Hey, this is Tyler Crook, the co-creator of Harrow County and the creator of The Lonesome Hunters, and you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Hello everyone, welcome to episode 146 of the Oblivion Bar podcast, the official podcast of the fantasy shop in St. Charles, Missouri. I'm your traumatized old man with an ancient sword, Chris Hacker.
And joining me this week is my little boy with a wolf mask and an angry wolf mother, my co-host and BFF, Erin Knowles. Oh, don't kill me master. Welcome back to the Oblivion Bar podcast. This week on the show, we are being joined by the creator of The Lonesome Hunters over at Dark Horse Comics. You may also know him as the Eisner nominated creator behind Harrow County with writer Colin Bunn.
It is Tyler Crook, everybody joining us to talk about, talking about Lonesome Hunters and also just how he's one of my favorite working creators in comics today. It was such a pleasure to sit down with Tyler and talk to him about the next installment in the Lonesome Hunters. not trilogy, but I think hopefully, you know, fingers crossed that it will eventually become a trilogy because this is only the second installment in that Lonesome Hunters saga.
So Aaron, you had a chance to actually sit in on this conversation. Did our conversation with Tyler at all entice you to want to check out this new installment in the Lonesome Hunters series? Absolutely. And as you and I were kind of kind of slightly talking about it before we started recording this, Tyler's talked about his influences and how, you know, and Studio Ghibli, obviously we just recently did our Midnight Rewind episode where we highlighted Princess Mononoke.
And this one, you know, I see Princess Mononoke being an influence on this as well. And it just, it all kind of, it's interesting how it all ties together. The writing style, the art, like all of it together, just it's a gorgeous story. And you can hear when he's talking about the creation of it. Again, I just, I love the, I love what the inspiration has brought him to create. My love of Tyler's work started with Harrow County back in the day. You obviously hit his. You talked about that before.
Yeah. Colin bun and his run on higher County is it's one of those very easy recommendations to hand someone say you've got, uh, I wouldn't say like a younger person, I wouldn't give, I wouldn't give Harrow County to a 10 year old necessarily, but like, if you have like a 16 year old in your life who really wanted to like, and loved horror, I will say like, kind of like a somewhat of a, uh, kind of a, uh, man, I'm trying to think of what like What kind of horror this is like, it's
kind of like a, um, uh, the conjuring, I guess. What's, what's like the conjuring type of horror, Aaron, you don't talk about it. I would say like, like not necessarily psychological, but almost paranormal horror. Sure. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That's a very good way to put it because it does, it does all very paranormal and they do it so beautifully and it is kind of a very perfect entryway into the medium in that sense. Tyler's work on both Harrow County is a great kind of stepping in.
Point for Lonesome Hunters, which he is I talked about during with him during this conversation It is to this point is magnum opus. I think like he is writing he is illustrating.
He is coloring he is Lettering everything he's doing this entire thing is truly his baby And I love the first series during this conversation We talked mostly about the second installment, which is the wolf child and if for some reason you have not read that you can Listen this conversation and I think it will entice you to want to read that because we don't spoil anything in this conversation with Tyler.
So let me ask you this, Chris, before we get into the actual conversation itself with him, it seems like there's a lot more creator owned, like one man, one person creations coming onto the market. Is that true or is this kind of like a common thing? Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. I think what we've been seeing recently is that many more creators have decided that they wanna kind of try out their own hand in writing because...
I'm not saying that one is necessarily easier, but there's a very specific skill that takes to do one more so than the other. Like you couldn't hand, you know, Brian K. Vaughn a pen and say, hey, make a comic, you know, but you could hand Daniel Warren Johnson a laptop and say, write a really good story. And if he has the ability, which we know he does, he'll do it. Right. So you can hand Tom King, Tom King. Yes. He We have, we've handed, people have handed him a pen and he's made things.
And I think that's the best example of why you shouldn't give writers the art material. So, but Tyler is very different. He is an artist with a capital A, is something that I say in this conversation. And he truly is one of like, he's one of the best. And I think he is criminally overlooked in terms of like what he is able to provide the medium and what he already has done. I cannot implore people enough to want to, to go out and check out Lonesome Hunters.
Before we get into that conversation, Aaron, as we do each week, quick shameless plug, tell the people how they can support the Oblivion Bar podcast. Yeah, make sure you go check us out, patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. Again for your contribution and support of the show, you have access to the grid, which is our weekly patron exclusive bonus episode. It's basically the oblivion bar after dark. It's you know, unformatted, it's untemplated. It's just a good time.
It's just kind of where we go off the rails and talk about whatever we giggle, we gaggle. We gaggle and we Google. And we'll Google from time to time for sure. Every once in a while. Early access to these episodes, it's like these main episodes you'll get. You also get a special shout out at the end of each episode. You also get access to the episode transcripts. So you can see what we're gonna be talking about before we actually release the show.
And honestly, it's just the best way to support the show. And also now there's even an added benefit if you're listening on Spotify. Spotify has made it so you can listen to Patreon exclusive episodes. just by clicking the banner underneath the show at the top of our Spotify page to subscribe. Yeah, patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. Great way to support the show. Enough shameless plugs, Aaron. Let's get into our conversation with Tyler Crook.
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While stocking up at GFuel.com, use our code OBP at checkout for 10% off your entire order. That's OBP at checkout. GFuel. Performance Energized. And now, this week's special guest. Joining us this week on the show is the co-creator of the murder mystery Petrograd with writer Philip Gallat, the Comixology original Stone King with Kelly MacDonald, and the mega hit Eisner nominated series Harrow County with writer Colin Bunn.
More recently he has been playing in his own sandbox with the supernatural dark horse series The Lonesome Hunters, the story of a powerful sword and the old failed monster hunter who wants nothing to do with it. It is my pleasure to welcome Tyler Crook onto the Oblivion Bar podcast. Glad to be here. Yes, thank you so much for being here. I wanted to kind of start off the conversation talking about, we had an interview back during the New York Comic-Con timeframe.
We had David Dasmashian and Leah Kilpatrick on the show talk about Headless Horseman. And most listeners to this will know that you actually illustrated that little mini subsection of their story. They had nothing but great things to say about you. What was that experience for you? That was great. They're just really fun to work with. I mean, it's such a little project. It's sort of the thing that was like two weeks in and out on that thing.
But they were like really open to really collaborating with me as the artist. And that's actually the one I listened to. Oh. The podcast I listened to. Oh, so you listened. Okay. As soon as you said that, I was like, that's the one. We were talking before we started the recording and Tyler had mentioned that he... was listening to an episode of the Oblivion Bar before he came on, which is always smart for creators or whomever to kind of get a feel how the show goes.
And we were both kind of going back and forth about which episode that was that he had listened to. It makes sense that you chose Leah and David because you've worked with them before. Yeah, they were really great. And they were really sort of, and they even said in that interview how I had some reservations about some of the early versions of the script and they were just really, really open to sort of hear me out and. going back and forth on how to improve it and stuff.
And yeah, they were just great. I mean, they're both just like really fun and enthusiastic and like, they just seem to really love the process as much as I do. So it was like, it was great to work with them. Yeah, it's very refreshing, you know, because David of course is a giant star in Hollywood. And then Leah has her own deal in terms of like being a megastar on the internet with her cosplay and her YouTube channel and everything else.
And- When I say refreshing, I mean, it was refreshing that they were both genuinely loved the medium of comics and they weren't doing it just to have a little fun side project. You could tell, you know, Leah, but also especially David, how much he loves the medium of comics and how much he is like a true champion of it, even with his, you know, again, giant status as a movie star.
There was a thing he posted on Instagram, I think it was from around New York Comic Con to where he announced a project he was doing with Todd McFarlane. And if you can go find it on his Instagram, the little announcement video they did was so cute because you could see David Desmulchin, this like cool ass movie star, and he was just grinning like a little kid. Like he was just so stoked to be standing next to Todd McFarland and talking about a comic book that they were going to be working with.
Yeah. I think the Todd father would give us all that kind of reaction. If we had a second to just sit there and stand next to the man I want to get into our conversation here a little bit. And I want to start off this conversation with a quote, as you do, you know. In his book, The Visual Language of Comics, Neil Coe says, it takes a bevy of voices to make a good comic. And yet Tyler, here you are with The Lonesome Hunters.
And I think it's important that people reading this series and listening to this conversation understand that you are an artist with a capital A. You're writing, you're illustrating, you're coloring, you're lettering. Everything with The Lonesome Hunters is all you. So my question for you is, has tackling this series solo been a freeing adventure for you or have you found the difficulty and the challenge to drive you a little bit, that little bit more?
You know, it's one of those things where it's like the experience is not what I expected it to be going in. I really thought that it would be, it would feel a lot more free and, I don't know, like spontaneous and like. Sure. whatever, and it really was like once I started really digging into the story, it was like the story was actually the boss, you know, so I wasn't like able to do anything I wanted to do.
I had to do just what the story wanted to do and so that in that respect like yeah it's hard to call it freeing but it has been like incredibly fulfilling working like this, being able to do it all by myself and for the one for one thing like I tried really hard with all my books to bring as much of my personal experience and passion and storytelling stuff to every project, but essentially I'm always telling the story that a writer has written.
So it's been really, really cool to be able to do something where it's like the origin of the story comes from my own... like a goober saying it, but like from my heart, you know, this is like from my soul coming out. And it, and that comes with its own challenges too, because it is like, it takes a lot out of you. And it's, and it's pretty exhausting to be honest.
I love that you say that because I've heard you talk about this series and other interviews and people ask you a very similar question as I had just asked you just now, kind of about your process and things that, you know, maybe influenced you or things that you keep in mind as you're writing the story. And I love how most of the time your That's what the story needed or that's what spoke to me.
You don't really, it's almost, and I don't, and I don't mean this in like a negative way, but it almost feels like the story is guiding you in your process. Like there's not really any preconceived concept. You are just going where the story takes you. Well, I wouldn't say that there's no preconceived concept, but I would definitely say that it's like, um, it's like, I started out with a story, like each of the two story arcs so far.
It's like, I really started out with, you know, aiming my little story arrow at a target. And then, you know, I ended up hitting a target, you know, a couple targets over, but it's the right one. You know, that's the one that I had to hit. Well, and kind of along with that, and I'm sure again, fans of yours will know this, but you use mostly, you know, watercolor, airbrush.
How long does it take you to do each one of these issues of, you know, we'll say Lonesome Hunters, but also Harrow County and, and other projects that you've done. Um, Lonesome Hunters has taken me longer than, um, Harrow County. It takes me about two months to do a single issue. Um, wow. That's so breaking that down. What is that? You know, you do four issues per arc, right? And then so is that so is that like two and a half weeks per or two weeks ish? Oh, no, I'm sorry.
It takes me two months per issue. Oh, I'm so sorry. Wow. OK, so. OK, never mind. I heard the answer. Yeah. That's about eight weeks to do. Oh, my gosh. Single issue. So doing a doing a four issue arc is about eight months of work. That is, I mean, it shows obviously I was going to be very impressed if you had maybe said anything less than two months, but that is truly impressive. Well, when I was doing Harrow County, I was cranking those out. Um, we were on a six week schedule for those.
And, um, I was really tearing through, but also like, I don't think I took a full weekend for like three years while I was working on that book, it was keeping that schedule was really rough. So like my eight weeks. for Loadsome Hunters has included weekends.
So, you know, in terms of that, you know, you obviously the Loadsome Hunters is a beautiful book, but as was Harrow County and a lot of your other work, it's almost one of those things where when you see a Tyler Crook piece, you almost immediately know that it's you. What were the shortcuts if you if you had any or what type of like? I don't know. I want to try to find a better word than shortcut. But how did you keep within that six week window when you were doing Harrow County? It's just.
Like really like keeping a schedule like that is really just, um, brute force. You know what I mean? It's like, you just like, if you, you basically work out your schedule, you work out what you need to accomplish in a day. And if you don't, um, if you don't hit your quota for the day, you just work into the night, you know, and you wake up the next day and you do the same thing.
Really the thing that I've gotten much better at is, um, I don't have a really good name for it, but just planning days to not accomplish anything like. whenever I work out my schedule, I give myself a few extra days for when things go off the rails, you know, because it happens all the time where it's just like, I'll be coming to the studio, ready to get started, and there'll be an email sitting there that takes me two hours to work through.
And then once that's done, then there's something else that I have to do. And like, and then, oh, this thing I have to mail out. So I have to go all the way into town to do it. And it's like, you know, it's, those days just come out of nowhere sometimes. And so it's like, you have to plan for them. Otherwise you're... doing what I used to do, which is just work every friggin day.
I love that Harrow County has become, you know, in one way, it feels like definitely a poster child for your career thus far. But it's also been like maybe one of your biggest lessons thus far in your career. And, you know, kind of speaking on your career, leading up to this point here, now that you're you know, we're here at the Lonesome Hunters. I would actually love to hear a little bit about your relationship with the medium itself.
You know, I've heard you talk about before that you grew up loving comics, but You initially worked in video games. Can you recall the moment you decided to make that switch from video games to comics? There were a lot of those moments. I made that decision a lot while I was working in video games. The way it usually went down is that I would have a really rough day making video games.
I'd come home and be like, you know, I got to get out of this industry and I got to start working on this thing that I really would have always wanted to try. And I'd work on making a comic for maybe two weeks. I would work on it at nights and weekends and just sort of lose, after a while you just lose steam on that. And I'd be like, well, making video games is a pretty good job. Like, why would I leave this?
But the last time I did it, it was because I had started a company with some friends, me and some of the guys I worked with at Sony, he had all quit together and started a game company. and we just weren't quite making enough money doing that for me to keep it up. And I had quit and I was doing some contract work and I was just sort of, I'd had, I really had it, you know, up to here with video games and was like, it just wasn't working out for me.
And, um, and I remember like laying in bed one night and not being able to sleep and trying to figure out what I'm going to do. And years ago, when I had done a previous attempt to get into comics, I had gotten, um, in contact with, At the time he was the editor in chief at ONI press. God damn it. And I do this every time I have an interview, like names just leave. He went on to edit Bob Shrek. How could I forget Bob Shrek's name? So like I just remembered Bob Shrek.
Like I was like, I had talked to him and he was like really interested in my work years ago and I had just never really followed up. And so like, I remember climbing out of bed at three in the morning and being like, just going to my computer and Googling Bob Shrek and seeing what he was doing and where he was at and discovering that he was at DC at the time.
And then I just started, I actually found an interview with him and listened to it and then started listening to a bunch more interviews with other creators. This was like the first time I discovered the comics podcast scene, really. Ah, we know that quite well here. Yeah. And this was, this had to been 2008, I think.
Okay. Yeah. So I just started like listening to all these podcasts and I was, you know, hearing really for the first time, all the stories of like, how did you get into the industry? And that was the first time for me where it was like, Oh, actually this seems like the sort of thing a person can actually do. Like, like I kind of get it now. And actually going through the whole process of starting a company and having to go out and do like, try to pitch games to publishers and all that stuff.
Like all that experience, like really had, I had learned a lot from that and was sort of at a place where I finally understood how to be like, if I want to do a comic book project, I need to be able to show someone one that I have already done it, that I can do it. And then I also need to like, not walk into the room and be like, what do you have for me? I need to go into the room and be like, here's what I have for you. And that, like that, basically I was just finally set up for it.
So that was when I made the choice actually was that. I did, I started writing a story that I mean, it'll probably never ever see the light of day, but it was sort of just slice of life stuff. And I put together about 12 pages of that. And I flew to Portland for Stumptown Comics Fest and showed my work to James Lucas Jones, who was the new editor at ONI Press. And he was actually like, you know, I have a script on my desk that might be just perfect for you. And that was Petrograd.
So that's how that went down. Yeah, I was gonna say. And also, I've heard you say before that Petrograd was one of the very similar way to Harrow County that you were working yourself to the brim just to keep that, you know. keep the schedule and I think you said at one point that had you known that you could do it in a shorter way or an easier way, you would have, I can't remember exactly how you put it. You may remember what I'm talking about here.
I probably said that if I had known how hard it would be, I probably wouldn't have said yes to it. That's what it was. Yeah. I think I really thought that I could do that book in one year. Yeah. And it was two and a half years was what it took. Oh, wow. Well, and also to go back a little bit, I love the idea of just you and your co-workers at Sony leaving Image Comics style. You've got Tom McFarlane, Jim Lee, Will Spistachio, all these people.
And then it's just you guys just walking out and walking across the street to EA Sports, giving them the middle finger, walking over to Bethesda, giving them the middle finger, and be like, we're starting our own shit. Man, I wish it had been as cool as that. No, it was more like we were just at a studio that was imploding and we were just like... Oh, sure. We were closer to like rats jumping off the ship than like, you know, that like Todd McFarlane in a homerun or whatever.
Well, and you know, and I think back to your time on, you know, BPRD and again, Harrow County and now here with the Lonesome Hunters. And while most of these books have, you know, horror elements to them where I think you really shine. And again, this is my this is my soft pitch into us getting into finally Lonesome Hunters, which is again, while we're mostly here. That's what we're here to talk about.
you really shine when you get to like have a soft moment with our POV characters and dealing with the truly the horrors around them. So my question for you is, do you feel like you get more satisfaction with those smaller moments with say, Emmy or Howard or Lupe? Or do you prefer to explore, you know, the more ghoulish side of these horror stories? That's tough. Like, I definitely have like a real sort of profound love and attraction to those like quiet character moments and that stuff.
But in horror stories, for me at least, the way I like to approach them, it's like those moments are absolutely critical to the horror elements. Because you have to really like, like I feel like you're not gonna be, when you put characters into these horror situations, you're not gonna be as worried for them if you don't really care for them. So it's like you have to end up, care for them, you have to know them, and you have to understand them on some level.
And so, so there's, quieter character moments I think are absolutely critical for the larger scares to work. It's like without that contrast, it's just not... You just can't feel it as much. It feels a little rambly, but... Yeah, it's like... I can't remember who said this. Somebody I know is like, you can't have a song that's just like a guitar lead from the first bar to the end. It's like you have to build up to that... sick guitar lead. Otherwise, it doesn't actually mean anything.
It's just like noodling, you know. Yeah, it's like, you know, a crescendo means nothing if all it is a crescendo. Yeah, exactly. If you start crescendo and you end crescendo, like and it's just three minutes of crescendo, then yes. You have to go somewhere. Yeah. Well, and, you know, kind of along with that, let's finally get into. You know, not only the Lonesome Hunters, but specifically the Wolf Child, which is the next or the second arc in this story. And, you know, fans are loving this.
I specifically love it. I know a lot of fans of yours that, you know, maybe came from Harrow County or from your other previous work as well. This is like for anyone listening right now. For some reason, you have not read Lonesome Hunters, but also specifically the most recent arc of Wolf Child. This is very much your bag. And just for kind of the layman, I'm going to go ahead and give like a. a synopsis here, if you will.
So an old and out of practice monster hunter is hiding in cross, in hiding crosses paths with a young girl, forcing him to confront these chaotic creatures. But car trouble leaves them stranded in a small town that's being terrorized by a magical wolf and a mysterious child in a wolf mask. While waiting for the car repairs, Lupe befriends the wolf child and she and Howard are drawn into a war between the townspeople and these deadly beasts.
So I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about why specifically you chose to follow up that inaugural arc of the Lonesome Hunters with this mysterious boy and his dying wolf mother that he's trying to protect. The original seed of inspiration for this was one of the titles I was actually thinking of before we decided on Lonesome Hunters was to have something to do with being raised by wolves and trying to build on that idiom or whatever.
That's one of those things that I just kept thinking about, like what it would be like to be raised by wolves. And so then I was like, okay, well, what if we had a kid that was raised by a wolf and like how would that play out? And I was sort of just thinking about it. And I sort of had this vision of this kid who was raised by a wolf. And so he wore a wolf's mask to become a wolf. And then I also had like this really strong picture of this wolf or this kid trying to protect their parent.
So I had this picture of my head of the wolf. You know, you meet them in the first issue where the wolf mother is sort of like laid up being sick. And so that image was really strong in my head. And so I sort of built it around that. But also then knowing that I had, another important thing to do with this series was the first story arc of The Lonesome Hunters was really about Howard and Lupe sort of coming together as a duo and heading off on their larger adventure.
And with this one, I really wanted to create a scenario where we could see why the sword is a dangerous thing, which I don't know how much I can... I'm always so worried about spoilers. I'm not a person who cares about spoilers, but I know so many other people do. I was going to ask you how much you wanted to dive into this story because...
Again, as coming from someone who's read the entire, you know, both arcs, and I'm assuming I'm hoping that most people listening to this, if not already interested, have already read it. I would love to talk a little bit about maybe some spoilers here and there, but what are your thoughts? Do you want to kind of keep it relatively spoiler free or- Let's try to keep it spoiler free. As much as we can. Sure. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right. Well, okay.
So I have a question based on what you had just talked about there. other interviews is how people in this story, there's almost like a power of the mask, let's say, like people who wear masks, there are certain powers. I'd love to hear you elaborate on that because, you know, in this story with the wolf child, I don't necessarily see any powers from him outside of his, you know, his, you know, relationship with his mother who is an actual wolf.
North American and indigenous religious stuff, where there's a lot of, you know, and it's kind of widespread among different cultures, but there's a lot of, you know, you go to the dance, you put on the mask of the wolf, and then for the purposes of whatever ceremony, you are actually the wolf. As long as you're wearing that mask, you are the thing.
And so that was really sort of the inspiration of a lot of the mask magic that happens in this series, you know, animals putting on masks to become more human and humans putting on masks become more, more animal.
And, um, and yeah, I mean, and it also works, you know, as a metaphor with just like how the thing you want to be, you put on a mask to become it, and then eventually either you become fully that thing or you're always wearing the mask, you know, or you take off the mask and you go somewhere else. Well, I love that. So while reading this and again, hearing you talk about it before, my favorite band of all time is Daft Punk.
And I often think about how no one knew who Daft Punk was or cared really even until they put on the robot mask and then they became and I think the reason for that was because they wanted their music to be about, or they want to Daft Punk, they wanted to be about the music. They didn't want to be celebrities. They didn't want to be known out in public. And I think that's ultimately why they decided to put the mask on.
But in reality, it also gave them an identity that people, you know, I mean, I have I have I don't know if you can't see it or not, but I have them the masks on my arm. Like I identify not only to the music, but also to them as artists. And I just love the idea of how, like you had just said, like putting on a mask sometimes gives you gives you a little bit of power that maybe you didn't have without it. Yeah, no, it gives you power and it gives you freedom.
And it gives you it gives you a way to define yourself like with greater intention, you know, when you're walking around just as you're, you know, in your normal day-to-day clothes, you might not actually present, you know, because like, yeah, it just I guess it's just like an intentional presentation of yourself that is like, what's so strong and who's that guy who wears like the dangle mask and the cowboy hat? Oh, I don't know. I am not I'm not familiar.
He's some pop artist and And then MC Doom, is that his name? Yeah, MF Doom. Yeah, he expressed it not too long ago. Yep. But yeah. Yeah. And then like, Deadmau5 has a mask. Uh, there's, I mean, there's plenty of folks who, again, they, they put on the mask and they, it's almost like they become themselves in a way. Yeah. Insane clown posse. Of course. Yeah. Slipknot. Like there's so many, you know, like, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. You remember like when Kiss took off the makeup and it was just like, oh, it's just a bunch of dudes under there. Like. I don't know, I'm not formulating the correct response to this, but there is a certain amount of identity, again, speaking on Daft Punk, but Kiss is a better example, I think, because Daft Punk's never taken off their masks, at least not in public.
But Kiss very much, if I remember correctly, if I remember history correctly, they faltered, their image faltered when they took off the masks. But when they painted their face again, they were Kiss again, Gene Simmons and the blowing the fire and all of that. I can imagine there are probably some women out there who weren't attracted to them without them without them. Like they probably got more women with the paint on than they did without.
Yeah. So I love to, you know, we talked about how we're not going to talk a bunch, a bunch about spoilers, but if I can kind of dance around a spoiler and still ask you a question that I think is very important, there is a moment in issue four of the Wolf Child that something happens with Lupe. She again, I'm being vague here purposely, but she, she does something. And instead of Howard, who had been the entire throughout the entire issue, say, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this.
She does it out of instinct. And yet instead of being like, I'll tell I told you so he is very almost immediately forgiving and comforts her right there in that moment. What did that moment and ultimately kind of like that last issue again, avoiding spoilers for the Wolf Child arc. What did that personally mean to you? That is really important about Howard to me as a character.
And that's that Howard comes from a background and his relationship with the sword comes from a place of really sort of abuse and trauma. And so when he gets, it's so hard to talk about without like just saying what actually happens. But the thing about him is that like he knows like how messed up the... having the sword is. And so like when he sees someone else learn that for themselves, he empathizes with them incredibly strongly. And you know, that's the thing about Howard and Lupe.
There's a moment that is really important to me from the first story art. And it's from really early in the first issue, but it's when Howard and Lupe sort of meet in the stairwell and they just look at each other. Yes. And nothing... like really happens, but in my mind, at least what I was trying to get at was like these two can just understand each other. They see themselves in each other. They see their loneliness.
They see how much they need someone else and they just recognize it in each other. And I think that's the thing with Howard and Lupe is that Howard recognizes himself in Lupe and his... So I guess... I guess maybe his thing is like when he's like consoling Lupe, he's probably consoling himself at the same time, you know. Yeah. And I love that panel, too, that it's basically it's a wide kind of a wider panel and they both just say hi at the same time.
And then there's like two panels of like a singular front shot of both of them. And it's a silence, almost like they don't know how to react to it. And then, of course, Lupe's father, you know, being the monster that he has kind of forces are upstairs. But you know, I think that brings. Sorry, yes, her uncle, yes. I think this is a great transition into a quote that has nothing to do with The Lonesome Hunters at all, but I think it fits.
It actually comes from the vision in Captain America Civil War. He says, strength incites challenge, challenge incites conflict, and conflict breeds catastrophe. I feel like we are seeing this exact same situation with Howard in this sword. The moment he pulled out that blade from the box in that first issue, He and Lupe have encountered the Magpie Queen, the Wolf Child and his mother.
We keep getting glimpses of this mysterious man who again, I don't, everyone listen right now, I've read the entire series. I still have no idea who this mysterious man is who claims that the sword is actually his. So Tyler, I'd love to hear you speak a little bit about how Howard, who is clearly very uncomfortable with the blade in his hand. How do you think he plans to face these growing threats? Well, he doesn't.
I mean, that's the thing about, So the thing about these characters is that they are like, you know, there's like, you know, Wolverine is the best of what he does and all this stuff. And Howard and Lupe are both the worst possible people to have these problems. You know, they're not set up for it. They don't have any of the answers, you know, they didn't go to ninja school to figure any of this stuff out ahead of time. They're just really just muddling their way through these issues.
So like the... And the thing is like, Howard got this sword and it has, you know, the very first pages of the first issue of the first series, you find out how this sword like really has messed up his life. And he's been like stuck for most of his life just trying to hide the sword. And so, I mean, for him, the solution, like the only way out is through for him. It's like the only way for him to actually. get beyond the sword is to pull it out and deal with all of the fallout that comes with it.
Begrudgingly. Yeah, and I don't even think he realizes that's what's happening when he starts. You know, he's just like when it starts, he's just like trying to solve this problem that Lupe has with the magpies. And he's willing to, you know, take a great risk to do that. So like I said, he just doesn't have any plan. He's just they're just really trying to figure out as they go along.
And I think that that's, to me, that's like way more interesting than watching, you know, like watching John Wick be the best assassin ever. It's like, I would rather see Jackie Chan do the thing where he accidentally like falls over in the chair, flips over and hits the guy accidentally, you know? Like, that's way more fun and interesting and creative to me. So, so that's what the story is. It's really about these two people who don't know what they're doing. And it has a lot of.
consequences because of that really. I mean, all they have is each other. And I think that's essentially known from the jump. Almost as soon as you start reading this story, you know that both of these broken people, all they have left in the world is the sword and each other. And I think there's something really beautiful about that. I love to hear you kind of expand a little bit about what this relationship is between Lupe and Howard.
Because Howard, I think- And a couple of times in the story, he has a chance. He tells Lupe outright, you need to go away. This is not your deal. You don't have to deal with it. But yet he keeps leaving openings up for her to join or come back or what have you. Yeah, can you explain a little bit about what that relationship is between them? Well, between them, and it's friendship. It's like they...
It's partly just friendship, but it's also... the thing where it's like they're in a situation where they need someone else. And really there is nobody else. So even though it's not always the, um, the most logical or like, it's not the thing that like their therapist would say like, yeah, go do that thing. It's like, it's the, it's the choice that they have ahead of them, you know, like that's the best choice that they have in front of them to, to move forward.
So it's like their friendship is like. Like a fun codependency. It's like, yeah, yeah. And it's also, you know, it's like when you, um, when it's, in some ways it's like when you go to a new school and you're like, wearing your punk shirt and like, there's only one other kid at the new school who has a punk shirt. So you like, end up like being their friend. And it's really just because you both liked the same band, you know?
Yeah. In some ways it's, that's how it is with Howard and Lupe or it's like, they're both just in the same boat. And, and so they find that, that friendship together. I find that very interesting because I actually wrote my thesis about this in college about how as humans, we will often seek out the smallest amount of connection with folks.
If I go over to England and I don't know, if I'm just by myself and I see someone sitting at the bar across me wearing a Spider-Man shirt, that is the smallest inkling of a bridge that I need to go over and at the very least say, hey, I like your shirt. And that creates a line of communication. And we do that every in our everyday lives.
If I'm at the grocery store and I see someone wearing a, you know, St. Louis Cardinals hat that I'm wearing right now, I'm gonna be like, Hey man, Cardinals, man, they weren't, they didn't do well this year, did they? They were not on top of it like they normally are. We're just often seeking those small, small connections. And I think Lupe needing Howard in that moment might've saved Howard in a, in a way, like almost a life of irrelevance and kind of, uh, solitude.
Like it's not fun, but maybe he needed it in a way. Yeah. No, then that thing you're describing is something comic book fans, I think in particular, can really understand. And it's like the word I always use for that is fellowship. It's like, and that's what like, you know, comic conventions are for. That's what podcasts are for, you know? It's like, it's to find that fellowship and to, yeah, just connect on stuff. And that's the human thing, right?
Like we are definitely social animals and we have to. have to find that connection. That's the real tragedy of dudes like incels and that stuff where it's like they've sort of have chosen this philosophy that is antithetical to finding positive fellowship and instead they sort of rely on this negative fellowship they find online and stuff. Oh absolutely yeah and Aaron, my co-host and I, we often talk about why do we love the things that we do. We're big movie fans.
We love podcasts and we love comics. We love video games, all the nerd stuff. And I think at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is connection. I go to the movies and I love film because I feel like I'm having a connection with the story. A lot of times a connection with the story is music. You could say the same thing about music.
There's a certain, there's a dopamine drop that you get directly into your cerebellum that you just don't get from anything other than things like that, that you actually love and you connect with. And I just love the idea of that. And the connection between Lupe and Howard is known immediately.
And I love something that I've heard you say before during other interviews is that you didn't wanna mess with the bullshit of them not getting along or them having some kind of stupid issue that would take a five minute conversation to get over. You would just immediately have them getting along, needing each other. And I love that, I absolutely love that. Well, yeah, and I think the thing that... that I like about their relationship is that it is like, it's consistent from the jump.
Neither of them are capricious about it, and neither of them are sort of playing some sort of game with it. It's like they both see that they need each other, and they grab onto one another, and that's the end of it. They're not gonna let go. Sure. Well, Tyler, I'd love to round out our conversation here with one final question. Again, like I said earlier, the lonesome hunters, has been a crazy success for both you and Dark Horse.
And the trade for the Wolf Child is actually coming out on February 28th. So I want to selfishly ask here. And, you know, of course, be honest here. Don't give us hope if there's none. Should fans expect more Hunter stories in 2024 at some point? Probably not in 2024. I am actually writing the third story arc, but we're really. We're in the position where we're waiting to see how the trades do before Dark Horse approves the next story arc.
So everyone should definitely buy The Wolf Child when it comes out. And the first story arc is going back to print. And so there should be plenty of those available. But yeah, pre-orders and stuff are hugely helpful. Pre-orders are I don't think people realize, everyone listening right now, if you're, you know, if you go to your LCS every Wednesday and you have like an active pool. Pre-orders are truly the determining factor for a lot of this stuff.
So if you love a series or you want to support something, pre-ordering is, unfortunately, I think, a lot of times the bar that these companies need in order to green light anything. And again, if this conversation offers anything, it should be that the Wolf Child and just Lonesome Hunters in general should be something you should be pre-ordering and supporting and loving like we do. Well, thanks. And also, I don't know how much.
the listeners want to hear about like industry stuff, but like with the new bring it on. I want to hear it. I don't care what they don't want to hear. I want to hear it with all the new distribution stuff going on. It's been really, really hard to, you know, get the word out about books and really get people excited about them. And it was much easier when there was diamond distributors and that was it. And you could look in previews and see every book that was coming out and all that stuff.
But it's a. It's really sort of, we're in this weird moment of the Wild West where I know that there's a lot of really, really good books out there that are having a hard time getting the traction that they need. And when you pre-order a book, I pre-order books all the time, I pre-order records all the time. And if anybody who's not into it should know how amazing it is to like have the fun of buying a book. And then like three months later, the book showing up and being like. What's this?
And you get that thrill all over again to get it for the second time. Yeah. You know, you know, listeners of the show here will know that I am often a, I was a hyper critic of previews, but also specifically diamond for a long time because I worked at a comic shop and there were many a times I would say there were very rarely times where something didn't come either missing or broken from diamond.
I mean, that being said though, I agree with you wholeheartedly that back in the day when you could just pick up a previews You know, you pick up the big book of previews each month and you also have the Marvel and DC one and you just sit through that thing each week. It was perfect. And FOC was like Final Order cutoff was such a clear like marketing point for everyone. It was like everyone. Yeah. And those days are just gone.
Yeah. It's almost like we're doing the streaming wars, but with comics as well. Like everything is so scattered and at some point, something is something at some point is going to come along and re. congest everything back together. Hopefully, my fingers crossed of course, but yeah, Tyler, thank you so much for joining me here today on the Oblivion Bar podcast. It was my pleasure. I mean, honestly, it was so great to have you here talking about Lonesome Hunters.
I can't wait to see what you have planned for this next arc, whenever it eventually does come out. And I'm gonna pass the baton off to you. Is there anything that you wanna highlight or any socials you wanna plug before we head out of here? I guess the big one to plug is that I've been doing a live stream on YouTube every Friday night. So it's actually, as soon as we get done recording this, I'm going to start setting up for that. And then every Friday night at 7pm Pacific time.
And then I'm on Blue Sky and I'm on Instagram. And that's kind of the only places I'm at right now. I post a Tumblr occasionally and stuff. But if you just search for Tyler Crook, you'll find them. And it's all those links are on my website to mrcrook.com. I was gonna say, you know, visiting your website, I saw I love the blog part you had an October. blog post where it's basically just you talking to the reader, you know, like cartoon version of you.
And actually I didn't realize this again, because previews is all over the place and you never know who's in what, but I didn't know that you were, you did like an anthology story through a DC ghouls. Just want to have fun. You did a Renee Montoya questions story, which like, if Aaron was here, he would tell you how much I love the question. So that's going to be on my reading list going forward. Oh, nice. That one was really fun. I've wanted to. do stuff for DC for forever.
And it was great to finally find something. I mean, it's always really hard to schedule stuff if you don't have a big enough lead time. But that was really, really fun. And I just did a variant cover actually for a Hellblazer book. Yes, the Swamp Thing one. Yeah, that I'm really proud of. Again, if there's two characters in the DC universe that I absolutely adore. the question and swamp thing.
So when I saw you post about both of those things, I was like, I mean, I gotta bring it up at some point cause those are awesome. So Tyler, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. I'd love to have you back on, you know, at some point down the road, talk about more Lonesome Hunters or just, you know, whatever you're working on at the time. For sure. Yeah. Keep in touch and we'll get back together sometime. Awesome. Thanks so much, Tyler. Thank you.
Alrighty. There's that conversation with Tyler Crook. Thank you so much, Tyler. If for some reason you're listening to this right now, thank you so much for coming on and Talking about the Lonesome Hunters, I find the relationship between Howard and Lupe just so compelling, and I cannot wait to see what happens next to these guys.
We talked about it during this conversation, I tried to bait Tyler into telling us if we can expect any more Lonesome Hunters this year, and he seemed slightly apprehensive, and I totally get it, because as again, he said in this conversation, it takes him a long time to just do one issue. So the fact that we got four issues in the last six months is a good deal. We said it earlier, Aaron, go read the Lonesome Hunters, go check out Harrow County as well.
And just honestly, anything that Tyler does. Yeah, hats off to Tyler Crook for being able to create like all of this by himself. Again, I asked you before the interview if this is a new thing. And I think that you kind of, you explained it well. I think that the thing that I'm kind of like excited about is it seems, especially in our last few interviews with creators who are making their own. Like their own comic completely by themselves.
It seems like now we're coming, we're coming to this point in the comic industry where maybe before you couldn't get a comic book out really, if it wasn't with the big two, you know, now there's such a big industry and there's so much availability to create your own thing that a lot of artists are able to unabashedly create what they want to create. And I'm loving it. I'm just in awe of his art and the fact that he can write as well. while doing that art is just, oh, it's fucking beautiful.
Yeah, you're absolutely right too. We are in a new era of comics where you don't, no, what it used to be was truthfully that you would have to go to a Marvel DC, make your name, and then maybe, maybe you can make your own creator and stuff and make a little buck on the side. But nowadays there are plenty of creators, many of which we've had on the show here that just don't necessarily have any interests writing Spider-Man or writing Batman.
They want to- tell their own stories and I don't blame them to be honest. You know, I'm kind of somewhat in a new era myself. You know, I still read the big two, of course. I love these characters. I have a freaking silver surfer tattoo on my arm. But I have found that recently, small press has been much more my speed. I really, I think it's my love of the medium. It just grows exponentially as time goes on and I appreciate the craft of someone being able to tell the story that they wanna tell.
And not only just tell the story they wanna tell, but they own it. which is so awesome. Like that is, that's just like truly the dream, I think for a lot of these creators. So you're 100% right, Aaron. Tyler Crook, the way that he's able to tell on some hunters at Dark Horse and it be his still is a good deal. So that'll do it for episode 146 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. Once again, thank you, Tyler, for coming on the show.
Next week, Aaron, are you ready to talk about some sand worms because we are heading back to Arrakis, baby. Get your spice. The spice. Um, get your weird worm, uh, people call them up, put on your, put on your best, uh, desert suit. Yep. You're become a host in the nose. Yeah. Some blue eyes and, you know, let's, let's go back to Arrakis. Actually, I think where's what is the spice planet? What's it called? It's not Arrakis. Does it? Is that Arrakis? I think it is. Yeah. You're right.
Just kidding. Uh, we got to work on your whispers too. You got to work on your weird whispers. What's the thing that Lady Jessica does and the see everyone prepare yourself for this review because Erin and I's knowledge of Dune is oh man, it's for me. I guess I'll speak for myself. It's very few and far between like it's the movies and part of the first book. I'm going to go back watch the first one. The original lunch one. Yep, David Lynch. I'm gonna watch the new first one.
David, you know, they'll knew. Yep. Uh, and Timothy Chalamet, old Timothy, old Timothy, Wonka, Willy Wonka. Yeah. And I'm, I'm excited for this movie. I'm not like super excited. I'm not, I'm not like crazy excited, but I am looking forward to this film. And I know it's going to be, I know it's going to be like epic. I was going to say, how are you going to watch it? Are you going to try to get an IMAX screening or are you going to maybe go to Adobe theater of some sort?
I don't even know if there is. Like an I mean, there's got to be an IMAX New York, dude. Yeah, there's we talked about. You can literally watch like apparently like the largest. Remember, I told you we saw Ant-Man on the Wasp quantum media at the fourth largest screen in the US. New York has number one and number two. So if you wanted to see this in like the largest way possible, I think you could somewhere. Oh, the Lincoln Square. OK, so I see. Yeah. Lincoln Square does have an IMAX theater.
OK, cool. I will probably try and watch it there. Lincoln Square. It is one that's actually where I'm going to go see a Kung Fu Panda. Nice. Yeah. And actually the 70 millimeter version of these of the of Dune Part two is available at these larger IMAX screens, which is part of the reason why I want to go to the IMAX museum theater that we went and saw Ant-Man at. So more film. It's better. We love it. And I and I've heard nothing but good things about this movie.
Everyone that I've heard from, you know, good friends of the show, come up with couples counseling. They posted last night that loved it apparently. So very excited. We'll cover that next week on the show. Thank you everybody for listening to our episode here with Tyler Crook. Aaron, take us out of here. All right. Subscribe to our podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Audible, iHeart Radio, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, that's where we will be.
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