Thanks so much for downloading the show. A very special episode today in which I bring you a brief conversation with Campbell Walker, also known as s Truthless. He's an artist, he's a YouTuber, he's an author, he's a dad, he's a former tattoo artist, once upon an ad guy and a wonderful man. Cam has a new book out now. It's called Doom and Bloom. You can hear him chatting about that on the Imperfect podcast in a couple weeks
from now. He was in town chatting with those guys, and while he was in town, we took the opportunity to take fifteen minutes to grab a couple photos for some long lead hard copy press that's coming out, and jump on the podcast really quickly on my show to talk about working together on my brand new book, which is out on the fifth of August. It's called So What Now What. In this conversation, Cam and I talk
about the process that we use. We talk about the main character of the book, which at this point has been completely secret, and we'll get to that right after this. Good day, Welcome to the show. This is better than yesterday. Practical tools and useful conversations to help you make today better every single week since twenty thirteen. My name is Zosha Ginsburg, and I'm grateful that you are here. I'm thrilled to tell you that you can pre order my
brand new book. So what now, what? Right? Now? There's a link in the show notes pre order it and it doesn't cost much. And if you do pre order it, email me a screenshot of your receipt. Send Usher email at gmail dot com. Email me a screenshot of your receipt, and I will send you a little something to say thank you, a coloring in poster of your very own
featuring the main character of the story. Now, my first book, which came out in twenty eighteen, is a memoir and it is being rereleased, So if you don't have a hard copy of that, it's altum still an ebook an audiobook, But if you don't have hard copies, coming back into the shops. But when it came to doing a second book, I haven't really lived much since I've put that one out.
I've put some extra bits into a second edition around twenty twenty, but I couldn't really write another memoir based on five years, so instead I wrote the very book that I wish I had on the days where I was not doing very well with my mental health. Much like the reason I started this podcast, I wanted to hear the kind of conversations that I needed to hear when I was struggling. I wrote so what now What?
Because when I was not doing very well with my mental health, I needed to read a book like this, but I couldn't find anything like it, and so I made it. It's the kind of book you would grab when you tried everything else, but you still feel a bit stuck, or you might be trying to understand how someone that you really care about keeps going in circles and things only seem to be getting worse for them, and you can't understand why they won't stop doing what
they're doing. It's specifically written for the kind of people who aren't really used to asking for help, or I might be a little bit concerned that if they do ask for help, it might impact them negatively. Now, I wanted this book to be as powerful as possible, so I'm made absolutely sure that I worked hand in glove with an eminent Australian psychologist, and they made absolutely sure that all the messages or the metaphors, all the techniques.
Everything I talk about in this book, everything we show in this book absolutely legit. Because some of the stuff in the book can be quite complicated. So to make some of the concepts and the tools easier to understand, I wanted to use illustrations to explain everything. Now, I'm not bad at sketching, I'm okay, but I am not an artist. So I need an artist. And there's only one artist that I wanted to make this book with, only one person who could understand what it is that
I was trying to do. Only one person who could get exactly the kind of concepts that I wanted to put on the page. And that person is Campbell Walker. Cam Walker also known as Struthless sixty nine on Instagram. He's Truthless on YouTube.
Now.
Cam Walker and I have been friends for quite a while. He made the if you saw my first live show, there was a video that played before the show that said, Hey, by the way, there's going to be some pretty rankshit coming up, so just hold your head because it's going to be on the way. So he made the warning
video that played at the start of the show. And he's incredibly talented human being, he's a fantastic communicator, a brilliant dad, hilarious and even though he is supremely busy doing all of those things and launching his own book, Doom and Bloom, which you can get right now, he said yes when I asked him to illustrate this book now for one of a better word. So what now?
What is a graphic novel? It is a conversation between the book itself and the main character of the book, which Cam and I will talk about in just a moment. And I am incredibly proud of it. Like I said, you can pre order it right now. If you do, you're helping me help other people because pre orders play
a really huge role in publishing. The level of demand for pre orders gives booksellers and the publishers a bit of an idea of how hard they can push this and where they should push it and how many, say, for example, books a bookshop will order knowing that they won't be stuck with them on the shelves. So ideally, I want to help as many people as possibly can with this book because not very long, it doesn't cost much. But the last time I did I put out a book,
I did a sold out national tour. It was super fun. We are locking in the final venues right now because I am going to tour again, and you'll hear me talking about what I want to do in the tour in a moment. This show is going to be like something, something like no one's ever seen before. I really hope I can make it happen. I'm so proud of this book. I'm so grateful I got to make it with Cam. This book is, if anything, it's more like a tool that you can come back to every time you might
need it. So here's a little bit of a conversation that I had with my dear friend, the incredible artist Cam Walker. And if you like what you're here, get into the show notes. You'll find a link to pre order a copy of So What Now What, and possibly some details about a live tour as well. Enjoy this catch up with the artist of So What Now What,
Cam Walker. We talked about the kind of year you've had to if you've been through a fucking ton of shit and in the middle of that, I call you up and say, hey, Cam, I know that you've just done all this wild stuff and you are hanging on to the World's most Dangerous World road in the world with your fingernails. Would you like to dedicate a couple months of your life to illustrating a book for me? Yeah?
And I said, yeah sure. And then you said, and the main characters are hand which if you don't draw, that's annoying.
Hands are hard.
There's a reason most cartoon characters have gloves. Yeah, and then three fingers and three fingers or no, no, no opposable thumb. Their hands are really hard. As you once said to me, and I quote to everybody, the hand is the eye of the arm. That's true.
And honestly, like, no shade on Finding Nemo. But they kind of had it easy. No hands, bro, think about it.
If you're just doing eyes and answer more vised facial expressions.
I take that back. Yeah, they had to put in way more. I don't need to have these thoughts out loud.
I just agree. I'm going back to watch Finding Nemo. I've dived on the actual dive site that inspired the opening scene.
That's sick.
It's in Fiji, It's fucking that's sick. Yeah. The people from picture one of them, we're like, this is the place, this is where we're on the film.
Oh that's so cool.
It's whether there's this big kind of ridge line that ends, it goes down like I don't know kilometer, and so you get a big pelagic cold water fish that mix with the tropical fish right at the top of it. Oh wow, thanks for rescuing me. Great, it's a long way down, but it's yeah, it's really good.
So, yes, we drew a hand character.
We drew a hand character, and so I ask you, like, can you can you do this for me? Because adore the work, you know, adore the the way that you communicate, And there was no one else so I ever would wanted to illustrate this book. And I was just so grateful with the robustness that you just launched into it, even though I gave you all main carrige. It's a fucking hand. One of the hardest things ever to draw
and make look expressive. Like the hand's got to be sad, the hand's got to be excited, the hand's got to be running.
Yeah, yeah, which is really fun.
And then even you'd sort of like broken the rules of hands as well, because you're like, okay, I want the pinky to have like four more joints in it, so it can do like all of this kind of like sassy stuff.
With occasionally the hands hand goes on a hip. So I think I do remember going to school with a kid that could do some cool shit with his little finger like that, and it would make people vomit. He's in jail now, probably if your trick is to make your knuckles bend backwards. Yeah, dude, you're already on a list. Iay watch this.
Yeah that guy.
Yeah, but you said yes, yeah, it was real fun and then like when you're like, okay, I want it running, and then I was like, okay, I just watched Fantasia. You got to rewatch it every year, especially part with like whatever, and so I was like, oh, I can like Sorcerer's Apprentice the Glove and have the glove like sort of running and running and running. And that was really fun because it gave it like so much personality. And then we yeah, ended up kind of.
Making the face a little bit rubber hosey, which is real fun.
That's kind of old stylee.
Mickey Mouse, which by the way, you can absolutely use it is copyright free. Yeah as of two years ago. Really, Oh yeah, man, put steamboat Willie on a shirt. Do it make some money? It's public domain, baby.
Oh wow. I asked you to do some pretty wild stuff. And one of the reasons that I wanted you and only you to do this is because I knew that when I said to you, I'm going to need a metaphor for this, but it involves a whole and a labrador and a typographic monster with two shovels. You went, no problem, Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, dude, Yeah for sure. I mean you were super specific with the brief, and it made total sense to me. You know, when you get like to a point of like telepathy because someone's communicating quite clearly, and you're like, yeah, I know exactly what's in your head. You don't need to say the rest of the words, but I can do it, and you're trying to get it out of your head into mind so my hands can put it onto the paper.
That's probably how I.
Felt then, But now as you say it out loud, I'm like, yeah, that was that was pretty fucking weird, dude.
But that's also why I wanted you to do it, because because they when I first got the book deal, they said, oh, we could get this out of so that I still we could just you know, get someone. I'm like, nah, I won't be able to communicate this to anybody except camp.
It was really it was such a such a pleasure to draw as well, because I think the thing that really helped with that process was when I also, you know, when they when they will put me forward to do
the layouts as well. So it's like I've done the illustration, and in my head I had this sort of idea of how I wanted the text to play with all of the things, and how I wanted all the backgrounds, and how I wanted each page to look like it's own artwork, because I feel like the book you wrote, you know, it's the one hundred and something pages, and each page has its own lesson, and I wanted I don't know, in my head, I had it like envisioned it's sitting on somebody's stand, on one of those open
bookshelfy things where it could be there, and I'm like, okay, I want to make each page worthy of that position in.
A room that it exists by itself.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so I was going from that as my starting point, and I don't know, maybe it's what we're talking about before the fixation.
Just like just cap going and it was so much fun.
You absolutely nail that. You've got to do the layout. And for people that don't know what layout is is I don't know, a picture of magazine you know you'll see or maybe a website, right, you see there's a headline at the top, there's usually some boulder font something
in italics, with a byline. There's a photo, usually some metallica to make that, and then a couple of paragraphs and then an ad for some depending on who you are, either nine out of ten people over fifty can't believe they missed out on this, and then the rest of the article all right, yeah, which is me. So that's layout, yay. But that can tell the story, it can detract from
the story, Like anytime you've sat. If I ever use a web breas that doesn't have ad blockers on it, I'm like, how the fuck do people deal with all this flashing shit? So I have everything locked down? The layout can I either detract or really amplify? And what the fact that you got to do the layout just amplified so much of it, even things like colored choices of backgrounds in converse to you know, the antithesis of that point twenty pages ago. It's unbelievably well thought out.
Man.
Oh thanks, man, I appreciate it.
It was so cool.
Yeah, it's really cool. And like got to denim my own font for it, which.
Was really fine.
Yeah. So, I don't know, just like putting everything on the page and just feeling this holistic sense of like aesthetic ownership.
It was beautiful, just taking a moment away from cam Walker play some ads back in a sec. What I really liked as well is that when I was trying to picture something that wasn't working, or you were doing something that wasn't quite mixing the mark, missing the mark, I don't think. I don't think we ever had a moment where I was like, fuck you, it's going to happen. It was like okay, man, sure, yeah absolutely, If that
doesn't land take it away, Yeah I was. I was so wonderfully detached from like I just wanted to do this. How do I get it to do this? I'm not attached to I love that we were able to do that.
Yeah.
Thanks. I haven't had a working relationship like that for a while, and really, well, I mean I have really created working relationships. But it was very It was a really positive thing because we're both creating this thing. It's no longer just mine, it's ours. We have to both be cool with it, and both our names are going on it. Yeah, and I really really liked that we were able to do that. This is act. This is the very iPad that I did a lot of that sketching on.
True, I'd like to bring him one point of tension and take your handwriting.
I'm terrible. It's so bad the work.
It is like you'd make it like obviously your parents' adopters.
You know that's true. I'm gonna I'm gonna bring up for I've got someone probably got some so.
Oh yeah, I want everyone to just bring up an original.
I'm going to bring up an original, one of my original sketches. A lot of these were done on the plane.
Your sketches are good.
Thank you, you're very good at drawing. And then thank you.
And then it's just these like it's like reading shorthand and like like you know when you read like old court documents and there's someone who would like do like the squiggles and stuff.
Yeah, that's the one.
I've got one of the original sketches here. It's about the one regarding cognitive fusion, which is a very difficult thing to talk about, but it's one of the things that really distracted me.
That's that one.
Yes, and the idea was that you have this thought, and the thought is so intense and so visceral that it's like you're getting sucked into the horror movie and suddenly you're there. I don't know if you remember that.
Yeah, this is exactly what I mean.
And it's like, these are super legible sketches in my opinion, like I completely understood what you were talking about. It's like, yeah, Glovey's watching a horror movie. Then that horror movie feels like it's alive, and then it's like, yeah, here's the Runes. You know, Yeah, you're decidh for those genius.
Yeah, I listened to a lot of Viking metal.
You're like, yeah, here's my impression of every language at once.
There was a couple of a couple A couple of the sketches were which I'm stoked about. A couple of the sketches were my actual hand because I would be I was like, how do I draw the hand? I want to do that and so I would hold the iPad like this and take a photo of my hand in the position I wanted it, and then sketch over it and then put the face on it, and a couple of them made it into the book, see, which I'm stped for.
Yeah, I definitely made it left so I could, like, you know, do it lifetime.
And I'm glad you did because the live show. So the next live show, you wanted me to make a puppet, like a giant, life sized puppet that I inhabit. Yeah, inhabit yeah.
Yeah, yeah, analogue and you're like, nah, dude.
So I'm working with a guy who's the professor at one of the art schools here in Sydney, and with another mate who worked on the Minecraft movie, and to live motion capture my actual hand are using a hacked VR headset wearing a head band with an iPhone twelve on the front that captures my face. And I'm glad you made at the left hand. This is why I'm glad you made at left hand, because then my right
hand can bring it and bring out the layers. And so the live show is me with that projected behind me, using all the InDesign layers and bringing them up on the screen and like doing the show.
Love.
You're looking at me like a coykup right now?
Is it?
Because what's awesome?
I think, like because I knew you wanted to do a moke cap, but I think in my head there was somebody else doing it and so you could interact with them. But the fact that you're doing it all day yourself, you're like Beardy Man or something.
It'll be man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're like just doing it all at once.
Well, because you know, Reggie Watts, it's not the eighties, man, you can't take twelve piece funk bands on the road anymore. You've got to do it by yourself, like every other person i'd take on the road, Like ah you imaginet start to get out the window. So it's like, how can I do this with as little few people as possible? And yes, so pretty much. So I've yet to figure out. I yet to do the proof of concept, but I
think that's going to be it. I think that's going to be the show, and that it's so we because it's a conversation between a book and a glove.
Yeah, this is normal, this is normal.
So the book is the whole book is a conversation. Okay, So I'm thinking the live show will be Glovey, which we call Bookie and Glovey. We'll called it Glovey will be reading it in their voice because I couldn't figure out how to turn the mo cap off off and be the voice of the book and I didn't want to be overly cranky or have the pathos really get in there from the book voice. I want a glove to be curious and go, huh, how would you know? Like it's reading the text as it comes up. Oh, well,
I guess, And they're responding. Glove is responding to the text that comes up. The other characters are simply the text coming on the screen. So ambitious.
I love it.
I love it so much so I keep swearing, but like, yeah, dude, that is awesome.
Are you kidding me? What's the name of that? I can't remember. Here's the fucking unbelievable. Is the greatest baseball player that's ever lived as a Japanese guys playing for the LA Dodgers. And on the night you know how they have the bubble head nights and stuff like that, every literally every child wins a baseball bat. Some nights
it's amazing, it's incredible. Merch is brilliant. But on his bubble head night, he walks out to the plate and he points at the fence and goes pink hits this fucking tater and goes straight over exactly where he wants. Mad Homer like, you've got a point for the fence and you got to hit. You might not get it, but you've got to go for it. You've got to go for it.
That's sick.
That was Campbell Walker, also known as Struthless on YouTube, Struthless sixty nine on Instagram. Of course, his new book is called Doom and Bloom and the book that we worked on together, the book we've just been talking about, is called So What Now? What is my new book, and you can pre order it right now. If you pre order it, you're helping me, you're helping other people who don't know yet that this book exists by pumping it up in whatever kind of messaging that the publishers
and bookstores need to know. It really helps us and helps people you don't know, because somebody who cares about them will hopefully buy it for them and give it to them. If they're struggling, and that's the whole idea. You can pre order the book right now. There's a
link in the show notes. If you do, screenshot your invoice, your receipt, you proof of purchase, whatever you want to call it, Send it to me, send usher email at gmail dot com is my email address, or DM it to me and I'll send you something to say thank you. Thank you so much for listening, but thanks to Adam Buncher who worked late to get this one together. Back here on Wednesday, Merck Watts is coming to join us. Have a great day.