Hey, this is John Jay Pearson. And this is Michael Conrad. And we are the creative team of Boom Studios Sci-Fi Thriller in Bloom. And you're listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Joining us today is the creative team of the upcoming sci-fi thriller In Bloom through Boom Studios. 43 % of cells within a healthy human body belong to something other than the human host.
Microbiomes, invasive bacteria, fungal and viral agents, and something else. Something more? One is the writer of Wonder Woman and Batgirls over at DC Comics, Double Walker at Comixology, and the upcoming 25 revenge fantasy Neptune through Dark Horse Comics. The other is a 2021 Eisner Award winner and the artist of titles like Mindset at Vault Comics, as well as the Infernals and Blue in Green at Image Comics.
It is our pleasure to welcome both Michael Conrad and John J. Pearson onto the Oblivion Bar podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Gentlemen, it's so great to have you here. I want to start off because you guys, I saw online you were both at Thought Bubble this past month. Did you have a chance to actually hang out while you're at Thought Bubble together? No, not really. Honestly, not really. John and I live very different types of lifestyles. I went out and I had fun.
And I did not. So John's very professional and I'm the least professional person you're ever going to meet. No, John and I got to spend a decent amount of time together and thankfully John and I kind of run in the same circles pretty frequently over the past year or two years. I've had the real pleasure of being able to spend time with John a good deal. And I think that's kind of important. I've definitely worked on books with people that I haven't met before.
And I think something is surrendered by not having spent time breathing the same air and feeling each other's energy. So being around John is always a treat. I was a fan before I was a friend. So now being able to be both at the same time and to be able to share a creative moment together is really dynamic and powerful. So yeah, we got to hang out a bit. Yeah, it was nice because Michael was at my table with Thought Bubble a fair bit just coming out and we did some signings together.
But it just meant that we could chat about in Bloom and just kind of chat about other stuff and just hang out. And it was really nice, like collectively talking to people, but then chatting to each other. Thought Bubble was one of those shows where it's all about the community and hanging out and talking to people. it was, yeah, was exactly that. And it was pleasure to have Michael there as well too. This is going to sound really shitty.
But I think writers always think they're like the brains of the operation. They're like, I came up with this like big, beautiful idea. And it was really cool. I know that John is intensely creative and smart. but in talking with him about how some of the images that he created for in bloom one have like changed the way that the stories go. when, when the pages were coming in, I was like, Holy smokes, like I'm learning about these characters. And I think that's like a cool thing.
So me being able to communicate that to John, like, Hey, you're going to notice an issue for whatever. This thing is happening. It's because of this single panel in issue one and then having John be able to bounce that back to me and say, that's cool that you're letting me know that now because we can kind of we can tease that out and we can make it really meaningful in the interim and getting there. And that's the type of thing that gets lost in email or phone calls.
It only happens when you're stood next to each other, just kind of bullshitting and coming to these realizations together. And for me realizing, John's smarter than me. He was able to, you know, funny the last time that we had you on John with, with Noah and Ryan talking about the infernals we spent basically, I think we had you on for about 45 minutes. think about 38 minutes of that was just buttering you up the entire time.
So I feel like we're have a sequel to that here in this conversation, just praising John J. Pearson. I'm absolutely fine with that. yeah, that's the way it's going. That's why I'm also happy to share that John isn't even walking on water like this guy isn't great. He stole money from me. Yeah, he's lied to me a number of times. He's not a good person. He's very talented, terrible person. He might look like the risen Christ, but he ain't that.
Well, we're already sort of on the topic here of in bloom. So let's go ahead and talk about a little bit here. You know, the first issue hits shelves on December 11th. And as Aaron said there in the intro, the story picks up a short time after this event called the bloom where humans become infected and start to transform and become more plant like. And what's more interesting, I think, is in the background, someone is specifically targeting. and murdering bloomed individuals.
And it's seemingly up to agent Pollock and agent Spears to uncover who this is and why they're doing it. So Michael, I'm going to start with you here. You said previously that an article that you read about human microbiome. What was that? Was that you farted? Sorry, I farted. It's just a natural dialogue. It's even nature. Yeah. But Michael, sorry to go on here. What was it about that article that sort of affected you in that way?
Well, I mean, there's a number of articles and pieces about this and the number changes. I think we landed on saying 43 % because that was kind of like the low end of it. Like if you were to weigh the constituent parts of my body, most of it's going to be genetically native to me. But when you talk about the comprising elements, it's often equal parts me and other things that I'm the host form for. And I've seen numbers that go as high as 70 % of things that aren't native to me.
And the thought of that, of course, lit my imagination on fire. It also gave me like this sense of responsibility to the things that, that I'm the host for. There's a lot of people right now who are really interested in, in like your gut, microbiome and taking a big interest in how that plays into the greater wellness of a human being. There's some crazy stuff about, have you heard about like fecal transplantation? They'll take someone else's healthy poop and put it in your own. In your butt.
That's a real thing. That's a real thing. OK, what's the purpose of that? I believe it's called an Alabama hot pocket. Just for shits and giggles. They do this to aid in your in your microbiota. Here's a thing that I didn't know until I was started really deep diving to do research into this. subject to write this book. Most of your your boo boo what comes out of your bum spot when you're going to the bathroom.
A lot of that is actually dead microbiota rather than like the parts of the food that you that you weren't bringing into your body through digestion, which I found fascinating. That's weird. You always just think like, that's the stuff that wasn't absorbed. through my large and small intestine. No, a lot of it's like other stuff. It's like dead things from within your body. Really like bizarre.
And so this whole spiral, like you can see, like I'm speaking in the way that this occurred to me, which is doing a number of rabbit hole searches on Google on the late night, reading everything from hard science to conspiratorial weirdness. And then that gets added to the weird gumbo of my thinking. And my thinking of course is, man, what if this stuff developed its own personal agency? What effect would that have on me? What effect would that have globally?
What would this microbiota wish to have happen? And the thing that I came to, which is expressed in Bloom is it wants humanity to persist. It wants us to keep being around. wants to still have a host form. It wants a healthy environment. wants war to be eradicated. It wants all the best things that humanity could hope for and what are the means with which it's willing to go to get there. It might be brutal. It might be dispassionate.
It might be the type of things that we as humans are incapable of doing. But if we had these these elements within us waking up and saying, Hey, this is what's going to happen for the benefit of the planet at large. And for the species, we often have seen people with these kinds of big ideas do horrific things. And this is a story about a world where and everyone's kind of bought into it. And it's become kind of fun and cool to give into these kind of really base needs and requirements.
It sounds like Michael had this plant of, not to make a pun here, this plant of a story in his brain. And he sort of, you know, let it, let it blossom a little bit as time goes on. How did he come to you for this? Like what, what are your thoughts on this whole and you know, this whole idea of, know, what if fungus did take over the world via humans or, know, in a less, in a less aggressive way, as Michael was saying.
When I kind of came on board, it was, in a nutshell presented as, this kind of body horror. approach to something that is a essentially detective story against this global issue. So for me, was a lot of my boxes were ticked instantly of things that I really enjoy presenting. But I think the more that I kind of became ingrained with the project, deeper the sensation came through that it was actually a story about reflection.
It's a story about our interactions is a story about how we cope with change and how we cope with loss and how we cope with different things kind of shifting around us and the level of control we have around that. So for somebody like myself who loves horror and loves drawing weird things and loves the darker side of human nature and how I can present that, it's that coupled with this contemplative element that really fits me as an artist. And it's amazing.
It's like, I know Michael, I know how Michael can go on these deep dives that are emotionally raw and he has a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve. And that's really true with this book as well. I think on one thing, there's the kind of surface level where it's a cool, freaky book about mushroom guys. And, but on a deeper level, it's something that will hopefully really resonate with, with readers.
So I think from an art point of view, it's really a pleasure for me to try and take those big ideas that Michael has and how I can present that on the page in a way that's not only visually engaging, but is, is meaningful to a reader as well. love the fact because, you know, Mike, Michael, I don't know if I can call you Mike. You can call me whatever you want, sweet thing. All right, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily bug. No. So, Michael, I love the the the rabbit holeing of this.
And I say that because I've kind of gone down a similar rabbit hole as well. And I want to say it was like years ago, I was watching this documentary on like Vikings and them kind of inhabiting and like kind of spreading across the world as they did before other, you adventurers did.
And they were actually talking about where they found the like basically the holes of dirt that the holes of shit that they buried of these Vikings when they were traveling and how they were actually able to tell about how healthy they were where they had come from how long they had traveled just through their fecal matter.
So not to make this entire conversation about poop, but I do find that really interesting on several levels because also like we just have all these different we have like mites in our eyelashes. have, you know, bacteria in our stomach, our, our intestines, in our, like that live all over our body and all have different jobs and different. it's just, again, we become just like in the book, they, we become these hosts, these living, walking biomes of just, it's like little cities.
And I always think back to, if you remember batteries not included when they had these little tiny ships and inside. where these little tiny, even smaller things, and you have no idea what they are, but they make the world turn and that's their world. I always, I love thinking of Osmosis Jones as well. Osmosis Jones.
Yeah. You know, I love that this is an idea behind this book and that you've done like these deep dives, but I also want to attribute that like to, John, to your credit, because I love how you've drawn even this first issue. And I think the readers are going to really love it also because you have such a, and I love how you say you'd like to draw horror. because you have this like very soft, like beautiful style, but at the same time it's in this very harsh world.
And sometimes the moments are so soft and beautiful. Like, and I'm gonna say it, there's this one scene where there's these two like prostitutes and one's a bloom and one's a human. And they're just both very beautiful, but one is almost, yes, beautiful body horror. And then there's this other very, later on in the end, it's almost towards the end of the issue. I'm not gonna spoil it, but there's this very like absolutely body horror moment of grandma. I'm not dead yet.
And it's just like, it's just like, Jesus Christ, what happens to her is so like, like harsh, but drawn so softly and beautiful. So I just, love how together you guys are bringing this book to life with your both with your styles. Well, I think, when John and I share a friend in common who happened to be visiting John when The email came through requesting him to be the artist on this book. This friend texted me and I was like, please tell me he's going to do it. Please tell him to do it.
And when I discovered that John would in fact be taking on this job and it's more than a job. It's a real collaboration. It's a partnership. And it's changed everything. I've had, I've been sitting on this idea, not sitting on it. I've been actively trying to sell this idea for a decade and been told no a bunch of times. It's too weird. It's, it's bad. It's a bad idea. Finally making it land.
I knew that we needed an amazing artist and we asked a couple of amazing artists kind of in like a big sweeping. But when I put together the list of artists that I wanted to do it John was like the one that I really wanted but I thought was unachievable so when this friend texted me and Was like yeah, I think he's gonna do it.
I was just like, no And it really it made me step up everything in the year 100 % right Aaron The tenderness with which everything is approached, the humanity with which things are approached, and also just the searing brutality of, here's an ugly moment. Look at that. Like you have to look at that. If someone holding your face to this terrible thing, crying your eyes open, clockwork orange style, and just being like, look at that. Look at what you did.
And as a writer, I think about this sometimes. You write a horrific thing and you think you're cute. You send it off to the artists and you're like, what have I done? I killed grandma or whatever. then seeing it come back in the most horrific. And John's got almost like a documentarian type of approach to it. It's certainly artful. There's, there's a bunch of, there's, there's a quality to it that isn't just, here's like a photo ref of a thing and blow. There's a high level of artistry to it.
but there's also this like really hectic, that, that looks almost real. That hurts to look at that makes me feel bad about pitching this idea to this artist who is capable of creating beautiful things, but I'm going to have you do the ugliest thing that I can think of. And I, I love that you, you clicked with the, with the scene with the sex workers because I had that feeling too. I was like, they're beautiful. Maybe the Bloom people are the best.
I think that the idea of beauty and horror, they have to go hand in hand because if everything is brutal and horrific, then nothing is because it's just the same. There's no difference. You need to have those contrasts. If there's an element of beauty in something that is horrific, then I think that makes it have more impact. Or the idea of tenderness.
I've not actually considered that before, but I think that's something that I really like, that you can have something that is a brutal moment that is done in a relatively tender way. When you have something where it's juxtaposing those two and they're kind of fighting each other, that hopefully can make you feel quite uncomfortable. But yeah, I like that having that kind of emotional impact through the work. That's kind of what I aim to do. it's, yeah, it's a perfect book for that.
Yeah, so when you're through the world and it's these glimpses of these individuals and how they view each other is potentially different from how the main character views them and how the reader views them. So it's all of this tension between... different experiences from each person in that moment. not to digress too hard, Aaron, but you were talking about poop. Can we get back to the poop already? I feel like you and I, if you were to check our search histories, it's probably pretty similar.
We're just like weirdos who are into But no, like a lot of a lot of how we engage with history is informed by my poop, whether it's from, you know, prehistoric animals or whether it's from humanity. And again, that ties into this idea of there. There's an entire story to be told about. just the way that our, like, it blows me away that I can eat a bunch of things.
And through that, that's how I just, I grab the constituent pieces that are needed to maintain this meat machine of my body that houses all my hopes and dreams and memories and all this. Like, it's so bizarre to me.
That this book is like a rough approximation of Just a little bit of how weird that is to engage with when you really get thinking about it So I think that it's like a big hope with this book is that people who pick it up and and connect with it in whatever way they see fit to connect with it Hopefully it scratches that itch a little bit about Or who knows maybe maybe it'll tickle your fancy and make you want to learn more about how bizarre it is that we are
around, that mammals exist, that we are the homes to all of these things. Yeah. We're just ghosts piloting around a bunch of meat suits. hundreds or so. But speaking of like, the one thing I want to talk about is the scariest aspect about this idea. This idea of an aggressive form of fungi. Sorry, I just smacked my mic. Eventually attacking humans is how rapidly it spreads through air. It latches onto hosts, bacteria. Our bodies can adapt to bacteria, viruses.
We can create vaccines and build natural immunities to viruses. Fungus, however, those can wholesale take over our system, change our body chemistry, and can evolve based on its environment. And I wanted to ask this of you, Michael, without spoiling anything, How in depth do we get, if at all, with the point of view of the fungi in this story? That's a really great question. And it's one that I'm almost afraid to answer because I don't want to give away too much.
But I will say that we do work in a, like, obviously, like we have to create the books before they're put up on the shelf. And having just been working on some in bloom stuff earlier this week.
very much so And I think that's when we're really gonna see It's this it's some of the stuff that I'm most excited to see John illustrate Because we take some really trippy psychedelic turns to the extent that this stuff is like in my editors inbox right now And I'm like, man, how much of this is gonna get kicked back to me? because I had the I've had these fears consistently throughout this book of How weird can we get and I keep pushing further? It's like I'm in you're already invested in us.
You already you already printed this one. This is to issue three. So yeah, I don't want to like spoil the fun, but deeper in the issues, maybe the perspective changes quite a bit and we start seeing things from the other side. And it's gonna it's gonna it's basically me just being like I just want to see John go crazy Just draw the craziest stuff.
So yeah, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna see a good deal of it I'm deeply interested in this idea of pan spermia, know about pan spermia It's the idea that the that they're like the seeds of life on planet Earth were planted here by some sort of interstellar object colliding with earth and it containing spores. And then the most likely spores that would be contained on this interstellar thing would be fungal spores, which is why fungus fits into neither like the flora nor the fauna.
It kind of walks that funny margin between animal and plant. So yeah, you've, I'm, I think it's amazing that within 22 pages, y'all have kind of clicked into, I see. kind of see where this is going. could tell you some of my favorite stories have to do with humanity. Just being an alien species or creation of some kind of alien species. I love the idea. not from here. We're we're You know, we yeah, exactly. We're not from. I got them all. We're from Mars. We're from some.
We're from the Dog Star. They're the Dogan tribe in Africa. We're able to identify like a number of celestial bodies that they had no business being able to identify. Exactly. And they're like, yeah, we're from there. And it happens to be like in this binary system in Alpha Centauri, which is like the maybe the most reasonable place that we could have come from. Yeah, there's a lot of fun to be had with it.
I think I really annoy people in my life with these kind of things because I don't necessarily entirely buy into any of them, but I remain open to all of these strange conspiratorial things that I get into. I don't know, I think most people are kind of like me now. I'm like most people, should say, I shouldn't have a centrist view on it.
We're all kind of interested in alternate theories of how this all came to be because frankly, the ones that we were that we were handed in our youth don't entirely seem to be working out super well when you, when you look to the left and right and you're like, like this is trash. I'd rather be a mushroom. You're very good either. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. Michael, I want to touch on what you said a moment ago and then kind of move on to the next one here.
yeah, skepticism and curiosity are two of the most important tools in humanity. We should always remain respectfully and sort of like ever presently curious and skeptical of things like I think it was it. I can't remember exactly which says said this, only are which Jedi said this, but only Sith deal in absolutes. So we need to always sort of remain sort of fluid and stay water with all that. But I hate saying it.
want to want to step away from the heady conspiracy theories and all that to get to the lowest of the lowest hanging fruit. I just want to bring up the elephant in the room. I might as well just say it here live on the show. Say the thing. The idea of humans losing their war to fungus obviously has been recently tackled by a famous video game series slash HBO series called The Last of Us.
You know, your your guys' story is obviously something completely different and isn't in any way similar to the last of us. But John, I want to ask you, was there any part of you that thought that maybe the editors or even readers perhaps would try to connect the two immediately when they see this cover of yours? Yes and no. So I think it's, it's obviously, and it's not just the last of us.
There's, there's plenty of kind of mushroom people and fungal things that have been floating around for a long time. So I think Part of the challenge is being able to tap into that visual awareness people have. Like, this is kind of something where it's like mushroom people or whatever, or kind of people turning to plants. But steer it away from that in a way where it's not kind of having such close associations. Which is great for me as an artist because that's amazing.
like, how can I make this not just look like something from The Last of Us? And it's not like that. It's not like that at all. I think visually, it's good to, to some extent, play into those expectations for readers, especially when you're thinking about things like covers, because we all know there's so many comics on the shelves that when you're scanning through them, it's like, what's that? That was cool.
That looks like something that I have some kind of association with in my head, conscious or not. But it's visually very different from that in terms of the character designs and the creature designs and the breadth of it kind of goes way beyond anything like that. So yeah, it's an interesting challenge, think, visually. But I think the... The thing that makes it lot easier is the world building that has been done for this story from Michael is so extensive.
Trying to cram in lots of visual representations that are on a sliding scale of how subtle they are to how very much on the nose they are with what is happening. So even stuff like the architecture, we kind of had this idea of it being quite stripped back, like a brutalist style to the architecture of the buildings to contrast with the more flowing flowery nature of the bloomed people. And a lot of the environments are quite empty and stark to, again, contrast with the people that are in there.
And you'll see the kind of switches from very busy places to very quiet places. So the visual language throughout it all is all shaped around the narrative and the storytelling. So whilst it does have people that have mushrooms on their faces, it's not a zombie story about a zombie outbreak and it's like mushrooms taking over them. It's very different. It's yeah, it's not the same genre. There's just a slight visual cues where I think it makes sense to play into them a little bit.
Having not played Last of Us or watched the show, which it's not me. pushing back against it, I think it's made for me. Like it sounds like my type of thing. Also, like, I just hear the show rules. So the idea of Cordyceps mushrooms being like at its center, I'm so jealous of it. Like, it seems like an easier way to handle this thing, which is like, you get it like infected with this fungus and then you just kind of run wild and... Like I know what course has to do to answer and stuff.
And it's really interesting to me, but my initial idea for in bloom was more of like a step bird wives type of thing. It was meant to be more about your neighbor coming over and being like, Hey, notice you haven't bloomed yet. Maybe you should. Maybe you should go kill yourself. know, Obviously that degree of subtlety maybe doesn't work as well in comics as we would hope that it would. So you turn up a couple knobs and it starts getting closer to a zombie type of last of us type of energy.
But I think people that check out the book they'll discover, there's certainly like marked differences here. But you know, if you're a Last of Us fan and you come around hoping for Last of Us, maybe you'll be like pleasantly surprised with, this is like a different take on a similar theme. And I think this is part of the reason why it took 10 years for me to get this book in the right hands of the right place, because I think at first blush, one might be like, we already did that.
We did that amazingly. in Last of Us. We don't need another thing like that. Funny enough, I kind of mentioned this idea at a WonderCon to do you know who Michael Cho is? Yeah, of course. Yeah, great artist. Cool guy. I was just kind of walking around with him. We had drank way too many drinks and I was like, yeah, man, I got this book I want to do. It's about fungus and this and that. And he was like, bro, that movie, The Happening already. It already happened. It didn't work out too well.
So yeah, that that kind of gave me a pause where I didn't, I didn't open that file for another six months. But I couldn't stop like, like, I think this idea is pretty neat. And I think that people who, check it out, they'll see, it's doing a lot. It's doing a lot of strange things. But it's also like, at its core a pretty simple story.
think John really nailed it when he was talking about how, yeah, there's a lot of big set pieces, but the biggest thing here is about humans and characters and hopefully people that we can relate to and get angry at when they screw up and cheer for them when they're doing the type of things that we want to see. We had mentioned that we were together at Thought Bubble. talked a lot about moral ambiguity.
And I think as the series continues to go, you're going to discover, hey, maybe the people that you like right now, you aren't going to like them by the end. Maybe there's other things that are going to happen. So I think the interesting thing and I want to, and I just want to say this before Chris gets to the next question is it's so, I feel like it's so easy these days to throw like that zombie niche into just about every aspect. And it's, it's almost too easy.
And The last of us, like the happening, like all these things were like, you know, they don't like what we're doing or it's a, it's a change in society. It's a, it's an apocalyptic event. It's so easy to go that route and just have people fighting against this new world, this new system. But what about when that new world is welcoming, when it's inviting, when it's quote unquote better, when it's that the way the awakening of humankind.
And you know, the, the fungi or the bloom, know, like to me, think you guys are taken. I just, I hope that people, when they look at this cover, they're not like, another, another, you know, zombie book or another, you know, mushroom book. No, this is a book that, that you can tell. And John, you know, said it best with the world building. This is a book about the, it's like, it's a, it's a, detective book. It's a noir book.
It is a, like, it is a, what is going to happen with this new world that is awakening? within and without us. And that's what I'm excited about. It's not just like, there's a whole world out there that we need to be afraid of. This is a whole world that's inviting and maybe we should embrace it, but maybe we shouldn't. So that's what I took from the first, you know, pages and I'm excited for it.
And I think that's something that we can all connect to as well is that when there is something that... everybody feels part of I think we've all felt at some point is like, well, do I want to be part of that? Or am I welcome as part of that? Or that doesn't seem right. What all of these people seem to be doing right now? Why is why am why is that being welcome?
Why is that something so that idea of being the outsider or being the other is like we've all felt that so like I think it's kind of exploring that and yeah, kind of It's kind of a weird kind of like look at like the wider society and I suppose like certain things that are happening around us right now. There's always going to be that part of humanity that feels like the disenfranchised that feel like they're not being heard or not being helped.
And even when they see outrightly that this better thing is happening right now, they will rebel against it. It's just almost like inherently that's going to happen in any society. So I could definitely see that happening in this world as well where, you know, the Emblem are here. the bloomed I guess you would say is actually here to help in some capacity. And some folks, maybe it's a visual thing. Maybe they see someone with a mushroom.
They see a hole in their face and there's mushrooms blooming out of it. And they go, like, maybe that guy's gonna live 60 years longer than me, but I don't want to talk to him. They don't look like me. I'm not talking to them. Exactly. Yeah. They'll segregate them prejudice, the whole thing. I want to step away from in bloom for a quick moment here. And John, I want to ask you really quickly. You talked about a little bit earlier, but I want to pick your brain a little bit on the infernals.
The last time we had you on the show was with Noah and Ryan, as we said earlier. Firstly, congratulations on sticking the freaking landing. It's awesome. It's a great book. All five issues. I'm holding it in my hand, everybody. It's great. I really love it. But the real question I have for you and part of the reason why I have the trade in front of me is family business is volume one. Does that mean there's a volume two perhaps coming down the pipeline? Potentially. That's all I can say. yeah.
Secrets, secrets. Okay. Got it. Yeah. I mean, like the, the, kind of story arc is kind of wrapped up and we talked about what we can do in that world. And yeah, so we may return to it. may not. We'll, we'll see. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's as much as I can say. All right. Fair enough. Well, and I just want to say off to the side here, I was so bummed when you and I, we got a chance to chat at New York Comic Con and we got to see each other a couple of times at the show.
But I think it was Sunday that I noticed the Suspiria poster that you did for Vice Press. And I'm curious just if you could give us sort of a brief overview. How did this happen? How did this partnership with Vice Press happen? How did you get how did you have the opportunity to, you know, create this poster for them? So I've been talking to Vice Presro for a long time about doing different projects.
And then they got the Gen-O license through and they said, would you want to do something for Disperia? Not knowing that it is one of my favorite films of all time and probably the single biggest influence on how I approach coloring and like storytelling through mood. so yeah, so obviously I jumped at the chance. That was like how that came about. then posted really good.
And then, they used it for a limited VHS release, I generally, the weird thing that still blows my mind is that I generally had to sign off and everything, but then I generally like requested that it be used for a VHS release, which is, still surreal for me. So yeah, there's the elimination VHS release. of with the artwork on it. It's yeah, it's madness. it's perfect. It matches perfectly, too. Yeah. No, I love it.
I feel like as well, like Michael's worn his Suspira t-shirt, specifically today, like just for this moment. Yeah, I love it. As a matter of fact, I wish that it was. I wish that it was your year or we should get t-shirts. We get t-shirts, man. Again, never say never. That's not down to me, that's down to the licensees. I mean, I'm assuming that people listening are familiar with Jon's art. If you've been listening this long and you haven't looked at his Instagram or something, please go do it.
Jon is really doing something very special, not just in comics, but in... illustration in general. And I think, you know, go follow when you see the picture, double tap it. It means a lot. It really means a lot. Social media engagement counts for an awful lot. People that create art spend a lot of time alone. And oftentimes it's a big sacrifice.
And one of the few paybacks that you can give to people that are creating art that speaks to you is double tapping their stuff, writing a little comment. Hey, this is cool because it means that that work can be seen by further people because the algorithm is gross and weird and it requires that type of activity. So do it, do it for the people that you love, whether they're dancers or visual artists or whatever. But I'm asking you to do it now with John. I mean, don't we know it?
to build off what you're saying there, Michael, for sure. In the world of house styles, and we all love a house style here on the Abloving Bar, of course, but when you have a unique voice like John, we're gonna butter you up for a moment, there are certain artists in the medium that when you see their artwork and you immediately know it's them, it's special, right? You see someone's work and you go, that's John J. Pearson. That right there is incredible.
So, and John, there is no one like you in the medium. So I wholeheartedly agree. And, you know, I totally agree that we need to, again, Aaron, I know this, we're not creating art over here on the oblivion bar, but we so appreciate anytime someone feels compelled enough to share a conversation or whatever, like buy a t-shirt. Like we're never asking anyone to do that, but if they do it, means literally the world to us. So we totally get that too.
I don't draw a hard line between, this is art with a capital A and this is like content or whatever. Whatever. Like Chris, Aaron, like. You two are playing a really important part in the ecosystem of this medium that we love so much.
You're creating a way for people to be hyped on it on their way to work while they're at work, like while they're working out at the gym, you're thinking about the things that you love and you're passionate about and you've created something where it's kind of, you can keep it in your pocket on that magical piece of glass that has access to the entirety of the world's knowledge. And you're here talking about poop with us.
We've talked quite a lot about how important community is, especially in comics and creativity and how, like I said, when you're making things, can feel like you're either isolated in the making of it or like if you're making comics half the time, like, I can see how many people have bought it. It's a number, but you don't get to actually see all those people.
So, yeah, things like this, but also the things like going to conventions and talking to people, that means so much not only to us as creators, but I think for the individuals and those individual interactions are really special. It's like, it doesn't matter what side of the table you're on. It's like those things matter.
And I think like we kind of mentioned a little bit about this in New York as well, think Chris, when we kind of chatting to you about your... and the schedule of like talking back to back to people. it's like, that stuff matters. It's like, it's all about those little, those little things. Well, Michael, we know you can't, you we want to kind of switch steps again, you know, change the tune.
we know you can't give too much away, but we wanted to pick your brain on your upcoming book, Neptune with artist Nathan Ooten. I hope I'm saying that right. the FOC for that is December 16th, by the way, for all the listeners out there, solicitation says Neptune. is a tale of freedom, revenge and redemption. What can you tell us about this story? That's what the description says. That's all that it says.
It's the opening line and then it starts talking about what you and Nathan have done in your careers. No spoilers. It's a book about things. And stuff things and stuff Neptune is a book that Nathan and I created for the comics ology originals line If you have Amazon Prime, you can actually read it in its entirety right now It's on comics ology or you or you can purchase it if you don't have prime. What did it say was a story about revenge? Revenge and the retention freedom revenge.
Okay freedom revenge and redemption. Okay, so the freedom part is Our main character, we pick up with him. He's he's an adult. He's middle aged and he's been in prison since he was a minor for a crime that he didn't commit. Freedom redemption. Redemption is him coming out of prison, redeeming himself. And he hit all the points himself through through revenge.
Actually, it's a story about a about a young man who he was involved in kind of like a petty kind of dumb crime the type of thing that people get involved in when you grew up in a small town and you're bored and you're hanging out with the wrong crowd and they decided to hold up a convenience store and during the commission of that crime His friend was killed in the person who was running the store was killed The other people that were involved in this crime took off and he took the fall for it.
So he did 17 years in prison, wherein his only real company was his dead friend, who his buddy who died during that heist. When he gets out of prison, he gets out under the belief that his brother has committed suicide. His brother who was party to this crime that ended up with him. in jail, but the main character and his ghost buddy don't necessarily believe that this was a suicide, so they do a Scooby Doo adventure.
And then some of the more psychedelic and violent moments that you can imagine, Transfire, and ends on a real dour note, which is something that I love to do, which is have like a sad ending. It's story about economics more than anything. It's about I grew up super poor in a go nowhere town without a ton of options. So it's a book about economic disparity. It's actually inspired quite a bit by a documentary that I saw about human trafficking.
So you take all these things and you put them together in a blender and in a way you go and it's called Neptune. And I'm glad that they just took three words and they're like, yeah, you can put. That's cool. Listen to this to know what's going on. heart. Nathan spent an entire year meticulously illustrating this thing, and they're like, here's three words if you want to buy it at whatever. Thanks. Thank you. They must have went straight to Jeff Bezos and said, what do you think is about?
If you ever read the thing, you would have realized it's an indictment of. his whole company. This is about you. Thanks for the money, All right. Well, John Michael, it's been such a pleasure having you guys both on. We have one final question for you before we let you go. And we like to end all of our conversations here by asking our guests what they've been enjoying recently. So one form of media that you, you know, you've been really enjoying comic movie, video game, podcast, what have you.
John, let's start with you. What's something you've been loving here recently? I I picked up a bunch of stuff at Full Bubble. I mean, I've been really enjoying Leo Fox's comics recently. All absolutely sensational. Jay Webster Sharps from like local creators just put out a new issue of Fondant, which is absolutely incredible. New Charles Burns. there's so much great stuff coming out of the minute. I've been...
I've been reading the robots series, Isaac Asimov for the first time, which I'm absolutely loving. yeah, just like there's, feels like creatively, especially in comics, there's just so much stuff popping up and it feels like there's just really interesting voices.
And I know it's like been, everything's kind of been slowly moving away from Super Heroes for- forever really but like it feels now more than ever but it's it's just interesting story after interesting story and I'm just astounded by it so yeah it's it's amazing. For comics I love The Sickness by Jenna Cha and Lonnie Nadler I think Uncivilized Books is publishing it and it's the first trade of it I think is either out or coming out soon and I just love it I think it's a huge swing.
I love Lottie and Jenna. think they're two of the most creative people I've ever met. I love that they're a couple and they're making this amazing book together. Somebody who's worked with his partner in the past, I know how challenging it can be to live in the same home and to work on stuff together. can be really hard.
A book that I read at this point more than a year ago, but it feels very contemporaneous in my mind because it- It just keeps popping up in my thoughts is, tender is the flesh by Augustina. That's Erica. I believe she's Argentinian. Argentinian tender is the flesh is about a, a near future situation where in eating animals, will either kill you or make you sick, make you crazy or something. so people can't eat meat anymore and, but they can eat human.
So that kind of starts happening and it's, it's lived in my mind so much that I feel like since I've read it, it's informed every creative thing that I've done. It's certain, there's certainly elements of it in, in Bloom with how dispassionate and almost it's vile, like the way that the stuff is engaged with, but it's done so in a way where there's no judgments. I think that's the best way to shake someone to their core is to present something just as it is. And there it is.
That's just what we're dealing with. And you got to soak it up however you like it. So yeah, can't encourage you all to pick that one up enough. One more is Between Two Fires. I can't remember the name of the writer. It's a medieval horror type of tale. Really, really great book. I read it right after I read Tender is the Flash at the suggestion of my partner. And I was like, there's no way I'm going to like it. I just read something that I liked and I liked it equally for different reasons.
check that out. Christopher Buhlman. That's correct. Yeah. And it's called between two fires. Go check it out. I have Tender is Tender the Flash and I am so excited. It's in my read pile right now and I cannot wait to get into it. So I'm glad, I'm glad that you've already read it and loved it. So, Gentlemen, it has been a freaking pleasure to have you guys. I know we said initially it was only going to be about 30, 40 minutes and we're almost at an hour.
So that just goes to show how much we enjoyed this and we didn't even get into Wonder Woman or we didn't get into Michael. You're even doing a Kickstarter for heavy metal. You know, John, obviously we didn't talk about, know, any, almost anything outside of in pernil. So I think the only thing that we can do is put a, put a bookmark on this one and then hopefully have both of you on either together or separately on in the future.
So Before we go, I'm going to hand the baton off to you guys one more time and John, I'll start with you. Is there anything you want to plug? Any socials you want to let the people know they can follow you all the things? Yeah. So you can find me online at John J. Pearson on all, well, not all, but like most of the social media stuff. can find MySpace? Yeah, sure. Why not? I also have MySpace. You can follow me on Patreon. You can see some behind the scenes stuff there.
If you're interested in my art, you can see how how it's made. So, yeah, yeah. Find me on Instagram and then send me a message. And you can find me at at Michael W. Conrad on adult friend. Christian mingle. Yeah, gay date or or your your alternate Twitter, you know, poop rabbit hole. Bukaki, buddy. You know, in my next book. That's the best. up in bloom is Poop Rabbit. Poop Rabbit. Don't be gross out by poop. It's just part. It's part of archaeology. Yeah. Poop. Everybody poops.
First lesson we learned. Everybody poops. It's fine. That'll be that'll be the third story. Everybody poops. Pooping and Bloom. All right, everybody. Well, thank you both so much. We appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon, okay? Bing bong.