Mike and Danny are joined by Zack Kaplan to talk comics they've been reading, Zack's bravery(?), color use in comics, Mike's obsession with conspiracy comics, and more (including some of Zack's upcoming comics!)
Mike and Danny are joined by Zack Kaplan to talk comics they've been reading, Zack's bravery(?), color use in comics, Mike's obsession with conspiracy comics, and more (including some of Zack's upcoming comics!)
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Timestamps:
Producer: Mike Rapin
Post Production & Social Media: Kait Lamphere, Daniel Martinez
Prooflistener: Nick White
Editor: Zander Riggs
Mike: This is the I read comic books podcast the very best podcast for regular comic book fans. I am your host Mike Rappin.
Mike: Joining me this week, a cool gen Z FBI investigator and they're no bullshit best in class partner this week.
Mike: I'm joined by Danny from the next issue podcast.
Danny: No bullshit here.
Mike: I mean, we'll see. And our very special guest for this episode, Comic-Quil creator extraordinaire, Zach Kaplan.
Zack: Hey guys, how you doing?
Mike: Oh, man, we are we are very excited to chat with you today.
Mike: We talked a little bit about the Knicks and about the FIFA games that are happening right now before we started recording.
Mike: But we're here to talk about comic books. Okay.
Mike: For folks at home, though, who maybe don't know who you are, is that could you tell us a little
Mike: bit about yourself who you are, what you've been up to, what you've got going on right now? Yeah, I'm a busy man.
Zack: I'm a busy man. I'm a comic creator. I'm a comic writer. And I write mostly sci-fi or genre, supernatural, action, thriller, all sorts of creator-owned books.
Zack: And this year I've got about four different books that I'm doing with Dark Horse Comics.
Zack: Masterminds kill all mortals, only the the Savage are left and the Smart Division, which is coming out shortly.
Zack: And yeah, that's me. Fantastic.
Mike: You were you were so kind to give Danny and I preview some of those books as well as a
Mike: book that you have coming out the smart division, which is which is what I was alluding to in the intro here.
Mike: But before we talk about that, I'd love to get into it.
Mike: We have these legally mandated questions that I have to get through and I have to ask them. So how have you been how have comic books been?
Mike: Zach, let's start with you. What have you been reading, dude?
Zack: What have I been reading? I I'm very much on the bandwagon. I jumped on green arrow. Pawn sack is a dear friend.
Zack: And and I hate him for being such a good writer. But everything he touches is phenomenal. And
Zack: Yeah, that was great. That deserves all the freaking press and hype that it's gotten an absolute green arrow was really cool. So that was my...
Zack: my read of the last week or so.
Mike: Yeah, man, I have not had a chance to sit down. I'm woefully behind on all my absolute books, but I've heard that that one is incredible.
Mike: I mean, for instance, I guess an incredible writer, like everything that I've read from him has been gold.
Mike: So I was very excited to see he was announced as.
Zack: you guys are listening, you don't know his work in Fidel good Asian man's best to boom. Yes. Yeah, great. Yeah.
Zack: I mean, God, that man's best book with Jesse Lonergan.
Zack: I mean, yeah, Jesse, he's amazing too.
Mike: Yeah, totally. I don't know what the absolute green arrow book is about, though, other than like, I think he's killing people and he's killing them really hard.
Mike: Is that what the book is?
Zack: Yeah, that's it. Yeah, green may or killing people hard.
Zack: I like that. Yeah. And then Dinah, Dinah's kind of, I guess she seems to be the main character for now.
Zack: So she's got to get to the bottom of it, get to the bottom of this new killer green arrow. It's
Zack: It's great. I think that it does everything you'd want an absolute book to do, which kind of reinvent everything and keep
Zack: you on the on your toes and the arts great. Albuquerque's just a killer artist. Yeah, I've had a couple of
Zack: he's phenomenal.
Mike: That's a killer combo. Danny, I'm assuming you've read this, right?
Zack: I have and let me tell you this this
Danny: Absolute train is not stopping anytime soon.
Danny: Like every title.
Danny: But this one is so cool because it does have that murder mystery type of thing.
Danny: But Albuquerque draws violence and really gory stuff so well that it just really comes out of the page.
Danny: We'll talk about a little bit of violence and gore when we get to Zach's work.
Danny: There's definitely a big crossover. So yeah, it's just incredible. And like I said, Dina redefining the character.
Danny: There's a mystery of who's behind the mask of the new arrow because Oliver Queen is dead. We know that.
Danny: So yeah, it has so much going for it. And I love the team. I like all the stuff that they've been doing.
Danny: So this absolute idea stuff is just, you know, it's a goal of mine.
Danny: Like DC found a way to reinvent themselves while still keeping going on the other stuff.
Danny: So like Kudo, see whoever came up with that, I hope they got a really nice bonus for the end of the year.
Zack: Scott wasn't it Scott Snyder? I think it was.
Danny: I'm sure most of it, yeah, he seems to be the architect behind all this stuff.
Danny: So, and he's a hero's con right now, as we're speaking, telling people like, what else is coming for the next few months.
Danny: So very excited to see where all these books go from here.
Mike: Is Scott like, is he like running the show on the absolute line? Is that what's happening?
Zack: That's my impression. I don't know enough.
Zack: My impression is that Scott is along with the editors at DC, but Scott is kind of the architect of it all. Yeah, that's my impression. Interesting.
Mike: Okay. I mean, I love to see it. I'm loving what's happening right now with the absolute book. So, okay, that's great. That's great. I...
Mike: Anyways, we could talk about absolute books all day, but Danny, let's kick over to you. What have you been reading? How have you been? All that stuff.
Danny: really well. It's been super busy week. Monday, well, last weekend, we had one piece pre-release for the latest set.
Danny: So those are their keep, those that are keeping along with my expenses in our discord.
Danny: Add a few boxes of one piece trading card game to the tab.
Danny: And then we also have, of course, like Mike said, the World Cup is going on, which I'm all in on. And that's so many games.
Danny: I hope that everyone that's listening really appreciates how I I am missing.
Danny: What are the gays that I wanted to watch the most because the algorithm is all before we plan to schedule.
Danny: But yeah, it's so much fun to see people excited, to see people visit other countries and then just kind of like.
Danny: be just absorbed the culture. Like my favorite thing on social media right now is like Europeans and Asians and people from Africa and other countries like.
Danny: They are discovering what North America living is like.
Danny: I don't know that they were ready for the heat, first of all. I mean, some countries are not a bit, but not everyone.
Danny: So that's all, that's quite fun. Everybody's going to the Waffle House. We're here for the unsung hero of American culture.
Danny: And I mean, I saw a bit love.
Mike: I saw a bit like that where there was like a German guy who was like This is the best
Mike: meal I've ever had in my life And it was like some run of the mill just like little tiny
Mike: diner in the middle of nowhere And I'm like yes, this is what America actually is like. I love that so much
Danny: Now, as far as comics though, they've also been great.
Danny: I, when I was trying to figure out what to talk about on the show, there were so many things
Danny: I wanted to talk about, but I want to give a quick shout out since we did touch on absolute stuff.
Danny: And nobody else put it on the notes absolute cowwoman Shay Grayson Scott Snyder and Bengal another great mini series.
Danny: Like I said, they don't know how to miss they can't make a bad book over at the absolute office over at DC
Danny: But the thing that I want to talk about is if anybody is a fan of Kevin Smith.
Danny: He finally got a chance to play with the Marvel toys. So I'm going to talk about Jay and Silent Bob, Jay's
Danny: written by Kenneth Smith with our body, Giuseppe Kavinkoli, Inks by Cam Smith and Robert Topogi, co-host by Marcio Minnes
Danny: and Eric Garcia, and I got Travis Lainham doing the letters. This is just Kevin Smith's love letter to the Marvel Universe.
Danny: This is what happens when you get enough clout and you have your own characters and you get to play around and write your own story.
Danny: You can definitely tell that, obviously, Kevin's a longtime fan of all this stuff.
Danny: He's written for Marvel before he's gonna be writing for Marvel more if you get to the end of the
Danny: book he's gonna be doing a Spider-Man Hulk book. So yeah it's just pure chaos because his characters are insane too like
Danny: If you're a fan of his movies...
Danny: There's a panel where Jay meets Deadpool.
Danny: And it's like the most meta thing. And this all takes place in your corner of the country, Mike. This is all in New Jersey.
Mike: Oh, I know. I'm sure. I'm sure it is.
Danny: The book starts in New Jersey and they just kind of go all over the place. It's really fun. It's really meta. Kamen Koei's art is just incredible.
Danny: He really knocks it out of the park with both having the likenesses of the characters look like they do in the films, but also just
Danny: Drawing I don't know like 50 different Marvel characters across you know 32 pages or however long this book is
Danny: I'm usually kind of hit or miss on Kevin Smith movies But when it comes to the nerdy stuff like
Danny: his podcast and his comic books I think he always truly delivers because he's just a he's just a big
Danny: fan that Somehow got to he got in the office and now they won't they won't they can't kick him out.
Danny: So Yeah, it's a lot of fun to read and I got this really cool Fill Nauto cover.
Danny: Oh, I just look at that.
Mike: I just look at that.
Danny: It's, dude, the covers.
Danny: are insane. Talk about, talk about a hit to my wallet. Pick
Danny: Choosing which cover I was gonna get was was tough in a week where we have match coming out with
Danny: their own blind bags Which is a whole other thing that Nick's probably pulling his hair on right now while
Danny: he's listening to us proofreading Yeah, it's comics like Mike Mike says it best comics are good and I'm happy
Mike: I mean, to be immortalized by Phil Notto, you know, with a bunch of Marvel characters, that's pretty fantastic. I mean, that's the dream right there.
Mike: Well, let me let me talk about a book that I've been reading really quick. I just sat down last night in Red Dead Man number one.
Mike: I should say before I get into it, it's fantastic book.
Mike: I also financially going to be in ruin in the next two weeks as the Marvel set for Magic the
Mike: Gathering is coming out and I keep seeing new cards and I keep saying I will spend a stupid amount
Mike: of money to get these Jack Kirby cards for no reason other than like they look cool. They're not even mechanically great. They're just fine. It doesn't matter.
Mike: I'm I'm in trouble as what it is. every time they revealed new cards, I'm like, this is a problem. This is a problem.
Mike: So yeah, Godspeed to me, I guess, as I go broke and--
Danny: Let's diapers for the baby. Listen.
Mike: the child is fed. That's what's happening. And then I spend the rest of my money on Magic cards. So I don't eat, but she does. It's fine.
Mike: Anyways, I did read a comic this week, a couple comics. I'm back in my Naruto train. I'm starting to read it again.
Mike: It's take a few weeks off and I'm back. But I did read Deadman number one. This is W Maxwell, Prince Martin, Marazzo, Chris O'Halleren, Good ol' Neon.
Mike: The Ice Cream Man boys are back at DC doing another book. I'm in obviously. How are you?
Mike: How are you not in given how great the Superman Kryptonite Spectrum book was?
Mike: How great everything that they've done with ice cream man over the past couple months has been.
Mike: I don't know. My background with Deadman, though, is basically nothing. So I went into this completely blind. I didn't even know Deadman's real name.
Mike: I'd seen the iconic character in his outfit with the big, huge, like red, I don't know, like shoulders and
Mike: stuff like that, but never really read anything about Deadman.
Mike: There was a moderator on the /r/comicbook subreddit for a while who was very active on their Discord, and he
Mike: was obsessed with Deadman, and we made all these special things to make sure that Deadman was very prominent in
Mike: like the design that we did at one point way back in like 2009 or 2010. But other than that, I had knew nothing about Dead Man.
Mike: But anyway, so going to this book, blind was completely fine. You really don't need to know anything.
Mike: They give you a very brief one page explainer of like, Dead Man got killed.
Mike: There was this deity who decided named Ramakushnu, who decided he wasn't exactly his time to go.
Mike: So now he has to shepherd souls into place A or place B or maybe back into their bodies or if they get stuck, he has to help.
Mike: And that's his whole thing. He's like a janitor. And that's kind of the bit of the story.
Mike: You take that and then you take this horrific mystery at the center of the story that is very akin
Mike: to Ice Cream Man and you've got Dead Man number one. It reads like a wacky slice of life comic and I really love that.
Mike: It's not bombastic, it's very grounded.
Mike: It reminds me of every issue of Ice Cream Man where you're like, I know something supernatural and strange is going on here.
Mike: Obviously there's ghosts, so that's kind of strange. But like, it feels very just plain. It's just slice of life. He dead man's just doing his job.
Mike: And then there's something very dark and nefarious right at the end and I'm like, I'm totally in.
Mike: This is nasty Martin Marazzo creeping on your mind with like subtle hints and nods until you get to the end. So this book is gonna be great.
Mike: I'm certain of it.
Mike: I'm very happy that these guys are doing more work over there because I like taking their brand of strange and scary and putting it on DC characters.
Mike: I think that's been really, really fun.
Mike: So highly recommend it if you didn't check it out.
Zack: That's on my list for sure. Yeah.
Mike: Yeah, I if you like ice cream man, this is like a natural like sibling comic to that.
Mike: I feel like absolute or the Superman Kryptonite spectrum kind of a wacky fun book, but this book feels like
Mike: an ice cream man story and like it's the perfect setup
Danny: Before we did I just want to comment like interestingly enough
Danny: more superhero than the Superman book which is weird somehow it feels more than the superhero route
Danny: probably because it's in main continuity as opposed to the black label of it all but
Danny: Yeah, it's such a wild ride and it explains Deadman so well that I finally understand Boston brand and his
Danny: his actual mission and why he's back and why he's left in the world. After so many years of reading comics so they they're doing good work and.
Danny: Morazu Zard
Danny: The stuff that he's drawing, once again, I don't know, maybe there's a theme going on today that we're just kind of leaning into the gore.
Danny: and then are the imagery.
Danny: That's fine. That's cool. I love that stuff. So give me more of that
Mike: Yeah, totally. So I'm looking forward to where this book goes. Zach, if you check it out, you'll have to listen. No, I think you'll do it.
Zack: I will. I think you'll do it. It's at the top of my list.
Mike: Hell yeah. Well speaking of top of your list, what is on the top of your pile? Is it deadman number one or is it something else?
Zack: Deadman is definitely at the top of my list. I'm, I'm, I'm,
Zack: I'm a...
Zack: I love gauging what I should read based on lots of reviews out there and looking at just like what's
Zack: getting great buzz on reviews and Deadman is definitely one. Another one that is, I'm excited to go to is.
Zack: neighborhood watch. Over Boom.
Zack: I, Sarah Galey, such a good writer. I eat the rich and a couple others that she's done. But I really, I love everything she does.
Zack: It's just so, so, so kind of these great
Zack: I don't know, slice of life mystery thrillers. You fall in love with a character, and then they're thrown into really interesting situations.
Zack: And yeah, so, as a neighborhood watch, got some killer reviews. So I like seeing stuff like that catch fire. So that's something I'm excited to pick up.
Mike: Yeah, I feel like I saw this on the solicit's at some point and I just completely forgot about it
Mike: So I appreciate you bringing it back to my to my mind go ahead Danny
Danny: It's a very interesting book because it gives you the story from like two different point of view that eventually kind of collide.
Danny: There's this like neighborhood association and then there's like coming the people that kind of live together that kind of collide.
Danny: So you have that element of it like there's a class difference already so that's already conflict, but then.
Danny: There's the mystery of it all, and then HANING doing the art.
Danny: I mean, it's incredible stuff like the way that they're doing panels and separating both communities and each of their pages and kind of going back and forth.
Zack: I like books that take a--
Zack: a left turn approach sometimes or take on layouts in an interesting way or take on the device in the story time that sets it all apart.
Zack: So that's cool.
Danny: Yeah, I think you would definitely enjoy it once you get to it.
Zack: - Oh my gosh, you guys.
Mike: Yeah, did you not? Did I not just tell you about my financial properties?
Zack: my financial progress. That's the point of the question. It's still a good thing. I know. I...
Mike: I know I know listen if you were just gonna say dead man's like good I already bought that
Zack: - Deadman, yeah, Deadman.
Zack: Yeah, or Danny.
Mike: Yeah, exactly. Well, let me, let me talk about a book that is on top of my pile.
Mike: This is a book that I have the digital copy for. I don't have the physical, physical copy yet.
Mike: I think it's coming in the mail, but this is Orlando written and drawn by Jules Schiel.
Mike: It's an adaptation of the classic Virginia Woolf novel, which is a story about a poet adrift in time.
Mike: He starts out his life as a the nobleman in Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth's court.
Mike: And her story concludes as a 36 year old woman in the present.
Mike: There was a movie that was made a while back in like 1992 or four or something. I can't remember starring Tilda Swinton and Billy Zane.
Mike: And it is one of the most like mind like changing.
Mike: It was a it was a movie that like didn't change my mind so much as it was just like
Mike: such an interesting beautiful portrayal of like gender and like expectations of gender roles and stuff.
Mike: And I had never heard of it before until just absolutely nails it like throughout from beginning to end.
Mike: She's just like the perfect person to have played the titular character Orlando And to see that this this jewel
Mike: shield is adapting this for Avery Hill press everyone listens to the show knows that I'm an Avery Hill plus
Mike: Publishing sucker so like every book they put out I'm pretty much buying a copy So very excited to see
Mike: that they're putting this out But I really want to see how shield like adapts the story to comic because
Mike: I really really loved the the movie I've never read the novel Maybe this is just like a hammer to
Mike: say like I should be reading the novel too, but um such a beautiful Movie I cannot wait to see the comic.
Mike: Um, have you guys heard of this? Have you seen Orlando before any chance?
Zack: I know before any chance it's interesting. No.
Mike: - Mana, I don't know how to explain like just how beautiful of a movie it is 'cause it is
Mike: like, it touches on so many things and it is such a short film. I was so blown away by it.
Mike: So if you get a chance go watch Orlando with 'Til the Swinton, but, or if you want, go buy this comic. It's gonna be great.
Mike: Like, "Shield's Art" is fantastic.
Danny: with
Danny: I want to see Billy Zane adapted into a comic book form.
Mike: I mean, Billy Zane, I mean, Billy Zane is just Billy Zane in the Elizabethan court, right? And it's so funny to see him in that role.
Mike: But really the star is Tilla Swinton.
Danny: the star is.
Danny: character for Titanic. I just I mean, brought to the book.
Mike: Exactly. Exactly. Well, Danny, let's end with you before we get into talking about some comic books that Zach has written.
Mike: What's on the top of your bile this week?
Danny: Well, there's a lot on the top of my pal, but it's always hard for me to pick something because...
Danny: I have to read a lot of stuff on Friday and Saturday before we record.
Danny: prep reviews for the next week. But this time I did have something that I haven't gone to.
Danny: My friends over at Image Comics sent me Memoirs of Giselle. This is a new trade paperback by Katya Vecchio.
Danny: Now I'm not familiar with the creator at all other than knowing that I got this book and I should check it out. And I saw somebody say
Danny: Like they posted this book just wrecked me and then they were crying on their video and I was like all right good
Danny: I'm ready to let's go. Like I need something in between all this superhero horror like mystery stuff to just kind of ground me back to earth.
Danny: So this is described as a coming of age slice of life graphic novel that explores the psychological journey of
Danny: a young woman carrying the weight of childhood trauma. And listen, I could
Danny: go to therapy or I could just read more comic books and I think I'm going to take the comic book route because it might
Danny: be cheaper in the long run, maybe not the way I buy comic books, but for a regular person, it probably would be cheaper. Right. Right. Yeah.
Danny: It's a, as the memoirs of Just Sell On Fools with quite an availability, an availability. Oof.
Danny: That's a safe head three times. A brother and sister move.
Danny: through a to the fragile terrain of their childhood marked by hidden abuse, silence, and loss. So this is not a lighthearted book.
Danny: This is this is something that's pretty heavy. So you really have to get in the right brain space for it.
Danny: But like I said, I have read enough other stuff and I have other stuff ready to read right after that I think it'll even me out.
Danny: So so I should be good.
Danny: Vacuos already looked incredible just from the little previous that I I was browsing through on my iPad as I was checking out the review copy.
Danny: But yeah, I'm going to think I'm going to just get in and lock in on this one. I'm very excited because I love reading the books.
Danny: This seems to be like semi-autobiographical, but not fully. I said I don't know the creator, so I don't know much of their story.
Danny: But I know that, and I'm sure Zach can attest to this, like sometimes writers put themselves in their stories
Danny: or, you know, they have, you have to use from life to kind of bring these books to life. So.
Mike: I was gonna say.
Zack: - Wait, are you ginsies that we're--
Mike: Are you
Zack: Yeah, I know. There are some amazing stories when...
Zack: I mean, like I think Zoe Thorgud who puts her life bravely right freaking on the page and then tears your heart apart.
Zack: And yeah, that's a great, a great, I don't know if it's a genre or a style or an approach,
Zack: but that kind of story can be very powerful.
Mike: Absolutely. Yeah, there's like a rawness to it that is like it's scary in some ways.
Danny: Yeah, this definitely gives a little bit of that lonely at the center of the earth vibes from from Zoey So yeah, I definitely I think it's cool.
Danny: I think I think it's fun to explore comics I think hopefully people don't this like this book just because
Danny: it made them sad because I think that's that's kind of a false Narrative that when a book or a
Danny: movie or something makes you sad that you don't think that it's good
Danny: I think that the fact that it made you feel something means that it's actually accomplishing what it's trying to do. So hopefully people talk about this.
Danny: I'll probably talk more about this eventually when I get through it. So stay tuned either here on the show or on my channel, wherever.
Danny: But yeah, I'm looking forward to this a lot just because I think it's very brave, like Zach mentioned, to
Danny: foreign artists and the creator to do stuff like this.
Zack: I'm not brave enough to do that. Not yet.
Zack: a fantastic over the top things. And I tap into human emotion and drama for sure, but people write with a different engine. And I--
Zack: I do not put myself a thousand percent like that bravely on the page. I very much look up to writers who do that. It's very...
Danny: Yeah, and we'll talk more about this. But I think there is, there is, there is a lot of kind of the world that you live in,
Danny: that can your stuff that as we kind of get through it. So, you know, maybe it's not personally you, but you can definitely tell like.
Zack: I put point of view on. - Yeah, I don't put, I don't put like a comic book writer who's like going through shit in my comic.
Zack: you know, I don't make you like cry because like Zach, the comic book writer is having a hard time,
Zack: you know, but there are stories out there about people saying like, yeah, my life went through this awful thing and you should cry with me about it.
Zack: And they and you're like, yeah, I will do that with you. Yes, this is beautiful and awful. And yes, let's go.
Mike: - This is why I can only read those volumes of my lonely, oh man, the lesbian life of loneliness series or something like that.
Mike: There's this manga series that is about this woman who is like, she is a comic book creator, she's trying
Mike: to get out of her shell, she lives with her parents, she's trying to get her own apartment.
Mike: It's like so autobiographical and so brutally honest about the reality of the life that she's living in.
Mike: I just like, okay, I need to go for a walk and get some son of my skin.
Mike: 'Cause this is, it's very like beautiful to read, but it is so heavy to carry, right? Like.
Mike: So, but we can talk about the books that are your point of view, not your biography, right? Yeah.
Mike: You've got two books that we were here talk about today. Yeah, that's good. Clear, hard transition.
Mike: We wanted to talk today about the smart division that's out on August 5th. It's you and John Pearson.
Mike: And you've got the only only the savage or left which came out two weeks ago as a recording today
Mike: and you've got issue number two coming out very soon.
Mike: This is you is to final Rafael Diego, Rocha and Helsan Osmani Elhau fantastic books you let Danny and I take a look at those books.
Mike: Holy smokes, Zach. How do you do it? That's not my first question. I just very impressed by the books that you got coming out, man.
Mike: I'm curious though, if we just dive right into only the savager left. Zombies in 2026, what are we doing?
Mike: I'm curious because I feel like, is this a story that came from the heart or are you just aggravated by the political climate?
Mike: Because you know this thing of like, zombies come and go based on like political unrest?
Mike: Is that that or did you have something to say with your, your very interesting take on the like zombie style story.
Zack: - You know, I mean, first off, I thought, I thought, let's spin it not exactly do zombies. Let's do this on be-- - Yes, yes.
Mike: Jesus, not be apocalypse with with
Zack: Monsters and let's rather than be undead. Let's explore this really interesting dramatic
Zack: choice that you could have which is to save yourself from transforming into that creature. What would you do?
Zack: if you saved your, if you could save yourself. But yeah, it's very much by injecting that choice, I think you get
Zack: you get a more soseo, like, what's our relationship with the world of monsters, you know? Like, what do, should we be hiding away?
Zack: Should we be facing off? Should we be turning violence? Should we be holding onto ideals?
Zack: And yeah, that is very much about living in a world today where I feel like we do live in
Zack: a world of monsters and we do live in a world where there's way too much violence and we're numb and saturated to it. And I don't know.
Zack: you know, the whole we go high and be a good person in the face of monsters.
Zack: doesn't feel um
Zack: I don't know, it doesn't feel like the path forward all the time.
Zack: And so this is me kind of trying to say to readers, are you guys feeling a little torn about
Zack: how to be a good person in the world today? And what do you guys think? And thus the main character of this book.
Zack: is this young, idealistic pacifist who just wants to be a good person. He's the best of us and we put him through the ringer.
Mike: - Yeah, I mean, I wasn't trying to be completely pointed. Like how dare you do zombies today? 'Cause it's not a zombie book.
Mike: It's a very interesting perspective shift on what it appears to be just like another zombie story.
Mike: And I think that the last third of the book does a fantastic job of like setting you very, very
Mike: far away from what a typical zombie monster, you know, oh, they're out there, it's, you know, they're ravenous.
Mike: There's nothing we can do about it type of story, which I really, really appreciated. I, Danny, I'll turn over to you after this very simple question.
Mike: Why the color yellow? Is that important or am I reading too much into it?
Zack: There's a lot of yellow. Yeah.
Mike: There's a lot of yellow in the book.
Zack: notice. Yeah, we took yellow several ways. I mean, first off, we had to come up with the color of the infection.
Zack: And one of the things we did not want this book to feel like was this was a book, a
Zack: demonic book, a book about hell, a book about undead creatures. So we wanted to get away from red.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah.
Zack: - Yeah. - If you make the creatures red, they feel like they're demonic or they're under worldly. And so this is a book about infection.
Zack: This is a book, I mean, it's not about infection, but the device, the device that were built around as
Zack: you get infected and you can stop that infection.
Zack: So yellow felt like that was the right choice for the transition from human being to creature. yellow is indicatively
Zack: kind of a, it gives a sickly sort of vibe. So the whole piece itself has kind of this yellowish undertone.
Zack: I think in a lot of ways the book feels like a western.
Zack: because this is about a character going from a safe environment and going out into into an uncharted kind of
Zack: world and and there's very much kind of a cowboy morality tale to writer's stories.
Zack: So the kind of yellow tones of kind of a western like hell or high water feel very felt very right.
Zack: We you know Chago is our colorist amazing colors who's done kill all the mortals, masterminds, midnight shadows with me now this book so very versatile.
Zack: And we talked with Stefano Raffaiele a lot about the tone and atmosphere of the book.
Zack: And then yellow is also interesting because our main character is carrying around a shield that is made out of
Zack: a crossing sign, which represents like, so this school bus yellow also represents kind of like the best of of us like our innocence and our childhood.
Zack: So we had a lot of fun kind of creating different yellows that mean different things like there's a yellow
Zack: that means sickly and beastly and then there's a yellow that means like our loss of innocence.
Zack: So you're a thousand percent right to pick up on like we anchored the whole book around yellow.
Mike: Yeah, it wasn't that it was like in my face, but it was a thing that I was a guy
Mike: at the end and I was just like, hold on a second. Things are, things are starting to click in my mind.
Mike: Um, so thank you for affirming that I'm a smart guy. I appreciate it.
Zack: I love to come at a team from the beginning and be like, okay, what are our touchstones? Why are we making these choices?
Zack: Because I feel like you could just cut everybody loose and you could just say, hey, Stefano, just draw whatever
Zack: you wanna draw and chug, just color whatever you wanna color.
Zack: When you bring everyone together and you ask those sorts of questions, you get this, that's when you land on
Zack: choices that have meaning and that stand out and have impact. So.
Mike: Yeah, it's cool. I mean, like green lantern stay away. You know, that's fantastic. Yeah. Yellow. Yeah.
Danny: Uh, for the first thing I'm going to comment on, Zach, one thing I love that when a book does
Danny: is give you like this big title page, like a few pages in kind of like a movie, you know,
Danny: you watch a few minutes of it and then the title comes up.
Danny: Also, Tom Mueller with this, with this title like I'm assuming it's Tom Mueller because I see that he designed the book. Tom, Tom Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, Mueller.
Danny: Yeah. Yeah.
Zack: He does all my stuff. He's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. He got it.
Danny: that's amazing. It looks incredible. But what I wanted to ask is why was, why your decision to jump five years into the future after
Danny: we, after we, like, why that amount of time and how does that kind of, you know, get to the story?
Zack: I think several reasons. I mean, it's a great question and it's a tough choice. But I think that--
Zack: We want to see the world a new status quo, I think. I want to see a new status quo.
Zack: And I wanted a period of time where one, our protagonist, writer, has been shut away long enough. And it had to be--
Zack: He starts off in high school. Him and his, it's a love story between him and his love interest.
Zack: Her name's Oakland and she's a real strong-willed young woman. They start off in high school, so they're driving, they're 16 or something like that, you know?
Zack: And so I wanted him to be in his early 20s, you know? I felt like 21 felt like the right age to
Zack: to be at that cross roads of still just coming out of childhood, but not yet sure where your path forward was.
Zack: And so, you know, five years just felt like the right amount of time. I mean, could it have been four years? Could it have been six years?
Zack: I mean, it was in that ballpark. But I think it had to be enough time that we've really, and this is a post-apocalyptic story.
Zack: We wanted enough time where the environment and the world had felt the decay of absence of human beings not tending to it long enough.
Zack: Five years felt like you could start to see cars, you know.
Zack: rotting in the rain and stuff like that. So yeah, it was a...
Zack: it fit, it fit everything that we wanted. But we wanted, we wanted Ryder to be ending a world that he had been sitting out on.
Zack: And I think that's a very important, kind of thematic question and aspect.
Zack: You know, Ryder has started this journey with his mother and they have chosen to face a world of monsters by not facing a world of monsters.
Zack: They are sitting, they are sitting out and hiding and being safe, which I think is probably exactly what I would do.
Zack: the world has been taken over monsters. How, where can I go hide and just stay away from this forever?
Zack: And, but it's kind of a question of like, is that the right choice? Like, is that the best choice?
Zack: I mean, is that, you know, it's, are you really being a good person by just putting up walls and looking after yourself?
Zack: And I don't know that that,
Zack: We kind of hit that directly right in the first issues. Yeah.
Mike: I mean, that's like an always an interesting thing about like, you know, stories that take place in like a
Mike: post-apocalyptic world where like there is this question of like, is isolation the right way to do things is like, you know, keep it.
Mike: It's, it's a thing that you can easily apply to like modern day is like, do you need to put
Mike: fences up around your entire gated, you know, your little community create this gated community does that actually benefit you
Mike: does it or does it benefit everyone like, yeah, does it benefit.
Zack: Yeah, does it better than anyone? Yeah.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a very interesting thing because I think you can hit it like very hard in a
Mike: story like this because like obviously there is a reason to do that but Even still like does that actually help you it does actually help anyone?
Mike: And I appreciate that I think that in the fact that so far, you know, at least in the first
Mike: issue We you know, we haven't focused so much on like that aspect of the story I do like that
Mike: this story kind of jumps into becoming an adventure of some kind And then to me really again distinguishes it
Mike: from like many other like zombie or monster, you know, outside post-apocalyptic stories like this where there is a sense
Mike: of adventure rather than a sense of dread when people go out into the world.
Mike: Not that it's in a happy-go-lucky book, but like I did feel excited by the end. I wasn't like, oh no, what's going to happen to these people?
Mike: And I wasn't worried. And I really appreciated that, how the book got through that.
Mike: So was that a choice that you made to like try to keep it a little bit lighthearted? Is it very heavy quotes there? Or were you...
Zack: - I think the reason you feel that is because you can tell that Ryder is not where he...
Zack: There are some things that writer has that are honorable, that we like, that we don't want him to lose.
Zack: He does have a sense of looking out for other people and he has a sense of being a good
Zack: person and we don't want to see him lose that. But we also feel like this is a young man that has the opportunity to grow.
Zack: And so meeting someone like that and seeing them have that opportunity, I think it gives you a lot of excitement because you're like, yeah, go out there.
Zack: Find the girl. help her out, become a better person, rise to the occasion, like you want to see him pull that off.
Zack: So I think that that it's not just a road trip that causes you to get excited.
Zack: I think it's the character and that opportunity that causes you to go, I like this guy and I want to see him succeed.
Zack: And you know he's gonna get tested and you know that there's gonna be challenges and sacrifice But you want
Zack: to see is he gonna be able to overcome them?
Zack: that's the intention there is to give readers someone that they can care about that they go, heck yeah, I'm in on this guy's journey, let's go.
Zack: And yeah, you feel excited to see if he'll rise to the occasion.
Danny: Yeah, I also want to add that like.
Danny: Because I'm just a big nerd about making the actual process of the outcome gets put together. Yeah.
Danny: Are all these sound effects in your script? Is that something that the litter is coming up with? Like, does that come from the yard?
Danny: Because there are some sounds in here, especially like, there's a, there's a page where like a head explodes and
Danny: it's like all the, all the gunfire and the, the noises the creatures make and all that stuff like.
Danny: It just fits so well with the art and it's incorporated so well, but I don't know if that's something that you were researching or like where
Zack: - So step one is you hire an Eisner nominated letter. - Yeah. - And then step two is you
Zack: write gunshot and then you let, like, I know when to overwrite something or lean in on something and I
Zack: know when to step back and be like, here you go. So in my scripts, I will try to come up with the sound effects.
Zack: I will write boom or bang or thud or crack.
Zack: I will write the general thing, but I've worked with Hassan long enough that he has carte blanche to try
Zack: whatever he wants to try and often does and, you know, often comes up with better sound effects than I've come up with. And, you know, so I'll
Zack: I will sit there and go like ahead, explode.
Zack: splash or like splish or like I try to figure out the flat like what what a flush you know
Zack: and I might write flush or something like that you know but Hassan goes in there and probably everything that
Zack: you're impressed by is Hassan showing off with how great his effects are.
Danny: the beauty of it is that sometimes the sound effect isn't complete because it just goes into like the gore and all of it, right?
Danny: And then you also have like, I don't think you wrote in the script like, it just looks so cool across the page. And it's...
Danny: I might have wrote guns...
Zack: I might have wrote Gunfire or Ratatat or something like that. And you knew to change it to Brekabrekabreka.
Zack: And so yeah, and certainly I'm not thinking about, as a storyteller, I'm not thinking about how it's gonna look visually.
Zack: I'm not like, oh, machine gun fire will look really cool visually in this. I just know that from a narrative standpoint, gun fire is happening.
Zack: That's Hassan coming in and transforming the book into art.
Mike: I mean Hassan Hassan's fantastic. Oh my gosh
Zack: - The whole team, I mean, Hassan is amazing letterer here and the way he does the voiceover is done
Zack: almost like a writer's writing in his notebook, which is such a beautiful touch. And then we've talked about the colors with Jago.
Zack: Stefano Rafael is putting on a masterclass. - Yes, absolutely. - So good to see him getting the praise.
Zack: I think this is his very first creator on book after 20 plus years of doing Marvel and DC and
Zack: doing content in Europe. at least his first US creator and book and just a master class.
Zack: I mean, the amount of juggling that he has to do from horror and romance and adventure and post-apocalyptic and all these different nuances.
Zack: Yeah, then it's an absolutely amazing visual work.
Mike: And the two page spreads in this book are just like, I'm just skimming through it again.
Mike: And it's like, yeah, this is like an unbelievable amount of detail just to show a guy walking down a road.
Mike: Like, you didn't have to flex that hard. Like, that's crazy.
Zack: - Yeah, he didn't have to flex that hard.
Zack: Yes, thank you very much. God bless. Yeah, I think we do. I will tease.
Zack: I think the book we're deep into the series now visually in the lab back here as we're cooking it. And yeah, I think everyone's going to
Zack: be quite pleased as it continues. Like I think the level of detail, the level of, of, of that holds up.
Zack: So very excited for people to see the second issue. Yeah, gorgeous. I'm excited. Yeah. Very excited.
Danny: I'm hoping to grab that Sebastian Piri's cover.
Danny: great with great cover. All the covers.
Danny: It was listen, I appreciate that you sent me a book, but I got to the shop and I'm like, well, I can't leave all the
Zack: behind so no you know no you got to save them too they need help yes yeah yeah give me the home
Mike: to talk about this other book you've got coming out in August, the smart division. What the hell, man?
Mike: I'm not to just come at you with just estimations, but this book is bonkers.
Mike: Mostly from the sense of I like a good story that's government conspiracy, something else that still feels modern, but also just a little bit.
Mike: This story is happening four days from now kind of thing. I really, really appreciate that.
Mike: So I guess for folks at home that don't know the smart to Michigan. This is a little blur, but
Zack: Yeah, the smart division is a sci-fi crime thriller with Eisenhower winning artist John Jay Pearson.
Zack: And the basic question we want to ask is what is going to happen when everyone starts using chat GPT to commit crimes?
Zack: How is law enforcement, Howard detectives, how are the FBI going?
Zack: killers, criminals, and ordinary people when they can literally use an app to outthink a detective's every move.
Zack: And it follows the very first app of its kind, which is five minutes in the future, if that, and
Zack: it's about a killer that starts to use the perfect crime creation app. And it follows two very different detectives.
Zack: And we've painstakingly worked to put this story right in today's world. This is a world of 2026. It feels 2026.
Zack: The FBI is the FBI of our era right now that feels like it's decaying as well.
Zack: All of our Washington DC feels like it's decaying, our society feels like it's decaying.
Zack: And there's very much this kind of question of are we going to step up or are we going to give up?
Zack: And if all two agents who are very different agents.
Zack: One is a Jen Exer who's kind of been on the block for 20 years and is quite cynical and another is a very tech savvy.
Zack: Gen Z are who is not given a pope but who is trying to play by her own rules.
Mike: I mean, that's the thing that like, I mean, you've done the thing that makes something like true detective that first season a true detective like so interesting.
Mike: Not to just completely compare it to other media, but like, I do love that like dynamic that you immediately established between the two of them.
Mike: Like, these are two people who are both really good at their job or seem to be, right? Yeah.
Mike: And then they're forced to work together under like classic circumstances. Like, you've like checked off all the boxes that make a good like buddy cop thing.
Mike: I mean, I mean, this isn't like a fun book, you know, but it is still like a funny top story. And I love that right away.
Mike: And we get to see, you know, one side of the story a little bit more, but you know, ending
Mike: with an interview, like an interrogation of some kind. Again, like you're, you're immediately hooked on this first issue.
Mike: So like, how do you go around, right, right, do the story like this?
Mike: That is admittedly a bit depressing and kind of apathetic about like the state of the world.
Mike: But still keep it interesting because these characters clearly despite the world that they live in, the department that they
Mike: work for, they want to do the right thing. So like, how do you, how do you weave that web? Because it seems very complex without,
Zack: like it is too negative. - It is hard. It is a challenge, but I think it really comes down to again character understanding who these people are.
Zack: And yeah, I mean, they are Will Bailey is the guy and he is facing a world where he feels like
Zack: people don't even care about solving cases anymore. It's all political. No one wants to stick their neck out.
Zack: Things are stalling and he can feel it's not the same as it was 10, 15 years ago. And you relate to that.
Zack: You can feel why he's cynical and he's very good at his job, but he also he's struggling to care or not.
Zack: I think that that's just a relatable thing. And then I think that totally Stevie is equally relatable because she doesn't bind to the system anymore than he
Zack: does, but she's like, you know, I'm young at it. Why are we giving up? Like, let's let's go. We should
Zack: FBI agents were supposed to catch bad guys. So they make for a very problematic pair though. And I think that's one of the joys.
Zack: We definitely lean into the true detective energy of this in the sense of you see two people who are good at what they do. But
Zack: you don't know how they're going to work together and you can feel the friction and we want that. We want that story. Through their story comes everything.
Zack: I mean, this is whether we, how should we feel about AI? How should we feel about following the rules? How should we feel about our society?
Zack: Like it all comes from them that, you know, and
Zack: Really leaning into who these two people are in another great comp I think is x files in the sense
Zack: of they have two very different views Yeah, and things and and and you're watching their views battle it out as they're on this on this
Zack: which is in and of itself, you can tell me, but I think readers will find themselves wondering how the
Zack: hell these two are going to solve this case or go up against the app because it seems like an impossible thing to do.
Mike: Absolutely. I mean, it's so I mean, that's the thing. It's like we established the first issue is very much like introducing us to them.
Mike: But then there is this big case at the middle that we know we eventually have to get to because
Mike: things are only going to progressively get worse and they kind of imply that like the ramp up is now
Mike: like this is just the beginning of how things are going to get extremely bad if we can't figure this out.
Mike: So again, this book has so much in what 24 pages, maybe less than that. Like it's, it's very jam packed.
Mike: And I mean, I'm so impressed with just how much you guys were able to do in just one issue.
Mike: And I mean, John's work is fantastic, obviously, but like.
Zack: - Fantastic, yeah. Yeah, the visual is so, and I don't know if readers are not familiar with John Pearson.
Zack: I did a book with him called Mindset in '22 at Vault Comics, which was about mind control.
Zack: And we had a blast breaking form and really pushing the boundaries of how to use layouts and sequential storytelling
Zack: to really make the thing feel like an experience. And we're doing that again in this book.
Zack: And I think each subsequent issue raises the stakes on that even more.
Zack: But John's work, he's also done in fernals image comics with Ryan Parr and he did In Bloom with Michael Conrad over at Boom.
Zack: He has another book coming out with Christian Ward called The Patron Later this Summer.
Zack: And he's just, you know, he follows in the footsteps of Billson Kavich and David McKean. And if you like Martin Simmons out of Department of Truth, that
Zack: that sort of style and absolutely breathtaking artwork, just gorgeous.
Mike: Good God. Yeah, I just just paging through things. I'm just like, man.
Danny: How did this team get assembled? Because I feel like now that we, Mike and I got, you know, we got a chance to look at
Danny: the first issue and we really appreciate that because.
Danny: I don't know that I can see this story work with another artist now that I've read it.
Danny: So how did you guys, there's a lot of abstract ideas in these pages.
Danny: There's a lot of, but then there's also stuff that just feels like a detective story that is grounded at some point.
Danny: So it's a, I don't know, it's all over the place that I can't even put together like how one
Danny: person is doing every single page that I read.
Zack: This is written for John for sure.
Zack: And I think that it's possible the concept could have gone to another artist, but it would have come out completely different.
Zack: And I always, the moment I had this idea, I thought of John and I took it to him first.
Zack: And we knew after mindset that we would do another book together. And we were looking for the right time and the right opportunity.
Zack: And I finally brought him this idea. And I said, listen, I think this is, you know, first of all, it kind of follows in the footsteps
Zack: of mindset because it's another kind of technology thriller, but very different technology thriller.
Zack: And I think that the kind of the exploration of AI versus authentic authenticity and kind of some of the
Zack: themes that we can play with visually here, inevitability, there's a whole, I don't wanna give too much away, but
Zack: we also lean into what's inevitable in this story. And you'll see visual things happening that later demonstrate something that happens at the end.
Zack: And there's this whole kind of like, what's inevitable? Is AI inevitable? Is what else is inevitable? What else are we just programmed to follow?
Zack: So we play a lot with different like,
Zack: ideas that permeate right into the way the visual design is done. And yeah, there's not many artists that can do this sort of thing.
Zack: So definitely, this was a half idea at best brought to John, and then we developed it together. And I'm developing it with John in mind.
Zack: And then I'm sharing treatments with him, and we're talking about ways that the visuals can enhance.
Zack: And then I'm going back and I'm outlining and scripting, knowing what, and we're at every point looking for those
Zack: opportunities that we can enhance the visuals to better tell the story. So yeah, it's from the get go. It's, it's, um,
Danny: Yeah, cool. I'm glad you mentioned that because I didn't want to ask like how
Danny: How does this script for this for smart division differ from
Danny: like like only the savage or lift because they feel like very different. It feels like you're taking very different approaches to the books.
Danny: And also, how do you keep all that stuff straight in your head when you I'm assuming you were writing
Danny: a lot of this stuff probably at the same time, maybe even with kill all the mortal because there's gonna be more kill all the mortals as well.
Danny: So like.
Zack: dark, if kill all immortals coming, I'm writing that right now, I'm wrapping up masterminds. Yeah, I'm working on everything at the same time.
Zack: To answer that question, it requires a lot of I'm a, I guess they say there are two types of
Zack: writers that are like panzers that write by the seat of their pants and there are plotters.
Zack: I'm definitely someone that sits down and I try to visualize the whole story.
Zack: And so So for something like smart division, you know, it goes from an elevator pitch slash one page pitch to like a two, three page treatment.
Zack: And those are different steps that I devote a certain amount of time to take it from one step to another step.
Zack: And then when it's time to outline it, I outline it heavily so that the outline phase is a block of time that I spend.
Zack: you know, a week, a week and a half, two weeks where I'm just envisioning what every beat of every
Zack: issue of the whole thing is going to be. It's all mapped out. And I'm moving around all the parts to create that synergy and to create that.
Zack: Not to say things don't change once I get to scripting, but usually when it's like, oh, I look at
Zack: my production schedule and I have to have issue three done by next week and I've got, you know, three
Zack: days to write issue three, It's merely a matter of loading up the outline and looking at what I need
Zack: to do and then writing my eight pages or ten pages a day and, you know, banging that out and making adjustments as I go.
Zack: But a lot of it's done ahead of time.
Zack: And that's the only way to handle this volume of different stories with different styles and different approaches. as far as like...
Zack: How do I approach only the savage or left versus the smart division?
Zack: I think it's again, it's about writing to the artists, you know, understanding that, okay, Stefano Rafael is going to excel at
Zack: amazing environments and amazing character shots, you know, he, he, which is beautiful to know that he can both do
Zack: like ride or walking through the woods and you're like, wow, that's beautiful. And then a close-up of rider, you can be like, wow, I'm really,
Zack: I'm writing lots of close-ups of writer. I'm writing lots of emotional shots, and then I'm writing lots of big wide shots and two panel double page spreads.
Zack: I know I'm writing to him. In turn with John, it's going to be different.
Zack: I'm writing different double page spreads for John, too, but I'm writing the opportunity to be abstract more with John. I'm writing the opportunity to
Zack: You know, some things will be more, will not be Marvel style per se, but will be written with artist
Zack: notes or like this could be deconstructed, John, or the cars driving through these different scenes. This could be a deluca effect.
Zack: This could be done in an interesting way and giving John the chance to play around with form a little bit more.
Zack: And so it really comes down to knowing the style of your artist and writing to them and working with artists.
Zack: I mean, here's the other thing I learned a long time ago. I think predominantly from Remender, pick great artists who have distinct styles.
Zack: You know, that's super helpful. And so having two artists like this and just being able to go, here you go.
Zack: And right being able to write towards either of these guys' styles is just a gift in it of itself. And they're so good.
Danny: Well, let me tell you, I have to read the first issue. John grabbed that ball and he ran with it all the way home. For sure.
Danny: So like.
Danny: I can't even explain some of the visuals that I saw in this first issue. Thank you. And I talk about COW That's what I love to see.
Danny: When there's something new that I don't think I've experienced and it's still
Danny: It just makes me question like, how did this happen?
Danny: And I'm very glad that we get a chance to talk to you a little bit about like you explained how things happen. So very cool.
Zack: Thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited.
Zack: I'm excited to, to, for you guys to see continue to see John show off because I think that the story only gets crazier.
Zack: Like we're also setting the.
Zack: - You know, like if you want is moody as hell and it definitely is like, there's a lot going
Zack: on, meet the characters, meet the world, meet the case and meet the mystery and all this stuff.
Zack: But like then once we get to get going too, like the visuals just continue to explode. So yeah.
Zack: Yeah, really exciting. Yeah.
Danny: Well, I'm looking forward because you got some somehow you guys have Jika Phillips doing a variant Jesse Lonergan is doing a very good issue.
Danny: And who's the third. Matt Taylor's the other one. I tell you,
Zack: Yeah, it's a lady justice is blindfolded and the phone weighs more than the human heart, which is great.
Zack: Yeah, we've got some great covers and yeah, couple exclusive covers that'll be hitting the market as we get closer
Zack: to release, which I'm excited for people to check out too by some cool by some cool artists.
Zack: But the open orders that you can preorder through your shop are all absolutely fantastic. Yeah.
Danny: June 29th, you guys have, I was listening to this one, you got so June 29th to preorder the first right around the corner.
Zack: Yeah, very different book than only the savagery left, but I feel like if you enjoy only the savagery left
Zack: as a book that's a mix of kind of a high concept idea and really hooky and then really thought
Zack: provoking and really relatable characters, I feel like I feel like the smart division, both totally different books, but both
Zack: similar in that in those kind of that recipe. So
Mike: Yeah, I mean, this is this is like spy detective bullshit that is exactly right up my wheelhouse. Like, I mean, might one of my favorite books.
Mike: I mean, behind me, if you can see for folks that are watching the video, there's a pages of Department of Truth up here. Like, I'm right there.
Mike: Like, this is this is this. You like Department of Truth.
Zack: - There we go.
Zack: - If you like the Department of Truth, I feel like this is people, if you like the Department of
Zack: Truth or World Tree, love your love your love. Yeah.
Mike: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, no, I'm so excited for the rest of this.
Mike: Like I'm frustrated that you only had issue one for us to give because I genuinely need to know where this goes. It's so cool. Thank you.
Mike: Yeah, not to be complete dork about it, but I really had a lot of fun with it. And again, John's work is fantastic.
Mike: I mean, and only the savage are left to again. Great twist. Like, I love the direction you went with all that stuff.
Mike: So Zach, we're really, really pumped for your new books. Thank you. Coming out, dude. Danny, any last questions before we wrap up here?
Danny: Now I'm just gonna recommend to our listeners since this book doesn't come out for a little while.
Danny: Go check out Kill All The Models. You have a bunch of stuff that you can catch up on. It's like...
Danny: Yeah. Favorite TV show that kind of keeps coming back. And luckily, guys, we could go with the renewed for one more season.
Danny: And I'm just looking forward to where we go from here.
Zack: Yeah, the first the first trade is out and kill all mortals and we wrap the issues. The second graphic novel comes out in September.
Zack: So not too far away for that. And then we come back in October.
Zack: We're going to start to talk more about that in the next month or two.
Zack: for a third and final season. So very excited about Kip Moore Killemortles. Yeah.
Zack: Yeah. And I think that's a good word. Got it.
Zack: If you thought your big B. The last one is, don't look at that schedule.
Mike: going to say you've got the best problem in the world, which is too much work today, right?
Zack: I do that is the best I have the problem of making too many comics, which is a great problem
Mike: I'm not talking about it.
Zack: It's been a great year. It's been a really great year. So I'm very grateful and I appreciate everybody checking out the books that everyone is listening.
Zack: Thank you.
Mike: Absolutely and for folks that maybe want to find out more if they want to you want to find you
Mike: on the internet Bother you with questions about these series. Where can they find you?
Zack: Yeah, I have a website, zackcapplin.com. You can check everything out there. And then I'm on all social media platforms at zackcaps.
Zack: And especially I think active on Instagram, maybe most of all, but active on all of them a little bit. And definitely check out the books.
Zack: Let me know what you think.
Mike: Thank you so much, Zach. This has been an absolute pleasure. Danny and I, we both want to talk to you. Thank you, Matt. Thank you.
Mike: Both of you.
Zack: We both will talk to you. - Thank you, thank you Danny.
Mike: And thank you for giving us a preview of these books. Folks go out there and check out the Smart Division.
Mike: Go check out Only The Savage or Left Checkout Kill All The Mortals.
Mike: I mean, if you just type Zack Kaplan into the internet, you're going to find a dozen books.
Mike: And I'm certain that one of them is going to be one that you really really like. So make sure you go to do that.
Mike: Thank you, Nick, for proof listening today. Thank you, Zack, for joining us today. Thanks for having me, guys. Such a blast, dude.
Zack: - Thanks for having me, guys. - Such a blast, dude. - Great time.
Mike: Yeah, thank you Danny for being here with me. Thank you to Xander for editing. Thanks for everyone who's listening live.
Mike: And until next time, comics are good and so are you.