Last Podcast On The Left - Blue Book: 1947 - An Interview with James Tynion IV

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Marcus and Eddie sit down with returning guest - writer for Batman, The Sandman, Universal's Dracula, as well as creator of The Department of Truth, The Nice House on the Lake, Something is Killing the Children, and his latest upcoming release - Blue Book: 1947. James Tynion IV joins us to discuss all things comic book, where he draws line the when writing a villain, and continuing his multi-part, historic UFO-lore saga with the 1947 flying saucer encounter of pilot Kenneth Arnold.

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All right, welcome. We are here. It's me and Ed. Hello! Ed Larson. I'm Marcus Parks. Welcome to the last podcast on the left. We are here sitting with James Tinney in the fourth. Hey, guys. One of the most absolutely incredibly talented comic book writers out there, putting out work right now. And by far the best horror writer out there in comics right now. Thank you so much for joining us today, James. Thank you very much. And thanks for saying very nice things about me.

Of course. Thank you for coming back before. That's very impressive. My father changed his last name. He didn't even do, you know, I'm the first of nothing. I was just at a family wedding and I keep getting like, it's one of those things. Everyone's very proud of me and all that shit. But then I get these little, like, all of a sudden, my cousin comes up to me and it's just like, no, they can't Google me. Nobody can Google me. Like my last name, just like everything points to your, your stuff.

And I'm like, I'm sorry like There's a lot of there are a lot of tinnins out there, but it's a made-up spelling of the last name It's like a totally like made-up spelling So everyone who's those spelling that I have is related to me so you can bug those all those people, you know Yeah The longest time I was beaten in Google Google by Marcus Parks from Baltimore who had no arms but could shoot guns with his feet. I mean, he should still be number one. No, I mean, like, that feels like it deserves the top spot.

I actually felt bad when I toppled him. And that guy really deserves it. We should have James read a book about this guy. Give him up. There you go. We're going to, Marcus, you're going down. We're going to bring this guy back to us. I'll gladly give it up.

So Ed here, he is new to comic books. Yes. I mean, I had him when I was a kid, but I took a lot of time off. I mean, the last graphic novel I read was like 30 days a night, you know? So it's been a while and I'm, I can't even, the whole time I'm reading department of truth, Marcus made me borrow his copy of it. I'm not destroying it, I hope.

And, uh, That's fine. Be as rough as you want. Comics are meant to be read. Fuck yeah. I love that. Cause I kind of think I broke the spine. on. Comics are meant to be read. Fuck yeah.

I love that because I kind of think I broke the spine. But yeah, no, like literally I stopped down yesterday just to like take a break and absorb everything I just read because it's like top the bottom information, the pictures are information, everything's beautiful. And I was just like, I need to change the way I live my life and start getting into graphic novels more. You like, like you've like changed me completely as a human. Well, I apologize for that. It's a weird little rabbit hole to fall down. But I guess the whole podcast is kind of about literally every kind of weird rabbit hole that you can fall down.

Ed's entire life has changed in the last few months. He's fucked. Yeah, man, it's fine. Yeah, I still don't believe in anything, but it's nice to learn about everyone's fears. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is the thing where it's just like,

those beliefs start being like, well, it's like, I don't believe it, but I have a lot of thoughts about it constantly and it just lives in my head. And that starts to, starts to leave an effect. Well, since we are talking about my new knowledge and just reading this, the Department of Truth, I know you guys talked about it a lot in your last interview, but like, I couldn't help it. I really want to ask this, which like conspiracy theory, cryptid, which one do you believe in the most? Which one of these in Department of Truth holds the most water to you?

Oh, boy. That's always so hard, because it's just like the, one of the big things that I wanted to hit at with Department of Truth is kind of the that I find the most interesting is I kind of see a lot of conspiracy theories like folklore. It is just just the stories that we keep going back to and telling over and over and over through time. And I find it's so fascinating that you see the same ones come back like cycles and the way that you can see QAnon to satanic panic, like going all the way back to the medieval times. It's just like every century, it just pops back up. Sometimes every few decades, it pops back up.

And it's just like, I love that. I love the, I mean, it's like I don't love the effects of that. But it's just, it's fascinating that when people are put under the same kind of pressures, that they come to the same beliefs over and over and over again. It says something about how we think and how we interact with the world. And that's the real, I say in the first issue, the character Colternary kind of talks about how people go towards conspiracy theories because it helps give structure to the world. And it's just like the awful truth of the world is there's not a lot of structure to it.

A lot of things do just happen kind of chaotically for random reasons and all that stuff. But it's about kind of taking control of the world and rewriting the narrative so that you're on the side of good. That they are doing something bad. And that's the reason your life is not going the way you want it to. And you are good because you are standing against it. It's the most appealing fantasy that we all go to over and over and over. And a lot of dangerous beliefs can go that. I mean, and the real answer is, it's UFO shit. UFO shit is like where are you going? But it's like, I don't think it's necessarily like little gray men and all that. But there is some kind of manifestation that we get over and over and over again, like going all the way back through folklore. There are moments that humanity comes in contact with something that

our little meat brains can't process. And then they sort of try to make sense of it. And what that actually is, what it means, I'm open to a million different opportunities. But I do think we bump into something else sometimes. Well, I mean, I think what's fascinating to me about modern conspiracy thought is that it feels like for the first time like first time in history, although conspiracy thought has come about over and over and over again. And if we're being honest, most of the time it has to do with Jewish people when it does come through for the first seems like for the first time in history like conspiracy has been gamified. You know, especially with QAnon and the way that people can actually interact with a conspiracy. They create the conspiracy themselves. That's what makes QAnon

so fascinating is that it's a conspiracy that is built upon... it's a gigantic game of yes and that has just gotten completely out of hand. It's like the id building its own conspiracy, the id of the internet building its own horrifying conspiracy that in the end still kind of works out to the same conspiracy that's always been there. It's like these conspiracies are inevitable. Yeah. No, and it is this, you know, because it's always just a dark reflection of us. And this is something weirdly, that touches directly onto a few of my other comic projects, especially the way that something that I've been terrified by my entire life, especially growing up in the social media age, is just how

quickly dangerous information spreads and how poorly equipped we are for its spread. Because it's just like, we don't process whether or not information is good or not, before it passes along. And it's like, I did a series very early in my career called Mimetic, which is just about an image of a sloth posted online that ends the entire world in three days. And that was like the biggest and funniest person of that idea. It's still one of my favorite ideas. But the, you know, more recently I've done a series called World Tree, which is very much about like the, you know, the people who grew up like, like we did and during an era where the internet was all about possibilities and like the way human connection would lead to, you know, like to utopia,

like all of these good things that would happen. And then cut to today where it's just like, it hasn't. It definitely hasn't. We're, if anything, it's kind of pulled us in the opposite direction because it is the manifestation of all of the kind of darkest impulses we have and focused in this dark corroded way. Have you read the interview from one of the original Internet utopians who has looked

back on the legacy of the Internet? It's one of these guys. I can't remember what his name was exactly, but he was one of the guys the back of the 90s was selling the Internet hard as this utopian thing that was going to bring the whole world together. And we absolutely can handle this responsibility and not only that, but you're not going to believe what the world is going to look like in 2015, 2020. Everyone's going to be together.

And I think around 2018 he gave an interview, full mea culpa. And I was like, hey, I was wrong. I was so wrong. I could not have seen. He was like, I should have seen what the internet could have done. I should have warned everybody, but instead I was looking at it with rose-colored glasses. Yeah, man. There was like an information, they call it the information super highway, but no one

put up a fucking speed limit sign. We were just like rocketing towards everything. And now we live in this age of misinformation. So it's like, it's become, there was so much information that none of it's true anymore. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's bizarre. It drives me, it drives me crazy. And it's like, I love the way you did this book. And I'm sure I'm sure everything I read of yours in the future is going to make me feel the same way. But when I was reading this, I was, I couldn't help but thinking of, this is my opinion, not yours, that horrible Obama end of the world movie that just came out where like, you know, the world ends because of misinformation. I felt like this was what that was trying to do. And I feel like you nail it where they fucked up in a weird way.

Well, I'm very glad that you enjoyed it. But yeah, tell us about World Tree a little bit because World Tree is one of the books I look forward to the most every month because it's full of such strange ideas and it's scary, it's beautifully drawn. Like tell us a little bit about the concept behind it. And perhaps maybe your intention behind writing that story.

Absolutely. So, I mean, it comes from a few different places. Like, I... So, I listened on a road trip once. I listened to, I think it was an episode of Sword and Scale, about the Luca Magnati murders. Because he posted those murders online. But the thing that caught me was the idea of it

started spreading around online as a kind of gotcha video, like a grossed out video that kids were watching it and recording their reactions to watching it. And I had to stop the listening to the podcast while I was listening to it because it was actually playing like some of the, like one of the voices was so young, so, so young reacting to like the video that they were watching of someone being murdered. And it was just like the just like one of the most brutally upsetting things that I've ever heard with my own ears. And it's just like so the,

that planted a seed in the back of my mind and it started coming together with a few of my, with a lot of my feelings about the internet and how much I loved it growing up, how it used to be the sort of person that is just like going back to middle school. It's like I would race to come home to like talk to my friends online. Those were my real friends, like living through forums and AOL Instant Messenger.

Like that was just like my whole life. And then cut to today where it's just like I'm pulling back more and more from social media entirely. I mostly just post selfies of me going to the gym. That's it. That's all I'm putting out there into the world anymore. And I'm trying to refine my connections in the real world with real human beings and all of that because it's just like it brings so much more to my life. And I wanted to play with that kind of tension and like the past and the present.

And so it's kind of, there is, I mean, so the high concept of it is, that a group of friends discovered that there was an evil internet that existed beneath the internet back around 1999. That there was something from the other side trying to break through. This was me trying to capture that feeling from when I was a kid. You'd click through these GeoCity websites, web portals,

and you just fall down this weird rabbit hole to weird websites that were just broken websites of numbers and glitched images that wouldn't load properly. And it's just like you would fall into this other side of the Internet. So I wanted to make that literal where it's just like they literally fell into another Internet. And something the Levalint was trying to come through there. And then it's the story of how they sealed it off back then and they thought it was safe. And then they thought they built the good version of the Internet sealed it off back then, and they thought it was safe, and then they thought they built the good version of the internet over it,

and then you see it come hurtling back through in present day, and terrorizing all these people. So it's one of the cruel things that I've written. Yeah. Yeah, an actual entity coming through and terrorizing and, you know, possessing and killing. Lots of killing. Like so much killing. I'm ready. It's very, very, very bloody. It really is. And I love the idea behind it, you know, of like this. Yeah, it's like sort of the idea of like the internet actually reaching out and not just influencing people to do bad things

but telling people to do bad things, making people do horrible things. Yeah. Life from your grave. One of the things I've noticed about some of your books recently is that you've been doing a lot of like apocalyptic stuff. Like with, you know, again, with World Tree, with Nice House on the Lake. Like, is there,

is your brain starting to sort of move towards the apocalypse lately? Uh, I mean, it feels more like the world's moving towards the apocalypse, like slightly. And it's just the, you know, I think it's kind of reflecting that feeling. And especially, like, I realized very early on, I didn't really want to write like post apocalyptic stories. I wanted to write apocalyptic stories. I wanted to write the story about the collapse. And because it just it feels like, you know, even though it's a less literal collapse, like we're living in an era of collapse of systems kind of falling apart around us.

They were built to work, they worked for like three or four decades, and then they worked almost, they worked half as well for three or four decades, and now we're in the three or four decades after that, and it's not working anymore. And at some point we'll have to build whole new systems. But it's just like right now,

we're living in this like really dangerous, weird moment. And I find it deeply fascinating and horrifying. And I think it leads to the, there are the moments that lead to the worst of us. And I think it has a horror writer. It's like I like leaning into the worst of us. But then I also try to like lean into what I sort of, I try to bring a humanist perspective

where it's just like I want to express what I think is, you know, like what I think is good in humanity as well. You know, and it is, it's our little weird messy bits. Like it's not the, it's not our altruism or anything like that. It's like, it's kind of the ways in which we're like goofy and we fuck up. Like that's actually what make us like special. Yeah. Yeah. The human moments, the little, just little interactions between us. Like, you know, what's going to happen when, when everything's collapsing? Like how are you going to have, how are you going to make small talk with your neighbor while the world is collapsing around you? Yeah, man. It's like, and it's so, to me, so much more ballsy to write about the

apocalypse as it's happening because a lot of the post-apocalyptic stuff that you see, it's like, they don't even bother to explain it. Cause it's like, how do you explain the end of the world? You know, it's like, you know, like the road is unbelievable, but it's all about the post. They don't even bother telling you how it happened. And so to, to tell us how it's going to happen, that's a ballsy move, man. Well, you know, I, uh, and I mean, this is also the downside of me working on all

of these very long form stories is just like, we're in the middle of a lot of them. So it's just like, we'll see if I pull it off at the end. Uh, so yeah, when do you think the world's going to end? Yeah. I mean, hopefully after I finish telling all these stories, like that, I want to like, then it's just like, I'll, you know, I'll make the call and just be like, all right, we can do it now. Yeah. Isn't it like every society think the world's ending around them?

Isn't that how it is? Well, I mean, that's the argument could be made that many societies have ended over and over and over again. Like the apocalypse is a necessary, like the apocalypse can be a very personal thing to a society. It doesn't have to be the end of the world It just has to be the end of that world. Yeah Yeah, something's gonna come later Always I'm gonna come later

So as a horror writer like you know, what was the first horror comic book? Like, not necessarily the first horror thing, not the first horror movie or the first horror story. What was the first horror comic book that didn't necessarily scare you, but the first one that kind of made you say, wow, like, that was a fucking great horror story. So it's kind of a weird one, but it was Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Yves Gaskas. It's not necessarily about like it is the best constructed horror story because it's so like messy and over the top in so many different directions.

It's a very hot topic. It hits a nerve. And it's just like, and it's like, you know, and especially like, you know, I was perfectly poised to receive Invaders in when it came to me. Because I was like, I would bring copies of both Johnny, Johnny the Humsidle maniac and squee to like summer camp with me and they would be falling apart and then I would get in trouble when other people realized what I was reading.

Beyond that, it was in late middle school that I started finding Vertigo comics. And that was a real turning point for me. And I think those early volumes of The Sandman changed the entire essence of who I am as a person. And particularly the second volume, The Doll's House, which is what I've recently been doing, a Sandman series. And it's just like I built the entire premise of the series out of that arc. And focusing on the Corinthian. And particularly, I think it's Sandman number 14 is the collectors, which is one of my favorite single issues of a comic ever. It's about a serial killer convention in a rundown motel. And it's just, it's so brutal and horrifying, like

all of these little cutaways. And like it is, it's just like what, when I am trying to get under a reader's skin, I will like sit down and I'll reread that issue just to be able to remember how, how it's done. Like, because I think that that remember how it's done. Like, because I still think that that is how it's done. It's incredible. I mean, the art and everything is just, and it's so, it seems like such a ludicrous thing, but what's great about that issue is that the character, like there's an entire other story happening, leading up to the serial killer convention

and these characters that you've been following throughout this volume, they just happen upon this. Like they just happen upon this. And you know, of course, there's also, you know, they've may have been pushed towards it as well. But it's introduced so naturally into the story of like these people like just showing up at a convention for serial killers. And they're all showing up and like, hi, you know, like my name is the family man. Like, oh, the family man, great. We've been, we've been waiting for you. You know, you're name is the family man. I'm here. Like, oh, the family man, great. We've been waiting for you. You know, you're the keynote speaker.

How wonderful. And they all, and they have panels, you know, where they talk about like, you know, the, I love the one panel, the female serial killer. Like we're not just killer nurses, you know. It's, because it's also, I mean, how that whole story was very influential for me as well because it's a very, it's also a very funny issue as well.

Like it treats it with like this kind of like levity that informed, you know, I guess my own personal view of serial killers. I imagine a serial killer convention would be held at a La Quinta. I think they'd go straight for the sponsorship there. Who does the catering? But recently you've got to dabble in the Sam & Universe quite a bit recently with Nightmare Country. And you kind of got to, you got to actually retell that story a little bit and like, and to dip your fingers. I like, how was it to, like, I don't know, put your mark on the Sandman universe.

I mean, terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Like the only comparable moments in my like comic book writing life was the first time that I wrote like a line of dialogue for Batman. You know, when I was just starting out, one of my the first scripts that I was working on was for, you know, a Batman annual that was being co-written by

that that I was co-writing with Scott Snyder. But I had been brought on to do the like I wrote the first draft and all that stuff. But I kind of I remember I reached out to Scott to be like, okay, I'm gonna write all the Mr. Freeze bits, and then you're gonna come in and write Batman because I'm not allowed to write Batman yet. Like I have not earned the right to write Batman. And Scott had to get me on the phone and just be like,

James, you've been brought on to make, so that I do not have to write this. You do have to write the dialogue for Batman. And that was wildly intimidating. And then it was writing the turtles, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, getting those voices right and all that. But then there's nothing more

formative to me than the Sandman. So it's just like honestly, and I cheated a little, where it's just like in the first arc that we did, there are only a handful of the classic characters that appear. So it's a lot of new characters, which is that I'm very comfortable writing my own characters. But once I had to actually write words coming out of Dream's mouth, that was like, okay, yeah, no, no, no, I have to step up.

Yeah, no, it was a lot of fun. I'm really, really proud of what we've been doing there. And there's, there's still more to come with that story. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I love the characters you introduced for great, but I mean, I could only imagine, like the Corinthian is a character I've always wanted to play around with.

Like Corinthian is great. He's a living nightmare who has eyes, eyes for teeth for eyes. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Just like you boil it down to that living nightmare, teeth for eyes. Fuck yeah. Yeah. That's. Yeah. Just like you boil it down to that living nightmare teeth for eyes. That's it. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's eat. Who eats eyes with his eyes? Whoa. Yeah. It's so impressive. Legitimately one of the best horror images ever to exist in comments. Like the best like yeah.

Do his eyes have little tongues? Great question. Usually usually not. Yeah. Like some what sometimes like you see a little tongue in there But yeah, I have a black voice I kind of had to rack my brain a little bit like has I have I ever seen the Corinthians eye tongues? Oh my god, imagine being his dentist Open your mouth like takes off his sunglasses He was like, oh, open your mouth. It's like takes off his sunglasses.

Ah! Ah! Oh, yeah. No, and I mean, we actually leaned into that a little bit. There's this figure that's been showing up that's like, it's a nightmare, but it didn't come from dream. That's been shown from the dream in. That's been shown, that shows up through that whole series

that we've been calling the smiling man. That also has like mouths for eyes, but you don't see the teeth there. You just see the like gross tongues sticking out of the eyes. it's like, it's real gross. I like, I like some gross shit. Yeah. Yeah. Like, do you have a line for gross? Uh, you know, I think the, I used to have much more of one, like there are things that will get under my skin if it's done really, really well. get under my skin if it's done really, really well. And it's just like, and at a certain point, I think like gore stops like, you know,

at a certain point I don't enjoy the gore anymore, but I've seen like lots of real messed up stuff. I don't gravitate towards the more extreme gore end of things, but it's like, I've watched all the new French extremity films, I really enjoy martyrs. Like, but yeah, that's, uh, you know, but in terms of like body horror and stuff, I love stuff that like makes me, makes me cringe and like curl up. Yeah. I'm also a big fan of that. Yeah. I like how in, in your book that I,

that I was reading, you let the imagination really take you. At least everything's cloudy. You're not sure what's going on. You see it and then you're like, oh, is that what's happening? And then my own mind fucking runs with it. And that's, I think that's so cool. Yeah. And like so much of that is beginning to work

with like really incredible artists, which is something that, you know, like, like I love, you know, like I love the fact that I'm working on so many different comic projects because I get to work with some of my all-time favorite comic book artists, my favorite people working in the industry today. Department of Truth, I work on with Martin Simmons, who I think is, you can see the Sinkavich and the McKean influences in him, but does this like collage work that like it's actual mixed media and the original artwork pages are just absolutely stunning.

I have a few of them like hanging around my office right now and it is just the like just devastatingly good. And you know the other projects that I've been talking about, Fernando Blanco just absolutely nails like, just every lip, like we do these like 12 panel grids in Rural Tree. And he just nails the emotionality in that it doesn't lose any of the information. He's just like so fucking good at it. Yeah. And then Alessandro is there and was the artist on Nightmare Country. And like he also was just like absolutely nail it. I don't know. Yeah.

I'm a comic book art nerd. And like the whole secret of my career is just like, I have found excuses that my inbox gets to fill up with beautiful comic book art every single day. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, speaking of Martin Simmons, like the book, the new book that you guys have been working on is a retelling of Dracula,

which it's like it's universal monsters Dracula. Like it's very much like, so like when you were approaching that book, like, were you wanting to take like, is it like a new take on Dracula or just like a different angle on like the existing Dracula story? I want to suck your milk. Yeah, that's the angle. That's the angle we just had to take on.

You can milk suckers. Yeah. You know, we've got a lot of white out on all of the pages. No, I mean the the real thing. So the nice. So I've it's been a few years since I've been writing like superhero comics. And when I was like in my heyday of superhero comics, like I was a big continuity nerd.

I loved like how a story, like what is the official story, how can you bring an up story from the past into the present? So it's been a while since I've been able to stretch those muscles. So I set a bunch of rules for myself when I started working on Universal Monsters Dracula, because it is the universal version of Dracula, which means that it is, it's not like it's not Mina Harker, it's Mina Seward. And Dr. Seward isn't one of Lucy Seward,

it's Mina's father. It means Renfield has a much larger role in the whole story. It means they don't go back to Transylvania at the end, and John Harker never went to Transylvania. All of those things all come from the original movie. So I leaned into that iteration of the story and tried to make sure that nothing that happened in the comic contradicts the scene in the movie. So it all happens around the corners of it. But the challenge was then to how do you tell a very human story in and around the corners of that? And that was like, it was a tremendous challenge. But it was like, you know, and then the other primary goal of the entire project is how do I like just leave room for Martin to draw the coolest images of

Dracula ever. And that was my initial focus. And then he drew the first scene with Renfield. And I didn't even describe how like I wanted Renfield depicted, but he depicted him almost like a ghost, like his face is almost featureless. He's like right out of like German expressionism. It's just like it's like dark lined eyes and a mouth like in the darkness. And it's just like, but just like this blinding white against the black. And it is just, it is one of the, I think one of the best horror images in comics of the last few years. And it's like, and I take no credit for it. I had no, but the second that I saw him draw that, then it was like, all right, Ren, we're bumping up Renfield's role in this entire series because I want him to

draw that as many times as possible. Yeah. Cause I mean, cause you can expand quite a bit. Cause I mean, how long is the original Dracula? What is it like, you know, 75 minutes or something like that? Maybe even, I think it's just about 70 minutes. Like it is a very short film. Yeah. So like, so I guess watching it, you were able to like expand quite a bit on, you know, what happened off camera. Yeah, exactly. And you know, and then on top of that, there are a lot of things that you couldn't do in a movie in that moment. Like you can't really lean into the blood. Obviously, you can talk about like, hey, we're watching, Dracula was just in the room and now there's a wolf running across the field. Like, but you can't show a man transforming into a wolf. And it's in little elements like that.

And then the other decision we made is through the entire mini series, Dracula, like there's only one line of dialogue that Dracula speaks in the entire book because we just, we want, I wanted to make him like a full monster, a presence. Like not someone who's, you know, it's, I didn't want to lean into like the charm of Dracula, but characters talk about interacting with him.

So it's just like those scenes still happen, but it's not those moments. It is the more monstrous power of him. And then the big thing that I was leaning into strongly that Martin and I both synced in on is that the movie does this amazing thing where it just cuts into the eyes of Bella Lagosse over and over and over.

And they're all lit up. And so I just wanted to, that's like the hypnotic power of Dracula And it's just like you see the like color of life kind of coming out of him and the rest of the world around him It's like really black and white, but then like this play Fantasma, Goria of color and gore like coming out of Dracula and that was that was like the the center of the idea gore like coming out of Dracula. And that was, that was like the center of the idea. It's incredible. Do you like the old, are you into the old Universal Horror,

is that it? You know, I rewatched one of the really old ones. I think it was Dracula actually, like a couple of years ago. And the thing that I realized is a lot of those old movies, they don't have scores. Like there's no, it's just, cause you forget how much work a score does. So like they were, you know, so they're not as scary as like a current movie is

because it's all imagery and no score. But yeah, I know, I mean, they're all wonderful. And right now I know for a fact that Universal is doubling down on all their monsters. Yeah. And it's a perfect time for you to be involved, man. That's congrats, especially with the, with the land, they're opening a full theme park land. It's like the first like horror land in a theme park is about to open. And I think that's so cool.

And you're a part of it now, apparently. Like it's exciting. It's very exciting. And I think there's a lot of really cool things coming out of that space. And honestly, like working with Alex Anton and the team at Skybound to just sort of like what they have planned for all of the Universal Monster books. And I can neither confirm nor deny which other monster I may be working on. But it's fun. I'm not working

on a lot of licensed projects anymore. Pretty much everything I'm doing is now fully in the creator-owned space. But getting to tap into one of the big icons, there's just power in it. And it's hard to say no to a project like that. So I didn't. Oh, yeah. Well, speaking of icons, powerful characters and all that like when you wrote Batman You spent a ton of time with the Joker like spend like joke Joker war fucking incredible loved it Like do you see Joker as a horror character? Absolutely and But I think that it's I'm open to other takes I do not think that there is a I'm open to other takes. I do not think that there is a pure,

singular version of the Joker. Because the Joker is just the perfect opposite of Batman. So whatever Batman is, you make the perfect opposite of him, and that's whatever the Joker is. So when a more, the Joker in Batman 66 is still a perfect inversion of the Adam West Batman. Actually, I'd say Riddler is probably more in Batman 66, but the Joker is, he's a fascinating character. And it's just like, I know people get burned out on him. There's so many Joker stories., you know, like, but there's a reason you go back to it. And it's just a,

you know, there's something that's just cool about like, you know, it's sometimes superheroes are so baked in to pop culture that we kind of like don't look at it at face value that often. But it's just like, you know, you're in a world where it's just like this classic pulp hero in Batman. Like this man dressed up in a cape with a pointy cow, and he's fighting like a murderous clown. And it's just like it comes out of that like the pulp stories of that era. And it's just like it is a primal part of our culture. And that dichotomy is interesting and it's like I'm always gonna find it interesting I'm always a bit like I'm always gonna be a Batman nerd but I also like I like the different elements of him and I've written them a few

different ways and it's just like he does have to be a little funny when he doesn't when he's not funny at all it doesn't work um but there are other characters that I'm I'm a bit firmer on like you know I think that there'm a bit firmer on. Like, you know, I think that there's a right way to do the Riddler and the wrong way to do the Riddler. But it's just like with the Joker, you can do the Joker so many different ways. Yeah. To me, the Joker's like a mob boss who doesn't care about money.

Just chaos. You know, like. So is there like, was there, I guess if you didn't have the restrictions of being, you know, writing for DC, like how far would you go with the Joker? Like was there like, was that sort of like a line that like DC wouldn't let you cross? I mean, I started during the new 52 when I started writing the Joker, he literally had it, like his face had been taken off and was pinned to his face. Like that is the version of The Joker I started writing.

And then on top of that, when I did my Joker series with Guillem March, it was the, I picked The Joker up against, it's basically if the core concept was, what if the family from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, at the end of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre when he's throwing the chainsaw around, he accidentally throws it into the ground, and then you hit the beginning of the Beverly Hillbillies where oil spouts.

And the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family becoming billionaires. And you see this entire, it's a serial killing family of billionaires that then they are convinced that they decide that they're gonna hunt and kill the Joker because they're cannibals and they wanna eat the head guy of the family wants to bring Joker to Texas to kill him and cook him and eat him.

And so I went pretty far, but it's also that funny, it does still have to be a little ridiculous. It has to be fun. Like if it's just, I don't know, there have been really good stories that have been done where he's just brutally horrifying, but at a certain point it's just like, then why't know. There have been really good stories that have been done where he's just like brutally horrifying, but at a certain point it's just like, then why is that the Joker? Like what's the crown angle? Like what's the fun? Where's the joke? Yeah, exactly. There's always got to be a joke with the Joker. That's what's so beautiful about comic books over movies is like, you don't have to limit

your imagination at all. You can do whatever the hell you want. And then you're like, yeah, draw it. It sounds great. You don't have to worry about like, you know, blowing up a boat, you know, just blow up the boat. You have to worry about the artists sometimes. I remember one time, it was one of the first times I was writing the Joker. I was doing the backup stories of, you know,

of a Joker story in Batman. And I was working with the artist Jot. And I made him draw, like the Joker was like building this whole beautiful scene inside of Arkham Asylum to like torment Batman with. And he was like, you know, doing it in his usual Joker way. So he's making the guards of Arkham literally carry a horse in down the hallway because he didn't want

the horse to walk on the ground because then it would be ruined like and so You saw it was like four men trying to carry an upside-down horse down a hallway and that job like almost killed me Trying it's like having to draw a horse is like one of the worst things to make an artist do trying to draw an upside-down horse Like is a nightmare. Yeah. We ran across the same thing and like an issue, a soul plumber where we asked our artists to like show like the Vatican, like exploding or like being dismantled. And he was like, I don't have time for that. They're like, they're like, you're on a st- these are tight deadlines, man.

You're working for DC. Like they're not gonna- I'm gonna are tight deadlines man you're working for DC like they're not gonna I'm gonna pull my weight and say rewrite. Yeah For the Joker, I know you're you're not doing the the DC stuff right now But man, I one thing about the Joker is like my problem with it is like as a comedian I want to see his act. Yeah, like I want to see I want to see his act. Like I want to see, I want to see what he's got. I want to see his material, I want to see his jokes. I'll lend you the killing joke. Yeah?

Yeah, it's the Joker origin story. Yeah, he did start as a failed standup comedian. He was bad. Yeah, of course. He was real bad. Like the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in a completely different way.

Like it's a fucking, it's one of the best comic book stories ever written It's gonna have a couple good ones Well, that's the the tragedy of it is that he can make his wife laugh, but can't make anyone else laugh and then she dies Poor bastard by accident one bad day one bad day One bad day. So, last time you were on the show, we talked about Blue Book, Betty and Barney Hill. This month, you've got a new Blue Book coming out 1947. Tell us about 1947. So, you know, it brings me back together with Michael A. Von Oming, who is absolutely incredible.

If you haven't read Powers by him and Brian Michael Bendis, Go read Powers. It is like one of the best blends of like superhero and noir that's ever been done. It's a couple of cops in a town of superheroes. Yeah, it's great. And so, but, you know, like Blue Book came together because, you know, Mike and I are like big UFO nerds. And he was a big fan of Department of Truth reached out to me and it was just like, hey, like, you know, he was excited about how I was talking about UFOs in there.

And then we start the conversation kind of picked up from there. And then ultimately we decided that, you know, something that I've been missing since I was a kid was just there used to be like lots of comics that were telling like the strange but true stories. It was the stories of the paranormal story and it was just like based on the actual accounts of the paranormal. So right now I'm kind of calling that like, it's like the cousin of true crime, and I'm calling that like true weird.

And I like being, and I'm like trying to build over, through the partnership between Tiny Onion and Dark Horse right now. Like we're trying to put out more of these true weird stories. And the ones that I'm directly involved in are these blue book stories, which are stories that are based on the like the real accounts of UFO encounters. And it's not overly fictionalizing them. It's not

trying to take one little kernel and build a totally different narrative. I want to lean into the moments as they are purported to have happened by the witnesses. And so that's the kind of the core principles of the thing. But the subject matter for 1947 came together, like when I was just laying together research for, actually for the Department of Truth. And something like that, like no one had ever set out loud to me before, but just laying the dates down next to each other.

I realized that the Kenneth Arnold UFO sightings that led to the coining of the term flying saucer happened about three weeks before the crash of Roswell, New Mexico. So it's the entire basis of American culture's obsession. UFOs happened in one summer in 1947. And it's just like everything comes from that summer. And then beyond that, it's just like the way that the media interacts with UFO stories. Like all of those, like the fact that like local newspapers suddenly

realized that it's like, oh yeah, we can start running some of these stories and people are interested in hearing them. Like it all comes from right then. And then the other thing that happened is like this is also the summer that the US government

started building like programs and be like, there's a little too many of these stories going around and we should look into it. And so we're able to, over the course of five issues, kind of piece together each of the angles of that summer. Like we talk about the Kenneth Arnold, everything with Kenneth Arnold,

the entire flap of UFO encounters that was happening over those few weeks. And there's a lot of really iconic ones that happen really close together. I appreciate you, you using the word flap by the way. That's when you know someone knows what they're talking about when they use the word flap correctly. No, I mean like Oming would be like, he'd be like bringing in UAP, a little like interchanging. I like UFO, UFO. Yeah, as do I.

Yeah, but the term of, like the idea of flying saucers, the idea of the public image. And then what I found really, really fascinating was just the way that you see the first people who get little, they have one, what seems like a real encounter with the strange.

And then they start becoming a little bit famous for it. And then they just lean in and suddenly they see a lot more UFOs and all that. And it's just like, it's the seeing the way that fame spreads and like a story spreads around the country is also deeply fascinating to me. So it's just like, it's a story that we lean into what people purport to have seen

and purport to have encountered, but we also take a critical lens where it's just like, you can see the people who may have been, the moments that they were a little more glory hounding than necessarily encountering something like, otherworldly. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that was really before the days

when we all learned that UFOs ruin lives. That being an actual, being a witness to a UFO or being an abductee, like these people do not, Travis Walton doesn't live a happy life. Whitley Strieber does not live a happy life. Like these people are damaged by this stuff and people that come out and talk about their alien experiences,

usually their entire lives fall apart pretty quickly. Why do you think UFOs ruin lives so thoroughly? I mean, like I think that I... So this... You play with this in the Department of Truth as well. We talked about it last time, one of my favorite stories and the entire, the Bigfoot storyline. I'm gonna start weeping. Honestly, that Bigfoot story is one of my favorite things I've ever written. And I think it speaks to exactly this.

There is just a, like, when you bump into something like fantastic, like how can it not change your life? Like, how can it not, like, you know, that just defies everything that has come before and all of that? Like, suddenly it's just like you want to make sense of the world, you want to make sense of what you saw. And it's just like it. And then especially if there's a moment where suddenly you get a lot of attention for it. And then it's just like it builds up to the importance of all of it. And it's just like it's hard to shake. And I think that there's something very human in that, that I think is, you know, it's like sad and beautiful. And I think it's something that is, you know,

when it exists outside of the realm of like paranormal encounters, it's something that it's just like, you see people who it's just like one moment in their life that did not fit among everything else. It just becomes, you know, this like one of the driving forces of the rest of your life. Yeah, man. That's what makes Close Encounters like such an interesting alien movie.

You know, because it's not scary. It's not a scary movie. It's just like, no, it breaks your brain and then there is no other choice but to join them. Yeah. Look at what it's like. Yeah. There was a story that I wrote for last comic book

on the left that the second part is going to be coming out in the next issue. It's a story I've been wanting to tell for years now, and I finally got a chance to do it. The story of Betty Andrezen who had this insane encounter with a group of aliens in which her alien experience manifested itself through Christian iconography. She was a hardcore Christian, and yet with her alien experience, the things that she saw during her abduction all harken back to these archaic Christian symbols that she would have had no clue were attached to the early days of Christianity. A lot of like phoenixes and worms and ashes and all sorts of stuff.

And yet that's what she saw. She was a housewife in the 60s with five kids. She didn't have fucking Google. Like she didn't know any of this stuff. But after her experience, she could not go back to her normal life. She ended up divorcing her husband, but she's one of the very few people whose life was actually made better.

She got out of an unhappy marriage, found a guy who had an almost identical abduction experience. They got married and lived the rest of their lives together doing UFO conferences. There we go. Yeah. That's actually sweet. That is, you know, it's the, those are the moments of beauty and the connecting in these like little, you know. I'd be so annoyed if I got abducted. Just to be like, I do not have time for this. I have deadlines, I got jokes to write. Like, when time are we getting back?

And they'd be like, time's not real. What do you mean? You call Marcus and tell him I can't fucking make it. Please. So when is the first issue coming out? So I think it is out, like, I think it's out the second to the last, I should have this date like right in front of me.

Because I know originally it was coming out on Valentine's Day and now I think it's one week after Valentine's Day. So I think by the time this comes out, I think it'll be out in stores. So you should just go to your local comic shop, say that you wanna read about the UFOs and they'll point you in the direction of Blue Book.

Great. And you said earlier this is a joint venture between Dark Horse and Tiny Onion, your company, which has become, it's now your own business. Yeah, no, so it's really exciting. We're kind of entering a whole new era that's built off of the last few years of my success

in create our own comics. entering a whole new era that's built off of the last few years of my success in creator-owned comics. And basically, we're building up a production company around, around Tiny Onion, around my books. And in the publishing space, what we're going to be doing is similar to what we've been, what I've been doing for the last few years where I have some books over at Dark Horse. I have some books over at Image. I have some books over at Distillery, the new publisher. We're kind of like, we've got our fingers in all these different places, but we're an independent production company. We build the books and then we take them to the publisher that we think will do the best job with them. And we have a great partnership right now with Dark Horse Comics,

doing this like true weird line and then the series, Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos. We're having a lot of fun. And these are books that I'm really, really excited about people reading. But beyond that, I'm really excited for everyone to see what we've got cooking with Tiny Onion. Like this is, I think the announcement announcement dropped in mid-February, and now people are starting

to ask the question of, what are you up to? What are you up to, James? Soon people are going to find out what I'm up to, and I'm very excited to tell them. And the real thing is, we're starting and publishing, but we're going to make inroads in a lot of the other media spaces, and it's nice being able to kind of drive that myself rather than having to work through, you know, a bunch of middlemen to get there. We want to, like, you know, we just want to make stuff. We want to make really cool things. Fuck yeah, man. It's the only way to do it. You don't fucking you just do it yourself always. That's the way we've been doing it here at the network for years.

It's like just take the reins and do it yourself. That's always the best way to do it. It's so impressive, everything you do. I know and I know you probably can't talk about this, but it seems like your your graphic novels, your comic books, is they're made to be films. Like are are any of these like, you don't have to say which or whatever, but it's, are you

working on it? I mean, there are two, two that I can talk about, uh, you know, and I can't talk much about them. But I mean, like, so my, my series from Boom Studios, Something is Killing the Children is in development, uh, at Netflix right now, uh, as a TV show, uh have the creative team behind 1899 and Dark, there are in Yante Frise. I love Dark. And they're doing an amazing job.

And it's like, it's Hollywood. I won't believe it's happening until I see, until I'm on set, and I see a camera filming Erica Slaughter with the mask on. Yeah, even then you don't believe it, by the way. Don't believe it until you're at home on your couch. And the fucking thing comes up on Netflix because I've heard it. There's been a couple of horror stories from, oh yeah.

Yeah. People lately have been pretty fucking awful. But if you don't mind, could you like, what is that process of selling your comic book and getting it moved into a film? Like, could you go into that a little bit? I mean, it's a long, weird road. And so the other project, like that, like, I can, like, I've seen more of the steps of the process around Department of Truth, like, which, so right now, Department of Truth was picked up by a production company called

Sister. We've gone through a few drafts of the pilot. We have a really, really good draft right now. We're going around to directors. Once we have that package together, we'll go around to find the network to pick it up and do that. But it's just like, this is something that, it's a multi-year process. We've gone through multiple iterations. We've talked through, you know, a lot of different ways to handle it. It's a lot of Zoom meetings. Like, you know, I've done a few trips out to LA to like throw ideas up on the whiteboard. But it's just like, you know, the, you know, the benefit of that is just like it is a, it's a refining process. And they're, you know, but then, you know, they're also like, I have watched closely and from afar,

the opposite of the positive refining process that thankfully I haven't sort of been wrapped up in as much, but it is the, like, you know, you can see the long road. You can see the version where sometimes it's like, you sell your idea and then you kind of realize that the person that you sold it to is just like, they were trying to sell your idea to an even bigger company and then they're going to try to sell their idea to a bigger company. And it's just like, it's all about like moving, moving like, you know, a pool of money around

in a circle. It turns into the league of extraordinary gentlemen situation. And the real thing is, is that it's like the, this is part of why I wanted to, you know, like have my own company and have a bit more of a hand in controlling it, because I want to find the partners that actually want to make things like that's the, you know, and where possible, I would just want to make it myself. And you know, and that requires a lot of like a lot of relationships. It's all, it's all people, like everything's people.

But I mean, comics is all people too. And it's just like, I mean, everything is all people. That's the, one of the secrets of the world is you just have to be good at having a conversation is sort of how you get things done. And thankfully I've had a lot of practice now. And hopefully, and hopefully I can put my money where my mouth is. And it's just like,

and actually bring one of these projects to life in another medium. But it's an exciting fun, like it's a fun game. But like, I always, when I make something as a comic, it's just like the comic itself is like, it's the full entity of what I'm intending to create. And then it's like, when I talk to people who are adapting my work, it's just like, I always want to be like, take the beating heart of this, and then build something new around

the beating heart. I don't want a direct adaptation. I want you to take the best ideas of this and then make something really, really good. Because it's just like, I think you can, you know, I think that the core concept can be approached from so many different angles. And, you know, and like, and on top of that, we've seen so many kind of like a lackluster, direct adaptation of a thing. And it's just like, I'm not interested in that's very cool. You man to to let people have fun with your work. Yeah. That takes a lot of, I don't know, courage.

Yeah. And faith in yourself. Ask me again in like 15 years after I see a few people do it wrong and then I'll be like, no, direct that. Every line of dialogue from the comic, like direct people can scream. Well, the storyboard's done. Like you just fire that guy. He's saving money. There we go.

Well, James, thank you so much for joining us today, man. It's always a pleasure to talk. Yeah, it's great, great, great to be here. I'm, you know, I'm super, super honored to be able to talk about all of these projects with you guys. And I'm excited about everything to come. Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And I hear Department of Truth coming back soon.

Yeah. No, we so like I couldn't skip an election year with Department of Truth. Like this is the exact moment the country is going to be messed up in the exact way that I'm talking about in this book. But so Martin and I finished the interior art on Dracula and Martin has dived directly into the next issue of Department of Truth. We are going back like strong. The next three issues, I've called that mini arc, Dallas 1963.

Yeah, yeah. We're going right back to the core of it. And like we're leaning right into Lee Harvey Oswald and, uh, yeah, like the, the birth of like what American conspiracy really is all about. It all starts in that, and you know, 11, 22, 63. Man, the end of that first issue of department of truth, man, when you fucking make that reveal, I was like, when you thought of that, do you just like start masturbating? No, that was at that moment with it. This is like, hi, I'm Lee Harvey. Like that was one of the very few moments I was reading a comic book and I out loud went,. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm fucking in.

All right. But yeah, department of truth. The trades are out in the stores. If you're last podcast on the left fan, it's like, you know, I've been saying it for years now. If you're a fan of the show, you're going to be a fan of department of truth. It's going to blow your fucking mind. And of course, you know, blue book, you can read the Betty and Barney Hills series. I think is that out in a, is there a trade out yet? There's a trade out for Betty and Barney Hill. That series is great as well. And go pick up a blue book 1947 and go to your local comic book store and buy these fucking books. Find your local comic book store and go buy all of the shit every time you buy a comic book, buy it from

a comic book store buy it from a comic book store. And if they don't have it, ask them to order it. And if they give you shit, go to a different comic book store. Yeah, man. They're very friendly. The one by me, they order whenever I went in there looking for a operation sunshine. They didn't have it. They wouldn't call the bunch of other comic book stores, went and got it for me. I was so impressed. Yeah. Which, which stores that collectors paradise collectors paradise is great. My, my, my local store, my store is that? It's the Three Collectors Paradise. Yeah, Collectors Paradise is great. My local store, my store is Earth 2.

We got, there's some great stores out here in Los Angeles. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was very nice to meet you, buddy. Nice to meet you too, man. Oh yeah. Goodbye, everybody. Bye. This show is made possible by listeners like you.

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