific to those kids. But I will say, talk about discipline. I would be very gruff with those kids, not in a like angry way, but just very stern.

Yeah. And a lot of the kids, they would really respect that. They would like, like, I would go and then say this thing about like why gangs are stupid or something. And a new kid would be like, what? And the kid next would be like, no, no, he's cool. Don't worry about it. I'd literally hear them say this.

Yeah. And I'd be like, you know, they get it already. And then I moved to Austin and had the most academically recognized school in Texas. And let's be blunt. A lot of these kids are in a situation where they can afford private tutors. Right. And literally like the first couple days, I was like my usual stern self in the classroom. And a kid goes, who do you think you are?

My dad? And I was like, no. So I just stopped doing that because I literally had kids who wanted, me to be a father figure to them. I had a kid once that came to me in Brownsville and he goes, hey, Garcia, Garcia, can I go see this R-rated movie? And I was like, I don't know, man, you know, do you think you're old enough and mature enough? And he goes, well, Miss so-and-so said I could if you said I could.

Like, he just wanted to have a parental type figure give him, yeah, guidance and, and about him. And like, and so, but that being said, I'm not going to say the kids. here don't have issues. They have entirely different issues. I have so many kids here now that have that, not now, they have many kids here at this school that have emotional issues, I don't know, emotional is the wrong word, mental health issues, anxiety, things like that.

And it's like, it's a different kind of stress that they have. And so there's so much need, no matter which school you're at, no matter what the environment is, that it is stressful on the person. doing it. Yeah. And when they're doing everything they can to get in your way. And what's really funny is the big push in Texas, they passed a law a year or two ago where people could use public education money to pay for a private school.

Right. The only ones that could really take advantage of that were already rich people, which is, you know, hilarious to everybody that voted for that. But, I mean, I say only ones, like majority. But here's the thing. Before I was a teacher, before I worked for comics, I was a reporter. And I was an education reporter. quarter and for the newspapers

with the Associated Press. And I literally saw there were fewer requirements to teach private school by law in public school. And that's true. And now I would talk to private schools that would be like, oh, well we personally, I'm sure you do. But legally you don't have to.

And then not only that, there are fewer expectations for kids passing tests from private schools. Yeah. And there are in public schools. Yep. So literally the ones who could afford more got less of an education required. I mean, maybe they're getting a great one.

Who knows? Like, I'm not saying the teachers are bad teachers. I'm saying they don't have to be as qualified. I bet people that taught private school that would never qualify to teach public school. Right. And number two, the standards that they're expected to meet are lower.

So I'm like, you're not getting more for it. You're just getting the ability to say you had private school. You're getting great inflation and networking. And the unfortunate thing is it's turned into a competitive market for who gets into college. Yep. And before, I mean, when COVID hit, I remember, we all went on lockdown. And there was a discussion amongst me and other teachers about like, what are we going to do about their grades?

And there's a teacher who's like, they're getting all A's because I'm not going to penalize them for not being at private schools during this time. And I was like, oh, cool, done. Yep. That's basically what it was. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So you're writing realistic stories.

about two people with about a magical girl and a giant with no head yeah exactly yes yeah yeah that's exactly and that's exactly what I wanted to do about it somebody

the last thing I was on somebody's live and somebody in YouTube and one of the people in the audience asked a question that that was kind of interesting shoot what did you just say

because then I just lost it you're writing real stories about oh there we go so they asked would this if you made a movie out of this would it be live action or like a cartoon? And because some of the art that I have from different artists

looks very cartoony and somebody even said Batman animated style, animated series kind of style. But I would think it would, if you, if you, it's not a goal. But like if they were to do it, it really should be live action. Because I think the jarringness of having a monster and the silliness of having a magical girl is emphasized by being in a realistic setting.

Like if you're in a cartoon, it's less jarring and less silly. You know, it's just kind of expecting. There's there's an element of to get English teacher about it. There's an element of magical realism. Yes, 100%. Yeah. That gets, I think I agree with you would be much better, much more effectively translated

to the screen if it was live action. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the way, as you've been talking about it, that's the way I've envisioned it the whole time. Yeah. So. Exactly that.

Yeah. Kind of reminds me of that. Will Smith series called, I think it's called Bright. Oh, yeah. I watched that. It was a movie. It was meant to be several movies, but I think they did one and then maybe a follow-up without him. I watched it. Yeah. But like, you know, the same kind of world building in that. Oh, there's orcs amongst us. I will say that movie, the TV movie episode, whatever it was called, has the same problem that I think most adaptations of the X-Men have. And mind you, I'm a big Marvel guy. I love the X-Men. Yeah. But if I were to tell you that the X-Men were a metaphor for something,

what would you say they're a metaphor for? We would say it depends on the era. Give me an example. So early on before Magneto gets retconned a history, there's you could point to very clear in-group, out-group stuff, so you could point to racism, even though all the characters white. But the one whose power makes him snowy is the one. is the one who actually ends up tangling with the clan early on.

So you could draw a straight line and go, oh, it's for racism. But later on, when Claremont gets a hold of it, as Ed would point out, it's for queer people's rights. Yes. And it's kind of,

it's kind of for whomever wants to make the clan. But here is the problem. And it is exemplified in the poorly executed Bright movie. But it's also in a lot of versions of X-Men. Like, I think, I'm not a fan of Brian Singer, but I think he did do a good job of demonstrating that that queer allegory, right? But the problem is, is that if you're going to tell me that people fear and hate mutants,

but some of them can literally blow up the planet, but they have a nightmare, then that's not equivalent to somebody judging somebody for their skin or for how they were born. Yeah. Those are not good allegories. Right. So I really dislike in Bright where it was like, well, orcs are the black people. It's like, no, that doesn't work that way. I don't care.

Even though Will Smith is the cop, like it just doesn't know, you know. Or the Latinos or whatever you want to say. I guess it may be more Latinos because about them immigrating. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It doesn't work. The best example, by the way, of superpowers as an allegory for these things that I've ever seen so far is the TV show by Boots Riley, which is on Amazon Prime. I don't think they've taken it off yet.

I'd be amazed if they did. but like I mean I wouldn't be surprised if they did but it's called I'm a Virgo and are you familiar with Boots Riley at all he's made two movies and one TV series I thought he was a bass player for he is also he is also a musical artist yeah

I might be thinking of Bootsie Collins yeah yeah he's not a he's not a bass player but but he's on a band called the Coo although many people many people pronounce it at the Coupe because it's spelled of the P but no it's the coo it's the coo okay yeah anyway and it's got some great great songs got a song about

billionaires called guillotine so there's that anyway um but he made um i'm sorry to bother you which is a beautiful movie oh yeah that is very disturbingly good he most recently made um my brain shut off for a second i love boosters there you go which is such a good movie and yet it didn't get a push and it's already i think gone off theaters now it yeah it already went off theaters a couple years ago such a good movie um but he made a tv series called i'm a vergo And in that series, superpowers basically exist. They never use the phrase superheroes

or never anything like that, but they exist. But every single time they are a metaphor for something, an allegory for something rather, and really, really well done. So like the main character named Kudi is a 11 foot tall person.

Okay. Or maybe 13 feet. He's massively tall, but like normal proportion just that big. Right. And because of that, people,

they're afraid of him, they prejudge him, but then when they find out about him, they want to use him for his body to advertise things and basically have him be the face of their company kind of stuff. Right. He's an allegory for how black culture is shown. Yeah. Now, one of his best friends...

To be feared and then to be co-opted and then to be capitalized. Exactly. And then meanwhile, his best friend slash love interest, one of his best friends, is a girl who has super speed. But 100% her power is a metaphor, I'm an English teacher and I'm using the terms

we're interchangeably, I'm very tired right now. It's been a long month. But her powers represent autism. Because she is at a speed where she has to actively slow herself down in order for people to understand her

and for her to understand them. And she has to actively try to figure out what emotions are coming out for somebody's face when from her perspective, they are statues. Right. And then the idea that people, she can't verbalize what that is like to people.

They don't understand it. But Kudi does. Even though he doesn't have that specific situation, his powers have put him into a situation where he is also othered. Othered, essentially. And then there's the, we'll call him villain of the piece, who's actually. who's actually named in the credits as the hero.

And he is Walter Gagins, white guy, who plays a comic book creator whose common book turned him into a millionaire. Which, real life that did kind of happen with Spawn creator Tom McFarland back in the day. Not a common thing for comic book creators.

Well, it has happened. Sure. And he created a character called The Hero. And the hero is basically like an Iron Man-ish character who takes the law into his own hands to make criminals, you know,

get arrested and make sure that... Yes. And because he's so rich, he actually built himself a suit of armor. Of course. And he literally goes out actively arresting primarily minorities. You know, that's not his goal, but that is what he ends up targeting. It just happens to be. That's who does all the crimes. Why?

Exactly. And because... That's what he would say. And the thing is, is that from... What I love about Booth Riley's stuff is that he's so... number one, heavy-handed with the metaphor, but also so well done with it. So, like, this millionaire, billionaire, whatever he is, he lives in a skyscraper that he owns. And when he wants to go down to the bottom floor, he does not take an elevator. The entire skyscraper shifts for him. And people live on these floors.

So they all have to be shifted away so that he can go down to the bottom floor. So tax policy. Yeah, everything. They have to move for his, big. benefit. And he even says, it's such a burden being here to show people the right way. Literally, it's the white man's burden. Yeah. What's hilarious is I had a theory on the show, and I still maintain it, because you can have, you know, criticism, what's it called? Film criticism, that's for that, right? That he is inspired by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko. And I made a whole

video out on TikTok, and I still stand by it. But I met Booth Riley, and I asked him about it. And he's like, no. Not on purpose. But here's the thing. Steve Ditko, for those who don't know, he's the first guy to draw Spider-Man. He's designed basically everything you visually think of a Spider-Man, green goblin, you know,

the lizard, Occupus, all those things, Aunt May, all that stuff was him, right? Stan put words on there, but this guy did all that. And he in his personal life was a recluse, not wanting to go out, letting the heroes do the talking for him essentially.

And he was also very much a Randian in that he believed that there is good and there is bad. If you do good, you're doing it for yourself and it will help others probably. And that if you do bad, there is no excuse. Like, I don't care if you're starving, you steal bread for somebody, you still stole. You are a bad person.

You know, if the law is unjust and you broke the law, you broke the law. You were a bad person. you know, so he has very much that and that is exactly who this character is and now if you tell me like, well that's the Spider-Man and Dr. Strange creator but this is very obviously an Ironman character

what does Steve Dicko have to do with Iron Man? Steve Dicko is the first one to draw Iron Man in red and gold. He's the one who designed it. And the two issues of Iron Man, well, Tales of Dispense that he drew and essentially wrote because we did were all about Iron Man feeling the burden of being this rich guy who has to help people

who aren't listening to him because they don't know he's better than them. you know and it's it's unironically basically the way Iron Man is in those two issues and it's like right like you see him like covered in shadows of like oh I have to do these things because people need it done you know and it's like that is 100% the hero but but Boots Riley like said hadn't heard of any of that stuff about Steve Ditko so it's just an interesting parallel in my view uh... uh... combat creator um because he's very much a randy and the character in the in the in the show but anyway all of this to say that show is the best example that I've ever seen of superpowers allegory. So while these two

are definitely we've been back to the topic which I thank you guys for talking about a night axe and golden girl definitely have

real world situations and in a sense their powers are part of it it is not that the powers are a metaphor

for anything it's that the powers are literally connected to their ancestral cultural heritage

that they are disconnected from and that they would need to learn more about it by learning more about their own family history. Okay. Okay.

I like it. Yeah, I do talk a lot. Damn, you're not kidding. It's fine. Oh, this is good. Because it's, I mean, you're impassioned about a thing that you've created and you're knowledgeable about all the things that are ancillary to that. This is our dream guest in a lot of ways.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Not wrong. So you said it in San Antonio. Mm-hmm. Oh, yes, I did. Actually, that was very important to me. It's funny in the initial post I did on Kickstarter, there's no picture in that section of it because I could not find either a picture.

I took came out all blurry. They sucked together. My camera was messed up. And I could not find a public domain picture. I'm not just going to steal somebody's photo. Yeah. That demonstrated what I'm talking about. But like, because if you look up photos in Santone, you're mostly getting the riverwalk and the skyline.

Cool, great. But here's the thing. That skyline is entirely. stone buildings. These are like most of them, many of them made before 1950. You know, that visually... Art Deco? Yeah, a lot of them are Art Deco. Some

of them are flat out Gothic. There's Gothic buildings built in the 1920s that were designed to look Gothic, you know. And there's also buildings that are over our 200, almost 200 years old. Again, math is not my strongest. In that thing, like for example, the Alamo, which is obviously much older. Right next door to the Alamo is a hotel

that was built 20 years after the Battle of the Alamo and it's still standing today. Now it's been expanded upon, but the original part still there. Sure. I've stayed in the oldest part before and the, it's supposed to be like the most haunted hotel in Texas or whatever. I stayed in the room where Captain King died. He was the head of the King Ranch, which is the largest ranch system in Texas, the Patriarch. Teddy Roosevelt spent a lot of time there, you know.

So there's so much history to this place. And then let's move away from that. Because buildings are sold, there's one building in Santa Claus Skyline that is like a glass building, like a modern skyscraper. I think it's Frost Bank or something. Austin is like all glass buildings. And that's like the one in San Antonio. But they move away from that.

And you got downtown, which is these 100-year-old alleyways and twists and turns of old buildings that this is, this is Gotham City, you know. And then you move out from that and you have the actual places, communities where people live. And they are of every, you know, culture that are there in areas that, are basically ignored and forgotten beyond the tourist spots, you know? And San Antonio is a big city compared to most cities. I don't think I don't know where it ranks in the biggest ones in the United States, but definitely one of the biggest ones of Texas, not the biggest, obviously.

And so I look at it, and I my first five years there, and I go back all the time. I live in Austin right now, so I'm not far away. But I look at it and I'm like, this is Gotham City. Like I could make up a fake city, but this city has, the real history. And even the history is tied to what I'm talking about. Like, remember the alamo. Right. You guys are, you guys, do you know what the alabot was about? Like, why that battle happened. Oh, it was, Ed, I think you teach closer to this history than I do, don't you? Well, alas, no, they don't, they haven't, they haven't made the mistake of letting me teach

U.S. history, yeah. But, um, no, I mean, I, I, I, I know that, you know, the Texas rebellion, at least in part was because Texans didn't want to give up slavery. That's exactly it. And now they never talk about that whenever they talk about all the great parts of history. But like, yes, that was the, that was the primary thing. Mexico was flat out saying they're willing to overlook a lot of the stuff they were doing. Yeah. But they're like, you cannot have slaves.

Yeah. And that's what they were fighting for. Yeah. You know. And so that was Mexico. And now it is not considered Mexico. And that by itself is like, okay, the name of the county San Antonio was in is spelled B-E-X-A-R. Pronounced that.

Bechar. See, that's how it would have been pronounced because the X served the role back then that the J does in modern Spanish. Yeah. But no, it was pronounced by English speakers. So how would you think they would pronounce it? Bexar. You would think that too. And yet the answer is still no.

Azar? It's Beyer County. Of course. Because they were trying to say... Arkansas is right near there. Well, I'm over emphasizing the accent, but they were trying to say Behar, and they said bear. Yeah.

So Bayer County, Texas, spelled B-E-X-A-R, because that's how they've been saying it. Sure. Similarly, there's a street in Austin that a friend of mine got really upset because I called it Guadalupe. He's like, you're from the border. Why would you call it that?

But the thing is, if you look at old maps of Austin, it was spelled L-O-O-O-P at the end. because it was named after some dude that they said, yep, that's Guadalupe over there and they named it after him. Oh my God. So there's so many things

that are just tied to this misappropriation of Spanish culture. Mexican, not Spanish. It's like a lazy. It's like a lazy English Creole. Yes, very lazy English Creole. Yeah. Emphasis aren't a lazy.

It is Guadalupe Street. It's not spelled that way, but that is what it's called and that is what it historically was on maps. And with Bayer, County, it is Bear County, despite being spelled B-E-X-A-R. That's great. So even the setting itself is a misappropriation of Mexican history.

Fuck. Okay. Hi. I'm sorry. I am trying so hard to get people to back this thing, and I cannot, a friend of mine, T.S. Luther, he's a great comic writer, indie writer. His amazing book right now called The Digger, which you need to go seek out. It's so good. I read the first issue, and it just blew me away.

I'll tell you about a second if you want. he did a video for me using literally my words promoting the book and he did such a better job I'm like I can't sell my own book I'm not good at it it's there so I need other people to sell it for me yeah yeah I'll pitch it just yeah that'll be at the end of the episode yeah and I almost guarantee this will be two episodes so it'll be two episodes doing that yeah before we cut I would tell you real quick about t s Luther's book called the digger because it's also part of this story um So T.S. is white, right?

White can be whatever culture, but people don't usually separate it from that. It's just white. But he's a great, and I say but, and he's a great writer, not but, sorry. But the story he's writing the Digger, the main character is the little indigenous boy in southern Mexico or Guatemala.

I can't remember, somewhere in that area. And the premise of the book is, what if Indiana Jones was hunting short round? Basically, we have this archaeology. We never see his face. We don't see his name. They just call him, oh, he's the digger. And he's here to take cultural legacy from this kid's community.

And the kid first is his assistant. You know, yeah, I'll help you out. But he's like, he's literally stealing from us. So he's trying to stop him. And I want you to think real quick about the very first scene in the very first Ediana Jones movie. You know, he does the whole thing with the gold. He puts the bag there.

He gets chased by the ball. And then what happens? He's chased by the indigenous people who he is stealing from. And he shoots at them and kills them. And then he runs away, starting to plane, start the plane. He's the bad guy. And now, mind you, I'm not saying the Nazi is a good guy. They're also bad guys.

But, like, I love Indiana Jones movies. He's the bad guy. Yeah. And for The Digger, it's all told from the point of view of this little boy who is now being hunted by this adventurer or archaeologist, you know. And I bring all this up to say, the reason I established with T.S. being white is that I asked him about it after I read it. It was beautiful.

So what came into the idea? Who's your partner working on this? Well, the artist who said, initiated. the thought came it's from Russia and I'm like this reads authentically

like he put a ton of research into this there is it is not reverent or whatever but it feels authentically like this little boy grew up in rural mostly indigenous areas

of Mexico and Central America and he's he's not like you don't have to be of that culture to write something but like he put so much care and effort into it and the story

itself is so good that it just blew me away. You know, like, you know, for everybody, like, I'll say a lot, like, I wanted Latinos to be the characters of this story that was clearly made for Latinos, even though they weren't involved in it. Right. You know, and all that stuff. And you'll hear all people say, and I have one of them that will say, we need more people from a community writing about a community.

But that doesn't mean you have to be from that community. It just means you have to put that care into it. Right. And that book is so good. And so when he did that video for me, I didn't know he was doing it. He just did it and posted it. And he was literally just reading off my description from Kickstarter. but hearing him say it, it was so much better than me say it.

Because I will lovely, I will love to talk about other people's stuff, but it's so hard for me to talk about my stuff. Well, speaking of it, here's what I want to do. I want us to take this time now to plug literally everything that we can about how people can support your project. Please. And then we will go on to ask you more questions about it because we're coming up on a good dividing point here. So how can people buy this comic book or can they buy this comic book? Well, that's the thing. They can't currently buy it.

Oh. Somebody, my plan is to print it out and to mail it out. And on the thing, I'm only mainly, I'm only putting the U.S. in there mainly because I'm not, I'm not a publisher. I'm a writer. I work with artists. I work with editors. But when I self-published, it's very difficult for me. If I had like a better infrastructure, they could handle how to, how do we send things to other countries or whatever?

Somebody's like, I'm in another country. How can I read it? And the thing is, my last book, World's War Comics. Well, not my last book, but the last Kickstarter comic I did. I did the same way, but it's digitally available. You can find it on Indyplanet.com, order a print-on-demand copy. Or you go to Global Comics. I recently changed the setting on it, so currently you don't have to spend any money.

You can just click it and read it. All right? I never announced that. I did that. And so eventually, Nightax will be up there on those places where no matter where you are, you can read it. But currently it is on Kickstarter. And the idea is that I want to, I need to pay all the artists. Every art piece that's been done, I paid for already.

But for them to complete the book, I need more money because I'm a teacher. We covered that in Texas. And even with the bonus I get for my master's, it's not a lot. And then And then I need to pay for printing Because I would like to physically print it And mail it out And that is a lot

And so to me it's very important to pay artists Pay human artists I cannot stress that enough I have to stress that And so I told the artist Like look I'm paying you for these pages Do not draw anything else Until I send you more money

Because I will Like if you do it I will pay you anyway But I want to make sure it's available to do it. And honestly, if the Kickstarter were to fail, I would probably still find a way to pay them anyway and eventually put it out online somehow, but like it would take a while. Well, we're not going to let that happen. No, but no. We're not on our watch. Yeah. But yeah. Where should they look for it on Kickstarter? You could go to Kickstarter and just type in nightax one word and it'll pop up or you can go to nightax.com, which I bought. Whenever, whenever I do a, whenever I come with an idea that I know I'm going to finish,

I buy the URL. So like World's War Comics as soon as I started that I bought that. So I have Nidex.com. I also have NADX and goldengirl.com. It's a lot longer. I could have bought golden girl.com, but NADX.com cost me like 10 bucks.

And golden girl.com, I think it was listed for $30,000. Yeah. So they can keep it. I'm good. Yeah. I also, I've not really referenced this at all, but like there's a subtitle in the book.

Because I'm doing it as a one shot and I would love to do other one shots later that are not. You don't have to read them all to get the story. And the bottom of it says hearts of gold. So I also bought hearts of gold.com. Actually, I think it's, yeah, hearts of gold. I might have it.

Either way, I have it. But the point is nightax.com. Okay. So you go to nightex.com, it takes you right to Kickstarter. And I've got the videos there. I've got the, I've been updating it every, like, every other day, every couple days where I put like, here's the making of it. Here's how, what the artists have done.

I mentioned artists earlier. I'm working with several artists from across the Americas. obviously, you know, I'm a Latino group in Texas. The main art is being done by Miguel Angel. He's from Veracruz in Mexico, and he's doing the art there. The cover, main cover, is done by my friend Roberto Rivera Padro. He's from Puerto Rico. I have some secondary and tertiary stories, because I actually, I had so much fun with this.

I've been telling you guys that I decided to make it a full three, complete stories that are separate stories. So there's one full story, two short stories. One of them is drawn by my friend from Brazil, James Figuero. And then one of them is drawn by another friend of mine from here in Texas, Mickey Ramirez. And so like we have Latinos from across Latin America, you know, that are working on this. And so I, and again, human artists.

I cannot, I hate that I have to say that. Yeah. But, you know, they are. And so. Man, I really messed up your easy layup question. Nightex.com. Or just look up Nightex on Kickstarter. Yeah, exactly.

And I will say as of the time that this drops, there should still be, this is me trying to do math now, 17 minus. There should still be 11 days to back the damn thing. So you absolutely need to get yourself over there. You know, pay days just a couple days after that. So go ahead and back it. And then we will, yeah, it'll make it happen. Damn it, because I want a print copy.

And that's the thing. I designed this Kickstarter. Two things. One, to be during the summer because I'm a teacher, and that's when I have more time to do that. And two, well, it's going to be ending after San Diego Comic Con is over. I'll be in San Diego. I'm going to have a panel on Sunday morning at 1030 called Lost and Found along the Color Line.

This is me and other educators and comic creators talking about how indigenous Latin American and also African cultures were shown in comic books back in the day. And I've done a lot of research into that. I said earlier, I read a ton of these comics from that time period and other things. And there are these tropes, I guess, these things that show up over and over again

in these older comics that people are not aware was there, but shapes what we have today. I was very frustrated watching watching Wakanda forever because I love the idea of making them more Mesoamerican. It makes sense. I mean, as much as anything else, but like the way they did it followed several unintentionally racist tropes that have been established since before the 1940s when doing stories involving Maya or Aztec people. And that frustrated me seeing that on the big screen. And the fact that I would tell people about it, they had no idea what I was talking about

means that people aren't aware that these tropes were there and repeated. repeated and repeated. It's a pattern on the wallpaper is that says. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So. So, okay.

So you're going to be at San Diego Comic Con. Sunday at 10.30 in the morning. Yeah. Okay. And then, so by that Sunday, that means you will have nine days. Yep. To support this thing. So when you hear this, run, don't walk to Kickstarter.

Or tonightax.com. Acts with an E. by the way. Yes. There's no hyphen. It's just all one word. All one word. Yeah.

And go to nightax.com and then back nightaxe and golden girl. Because it's, I want to see this thing happen. And I know our fans and our listeners would also like to see something like this happened. Yeah. And having looked myself at the Kickstarter, I want to see this thing in print if only because the art is so fun. Bonkers gorgeous. Right.

Yes, it is. So yeah. If you go to the updates, I even go into detail about some of the artists. I'm going to, I was posting another one today, but then I got busy with another thing. So I'll post another one about more of the artists working involved with it. Yeah, I tell you, Miguel, when I met, I met him previously, but I met him again this year. And I told him, yeah, working on this story now. I told him a little bit about it.

And I showed him some of my early drawings. Some of the drawings are my drawings. And I went back to the other room because we're at an event. It came to me about an hour later and goes here. And he just drew an adaxon golden girl. And they were gorgeous. And I was like, we need a talk. Yeah.

So, yeah. And then he does this kind of like realistic-ish, but American comic book style art, right? And then Mickey does a much more animated style art, which is, that's when people were saying kind of reminded them Batman the animated series. Yeah. And then James, the guy from my friend from Brazil, he has this more stylized, like energetic art. So Mickey's doing a solo night act story and James is doing a solo Golden Girl story.

So I've got two little stories and then one big story. story without them all together. Nice. And that's where we're going to cut this. As promised, this is going to be split into two episodes. So please make sure that after you finish listening to this, that you go on to Kickstarter. You type in Nightax, N-I-G-H-T-A-X-E, all one word, and you pledge and you make this thing a reality.

I want to have this comic book in my hand, and you can help me to do that. We can all help Kevin Garcia to make good art made by human beings to save humanity because I think we all should read Night Axe and Golden Girl. It's an incredibly creative piece. It's innovative. It's everything that I love about comic books. And why else would we have them on here if not to encourage you to not walk, run to go check it out? If you happen to be in the San Diego area on Sunday this upcoming at 10.30, like he said, said, there is going to be a panel where he and several other authors and teachers talk about

the intersection of comic books and race and various tropes that occur. So go look for his name, Kevin Garcia, on the program if you happen to be in San Diego. Otherwise, each and every one of you could be pledging to Knight Axe and Golden Girl paydays just around the corner, so you'll be fine. But really, let's make this happen. So for a geek history of time and letting you know, that next week or the very next episode, whenever we drop it, we might drop it early. We will finish up this discussion about this comic book series that you're already going ahead and helping to back. But for a geek history of time, for Ed Blaylock, and many, many thanks to Kevin Garcia for showing up. I'm Damien Harmony, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.