Episode 1701 - MoCCA Fest Recap! Interview w/ Maria & Peter Hoey!

0:00From New York City, this is Comic News Insider, your weekly podcast for everything comic book, animation, sci-fi, and pop culture produced by Joe Gonzalez. Here's your host, Jimmy Akinos! Episode 1701, everybody, it's Jimmy Akinos with a mocha fest recap. In interview, so mocha was over the weekend that's in the team of Comic and Cartoon Art, as presented by the Society of Illustrators here in New York City. I would do this recap in a few minutes, of course, and there's going to be an interview in this particular episode. I got three over the weekend. This one's going to be with Maria and Petita Hoy, my favorite sibling, comics duo. We did a pre, if you listen to the last week's show, or a week before, or no, last week yet. I interviewed Caitlin Dew here in New York City. We're both local, and we're going to do the interview at Mocha, but then to say, hey, we both live here in New York City. Let's do it away from the madness of the cons, which was actually

1:00I'm glad we did that. Plus, it also gave you a little like preview of her stuff, and hopefully what buying visited her and said, hello, why are you there? But yeah, I ended up getting three over the weekend, as I said, besides the ones you'll hear in this episode, later in the week, and next week, I'm going to release the other two, one with Morgan Bocher and Jesse McCannick, the week after the own episode, as I said. But yeah, I look forward to those. They're really great. Let's get right into that recap. It's always a fun time at Mocha. It's a local show Saturday and Sunday, and from 11 to 6 each day, I believe. I was able to go at least two to three hours each day for work, because I don't take off work when the show is local for the most part, unless it's like, like, New York on kind of four or five days, so then I take off, I think, two days for it. But for like a weekend show, I'd tend to like, go on before work, which of course is very exhausting for me, because I have to get up early as usual, and then I work late, so it's very tiring, but it's always fun to go

2:01in a good time. And just the local shows are harder for me, because again, not take it off work, means I work very late, and I get up very early, and then my insomnia doesn't help. But yeah, I tend to go light on the energy used for local shows. It seemed just because, you know, it's pretty stressful and busy and exhausting for me. So I did have two others planned, so it would have been six total, instead of the pre-Mokka one I got with Caitlin. But one, the publicist for it was like, oh, they were suddenly weren't available, which happens, schedules happen, and the other one, the schedule just didn't work out. We were going back and forth for a couple of time, but that time just didn't work out. Unfortunately, like, had this been like an out of town show, flew in for over 10 interviews, you know, and then played them all out evenly, but I'll ask, sorry, I wish I would have gotten more, maybe next year, but definitely try for more.

3:03But all it could be in great interviews, I had a good time, I mean, yeah, I was just thinking about like, out of town, when I do shows out of town, I think my record is, at a 21 year at Thought Bubble, and then 25, another year at Thought Bubble Interviews, and these weren't like three minute interviews, each one was a 15 to 20 minutes, and sometimes some longer, a couple of mine had been 10 minutes here and there, but it was like, woo! And a few of those are like outside, I did maybe, you know, a few pre-show interviews there, when I was in London, but yeah, so yeah, sort of the idea of when I go out and tell you how many I do. But yeah, but the local was great, the three, the four I got were awesome, they were each a good 20-ish minutes, Katelyn's with a little longer, because we were here in the city and we were just chilling and relaxing, doing it, but yeah, it was a quality, if you see, you know, less is more sometimes, I keep needing to tell myself. But anyway, back to Mocha, yeah, so I got there Saturday around 12, and did my walk through, and it was packed, the Metropolitan Pavilion where it's held as a great space, down at 18th

4:06Street, but as I said in my preview show last week, Mocha could definitely grow bigger, and it's been, it's been run by the Society of Illustrious for some years now, and I know someone, you know, on the board there, we were chatting, and they said, yeah, we'd love to find a bigger space, but just find you know, an affordable space, it's really tough, which I get here in New York City, my god, I can't imagine just even renting a space, how much it costs. And also, I'd hate to see it get too big, because sometimes these smaller shows are nice when they stay smaller. Like STX has been in the same hotel room for years, like this, you know, the bar room type place, and it's a good size, but it's not crazy big, and they could probably certainly, you know, get bigger as well, but I remember like the first year heroes con almost doubled in size, I was like, this feels like too much, but now you're used to it. So I'm sure again, we could use to it, but yeah, over the years, Mocha's been in many, many, not many, maybe three or four spots. So I remember

5:07the first time I went, it was in a puck building, which would be our exit being like two or three different levels, and then they had it at which I really liked it when it was at the Armory, because it was one big space, and it should be easy to move around. Then it was at another spot, I think, also called Metropolitan, something in Midtown, but it was two levels, and then they settled on this place for some years now, the Pavilion, and again, great spot, great location. So yeah, so I do like it there, and like the idea that it's, you know, got a little bit of a, it's not too crazy big. But anyway, yeah, it's worth going, you know, super packed on Saturday, and as I do my walk through, you know, let's all see a lot of friends who are exhibiting there, just walking around, around the likes of people I know, or former interviewees, or people that have become friends, like, hey, Sue Lee and Jonathan Bayless, the Hoys, Caitlin Dew, is there, of course, after I mentioned, and Jack Cullen, Tucker Stone, Gina Gugliano, my buddy Phil, I ran into, he always comes at least for a day, and

6:13Phil is an old pal from the podcasting days. He did an amazing podcast called Indy Spinner Rack with our friend Charlie LaGrecca. I know it was one of the best comic podcasts out there, sadly not been around for some years now. They had started shortly after we did and focused on small press in the Indy comics. And this dude, my boy is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to comics. I can't read everything. Mainstream industry, Indy, you know, small press, everything. Any, you know, I'm always impressed. I'm like my god. And any, we always seem to have this conversation, I feel, well, that's, hey, what have you been reading? What are your reading habits? And I seem to have the same answer all the time. Like, I read more when cons are coming up, conventions are festivals because I'm setting up interviews. I want to read their work, obviously turn to their work. And I was like, oh, I do need to make more time to read for fun. Not that these aren't fun because majority 99% of the time I ended up liking these works when, and I also get to talk to people about

7:16it. But yeah, I did, I know for a fact, I definitely read more stuff back in the day, more for fun. And sometimes I'm just like, I don't do that as much I used to, so I really need to make more time for that. But he's right, so yeah. But yeah, I would love to, I wish I can get him on more often just to talk about history or stuff because he's so well versed in it all. And I really know the stuff. But yeah, yes, I will start reading more at least try. So I, again, because I wanted to keep it light and not be stressed out too much, I didn't reach out to as many publishers or people I knew that were going to do interviews because it was like, let me just take it light this year. And I had seen that John Locuzama is going to be there with Abrams. He has a comic out there from years ago. And because I, when I was chatting with Phil, I was like, oh, there's John Locuzama doing a signing over there at Abrams. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember like 10 years ago, maybe, who is that mocha? And if it just come out at Reese's come out, he had a comic called, I think a ghetto clown, autobiography type comic he wrote, he didn't draw it to my knowledge,

8:22I think. And as approach a table, then he said, hello, what a big fan I was and that, you know, I used to, as my acting days used to do monologues from his, you know, one man shows. And he was like, really cool by which I go, hey, I do this podcast. I'd love to interview you had time, 10 minutes or so because, you know what, I'm back in 15 minutes. And that's often like, yeah, cool mancy. And then they're gone. They like trick you. But I came back through to his word. We sat in chat and I can't write how long it might have been 15 minutes, 10 minutes. And the lovely talk, and as we talked about, you know, the comic and his acting career a little bit, the school, so I was like, oh, maybe I should have tried to set that up and again and have a follow up chat. But, oh, good. Maybe he'll be next year. I'll try it. But yeah, it was, lots of signings going on, lots of, you know, you saw amazing exhibitors and it was really cool. So shortly after that, I did mine with the hoys, which is great. And we heard that in a few minutes. I always love seeing the Taiwanese contingency there.

9:29It's small, like two tables they'll have. I think it's like the Taipei Cultural Center brings them in and they're always super talented. I interviewed a couple of them years ago. And when I went to the table, the person that's sort of helping out or in charge of the table, you know, just came and started talking to me, oh, this is one of our artists and this is their comics and they looked really cool. And I think, oh, it's always a really great stuff over here. So I always send people over to that table. I also did my interview with Morgan Boucher after his graphic novel about his graphic novel with street noise comics called Chicken Heart, which was lovely. And you'll hear that later this week. And I did another walk about and so I say goodbye. So I had to head off to work. Now Sunday, I can only come in for like about two hours. And it was a much lighter day and not as packed, but still busy. Pretty sure Joe was there. And we caught up for a bit when I got in and then I went off to interview Jesse Mechanic,

10:31which we're here next week. But his book was street noise comics called The Last Time We Spoke as a story of loss. And we talked about some other workies of journalists as well. And then yeah, we went and shot it with street noise books founder Liz and Joe talked to her earlier. And I went back to say sort of reintroduce myself, hey, thank you so much for, you know, let me interview that a couple of your, the artists you had with you. And just a really great chat. And I'm pretty, really impressed by what she's put together. I think they've really been out since their first book came out 2020. They're relatively young publisher on the rise. They've already had like over 40 books published in that short amount of time. But really, really great stuff for loving so many good things. So in their local Brooklyn, so really like that. Yeah, check them out street noise comics are definitely on the scene with some great stuff. So I was one last walk about saying hello and goodbyes and checking out things that I've caught the day before it would go back and revisit. And there's a King Features table. And King Features

11:35of course has those classic comics like Popeye and Beetle Bailey and Flashcore and things like that. And I saw when I'd walked by the day before they had a single issue comic, I'll call it I Lie Popeye. It's a UIE. I lie. I lie. I lie Popeye. And it was a bold cover of a mangan inspired art. And I was just like that clearly, obviously sanctioned by the King Features, you know, the owners of it all with a new artist on it. But I didn't know anything about it. But just looked really compelling. I'm like, you know, I want to pick this up. I haven't read it yet, but I look forward to it. It's by Marcus Williams. And I looked up a little bit about it. It tells the story of how Popeye, you know, lost in one eye. And I saw that it's a collection from a web comic that I think is still going. I'm going to get off officially sanctioned by King Features. So really cool. So I look forward to digging into that one and then going to check the web comic out after to catch up on it all. Yeah. So then I said I was out after that and had to get us to work. Overall, it's always a great show. A vibrant mix of established cartoonist,

12:38young and old, cabling, signing. There's always students there from very like from SVA and Micah and Parsons and things like that. Showing off their work. It's really kind of cool to see the students. There's always so many of them there. Showing off their work and chatting with them. You know, some big names to Indies, to unknowns completely, to sequential, sequential storytellers to people who just sort of do more prints and stickers and merch types type stuff. It's just such a vibrant energy full of such a diverse, you know, a group of creators and such like that in crowd and really awesome stuff. So definitely check it out if you're ever in town during Mocha. You will love it. All right, let's get into this interview with the boys, Marie and Peter. They've been around a while and I've only recently discovered them over the past maybe five years, I think. And love their work. And they have yet another, so sorry. They have a new group. They're so prolific. I think they have worked out every year or more. You know, they have a new graphic novel with Top Shell Productions called The Shadow

13:44Word. It's really like a no-aw thriller of identity and spies and all sorts of really cool stuff. And I love it. And they work so well together. Like even no Peter's in California. Maria's here in New York. And it's just a great book. It's thrilling. It keeps you on edge and I really enjoyed it. And it's always just fun to catch up with them. So you'll hear during the right, we did it at that their table. And obviously people will come up, you know, want to buy things or talk. So we kind of just made it like, okay, so we'll start chatting. If somebody comes up, one of you can just step over to talk to them and we'll just continue on. So it's kind of what happened. And Maria seemed to be the one that sort of stepped away most of the time to sort of deal with the public. So you won't mind it here her as much. But so that's why. But yeah, always great talk to them. I love catching up with them. And as you hear, it's a prolific already had more work coming. So let's get right into it. Here are Maria, Peter and I at Mocha. All right, here at Mocha with Maria and Peter Hoy, the sibling duo of my heart.

14:49We have a new book out, The Shadow War. Tell us a bit about The Shadow War. The shadow is our latest graphic novel from Top Shell. And it's kind of a spy espionage story that centers on performance. It's about a young woman living in a city that's divided by Civil War. It's very tense upbringing for her. Her only outlet is theater. And her theater performance is noticed by a head of intelligence for a regional spy agency. And they kind of strong her into performing an act of impersonation of another young woman who lives and works as a waitress in a rival district in a cafe that's frequented by a rival intelligence chief. So the story follows her as she goes through this act of performance that dissolves, the begins to dissolve the border of her own personality. And the personality of the woman who she's impersonating begins to impose itself on her. Yeah, it was so great. It was gripping. It was really exciting. Yeah, thank you.

15:53Thank you. Good. Um, now I've asked you guys just about the collaboration work. Is it changed for a book of how you guys work on things? Or was it pretty much the same? It's kind of the same. Uh, we, we work a little bit differently than most people and that we write out the stories first in prose. And I work with my writing partner Charles Freund in writing what's essentially like a novella of what's going to become the graphic novel. And then when we're done with that, Maria and I disemble that whole written story into comic form, which involves adding all the pictures, of course, but then also involves like completely rewriting the story. Every of the dialogue of our changes, all the exposition that's in written form goes away because the pictures tell it and, you know, yeah. Is he lying? No, that's totally ridiculous. Like, no, that's how we do it. What are we talking about? Uh, now we talked to this since September about like our love of the full films and I'll see you guys love a lot of them, especially Nua. This piece is clearly inspired by let it go while. I don't know if it's cock and the inspiration.

16:55Care for it? Um, from me, uh, Kizlowski's decalogue was an inspiration. Not story-wise, but, um, visually color-wise, attitude-wise. It's, and all these films from Romania in the 90s. Just, um, I mean, comics are visual, but I think we drive all our inspiration comes from film rather than other comics. Yeah, the Kizlowski decalogue series. It was, uh, Christophe Kizlowski, who's a Polish director, who directed this series of films or Polish television in the early 1980s. It was called the decalogue and it was ten, you know, segments very loosely based on the ten commandments, but it was all filmed in Warsaw, you know, during the Cold War, so everything was very gray and like subdued and washed out color and big kind of forbidding apartment blocks and stuff, and that visually that was really striking for us. Very important. Yeah, which seems like an apropos inspiration because, unless I'm mistaken, it's sort of a non-descript, uh, Eastern,

17:58European, Eastern block. We left, we left the location unnamed. It seems vaguely Eastern European, but you can't quite place where it is. And that disorientation was important to the story too because the characters that goes on becomes more disoriented to her life. Yeah, it probably wasn't like Des Moines, so yeah, I'm not Des Moines. Uh, now that we saw the lead character Nadia as an actress, I'm her recovery after myself. And she talks about technique and acting technique. Have you, either one of you acted, did you, what did you do? What was the research for the technique? It seems pretty good. The idea was that, uh, that the technique is a, is of, uh, dissolving your own personality into the role is kind of like method acting a little bit, but it's, but it was more, it, it works two ways in this story because not only do dissolve yourself, like figuratively into your role in this story, she's literally finding her personality is dissolving

18:59and being taken over by the character that she's playing, which just adds to the tension. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, it's very still an actor. So I, you know, I read that book without, you know, a young actor. And it's a way, I mean, most people, even if they're not actors, they've heard of method acting or, like, how an actor prepares. So that's a good way, like, a gateway. And it also sets up the structure. It's like, you have to set up these, the frame for the story. So that allowed that. Yeah, that's something that, you know, we've seen movies and TV and novels, everything about spines, how they take on it or like, in this story, taking a role. They have to stay in that character. And then you hear about actors who do that, like, they knew they lose with staying character the entire truth. I'm like, that's a little annoying, like, but I, like, I want to hang with my pal I've made and he's Abraham Lincoln the whole time. I'm like, dude, can we not drop him? Don't get so hyped, Pat. He's this. Come on. You know, it's what I do for a surprise with you. What the hell? But it's got to you already, like, in real life trying to do that. I have it. Yeah. There's no way I'd be able to do that.

20:02The reason we told the story in the third person, which creates kind of a distance between the characters and the reader. And a big part of that was we wanted, we wanted the reader to be watching the performance the whole time because the character Nadja is always performing. She's performing as the other woman, not Miriam, who she's impersonating. And gradually, she's becoming Miriam. And it was important, I think, to see it that way. That adds to the tension of the story. Yeah, what's great about the thrillers is that they keep you guessing. But that's got to be hard to write and draw. How do you guys sort of come around? I mean, it clearly works. How do you guys come around to, like, keep enough guessing so much? That was the trick in writing the story was to stagger the revelations that go on so that you're never quite 100% sure which way it's going to go. And that's that kind of uncertainty creates this kind of unease in the story because there's no easy resolution to the to the problems that are happening to the character. Yeah, not everyone in knots the whole time because that's what she's

21:06feeling. Yeah. She's a girl. Like, she's she's like an every man. She's no choice. And it's it's just her and her mom. And they're like, you have to do this. Or you're you guys are out of on the street. Yeah. Yeah. And it's on her. And she's doing it. And it's like, we're all going through that right now. Like, who's walking this? Oh my god. Watch out. You're just walking. Yeah. And we're all living through a very tense time. Yeah. And it's this triumph of the individual or in her case individuals, like, multiple. But yeah, that even if it's that oppressive and closing in on you, you can retain your individuality and your power. But she I feel she did struggle with that as she could she to play the role. And if I'm in one of the longer than she thought it would. And she found herself in a sense of coming near you. Yeah. And losing identity. Maybe. Yeah, that's true. And then as the story goes on, she's living in a city that's literally physically divided from one section to another in the ways that like cities like Belfast and Beirut were. And she's literally

22:12finds herself trapped in the other side and she can't get out anymore. You know, and that just adds to the tension of those things. Yeah, terrifying. Sure. Like what was good like also like her parents on the other side gave her were very involved in their political movement side. And I think it's what probably her mother encouraged her to do it. But just adds to it to the intensity of it all. It's constantly worried for her. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. The whole thing is watching her perform and seeing that her performance is not only in her in the job that she's performing as a waitress in the spying that she has to do. But also just going to the market, walking down the street, taking the the tram to work. She runs into random people who knew the woman she's in person. And she has to talk to them and deal with them. And yeah, there's moments like where I feel like some mysteries were left mystery because like why are those people staring at her for you know like why she having a dizzy spell. You mean the answer? Yeah, like were the people really staring at her or was she just imagining it?

23:18The dizzy spells was it just nerves or was it something deeper? Was it, you know, maybe another person? No, I want to know. Tell me. I saw the mystery for me. I'm Doma. I need to hear it. But yeah, it was like oh my god, what's going on. But that's what's also great about a mystery. Like do you want to keep some things? Yeah. Yeah. What's that? For the sequel. And I mean why not? I could be one. The Shadow World 2. Yeah, obviously. Oh, we've been teased maybe. For one point, she is so immersed. And I guess the reader wonders if Dottie is going a bit, you know, crazy maybe or like you said, maybe imagining things and how she looks and things like that. So it's the immersiveness is it? Are we left to, you want to leave it to the reader's imagination? I leave that up. I leave that we left that deliberately ambiguous because she starts noticing she has to wear makeup including a fake mole on her cheek and a wig to court out to complete the impersonation. But she finds out for a while that her face is actually starting to

24:22change shape and that and the fake mole has actually become a real mole and her hair is actually growing out the way Miriam's hair was. And is that like her own body doing it? Or is this something else doing it? We never really resolved that question. I know. Yeah. So you like, you know, no more wig. No more wig. Yeah. Like what's happening? Yeah. Am I going to go back on it? And am I nausea anymore? Or have I become Miriam? And I can't get back to the person that I was. Yeah. Yeah. Where are my life? Yeah. I can't find. Yeah. Yeah. Back to who I used to be. So yeah. So this is a story about identity and like lose yourself in that identity. And she lose herself and starts even at one point. She's like, losing naughty memories and suddenly getting Miriam's. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. She's recovering someone else's memories. And is that part of a performance that's allowing her to do that or is it something supernatural that's happening? Yeah. That's the kind of part that we leave in the gray area.

25:26And in the research, you know, for it is, what was like sort of something really cool you found, you know, that that helped inspire the stories. Maybe in the afternoon. Maybe in the wild. Well, there was there was a book I had read several years ago called The Milkman by an Irish author named Anna Burns. And it was about a young woman who you never know her name. She never says where she's living, but you come to realize about a third of the way through the book that she's living in Belfast in the late 70s. She references her family members, sisters and brothers, but she never names them. She calls them sister one, sister two, brother six. She has a boyfriend, but you never know his name. He's called maybe boyfriend. And everything has left deliberately very, very vague. And then stuff starts to happen to her. But nothing like this story. But I just really enjoyed that idea of this story where you're never really sure where it's happening or why it's happening. And that kind of ambiguity is what got me started on thinking of what would become the shadower.

26:31I've definitely had a maybe girlfriend in the past. I don't know if she knew, but maybe in my classroom. So since this book just came out, I was going to be promoting this all year. Is there something you're already working on next to continue or? Yeah, we're about three quarters of the way done with our next graphic novel for top shelf. Oh my god. Yeah, the next one is called Epstein. And it's a radical reinterpretation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, obviously I thought we could say about it right now. But let's go out next year. Maybe that's good. Next September. Yeah, we're going to have an SPF. Oh, great. Yeah, I'm going to debut at SPX in 2027. I thought there's been a Frankenstein resurgence too. Yeah. Well, the 200th anniversary of the book was in 2018. And so that's spurred a lot. And there has been a lot of reinterpretations of Frankenstein over the years. And I always

27:31felt that yeah, they latch on to the sort of the otherness that the creature feels. And I understand that. But our book goes quite a bit further and explaining via the science part of it, a very radical, different idea of how the Frankenstein monster came to be created, which makes for a very different story. You see the recent one? I have not seen the Guillermo Detero. Yeah, I've not seen it. It's really good. And then there's also the broad, I don't see either. I know it getting mixed reviews. Yeah, it looks really cool. I mean, it's Jesse Buckford. Yeah. Yeah, she's amazing. So it looks, yeah, I'll double check it out. I always like to get Frankenstein. But yeah, so that's next September. So we also spoke about the FBX, where I brought up my favorite, my favorite Salton pets that you guys have. Did we mention, was there anything coming with them soon? I mean, like maybe there's a book where

28:32they're being interviewed by the Staddy Dress, the Lepido guy with a Mohawk. I don't know. The word is coin op 11 is going to be all of Salton pets. Yeah. That's good. So they're saying who Salton pets love, people they don't know. There are two animal characters that we've invented for ourselves. And they're sort of like the classic buddy comedy team. And there's kind of hapless losers. Everything they plan never really works out, but they always keep trying. Yeah, very Laurel Hardy. Yeah, Laurel Hardy, maybe a little Abbot and Costello. It's grown in there. I feel like Aussie, we weren't born in that era, but I feel like I saw more Abbot and Costello as a kid. Yeah. Yeah. And all weekend. Yeah, speaking up like the month, like I love the classic monsters. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Where they meet Frankenstein and Dracula. It's just like, it's both like hilarious, but also scary too. I mean, it's like really

29:32genuinely scary. We did the famous portions on first. Yeah, everyone knows, and I'm worried. I don't know. I'm Thomas hilarious. I loved it. And as well. And then in Spanish class, I've got to help with the help of the teacher. We did a very short version of it in Spanish for the class. Wow. Well, well, well, well, but I don't really like what I'm going to do. Yeah, that's insane. Like what? Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's so awesome. I don't remember any of it, but that was great. Has there been anything news since I've compared you read a lottery sleeve? Enjoyed? I'm really enjoying the pit weirdly. That's what I really want to watch it on the queue. It's really good. It gets you out of what's going on and puts you in an ER in a real time situation, which I love. I love 24 or two. So I like that like, you know, open trachea, you know, tearing a heart open. It's your mind off of things.

30:35Yeah. Good family watching. Yeah. That's great. Is it like 24 worth like four hours? Yeah. No, it's a 12 hour shift to the ER. Is there ever a gusset now or then sitting around if any machine hanging out? You would think. Figure coffee. I would go like you know, snacks. Yeah. We've got about a person they they could save and the one they could save. How about you? Anything? No, I've got to catch up. I've been busy with work and haven't had much of a chance to see any of those things, but I would definitely like to see the pit. I've hear a lot of good things about it. Every time I think I've caught up on something, I'm like, well, then a new series comes out. I've been just a new one here. It just came up season two of whatever and all of this movie looks great. I turned on Amazon Prime to watch the new episode of the invincible, the animated series. It's brutal, but great. And on the front pages, maybe I see like Valorina's in blood. I'm like, well, this looks interesting. It is like Lana Condor, who's very well, you know, and one other name I recognize. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm a sermon to it. So it's silly

31:40and kind of dumb, but entertaining about these Valorinas who are in Europe on a to go to a competition or van breakdown. They had a crazy hotel where gangsters are. They're like fights to survive. They put like razors in their, like in their toe shoes. They fly over two twos and it's amazing. It's dumb and silly, but I really think so. That sounds great. I love those discoveries where you're like, you're no plan on watching them. You haven't heard it. Oh yeah, that's one. Yeah. I finally ended up watching a couple seasons of euphoria. A kind of dumb but insane version of high school and some kind of California hell that was just like, I couldn't stop watching it. It was so over the top. I can't wait. Yeah, I know. It was a big, pleasant surprise. I really liked it a lot. I have one that's just completely silly and realistic. This would never happen, but I don't care. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad I didn't go to that high school. I did. But comic wise, if you guys should have been the comic book wise lately, I'm just too busy

32:44wagging to do so. I'm trying them. Yeah, I haven't, when we're drawing comics, I'm very, rarely reading comics because it's kind of the last thing I want to read. I've been reading slowly make my way through Emile Zola's novels. They're like 19th century French novels. It's really, really different from comics, obviously, but they're really beautiful, cool stories, many of which were made into films. So they have this kind of sweeping visual vocabulary, which I really like a lot. I've probably asked you before, but just curious. What comics do you read as kids? The daily comics in the Inflier. And then on Sunday was like the mini pages. You got like six pages of full-color comics. So I always think like, well, family circus as a little guy. I like that one the best, especially like Jeffy had to go on an adventure. Or if it was dead grandparents and I always love the dead grandparents when they're all ghosted. I like Nancy too. I'm not sure

33:50yeah, I'm not sure if any Bush Miller was still drawing it then. It would go to bed in like the 70s, but it was hilarious. So just talk about it to somebody because there's a new book out in Abrams. Like I heard it and seen it a little bit as a kid, but then I, it was when Olivia got her took over. And I said, so Reno, like, it was really good. I don't know if they made me want to go back. No fun, but yeah, I thought of the entertainment. Yeah, there's so many, like obviously blondies, these are the first one on the page for me. Yeah, I'm always good. I am lowest. Yeah, Beetle Bailey. Yeah, I love Beetle Bailey. Mary, fine to find. I don't know how to even describe the panel to look for. And it probably leads to expensive. I remember maybe the in this remembering where Sarge is at the ball. And they, there's like a fine or anything like special today. Beer and pizza or pizza and beer. He's like, I don't know which one I was. I don't know. And it's just silly. And I'm like, I want that. It's really good. Yeah. No idea how to even look for it. You know, I've been to all our beer and pizza like a million

34:53Beetle Bailey. Oh, man. And that's here for the Phantom too. That was pretty good. I really like that. As a kid, I read that every week. It was awesome. I didn't get into it until I got old. I got into adventure ones like I bought a lot of deal with Flash Gordon one. Oh, yeah. Lotto. And I think seeing it, it's different as it is. I love the campy film. Yeah. Flash orange film. Oh, yeah. It's just, again, when there's silly things, so great. But then I went, oh, the cops are very different, but didn't queen do the soundtrack for that? One of the best. I believe I saw that in the movies. Yeah. I did too. I've seen it many times in every Melanie. And I met them, but I haven't seen them. But it's, yeah, it's so good. Can people find you online to say hello? Can people find you online to say hello? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're on, going up. Boy is our Instagram. We're on Facebook and Blue Sky and coinoutbooks.com.

35:55Yeah. That's what I meant yesterday. Yeah. Purchase their books online. We'll see them at one of the next shows for you to see them. Pete's going to do a show in Denver. He'll be in Denver on May 9th. And I think there's some other smaller shows in California that I'll be doing over the summer. They'll be like maybe FBX. Yeah, we'll both be at SPX in September. Yeah. As always, thank you so much, guys. Appreciate it. We'll see you at the bar, Jimmy. Excellent. Thanks so much. And I'll see you guys definitely at SPX later this year in September. If you want to get hold of us, you can do so here. You can find us at comicdoosinsider.com. Email us at comicdoosinsider.com. Follow us at Facebook.com. slash comicdoosinsider. Subscribe and follow us on places like Spotify and iTunes so you can get this podcast automatically each week. While you're there, leave a nice five-star review with nothing but love. If you want to contact your host, Jimmy, he's all over Instagram, Blue Sky, Tumblr, etc. Under the handle at Jimmy Akino. That's at J-I-M-M-Y-A-Q-U-I-N-O.

37:02So as I mentioned, two more interviews to go. Later this week, you'll hear from Morgan, Bolshear, and then next week we'll do Jesse Mechanics interview. A really good stuff. Kicks is coming up April 18th. That's the Kingston Independent Comic Expo. That producer Joe started this week, their third year, and they've already expanded to a couple small spaces. For this year, it'll be the first time they'll be in two spaces. I'm like a blocker less from each other, like right next to each other. And so I look forward to that. I go just for the day for that. This is only one day. And you already get a lot of great cartoonists going, locals, New Yorkers, other people coming in. So really look forward to checking that out again. And of course, these interviews there might be writing a panel as well. So more info to come on that. But thank you again as always guys. I hope you enjoy. And yeah, check out your departure local small press comic shows like No God and go check them out. Yeah, you might love it.

38:03I know you will. Thanks again. This is Jimmy Akino and this is Comic News Insider.