WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 619 - Robert Kirkman / Bob Fingerman

Episode Date: July 12, 2015

The Walking Dead creator and writer Robert Kirkman gives Marc a crash course in the comic book industry and explains how he got started in the business by self-publishing out of his home in Kentucky. Plus, Marc's old buddy Bob Fingerman heralds the return of his comic series Minimum Wage which features an illustrated version of Marc Maron. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what the fuckadelics what the fuckleberry thins i am mark maron this is wtf thank you Thank you for hanging out. Thanks for listening.

Hello to you wherever you are. Running. Keep running. Keep running. You'll get there. You'll become exactly the person you want to be soon. It's going to happen. You'll be perfect. Everything will be in working order. You will be a machine. A machine. An efficient machine that will never die. All right. Well, wait, that last part, that's a little crazy, but you'll feel better and it's good for you. It's good for your heart. Why am I not doing it? I'm in a hotel in Portland, Oregon. Had some great shows. Me and the authentic character, Dean Del Rey, ripped it up here at the Aladdin Theater and at Revolution Hall, which is another venue.

Two different venues, two sold-out shows. Killer, as Dean would say. Today is a comic book-themed show. Can we say that? I believe it is. I believe it is. I'm going to spend a few minutes with Bob Fingerman because he's got the new edition of Minimum Wage, his comic. It's available from Image Comics, and I'm in it.

I got a little story arc in there from the old days from back in the day yeah and then i'm going to talk to uh to robert kirkman uh who you know probably as the writer and creator of the walking dead along with artist tony moore uh and these are these are comic guys and i'm sort of a fake comic guy i'll explain that in a minute but let's get back to the residence inn and what it means to me as a human being since I'm talking about the depth of things affecting me. So I could have stayed at the place

with the new mod look, some interesting bath products from a relatively expensive provider that perhaps uses local ingredients or whatnot. But nope, I'm at the residence. And quite honestly, I was excited that they had Paul Mitchell products because quite honestly, I have not used a Paul Mitchell product since I was in high school. So it was like washing my hair and going back in time. Perhaps I'm just getting too nostalgic. But that a Wapahay shampoo, if you haven't used it since you thought it was a big

deal 20 years ago, it's sort of like, I remember this smell. The amazing thing about the courtyard is that, you know, you go down, you got the free breakfast and that's the big pitch. You know what I mean? That's the thing that makes you want it. Hey, you get up, you get free breakfast buffet from six to nine on weekdays, six to ten on weekends. And you get all that shitty food and the waffle maker. I know I've hung, I've gotten hung up on the waffle maker, but this one is packed.

So you get a nice weird sort of slice of America down there, just packed with people of all kinds, families. It's right across the street from, I think a fairly major hospital. So you get the, you get sick people, you get dying people,

you get people at all different phases of life eating crappy food. And if that isn't America, I don't know what it is. And hey, I'm not above it. I'm not judging. Yeah, as you know, I have, you know, I do the waffle thing occasionally. And I'll admit, I'll admit, I've done biscuits and gravy. I've done biscuits and gravy at a residence in and there's no way that shit can be good. No way. But I've done it. i don't feel good about it but i've done it so that's what's going on here in portland i didn't have the full portland experience because i i wanted to stay grounded in in in what you know not in in the the antithesis of hipster

which is the breakfast buffet at the residence in and marry So comic books, what's my experience? You know, what is my experience? I came late. I'm always, I don't know if you've started to realize this about me. I'm always pretty late to the party by, by sometimes decades, but I don't believe there is a late to the party anymore. I believe in the world we live in. Even when people say, you know, I just started listening to your show. I'm late to the party. I'm like, not really. They're all there. You can get them all. So how late are you? You're probably better off late to the party because then you can really appreciate it as opposed to being caught up in the momentum of being at the party. Sometimes, you know, after the party's over or where it's nearly over, you know, you can really sort of see how it played out, whether the party

was bullshit or not. So being late to the party sometimes means that, you know, if you're late and the party's still going on, maybe that was a pretty good party. But there was a period, I guess it was probably 88, 89, when I was living in an attic in Somerville, a blue attic, someone had painted blue. I left it blue blue couldn't stand up fully in that room and somehow or another it my time there sort of uh coincided with um with the release of Hellblazer and Sandman which were you know just comics and I was not a comic book guy really I never was in my youth I never was a Marvel Universe or DC guy I I'd read some underground comic books, which I enjoyed. But really, my portal in was Hellblazer. And the reason that Hellblazer resonated with me so deeply

was because at that time, I was still sort of coming off of drugs. I was still slightly psychotic and paranoid from cocaine, even though I was sober at that time for about a year and a half, but my brain was jarred. So when I read Hellblazer with John Constantine, I actually related to him. I was like, him and I are in similar situations. We're picking up a lot of mystical vibes. We're reading the signs. We're putting shit together. We have a purpose here that we've been designated by a lot of forces that we might not quite understand but with some basic magic we can harness this shit and and help people out maybe do some good in the world or at least know the fucking truth of what is happening so I was a kindred spirit with John Constantine in my fucked up brain so that's how that played out and then I got into

Sandman through that and then Swamp Thing you know you know, backloaded in, I think, through Hellblazer. And then I started reading some of the underground stuff, some of the Charles Burns stuff, some of the Klaus stuff, some of the Peter Bagg stuff. And I always was really into Crumb, but it was always very specific to that stuff. But I never went full on. I did get into a pretty big Swamp Thing period where I was reading a lot of the Alan Moore, the old stuff. And then I'd read the comic novels. I'd read some of the Batman stuff, some of the new stuff.

I really, you know, either you've got a brain that fucking locks into the graphic novel. You don't, I read the watchman and I was late to the party when I read it. And then I read it again and I was even later to the party, but I got it more the second time I read it. Um,

and then I, I did go on a little bender, but it's one of those things, man, either you're going to commit your life to it, or you're just going to dally for a while and then know that you did. I'll read graphic novels on and off occasionally. I find that when I have the time to sit down and read anything, if I lock into a graphic novel, I can do it. Like, you know, Fingerman's Minimum Wage is a very personal, real story about him in New York and his wife.

And it was flattering for me to be part of that. But I didn't stick with it because it's a rabbit hole that never ends. You can be one of those people that goes down to the comic book store and picks up the 50 things that they pulled for you every week. I couldn't keep up with that. It was not something I wanted to do. I think I was more social. I enjoyed talking to people. I enjoyed going outside. It was not something I wanted to do. I think I was more social. I enjoyed talking to people. I enjoyed going outside.

It was not really my bag necessarily. But The Walking Dead, I got into those volumes. I haven't read them all, but Kirkman was interesting to talk to because I can talk to him about the business and a little bit with Fingerman as well because it is a business. I'm surprised how relatively easy it is to put your comic out into the world you know whether you know the distributor will pick it up it seems uh hit or miss but it seems like they're from what i understand from these

guys like if you get it out there you can get into stores whether people like it who the fuck knows but that's the same with anything in this culture right now you got a podcast all right uh put it up see what happens i'm in portland now but i was in new york a couple weeks ago and bob fingerman lives in new york and you know he had sent me a big stack of the comic books that i'm in and we talk to each other we've gone in and out you know he's annoyed me i've annoyed him and you know we we generally find a level uh at which we engage but uh i invited him up to talk a little bit about the the new edition of uh of the comic minimum wage which is bob's comic it's from image comics and i'm in it so that that was my my drive how am i not going to talk to bob about a comic book that he he so diligently did his homework to put me in. He researched how I was talking,

what I was looking like at that time. You can check it out. You can check out the book. This is my conversation with Bob Fingerman in New York City. almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No. But moose head? Yes. Because that's alcohol, and we deliver that too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, groceries, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA.

And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary. From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people, and better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. pick up that mic fingerman we'll pick up this mic there you go see how's that feel pretty good oh right so this is it minimum wage is back after how many years hiatus 15 that's crazy that is crazy and not now and one more year on hiatus and it could have gotten a driver's license yeah or you don't or yeah, it's like your kid. It's kind of like your kid. You don't have a kid.

Oh, this is so much better than having a kid. Yeah. If there's one thing I think you and I can high five on, it's the decision to not have a kid. Yeah, I mean, I never know. There's always the outside chance that it'll happen. Well, that's true. Yeah. I surgically took care of that.

Really? Best money. Well, yeah. yeah i mean think of it this way you can either always have that slight fretfulness every time you're being intimate saying is this the time is this the time or you just say you know i can do whatever i want teeny tiny at this point it's non-surgical you're listening to vasectomy talk yeah um but yeah i mean it I mean, I have some friends. I think a lot of guys get very squeamish about it. Yeah. And I mean, I have a friend who did it in the 70s. He's an older friend.

And that's like the old days where it was like, they're just going to yank all your stuff out. And it was horrific. Yeah. Horrific. Now, it's this, they call it non-incision the incision's so tiny there's no blood there's nothing it's like really it's like an elf you just sterilize yourself like that well not yourself you you go to a highly skilled professional but right that's

what i mean but that but it's not yeah painful i don't know i don't know if i'm ready to do that still rolling the dice man uh this is the only area where I get evangelical. Yeah. I'm going to testify and say, free yourself, liberate yourself, brother. The idea of the responsibility at this age is a little much. But you're baby, minimum wage comic. So now the characters are old. No, they're still young.

The last series was taking place when I was doing it, which was when I did the original run was in the mid-90s. Right. I didn't want to, when I came back to it 15 years later, make it 15 years later because I didn't want to do middle-aged Rob. I wanted to do still young Rob. Yeah. So this is your midlife crisis.

That's what this is. Well, it's his pre-midlife crisis. No, but instead of what you don't think is necessarily a great comic fodder. Oh, it wouldn't be. My life now would not be good comic fodder because I'm actually happy. So, you know, writing about, I mean, in the comic, Rob is freshly divorced at 25, which is something I was. I was freshly divorced at 25. So, you know, my feeling is if the character ever actually achieves a state of satisfaction,

who wants to read about that? Right. I guess so. I don't know. I was just reviewing the Times and the guy for the Brooklyn Opera House show. And the guy thought that I'd do okay happy. He was surprised, but I was funny happy. Oh, you can be funny happy,

but nobody wants to read about a character who's happy. No, there has to be some hammer has to come down. And besides, now I get to do, it's like the many, what was it called? The many loves of Dobie Gillis. I get to do the many failed, fucked up, you know, dating rituals of my character. Well, that's what I mean.

This is your midlife sort of adventure is writing about your past. I suppose so. Yeah. And how do I factor in? Well, you factor in as someone my character much admires. I can say he and I share, you know, we both share an affinity for comedy. And he responds to the uh earthy honesty of your right but isn't it isn't the story doesn't a friend take you to a comedy place or

well one of the failed girlfriends yeah he he's dating uh this ayn rand quoting tarot obsessed libertarian goth girl and he he takes her to see again when you're playing with mixing fact and fiction yeah uh you and i met when you were breaking in jerusalem syndrome yeah but i remember but at a certain point in that show where i was laughing louder than i think pretty much anyone else michelle kept i could at a certain point you can feel when someone's looking at you more than at the performer and i could feel michelle kept looking at me throughout that show and she at a certain point when the show was over she said you can't be friends with mark i said why and she said you have too much in common really that's always a problem she's like you're you're too similar so so there you go right but i like i like being i

like the uh that you you researched and you asked me for transcripts of things. And so your version of me is pretty spot on. I was desperately hoping you were going to have issues with it just so that I could say the script was punched up by Mark. Oh, damn it. There's me and we're driving in your car. Yeah. Did I drive you around? Yeah.

Yeah. There's a tell in Todd Berry. Yep. It's star studded for comedy nerds everywhere. You were kind of chubbier and a little more intense. I was. I don't remember that haircut, so that's a little different. I never had that.

Yeah, that's the character's haircut. Who could spout a fountain of hair like that? You got me pretty good. Almost. So you sort of kind of walked through a bit of the beginning of alternative comedy there. Yeah. Of, you know, whatever that was. But you didn't, Luna's not in there because that was before.

No. Yeah. No Luna, no Twinkle, none of those. Yeah, I missed that. I missed Twinkle. I wasn't here for that. Yeah. I kind of left.

So what do you've been, so what does a comic book artist do in hiatus? What have you been doing for 15 years? Well, I did a bunch more comics. But, I mean, you did the books. The books came out. I did books. Yeah, I wrote novels. Those are nice.

I wrote a bunch of novels. But Minimum Wage came out in a hardback bound, hardback version. Yeah. You know, I talked to Robert Kirkman, you know, the comic book guy. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we go way back. Do you? He used to send me fan mail.

That's how much uh the you know how much the tables have turned you should you should be writing about zombies not me well yeah maybe so yeah you're too i wrote a zombie novel for goodness sake which he which he very kindly blurbed that's nice you're too human yeah but uh he used to send me fan mail back i think when he worked in a light bulb warehouse. Yeah, he worked at a lighting place. He told me about that. Well, that's sweet. So the hope is that maybe you're going to get a TV thing happening with this cast of characters?

I hope so. I mean, you know, we gave it a run back when I was doing the first run in the 90s, but there was nothing like it on TV. It was just, you know, now I think there's things that actually tonally have a lot in common with it. I think it would be interesting if you could set it in that time. Yeah, that might be a sticking point. I think any time, even if you're making a period piece that's only in the year 2000, cost goes up. But we'll see.

By virtue of costuming? Costuming, yeah. Is that guy using the right cell phone? Yeah, I like that, though. You don't think you could do it? Well, I'll put it to you this way. I'm going to leave that to network execs. Really?

But it's not going to be a deal breaker. If they say, can you set it now? I'll say, yes, I absolutely can. But wouldn't the struggles be a little different? The struggles would be different, but the thing is there would always be struggles so the idea would be just to have uh you know young adults scrambling to put themselves together and figure out their way in the world right i think the only thing i'd really have trouble with if i made a contemporary would be do they have to be millennials because they would be just by virtue of their youth maybe you should fight for your vision bob let's get if you are correct you are correct sir

all right i can already start to be difficult even before the meetings tell them you want it to be in 1999 party like it's 1999 yes i think that'd be the whole catch to it now i'm fucking you up now i'm like you know i'm uh you're gonna be mad at. How fucked is it that 2000 is nostalgic? It's weird, right? It keeps getting closer. I mean, pretty soon last week will be nostalgic, which it sort of is. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if VH1's already done a week

of remember 2000. Remember last week? All right, buddy. So this is the third season? Second season. This is the second season. Second season featuring Marc Maron. Cameos by Todd Berry and Dave Attell.

Absolutely. What's the guy's name again? Rob Hoffman. Rob Hoffman. Bob Fingerman. All right, buddy. Well, where can people get him? At their local comic book shop, or they can get the trade paperback off Amazon or any

respectable or semi-respectable. I wrote the foreword to the trade paperback. You wrote the foreword for From the Ashes. From the Ashes. Damn it, man. You're too prolific. I'm doing my best. Thanks, man.

Thank you. So I'm in a comic. And that was Bob Fingerman. That's exciting. It's exciting. Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead. I don't know that i would have watched the walking dead or read the walking dead if it weren't for my ex-girlfriend and uh and i and look zombies are great how many zombies and how much zombie can we take as a culture time will tell but it doesn't seem like the zombies are

slowing down anytime soon okay so we're gonna go to the garage now for my interview with Robert Kirkman. But you should know that this is before he was scheduled to have throat surgery. And he's had throat surgery. It was nothing too serious, but it did cause him to miss Comic-Con. So, well, that's kind of serious that he missed Comic-Con. But what I'm saying is that the problem wasn't too serious and he's on the men so you're going to hear now the pre uh pre-surgery voice of robert kirkman and uh he's a humble guy and he's a good dude and and i enjoy talking to

him let's uh go now to them to the garage at the cat Ranch in the Hills of Highland Park to my conversation with Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, along with artist Tony Moore. Don't want to leave Tony out. You've protected your house. Protected. I think I have have but now i feel like talking about it on the podcast it's it's a challenge but uh when i was younger uh i was doing comics out of my house in kentucky and uh a guy just showed up at my door one day yeah and wanted to show me his uh comic book art yeah in the hopes that i would hire him and uh you know i was very nice to him i mean

it's it's pretty bold thing. I respect that. Yeah. But at the same time, I think I had ketchup on my shirt and I was eating hot dogs for lunch. And I was like, this is the weirdest thing in the world. So, I don't know. I'm always worried about people coming to my house and stealing my children. Yeah.

That's a concern. It's weird. You have to judge how someone's approaching you. it's weird it's it's uh you have to judge how someone's approaching you i i mean i always have that moment where you're like is this is this going to be the last encounter that i have is is this going to be my i do comic-con every year yeah and uh comic-con is amazing people always ask about comic-con and what's the weird thing that happened to you or what what's the weirdest person you've seen yeah kind of offends me a little bit you know, I kind of think Comic-Con is a little magical just because it's like, it's 200 people in the convention center,

but it's 500,000 people in that area of San Diego. It's crazy. And it's like very mellow, very peaceful. It's crowded. Yeah. But like, there's like a little bit of camaraderie and everybody's nice. But me and all my comic book professional buddies sit around and talk about like, when are we going to get stabbed?

You know, like when is that going to happen? Yeah. And there was this guy that came in my line like after he had had one of those conversations and he said, hey man, I brought you something. And he like reached down into his bag and he never broke eye contact. So he was like leaning down, looking at me with his hand like in his backpack. And I was like grabbing the table. This is it. I'm going to throw this table at him if he pulls out a gun.

And then am I going to run? He's going to shoot people. I don't want to George Costanza myself out of here and have people get shot. But all these thoughts are just running through my head. And then he had like a button or something. He was giving me. And I was like, oh, thanks. But for a minute I was terrified. Just absolutely terrified. But that's a weird moment because I've gone through Sure. And I was like, oh, thanks. But for a minute, I was terrified.

Just absolutely terrified. But that's a weird moment because I've gone through that too where you're like, I can't, I'm going to have to take the hit somehow. Like, you know what I mean? Because you don't want to look bad. I really don't want to get shot.

But, but, if people think I'm a hero, that'd be kind of cool. Right. I don't look like a puss. You know, just sort of like preemptively go, no! And the guy's just sort of like, here's a comic i want you to sign yeah i i have i've had that happen i had a guy attack me on stage really well he just he didn't seem to know that it was happening to him like he was possessed by something i pushed a button and you know and he reacted and then when i'm looking at him and he in my space, and we're in front of people,

I'm like, I'm going to have to take the hit because I'd look terrible if I just started running. Oh, interesting. It never crosses my mind that I could win or kick their ass. Yeah, yeah. You didn't think in that moment, I could take him out. No, no. You had the table planned. I was like, what level of death am I going to experience here?

Can I make this survivable? But no, the stand-up thing must be difficult because you get so personal and you're saying things. Working on Walking Dead and all of my writing, the thing that I like to think about the most is the fact that we never really see the same things that everybody else is seeing and we never really hear the same things that everybody else is hearing. I could say something to you and you could completely misconstrue it and misunderstand it, not because you're not following me or whatever, just because that's who you are and that's what you're thinking about at that time. Sure, you bring something to it.

And the stand-up thing, you're just cracking jokes just cracking jokes the next thing you know somebody takes it completely personally oh yeah that's terrifying but i imagine that uh people project i think part of people's reaction to anything you create is projection they're having their own relationship with the thing yeah so you know it's all open to misinterpretation but you do have a couple steps in between you the person yes and the guy who's going like, that's about me. Yeah, I'm in my cave, safe, working on the next one while they're wanting to murder me. So you grew up in Kentucky? I did, yeah.

And what part? I don't know nothing about Kentucky. Yeah, there's a lot to know. It's a cool place, but it is still Kentucky. It's a little quaint. I've learned not to condescend the American South. I enjoy it more and more every time I go there. It's a wonderful place that produces wonderful people,

but great people come from everywhere. Sure. Me, moving from Kentucky to L.A., I'm always a little annoyed when people are like, how did you do it? Right. Are you okay? Do you need help?

Yeah, right. Did something happen to your mind? Yeah, and I'm like, I don't know. The roads are wider. Yeah. And there's more people. Yeah. And I don't see a lot of horses.

I don't know. But the roads are wider, but you're not moving much on them. That's so true. How do you drive on those streets? And it's like, well, you're mostly parking. Yeah, very slowly. Very slowly. But I'm from Lexington, which is like the second biggest city.

Lexington? Yeah. I kind of know Lexington. I was there once. My buddy got married on a horse farm years ago. He married a woman who comes from horses or something. A lot of horses there, right? A lot of horses.

Yeah. A lot of horses. Like thoroughbred. There's horse breeding. Yeah. I mean, there's like sections where there's all the expensive farms that do the Kentucky Derby horses. Oh. But then you're just driving and it's like, hey, there's a sections where there's all the expensive farms that do the Kentucky Derby horses. But then you're just driving and it's like, hey, there's a guy over there that's got 12 horses.

Everyone's got horses. Not everyone, but a lot. Did you have horses? No. Did you ride horses? No. Never. Did you resent horses?

I've never fired a gun. I've never seen a horse race. I don't like University of Kentucky basketball. I'm almost not from Kentucky. What kind of work were your folks in? My mother was a homemaker. My father was a sheet metal fabricator. So he was like a welder.

Yeah. And he made duct work and cool stuff like that. The tubes, the giant tubes, the duct tubes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for like air conditioning. Yeah, yeah, our helmets. But he made all kinds of stuff. And when you were a kid, just put that joint. You know, I had, have you ever put one of those on?

The elbow of a duct on your head? That sounds dangerous. Well, it's a little dangerous, but you know, like, and I rarely have sci-fi fantasies of any kind. I don't, I'm not a sci-fi guy. So the duct bends around your head and you're looking out of it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a big duct.

It was a big duct and I was on mushrooms and it was in college and we were in a basement it's a long story you do yeah that's right look they're working on something but this could be anything and i put it on my head and i was a spaceman so that's my experience with science fiction right there what uh so experience when did you start uh doing the the comics mean, I was probably, I think I was in seventh grade. I started reading them. What did you read? What were the ones? Mostly Marvel stuff.

You're talking to a guy that knows very little. So, you know, mostly Marvel stuff, Spider-Man, X-Men, things like that. I know those. The only way I was capable of buying comics when I started reading comics was at Walmart. Yeah. The only way I was allowed, the only way I was capable of buying comics when I started reading comics was at Walmart. Yeah. So, because I was in a small town and there weren't like comic shops around or anything like that. And Walmart only sold Marvel comics. That was the deal.

Yeah. So there's like Marvel, which is like your X-Men, Spider-Man, stuff like that. And then there's DC, which is Superman, Batman, all that. So you were not involved in DC Universe at all? Yeah. I was like, as a kid, I was like was like, I don't really care for those guys because I don't have access to those comics. It wasn't anything personal.

You were alienated from an entire universe because of Walmart's commitment to Marvel. All of the ills that Walmart does to this world. Yeah, denied you the DC Universe. That's the highest one on my list. Not carrying a breadth of comics. The minimum wage, the people uh welfare working for them hey you know that's bad and all but uh i would have liked to have read batman as a kid where was superman for me exactly superman didn't come to

my house yeah but yeah i mean mostly that stuff mostly the superhero stuff and then as i got older you know i got a driver's license i was able to go you know actually find a comic shop and that's when i got into you know more of the independent stuff and you know things like image comics which is where i do my books now right stuff that was you know independently owned and a little bit less commercial and cooler yeah well i came into comics like i very late like uh i didn't grow up reading them but when i was in my jeez man 89 63 73 83 like in my late 20s early 30s somehow or another i got into alan moore's swamp thing right stuff right and then i got turned on to that guy and then i started reading hellblazer and sandman from the first

issues and then i entered there and then i started to sort of do some comics around that stuff. And then some, a lot of independent comics, but those are really the only two mainstream comics I got into. And the swamp thing, for some reason, swamp thing was, I don't know why it resonated so much with me. It's creepy. It's good stuff. But it's like that character out of all of them.

Like I could have at that age gone into superheroes, but I liked the, like, I liked the way swampy looked. I liked the whole, the whole angle of this. Well, I think the cool thing there is that, you know, you're in your mid-20s or so, and you read... A lot of people, I feel, think of comics, and they go, oh, it's superheroes. It's, you know, it's guys in underwear

busting holes in walls and, you know, fighting planets. But, you know, it's an entertainment medium, and you probably didn't go into the superhero stuff because you weren't 15 or 14 right whatever watch man i read that too someone gave me that and like yeah i got a couple boxes but uh but i think the cool thing about comics is that there's there's stuff out there for everybody yeah i think anyone out there who's like uh i'd never read a comic book like there's totally a comic out there for you that you would find like it'd be the coolest thing you've ever read. I wonder if some people can't sort of process how,

like, cause like when you read comics and you see the panels, like if you have a brain that just does it, like somehow resonates, it just connects like that. The words and pictures. I wonder if there's people out there. They're like,

nah, they're just like boxes. Well, there is a, I have a buddy that is smarter than me and so uh he said uh like you you process words with one part of your brain you process pictures with another part of your brain and sound and so when you're watching a movie you're using a part of your brain and if you're you know reading a book you're reading a part of your brain and comics is really the only

medium where those two parts of your brain have to work in tandem because you're processing pictures and words oh yeah and so some people like that sensation and some people don't well i when i do it i i don't know how much i notice things like i'll read you know quickly sometimes because i want to get to the next thing but i don't study the panels that much well that's one of my favorite things about the medium yeah is because it's the only storytelling medium really where your experience is really really dictated by how you read it yeah uh you're as a reader really in control of you know pacing and the way the dialogue is read and just you know the the all kinds of different things that factor in you know when you're reading a novel you know you read the words and you only get the picture of what's happening as you read the words.

And, you know, everything is controlled with television and movies. But, you know, I can read a comic and you can read a comic and we can talk about it afterwards and get a completely different experience, you know, from it, which is kind of awesome. It is awesome.

And also, you know, if you want to focus in on faces or like little nuances of movement and expression, because a lot of times that shit just blows by me until i go back and look at it yeah i know a lot of people do that they'll read it once real quick yeah three minutes yeah they'll go back and be like oh that's pretty cool i didn't notice that yeah yeah yeah yeah because you want to get to the story yeah so all right so you're sitting around now are you you got brothers and sisters i have a brother and sister yeah yeah. Older? Younger.

Oh, really? Yeah, my wife and I both have siblings that are much younger than us. Much younger. Yeah, so my brother is five years younger than me. My sister is 11 years younger than me. Oh, my God. I'm not good with numbers. And then my wife has a brother that is 11 years younger than his sister that's like 14 years younger. So you only

had a like a how's the did you have a relationship with them growing up kind of or i mean i i feel like i have pretty good relationship with my siblings but there is definitely a distance there because i was so much older than them right i mean my brother's only five years younger than me but uh one of the big things was uh when i was when i graduated high school i didn't go to college and my parents came to me the the year i was I graduated high school, I didn't go to college. And my parents came to me the year I was graduating from high school. And they were like, hey, so we're moving to Florida. And you can come with us if you want. Or you've got a year to get a job and move out.

And you can stay in Kentucky if you want. So just wanted to give you a heads up. We're taking off. Yeah. And I had a girlfriend at the time and had lived in Kentucky my whole life. And I had gone to Florida because that's where our family was from. What part? Grandparents and stuff.

I call it Alabama, Florida. Yeah. It's like the central. Oh, central. Like north of Tampa. I call it Alabama, Florida affectionately. Yeah. There's a lot of Bigfoot trucks and rebel flags.

Florida is very rich. A lot of people picture Miami and beaches. It's culturally eccentric is, I think, a diplomatic way to say it. But I got a job and moved out. What was your job? I worked at a lighting place. So they sold uh light bulbs and light fixtures and so just a job for houses you weren't invested in it no it wasn't i mean

i started uh publishing comics at the same time this is right after high school yeah i was like 20 yeah and so uh i had a i had worked my way up at the lighting place until I was a purchasing agent, which meant you looked at a list of items and you looked at a list of how fast those items sold. And you did the math on how quickly they were going to sell out. And then you ordered new stuff. Yeah. And so it was a pretty simple job. And so I basically would just like run up long distance bills, talking to the printer in Canada, doing my comic stuff. Yeah.

I really should pay that company back the money i technically stole from them on the phone but yeah i'm just you know i mean i did a lot of work yeah on the publishing company in my office at kentucky lighting and supply if you are in kentucky and you need light fixtures or anything please go to kentucky lighting and supply they have the best customer service, excellent products, and I owe them. Oh, there you go. I think you just made your amends. You paid your debt. Great.

Well, it sounds like it wasn't that challenging a job. It gave you some time. Yeah, it was all right. It was all right. So you were moving to an apartment where your girlfriend had rented a house or what? I actually bought a house. Really? Because houses are very cheap in Kentucky.

So I bought a- house. Really? Because houses are very cheap in Kentucky. So I bought a- From lighting money? No. Well, yeah, I worked there for a year and saved up a down payment of like five grand. Wow. And then I bought a $55,000 house. And then how big of a house is that? It was 1,000 square feet.

Yeah? So like a one bedroom? Yeah, yeah. Oh. And you said- Well, it was two little bedrooms. Oh. Do you still have that house?

No, no. No, but I created Walking Dead in that house. You did? Yeah. Oh, and you said... Well, it was two little bedrooms. Oh, do you still have that house? No, no. No, but I created Walking Dead in that house. You did? Yeah. When you were younger, were comics, did they function as a salvation for you? Were you socially kind of like awkward and like disengaged from the rest of reality? I mean, sure, of course. Who were you in high school?

Where did you... Were you... What were you doing? Well, I mean you were you uh what were you doing well i mean i you know i had long hair and i listened to nirvana and all right you know stuff like that so you weren't socially uh you weren't uh i wasn't completely socially inept i had friends and stuff but i lived really far out in the country and so when i wasn't at school i didn't really have access to other people and you didn't shoot a gun and i never shot a gun now really and not one of your friends was like let's go shoot my dad's gun no i mean i

as a child i think my great strength was that my parents would say uh don't do this it's dangerous yeah and in my head i would say i'm not going to do that because it's dangerous and then i would never do it so yeah if a friend of mine was like hey i got a gun you want to go shoot it i'd be like i'm going to go home now yeah yeah scary scary gun pretty much but yeah it's the country and i mean i grew up in new mexico which is not exactly rural but you know what were you out doing knocking mailboxes off with a bat i was reading comics you weren't but no destruction no going out into the world and taking that nerd anger out on inanimate objects? No, no, no. I was a completely boring kid.

I mean, I would play basketball terribly. There was like a church down the street out in the country that had a basketball hoop. And so you could go there and get picked on by older kids. So I was like, I want to go play basketball and have fun. But there's a kid there that's going to show up at some point. If I'm there for 45 minutes, at some point during that time period, he's going to come there and he's going to be mean to me. So I don't know.

I've got to weigh my options here. I think I'll just read X-Men again. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I'll just read X-Men at the basketball court, and then you really take some shit. But so, okay. So you start drawing comics, reading them in seventh grade when do you start noodling you're doodling well i mean i i you know you any comic book reader that you know

likes to draw is going to be copying sure you know like copying stuff exactly and being like hey i'm a good artist i looked at this guy's thing and i tried to recreate every line exactly that's art right i actually strive to be a comic book artist very early on, and then I realized that I wasn't very good. You don't have the chops. Yeah. Well, so just reading comics, I ended up working at a comic shop. After I'd worked there for a while, this guy I met in seventh grade.

Who? Tony Moore. Yeah. Worked on Walking Dead and did a bunch of stuff with me early on. Yeah, he sent me some stuff. Yeah, I think he did some drawings for you. Yeah, yeah, he did for the IFC show. They were great.

So you met him in seventh grade? Yeah, I met him in seventh grade and I met my wife in seventh grade. The wife you're with. Yeah. That's loyalty. It's pretty weird. So you and Tony would read comics together and go to the comic book store together and that kind of stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we always wanted to do that kind of stuff. Yeah. And then after high school, we kept in touch, but we didn't really see each other all that often. So I wanted to do comics. You wanted to draw. And I knew he was really good, but he was still in college and doing stuff. You didn't go to college. Didn't go to draw and i knew he was really good but the but he was like still in college and like doing stuff you didn't go to college didn't go to college but was he drawing i'm an idiot yeah he was you know going to art college and all that kind of stuff and so uh i mean we would see each other frequently but it's not like we were like hanging out doing comics all

the time and so i basically the first comic i did i tried to draw myself yeah and uh and it didn't work which comic was that? Well, it was a wrestling comic book called Between the Ropes. Uh-huh. And it was horribly drawn. What was the angle? The angle was, no one ever does a comic about wrestlers' lives outside of the ring. Right.

And so it was about them reading scripts and discussing who's going to win and all the politics that went on behind the scenes. Were you a big wrestling fan? I wasn't, but wrestling was very popular at the time. And so I liked wrestling as a kid, but I'd kind of fallen out of it. And, you know, coming out and like doing comics, I wanted to do something that would like, you know, have an audience or, you know, get my foot in the door. And so I was just striving to make like, make sure that, you know, it was interesting to me, like, going through and doing the behind-the-scenes stuff,

but it was basically a blatant, like, hey, wrestling's really popular, and I can do this, and maybe wrestling fans will buy this. Yeah. Because there were a lot of wrestling comics at the time, but they would basically take The Undertaker and turn him into a superhero. Right. And it was like, there's no wrestling in that comic. Right. I don't know why. there's no wrestling in that comic right why there's no humaneness yeah it's like I

don't know why people that enjoy wrestling yeah necessarily read that comic and so that was my angle but I drew it and it was horrible and I submitted it to our distributor and they sent this nice letter back that was like we've we've deemed our committee has deemed that this book is not of professional quality. And I got that letter and I was, it's probably the most devastated I've been in my career. I was pretty upset.

So you're working at the comic book store and you sent it to the distributor that you were dealing with? Yeah, yeah, that's how I learned the ins and outs of like where comics come from, how babies are made. Right. You just sent it to the distributor.

Well, that's how you do it. You, you, you know, you make a product and you send it to the distributor and they'll decide whether or not they'll distribute it. But so that you, your plan was to hand publish it to self publish. Yeah. Like a certain number of copies. Yeah. So you would take care of the printing and everything else.

Yeah. And that's, oh, so that's what you learned at the store was that like, don't need to be marvel you don't need to be you could why not if you yeah i mean it was the nuts and bolts of it were kind of insane i mean i don't want to get too inside baseball but do it you could basically take like 1200 bucks and like the company that i worked at kentucky lighting and supply really loved having their employees uh have a reason to keep working for them yeah so they would give you small loans okay and so i could go to them and be like can you loan me 1200 bucks i gotta print this comic did you do that yeah and they would be like sure here you go you can pay us back in a

year uh that's when i started as soon as between the ropes was turned down that's when i went to tony moore and we did battle pope yeah battle, Battle Pope. That's the fallen pope superhero. Yeah, that's my first published comic. Again, I was like, hey, you know what? No one cares about me. No one cares about Tony. No one has to read a book by us. I need to do something that's going to get noticed.

I need to do something. And I felt like, you know, if I heard about a book called Battle Pope, I would want to know more about it. Yeah. So that was my angle. So you guys, you storyboarded it? Is what you do how do you work how does the process work battle was weird because i didn't even know how to how to write you know yeah because uh i didn't write scripts i basically drew the pages you mean like storyboards yeah i drew layouts in like a really terrible form, and then I gave those to Tony,

and he would like turn them into comic book pages. Okay, but you wrote the dialogue. Yeah, yeah. I would basically like draw the comic, write the word balloons, and then give that to him, and he would draw a better version of the comic, and then I'd make better versions of the word balloons,

and then publish it. Were you guys having fun? Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So how many did you do before you, how many did you make with the 1,200, just the first one? Yeah, you just do one. And the way that would work is I would borrow the, I mean, it was kind of easy because the distributor would tell you how many books were pre-sold before you made them. So I could go, okay, they ordered 800 copies.

800 copies is going to make me $1,300. It's going to cost me $1,200 to print 2,000 copies and you can't really print lower than that. So I'd borrow $1,200, give it to the printer. They'd print it. Distributor would send me 1,300 bucks. I'd pay the loan off. I have $100. And you and Tony had 50 bucks a piece. Yeah. I mean, I had a job and Tony was like working at college. So in the early days, most of the time I would just give him. Drawing the book was a lot more difficult than what I was doing, so I would just give him the money.

That was nice of you. It was $100. How many of those did you do? We ended up doing, I don't even remember now. I feel terrible. 12 or 13. They sold? It was actually pretty good. I mean, the average book in the back of that catalog would sell, I want to say, 600 copies or 800 copies.

In the back of what catalog? The big distributors catalog. There's only one distributor in comics. So in comics, everybody knows the distributor in the catalog. It's one place. What's it called? Diamond Comic Distributors. They're it.

Fantastic company. I have to say that because they're the only show in town. But they actually are pretty good and they'll take anything that they deem that they can sell right so any so they distribute marvel's books right images books all the big companies all the little companies people that are making comics out of their basement now by the how old are you you're younger than me i'm 36 so, like, it seems to me that there was a time where comics sort of took a turn. And it's in our lifetime, where, like, they were kind of a, not a dead medium, but not a huge medium. And then all of a sudden now they dictate contemporary culture exclusively. It's pretty nice.

It's good for someone in my position. Do you have any sense of when that happened? I mean, do you think about that? I mean, I don't know. I think it's a lot of things, but I think that historically, comic book adaptations had always been a movie studio or a television studio or somebody.

Yeah. Like the 70s Incredible Hulk or, you know, the Superman, Batman movies, stuff like that, where they would say, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah here's this stupid comic now i'm gonna get a real screenwriter in here and a real director and great actors and we're gonna make a great movie that you know kind of does something with that comic but we're gonna make it better because that comic is a piece of shit yeah and we don't respect it and i think

somewhere in the late 90s or so when like brian singer made the X-Men and Sam Raimi made Spider-Man, there were actually people that had an affinity for these characters and affinity for the origins and like actually liked comics and respected it as a medium and actually started like adapting the comics in not 100% accurate ways. And there are definitely shortcomings here and there. Yeah, like what? Oh, you know, like, I don't know. Yeah, what's your beef? You don't need to give an X-Men, whatever. i won't hear it just tell me tell me to put the x-men in leather suits uh you know i don't know there's certain things about those movies what kind of suits would they should whatever you know i'm not on this podcast to reveal how much of a

nerd i am no i what are you doing uh i don. Look, you obviously can't do spandex. It's going to look ridiculous. But I don't know. A little bit of color in there. You don't need everybody looking like a ninja. But that's just me. Hey, we're the X-Men. We all look the same.

You know, like those, everybody loves those Richard Donner Superman movies. Yeah. But he takes the emblem off his chest and he uses it like a throwing star. What are you doing? Yeah, it's like, why did that just happen? And I think that everybody that loves those movies,

they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that part was terrible, but everything else around it was great. And it's like, no, not really. There's like a part where he's flying with Lois and there's this horrible poem going on in her head and they're not talking. And it's like, are they speaking telepathically? Like, I don't know, it's just real terrible.

And the end of the first movie, which there's so many people that are like, oh, best superhero movie of all time. First Superman movie. Yeah. It's not. It's garbage. It's absolute garbage. This Superman flies backwards around the earth and changes its rotation.

Yeah. And time reverses. It doesn't even make sense. It's the dumbest thing ever. And the thing is, they're like, it's a comic book. Yeah. You know? Yeah, but it's not possible.

And that's what, you don't have to do that. So you have a problem with the logic because it doesn't even follow the logic of the story, the comic book. Right. And look, Superman comics from like the 30s and 40s, like he would eat a pill and have a lion head for an issue. Yeah. You know?

And it's like, oh, I gotta get rid of this lion head. You know? Like, they were pretty ridiculous. Yeah. I would rather see it's like, oh, I gotta get rid of this lion head. You know, like, they were pretty ridiculous, but... Yeah, I would rather see that. Like, you couldn't argue with that. I really would. If they took a story from the old ones, he takes a pill and he's got a lion's head,

that's the whole story. How do I get rid of this lion's head? You couldn't argue with it. I want to see Zack Snyder do that with the Superman movie that happens after Superman versus Batman. I want that to be. Henry Cavill takes a pill, and he's got a lion head for the movie,

and it's just him hanging out with Lois, trying not to bite her, going, I'm going to get rid of this lion head. And no nerd could argue with him. It's like, that's the story. It's the original story. It'd be so good. Well, I wish that I was, I don't know if it's time or what. I think if I sat down and watched those movies, I mean, they're compelling. And I loved the Hellblazer stuff.

I guess superheroes weren't really my bag, but John Constantine was kind of a superhero in his weird way. Yeah, I mean, that kind of goes back to my point of there's so much in comics that people aren't didn't love the movie recognizing like road to perdition ghost world constantine these are comic book movies they're not superhero movies well you know robert williams the artist the painter do you know his stuff he you know he sort of makes an argument that you know comics are the most popular art form and have been since ancient egypt like he'll go go back to you know, the hieroglyphics. It's like comics, you know, that pictorial representation in a very basic way is more art-wise has been around communicating to people since the beginning of communication. To sort of justify the language of pictures as in the history of art. I mean, comics have been around forever in a way.

I mean, you know, they're definitely, you know, cave paintings that show sequences of things and that's technically comics. Yeah, I think that, you know, cave paintings that show sequences of things. And that's technically comics. Yeah, I think that's right. The cave paintings were comics. That's right. We said it here. So...

And if you adapt those cave paintings, don't have somebody fly around the planet in River's time. No, not at all. By the way, I'm going to get so much shit for bagging on that Superman movie.

You are? Oh, I can't wait. Really? I'm sure. Like, from what? You traitor. How dare you? There's different camps? I'm sure. Like, from what? You traitor. How dare you? There's different camps?

I'm sure. But wait, you're talking about ones you saw when you were a child. Yeah. Those are old ones. They're old. And they're still the people that are hanging on. Hey, Richard Donner went on to do those Lethal Weapon movies. I don't mean to criticize.

Yeah. He's definitely a fantastic director. Oh, no, yeah. 16 blocks. I'm too old for this shit. Remember? That's him. Yeah.

So, what's the name of your first comic book label funko tron funko tron where'd you come up with that just out of nowhere i a buddy of ours in high school had done this sculpture of a like robot head called the he called the funko tronic jive head yeah and we were just sitting around spitballing yeah like oh what are we what are we doing what are we going to call this stupid comic book company and uh and i was like i always liked the name of that sculpture that jason did what if you call the company funkatron and that was it and that was primarily for battle pope yeah i ended up publishing some other books but you know which i did an anthology called ink punks another anthology called double take and, another anthology called Double Take. And, you know, a couple of things here and there.

Are these big collectors things now? No, I mean, I don't know. I don't think people even know they exist. Oh, really? So if you're listening, please buy them on eBay so that the value will go up because I still have boxes and boxes of these books. All of them? Yeah. Battle Pope? Well, I'm a pack rat.

yeah battle pope well i i'm a pack rat and so early on in my career i was like i've got to make sure that i have enough of these comics so that my grandkids and my grandkids grandkids always have access to these wonderful works of art that i whatever yeah and uh and so i i think i got like 2 000 copies you know and i would sell them at trade shows and stuff but but i would maybe maybe a thousand i don't know i'm a little little exaggerating yeah i'd print three thousand sell like eighteen hundred twenty five hundred or so and then keep the rest and and they're just collecting dust but the funny thing is i have kids now and they could not be less interested in what i'm doing so like how old are they nine and six but but they're like oh yeah you do that yeah it's just normal to them so like me growing up with a father that like you know did sheet metal and yeah welding and stuff i'm like i make

comics my kids are gonna be so excited about the fact that i make comics and i work on tv and it's so neat yeah and and like i'm on like a talk show or something like i was on conan o'brien once and i'm like kids come in here look your dad's on tv and they're so young that they're like i guess everyone's father is on tv right they i don't care why is it special i'm playing yeah it's about me yeah yeah but they don't like comic stuff uh my my son reads my daughter's a little young to get into it she's six yeah but my son my son reads comics that i didn't do that's probably gonna go on for a while. There's a great comic from Scholastic called Amulet, and it's very appropriate for his age and kind of geared to him. And he's got like all six volumes of that book and keeps asking me, when's volume seven coming out?

When's volume seven? He's in. It's genetic. And meanwhile, when he was like four, my daughter was a baby. when he was like four my daughter was a baby i was like i do walking dead and outcast and all this stupid stuff that kids my kids aren't going to be able to even watch until they're like 16 so i'm going to do something and so i got with this artist buddy jason howard and we created this thing called super dinosaur yeah because he had kids too and we were also doing a horror book at the time and so super dinosaur is a is a genetically altered nine

foot tyrannosaurus rex that's got uh like giant robotic people arms that he operates with little joysticks yeah and uh he's got this little buddy named uh derrick yeah that's like six or eight or i don't remember and they they fight they fight bad guys together and uh and i did it specifically for my kids yeah just and I have four volumes of that book and I can't get them to crack the cover. Won't even look at it. They know I'm involved, so it's not cool. Did his kids like it?

Yeah, his kids actually enjoy it. He probably raised his kids better than I do. Were they available to the public? Did you publish them? Oh, yeah, yeah. Did they do all right? They did okay. They did okay.

Yeah, I ended up just putting it on hiatus for a while to focus on other stuff because there's only so much time in the day, but I plan to get back to it eventually. Oh, good. All right, so now let's get, so you got Funkotron, is that what it is? Funkotron? That's it. Comics. That's up and going.

You've made $200. Every now and then I'd make three. $300 in your one bedroom house in kentucky you and tony are brainstorming drugs involved weed no again my parents were like yeah you probably shouldn't do that and i was like okay a few beers nope nothing no i'm i'm i'm almost a puritan but not really really. Okay. Religious person? No. No?

All right. So you're just there sitting. Yeah. Thinking about... I'm sorry that there's absolutely nothing interesting about me. I apologize. No, no. Your imagination is profoundly interesting.

I mean, obviously that's what gets you off, right? Yeah. So how does Walking Dead happen? Because I have the first batch of books because i was dating a woman who was crazy for him and she you're not watching smart woman yeah she loved him and we watched the walking dead together first few seasons i have not checked in but i saw that episode of your show that's right we did that yeah that's exactly sort of what happened but um but did that offend you? No, not at all.

No, I think that stuff's great. Yeah. Please. They told me, I don't know if this is still true, but they were like, you don't want to be on that podcast. And I was like, I don't, it's like Walking Dead. And they're like, yeah, yeah, I don't think he's watched it or he doesn't want, he thinks it's stupid or whatever.

And I was like, that's awesome. I'll do the podcast. But I don't know if they even did this, but I was like, I i'll do the podcast but you have to tell him or tell them to tell him or whoever i don't know who's then we can't talk about walking dead at all yeah no i said i said just don't let him do any research right i think that's i think it's great i don't rarely i rarely do so you were right on target for me to make so you still have not watched the walking dead no no no i did watch it that was a that that I did watch it. That was more the character. Because that really depicted right when it started.

But eventually- No, but you said things on that show. Right. And I thought they were real. Yeah. Let me teach you a lesson about how entertainment works. It looks like people. You're telling me the things that those people were doing?

I saw it happening. Yeah. So how could it not be real? you're telling me the things that those people were doing sometimes i saw it happening yeah so how could it how could it not be real i think those conversations happened initially but i did begin to watch it with her and i got into it and i followed it uh for a while but it didn't like in the comics i read the first few uh i don't remember how many i read but i i did enjoy what i watched well that's nice and i'm you know I'm not being diplomatic. I liked it, and I enjoyed, like I was compelled by the story, but I couldn't keep up.

It's like maybe someday I'll watch them all, but you're never going to stop making them, right? It's going to go on forever. Did you have to give us permission? Was that you? Did you have to give us permission to do The Walking Dead? To shoot on there?

It definitely was not me. It was AMC. AMC owns IFC. I'm sure it was a very... It wasn't as easy. It wasn't as easy as you thought. Really? Yeah.

All right, so how does it come about? You know, I was watching a lot of... I was not allowed to watch horror films. When you were a kid? When I was a kid. Why? Very protected child. I don't know.

They said it would scare me. Oh. So every Halloween, I was allowed to watch one horror film. Yeah. It was like a Halloween celebration. I ended up watching Hellraiser every year. Hellraiser.

Yeah. The one with the guy with the pins in his face? Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so I never got to watch the Romero zombie films. Yeah. So I didn't watch them until I was like 18, 19, was you know living in that house and my parents had left me alone in kentucky and moved down to florida uh and so uh i really got into them and

i really you know i started watching more and more zombie films i got into like the lucio fulci stuff and uh you know he's an italian director uh that's done a bunch of zombie film zombie movies and you know and i loved them but i was like you know at the end of the day like what are these people doing like you know the zombies attack they run away from the zombies and at the end of the movie they either all die or they ride off into the sunset and like i don't know what happens next and there was never any kind of zombie series book series like how do we live with the zombies yeah like like they never solve it right at the end of

every movie they're like well the world's covered in zombies and we're out of time so see you later folks yeah uh and so i was like like how do you continue to like find food and shelter and protect your loved ones and live for years and years and years with this ongoing civilization right uh and and i was like and how does that like affect you you know like the weak people becoming strong and strong people becoming weak and sane people becoming insane and like just the the kind of transformation that you'd be able to you know like play with and yeah you know work with-wise and that kind of a story. You're not going to solve the problem, though, are you?

The zombie problem. Maybe. You never know. I mean, the goal, look, exclusive to the What the Fuck podcast, I do hope that The Walking Dead goes on long enough that when it ends, they're like, good thing we took care of those zombies, you know? You hope that the humanity perseveres? Yeah, I mean, people talk about how Walking Dead's very bleak.

And if you take a certain cross-section of the story, you know, yeah, it's horrible. People are getting their loved ones eaten and they're having a horrible time. And they turn into zombies. Yeah, but I see the story, you know, from beginning to end like over many many years and so i think it's a very hopeful story about uh humanity overcoming this insurmountable uh

apocalyptic situation so okay it's just gonna take them a long time to do it for as as long as they want another season yeah well look amc's a very popular show. Yeah. And they seem to want it to go for 50 seasons. Yeah. And it may go for 50 seasons. Right. But, you know, there is definitely an end point at some point. Right. I think that the popularity of the show, to me, is just, it's like, wait a minute, we're actually going to get to do this?

Yeah. Because the idea is, yeah, like this story that's like longer than it has any business of being. But, you know, it's that length and watching those characters evolve over that time that's going to be able to make it be this piece. That when it's all done, you look back on it and you're like, what the hell? Yeah. I thought they were just killing zombies. Right. There's totally like an arc here and there's like a thing going on. And I didn't think the story was about zombies. Right. There's totally like an arc here, and there's like a thing going on.

I didn't think the story was about this. Right. I knew pretty early on that there was some sort of episodic, that it was more about these people than it was about killing zombies. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely- And they could go on as long as the world turns, really. It could go on for 25, 30 years. Let's hope. Let's hope hope but let's all be on a season 16 yeah you know that's i'm not even gonna be watching the show that's when

you jump the shark that's where you see it happening season 16 no i'll be over oh yeah i'll be like oh is 17 out yet yeah yeah how's it going i don't care yeah i don't even get i don't even get tv on my boat. Yeah. I've transcended television. Exactly. This boat can fly. Has it become international yet? I haven't checked in with The Walking Dead.

Have we gone to other countries yet? Story-wise, no. But, I mean, it's very popular overseas as a show. No. When are you going to get them on a plane flying to... What's going on in Europe? I mean, those are all great questions, and we may eventually explore that. But to me, I don't know. It's about finding water.

It's about building a fence. You know, when you make it bigger. Right. That's when you run into problems. It gets less interesting to me. Sure. Well, I'd like to see what the, you know, I'd like to see what China looks like full of zombies. I'm sure if, you know, we're doing this Walking Dead spinoff,

and I'm sure if it does well, we'll do Walking Dead China eventually. But look, I have no... What's the spinoff again? It's called Fear the Walking Dead. And it's another group of characters existing in Los Angeles. Which is kind of cool for me because... It's just a franchise. It's like the new Law and Order.

So you're going to have like Texas Walking Dead. Yeah. And LA Walking Dead and la will be crossovers portland walking dead great it's gonna be great walking dead sv and he's like he's watching this malignant empire take over the world with glee oh sure do another one yeah let's hire some guys to write that well canadian walking dead to try and avoid sounding like a complete sellout. Yeah. But let's all acknowledge this is spin. You know, Walking Dead, you know, I'm from Kentucky. I've spent a lot of time in Georgia.

I'm from the South. You know, you write what you know. And so the Walking Dead really was like a cool, like, exploration of my region and the kind of people i know and experience and love and all this right and and you know between walking dead season one and two i moved out to los angeles and living on the west coast yeah and it is you know very different uh and and you know i have a different life experience and different things going on here yeah and so when amc was like the walking dead is very popular and we're going to do a spinoff with or without you would you like to do a spinoff is that is that what i'm just kidding but uh uh but i was like i was like you know there's an opportunity there because i created

the walking dead when i was 23 and so i'm a different person now you know i'm i like to say i'm i'm older fatter and slower and so know, let's see what old fat slow me can do as opposed to this 23-year-old piece of shit that, you know, did that other thing. Okay, so let's go back to that moment where the seed was born. So you were inundating yourself with horror movies. Yeah, I love zombie movies. How do they keep going? Yeah, and so I wanted to do the zombie movie that never ends.

And you just scripted out the first how many books? Well, I mean, the funny thing about, I mean, the great thing about What Walking Dead was that I did it at a time when I had never had a success. Right. So I created the zombie movie that never ends at a time when I'd never had a book last more than six issues, except for Battle Pope, but it never really did well. I just published it out of stubbornness. So I didn't know that it would, if you read the first six issues, that we cover a breakneck amount of story. And the whole love triangle from the show with rick shane and laurie uh is concluded in the sixth issue and that's all wrapped up and that's because i was planning

for many many many years and i had like seeds in place that i would you know keep going if if the book did well but i didn't know that it was actually gonna last past issue six right and so you know i kind of wrote it in a way that if there was never anything after issue six you know you kind of get a complete story it's about this you know cop and his wife and this you know infidelity and you know that's kind of it's kind of sad there's a resolution there and you know at least it's got closure yeah if it didn't happen and then it did well what it did it took off immediately the the comic actually the the the thing that people talk about on the show is like every season does better than the last and it's crazy and it's breaking all the trends and you know more people are watching it and it's cool

because there you know that all happened with the comic just at a much smaller scale so you know people when i started doing the show would be like wow he's pretty good in interviews he doesn't sound like an idiot and that's because you know i've been doing interviews on the comic and i've been kind of cutting my teeth in the comic space and you know like dealing with all that kind of so i've kind of dealt with everything that i have to deal with on the walking dead show in like a much more manageable way so it's kind of prepared me for it in a pretty cool way what What is the relationship between a writer and an artist when you're making comic books?

How does that work? Well, it's a very close relationship. I think there's all kinds of arguments. Oh, one's more important than the other, blah, blah, blah. Art is more important. But the scripts aren't that much different than TV scripts. They're probably a little bit, like if you handed a comic book script to a director, they'd probably yell at you because, you know, there's a lot of like,

you're seeing it from this angle and this is happening here. Right. We're looking over this person's shoulder to see this. Right. So when I started writing television, they were like, yeah, you're telling the director how to direct. You need to stop doing that. Right. So, so there's a little bit of formatting difference, but you know, it's, it's, it's two people coming together to create a work of art together, which is, which is pretty cool. I mean, there's a lot of conversations that go on, uh, you know, outside of the scripting process, but, uh, but I mean, it's, it's, you know,

does the writer look at sketches? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I try not to do that because it's a tough job. And, you know, you can be precious with things when art comes in. I know there's a lot of comic book writers that will say, you know, that will get things redrawn here and there because certain panels didn't come out how they wanted to. But I try to avoid that as much as possible. And, you know, there's a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of, like, you know, early drawings that are shown. And you can, oh, you know, maybe that face should be there. I kind of want to, like, I have this expression.

How's he going to fly with those shoes? Yeah, exactly. And how many did Tony write the first? Tony drew the first six. You wrote the, oh, just the first six. Yeah. And you guys are no longer friends is that that the deal i feel like you've been on the internet a little bit yeah i mean it's

it's it's definitely an unfortunate thing but i think uh i don't know i mean i still love the guy if uh if he called a dance and he needed a kidney like there's a history there it's like real right right but uh but yeah we we definitely drifted apart yeah uh so you know over the show i mean over the comic yeah you know this that six issue break was a pretty uh yeah pretty defining moment i think in both of our lives yeah yeah so there was but it settled i mean yeah i think we're cool now i mean right but not friends yeah i guess not yeah yeah it's just one of those things um the woman i dated who loved the show um she was like she she loved the show but she also read the comics and she's like it's not the comic after a certain point she's like this is not

what happened in the comic now are there purists or have you won over all the people that were the comics you're never going to win everybody over and and the truth of the matter is it's not the comic you know uh there's some people prefer the comic there are other people that read the show or they watch the show i tell you show comic read watch i get it all mixed up just take it in take it in however you have to just buy it i have to pay for college um but uh yeah but uh you know there are people that like they'll watch the show first and then they'll read the comic and they're like where's daryl dixon this comic sucks yeah you know right uh so it goes both ways but uh when it comes to working on the show, I'm in the writer's room. Right. So we always start every season with picking a chunk of the comic to adapt.

We're moving pretty linearly with the comic nowadays. Is the comic ahead or are they both running? The comic's way ahead. Way ahead. Okay. Fun anecdote. Right. Issue 75 of the comic was coming out when the show started.

Okay. And the stuff that's in issue 75 was adapted in the season finale of season five so starting with season six we're adapting the comics that were coming out post the existence of the show uh-huh just kind of cool but we've got 140 still a few behind we have 144 issues out and that's the bible for the show yeah way yeah so we sit down at the beginning of every season and we go we're going to adapt from here to here yeah of the comic yeah and then we go okay how does daryl dixon fit into this because he's not in the comic how does carol fit into this because she died way earlier in the comic uh you know what do we do with

all the important storylines with andrea because she died in the show and is still alive in the comic uh and and and all of those things kind of bring about an organic process of turning the comic into something or turning the the show into something that is interesting to me because writing the same thing again would be boring so you can you can honor some of the storylines that you think are worth worth it and you are attached to by creating new characters for the tv show right right and and there's a lot of new stuff you know that gets put into the show yeah we can do more things i would imagine yeah i mean it would seem you could do almost anything with a comic which you can but that the whole medium is different the comic definitely gets a lot darker than it didn't i mean it's not even

i don't know it's not even that we're like restricted at amc or anything like that but i know that there's a there's a assumption that you know if you get too unrelentingly dark you can kind of turn away some of the audience well people get attached to the struggle and and and relationships of the people that they like i guess yeah so let's talk about see like because like we got hung up I guess. Yeah. So let's talk about, see, because we got hung up on The Walking Dead, but before the TV show, you had a life as a comic book writer. I still have a life as a comic book writer.

Whatever. You're a TV guy. I am not. How dare you? I write three comic books a month. Okay. I'm kidding. Just saying. You write six.

How do you get the gig writing for Marvel? They read Walking Dead and Invincible and some of my other Image books. Yeah. And they hired me to work there. And Image is a, who runs that label? So Image is- That press. Is it called a press or a label?

Press. It's a publisher. Yeah. So Image Comics is like this beautiful anomaly in the world of entertainment. It was seven artists from Marvel in 1992 left, and they basically founded this company that was the company that they would want to work for. Publishing entity itself only takes a small percentage of the profits to keep the lights on and keep the employees that do all the administrative, you know, production work and things like that employed. So, you know, I think the actual percentage is like 80% of all the profits go to the creators. And it's the only company in existence in any form of entertainment where it's actually founded by creators. And instead of, you know, because a television gig is great, but the majority of the money that the Walking Dead TV show is generating is going to AMC.

But you're saying it's an artist collective. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's now the third largest publishing company in comics and it gets bigger and bigger uh every month and i feel like it'll overtake dc comics in the next five years or less uh so that's pretty exciting and you're in you're part of it now i'm a partner in it now yeah i was lucky enough to they pulled you in yeah yeah this guy represents what we like i think the way they put it to me is they were like we're all getting old and uh we don't want the company to die with us so we need to start bringing in some younger partners. Oh, wow. And I was like, yes, but my weight cancels out

however younger I am than all of you. So I think we're all still going to die around the same time. So we're looking for new partners. Who else have they brought in? If you're 15, please start working on comics now. Yeah, and don't eat bad. Try to take care of yourself. I'm trying to do better.

I think United Artists actually started similarly in terms of movies. Yeah, I think that was definitely the intent. I don't know what their structure is. Jane Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, they were like, these studios are taking our money. Yeah, I don't mean to sound like I was disparaging AMC or anything. It's an impossible model to replicate in movies and TV. Yeah, of course just

because the the economics and comics you know tony moore and i could sit in a room as 20 year olds and make a comic book by ourselves and publish it yeah you know and you can still do that right you know with on the biggest comics you know you don't need all you need is labor and if you're working for yourself and making your own thing it's very easy to produce a thing without the publisher, you know, taking a bunch of money. And it's, this is still the love. This is your love, the comics. Yeah.

I mean, I, I, I wake up, I, I, I spent a small portion of my day every day, you know, working on comics. So. And which are the ones that you have walking dead that is running now? I do walking dead. I do a book called outcast that just started last year. It's an exorcism thing. Oh, good.

And I'm bound to say that we start filming the first season in July. Of Outcast? Yeah. For what network? Cinemax. Oh, yeah? So, yeah. So, you got cable.

Yeah. So, that's going to get really filthy. I can't wait. The pilot. We had a screening recently for international buyers of the pilot. And I hadn't watched it in an audience. I hadn't watched it with an audience ever. And when it was over, I was like, yeah, yeah, they should have stopped me. They should have.

I was uncomfortable. I was like, yeah, I've definitely crossed a line. What line? I can't say. but there's there's a lot of there's a lot of violence what is the what is the um the the angle of the of the series of the of the book uh it's um sorry it's it's no it's but you wanted me not to do research i honored your wish i giving me the opportunity to pitch this on this platform is uh is guess, technically why I'm here. Why don't we frame it a different way? Why don't you say, give me the opportunity to tell you the story that I created for this wonderful thing I'm proud of called Outcast, a comic book.

Sure. Okay. Give me the pitch. I'll take the pitch. Living in this town does change change your vocabulary it does in a really interesting way to be a good guy man yeah yeah kentucky now you're so out now look at listening you're gonna pitch you're all cynical god damn it i hate myself so much um but no it's uh uh again it's i love exorcism, you know, movies.

I love The Exorcist. You know, there's like four or five. First exorcist movie, so good. It's great stuff. And again, like the demon stuff is just terrifying to me. I don't really find zombies that scary per se. Anymore? I mean, you've been around them a long time.

I never really, you know, never really. When I watched the movies, I found them very interesting and compelling, but I was never really creeped out or scared by them. But again, there's always like, I never liked the way zombie movies ended. I also never liked the resolution of exorcism movies because it's always like, hey, this guy's got a demon in him. Let's go get that demon out. And then they do a bunch of mumbo jumbo and then the demons out and so the end of the movie is like sweet he's back that guy didn't have a demon in him yeah let's go home yeah and i'm like well why don't you find out how the demon got in him

and figure out how to stop it and why don't you figure out how to keep where's the antidote yeah like why don't you like vaccine what's the vaccine yeah so so outcast is kind of a an exorcism story about you know this guy kyle barnes who you know his his whole life is you know plagued with people that have been possessed around him and there's certainly some interesting things about him that will come to light in the series but it's treating demonic possession like a solvable problem and so it's you know actually uh in solvable problem. And so it's, you know, actually... In general. Yeah, yeah, like actually going to the source

and figuring out how to prevent it and figuring out all the ins and outs of how it works, why they're here, what they're trying to accomplish. What this neighborhood, why this neighborhood, why this planet. Exactly. My property values, what are you doing? With the demon possession.

People are going to find out you got possessed. Can't they move to another area? All right, I'll check that out. I'd like an excuse to get back into comics. This needs a fucking time, you know? It's not your problem. You make the time. I know I do, man. If you care about the comics, you make the time.

Why do you think it's so fucking popular, this Walking Dead business? On a cultural level. I'm sure you've been asked that question. I've tried to figure it out myself. this walking dead business on a cultural level i'm sure you've been asked that question i've tried to figure it out myself uh i mean i have theories but like you can't put your so like i don't know i mean i think that you know with the 24-hour news cycle and everybody talking about you know the drought in california we're all gonna run out of water and we're gonna die and the big earthquake's gonna come and kill water and we're all going to die and the big earthquake's going to come and kill us and global terrorism and global warming.

We're constantly being fed this diet of bad news and gloom for the future. Hopelessness. It's actually kind of what Tomorrowland was about, which is a great movie. I just had told Damon Lindelof that I really love the message of that movie, so I feel like I'm now cribbing on it. But anyway, you know, I think that people, like, are constantly thinking about, like, can our civilization end?

Will our civilization end? It's something, you know, there's a lot of preppers, people that, you know, have big basements full of munitions and supplies and stuff. munitions and supplies and stuff. And, uh, uh, you know, I think that the walking dead is a very digestible way to explore those thoughts.

Right. You know, it's, it's, I saw Rick Grimes do this. I would have handled it this way. Right. Oh,

that's a smart way to do this. I would have done this. Right. And how would I fare in this world and how, you know, what would I do? And, and it's,

it's, it's very personal. You're watching a show. But to a certain extent, the show is making you think about your family and yourself and your life and your stability and your safety. And also the morality of treating former humans. Yeah. That's a big one. Yeah. I mean, because it's very interesting that it's a manageable apocalypse, that people survive.

Yeah. However it happened, it doesn't seem to be going away. And these were once people. I think that was what drew me in the most was having to reckon with the fact that this loved one is now a monster. Yeah, I mean, that's like heartbreaking emotional thing about it to me you know i mean i think that's the the real you know spark of the walking dead it's not oh i've got to go kill this monster that's after me it's oh my god my mother is dead and her corpse like like she looks like she's alive and i see a spark of the woman I knew in her eyes. And like, she's going to eat me if I like what the like.

Well, that whole, that whole bit of business with the governor and his daughter. Oh yeah. Yeah. But in the comic is different. As a parent, like, I'm like, I don't think I would be able to kill a zombie version of my child. Right. Like, I don't like to think that I'm the kind of person that would you know kill people and feed them to my zombie child so that they would be you know

passive enough for me to allow them to brush their hair but there's a certain logic to it yeah at the end of the day was that character different in the comic uh no i mean he he you know he had the you know bucket of body parts that he would feed to the kid. The hair brushing scene was definitely something that I think was, it wasn't me, it was some brilliant writer in the writer's room that was like, yeah, what if he's actually brushing her hair? Yeah, I guess that's true. It's a survivable apocalypse that doesn't involve toxins or inability to breathe.

Like all the human needs are around and they're still met the same way. There's just a lot of dead humans who are now walking that are obstacles to getting those needs met. Definitely. And I guess production. You sum it up very well. And I guess production has stopped, though. So eventually you're going to tap out of what's available. Well, I mean, you know, you got to have a little faith in the human spirit.

I think that... Are you telling me to have faith? Sorry, I apologize. I take it back. No, I mean, I can have faith, but you're telling me to have faith that you've left a lot of nice hints that things might be okay. Maybe. Maybe so.

Maybe so. No, there's an entire issue of the comic book about how they've figured out how to mill grain and make bread. Oh, they have? Good. I was so excited about that. We've got to get back to that. They did an issue of the comic about them making bread. Yeah. Is that going to be in the series? Yeah. If we get to season nine, there's going to be a whole episode about them cooking loaves of bread and being like,

Oh, we made bread. This is amazing. This is great. Getting back to season nine, there's going to be a whole episode about them cooking loaves of bread and being like, oh, we made bread. This is amazing. Yeah. This is great. Getting back to the earth finally. Oh, there's another zombie. Throw bread at it. We finally realized what's important in life and stripped capitalism down to it no longer

exists anymore. We're living off the land. Oh, fuck. There's more of the dead people. I don't know, man. it's exactly it okay well how are you settling into your sort of new uh you know uh what would you uh your position in the world as a screenwriter i mean do you you got a movie coming out yeah well i mean i produced a movie uh called air yeah it's coming out in august uh i didn't write it uh but uh you know written and directed by this guy christian condamesa who's a really talented video game director and this is his first movie uh it's uh it's a good

movie it's really good good and you're not writing movies i mean i'm i they just announced this uh it's funny like the the it leaked that i'm part of the Transformers writer's room thing. And I don't even know if I'm allowed to confirm that. But sure, I'm doing that. Might be happening. Might be happening. Sure, it might be happening. I can neither confirm nor deny.

But I will talk as though that is definitely a thing that's happening. It's a fun thing about hollywood though like we were totally like negotiating the contract and i didn't know if i was even gonna have time to do it so we were talking about like what window i was gonna have to work and everything and uh and then it was like hey it's it's closed it's gonna work it's sweet and then like two hours later it was like hey you're on you're on variety or hollywood reporter or whatever and i was like how does that happen it's crazy someone does it no i know but i'm just like man it's like fast the bigger question is which one who did it who who made the call can i tell my wife first no please

please let me tell my wife first when she reads this online she's gonna be so mad at me did you were you able to yeah i think i mean she knew it happening, but there have been times where things have been announced, and it's like, oh, I meant to tell you about that, but it was yesterday. Usually that's how you find out you lost your job in this town. They don't tell you directly. It's like some guy you just run into on the street. I heard the news.

Like, what? Oh, you didn't know? So you're part of every, you still are in the writer's room doing the thing yeah yeah are you the head writer no no no no i have to know scott gemple is the showrunner on walking dead dave erickson is the showrunner on fear the walking dead chris plaque is the showrunner on outcast and i just take all the credit yeah and you're a consultant no i'm an executive producer but you know and i'm also in the room hands-on right you know yeah

yeah that guy would never do that do you say things like that i don't think you should no oddly enough i'm usually the guy that's like no let's kill him it'll be crazy and they're like but no he's real popular in the comics and i'm like yeah people won't expect it let's do it let's do it yeah now do you find you're too busy to be a family man? No, no. I mean, that's number one priority. Is it? Yeah, yeah. I had a buddy that he explained to me one time that your work will take up exactly the amount of time you allow it to.

And so he was drawing like three comics at the time. Eric Larson, great guy. And I was like, how do you do it? And he was like, I sit down at 8 a.m. and I leave my desk at 5. And if I don't get it done before I leave my desk at 5, I don't get it done. And I know that. And so I have to get it done. And I was like, okay.

So he honored the hours that he made for himself. Yeah. And he said, if you do that in the first month, your schedule is just going to be fucked. Right. But you'll eventually figure out how to not surf the internet. Right. Yeah, I sit down and it's like, got to do this.

I get phone calls. I do this podcast, things like that. Right. And I work till 6. Right. So 6 o'clock i go home hang out with the kids put the kids bed at eight every now and then you know if i got some script that's not done or some kind of thing i'll i'll do a little bit of work from you know the after the kids go

to bed and right you know a little bit before i go to bed but but you don't get lost in the work no no i mean it's you know it's important it's important i love my work yeah i'm so happy that i get to do it but it's really not important. Right. Sure. That's a good way to look at it. I think my main goal is when my children are adults, two goals. I want my children not to be shitty when they're adults.

Yeah. And I want to not be blinded to the fact that my kids are shitty if they're shitty. Right. You know? I don't want to be one of those parents that are like, my son's such a great guy. Yeah. He's, you know, now he's- Explain this dead animal. that are like my son's such a great guy he's you know now he's explain this dead animal yeah he's like oh no it's actually a thing you know

the animal was sick it wasn't his fault it was a mercy thing it's mercy thing oh he ate it too uh i don't know you know that's my son yeah stop watching my fine he's watching my movies um how do your parents feel about it all uh they you know they like it i guess uh they're proud of you my my dad i love him he uh how's that movie going yeah i'm like you mean the tv show yeah whatever whatever oh really yeah no he's very interested but like you know the vernacular is not something that he gives a shit about right right right yeah they know i guess it's not a movie they whatever they you're doing it to mess with me i think there's there's always something a certain type of parent will minimize a little bit like what's that little thing you got the the you know the thing that's not really a job

the thing that you have to use your hands for. Were they happy when you were doing comics? Well. I mean, like when you started, was it when you said, look, I'm doing comics? So my father was a small business owner. He was very successful. And, you know, always instilled in me, like, work ethic and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, when I told him, yeah, I kind of want to do comics someday,

he was like, yeah, just make sure you get a fallback plan. And I knew that my parents would be really worried about me. And so I just didn't tell them. So I quit my day job and I started doing comics. And I struggled for quite a bit, but they were in Florida. So it was very easy for me to... You stayed in Kentucky, yeah. Yeah, it was very easy for me to...

Lie and hide. Yes, yes. so it was very easy you stayed in kentucky yeah yeah it's very easy for me to lie you know and lie yes yes uh and so uh i told him i still worked at the day job and uh and then at one point my mother called and and called my you know my work yeah and then she called me up and she was like they just told me that you haven't worked there in over a year what happened did you get fired like you never told me like what's going on and i was like uh yeah i didn't tell you i got a job at ups sorry you made it up yeah you know i just didn't want i didn't want like them to i was struggling i was struggling really bad you know and i didn't want them to you know be worried about me and i didn't want them to be telling me not to do what, you know, I knew that I was going to give it a go and, you know, trying to, I mean,

the economics earlier, I was probably simplifying things a little bit. There was always a, there was a shortfall a lot of times. And, uh, when I stopped working as a day job, I couldn't get loans from them. And so what I started doing was I would, uh, put the printing bill for the comic book on a credit card and then I would live off of the money that the distributor would pay me that should have gone to pay off the credit card just because I didn't have a day job and I had to be able to make my mortgage and all that stuff. And so there was a time when I was, it was like $36,000 in debt

and I was making like $50 a year. Oh, boy. but he kept going and i i don't talk about this a lot but like i would lay in the floor and shake because i would get i had like 17 credit cards you know i had one that had five hundred dollars on it one that had five thousand dollars on it one that had twelve hundred dollars on it and i and i had to pay the minimum payments on 17 credit cards and so i was like yeah i'm not paying these balances down right i have to make five it was like five or six i was like five or six hundred dollars a month just to maybe it wasn't that much i don't remember the actual numbers but whatever it was it was like like everything i was doing

like went to that just so they wouldn't come after me. And I was like, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life. And I'm never going to pay this off. My $400 a month or whatever. So you used to shake literally out of terror? Yeah, I would just be like, I can't do it anymore. I just got to relax. And I would just lay on the floor and I'd be like, what am I going to do?

What am I going to do? You fucked up your life, Kirkman. What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Oh, my God. And it was just horrible. It's horrible. So I've told people, like, I'm glad it worked out.

Yeah. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't do it. I'd work at the bank. Well, that's what people ask when you're successful. They're like, how'd you do it? It's like, I don't know. It was crazy. No clue.

It was stupid. No. There's no system. You can't tell're like, how'd you do it? It's like, I don't know. It was crazy. No clue. It was stupid. No. There's no system. You can't tell, like, do what I do, because you're like, that might not work. I'm not... Oh, wow. So it finally worked when you paid those cards off. Well, yeah, I mean, Marvel.

Right. You know? But it was right up until then. God bless that evil corporation. It was after Walking Dead that you still had those debts? Well, so, no, actually, a buddy of mine got the He-Man license, Master of the Universe, corporation after it was after walking dead that you still had those debts well so no actually a buddy of mine got the he-man license master of the universe those action figures from the 80s and so he started paying me and so then i had an income and so i at least wasn't adding to the debt

and then uh rob leifeld hired me to do a couple of youngblood books and he paid me so that kept me from being homeless right for a little bit and then uh so i mean marvel actually hired me to do this uh sleepwalker book right and they had this program called epic comics and uh they basically uh realized that they could go to indie creators that were producing books on a budget and they could give them a microscopic budget for them that would be a massive budget for us right and so they came to me and they were like we'll give you five thousand dollars an issue to get a book written colored inked lettered all that stuff and normally bottom of the barrel marvel book eight nine grand maybe 10 15 right you know and so uh and so i was like great i can totally do that i can pay myself 600

bucks and this guy. There's different scales for different things that people will do in indie comics. And so I got that book going, produced a couple issues, and they said, you're guaranteed six issues. And I was like, great. I'll get my foot in the door. I'll write six good comics. It was awesome. After we turned in the first issue, and I turned in scripts for the second and third issue,

they contacted me and they were like, we're shutting down the project. Really sorry. It was like Christmas. It was like two or three weeks before Christmas. Oh my God. Like in December. Yeah. I didn't have kids or anything though, so it wasn't that sad. I had to go to them and be like, no toys this year.

Yeah. But I was just, I was wrecked. And then they were like, those scripts for two and three that we had you do uh we'll give you a kill fee for those at 200 bucks but like we can't like pay you for scripts we're not going to publish right oh sure sorry kid yeah it's like what the fuck welcome yeah and so i was just on the brink of you know collapse and then uh you know i had a in at marvel and so then they hired me and gave me an exclusive contract to give me a you know i had a in at marvel and so then they hired me and gave me an exclusive contract to give me a you know set paycheck and that allowed me to pay down the debt a little bit but that was happening at a time when walking dead success was ramping up so uh so you know i had the steady

check for marvel and then checks from like walking dead and invincible as those books became more popular those were your own label yeah and Yeah, and the income from those actually exceeded when I was making it Marvel. Right. And so I was able to pay off the debt very quickly. What a relief that was. Oh, I can't even. It was a good day in Kirkman Town that time. What did you do?

Did you celebrate? I just worked more, I guess. I don't know. Well, shit, man. Congratulations on all of it. Thank you. For surviving it and transcending it and destroying our culture. Well, great.

Thank you for bringing zombies. I'm definitely having a lot of fun with it. So I appreciate the support from everybody that's watching, reading, whatever. And now I got a bunch of reading. And it was great talking to you. It was a lot of fun man right robert kirkman good guy learned about comics learned about a lot of stuff great story just a dude had a dream manifested it wtfpod.com is the point. You can get on the mailing list.

You can look at the new merch. All the posters that I have left from the tour up there. You can get the Draplin poster that was just here in Portland. I imagine they'll probably sell out. But you can get them over at Draplin Design,

which is Draplin.com. D-R-A-P-L-I-N.com. Yeah, I signed a bunch for Draplin. He's got a few on the site if you want to get them. They're pretty astoundingly beautiful posters. But all the rest are on my site. The book deal, the $10 hardback cover of Marin that's signed, that is on the site. So there's a lot of stuff going on the site.

But just go check it out. There's stuff there and I love you. Did I mention I love you? I do. Thank you for listening. Boomer lives! Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode

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