Ram V The Black Tower New Gods and More

0:00Welcome back everybody it's time again for another word balloon the comic book conversation show John Sutras here I spoke earlier this week with Ram V because he's got a brand new series out the black tower that he is doing with our buddy Mike Perkins. Ram is our buddy as well and it's a great espionage story and very unique but with some supernatural stuff going on I'll let Ram explain. He's also teasing a new series that's gonna start in November but we also look back on new gods and talk a lot about that because he's really laid out some stuff he's gonna come back to a new gods but he wants to take a break and focus on some creator own stuff including this new vertigo series the black tower so I think you're gonna enjoy this conversation. Ram V on today's word balloon coming soon a new documentary from the people who brought you the legend of Kingdom come Wilson Cavitch that Polish guy examines the remarkable life groundbreaking career and dazzling artwork of one of comics most influential creators featuring observations from luminaries like Jim

1:02Lee Kevin Smith Dennis Cowan and many others coming soon Bill St. Cavitch that Polish guy if you like word balloon and want to support the conversation join the League of Word Balloon Listens today patreon.com slash word balloon for just three bucks a month you get access to the monthly word balloon digital magazine where I'll give you interviews transcripts plus the word balloon book club Brian Benison myself with the league we all get together on a zoom call to talk about a graphic novel your support helps keep word balloon independent and brings you even closer to the conversation join us today patreon.com slash word balloon thank you for your support League of Word Balloon listeners welcome back everybody it's time again for another word balloon the conversation show John Stutters here today I'm competing with him in a hair contest but as always Ron V is gonna win hands down good to see him and how you bet hey if I if I have the upper hand on anything John is is the is the

2:08hair he's only the hair pleasure to be here always good to see him and and wow great start with the new Vertigo book and I want to talk about new gods and you're telling me you got something new that you're doing with the French publisher we'll talk about it yeah but man black tower the Ravencens Pharisee excellent start I I talked a bit about it with Mike Perkins a couple of months ago oh yeah you know and I'm really glad you guys are back together in as you were on swamp thing but you know it came out last week everybody tell tell people about it it's great first issue Rob really loved it thank you yeah no it all started when when DC editor extraordinaire Chris Conroy came up and said hey we're looking at launching the Vertigo line again do you have a Vertigo pitch and he said this and then we were both kind of grinning as he said this just because basically every pitch I have ever made at DC they've

3:12had to issue me with a note of caution going like wrong you're not writing for Vertigo this is mainline DC stop making these weirdo pitches to us and so finally there was this moment where Chris was like go ahead make your weirdo pitch and then yeah I pitched them this idea of spies and magic just because I mean partly also because I felt like there aren't enough great spy comics you know and and I love the genre I wrote a little article at DC dot com about it one of the first things so in the article I say my dad used to have this library that I was forbidden from going into when I was a kid mostly because he had all these like saucy adult reading books in there and I used to sneak in and then grab a look at all the James Hadley Chase novel covers they had some

4:15dad some saucy covers back then but then eventually that got old then I started picking up books and actually reading them and one of the first books I read was by Jack Higgins there's a book called Touch the Devil and Jack Higgins was one of those sort of great British spy authors of the of the 80s I think and then it was just like I was hooked on the genre from there it was him Frederick Forza at Robert Lidlum like before people were talking about David Jack or movie I was like I've already read the novel at a point of multi-spoken I've already read that and so yeah I was a big fan of the spy genre and then for me Vertigo's the great Vertigo books have always had this sort of element of magic or supernatural and them and they weren't about sort of casting spells and throwing fireballs they were about a kind of magic that is ever present you know just around the corner if you only knew how to look in

5:17the right way and so I wanted to bring those two things together and the moment I pitched this Chris was like this is the most like Vertigo pitch and then lo and behold the book came out and about half the reviews are like this is the most Vertigo of the Vertigo books I'm like all right good at least at least I know my flavor as well it again I love it and Perkins is so perfect for this book was he your guy right away like oh no this is the guy that's got to do it yeah it's really it's really weird because I was talking to Mike about you know stuff we should do at DC long before we were asked for this pitch and I was like I have this thing that I want to do it's got spies and it's got magic and you could see he was like bursting to say something and turns out like he has been trying to get someone to pull him into a book that has spies and magic in it

6:19for like the longest time because he's a huge fan of Queen and Country Greg Rucka yeah so he'd been wanting to do something of that sort but also featuring some of this one thing asked magic that that was that he loved as well so as soon as this came up he was like it was all he could do from being like too effusive and going yes wrong let's do it I'm not surprised man again he's he's been killing it with Jürgen's on those Batman yeah yeah yeah and that's very grounded despite also being a superhero book yeah but that's the great thing man no this is this is straight up John Likaree I know I'm have you ever seen Sam Beggars the old 70s spy show oh yeah yeah there you go I know what talking to yeah yeah no I'm I'm absolutely a massive fan of the genre so I've

7:22seen I've seen that I've seen the O.D kind of British spy shows and so yeah big big fan of them there's a show called the game which they remade which they remade I think in the 90s or 2000s as well but yeah no I I know every trope in the genre so expect to see it in the book yeah a lot a lot a lot of drawing room kind of conversations on a Likaree kind of atmosphere but yeah yeah like I was I was telling Mike if anyone ever sees the script to my second issue at the at the top of the page I'm like Mike we're doing the prerequisite two old men chatting on a park bench scene now and it's genuinely an old British spy and an old Russian spy sat on a park bench talking to each other without making eye contact it has to be there

8:24and it's there in every jungle carnival so yeah that's excellent man no this is cool and your your protagonist is he's an ESP kind of kind of guy right yeah he's uh he's I mean at least so far they think he's an ESP kind of guy and he's a young American uh sort of military grad who is sort of demonstrably shown to have these powers and for some reason they don't train magic people in America they send them across the pond to be trained here and we'll discover as the book goes on why that is the case um there's something not good about magic simmering under under the States so um but yeah this this also feeds into my other obsession of like historical conspiracy theories you know um so there's so there's some of that coming as well

9:31yeah excellent and also your your what's what's your main character's name again so there's actually I would say there's a team but there's sort of two tentpole protagonists on either side the one is the sort of young naive I know nothing about the world of magic trying to protagonist and it's great because people who don't know the rules are the most given to breaking the rules so you will break every rule there is and then on the other side is Alistair Romeo who is this incredibly enigmatic older gentleman figure who for at least half of this first season demonstrably shows no ability for magic um and it's just an old school called War Eros by um but his very presence instills absolute fear in anyone who comes across him and then some around issue

10:33for it is when you realize why he is so feared um and I'm really quite proud of having come up with his power he does have power but is the most unmagical power you could think of but it's that it's that trope of someone who has a very limited set of abilities but is so Machiavellian that they have engineered the entire sequence of events to work to their strengths and so I mean that's that's really the best spy right so Alistair is very much of that sort he will wait for exactly the right moment to use his very limited ability to turn everything in his favor so but the American he's a native American right he's an indigenous person isn't he well well at least partly yes um his grandfather is very clearly native American this is from the time I actually a lot of the places in that flashback are where I used to study and work so I studied at UPEN I worked in sort of suburban

11:41Pennsylvania um and so I've traveled around the straight state a bit and I'm aware of the sort of native American history off the location so I used a lot of that in kind of seeding into the into the character as well and so yes there is a native American connection but he's also partly sort of not native American if you will sure and um there's there's a link to that there's a underlying meaning to that as well when we get to it uh here P. Bessar says uh he lives in uh is it called midia or media media yeah media Pennsylvania right outside of Philly and uh I used to work I used to work in Audubon P.A. for a company that made the aerators wow uh Chris says you popped into my feed I haven't on mute to avoid uh put possible spoilers since I read everything on the DC app I'm always a month behind but he loves Ram's work he's looking forward to reading Black Tower and then

12:45Cesar Rome says will we get the release okay of new guide season two and Batman Sandman anytime soon well yeah we're gonna talk about new guides but if you want to answer Cesar's question now real fast well um season two is still a while off uh okay honestly just because I had to take a break from the all the super hearing that was doing okay and so um yeah I went away and I worked on a bunch of other things and I you know I want to get back to it at some point and I think there's very much conversations about getting back to it so we don't have a release date yet but there will be a season two fingers crossed. Not on Sandman stuff as far as I know is already finished lettered and all of that I just have no clue where on the DC publishing line up it falls and I haven't really asked so maybe I should ask and find out and let people know. All right no worries on that um yeah we'll get to new guides because certainly that was a great two 12 issues and in fact uh to kind of

13:46honor Jack Kirby this past weekend um I played that portion of us uh previewing new guides when we talk and yeah yeah but now you you killed it on that but this story and everything now all right so so um uh the kid's grandfather is indigenous and from Pennsylvania did the Pennsylvania Indians uh because I know about the Navajo's during World War II and and that you know the all the code the code stuff that they did in World War II so there's a level of espionage with the Navos did the did the Indians of the grandfather's tribe did they also were they also participated in that at all. Well I'm not I'm not really sure um about their participation particularly in the espionage side of things but they were certainly part of the forces that were sent off to fight on the ground in the world. Sure and um no my my concerns with the idea of magic and the sort of indigenous people of the Americas is more more historic and more with the

14:54nature of where does cultural magic come from and and how does it survive and and what is the difference between you know uh I'm gonna spoil stuff so so forgive me if this boils at for anyone but you know did you know that when they hired when they brought on Oppenheimer to work on the Manhattan project and and making the nuclear bomb they also brought in another guy I forget the name exact name but he was a protégé of Alice de Crowley and so there was an attempt at trying to build a magical bomb alongside the the nuclear one and people were trying everything they could buy love the idea and so in my head and this will come up at some point in my head I thought it would be pretty funny if they chose to go with the nuclear bomb because it was the lesser of two evils and so and the nature of a magic bomb and so a magic that is post-World War II made with the

16:02intention of destroying things and a magic that comes up when you are a people that is attached to a land that is attached to stories there are two very different kinds of magic and so we start off with this idea this grandfather says there's no magic in America anymore which I thought was a lovely place to start from yeah that was no that was a great moment in everything and that's interesting especially given that the allies were trying to build a bomb that way and then he's the true that Hitler because you know we are of course being well his obsession was much more well known that he was obsessed with the occult and more more so than him there were people under his command who were very much convinced that there were there were ways to use the occult and knowledge of magic to their to their aid more and this is something that Europeans have been much more

17:03open-minded towards even before the the Second World War you know even when the British and the French were fighting each other or when you know the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings were fighting the idea of magic being very much a part of warfare has always been sort of prevalent in these parts well I can you know I can honestly speak to my own family because I was just telling a friend the other day my grandmother knew how to remove hextas all the people and my aunt his her daughter middle daughter had had the evil I put on her and she had like a really bad fever and she had an outy belly button that was in a knot and then that came undone and she just had this terrible fever and my grandmother consulted with another woman that practiced the good arts and told her what

18:03herbs to buy soaked it in water put it put this rag on my my aunt's stomach yeah gave her an incantation walked around her saying this chant and and the woman told her the next morning she's going to be fine and she woke up she took the rag away the the belly button was knotted again and the fever had thrown it and my my other aunt her sister is like I know it sounds crazy all I can tell you is I remember every second of it and it all it freaked us out and I'm like all right whatever so I know hey my my grandmom was like the local medicine woman for her community back in back in southern India sure and but but also like I had an equally opposite experience as well where I was just like why she's just a con woman she's just conning some of these people in the believing what she says and so there's always those two sides and I think that's where magic exists

19:04right there should always be a doubt as to whether because the moment you're convinced it's really no longer a cult that is just accepted knowledge you know and so yeah I love that idea of like magic exists in the half-truths of things you know no but I I like the idea too beyond the magic and the astrology that Hitler and his people believed in did he really go for because I know my DC golden age history of the spirit destiny of course and I don't know if Hitler really in in reality was searching for that totem at all I mean that was definitely a task force not only with you know the the Nazis but also within the Japanese sort of military intelligence at the time there were definitely groups of people that were looking for anything that would give them an edge in the war right and so anyway that's the case people

20:06look for symbols of power and symbols of power have a cult power around them they gather a cult power around them if you can't put your finger on what their magic is so I wouldn't be surprised if he was actually going for it but there's definitely records showing they were gathering up all kinds of symbols of power and artifacts that they could they could get their hands on is and and so will we see more flashbacks to educate this magic that you are laying out in the story what we see more to an extent right like like I feel like the place for that is maybe like a season two or a season three because season one you really want you really want people to get to know your characters more than the plot you know the spirit of destiny can wait what we really want to know is who is this character and love with and and who will they sacrifice everything for and who is naive and who is far too bitter for their own good so so I think yeah I think the

21:13for it's always a question of how much you have to balance that sort of real world flashback history stuff with to there's some of it we're going way back way further back in the second world or though we're going back to like the Welsh giant kings of England and whatnot so we'll get there we'll eventually get to the second world war I'm sure all right no worries is is the first chapter eight issues twelve issues how long is the first chapter it's six issues okay kind of it kind of the again as a nomash to the books that I fell in love with it kind of works like these spy novels right like the six issues is one novel sure with the same group of characters and then you'll get a follow-up novel that is a completely different adventure but with the same group of characters so and sometimes if you if we get to do enough of these novels you start seeing sort of a bigger picture or like a cross all of them so yeah that's cool man hey you know I love let's just say there's a

22:14there's a there's a unattached head involved at the end of this first arc and the cliffhanger is that the head speaks and then it leads into the second promise of the second volume hilarious man that's fantastic well you know there were elements of espionage even in the vigil as I remember yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah man so yeah no so I feel like I feel like both vigil and black tower certainly fall in the same sort of realm of writing style for me I love writing teams I love writing teams of sort of slightly damaged characters I don't like well adjusted people in my teams and I love this sort of sense of espionage and secrecy around all of them so yeah I'm excited man no that's that's terrific and it is it's a great start so no people

23:16need to uh to pick this up I'll show the cover again for everybody there it is the black tower the Raven conspiracy it came out last week so can't wait let's see um uh well all right let's get some of the questions and then comments from people Cameron says Rob V is the goat each fan of Batman Run and new gods in particular and these are speaking of the vigil will we ever get any more of that story I mean potentially it's just a question of like when do I set a side time to to write that partly I am to blame because my brain is so like and then the next thing I want to do is this other thing and so uh but I'm also like I also miss writing these things and so so I definitely want to come back to it the the question is like will I stop being saying yes to doing other things long enough to come back and do the things that I've done before

24:17that's good that's all right man um well uh now you were telling me off the air before we started you've also got a new thing coming with a french publisher tell me the details on that yeah yeah so Evan Kago who did the art on you gods Anand Radekerson who did the art on blue and green and and resurrection man and a mystery third artist uh and I along with you will collaborate with her and comular signed on to a nine volume deal with a french publisher uh to do nine books of a story called Desidium um so the the the broad pitch is in a world that is controlled by organized religion and corporations old primal gods start returning and manifesting through the lives of everyday people and so you get this sort of conflict of everyday gods versus

25:21organized religion um set in this kind of futuristic I would say between urban fantasy and urban sci-fi world um and it has it has all of these manga aesthetics to it because Evan's art kind of lent it up to that but also I get to play out shown in manga aesthetics with like pitching gods against god pillars yeah so I hang on I hang on a second no problem man it's all right the the natives are getting restless in ramsas that's quite all right it's uh it's all good man yeah yeah my my kids my kids having uh uh yeah having a rough time accepting he can't win every game I respect that how old you son yeah he's uh he's five years old he's just starting his sort of first year of uh school in in a week so very nice it's that time

26:21where all the summer caps are done and so he's here for a week and he has nothing to do so like by the end of the day he's like uh really frustrated because I'm bored yeah thoughts enough to wall it's no I understand man that's all right he's just he's just started getting into like understanding what I do for a living so it's kind of really cool to see him experience all the superhero stuff and then go like wait you actually write these guys what yeah did you take him a spider-man I did I did yeah he's uh he's a huge spider-man fan and so um obviously you went to that and then every every now and then he's like did you write this I'm like no not this but I've written stuff around I've written the other characters I've written Thor before like you've written Thor yeah excellent man well and also for the new thing give me the title again around it's called Day City him it's uh yeah it's kind of picks up from the Latin Latin term for the murder of a god

27:26day aside uh mostly I see for a day yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah not with you okay uh so homicide is the killing of humans and and day aside is the killing of a god and so day siddium is an event where you kill gods will they be will they be graphic novels then uh and yeah they're they're going to be uh about a hundred pages each they come out in graphic novel novella format if you will and the the hope is to release one every about six months or so um and do nine of these over the period of you know three or four years essentially wow that's ambitious man well and as you're describing the story too uh there's a flavor of what you did in those twelve issues of new gods yeah to an extent um I think I think the fundamental difference though is is new gods is still on some level superhero story right the the the presumption is we're looking at these other characters

28:29that are that are a lot like us but they're not like us in that they are gods that have come from another dimension or the other place whereas my brain went wouldn't this be super interesting if the gods were to come from within us right and so on some level this is probably closer to heroes the Tim Kreme uh a TV show the save the cheerleader that one yeah yeah this is a lot closer to that uh that was obsessed with superheroes being born within us whereas uh I like the idea of of kind of old more primal gods you know like like we used to worship the canals and jaguars before we decided to to worship you know organized chat read from a book all of that we used to hunt with gods and we used to wake up and wait for the god to show up in the sky and so I quite like the primacy of that because I feel like that's where stories first came from right um and so yeah

29:36this is probably closer to Tim Kreme and probably closer to American gods the the game and novel um yeah it picks from a lot of different places obviously also in its futuristic setting close to new gods too um but I actually had first had the idea for day city of back in 2015 before I had made a single comic um I actually reached out to Nick Robles at the time and we we were like let's try and make something of this and then fast forward almost a decade later I'm like okay you can finally get this thing off uh yeah that's great man well and again you've built up I think enough of a library that I'm I'm glad that beyond the stuff you're doing for DC and when you did Marvel stuff and everything that um it doesn't surprise me that the European market would be and the but the day market would be interested in your um in your in your in your kind of storytelling so that's yeah

30:36no I mean fortunately almost ever since these saboteurs pretty much everything I've done has been picked up in the in the BDE sort of French uh Spanish, Chitalian markets and and that's another cool thing about day city and is that it's going to come out in France um the US UK in Spain in Italy potentially portugal brasil as well um Poland as well so it's it's almost like a global release at about all around the same time I love the idea that people reading it from different parts of the world will recognize gods from different cultures and and this is conversation happening across so yeah I'm very excited about it that's excellent man when you're talking about original storytelling uh being Greek uh you know of course I yeah yeah I think it was it was required for me to go see the Odyssey of course yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah what'd you think

31:41I loved it I loved it I'm uh I've always been a no one fan um and so I was kind of excited to see his take on on what is technically a fantasy genre right uh I don't think he's ever done fantasy as genre before like he's only done sci-fi he's done thriller um and so to to to see him do this kind of fantasy epic thing was really cool yeah I thought I thought it was timely I I love the sort of commentary on you can't fix once you've broken something beautiful you can't fix it um there's no home to go back to because you broke Zeus's law you know yeah yeah I think I think that's a timely conversation and I was talking about this with Alex Pac-Madeau who is a sort of big fan as well and we were talking about Nolan's sort of preoccupation with the fall of institutions

32:47and so yeah this is this is another film that investigates the downfall of human institutions things that we hold as true and and solid ground upon which we place our sort of claim to being it evolve evolve societies and then suddenly you look down and realize wait everything we built over the past 30 40 50 years can be can be broken away in five seconds if you break the right laws right so I mean I wonder what he's talking about yeah really don't get it what are you gonna do all right but that's what escapism is for men that's all right um well that's great man and also I would imagine I I didn't realize I forget who I saw recently in an interview talk about how unfortunately marvel and DC work when it when it plays in other countries and stuff they don't see royalties from it maybe it's just marvel I don't know how DC works with that stuff but thankfully so much of your stuff is creator-owned yeah I've always had creator-owned stuff

33:53that I've worked on even when I signed the exclusive with DC part of my deal with them was that I get to do creator-owned things that doesn't you know ever get interfered and then obviously I'm my exclusive with DC ended in 2025 and I didn't re-out because I was like actually I kind of want to be able to do more creator-owned things and do less of the monthly superhero stuff just because you know I like to have the time to go like okay I'm gonna take a couple of weeks because I'm stuck and I can't figure out what's happening and you can't really do that with a monthly book so yeah it's been it's been a really exciting return to doing creator-owned things I mean obviously I continue to do more DC marvel stuff here and there but yeah my my interest is in doing the the weirdo stuff so I expect to see a lot more like I'm also doing a horror one shot with Steve Beach the artist and that's something I haven't the flavor of which I haven't touched since I did

34:59blue and green all those years ago so it's kind of excited to return to that format of storytelling as well yeah what was that those two different books that intersected and kind of the one thing that you did remind everybody of those titles so the one hand and the six fingers the now Eisner winning one hand and the six fingers yes yeah yeah yeah it was such a weird idea when we pitched it um it was simultaneously exciting and people were like you guys are crazy doing this but look I mean it one it won the Eisner which you know oddly sits on my table right here at a point there you go and then and then it won this Polish science fiction award which I'm really uh from from Nova fantastic I'm a big fan of there they're a really well-respected magazine but also I'm a huge fan of Polish science fiction and fantasy writers I mean all the all the Witcher stuff comes out of there

36:02and and Stanislav Lem was one of my favorite science fiction writers was Polish so it's kind of it's kind of cool to be given an award from that that you know standard of publishing as well that's why I'm so envious of the Europeans truly because it really is like you know you get to experience so much more of what the world has to offer and I really didn't start to read Spanish comics and Belgium comics in French and South American comics and you know even even beyond you know the early 80s stuff that we got as far as English comics and stuff but I mean it really wasn't until I was well into my 30s that I was able to start experiencing that stuff and then also like thankfully being friends with people like Howard Chacon who turned me on to I want to say Alan first great movie kind of and then yeah yeah crime and that's being a kind of guy yeah so I mean no or oh my god on this the great Swedish stuff like I think it's the Aminens

37:08like the like laughing policeman the movie was based on I think I don't know this yeah I you know I I know the BBC did adaptations of this one authors crime stuff and everything but no it's it really I mean and now it's like yeah I mean the crime stuff especially the Scandi crime is a whole genre on its own so very much again a very very deep and beautiful genre in terms of how to look at crime writing and they have all of it novels books television shows movies so yeah Scandi crime is its own thing pretty cool man very very cool well everyone if you want to ask questions about new guides and ROMs great detective Ron and everything so are you forgive me Rama are you currently doing a Thor stuff or did you recently do a Marvel film no no I I did a Thor book for Marvel that never came out because of COVID oh wow you remember you remember

38:13they mixed like half their after publishing lineup during yes and so this was part of the empire event that I did a four-issue thing for with Pascal Ferry and yeah it was really cool to work on but I don't think it ever came out and so there's a secret ROM beat Thor book somewhere there would it all for all of you willing to just buy into Marvel archives yeah would it would it possibly be able to stand on its own that as your profile increases that they don't know I think they've tried to like collect the collect these sort of black and white art for it and in places here and there and I'm sure there's it's out there somewhere but I don't think it yeah I don't think it quite works outside of the realm of the of that empire event so understood did they did they come did Scott come to you about any opportunities for any of the absolute stuff they're

39:16doing over there we yeah we talked about it very early on and to be honest I was already at that point sort of quite done on the on the burnt out of this one writing superhero stuff so I was like you know what like this is a cool thing that you're doing and it probably it's also it's of a vibe that is not really my vibe I like my weirdo 80 vertical strength no problem buddy it's all right that's what happens folks it's okay domestic issues it's quite all right while while Ram's dealing with them and I put up a comment from JD regarding the sweetest stuff he says the laughing policeman was written by the Swedish writing duo of Maj so wall and I know I'm murdering these names per wall per wall Lou but yeah man if you know you know they did an

40:19American adaptation of laughing policeman early 70s Brew Stern Walter Matthew really great straight up like scary very very bleak police procedural the laughing policeman so but Ram is back and I will ask you about new gods man wow honestly man that was outstanding I really really loved where the story went you brought it so funny because again I was like I was telling I think I told Ram either on the air off there I replayed it for the for the Kirby weekend given that it was Jackson 109th birthday but at the time when I was talking to you and you know it was first issue hadn't even come out yet still a couple months away man everybody was in this thing and I love that and I loved how you used a seraphine and you know I mean and and I just think there are some great dangling questions of stuff and also great to see Max Ward back with the new gods given that's where he was

41:20originally in Kirby's fourth world Jimmy yeah yeah absolutely um and you know there's a there's a new gods one shot lined up at some point that's kind of checking in on where everything is and so very happy to very happy to have been able to bring in two wheels and himself into that one shot at some point so I love doing stuff like that because I don't know I mentioned this at the time I wasn't like a huge Kirby nerd or anything because I didn't have the fourth world single issue stuff grown up it was only after I read like the entire fourth world collected omnibus there is an absolute writer's dream to come across because of exactly those things there's like a million dangling questions that you could pick up any one of them and go this can be this can be a place to start a story on its own um and so the intention was very much that the intention

42:23was to feel was to make the story feel like there were two universes colliding not like we were looking at one or two characters from some far away corner but rather there was no undeniably now a point of contact between the DCU and the fourth world as he was I loved it man no it was it was no and I have I have big plans for for Saraphane and I have big plans for some of the characters that we didn't really get to see much of even in the first volume like forager for example yes I was going to be read by my rob forger and uh and uh as a ravager is the baritone that he was and what's there a raker raker raker raker raker raker raker was uh was the green lantern yes of that of that area yes and and so I'm in so you know the status quo in the new gods is that the nictari have taken over both apocalypse and new genesis um but they haven't been able to

43:29completely take over new genesis because the bugs are running a gorilla warfare operation I love the idea that they crushed the gods but the insects they can't seem to really stomp out which which you know I think speaks to curbi's original intent with the bugs as well right when they were these kind of underclass the gods looked down on them and it wasn't until forager that the gods themselves acknowledged that oh the bugs are and the bugs have like that there's an extensive set of characters there that are like super under explored and I would love to explore them um and also like such a cool design thing right to to do these kind of sci-fi insect oids superhero creatures so also the way they infested and took over people and everything was so great as yeah that was that was a new character right I dropped in her name is queen menoptera and menoptera is the

44:38classification for the wasp I think and they are they are mimetic creatures they will they will take over other creatures nervous systems and push them to do their bidding so yeah well and also I mean we all we all hear that when when the end comes for the human race and we wipe each other out it'll probably be the cockroaches that survive the bugs will survive man so so you know just take a putting a twist on that sort of the bugs will survive concept and and I just I just love like I just love the idea that the most unlikely hero he is keeping the torch burning because he's like no we refuse to die down we're going to absolutely wage a gorilla battle against this insurmountable army yeah well and again I I I replayed my Walt Simonson the interview and talked about his run on Orion and I loved when he used raker in his choice and I just love

45:41the idea of this lone green lantern that's cut off from everybody else and stuck on on apocalypse and and you know but still fighting the fight and and you had that wonderful scene just like in the old days where of course you know a mob suddenly comes and beats the shit out of him yeah but he's still gonna fight and that's great man that's how pure these guys are and it was like the scene John you know kind of try to connect with them and everything John these are the these are the characters you really love right like I get it I get everybody loves the big Superman that man stuff sure the thing that really excites me about comics is like yes Superman is out here fighting universe level threats while there's one guy stuck on a planet somewhere just trying to get a message back to everybody else you know and no matter how insignificant he might prove to be the unlikely pivotal hero in the middle of it all so um here uh sees her watch know we're

46:42guarding the new guys will we see Shiloh Norman the other uh mr. miracle show up I mean so so just look at where things have landed right uh the Scott free is now high father and so there is definitely uh you know mr. miracle spot opening up somewhere so we shall see we shall see yeah that was and truly man all the stuff with Scott Narayan you know and then they're they're complicated relationship and yeah and also you know you couldn't help but think this this child who is a new god in everything yeah I mean it had the echoes of hey it's baby Hitler we got to kill baby Hitler yeah I mean you know it's in modern day and I'm free you know with a more uh interplanetary vibe to it and everything but yeah man it was uh I just but that's the that's the whole thing right like are you capable of passing judgment on something as long as you believe it

47:42to be an other and not human in which case is it okay to then deal with the threat that way so so these are these are universal questions right and and we as storytellers we create gods to be able to answer the questions we are not brave enough to answer in reality so we make stories to answer them and and this seemed like the right place to do stuff like that that's great man I was I was I was I was also um expecting it to connect more directly to the absolute universe but I think you made enough references to what's happening there and even them finding the black hole and everything and yeah some some things going on we're not sure what it is but um yeah I thought I thought that was okay and also uh agent chase I thought was a fun uh addition to this yeah that's the thing man it was so you know you got the justice league there and everybody they're dealing with what's going

48:42on but also it's a bigger story than you realize and we just had having agent chase and uh and Max Lord and everything was like and I think that you know that will continue to be the case even this kind of one shot checking in there's there's sort of justice league angles involved there and and because I mean politically the question now is like these gods they live on earth do they submit to earthly laws given that they are gods you know I think are these illegal aliens not here by the grace of our people must they not submit to our laws and so so these are these are questions worth asking and answering in interesting ways so yeah and light rays uh travel travels with the black racer and uh nice man did you did you really think about um because the black racer for years you never heard him speak yeah but obviously in the in the in the after in the after world

49:45obviously you know that's his realm yeah so I I kind of loved that it finally happened and we actually heard the black racer speak yeah and and also like black racer even in this book only spoke after technically after light rays that um and so maybe the insinuation as you can only converse with him when he is carrying you you know across the boundless realms so um yeah it was it was very much a sort of my conversations with death thing and I thought I thought it was a lovely way to to do this thing where light ray is such a such a god of hope that even in his passing he gives hope to death itself to to fight you know um and and yeah like you know I have plans for light ray still you know at the end of that the whenever light ray is returned to there's a there's a message

50:49back from the source that says iterative entity light ray return right so so the idea is that maybe these are maybe these gods are archetypes and they must return eventually um and so perhaps when the rest of us need hope the most light ray shall return we'll see I wondered if I saw a lot of balder the brave in light ray in your interpretation of light ray were you thinking of all of balder when you were uh when you were doing this um to an extent but not not overtly so I just loved the idea that technically light rays also high fathers sun right it according to the OG Kirby stuff he was he's kind of adopted because he's just there and he does he's not really born with any powers so um I just I thought of it more as a as a family drama

51:55of of a father and and his sons if you will and here's Orion the mercurial sort of favored son and then there's Scott who's like the I don't really care what you think to me dad I'm gonna go I'm gonna go you know have a smoke drink of beer spend some time on earth and so then you have this sort of middle child who is always trying to seek attention but never seems to get the attention of his father he has actually been the champion in absence of Orion he has served but never disobeyed and never and yet never been mercurial either he has always been by his father's side only for his father to overlook him on every occasion until the very end and so I just I just love I just love writing drama like that so yeah and high father now I say back to being I say also great backstory with him uh and everything and and his tragedy yeah before becoming high father

53:01no really man real rich 12 issues and we're again you're the artist for this uh it was that was Evan Cagle yeah yeah man Evan's stuff was just so dis mind blowing yeah oh very lyric anyway now now he he didn't do detective with you did he no he did all the covers on the detective wrong okay yes yes made did a issue of Catwoman with me before that and we did a book together a dark horse called dawnrunner and then he's doing about 300 pages of day city him for me now so yeah that's great and how how soon will we see day city him um I think early November so wow great okay well then all right before the end of the year we're gonna have to get back together yeah yeah more talking absolutely sadly um and and and all right so now Scott is high father and uh Olivia live free um what you

54:02know what kind of role much she have coming up um you don't have to use she she is my she's my baby from the invincible to movie she is this kind of toddler that you have no idea what her powers are and she has no idea what her powers are so she is this kind of incredibly cute lovely ticking disaster in your hand um and I love and I love using her like that because you know you're writing something dramatic and quiet and peaceful and all of a sudden there's like an exploding baby in the corner um yeah I didn't I didn't I didn't have any plans for her beyond like I knew I wanted to do something like that but then this one shot that I've written we start we start seeing little bits and pieces of that um would live free as well so and and you know is there a better symbol for for how Scott frees term as high father goes he's like all right all right

55:09everything is fine oh my god my daughter is exploding again you know so uh yeah every time he's like I seem to have managed all put out all the fires there's a new one starting right up so but also I like that quiet moment with poor high father's just like beating himself up and dealing with all the consequences of his choices and Scott shows up with live and he's like hey meet your granddaughter man and it's like and there it was it was a very sweet moment and and Evan really captured that in the art everything it was great yeah I agree and and I kind of I I love that mechanism as well because you know part of it is as personal therapy I suppose on some level yeah I had a difficult relationship with my dad at times and so maybe maybe the Scott free high father stuff is also a way of going like you know we can still be friends after everything that has happened it's okay you're still you're still my dad I'm still your kid we can still be friends and so is your dad still with us no

56:15like that passed away you know we'm sorry we passed up up a while back but I like that emotion I like that human ability to go you know we may have have history between us but right now in this moment you're a granddad here's my grand here's my child here's your grand father we can do this right and so yeah I love writing stuff like that and and I love that this this story gives room for stuff like that you know that's cool and immortal man I have another amazing 12 issues and resurrection man immortal man and I might get a letter from someone there no but resurrection man was really really great and meant we you know unfortunately we lost butch guys and everything and that's a shame yeah I think the book honors him as well as

57:16gives us his last bits of art and yeah I mean I'm so glad that we got a chance to collaborate with him because when we reached out to him I mean we didn't this wasn't public knowledge at the time but when we reached out to him with issue one he was already saying you know I can't do more than an issue of a page an issue because I'm dealing with some health stuff so we kind of knew that he was already struggling with the health things back then but I'm so glad you know I put myself in that position I would be glad to return to a character I made up from scratch you know so I'm glad he got to return to a character sort of he made up from scratch with Adam and Lamy so really cool man no it was great um I don't know if I've asked you this before where I'm any other beyond comics novels or you know I'm a freak about audio drama and I'm so glad that audio drama has come back I mean it never left Europe yeah in the States and thankfully with

58:24you know so would you ever want to do any sort of audio drama or any of the other formats yeah I mean part of the part of the in part of the endeavor in doing less superhero stuff is also to have time to do other things in other mediums right so I wrote a game I wrote the I did some conceptual development for a game called Saros that came out recently on PlayStation 5 and did really well was reviewed really well as well and so that was very exciting um yeah the opportunity to do more game stuff going forward so there will be more stuff that comes out in that sense and then we might be looking at animating day-sidium so I might be working on adapting some some stuff to animation there and yeah I've always had other weirdo ideas about things that don't have a format just yet so think comics slash animation slash audio drama

59:32slash visual design thing on YouTube so I'm working on a project to do something like that I've also sort of floated a mini production house in that time so I've been busy doing doing lots of stuff in lots of mediums but they all take time and so they will come out when they are when they are good and ready I'm always blown away around honestly and I know hyperbole on my part but very excited for day-sidium coming up and right now everybody on your stands black tower the Raven conspiracy it's begun and you got great stuff from ramen Mike Perkins and Mike Spicer doing the coloring really great stuff here a question from I don't always say this oh Vito Vito Mera Smada I'm gonna say you've written many death adjacent books in your career how do you manage to balance the dramatic side needed for storytelling with

1:00:35the gentler side you've clearly shown I mean there's lots of technical things in there I would I would say that the drama is greatest when you are at your most gentle right like I used to I used to talk to this writer who gave me this really wonderful example of a mind show he went to somewhere in Europe with this guy mines the fact that he's making a cake so he's breaking like 12 eggs and he's you know turning it into the batter and then one of the eggs hatches in his hand while he's about to break it and so he's like oh man I've got a chick now and he's he drops the cake starts raising this bird they they have a great time develops a relationship it grows up he sends it out the window and it's gone and the mind just kind of waits there for 10 seconds and does nothing while the audience is watching him and you can feel

1:01:38the audience is heartbreak and then the mind turns around and he's got this perfect practice smile on his face and he just goes back to baking his cake and I I will tell you the saddest thing is when the characters refuse to acknowledge how dramatic or how sad something is right and so that is a trick to me for me to balance the drama and the gentle side of things is to have people treat drama in the most gentle way possible you know yes it's it's you know it's one story to have the hero who you know goes out on a vengeance spree when something happens that he doesn't like and but that's that's the real escapism the truth of it is that people deal with terrible sadness in the most gentle ways possible and so we mustn't forget that there is great strength in being able to do that and being able to wake up the next day and go on with your life so

1:02:38very cool man excellent stuff um we can wrap uh again uh if you missed it it's collected the new gods both both volumes epic story and really honoring Kirby but taking it in really interesting directions as well and we will wait patiently for that but we got De Cityam coming up in November and uh right now on your stands everybody the black tower the Ravensons' piracy from Ramvi way to go man thank you yeah always always a pleasure sorry I was late sorry like there's complete drama happening around me but um it's alright you know you know the perils the perils of having an exploding five-year-old well now we can understand when uh when uh live though now you know where it all comes from right man when what scats like hey you know the kids crappin and being at the same time and it's driving me nuts oh that was that was absolutely me and and I don't let Rehan let it down I tell them all the time about the time I had to deal with this like crappin pee exploding infant on my hand so

1:03:43yeah I don't um V came late to the party uh if you've got a question V let's write it now because I was ready to wrap up with ramen unfortunately you've come late but uh certainly uh we've been talking about the new guys that's sure yeah you rewind and then listen but if you have a question can I tell you this funny thing that happened right yes yes please it was we were we were expecting and we were pretty close to him being born and and and our friend sent over this package of just like a year's supply of diapers with the note that said hey congratulations on ship happens no I understand I thought I was like oh yeah best gift ever thank you very true absolutely men are very necessary all right for your last call otherwise we're gonna wrap up so if you're if you're coming up with a question let's uh let's get it out there because uh we don't want to waste rounds time he's gonna get back to the kid five years old man the kids bouncing off the walls he's

1:04:46watching second Iron Man movie third Iron Man movie third Iron Man we watch one two and he's on to the third one um yeah to my to my mind the best of the Iron Man movies oh I agree I thought that was a great movie too I'm I'm I'm I'm open minded when it comes to doomsday I'm not I mean there's a lot of man that's a big chess board there's a lot of players on that chess board it is it is and and I also feel like we're in that phase of the storytelling now where I feel like this is this is impervious territory you're gonna have to have followed nearly a decade worth of movies to really understand who any of these people are or where they're coming from I love the innocence of the of the older sort of origin story uh stuff the bigger event stuff is always dramatic and great to look at it I've seen all of it but uh yeah but the magic of watching Tony Stark struggle with whether

1:05:46he's a mechanic or a superhero is uh is gentler but more impact through drama for me all right last two questions Rob Caesar of Rob says are you done with the big two uh ongoing or with no no I wouldn't say I'm I wouldn't say I'm done I would just say I'm I'm off taking a stroll in a different park and and you know at some point I return and I will return with fresh new ideas you know I'm already talking to people about 2028 or late five were to wow come over on the marvel side of things what would I be interested in so there will be there will be things to do in the future I'm sure okay and here's Vee's question uh does the truth source exist beyond the fundamentals of do the fundamental of the great darkness in the light existing beyond their opposing principles as something more primordial I mean this is the kind of stuff that you're supposed to make your own mind up about

1:06:47you don't the author is not supposed to death of the author the author is dead all you get to do is read the book and make up your own mind about metaphysical things because these things are simultaneously meaningless and the most meaningful things you could come across the whole point is to encourage endeavor on your part not mine that's the best answer I always hear from writers absolutely man the the story inside your head uh that is inspired by yeah because the moment the moment I'll put it to this way the moment I give you an answer that's the only answer that exists yeah right now it's right now is the most exciting it will ever be because it's like Dr. Strange looking to the future you have a billion possibilities for what it could be as soon as someone comes along and turns the everything except one off and goes this is the definitive answer it's kind of less it's less than it could have been you know when uh when uh 2001 I was too little but I mean I started watching

1:07:54in the 70s and that end sequence is just mind blowing yeah and I liked 2010 the sequel yeah yeah but it means this means this this means that yeah and and it's like well this is the same is the same problem right with why the the OG alien movies are so much scarier and the longer you look at the alien saga go on and you watch Prometheus you watch everything that's trying to explain everything to you now you're like now it's like Lord of the Rings but in space you know but the the whole idea is that it's inexplicable and therefore interesting yeah I remember not to name drop but I remember talking to Kreme Abdul Jabbar and how Maddie was at at the alien sequel said he's like you know he's like I don't know man I think I think the more you explain something the less it becomes so absolutely here final final word from Sean here who says love your arm picked up the black tower last week

1:08:55your dedication to the craft is wonderful absolutely thank you thank you I appreciate it absolutely my man a pleasure uh let's let's do this to begin in a couple months yeah so we have thumbs out and we'll have more to talk about with Ron V that'd be great I'll send you I'll send you a early PDF and then we can discuss it you're you're kind of sell to do that for me man I appreciate it my pleasure thanks everybody hey tonight uh more conversation we're gonna go to the absolute DC universe and talk about absolute green arrow with porn set piece at show I saw the fan ex post Chicago and I'm like dude you're you know it's been forever you got four issues out there let's talk so we're doing it so we're gonna get the best is a lovely lovely guy to talk to so enjoy yourself we're balloon live that's tonight at eight eastern uh I gotta do the math no excuse me ten eastern nine central uh seven uh specifics so that's happening tonight until then everybody stay safe stay happy stay healthy all right here soon now make sure you subscribe to the

1:09:59Worthful in podcast become a leap of forward balloon listener at patreon.com slash word