Comics are Dying with Louis Southard

And welcome to play comics, where once again, we're taking a break from things to talk to a creator about their cool thing. Although, you know, we're talking to, like, less than 1% of the creators on this one. You'll see why it's okay with me saying that in a minute, because today we are here with Lewis Southard talking about his anthology collection. We're going to find out exactly what he wants to call it. Comics are dying. Lewis, how are you today?

I'm well, Chris, and thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm always more than eager to talk about comics dying the comic. And you're 100% right. I am only a vastly small portion of the entire team because this is a very unique type of book where I am the only writer, and I am complimented by 100 artists doing 101 page comics that fill up our entire book. So definitely, I wish I could have the whole team here in support, but I feel like that would become very loud and cacophony is very quick.

I would not have let you done that, because I don't want to edit that many people all at once.

Well, that's the thing. When we get to the half hour mark of this conversation, that's when I reveal that all 100 other people are waiting to join in so they could tell you what their favorite parts of the book.

I'm going to assume that all of their favorite parts are their own page or none of them are their own page. It's going to be one extreme or the other.

No, I'm. I'm very impressed with how supportive everyone is with, uh, when we're promoting the book. I'll mention this right off the bat, but this is a crowdfunded book on the comics platform zoo, and, like, we've been having to, I'm proud to say that we funded the project in the first two days, so already people are excited, and we're hoping to get to 10,000 to unlock our first stretch goal. And it's been a very big team effort, everyone chipping in to not only promote the project, but promote each other. There are plenty of people who are either work colleagues or friends or peers, or even just fans of one another. And it's really nice to see everyone be really supportive, and it's just good to have that kind of camaraderie going on.

For anyone who hasn't seen one of the 300 creators on this, talking about it yet, what exactly is comics are dying?

Well, it is an anthology book, as you said, where it is about the western comic book industry, the entire history, from its origins in the 18 hundreds to the modern day. As I said earlier, each, it's told via one page, is centered around a historical fun fact or significant event or creator or book. And it basically, it just charts the entire journey and how we got here today. Yeah, no, that's the best way I could put it. No, but we pretty much cover every type of genre of western comic book you can think of. We do all the different types of superhero comic book, from the golden age to sixties, Marvel bullpen to nineties, image extreme. We do funny animal. We do underground comics, romance comics. We go nuts. We go above and beyond with what we put in there. So it's a very succinct and full history for the. For the fans of the comic book industry.

I think the most important question I need to ask you to ground everything else here is, are you a crazy person for wanting to work with this many people all in a single project?

Yes, absolutely. I feel like you need that little bit of insanity to make anything. But I started this project. I always had the idea for a project like this where maybe not with 100 people, probably a much lower number, that probably would have been the smarter thing to do. But I never had the topic, I never had the theme in mind. But like I said, I always imagine each page, different art style, different kind of vibe, different person. But coming up with the idea of, you know, just like, the different eras, styles, and what was popular in the past versus what's popular now when discussing the comic book industry, that seemed like the most perfect and apt, like, thing for the comics project, this ambitious. So, yeah, no, I've always had, in the back of my mind, it wasn't until recently that it all clicked. And I'm sad to say that it came from a place of anger, really, because around the end of 2023 was another round of people saying, comics are dying, and there was a lot of hullabaloo and nonsense going around, and a lot of people complain and talk about it. But they don't really do anything, if that makes sense. They just. They just like to jump in on all the negativity. So I really wanted to make a book that supported my peers and allowed me to meet new creators or, you know, longstanding creators and make something more optimistic. So not only are we giving people jobs, but we're making something good and positive for readers as well.

How do you manage to wrangle this many people into the project?

That's a great question. I started with pretty much contacting everyone who I had worked with on older projects or pitches and just starting with them. After the people who agreed, we moved on to, if they had any peers or colleagues that would like the opportunity, then they signed on, and then we just did word of mouth. And I. I kind of pushed it to its limit by doing an early press release with the first 50 people announced, and we just kind of put out an open call for, if anybody else wants to partake, then join what we're trying to do, then they can do that. And that blew up my inbox. But I am very proud to say that not only did we find our latter 50 people, but we got tremendous amounts of support from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Their staff and their student body really chipped in and applied to help us out with this, as well as the Joe Kubert school in Dover, New Jersey. Once again, everyone there was really excited about it, and they sent as many applications as they could, and I was very happy to receive that much support. Uh, I will say that, like, this entire project, uh, the amount of, um, upkeep needed to keep up with everyone was really let. It left. It left me in a lot with a lot of burnout and a lot of, uh, sleepless nights. But I was. I never, uh, it never stopped me from wanting to get it done, and I'm very proud with the time, um, it took to get it done, as well as the level of quality, because I feel like every artist that put, you know, their heart and soul onto their pages, they tried very hard to create an ultimate showcase of their talents, and I'm very thankful to all them. And I really hope that my scripts could do their art styles just. I would think so, but I'm incredibly biased, so don't listen to me. Got to read the book, get that opinion for yourself.

Those two schools being so heavily involved, is that why there are so many names in here that I don't recognize?

There are a lot of people. This is their first credit, and that's great. I know how difficult it was for me to get into the comic book industry and the fact that now that I am in a stable enough place, I can hold the door open for a lot of people with tremendous amounts of talent and have them, you know, share their work and get a chance. But while there are. I've been telling people your new favorite is in this book, but there are a lot of old favorites as well. We have a bunch of old collaborators that are here, and I'm very happy that they're here who are doing really big things right now. We have Vasco Georgiev, who's, I think he's doing Red Hood and the outlaws right now, and he was doing X Men for a bit. I don't know if he's still on. That guy who's definitely doing X Men right now is Netho Diaz. He was kind enough to chip in on this project. We have Sergio Acuna, who's doing a lot of nightwing over at DC. And in terms of older favorites, we got Richard Pace, he did second coming, and some Batman. We got Roger Langridge. He did the Muppets, funnily enough, and getting him there was cool. And one of my old time collaborators, David Hahn, he's a big fan. Favorite Batman 66, he did some fantastic four. And of course, he did midnight western theater with me a couple years ago, so getting him back to do this was really great. So we got a nice, healthy mix, and I think that's great when you have people who've been here for a while, as well as new people all working together on one big thing.

When you have this many people, I have to imagine that there are some pages that a lot of people wanted to do. So did you give them a chance to pick what they wanted, or was it more of a, here, I want you to do this page.

It's entirely that last one. I would say for the most part, I assigned everyone a page based on their art style, and I wanted everyone to play to their strengths. Some people may not have agreed with my decision. I know there was a lot of convincing with some people, but it was my, I'll say my duty as the writer slash editor to basically have to put my foot down in some places and be like, no, this is what I think you should do this. And I believe that the amount of thrills and excitement you'll get out of it will come from how much work and effort you put onto the page. And I feel like some people that may have not been happy with the suggestion at first ended up with a product they really were proud of and enjoyed. So I had to fulfill that for the most part. Everyone was pretty happy with their pages when it got to, let's say, the final ten. Let's say the undesirables were left. So some of the more technical pages, the less sexy ones, but they're needed because this is a history, obviously, so we need to get that stuff in. And luckily, the people who agreed to do it, they were still very happy to chip in, do their part, and we got some really good art. At the end of the day, one.

Thing that really impressed me, looking at this, is just the way that the art style matched up with the topic and with what they were looking at. So you did a great job there. I really have to call out one of the pages here because how do you find anything to match up? No, no, in a good way. Don't worry. But how do you find anything to match up with Lain Lloyd's art style that is just so unique and, like, I can hold down the arrow keys on my button or on my keyboard and go, oh, look, there's a lane page. As everything just real quickly scrolls by.

I think some people are, they have their entirely unique styles, and everyone's done that in their thing. While definitely we're doing homages, everyone's very much trying to put their, themselves into it. And Lane is a great talent. You always see Lane working, and I love working with Lane. So they do the swamp thing page or the man swamp thing page, and I thought of them right away for that. It's definitely one of the more comedic pages, and we could spoil what the fun fact is. I'm sure a lot of long story comic fans know what it is, but the creator of Swamp thing and the creator of man thing, they both claim they came up with their ideas independently while they were both living together in the same apartment. So that by itself is just, like, a funny thing. And I'm not going to call them liars, I just think it's funny. So getting lane to do a less serious page definitely seemed right up their alley, and sure enough, it was. So I'm always happy to get them in there. And like you said, they're, they're an entirely unique artists, and I think, I think we need more of that. If I'm being honest, you probably see a lot of artists seem a bit homogenous. So, you know, it's always good to see that in this, in this art.

World, there's a reason why a lot of my favorite artists have that unique style. And they're not all as unique as Lane, but a lot of them are.

Oh, yeah. No, I agree. Like I said, I wanted everyone to play to their strengths with this. And a great example is, I keep using this one. But Frederick Hornon, who's a very popular artist right now, and looking at his. He sent me his samples, and he can draw, like, cosmic unlike anybody. So you see somebody like this, and this was a lot of the creative process of, you know, people send their samples, and you just can't help but in some cases, but see or get a spark of something. And with him, it was Kirby, cosmic. So, obviously, I had to get him to do, like, the epic scope of what we did for Kirby's Marvel homage, which was something based on the Galactus trilogy. So I have to say this because it might generate some confusion for people unfamiliar with the project, but we are referencing a large amount of history, and, of course, there are plenty of topics that are under a legal embargo, I'll say. So we have expertly and quite legally, intelligently maneuvered, danced through the raindrops, and have created a crazy cast of legally distinct characters to help us tell our tale. And I'm very. I'm very pleased with that. And the fact that we got the green light on it at all, I think, is a feat unto itself. But so, that said, you will see. You will see your favorite. You'll see the same eyes and different people with this one.

I'm really glad you brought that up, because that's something I was really wondering about. So many of these characters as I'm looking through, it's like, yeah, that's just a reskin. Was that you going through checking everything? Did you have people helping you out? I know you were kind of trusting your artists to do the right thing for that page, but I also think it would be dumb of you to just 100% blindly trust them to stay in the legal right side of everything.

Well, with my script writing, I had a lot of character. I either designed the character, I worked with people to design the characters, to get around that everything was very meticulously planned, and we are working under parity and fair use. We even have public domain characters in there to further help our story. But obviously, you need to work within the lines with something like this. And we really did pull it off. So, yeah, we definitely needed to have a much more firmer hand with some of the character designs. But I. You know, how many comics out there, or even tv shows, if I'm thinking more recently, like, with Invincible and Agent Spider, where it's just like, you know, it's a very. It's been commonplace, and, you know, it's. It's very expected in comics and comic related media. If we were to list all the Superman characters, we'd probably spend the whole podcast doing that. But I'm just proud to add another one to the. To the pyre, I guess.

What were some of the hardest ones to pull off and make sure you could keep in the book?

If I were really greedy, I would have put steamboat Willie in there, because he's public domain now. But we figured best to always just play it safe. So I think the hardest one was maybe the Disney comics page, but we have an entirely original character, Ebenezer von Swann, obviously, that's. You don't. You don't mess with the house of Mouse. So we managed to come up with something pretty much all our own.

And yet you have marvel things in there, which, if not the same house. They're at least the guest shack off the back of the house. Is that just different enough to where you're willing to take that risk?

We don't have anything fully marvel, I don't think the only thing that we even vaguely mentioned that is an actual thing is, of course, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, because they pop in, in the pages about themselves. But I'll just clarify right out. Right out right now. We don't really. We don't have any legal or trademark characters in them.

Making Chris look dumb. That's cool. I do that all by myself.

It's all right. I just want to be as crystal clear as possible. But I also don't want to hype anyone thinking, oh, hey, maybe this thing's in there.

How did you decide what went in here and what didn't? Because, I mean, there's probably easily enough for, I'd say, another five volumes of this book with different historical facts. You've somehow got to get it down to just this one book.

Well, I like any good thing, you have to start with a beautiful spreadsheet, which is exactly what I did. I basically just, you know, there's so much. How are you going to put 250 years worth of history in one thing without it costing a fortune or basically making the equivalent of a textbook? So this was, we're gonna. We're gonna play all the hits. We're gonna play the classics, and that is a very subjective thing at the end of the day, and I'm not gonna lie. I'm sure there are things that when people read this book, they're gonna be like, hey, they missed that. And you know what? That's entirely fair. But at the same point, we can't include everything. I was. I did consult with some people to really hit a lot of blind spots and hit some beats that were missing, as well as trying to tighten up some things in other areas. I'm very fortunate that dark horse editor Connor Knudsen took some time out of their day to look over the spreadsheet and basically help out with what was possibly missing or what we could improve upon. And I'm very thankful for their help in this, so much so they get a beautiful, special thanks in the book. Definitely my blind spots going in were the platinum age and underground comp, but now I'm proud to say that I know a little bit more about them. But we really tried not to leave any stone unturned. You know, even if it's just one mention. We figured that was. That's better than nothing at all. I know, like, let's. Manga is. Is a comic, right? But we figured if we included that in the history involving modern manga, that would take so much up of the page real estate and as well as us wanting to restrict this to the western comic book industry. So we do have a page starting with, like, the. The origins of modern manga with Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy. And yet, if you know the story, he was inspired for a lot of. For his art by western comic books. So that seemed like perfectly kismet. It was just the perfect thing to add in there. And it's also one of the more fun pages in the book, because, like manga, it is the only one in there where you have to read right to left. So it's just kind of cool to have different things in the book, homage and reflect and be more interactive with what they're trying to represent. But right now, we are heading to our stretch goals, and the second largest stretch goal, or I should say the largest stretch goal, that basically is to, if we raise enough money, we will add ten more pages in the book with ten more artists. And the idea there is where we really want to hit some of the things that we missed. Two things that are definitely locked in and confirmed, is we would like to add a page about homestuck, that being one of the first big, popular webcomics. And then we'd like to add a page about Captain Marvel or Shazam and the Monster Society of evil, which is the first storyline in comic book history. So those two definitely, we're going to include the other eight? We're not sure yet, but we will definitely either ask supporters or fans, or we'll just go over your head and just make up our minds anyway of what they're going to be. So either way, there's still plenty of time to get your favorite thing in there. Possibly.

So while you're adding these extra pages, because we're just going to go on the assumption that it's going to happen, do you at least have a private list that you're too scared to share with anyone on who those extra ten artists could be?

I am not at liberty to say who those Ted artists are.

I'm definitely not asking either, so don't worry about that.

No, no, no. Lewis's greatest secrets revealed right now. No, I. Yeah, no, I. All I have to say is I think people will be happy, but when I reveal them, I will be very happy.

I mean, if you use the same talent picking abilities that you pick for the rest of the book, I don't think there's anything to worry about.

There are a lot of beautiful pages, some that really stick in my mind. There's this one where a lot of people in the book are like, this rocks. We love this. And it is. And obviously they're all my favorite. That's the right thing to say. But there's one that sticks out in my brain and it's this great artist, Jefferson Sadzinski, and I've worked with him on another project and I got him here too, and he does the heavy metal page and it pretty much has all the fun stuff you could ever want to see in like a comic book. And the fact that it's boiled down into probably one of the most metal pages of the entire book, I just think it's good fun. And not everyone, but a good chunk of the team is basically like, who is this guy? This is dope. Like, this is cool. So like I said a lot earlier, it's really, it's really fun to see everyone get excited and once again support everyone. It's just been really, really nice to see. And I'm really happy that I could kind of not bring everyone together, but we're all like best friends now and we're all, I'm inviting 100 to my closest friends to the bar every weekend. But the fact that, like, a lot of people got to work together and a lot more people are aware of each other's work, and I see online everyone starting to follow each other and stuff like that. So there are perhaps some people with not a big following that now have a lot more work or industry colleagues or peers, and I think that's really cool. And a lot of artists now have, as I mentioned earlier, a new favorite. So I think that's just great.

Just off the top of your head, how many new collaborations do you think are going to be able to be traced back, back to you putting this together?

Thousand? A billion? No, I don't know, but I really hope that people work together and stick together. There are plenty of artists on the book that definitely were already work colleagues, and I've worked on other stuff together, but I think it's just I can already see a lot more interactions online between people that never spoken to each other before and the fact that they are now unified by this project. It's conversation starter. And I, I think that's good if, like I said earlier, it just connects people a hell of a lot more. And I think that's good for the comics industry just for people to be a bit more aware of your neighbor and your, you know, maybe your next potential a collaborator. So can't I, there's no problem there. The way I see, as I'm looking.

Through here, one of the things that jumps out at me is that this is a crowdfunding thing with ads in it. So I love that, actually, because I love seeing the old ads as I'm looking through stuff. Whose idea was it to do the ads the way that you've done them here in this?

I'm happy to say it was all made. I designed all the ads, and I wanted to, while, like, the whole book is a, is a history and a timeline of the comic book industry. And I also wanted that to be reflected in the, in the fake advertisements that are in the book. Obviously, I didn't want to overdo the joke, so to speak. So there are, like, it goes in order of four with two bonus ones that don't really matter, but in the, in the order we did, the first one is like the mail away gag gifts or things that you would find in old comic books. My favorite being the pet monkey, the beautiful pet monkey people could order for after that was like a 1980s inspired toy ad. That one, my partner was kind enough to be the hand model in it because it's like a, a blend. That was really cool to do a fake toy ad. And then the, the third one was a, like a nineties, early two thousands video game style ad. That one was cool. Trying to capture the vibes of that, because if you look at it, there was a thing on Twitter that was trending either yesterday or the day before. Some of them are wild, like, the fact that a copywriter thought of some of those is nutso, but I know we got that in there. And then the last one, which was my absolute favorite to make, was once the book is all kind of said and done, and right before our afterword, which kind of gives us our thesis statement of the entire project, we have a letters page inspired by the old Marvel letters pages. And it was a challenge and an absolute joy for me to not only write as fake fans of varying opinions writing into our comics are dying book, but also have to write as a jazzier, more embellished version of myself. So that was amazing to do, and it was really fun. Yeah, no, but adding that kind of back matter and stuff, that was just part of the fun of the book. And I think the people, when you get to those things, like, it'll. I hope to God that it'll put a smile and make you crack a laugh or something, because I think they're funny. So I really hope people enjoy them.

My wife kind of got mad at me because I was laughing when I got to the mail away one, but that's because we were in bed trying. She was really trying to go to sleep, and I wasn't.

The mail away ad, that one was some of the more fun stuff to. Because I have the beautiful pet monkey, which is about, like a pet monkey that now needs to be rehomed because it's too violent. But, of course, you don't say that in the copy, the mana companion, which is the ultimate end to your loneliness. And then the third one was the mystery prize, and I think the exact copy of that, it's like, in life, you're either a winner or a chump. Figure out which one you are. Like, send us $100. So, like, that, if anything, my favorite little detail in that was the. In the slip that you would have cut out in the. In the good old days, coming up with, like, the legal jargon and the business jargon for this fictional thing. I just enjoyed coming up with gaggo Industries, which, you know, you learn about those. They're all just like shell companies for, like, these bigger things. So that. But that all, all by itself was a good time for me to make. All right.

So being kind of serious in this definitely not 100% serious book, this is the first thing of yours that I have run across, and this is one of the first Zoop campaigns that I've had here on the show, if not the first. Cause I can't remember if I did one for Leslie Julian or not. What was it like working with Zoop? And how does that compare with anybody else you've done crowdfunding with in the past?

I'm happy to say. I don't know if I should be happy to say this, but this is actually my first ever crowdfunding campaign. And I'll be honest, I'm a sleepy guy, I'm a lazy guy. I like to laze about. And this zoop is a beautiful alternative to anyone who doesn't want to deal with the Kickstarter, like printing and packaging and, you know, making everything yourself, because Zoop handles the manufacturing and distributing of all the materials. So basically, I get to do all the fun stuff, I get to do creative, and I get to do promotion. Tada. Here I am. So like, that's, that's very good for me. And because they get to do the difficult stuff, I get to keep sleeping and keep being late. But I have to say, in all seriousness, Jordan Ploski and Eric Moss and two co founders of Zoop, they run a smooth ship. And if you pay attention to Zoop, there's probably a new campaign every week, if not every other week. They are really doing something great. And, you know, some people may say, well, you know, what's the. Why should I go there? There's Kickstarter. I love Kickstarter. I think, and this is just a personal opinion, I think maybe Kickstarter can get a bit too. I use this word once before, I'll use it again. Cacophonous. I feel like maybe you go on and a lot of campaigns pop up on the same day and maybe you don't know who you want to support on that day. We only have so much money. So luckily with Zoop, it is a 100% kind of vetted type thing. You have to apply. It's sort of like a regular comics publisher submit to their submissions portal, or they'll reach out to you if you have a project that they're interested in, and if it all goes well, they'll 100% help you out and help you make a campaign. And like I said, you only mainly get one a week and they don't really conflict with each other. Everyone gets their time in the sky, so I think that's really great. And you can see if you go on their website, they have a bunch of funded campaigns that with, like, creators, you know, doing amazing stuff. I know. Right now, I'll shout out some of the campaigns running concurrently with mine. So after you buy mine, of course, there's Paul Cornell and Rachel Smith. They're doing a wonderful, a cryptid murder mystery called who killed Nessie. They're working together on that. They're fantastic english creators, and anything by them is wonderful. So that's always a safe bet. Just last Tuesday, or very recently, the Elsa chartier, Liana congas, and Lane Lloyd, a bunch of people just launched. I think it's like the fury in the maelstrom. That's a great campaign going on right now. And even prior to that, and I'll say what's upcoming? Christian Ward is doing an art book that's coming soon. Patrick Horvath of beneath the trees, where nobody sees. He's doing a book that, with zoop. And in terms of past campaigns, they've worked with Richard Pace, they've worked with the Jack Kirby museum, they've worked with. I don't know if they've worked directly with Barry Windsor Smith, but they definitely have made his art books or some of his art books. So it's a very good collective of people to be surrounded by at the end of the day.

One of the things that I really like about over there versus Kickstarter is that you get to kind of create your own tier and select what you want, instead of having to hope that Louis put together a combination of the exact things that I wanted. That has been my biggest problem looking at Kickstarter campaigns lately.

I get you, like, what's great about Zoop is everyone can manage and create their campaign specific to their ambition, their scope, and, you know, their vision. For me, for example, I really wanted to run a lean campaign. I didn't want to, I'll say, over cloud with options. I just wanted to. I'm a type of guy. I hate variants. I hate little tchotchkes and stuff like that. So I really just wanted to just make a, a fine selection of things related to the book and, you know, go from there. So we mainly have the PDF, we have the main book, we have one variant by a wonderful artist and one of my good friends and named Lyndon Cahill. They did a great cover. We do a cover bundle with both of the books. We do an all around bundle which covers the PDF, both versions of the book, and a poster, and then we do a retailer incentive bundle. So if you are really jazzed by the sound of this project, we really recommend that you tell your local comic shop to maybe chip in on the retailer bundle, because, you know, brick and mortar stores are the, they're the lifeblood of this industry, and, like, with this type of thing, it only exists by how many people support it. So we'd really like to have a book, you know, by the comics industry, about the comics industry, for the comics industry, and even go the extra mile and seeing it maybe in a store or two, because then that's the, that's the ultimate dream, to maybe help out in that way. And I, we've already had a bunch supporting the book, and I only hope to see that number grow.

I'm sorry, I got stuck on. You hate variants. So are you not buying all the covers of ultimate x Men?

I I enjoy variants, but when it gets to, like, there's 20 of them, then I know that is industry shorthand for this book is important, so check it out. But I just don't, I don't like it. I just think me personally, with a lot of projects I run, I'd rather have one or two really solid ones that I believe in, as opposed to really trying to really beat the drum and be like, hey, everybody, look at this. I don't know. That's just the way I run things. Obviously, everyone's entitled to do whatever the heck they want to do, but I don't know. I get overwhelmed easily when I want to get a book, and then there's like, oh, well, here's cover I like. You can get this one, and then it's like, oh, okay. I, like I said, I'm just a preference of a lean set of options.

No, I'm with you on that. For these campaigns, like, most of the time, I end up getting just the basic cover. And, I mean, it's hard enough to sell a single issue of this. So I'm really glad that I'm getting 100 plus pages of stuff in this one, you know, not having to pay $15 for a single issue, which, you know, depending on who's working on it and stuff, I'll happily do, as evidenced by the ones that I've backed. But it's nice to, you know, not pay the price of three or four comics at the store for a single comic.

Well, this is a full on graphic novel, and when I wanted to make this project, I wanted to keep it at an affordable price, because, like you said earlier on this very show, you hadn't even really heard about me until you know, this. So I think, like, with the scale, with the amount of people and with the, let's say, the amount of passion involved, it's not necessarily entirely about money. It's just about wanting to get as many readers as possible and to get as many people to enjoy the book and appreciate the art and appreciate the stories. I believe in the consumer, I believe in the reader, and I just want to give them a good time. And like I said earlier, I also want to help the artists. So getting a big book filled with a lot of different stuff to hopefully a good chunk of people, that feels great. And like, you know, you give one person a copy of this book, that's 100 different artists, 100 different stories. If you don't like one page, you're bound to not like the next one. Because this is just a sporadically changing book. And I'm happy to say with my writing styles, every page accommodates that, what it is homaging. And I try my best to capture that style or vibe or really try to come up with a succinct one pager. So this is basically my gift back to the people. I just want to give people a good ride and a good time. And I want you to, after you're done with the book, you're like, oh, this was a, I like this. It was money well spent.

Did anybody help you with the writing or is it just purely 1000% you like? I know it's you as the only writer, but did anybody else you get a look at things?

I wish I could be so bold to be like, I did it, I wrote it. Here you go. But I obviously, like anyone, believe that you should be edited because you may think something is a great idea, but you obviously to somebody else, they could be like, you've gone too far in some places to quote George Lucas. So I had a handful of people, I had Jay Goodbody, who is a person working on this book, they helped edit it, as well as another person on the book, Malcolm Ward. Those two people, I can trust them to be unbiased. And they definitely, they reigned me in whenever I got, let's say, too Louis. So it's very much we, you know, no man is an island. And I need to, I can't just write what I want to write. You need to be edited. And that goes for anyone. So, yeah, no, I got my, I had my people watch out for me, so to speak.

And looking through this, reading through it, it doesn't scream to me that it's just you as the only writer. So you three, plus whoever else might have had an influence, whether you know it or not, you guys did your job well.

There's, well, thank you. No, you always have to credit your editors. But, yeah, no, I'm very happy with all the different styles I managed to capture. And like I said earlier, all I really wanted is for people to have fun reading this. And there are definitely some serious pages, but I think for the most part, my main goal was to make people smile. So I think you're just gonna have fun and learning, because doing a lot of the research and just learning myself about the industry, it was a great time, and there's no reason why learning can't be fun. And I very much imagine this as a springboard. Whether you're a longtime comics fan or you're a newcomer, this is just a great way to be like, oh, I didn't know that. And then you yourself can, you know, like, go down the rabbit hole. This is a gateway, and I think that's great. And there's, like I said, there's no reason why learning can't be fun. And that's what this is trying to do. It's trying to spread some knowledge while in a nice little package.

I know your campaign is still going, but how tempted ready are you to get either a volume two of this or something similar with a slightly different genre in the works?

Not for a very, very long time. I think that if I were to do a follow up, I'm 24 now. If I were to do a follow up, I'd probably do it when I'm 60, if I make it that far, because I think I need a little more history to do a continuation. In terms of anthologies, the amount of pressure and burnout I experienced just from doing this one. And of course, this is a very large project. I would not. I don't foresee myself doing one for a little bit now. I'm more than happy to just go back to my roots of just writing my, my good old 22 to 24 page issue. Well, or short story. I did write a short story recently that's eight pages. That's. That's not a killer. So I'm more happy to be back. Back where I'm more comfortable for the time being.

Well, it has been great having you on, but I do have one very important question to ask you that's kind of going back to the old school play comics interview ending question with a bit of a twist on it. Which Muppet are you going to to help you recover from putting this together?

My brain tells me, Kermit, but I don't feel like he's going to be entirely there for me. He's always too busy. You know, he's always trying to get the show running. I don't think he's going to get that much time out of his day? Fozzie would become too annoying. Miss Piggy's too aggressive. I don't think she's going to create that much of a calm environment. I think Scooter. Yeah, no, Scooter. I'm going to pick Scooter. He's got nothing going on. He's always more than willing to help, and I think having him around, it's very inoffensive, it's very low key, and. Yeah, no, I think he's the. He's the type of guy you want to chill with after everything gets too hectic. You know, he's not going to do anything unpredictable.

Plus, you can just threaten to fire everybody who bothers you because his uncle owns the publisher.

Fair enough.

Thinking about this for myself, if I was in your place, I would probably pick animal, but it would be. I see the look on your face there. It would be in the sense of, hey, animal, don't let anybody in the room. I'm just going to be in here all by myself because I think I could trust him with that.

I don't trust animal as far as I could throw him. Animal's too chaotic. I don't think. Even if you were to be like, hey, man, we need to take it easy. Keep in mind, we're talking about r and r here. And that guy, he's a different r and r, and that's rock and roll. If not scooter, maybe Rolf. Rolf's kind of a cool dude. Play a little the piano. He knows how to do that. He's got a tragic backstory that he's. He can never tell, but he always wants to tell. If I know my Muppet slower correctly, so. So, yeah, no, but. But you know what? You're bolder than that person. Than I. If animals your guy. Animals your guy.

I mean, my backup would be cookie monster, but it would be kind of the same idea. Keep everybody from guarding me. But if you pull it off, I'll give you a ton of cookies.

Bribery. Yeah, bribery will get everyone everywhere.

Lewis, it has been great talking to you about this. I can't wait to get my hands on this book and carry it around my house and read it all kinds of different places. If people want to hear more from you, where else could they find you? Around the Internet?

Well, luckily, you can google Louis Southard, and sure enough, I pop up. But if you want a more direct approach, you can find me at www. Lewissutherd orewisj Southard. But you know, enough about me right now. Let's worry about the campaign, because it's still running on zoo, and we have plenty of time before it all wraps up. So go on a zoop.com. You'll find comics are dying, or you can type in comics are dying, the comic online, it'll be there. And please check it over. There's plenty of more information there if you want to give it a go. We'd be more than happy to take your support. And right now, while we're already funded and the book is definitely going to be made, we how many copies that are going to be made is entirely up to you. And the more supporters we get, we'll be able to expand the book and be able to make a bigger and better project for everyone who chipped in. And that's what we really want to do. We want to add more pages. We want to add more art. We want to just go above and beyond, and maybe your donation could actually kick us up to that next level. So please check it out, see what's there, and if you like what you see, give us a shot. But anyway, really, thank you so much, Chris, for having me on the show and to be able to talk about this. I really do appreciate it.

I'm excited to do it. I'm glad that you came to me to ask about this. I didn't have to go hunt you down. So, you know, you're feeling really good about your book. If you're willing to go out and say, hey, total stranger, I want to come talk about my book with you.

Well, I'm usually very proud, for better or worse, of all my projects, and I will shout from the heavens for people to come check it out. But luckily, people such as yourselves, you're entirely easy to talk to and you run a great show. So obviously I'd want to pop in and hopefully spread the good word.

Well, thank you. And for all of our listeners, as always, we'll have links to all that stuff down in the show notes. Cause clicking links is so much easier than trying to remember how to spell things, even when they're nice, easy words like this. As always, if you want to hear more from me, you can head on over to playcomics.com, where there's links to all the social media things, including Twitter and blue sky and Mastodon. And yeah, there's links. Go use those. It's easy because spelling, you know, like I just said, if you want to help support the show, one of the best things you can do is, is to tell other people about it, which is either, you know, telling them to their ear holes that you like the show or writing a review and letting other people who look at places like Apple Podcasts and podchaser and other places that, I guess, have reviews and, you know, tell them that play comics is a good show. You should listen to it. Or, you know, be, be slightly more creative than that because it's way past my bedtime and I need some sleep. But yeah, you should do that. Or you can be like, oh, no, lit class and Dan McMahon and Carl Vantanovic and give me money, because making the podcast does cost money. But, you know, just tell people about the show.

That's fine.

That's much more important to me. Don't forget that play comics is a part of the Guineek.com network, home to such wonderful shows as legends of S h I E l D, where sometimes I tell sp, no, don't worry. I will take care of the show for you. And then, you know, it's me and Michelle talking about X Men 97 because we're giant nerds talking about X Men 97. But it's cool. You should definitely go check that out. If you like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of today, head on over to soundcloud.com best j to check out best days music. Most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics, and go find yourself a new favorite character. I will tell you right now, I would not have let you done that. I would not have let you do that. I would not have let you done that because I don't want to edit that many people all at once.