Hey, weirdos, this is Jordan Morris, the author of Youth Group and the co -host of podcasts like Jordan, Jesse Go and Free With Ads. And you are listening to The Oblivion Bar. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Norris. Joining us this week on the show is the comedian, podcaster, and author of titles like the Iser nominated OGN, Bubble with co -writer Sarah Morgan and artist Tony Cliff.
He is also the co -host of the hilarious conversation podcast, Jordan, Jesse Go and free with ads, the movie talk show that highlights some of your favorite C through F movies throughout history. He is here to discuss his new YA horror comedy youth group with artists Bowen McCordy, which tells the tale of a girl who begrudgingly agrees to go to her local youth group. only to be caught in middle of a real deal exorcism. It is my honor to welcome Jordan Morris onto the Oblivion Bar podcast.
Hey, hey, thanks for having me. Jordan, thank you so much. It's incredible to have you here. I'm a big fan of Free With Ads. actually not, I think it was the week that it came out was checking out your conversation with our mutual friends, Brad and Lisa from the Comma Book Couples Counseling. Yeah, love that. And I'll tell you, I was immediately just green with envy that got to go on free with ads to talk about Tank Girl. And it was a funny conversation.
I think here's your co -host, Emily, who like she just came in. And if you've never listened to free with ads, she she she set the tone. I think is the best way to put her sort of approach with the show. Yes. Free with ads, a filthy, filthy podcast. Yes. Not not family friendly. Emily, Emily has led a wild existence and will tell stories from that existence. With that without without blinking an eye. Yeah, she's great. She's hilarious and definitely like, let's let's it rip.
We have a ton of fun on that show. And yeah, Brad and Lisa were great from comic book couples counseling. We talked about Tank Girl. They like kind of wacko forgotten classic. I think we all loved it. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's get into sort of the main reason why we're here to talk today, which is about youth group, which is your brand new OGN from first second.
It hit shelves on July which means that if you're listening to this conversation right now, it means it's already available at your LCS or online. So I'll include links in the show notes for both of that. I want to start off with sort of the lead up to the creation of this story. And as I said a moment ago, it is being published by First Second, which has been, in my opinion, on an absolute tear with some of the recent releases with Karate Prom by Kyle Starks.
You've got Lunar New Year Love Story by Jean -Lun Yang and Luan Farm. You got all of Jen Wang and all of her awesome titles. actually have Coco Be Good right next to me right here. And now Youth Group, of course, with you and Bowen. So how did the partnership with First Second sort of spark? Sure. Yeah. So the first thing I did with First Second was a an OGN you mentioned at the top of the show called Bubble.
And I will say I was a huge fan of First Second even before we started working together. So like the fact that my first project was with them. my God. What a thrill. They're great. So, yeah, so Bubble, it is a sci -fi comedy. is for grownups. It's got a lot of satire and sex jokes and gore. And it is based on a scripted podcast we did for MaximumFun .org. Yeah, so the first second heard that scripted podcast and said, hey, we think this might make a good comic book.
I had always - They reached out to you. They reached out. Yeah. That's incredible. That was a very, very easy yes for me. was so excited. You know, I kind of tried and failed to do comics a couple times and always just thought like, eh, this is like a dream that'll kind of just never happen. And this isn't my scene and it's kind of hard to get into. So I don't know. Maybe this will just never happen for me. And and yeah, I was so thrilled when First Second reached out.
So yeah, so that was my first book with them. As you mentioned, I wrote that with a great writer named Sarah Morgan. who worked on the podcast of Bubble and Tony Cliff, the great genius. What a fun crew. I love that project and love how that book turned out. yeah, so then comics, you can have the idea, but it's just like, who do you pitch it to? You need someone to listen to the pitch.
in a lot of ways, that first project is kind of the hardest one because it's like, how do you get on people's radar? How do you become someone who people want to hear their pitches? Yeah, Kalista Brill is the great editor at First Second who reached out about Bubble. And yeah, as we were working on that, I said, hey, I got this other idea. I really like it. I had a pitch. had some kind of initial pages. And yeah, she was thankfully game to do it. I'm very lucky. I love working with them.
And I'm so grateful Kalista kind of brought me into the fold. Kind of speaking on what you were saying there a moment ago, initiation is half the battle. So once you... Of course, sort of get in there. I think that's actually a line from Big Daddy as well. I don't know. Did I just pull that from the recesses of my brain when you said that? I don't know. I've only seen Big Daddy once, but it's full of wisdom. I definitely remember it truly. There's a lot of a lot of wisdom in Big Daddy.
Yeah, exactly. I wipe my own ass. You know, things like that, of course, like. But that's cool that, you know, I didn't realize that first second actually reached out to you for bubble. And now, of course, with Youth Group and it's I'm sort of curious as well. I noticed on the cover of Youth Group. It looks like Bowen actually has top billing. How angry are you about this, you know, being second place on the front cover? not at all.
I mean, listen, the the the amount that a writer works versus the amount that an artist works on comics like I am not discounting the importance of the writer. Writers are important. I'm a big fan of writers, but It's the artists show, you know, and I, they did not ask me who should be billed first. I think that's just kind of how it, it, how it came out on the cover. But I like couldn't be happier and agree with that more. And just like alphabetically it works, know, McCurdy, Morris.
But also, yeah, just like I, you know, I think, I think sometimes when people talk about graphic novels and comics, like the writer always kind of gets mentioned first and, you know, you're more likely to hear like, It's Tom King's The Vision, know, it's Brian Michael Bendis's Ultimate Spider -Man when it's like, I personally am in favor of like treating comics like more of a of a group project because it totally is.
And yeah, I think like the book is as much if not more, you know, who it belongs to. The book, the book is as much if not more belonging to the artist, I think. Sure. Yeah. And I think that's sort of a tall tale. attribute of a great creator, a great collaborator, more importantly, that when writer can sort of recognize and understand that their story, their script might be incredible, but this comic won't be great unless the art is equally or better. Right. Of course. Yeah, totally.
And I read before I started doing comics, I read Brian Michael Bendis's Words for Pictures, a great, great kind of how to book on making comics. And yeah, there it is. You have it right here on the zoom as we speak. It's right next to It's an essential book. It's so great. you like if you like comics, if you want to write comics, it's such a great book. And yeah, he is very like deferential to the artist and says a lot of stuff along the lines of like ask them what they like to draw.
What do they not like to draw? If they don't like to do crowd scenes, don't write a bunch of crowd scenes. Ask them what kind of monsters they like to draw. like he is very like he's very deferential and respectful to the artists he works with. And I I wanted to be similarly. when I was starting to do comics.
There's an entire section of Words with Pictures, sorry, Words for Pictures that is just dedicated to all of his collaborators sort of giving the rundown on what they enjoy drawing within comics. And that's a really cool inclusion for Brian Michael Benes and I agree with you 100 % that that should be a conversation that you have with your collaborator. And to sort of speak on that too, what has this partnership been like with Bowen to tell the It's been wonderful. Bowen's a genius.
Bowen, I should say, does a great series called Spectre Inspectors over there at Boom, and has done issues with Marvel Comics, and it's just like such a joy to work with and brought so much wonderful stuff to this book. I can't even say. Yeah, Bowen was really great. Bowen, you know, we both like spooky stuff, but we also both like funny stuff. I think that like... This is like a very jokey book. There's a lot of jokes in it, right?
Like the feeling stuff is taken seriously and there's satire and stuff, but there's like a lot of jokes and like it can be challenging to make jokes land in comics. people, it's a cliche almost like comedy's hard in comics. The humor is specific generally. everyone's version of humor is generally different in some way or another. Of course. Yeah. But like Bowen, Bowen just has such expressive characters and so much about the comic, the comedy in comics is like the acting, right?
Like, we don't just get to see the funny joke in the bubble, but we want to see people reacting to it. We want to see somebody selling the joke. We want to see people looking at someone saying something funny. It's all part of like making the joke work. And I think Bowen's characters are just so expressive. They, I think, put so much time and effort into making sure like... Their posture is right and their facial expressions are right. And yeah, I'm just so thrilled we got to work together.
And Bowen made so many cool, unique calls. Like, Bowen is very into color theory. And so they went and put specific color palettes for specific scenes based on the emotions that are going on in the scenes. We did a great interview together with the Beat, Comics Beat. And Bowen talked a little more about color theory in that I won't try and... I'll mess it up if I try and explain it. But listen, that conversation.
But yeah, but like in my script, there was nothing in there about color theory or make sure the color palettes shift based on the emotions like that was not in there. That was just like something that Bone wanted to do. And I'm like, so glad they did it. And yeah, just like so many so many great details. There's a there's a fridge in the book. There's a shot from like inside someone's fridge. And it's like not important to the story. There's nothing in the fridge that like pays off later.
But just like the fridge is so lovingly drawn. And like our book is about I should say our book is about teenage exorcists. It's a YA horror comedy about teenage exorcists. And they live in a pretty like basic ass suburban town. And, you know, they fight demons later on in the book. But I think just seeing that fridge, seeing that ordinary suburban fridge just gives you this sense place, you know, you're like, OK, here we are in normal as suburbia. And then and then the demons happen. Right.
And that's so much a part of the book. And I think just like little things like let's see the fridge really just just help all those ideas in the book get across. Sure. Absolutely. I agree 100 percent, too. And, you know, I feel like we could sit here and talk about how great Bowen is in their work. But I want to kind of talk a little bit about sort of your process.
You know, I've heard you say in other interviews that your impulse when writing, it generally come from within, it's more so that you like to follow a funny concept and kind of see what sparks from there. That said, many of us who grew up being sort of force -fed the idea of religion and it being the sort of important pillar in a, like a quote unquote stable person's life.
And with, you know, that certain level of indoctrination, all that kind of stuff being used, it seems like you've tried to say something very specific with youth group. And if you're comfortable sharing, I'd love to ask you, have you ever had these experiences growing you know, going to a youth group and and if those memories had any real influence with telling the story. Yeah. So, mean, I was I was part of a goofy Bible study when I was a teenager in Orange County where the story is set.
So, yeah, the setup is like very autobiographical. I don't think there's like a self -insert character in here or anything, but like, you know, I knew all this stuff really well. And yeah, and I had lot of complicated feelings about my goofy teen Bible study, The community part of it was great. I had crushes on people who were in the group, so I got to be around them. We did little trips. It was fun. So like the fun community aspect was great.
But I didn't always like everything they were saying. And I don't think anybody does like everything their church says all the time. But like I felt uncomfortable about stuff. And I think the main character, Kay, is a kid who is on the far end of uncomfortable, right? Like she would rather not be here. She was kind of like not tricked into it, but like it's a bargaining chip with her mom. She wants to go to college on the East Coast. So she's like, I'll go to the youth group.
That was always a kid in the youth group. They smelled like clove cigarettes. They didn't want to be there. So I think Kay has a lot of the like discomfort that I had with it, right? Like there's social things going on that she doesn't They seem like they can kind of be in their own world. yeah, so I thought it was interesting to have a character who, that was their perspective, who just had to go along with it anyway.
And to kind of go on this demon slaying adventure despite not always liking all the decisions that they made. And anyway, and I think that is When you're a kid, kind of just get dragged to the stuff that your parents are doing. yeah, that was kind of like part of the bigger theme of the book is like having to kind of endure something and find the stuff you like about it, but not like betray who you are, you know?
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess I if I can selfishly use this as a vehicle to talk about my Midwestern religion experience, you know, as a young person growing up in the middle of Indiana, a lot of my friends and, you know, sports. coaches and everyone sort of leaned in on that sort of religious aspect. We prayed before every game and a lot of my crushes, just like you went to youth groups and such.
And if I could share like a really quick funny story, because I want to kind of get you reading the situation. is probably not surprising to anybody who's listened to the Oblivion Bar and even you Jordan, who you look behind me and you know what the Oblivion Bar is. I was a big nerd growing up. There was a certain time where I sort of grew up and I didn't necessarily As much of a nerd as I used to, I went from looking like squints and sandlot to like a taller squints from sand.
Like I just, I just, I got taller and I got my braces off and that was basically it. But I got the sort of the confidence to go up and talk to this girl who was like maybe one those popular girls in school, but it was very religious. And I eventually asked her out and she said yes. And I was so blown away. The weird part was though that she said, can I bring my dad to, to the movie? And she goes, can I bring my dad? was like, that's odd, but sure.
So I bring my friend and she goes, okay, we'll see you there. We'll grab tickets and we'll go there. So we show up Friday night to go to the movies and her dad's there. We meet everybody. Everything seems great. And as we're walking in, I'm thinking like, what movie are we going to see? This is like really odd that this is sort of like a four way date, but it was Passion of the Christ.
And, you know, it's different points throughout the movie as, you know, it's like her dad, her, me, and then my friend, Kevin. at different points, they're bawling their eyes out the entire time, as is most of the people in the theater, while Kevin and I are incredibly uncomfortable the entire time. I have not seen Passion of the Christ, but I understand it is a challenging film. Yeah, there's a lot to chew on, I'll say. It's a very, yeah, worth contemplating, maybe. I don't know.
But point is, that I very much, you know, sort of found myself within K initially, especially, but, know, again, throughout is that like you find these friends you respect and you want to be close to and they have this sort of joint fellowship. And yet you're left sort of on the outside questioning things and and questioning things sometimes is maybe a bigger deal than not believing at all. Yeah, no, I think that's that's that's totally true.
And yeah, I think like I just I wanted to I wanted to have a group of people who all believed something a little bit different, I guess, in some cases, a lot different who just kind of have to work together to not die, you know? Like, all right, well, we disagree on many things, but also the demons are going to kill us, so let's try and figure this out. So, yeah, I don't think the book is trying to say, like, if anybody has any appalling beliefs, you just have to, like, accept them.
Because, I don't think anybody involved with the book believes that or thinks that that's the idea. like... Absolutely. We are we are in a world where people can get hung up on little differences and make little differences, big deals. And I think that like, yeah, I thought it was I thought it was interesting to tell a story where people kind of like put that on hold because there's something bigger going on. And I think it's worth reiterating.
And I love the fact that this is something that's often brought up in these interviews when you talk about youth group is that this book is fun. It's like more so than anything else. It is just a fun romp with some kids fighting some demons. Very Buffy esque, right? And I think that's even included sort of in the sort of like the loose pitch when you go to like the first second website and sort of highlights what the influence is, or at least what you would like.
Similar to Youth Group, Buffy I think is considered one of those things. So I really love the concept that Youth Group where you and Bowen, you've essentially taken these kids that we all knew growing up, right? Like, know, Trevor is trying to get you to come to Thursday Night Dodgeball. But dodgeball is sandwiched in between a sermon and like a 30 minute prayer afterwards. you'd be like, Trevor, no, I got tricked for free pizza and I can't come. There's Trevor's. Trevor's Wiley.
You got to look out for Trevor. He's a he's a good salesman. He's very. Yeah, exactly. I Trevor is a kid you grew up with. I'm just going with it here. This is a soon. This is a synonym for a person that I definitely knew the real name of, but definitely not Trevor. I'm not to protect his identity. I'm going to keep him as Trevor. Yeah, that's right. But, having kids team up and actually perform exorcisms and fighting demons. That's a really sort of welcome and fun twist in this story.
Also, I should probably ask too. Are we able to talk about what a blight is? Is that too much? Sure. Yeah, that's kind of early on in the book. I'm happy to talk a little bit about it. Sure. Can you sort of elaborate like in a more spoiler free way of what a blight is in this story? So, So, so Kay is interesting. She kind of has a superpower.
So she I was thinking of ways to like get her in on the adventure, but also You know, there's a there's a little bit of a there's a power dynamic where her youth group leaders, Megan Cortland, they've been fighting demons for years so they can do it. They can wield the holy weapons. have martial arts training. They're trained, seasoned demon fighters. And then we have this character, Kay, who's new. And I'm like, well, you know, Kay would get killed immediately.
So I wanted to like give her a reason to be there and give her a little bit of a leg while she was training, you know? So I kind of thought of this idea of making her like impossible to possess. Like, demons can possess everyone, but there's a small little chunk of the population. Maybe it's magic powers, maybe it's a little bit of a mutation thing. We don't know. Maybe there'll be a sequel where it gets explained. But yeah, so it's okay. The demons call them blights.
It's kind of supposed to be a little bit of like a dig. Like they call them blights because They can't possess them. And we will learn later on in the book that blights have some other powers that will, you know, that might be useful down the line. But yeah, I thought it was a fun way to like get her into the group to make sure she, you know, just didn't get mowed down immediately. And yeah, I thought I thought it was a fun, like a fun little metaphor for like realizing your potential.
I think the characters in this book, especially, are all kind of like looking for where they belong. They feel out of place. They feel like, yeah, they just, they feel out of place. It's a very like common teen feeling and a common adult feeling too, I guess too. But like when you're a teenager that like, my God, no one around me gets me. Like that feeling is huge. And so like I wanted to give her something where she's like learning how great she is.
I think she feels forgotten when the story starts. I think she feels left out. Her parents are just divorced and she feels like neither parent really cares about her because of all the like shit that goes on during a divorce. Yeah, I wanted to like make her a powerful person who's like realizing how powerful they are. And I think that's like part of going from awkward teen to young adult is like realizing like, hey, I have stuff I can do. I have things that make me special. I'm not Kid 27B.
So yeah, I thought it was a fun way to give her powers that will just grow more powerful as she gets more confident. You know, you were speaking there a little bit about sort of like not really being able relate with folks and trying to find that fellowship. And I think that for people who are, whether they're agnostic or whatever, I think that we can all agree that sort of the fellowship of religion, organized religion, is maybe the most important part in a certain aspect.
If nothing else, it gives folks who don't have someone to believe in something, but also find, you know, be loved and cared about from others sort of implicitly within the organization. So, you know, in that sense, like that's a perk. Right. I think no one can argue that. Yeah, totally. Like fellowship and community is so important to humans, you know, and we find it in a lot of different places. And yeah, like I am not a a church going religious person anymore, but.
You know, I have a lot of notes about organized religion, but like that part of it is so great. Like that part of it was was and is awesome. And like the fact that there's community and I think the good ones do charitable stuff. And that's all that stuff's also important. I love the fact, too, that this is being set in the 90s. I thought that was a really cool inclusion. And we spoke about her earlier, but your editor, Kalista Brill.
apparently was the one who suggested this change, correct for the story? Yeah, that was her call. And yeah, so the pitch I had sent her in the initial pages were all set in modern times. you know, people had cell phones and there was social media and all that stuff. yeah, Callista said, if we do this, I have some thoughts and I think that you should set this in the 90s and It's great for many reasons. It's just like fun, first of all, like period stuff is fun. That nostalgia piece coming in.
fun to see the big dumb cargo pants. Fun to see the chain wallets. But yeah, but also like I think I think it allowed me to put more personal stuff into this. Like I think she kind of saw like, this guy's writing about something very personal and like, yeah, just kind of bringing it closer to home for me, because that's that's when I was in a youth group. I was in it in the 90s.
So like bringing it that much closer to my personal experience allowed me to like put a bunch more personal details in it. So, yeah, I think it is like despite being a fun horror demon slaying story, it is kind of a personal story in a lot of ways. Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's funny this week I've seen Maxine and then I saw Long Legs on Friday and which is both of those sort of play in that late 80s, early 90s sort of satanic panic of that time era. Yeah. And it was sweeping the nation.
It was everywhere. I mean, it was being sort of attacked in music and television and everything was sort of being examined under a microscope to make sure that the youth of America wasn't being possessed.
And I just found that really interesting that, you you brought this in from the nineties and I'm just gonna say speculatively if we see something sequelized from youth group, I would love to see sort of some of those elements may be incorporated or just sort of hinted at or what have Yeah, yeah, I guess there was a big thing.
Yeah, I think I think it kind of like we don't explicitly address that in the book, but I think it goes along with how afraid everybody was of devils and witchcraft at the time. Yeah. You know, and it was it was there of Marilyn Manson and stuff like that, where people were afraid that rock musicians were worshipping Satan. A very weird thing to think about now.
But yeah, it is, you know, the devil, the devil, that devil comes back every couple of years has a little resurgence and people, people will get into the devil every couple of years. I can't wait for the, pot, the devil talking to kids through podcasting. That's going to be, yeah, that could, that could, that could happen. That could happen. Yeah. It's selling to your NFTs and your, right. If you play this American life backwards, you hear Ira glass say, exactly. okay. It was risen.
Yeah. I have one final question for you, Jordan, before I let you go. I found you to be a pretty humble guy from what I've known, just obviously this is our first time meeting, but just from listening to you on both the podcast and other interviews and whatnot, you seem like a very humble guy, but I'm going to tell everyone that's listening right now, you are very talented and multitude of different genres. You you found success, I think from a lot of these different avenues.
This is sort of a thinker. So I apologize for springing it on you out of nowhere, but what would be a great piece of advice that you've been given by someone or that you've given out to creatives? who struggle to find their audience for their work. I think there is an expectation these days. If you are a creative person, you will be producing something and putting it out there. Like, I think a lot of creative people write scripts and then put them in drawers.
Like, maybe not literal drawers, but just kind of keep them around. I think if you love an idea, find some way to do it. They're like bubble is a good example. Like bubble was a script that I loved that no one in Hollywood proper cared about. Like it was a weird genre comedy mashup from some guy who had only worked in late night TV. Right. Like it was it was, you know, there's there's there's other people you go to for that sort of thing. But I loved it. I totally loved it.
I loved those characters. I love that world. So like we found a way to do it. We did it as a scripted podcast. and then it became the graphic novel and all the stuff. And yeah, I'm so thrilled with that. So I think that like, if you love an idea, find some way to do it. There's a way. And whether it's like writing prose chapters and posting them on Reddit or something. Like you can do it. There's something out there you can do. Make a zine, make a thing. And it's annoying, right?
we, people should be paid for their good creative work and like. If people are ingesting something, it would be nice if you were making money. But I think that, if you're just starting out, don't wait for, like, a big payday or a big publisher or a big studio or whatever to make your thing. Like, find some way to make it yourself. And, like, obviously, we would all like to make the crazy big budget thing. But, like, sometimes you can't. And sometimes, like...
Just find a way to get it out there and if it's good, people will find it. And if it's good, most likely will lead to some paid work and you can make it your career if you work hard at it. yeah, so I think don't give up on those ideas you love. If you love an idea, if you totally believe in it, figure out something to do with it.
There's so many fucking good ideas, just sit in drawers and you know because you get one reaction you know one rejection from a from a meeting with somebody who doesn't get it I think it's it's easy to get discouraged but like you love your good ideas and and and figure out something to do with them.
Yeah it's funny we're talking about this too because we mentioned earlier Brian Michael Bendis he's been on the show before and we somehow got on the topic of this sort of same thing where you know what do you tell people who are sort of struggling with their creative process and said almost exactly what you just said here, which was that put it on paper, you know, somehow, some way, whether that's notes or in a script form or in a prose way or short story or whatever, just put
it on paper and then come in. If it's if it's lingering or if you're not happy with it, let it sit and then come back to it with a different mindset. So it's funny you say that. And then to sort of build that into bubble, which you just mentioned a moment ago, that was something that you said what people weren't interested in in terms of like movies and television when I've heard just through the grapevine that bubble is being adapted. Is this correct? Yeah, yeah.
So we're we're we're developing it to be an animated feature. There's some incredible cool developments that have happened with it recently that are unfortunately behind a massive wall of Sony Pictures and DAs. But yeah, we're working on the bubble movie. I you know, development is weird and movies are weird. But there's there's such cool people involved with this thing. And I think they all. They all love it and and want it to and want it to succeed.
So, yeah, hopefully you'll be getting some news about the bubble movie sometime soon. Yeah. Well, I'm excited for you for that. I can't wait to hear the news. I'm sure I'll keep my eyes peeled and my ears open for that for sure. But Jordan, it's been such a pleasure to have you here on the Oblivion Bar podcast today. As we said earlier, Youth Group is available now.
So again, if you're listening to this right now, I will include a link in the show notes where you can buy it either from for a second or just go to your local comic shop and ask for special order, grab it off the shelf, whatever you gotta do. And make sure you guys check out Jordan, Jesse Goh and Free With Ads as well. As I said earlier, I'm a big fan of Free With Ads. I'll include links for both of those in the show notes below.
And if I can say selfishly, as I mentioned earlier, I'm just gonna say it one more time. I'm gonna bookend this conversation with what I started with, which is that at some point I need to come onto Free With Ads and discuss some dreadful movie that we all love, like Wild Things or Waiting basket case. don't care. Something crazy. I would love to join you guys for a raunchy conversation. Thank you. Yeah. No, those are all those are all great suggestions. Those all make great episodes.
And yeah, you're totally on the two guest list. Thanks so much. Perfect. Good deal. All right. Well, Jordan, I'm going to pass the baton off to you one last time before we get out of here. Is there anything you want to highlight? Say anything to the listeners before we go? No. my gosh. Thank you for such saying such nice things about youth group. I'm really, really proud of it. And it can be tough for OGN like this because like it's a comic that doesn't feature Batman.
It is a weird blend of horror and comedy. So so I understand how it how it might be might be a little bit challenging for a book like this to find its audience. But I really hope it does because I'm proud of it. I think it's I think it's funny. I think Bowen just did a gorgeous job with the art. And yeah, I hope folks I hope folks check it out. And thank you.
I'm so glad that there podcast like this where people can talk about comics seriously because there's just like not a lot of places out there that review or feature comics. So yeah, it's nice to nice to nice to chat with somebody who loves them and gets them and engages with them seriously. So yeah, I'm just so thrilled I got a chance talk about youth group. I hope folks check it out. All the things you said.
The first second website, your local comic shop, all those good spots, they'll get it for you. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you 100 % too. one of the best parts about con, you know, it's sort of a good theme of this conversation is that comics very much fellowship driven, right?
Like it's a community based that all very much loves the medium and sort of keeps it alive because I don't remember who said this and it's a quote that I often utter and don't, need to find the origin of this, but comics have been their most popular and on the brink of destruction since they were created. Like they are always like about to die, but also the most popular they've ever been at that exact moment. And it requires our love and affection to sort of keep it driving.
So yes, from your lips to God's ears. That's right. And it's a pleasure to have folks like you and any, any kind of creator here on the show. So such a pleasure. Jordan, love to have you back on the show at some point down the road, whether that be about something with youth group, something about bubble and its adaptation or whatever. I honestly don't care. I'd love to get more than, you know, 35 minutes with you at some point down the road. You got it, man. Yeah. Yeah. I will.
I'll absolutely be in touch for sure. Awesome. Good deal. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon.