Hi there, this is Ari Chung, writer and author and illustrator of Mix, A Colorful Story Ninja and Don't Cause Trouble. And you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. you Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Joining me today is the author and illustrator of celebrated children's books like Mixed, A Colorful Story, Ninja, and many others.
His most recent book, Don't Cause Trouble, which officially releases on April 22nd, tells the tale of a middle schooler Ming Li and what it's like growing up as one of the only immigrant children at his school. It is my pleasure to welcome Ari Chung onto the Oblivion Bar podcast. Thanks, Chris. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, so great to have you here, Ari.
You know, it's funny in the history of the Oblivion Bar, which, you know, at the time of this recording, we've only been doing this for about five years, which, you know, is a good, a good amount of time. But I will say in like the time that we've been doing this show, there has been this very, there's been this blind spot, I'll say of other than like, I'll say adult comics, right? You know, like you're big to Marvel DC image, StarCourse, all those things.
So. when I was reached out to have you on the show here, I immediately thought, wow, what a great opportunity to have this person who is such a celebrated children's book, not only writer, but also illustrator as well. And honestly, it's kind of cool to, you're like our very first children's book author here on the show. So thank you so much for being here. that's so awesome to hear. you know, I'm a huge comic book reader and fan.
grew up on comics and it's played a big part of my journey to getting here. Sure. Now, if you can, and I apologize for putting you on the spot, but are there particular books or comics that you've read recently or ones that sort of stick out in your brain that you really love and you like to recommend to people? man, there's so many. But I would, you know, go back to I mean, I'm getting old, but everything from, you know, Mike McNola and Hellboy and all the things he did with Batman.
And, know, I'm growing up in the 80s, huge Jim Lee fan and. Sure. And then, you know, I think this will will get into this probably a little bit later on inspiration, but blankets by. by Craig Thompson, which I discovered in a comic book store, right? And that was like a very personal story, which, you know, don't cause trouble, even though it's fiction, it's a very personal story. And I would say he was a huge inspiration.
You know, you never know what you read that ends up influencing your artistry. And I read that before I even thought I could make comics. So sure. Yeah. Blankets is one of those books that I like to recommend people when I want to like show them how comics can break your heart. know, like Jack Kirby has that, that famous saying like comics will break your heart. And I he sort of means with the industry, but blankets will like physically break your heart after you get done reading it.
I and I remember reading that and seeing Grave the Fireflies and it really is the way I saw that this medium of, you know, cartooning can tell powerful stories that, like you said, break your heart. Sure. You know, speaking of Mike Magnolia too, and Jim Lee of course is an all-timer, I think for most folks, but you know, Mike specifically always been a huge fan of Hellboy, but here recently within the last couple of weeks, I went back and reread his story.
Well, he did the art and I'm for some reason spacing the writer on it, but Triumphantormit, I think it was Roger Stern, perhaps the Dr. Doom, Dr. Strange story where he and Steven, well, Victor and Steven go back, go into hell and recapture. his mother's soul. don't know if you remember that that title from back in the day, but yeah, it's incredible Magnolia book. Yeah, I mean, there's so many good creators.
And yeah, that's one of things I love about going to a comic store is you can just discover so many new things and go back and yeah, that's one of my favorite places to be. Absolutely. Well, I want to get into you here, Ari, because I want to sort of introduce you to, you know, our listenership. And, you know, as I said there in the intro, I think it's so important that people, not only kids, but also adults sort of venture into that YA children's book arena.
Because while it's not necessarily made for folks like myself, who was a 33 year old Midwestern male, I still feel like there are so many valuable lessons that could be taken from these books, which makes them so, you know, valuable. versatile that you can, you know, hand this to a nine year old. You can hand don't cause trouble, which again, we'll talk about here in just a moment, or you can hand, you know, mixed to a 30 year old man or a, you know, a five or six year old.
And they're going to take either they're going to take valuable things from it, whether it be the same or different lessons. So, but I do want to get into you first. So, and I've heard you say in other interviews that you didn't start working on children's books until you already had left, you know, art school, the art center college of design in Pasadena. You said that it was your dream to just be an artist in whatever form that took, right?
So can you remember the moment that you made this decision or is there a specific book or author that propelled you in this direction of children's books? Yeah, the the journey to becoming an artist, I think I could sum up in two main experiences. And the first one was actually when I was working as a consultant, I was 21. It's my first job out of college and I was miserable, making spreadsheets all day.
And I bumped into some artists who were on the bar train and they were art students and I always drew in high school and whatnot, but I never thought it could be a viable career or something I could do seriously. And that's when I fell in love with art again. And that got me into taking classes during weekends. And the thought of me going to business school went right out of my mind. And I just decided that I want to be an artist. I just knew that I want to make things.
And then the second part was actually working at Pixar. So long story short, I I started taking classes on the weekends. I knew I wanted to go to art school. And I eventually made my way to, miraculously, to Pixar as a production coordinator or production scheduler. So I helped track the movie through all the production phases. But I got to see story being made. And that's really where I decided I wanted to be a storyteller.
And it solidified my dream of like, I just want to become an artist and make things for a living. and so those were two really early influences on me. think Pixar was huge in the sense that I saw how, how stories were made and how much work went to them and the process of revising. and, I couldn't be in a better place because that Pixar really champions storytelling, you know, beyond the fancy animations that only they could do at that time, but really stood them.
made them stand out was that their storytelling was so good. Yeah, you're so right too. Pixar is sort of known for being not only incredible storytellers, both visually and through its script, but versatile. As we said a moment ago, I think a really great all ages story can hit on multiple levels. There are some movies, some stories, comics, what have you, that you know the demographic is for young people.
But I think again, what Pixar, part of the reason they're so successful and part of the reason they continue to be super successful is that when you go to a Pixar movie, I can still enjoy it. I mean, I was in the movie theater when Toy Story 1 came out. So I was there at the beginning and I remember what it felt like as a young person to go to these movies.
But, you know, going to see like Coco a couple of years ago or Inside Out 2, these movies still hit hard, you know, for even a 30 year old like myself. Yeah, I think what I learned from Pixar is having a creative take on something that on a story that is hard. I don't know if you watched the win lose series that came out that Pixar made.
it's phenomenal. It's on Disney Plus and, you know, it takes so many influences of comics, some insights that they learn from Inside Out, which I think what was so brilliant about inside out is they're showing You know, all the inner emotions are you're really inside the character and and how they act on the outside. They take that to a whole nother level with this mini series.
But I just adore their sophistication level of storytelling and you can learn a lot from watching and accepting how they do what they do. So yeah, yeah, Pixar is a big inspiration and I'm really excited and happy to see that they're continuing to make really good original work. Yeah. You know, speaking of inside out specifically, but I would say just Pixar in general as well, that very much lends to your sort of corner, you know, as a storyteller, right? And we'll get into why that is.
And as we get into the conversation, I think folks will sort of see what I mean when I say that. But I do want to share sort of a brief story that when reading don't cause trouble and sort of learning about your career, it reminded me of, you know, being a young person and sort of struggling to find my way into reading. just literature in general.
You had to read certain things like Charlotte's Web and I'm trying to think of another book, The Great Gatsby or whatever, those books that you have to read while you're in school. And big, big shout out to my former librarian who I actually had as an English teacher, both seventh and eighth grade. And then she moved from middle school to high school to be the librarian all four years that I was in high school. So six years I had Ms. Souter. who I am still in contact with today.
you and was a library assistant, the whole thing. I was just in my element in a library, but I struggled to like find a genre to find, you know, you know, my genre of, of literature. And she had the foresight to see what I was interested in. And she actually gave me my very first comic ever, my very first physical comic. You know, cause I loved, you know, the X-Men animated series and Spider-Man and a lot of those things.
But it wasn't until she gave me this and I'm everyone that's not watching the video version of this on YouTube. I'm holding up the essential Iron Man that, you know, probably came out in the 90s that she probably found on some like scholastic website, but she bought it with her own money, which is, you know, so incredibly special.
And as you know, are you can see here, everyone listening to the Oblivion bar and has been for the last five years will tell you comics are a pretty big part of my life now. And I owe the majority of that to Ms. Souter. And this is sort of my long winded way of sort of explaining how important it is to get children into reading. So, know, are, this brings me into my next question here.
You know, there are obviously a ton of benefits when it comes to getting children excited about reading, but do you think that there's like, like a ultimate pillar benefit to this venture of getting kids excited about reading? Well, reading, think, has so many benefits. But one of the things that got me into reading and similar to you is I had a teacher, Miss Winding, who was instrumental in having us read lots of books. And she was my honors English. I think it was.
Freshman year high school, and I think. what it allows you to do is to see new perspectives and be able to imagine and empathize and also dream. So I remember reading beloved and I just got hooked on reading lots of different stories because whether it would be to explore worlds that I didn't know, or to imagine possibilities.
You know, I was I am a huge fan of X-Men and I remember, you know, everything from seeing all the cool action sequences to actually imagining what a world would be like, fighting with mutants fighting for their own existence, right?
And it's, I think that's the powerful thing about comics or storytelling is that you can imagine and you can take, you could take complicated subjects that we grapple with today, and you can make them into topics that we can talk about in a non political way that is still palpable. You know, next, which is the picture book I wrote about diversity uses color theory to talk about diversity. And, you know, it's really about racism, right?
And you couldn't make a book that called any particular person or race. racist, right, but you can artistically talk about that. And, you know, if you're able to make it so approachable, as I was able to with mix through color theory, then it becomes something that you can discuss racism with the five year olds, which is so powerful, you know, and so yeah, I think that that's the biggest benefit to reading is both being able to explore new worlds and perspectives.
And then I think the second, which I love as a creator is once you can engage with your imagination and empathize, you can imagine new possibilities and you can imagine new stories or new worlds or new narratives. And I think that's really powerful. And being able to write that down in a simple form, you know, the power of writing. So the power of reading, think, is being able to bring in all this new information and dream and relate to it.
And then the power of writing is to be able to directly share those thoughts with someone else. So I think that those two concepts are just so powerful and so important to be able to have those abilities. Yeah, it's interesting. And I feel like I already knew this about you before I even got you here on the show, again, doing research for this conversation that, you know, empathy is such an important, an important ability that we have to earn at some point, we almost have to live to get it.
You're not born with empathy, I don't think something that you have to sort of experience and eventually like learn that as like a, as a tool. Right. And I think it was maybe Steven Spielberg that said film or storytelling in general are empathy machines because you're living these, you're living the life of these people who are more than likely nothing like you in real life. And you're seeing the world through their lens and it teaches you sort of subconsciously, right?
That, you know, they react differently. They view different things based on their life experiences differently. And like, it feels, I have a question about this later. I don't really, I necessarily want to get into it right now, but it feels like parts of the world or the empathy is either draining or was never taught or something. You know? Yeah, I think, you know, so many.
It's so easy to see the world through our own lens, and we everyone has problems will be get so upset about what we're struggling with, but being able to to feel and see through another person's perspective. That's what empathy is. And I think that that's what books are able to do. And, you know, beyond just another you know, the power of storytelling, especially in comics is being able to bring it to a fantasy level where everyone can relate to it in different way.
But going back to Miss Winding, I'll never forget Beloved because I think I saw that experience of slavery in a completely different way and how generational it was. And so it just blew my mind both artistically as well as as the lens of seeing that experience, which, you know, I'm not African-American, but I could feel and understand more. Sure, absolutely. I want to go back just a little bit here.
You clearly, as we've talked about here already in this conversation, you have a very strong passion and you champion the power of literature for children. So much so that you co-founded the Storyteller Academy. Can you just tell the listener a little bit about that endeavor that you created there with the Storyteller Academy? Yeah, so when I graduated Arts Center, I knew I wanted to make books.
I discovered picture books in a children's book class and I started to make my own and I tried to get published, but I didn't know what I was doing really storytelling wise. And I thought I knew story in terms of learning a lot of narratives through Pixar and watching and reading lots. But the truth was, I didn't really know children's books and picture books formats in particular. And took me four or five years to sort of learn that through talking to agents, going to conferences.
SCBWI is a great organization that holds lots of conferences. But then there was nothing online that you can learn anything from. And so I finally got published five years later. I had learned so much of what I didn't know, what makes a great story and and also how to tell stories in a fundamental way that is simple.
Like, you know, inside the incident a problem, how to do a setup for a story how to escalate the emotions and, and bring it to a climax, you know, these were things that basically nobody taught.
And so when I finally learned how learn these concepts, and also learned how to apply them specifically to picture books or middle grade novels, I decided I should share this because there's, I knew there were tons of people just like me that have lots of ideas were just think you they get stuck and then they think they're not good enough.
So I found a Storyteller Academy for folks that just want to tell stories and you know, anybody who has an idea for a story and has the desire to learn and express themselves, we're here to help support them. You know, storytelling certainly isn't easy in terms of, you know, anything's possible. You can make anything then it's sometimes hard to nail things down. and tell how to craft a story. And so that's what we really do is we help people craft stories.
We teach them how to write as well as how to make art if they're interested in learning. And art is a total skill that anyone can learn. I spent $200,000 at Art Center to learn those skills, but really anybody can learn it with a good teacher and a lot of effort. Sure. Now, are these like webinars or are these, you know, weekly meetings? How do you sort of go about, you know, educating folks that want to get, you know, who want to learn how to tell stories?
Sure. Yeah. So the greatest thing about Storytel Academy is it's flexible. So we have a whole entire curriculum and all those classes you can watch on demand on your own time, because I know that everyone's super busy. But on top of that, we have live classes and live workshops. I know that, you know, I bought lots of online classes and then haven't watched, you know, half of them.
So sometimes you need to have like a schedule and a cohort to go through, through things with, and it's a lot more fun doing things together. So we have three semesters a year and we have two day meeting classes. We have classes that run 12 weeks. And then if there's a class that you want to do on your own, there's a whole entire catalog of classes that are prerecorded and you can dive in. And we've been building that, that catalog for six years now, seven years.
Yeah. And so the goal is just to keep building, you know, if you want to learn how to do any particular thing. And in general, I use my book career as as a training ground for like, I just did this thing, let me debrief and what are the things I've learned, and then I make a course around around it. So like a one thing I'm doing for the book launch, don't cause trouble as anybody buys a book and sends me the receipt, bring and give them a free little mini class on how to make a graphic novel.
So yeah. It's my way of giving back and helping other creatives that want to tell stories. I mean, you really love when someone makes it or is on the way of making it and they just don't kick the ladder out from underneath them after they climb up it. So that's extremely admirable. And you know, they also say that like the best way to learn something is to teach it. And it sounds like this has been not only a fulfilling endeavor, but also a successful one. So that's incredible. Thanks.
Yeah, it's it's been yeah, it's been a really great many years of seeing folks go from having a dream and you know, not everyone gets gets published, but certainly we've helped lots of people get published and launched their careers.
And you know, I wish I could take all the credit because I can't like those people put a lot of effort into, you know, we can teach you these principles, but then when it comes to creating stories and bookmaking, you've got to put in the work and actually make it, you know, and revise so many times and have the grit to go through rejections of, you know, submitting and the ups and downs of just the book business in general. Mm Yeah. Well, let's talk about don't cause trouble again.
That's sort of the main reason why we're here today, which as I hinted there in the intro follows Ming Li, who is determined to start fresh in middle school, but arriving with the same bowl cut haircut that his mom insists on giving him wearing thrift shop clothes and getting placed in ESL. Despite English being his only language does not bode well. The only thing that can turn this around his two friends and some shenanigans.
So you've mentioned that while this story is fictional, There are definitely some elements of Don't Cause Trouble that directly mirror your childhood, right? Now, so did this project offer any sort of unintentional catharsis that, you know, reinterpreting these memories in this story? Or was that sort of the goal in this whole project? Yeah, I mean, the project came about when my agent asked me if I had any personal stories of growing up as an Asian American.
I told him, boy, do I, you know, being placed in ESL because I was too shy to say anything to receiving a love note, which this part of the story made it into the book. I received a love note. I think I was in. I think it was summer of sophomore year in high school and it said, you know, My nickname back then was Lee and Lee, you're so cute. You have really cute eyes. And I couldn't tell if that was real or was these bullies that were always messing with me during the summer.
During summer school that I was in, in real life, I never found out. I never got another note and I always wondered, is that real or not? But in the book, you know, I use it as a storyline and, being does find out and does meet, you know, it ends up being real. give me a little bit of the end. yeah, but that's the cool thing with creating a story is that you can reflect upon the struggles and insecurities and toughness, tough things that you had as a kid.
But you can write the ending, you know, as life isn't always that clean, you know, you grow up in, in longer time frame. But in a book, I think you can take what you've learned and you can craft that narrative to be a tighter, more rewarding experience. think real life is way messier than what you see in a book or in the movies.
Sure. You know, there's a point in this story where, you know, Ming, he is sort of fed up with the thrift store shopping and the possibly being picked on that he and his, well, mostly him and his other friend, they go and steal or they attempt to steal some things from a store, which I think for every young person, you sort of have to learn the value of not stealing in some way. Like we do it in some small way. or large ways sometimes. And you have to learn that that's a terrible thing.
And it reminded me when I was maybe around middle school, maybe sixth, seventh grade, we went to Toys R Us and it was my sister's birthday. And I didn't steal anything from the store, but I took one of the... You know, they always put like the gift cards right by the register and just me being sort of a youngish kid. I took one of the gift cards and I thought it was really cool. I didn't think it had any money on it. I just thought it was cool, but I still took it.
was still technically stealing, right? And my mom was so infuriated with me that she made me take it back to Toys R Us and give it back to the, even though there was no money on it. But I think that that supplanted this idea that like, this is not a good deal. It doesn't matter how big or small something is. you don't take something that's not yours, right?
And in this story, I found that to be sort of maybe one of the biggest lessons for Ming and his friends because it almost tears one of their friendships apart. Yeah, for sure. And that is actually based on a real life story where I stole some shirts with my brother. got we got caught at Macy's.
I built a lot of the story around the frustration of which I felt or felt and experienced when I was a kid of feeling not good enough because you had secondhand clothes and you know, and there's another kid that is so popular and you know, in the book. It's based on a real kid that I know and am still actually connected to on Facebook. He's a really cool guy. But his he was everywhere in middle school. He's the most popular kid and his dad was a real estate agent.
And put this part in the book, too. So his dad would pepper the whole neighborhood with free marketing calendars and whatnot. And my mom being a Chinese mom that was thrifty. love getting free calendars and she would put those calendars up on our refrigerator and I would see this kid's face on my refrigerator. I couldn't get away from him, which you know, that's makes it so funny but painful. I experienced those are all real things. And when I reflect upon like, why did I why did I steal?
It was because I was just tired of it all. You know, and I think that's it gives you going back to empathy is like when people do bad things, it's because they've just had it. they've gotten to a breaking point. know, there are things in their lives are so bad that they need to take some kind of action. And not to say that that action is necessarily a good action because, know, you don't realize the consequences until afterwards. Right.
You know, in real life, it was my brother and I that both got busted. I was the one that wrote my brother into, let's get these, these shirts and we can be, um, cool like the other kids in school.
We got busted and you know, in real life what that meant was we we had a real conversation with my mom and my mom, she worked at a nursing home at that point and she she worked in the kitchen but she both she got us both jobs at at the nursing home and I worked at the laundry department of a nursing home. that sounds fun. yeah, it meant a lot of soiled linens. But But I learned the value of a dollar that way. In the book, has a different ending. He didn't work there.
But he learns to be more resourceful and learns how to earn money the real, an honest way, in an entrepreneurial way. So that's how real life inspires the book. But I think that so many kids can relate to not being the proper kid that has everything that is going to be an Instagram model and gets free clothes, right? Like those are the, the 0.1 % of kids that are lucky enough to have wealthy parents or are so popular that they can get, I don't know, influencer deals or whatever.
But most of us, we need to learn how to be happy with, with our friends and the people who love us and, also to learn how to be resourceful and to, you know, earn the things that we want. Yeah. You know, again, I can't even begin to relate to what it's like to be, you know, one of the only immigrant children, you know, in a school, brand new school at that. You know, I was a huge nerd growing up. I sort of grew into my own around high school, but I was, you know, your prototypical nerd.
had like the, I had like the sunglass, you know, glasses that like turned shade during the sun and would unshade when you're inside braces, you know, was a scrawny kid. I can sort of, I can empathize in that instance. And you know, we, I grew up in the, in the nineties and early two thousands and you know, Ari, I'm not going to make you expose yourself, but I would imagine it was a little bit before that.
And you know, but at the same time, I can't even begin to think, cause you sort of spoke on a moment ago, I can't even begin to think about what it's like to be a kid today with social media. And again, like you said, the constantly, I have a niece who's 14 and she's glued to her phone. You know, I just don't know how they deal with it. It's insane. Yeah, not to get too far off track, but I don't know if you watched Adolescence on Netflix. No, haven't seen it.
I heard it's been getting a lot of buzz though. It's a great it's it's a great powerful show, but it's also been making me think about, you growing up today in in the social media world and, you know, I'm working on a new next book that, you know, will explore some of those ideas of social media as well as being bullied online. It's going to be empowerment book. It's maybe having part MMA within it. Yeah, but learning how to like, control your emotions and feelings and also empowering.
So this is a new concept. Sure. But I think that I think it's always hard to grow up and now you know, with social media, it's it's always it's it's everywhere and it's public. So everything is amplified. Are you familiar with the book that it came out in 2000, 2024 last year called the anxious generation, Jonathan.
Okay. It's basically it's, it's a deep dive study into how he calls it the great rewiring of young people and sort of how social media and access to the entire world, all of our known knowledge is in their pocket now. You know, again, we're going to sound like old farts here, but I didn't have a, I didn't have a a cell phone until I was around in high school. I'd say freshman year is when I finally got my first cell phone.
I would imagine, you know, maybe, you know, I don't even know when you got yours, but the fact that these children now are, and I can't really speak, honestly, I'm sitting here talking out of my ass, but I don't even have children. So I don't really know how it is, but I can only speculate that having kids now, it almost seems like a bit of a requirement for them to have some kind of cell phone or, or some form of communication, right?
Yeah, I think kids get cell phones now and usually middle school or high school. Yeah. It's gotta be hard for them. It's gotta be hard to like live and sort of coexist with your friends and peers without having that. also, you know, as again, as a 33 year old, if I were to scroll on TikTok for more than 10 minutes, my mind, like every neuron in my brain is like, turn this off. You're overstimulated and it's only been eight minutes.
Now imagine an undeveloped 10 year old brain doing that every day. It just blows me away. You know, it's not touched on here and don't cause trouble, but I wonder if like Ming had been now, let me ask you this. So is this story, does this sort of take place in today's world? Or would this be more of a reflection on like the time era that you sort of grew up in? Yeah, it's more of a reflection of when I grew up in the 80s.
if you look at meetings, thrift store clothes, store, their, their clothes that were worn in the seventies, know, they were in the eighties. yeah, there's no, you know, no cell phones. There's actually rotary phones and whatnot. it was just too hard for me to reimagine and fast forward the story. And what my editor and agent both said was that this story is timeless. And so just be true to that and make it that way. so. I thought that was good advice.
I didn't have to like think about how to adjust it into what today's world would be. But I think the next the next book series or graphic novel, it might not be a graphic novel, but I think that next one will have be more contemporary. We'll have cell phones and social media and and yeah, new things. I tend to agree with your editor there. I sort of agree that the this sort of storyline is timeless.
Absolutely. Because I feel like you're touching on a lot of things that everyone can sort of, you know, learn from and appreciate. And I will say that like, if this had been taking place in modern day, because again, we both remember what it was like being sort of the nerdy kid in school. It was taking place in modern day. Ming might be one of the coolest kids in class because every every kid's thrifting now like, you know, goodwill is hopping in 2025.
You know, like the American Eagles of the world and the Hollisters and all of that, you're a apostle. No longer in. You get your clothes that your mom wore, mom jeans and things. Mm hmm. That's so true. And his friend Marcus would be yeah, really cool. Cool. kid. I designed Marcus sort of after Pharrell. Like think for all the creative and original I have a friend who Marcus is based off of and he kind of reminds me of a bit. I can see with the hat too. That's the giveaway right there.
Yeah. and actually my friend Brandon. Yeah, he you are a really unique cool hat. And actually, he always had this jacket. It's a woman's jacket, but it fit him so well. And this shows how like, of the box he is like he doesn't he's not ashamed wearing a woman's jacket. It looks good on him. And he made it his own like he adjusted it and changed it.
And so yeah, so it's that's one of the fun and joys of making a story and making a book is you take all these favorite people that you have and that you met in your life and you're able to put them all together into a story. Sure. Now, sort of speaking on the conception of Don't Cause Trouble, know, this book is your genius, but you've mentioned that your art assistant, Dani Marabella, you quoted her as a art ninja.
Can you tell us a little bit about that, her contribution to this book and sort of your guys' relationship? Yeah, so Danny, you know, I'll send this to you later, but I just want to say thank you to Danny. So I don't know if people know how much work goes into writing and then creating all the art for a graphic novel. It is a tremendous amount. One of the greatest things about a graphic novel is that you get to create your whole your own story.
But basically, it's like making a movie all by yourself. And so if I didn't have Danny, this book would have probably took me five years to make. And it's because I wrote the script. started to basically thumbnail the whole story out into chapters. And Danny did everything from taking my loose, sloppy thumbnails and helping me draw them better. And this is before we draw them on model. Danny, I worked together on like I designed the characters. Then she learned how to draw them on model.
And then she would clean up the line drawings. And then she and I both drew the majority of the book. And then we just worked together hand in hand every single part. So, you know, there are some pages that I inked some of the pages sheet, all the outlines, and then all the fills, you know, filling all the artwork and then doing the colors, color scripting.
So if you ever see one of those art of making books from Pixar or Disney, you pretty much follow a similar process where you production plan the art. And then there's the actual production of the art. So production of making a graphic novel is inking the final line, filling all the color fills, then painting all the panels. Before that, it's doing the color keys. And so where Danny was an art ninja is she did everything from help me doing fills, inking to painting.
And she has also just great skills beyond that. also animates. So when we create an animated trailer, she animates that. So she's just wonderful. Couldn't have finished this book without her. And so, Danny, thank you so much. And if for any creator out there that's struggling to finish something, just know that you don't need to do it alone. You know, so I just want to give a tip out here. There's a lot of great artists around the world that you can hire.
So, you know, I live in America, but Daniel is in the Philippines and being able to outsource and hire really high quality help is huge. And I don't know if people know, but the Philippines is one of the best places to find talent. In fact, I think Disney even had a studio out there. So. Mm. Anyway, that's how Danny was so helpful. you know, as I continue to make more stories, know, Danny and I have a great work relationship and hopefully we'll make lots more books together. That's amazing.
Yeah. You make a point of giving her a special shout out at end of the book. And like you said, and this goes for most collaborations, but I will say specifically comics, you know, a lot of times the writer gets a lot of credit and the artists will usually get like a second lesser amount of credit. But then people forget that this book is also designed by someone. It is inked by someone is colored by someone is lettered generally by someone else. Very rarely do.
people have multiple roles in the creation of these books. So, you know, just goes to show that a lot of times these incredible pieces of work, especially again with comics, it is a village that takes, you know, it takes that to make these things so incredible. Yeah, and then Chris, maybe I can add something here is, you know, we sort of talked about comic books early on, but another, you know, big influence on me has been just Smith with bone and, in Kazoo.
So I actually worked on amulet, the first amulet when I was in art school. very cool. So Kazoo and I are good friends from way back when he's even played basketball and would play settlers together. But I want to bring that around because Jeff Smith, I think was one of the, you know, obviously it's huge now, but he was one of the first creators that was able to own his own property.
You know, and as you kind of mentioned in the comic book world, there's so many people that just get a title, but they don't get any credit or, know, and they're, know, whether they're just a letter or anchor or colorist, you know, and I think Jess Smith was part of that eighties that took a leap of faith and went independent along with Image Comics. And he's paved a way for, I think, lots of people to create their own independent comics and be successful.
And then from what I learned from Kazoo was actually that flattening in production process where he couldn't make the first book alone by himself and hit his deadline. he... employed a lot of our students that were happy to learn and help and hang out and I was one of them. So big shout out to Kazoo. So yeah, I just wanted to kind of like take these were things I learned from other people, you know, and Danny has just become, you know, a part of my team that I've been able to learn and extend.
I love that. You know, I have this here next to me. Today, everyone, this is a small sidebar, but I picked up the ROM. I don't remember ROM from back in the day. Everybody does the machine guy that was eventually owned by Hasbro, sort of a Transformers knockoff, think, for Marvel for a bit. But anyway, Ari, as you see here, this this cover. This is an uncredited cover from Frank Miller.
This is his very first cover that if you look at this first issue of ROM number one from 1979, uncredited, it says written by Bill Mantello, artist Sal Buscema. Awesome, of course. But no Inker, no colorist, no letter, no cover artist. But this is Frank Miller's first Marvel cover. So that just goes to show you how far we've come.
you know, again, I know if Danny eventually listens to this, you know, if and when, you know, she'll be very grateful that you gave her a very particular shout out because she deserves it, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, I sort of teased this earlier in our conversation, but you know, I have to get a little retrospective, a little dark here for a moment with you Ari, because I feel like, you know, these are topics that we go through, you know, today in 2025 as adults.
And I feel like don't cause trouble. if more people read this as young people, it would alleviate a lot of the problems that we're in today in 2025. And it's something I've really grown to appreciate, you know, just from the works that I've seen of yours with mixed and then now of course don't cause trouble. Stories that simply ask you to live a day in life of someone who comes from a different background as you.
It sort of sounds cliche at this point, but you quickly understand how much we're all more similar than different when you read stories like this. And it feels like we're all currently living in this odd timeframe in history where it feels much, you know, some folks are feeling much more comfortable with othering people or just outright lying about whole groups of people to further. agendas or prejudice.
And my question for you is, as someone who is clearly very passionate about acceptance and instilling that young people at a very early age lead with empathy and lead with compassion, what is sort of your read on the world currently? And how can folks like myself, like you, how can we breed new life into a healthy, more compassionate society? That's a big question, I apologize, but I'm curious of your thoughts.
Well, I think that the power of storytelling and sharing your story and actually feel like kudos to the new generation that is using social media to share their stories. I think that's the way that you can, that we can create more empathy. Certainly stories that are in, whether they be book form or movies or shows, I feel like there is a lot of great shows and movies and books that are starting to explore that more.
And I think that the newer generation is doing a good job of also documenting their stories and connecting on social media. know, social media is weird because it can both be an echo chamber and a place for hate, but it could also be a place of discovering new perspectives and seeing new things. So I think that being thoughtful in documenting your stories, reflecting on it and connecting to people that are different.
know, something that I found remarkable is through, you know, whether the tech talking shut down or these tariffs that are happening right now in a weird way, it's also connected people. So when tick tock was going down, then there was the Chinese app red note that people were downloading. And guess what? They connected to a bunch of Chinese people in China. And they were like, Hey, these Chinese people in China are just like me, they're all that different.
And seeing, you know, folks from Midwest or, you know, or other parts of America connect to people who can't even speak English very well, or if at all, but being able to exchange and share foods, and it was really neat to see them just interact. And you just saw people are people, you know, and now I you know, with the terrorists happening and such.
terrible redic like Chinese peasants, know, we borrowed Chinese, you know, Chinese peasants, we buy their stuff and they can borrow whatever, you know, to, to then the some of those Chinese companies saying, Hey, these are the brands that we actually make things from, you know, there's It's of funniest things ever when they just took down the entire luxury outlet for the last couple of days. Yeah, and a way it was like, hey, we're just real people. And we're actually making our stuff.
And by the way, don't get ripped off. can just buy it. know, it's sort of like it was it. I think it's funny because there's a lot of people like, oh, yeah, I know that's been happening. And and I think it it took a lot of the you know, the lies away. Right. And who knows how this all shakes out. But I think people connecting and empath. having more empathy and sharing different points of views. I think you realize that we're all the same.
You know, we're all human and we all have different perspectives, but we all feel the same things and we all want the same things. I think that's an excellent point. don't have no notes. I totally agree 100%. You know, Ari, before I let you go, I have one more question for you. It's been such a pleasure having you here on the show. You know, we like to ask folks when they come on, you know, let's showcase one thing that you're really enjoying right now.
Again, that could be a comic, could be a movie, a television series, another book, a podcast. You can say the oblivion bar if you want. But whatever, whatever you're really enjoying, I'd love for you to just showcase one thing that you think folks should check out. wow. Man, I have so many things that. You can also say a couple of things if you need to. Okay, well, I'm a huge book fan. you know, gosh, trying to think of which one I should recommend.
Well, so on Netflix, I am watching Black Mirror and so I love love new season. And so I've also been enjoying some of the new Apple series like Severance and whatnot. then book wise, this is more of a self-help book, but I've been really enjoying The Mountain is You, which talks about healing and recovering from trauma and self-sabotage. I think there's been things in my past that I've been working through. so that's been it. been helpful.
those are just a few things that I've been watching and reading and adjusting. But yeah, I think that's when when I look back at this time, I think we'll really appreciate how much great storytelling and media that we have now, you know, not to mention when we lose that we talked about earlier, such such such a great, animated show, which is really inspiring me in my next book series that I want to create that will take the art form to the next level. So yeah, but there's so many things.
I what you do next with, you know, sort of in correlation with win lose. And you mentioned, you said it was a plural Apple TV plus shows. Please tell me that you've seen the studio. I actually haven't and I subscribe to it just to watch that. Sorry. It is my favorite television show of the year. It's incredible. going to start watching it. I've seen Severance and then I've heard so many great things about that show and so I resubscribe just to watch that. Yes, I absolutely love it.
And then if I can recommend something as well, even though this is not about me at all, but it's something that I think you would really enjoy. There's a new series that I just started reading called Dungeon Crawler, Dungeon Crawler Carl. You familiar with this? No, Matt Deniman. It's basically I don't want to give you a synopsis. I don't want to ruin the experience because the sort of the setup is like the hook of the book is extremely interesting, but just know it's sort of like an RPG.
D &D type of book. I'll just say that and I think yeah, so anybody who sort of is intrigued by that You're gonna love it. I'm on book two and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. So You know Ari, what an absolute pleasure having you you having you here on the Oblivion Bar podcast, know again as I said earlier Don't cause trouble.
It's actually at the time of this recording It's not out but when I released this on April 22nd when the book comes out So as everyone is listening this right now, the book is available and I will have a link in the show notes so listeners can go and purchase that book for themselves or for a young person in their life that they want to change for the better, I'll say.
And I also want to personally thank you, for doing what you do for young people everywhere and being a champion of love and acceptance. And I genuinely hope that the listeners today not only check out your work, but also set this as sort of a reminder for themselves, just like I will, that leading with empathy That should always be the first reaction. And, you know, don't cause trouble was a good, you know, remembrance of that.
And, I feel like that's something I'm going to continue on with going forward. Thanks so much Chris for having me here. Before I let you go, can I ask you how can folks follow your career? You know, social media, all the things. Sure. So definitely you could find me on Instagram as well as tick tock. I'm starting to build on tick tock, but I haven't done as much there, but those are two places I am on social as well as Facebook.
If you're older, I'm actually mostly on Facebook, but I'm definitely on Instagram and tick tock. And then you can always go to my website re.com and I have a newsletter. If you want to connect their email, you can sign up for the newsletter there. Awesome. Again, Ari, thank you so much and hopefully I can get you back on the show at some point down the line. Yeah, we'll do. Thanks, Chris.