NYCC '24 INTERVIEW-A-THON: Michael Dialynas

Hello there, I'm Michael D'Alinas, comic creator behind titles like Wind, The Woods, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Zawa and the Belly of the Beast. And you are listening to Oblivion Barre Podcast. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 166 of the Oblivion Bar podcast.

I'm your pointy-eared kid turned wing monster Chris Hacker and joining me is the ancient mountain guardian with a cookie obsession himself, my co-host and BFF Aaron Knowles. back everybody to the Oblivion Bar podcast. Aaron, we are officially back. This is our first episode back. We've been gone for four months. All I want you to do in this part of the show is put the sound effect from the, was the dinosaur movie. We're back. Okay. You know, like we're back, you know, like I just want that.

Like it's like, we're back. Cause that was the name of the movie. Yeah. that's time with me. Every time somebody says we're back. That's what plays in my head is this fucking scene where these animated dinosaurs. It's like a terrifying movie by the way. like turn into actual dinosaurs at some point, right? Well, yeah. So like at one point there's like this evil doctor screw eye. He's got a fucking screw for an eye and he like gives them the bombs in the first five minutes. Sorry.

No, he's got this cereal called brain drain. And it makes them it takes them from being intelligence, not intelligent dinosaur. I don't even remember why they're intelligent dinosaurs, but they are. And he makes them into monstrous ones, like into like real dinosaurs and they turn like scary as hell. And then, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm just trying not to yell on the mic because I feel very passionate about this movie. But anyways, we're back.

That's a long way of just telling you what happens in my brain. Yes, everyone, we are back. The Oblivion Bar is officially back. And Aaron, we have a brand new look. We've got like a brand new makeover. That's what we've been doing the last four months. up. It's like we've we've grown up. Is that correct? Glown up. No cap. No. Ohio, I think. Is that a thing? Riz. We're Jigs. We're hip. Jigs. But yeah, so we have a brand new look, as you can see, Aaron. I don't know why I'm telling you.

You already know. I should be telling the listener, everybody. As you can see, everybody, this is How would you describe this Aaron? This brand new look that we have here. We went to KXD Studios. We were working with him for around two months or so to get this brand new look. And as you'll see over the next couple of months, everything from our segment look to our stories on social media, everything is just going to look brand new.

totally, we put the time and effort into it, but how would you describe this look that we have here? I'm going to share my thoughts on the look. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna preface my thoughts with the two groups of people that we need to thank for this. A, the programs. Thank you. And B, the sponsors. We would not be able to put back into this show what we do put into it without the help of those two people.

And because of those two groups of people, we are able to reimagine and bring ourselves back with such a, with a concept that is exactly what We wanted to represent the oblivion bar with it's retro. It's nostalgic. It's badass. It's like CRT, like VHS late, late eighties early nineties. Be kind rewind. Motherfuckers. Motherfucker. That's what we want. wanted this. We wanted to, you know, with the help of those two groups, we are able to bring the oblivion bar pod.

And this is what we said as we went through this process. that this is the evolution of us going from Charmander to Charmeleon, possibly straight into Charizard. Charizard. Charizard. Charizard. Charizard. Then we can go Mega Charizard and then all the other ones that they have. Yeah. And so, I mean, this is our opportunity to show you guys how much we care because again, I don't know if people know, but rebranding is not cheap.

Nope. It's not if you guys think that we're walking around like Wayne's world where it's like I got $500 I got five, you know, she will be mine No, this is not that game. Like we put the money back into this we re we what do you call it? We reinvested in ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's the best way to say it.

and and again, we we want to thank the programs we want to thank the sponsors and we want to thank anybody that has supported us along the way because this is truly what we're growing into what we're supposed to be. Yeah, 100%. You nailed on the head. Everybody that not only listens to the show, but contributes to the Patreon, everything. As Aaron said, I wish we were walking around with money bags. I really, really wish that was a reality.

But anything that we get from the people that support the show, that listen to the show, we put it right back into the oblivion bar. And as you can see, it looks awesome. One thing that I've always sort of been slightly self-conscious about with the show, because I think we've grown as a show, as a partnership, everything that we've done within the show, we're constantly trying to make it better.

But with the Oblivion Bar, the one thing that I was, again, self-conscious about was the look, because we sort of pieced it together with a couple of different creators and a couple of different folks that helped us along the way. But what we have here, again, thanks to KXD Studios, who is the mind behind the new look of the Oblivion Bar, it's a cohesive sort of look, which again is a late eighties, early nineties, synthy sort of horror vibe. I guess you could say if you want to call it that.

But let's also think dream kid because honestly, without dream kids inspiration of our sounds for the show, we would not have really discovered like how deep this 80s synth tronny, know, like a grill and look it like runs in our blood. It's very much what both of you and I love. Like again, the Tron legacy of it all go over to our Patreon. It's called literally the grid. We call our Patreon members programs. Like that is so intrinsically tied into what we love.

And I think what goes along with that is sort of that aesthetic of grids, you know, polygons and, sent the music and riding down a highway in Japan and a red Corvette with a orange moon in the foreground. And like all those things are very much our, our bag baby. So, once again, thank you everybody who helped with that. Again, day one of Interview-a-thon. This is our very first episode back. Aaron, it's Interview-a-thon and... Yes, everybody, if you're not familiar with Interview-a-thon or...

It's a week long event where Aaron and I essentially sit down with a creator every single day of New York Comic Con. So for the next five days, Wednesday through Sunday, you're going to hear a new conversation with a comic creator of some sort each of those days. Why we do this every year, Aaron, I'm not sure. It's always very stressful. We're already, you know, behind the scenes. Obviously we're talking to you in the past because you're listening to us during the week of New York Comic Con.

It is always so stressful to try to not only schedule all of those conversations, but then have those conversations. And then you and I have to coordinate our real lives with these conversations. It's a lot, but we love doing it, especially when we're at the very end and we can sort of revel in our accomplishment. Well, I also like, I like to think of New York Comic Con now that I'm kind of in the know of the industry, the New York Comic Con scene and the event is kind of like.

the big finale of the year when it comes to conventions. And this is really the, know, and before we get into our last call awards, which we do every year as well, this is a great opportunity for us to highlight those creators that we're going to actually see at New York Comic Con. Cause just about every single one of the ones that we've, that we are interviewing for interview with on or guess. Why is that as good as yours? I switched it up there. I wasn't expecting it.

It's going to be at New York Comic Con. you know, we do our best to align our social content. we get to go and meet like last year we had David Dal Smashian on and we got to go and like we took pictures with them at the convention. And it was amazing. I'm still like, we still, I still chat with Leah Kilpatrick. She's a great human being. Same with Christian Ward. Christian Ward was the very first day of our New York Comic Con interview with on last year and he was there.

It was our first time meeting him in person. I can't wait to have breakfast with him again. I'm not going to be. love you. I'm not going to embarrassingly squirt lemon all over his face again. But yeah, so again, interview with on we are in full effect. Everybody day one we're here for episode 166 and for this conversation day we are bringing on a previous guest, one of our favorite creators in the comic book medium. We are talking to the wonderful Michael D'Alenos.

Now everybody knows we've had him on the show before. He is obviously the creator of Zawa plus the belly of the beast. He's also a co-creator of the woods and wind over with James Tynan. So it was so great to sit down with Michael. We talk about it in this conversation, Aaron. And I feel like I have to start off before we even get into that interview with a brag, with a shameless brag as I do that you and I are on the back of that trade paperback for Zawa. So we are.

We have a pull quote, which is really cool. know, shamelessly and selfishly. We love that. And here's the point though of me saying that outside of just wanting to brag to all of the listeners and everybody else. This book, Aaron, you and I have been championing this book since before it was even out. Like when we had Michael on the show last time, which was late last year, this was prior to the first issue even coming out. We had a chance to look at it early, but...

We knew within that first issue that this was going to be special, not only for folks like you and I who are in our thirties and we're old nerds, but for young people, this is a YA book about nature and you know, we'll get into it in this conversation, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of subliminal messages. And I guess the overarching theme of this conversation is that this is a spoiler filled review or not even review, spoiler filled conversation with Michael about Zawa.

Yeah. But first, before we get into that interview, Let's go over some, some administrative stuff that we need to get into. And that's our Patreon. If you guys want to support the oblivion bar podcast, please consider checking out our Patreon for your support. You're going to gain access to us bonus episode each week called the grid. Obviously we just had a long conversation about how much we love Tron and synth, but we call it the grid. It's our play. It's our, our sandbox. It's our playground.

It's unfiltered. It's unashamed. It's unabashed. It is the oblivion bar pod after dark. It's a, you get a behind the scenes look at how we prepare each episode with episode transcripts and patron polls and a whole bunch of other exclusive goodies that you get for being a Patreon, for being a program of the grid and of the Oblivion Bar podcast. You can also give it a shot with a seven day free trial at patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod.

You can check out the link in our show notes, go over there, give it a shot. Maybe you'll see something you love. Maybe you see something you hate. but either way, check it out. It's a great time. Let us know either way. Yes, let us know. know, we love interaction. One thing that we do that a lot of people don't know about is we put out polls on our Patreon before we interview some of these artists like we're about to with Interviewathon or GuestFest.

And we let you submit questions that we ask the creators of the creative team. And we'd love to see more of that in the Patreon. So. Again, check it out. Seven day free trial, patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. Awesome. Well, let's go ahead get this conversation with Michael D'Aleana. It's like I said, very, very good conversation here with Michael about all things Zawa. Please pause this conversation and read Zawa first. It's five issues.

The trade actually comes out October 23rd, but you can find all your single issues at your local comic book shop or you can read it digitally. However you read your digital comics. Now that how many buses no longer around I'm doing, I'm doing one of those like religious, the father, son, the Holy spirit to omnibus. So anyway, find that Zawa, read that, and then you can listen to this conversation that we're about to have here with the creator, Michael D'Alenas.

And now, this week's special guest. Joining us today is the Eisner nominated and GLAAD award winning co-creator and illustrator of titles like The Woods and Wind with frequent collaborator James Tynan IV. He is also the sole creator of the boombox hit Zawa and the Belly of the Beast, which tells the story of a group of kids who help an elusive mountain guardian rediscover her purpose with love and cookies.

It is our pleasure to welcome the wooden king himself, Michael D'Alenas back onto the Oblivion Bar podcast. Hello, hello. Welcome back, Michael. So glad to have you back here on the Oblivion Bar podcast. It feels like just yesterday we were hanging out at C2E2 back earlier this year. That was in April. Yes. Yeah. You to look at your calendar. I was like, when was that? Yes, that was in April. This year has gone by so quick, hasn't it?

This year has too many too many convention trips to the US for me. Like I just got back and I've already been twice. I'm going again. It just feels. no, I'm a successful artist. No, it's great to promote comics, but you also have to make the comics. What was the one you just got home from? Granite State Con. Turtle Con. I've been invited before and 40 years of turtles and nine years since I started drawing turtles.

So was a good like, finally I get to, you know, be at this convention with all these other creators that I haven't met before and all these total fans that I've known throughout the years through Facebook and everything. So I finally got to meet all these people. It was nice. you meet our good friend, Greg Katzman? No, he wasn't there. I will. I will hopefully meet him in New York. He's awesome. You'll love him. He's one of our favorite marketing folks here. behind the scenes.

helped us set up a lot of conversations and obviously he's sort of in charge of promoting a lot of that new Jason Aaron specific turtle stuff. So hope you get to meet him and we're excited to see you New York here. This is of course day one of our interview. Or so you're day one.

You're the very first conversation we knew that when we said we up this interview or that we wanted to have you on first because we want to talk about Zawa, which is You know, of course we had you on, I think it was in November of 2023, we had you on the show to discuss Zawa the first time. This is before issue one and I'll let Aaron sort of discuss that before we get into that question though. I just want to, you know, ask you sort of overarching question here.

Now that we're at the end of Zawa and the trades about to come out here at the end of October, how does it feel? How does it feel to have Zawa out there for everyone? What's the reception been like? Just sort of give us your thoughts on all of that. Yeah, it's very weird. This is my first time being out solo with no one to back me up.

It was very weird because I've never actually, I think when we were talking about then, I think I remember saying that I didn't even know if I could write and draw 100 pages. And this bloated up to like 140 because I kept on asking for extra pages. I even asked for an extra issue and they wouldn't give it to me. Like, no, no, no, you're not tested yet. We can give you five issues, but not six.

So I was like just adding all these little extra like going back from the inside of the cover to the back of the interior cover. So the first two issues are normal size, but I think every the last three issues are like 29 pages out of the 32, which is back to back. So it's minus cover, minus cover, minus back cover and minus inside of back cover. So I went all the way as many pages as I could take.

I remember when we were talking about it and you were, I think you said you were finishing up or working on like issue three and you were like, I just don't know how I'm to this all in here. Yeah, it was a struggle. Well, and I think it's important that we let the listener know right now that this is going to be a very, very spoiler filled conversation about Zawa. We're to go front to back, just discuss everything. Spoiler, spoilery, guess you could say.

So if you haven't read Zawa for whatever reason, go ahead and pause this, go check that out, read that and then come back because we wanted to pick your brain completely about this, Michael, and sort of get into what your process was. throughout the creation of Zawa and these first five issues. let's get into question one, shall we? All right.

So Michael, when we last spoke to you in November, twenty twenty three, which was the month of the release of issue number one, we discussed how Zawa was born out of your admiration for dystopian optics of Guillermo del Toro with the cute and fuzzy feelings you get from watching one of Hayao Mizaki's Studio Ghibli films. Yes. Aesthetically speaking, which of those two inspirations do you feel like you leaned on? a little bit more throughout this story. That's a weird one.

Yeah, actually, I think it went more to the creepy. Like when I was, when I started it, had more of the, I'm going to make this fun world and beautiful food and love little characters and everything to be cute and fuzzy and young adults. And then as I was going through the motions of getting to the post issue three, part of the story as I okay, this is getting darker. This is getting very dark. And I leaning more on on the creepy vibes of a Guillermo del Toro movie.

And I think now this is a conversation move for later like once I'm done with wind, I think I'm going to lean more into the creepy stuff. Like, I think I've graduated elementary school and high school and going into the the perils of youth and then onwards, the darker parts of the YA verse. Foreshadowing. Well, Aaron, I would say a lot of our personality and our interests align with that.

kids of the late 80s, early 90s, we were part of that generation where it felt like lot of young adult media, whether that be cartoons or television series and whatnot, had sort darker undertones. Even some of the Disney films. Yeah, they'll edge to them, right? And I think that that sort of speaks to what we love today as adults. And also it sort of proves that when you're speaking to young people, you don't have to put a safeguard around them.

You can sort of code it in a layer of edge or with a little bit of emotion and kids will, they're smart. Like kids are smart. We shouldn't baby them and sort of put a shackle on them in the way that Zawa is in the story where we can sort of let them embrace certain darknesses. within themselves or the stories or whatever. I'm to give you the best example. Michael, before we before we started the interview, he picked up behind him is a Ecto-1 from the real Ghostbusters.

So, so if you remember, like that was kind of a little bit before, you know, that was a younger cartoon. And then later on, after real Ghostbusters, what did we get next? We got extreme Ghostbusters, which had that same Ghostbusters feel with the edgier And we got a lot of cartoons like that, which Chris, you're exactly right. And Michael, I'm sure you can echo and mirror the same feeling. We just love that kind of nostalgia of those original franchises with a little bit of a darker hue to them.

Well, thing is, it goes even further back. Every good fairy tale is super dark because it's supposed to scare the children into a place of don't do bad shit. Think, you know, be good. Don't go to the forest alone. Don't go, don't take candy from a stranger. Don't, you know, don't walk into a person who tells you that you're there, your grandmother, you know, there's, it's a, it's, supposed to scare people. That's what Grimm's fairy tales were always about.

Every good fairy tale has to have the darker undertone so you can get the lighter story. All this softening and softening. Yeah. All the softening, was it softening? Not the word. Every time you try, every time something new comes out and they try to soften all the edges, it's just, you're not getting the point across. So yeah, I'm glad that people of our age are now in the creative seats for now. And we get to do weirder and darker, darker stuff.

Like I, I'm scared, I'm scared for the newer generations who will come out with all the, you know, growing up with like even just growing up with minions like I grew up if cartoon wise and Disney wise, grew up with Beauty and the Beast. That was dark shit. When I saw Beast for the first time, I was like, Jesus Christ, what is this dark monster? And now it's like bubblegum. Everything's bubblegum.

Well, we also mentioned in our previous conversation that this book along with designer Madison Goyette and editor Eric Harburn is 100 % your baby. You write, you illustrate, you ink, color, letter, all five issues of the series. of my favorite parts of that conversation was when you were talking about the different aspects of respecting the different things that go into the book. you even designed the logo and provided covers for every issue as well.

My question for you is, was the effort and time and lack of a collaborator at all a hindrance during this process? Not really, because My my real collaborative collaborator on this book was Eric my editor Like he's always been my wall whenever I have something just throw it to him and he tells me if it's too good or not Or he might just give me a this is how people will see this idea, right?

and they will have a conversation and we'll see who's right at the end of the day, but He's been always been my my collaborator in this and he was the person who pushed me into Do my first book in the first place? Is there anything specific that Eric has given you throughout the process of Zawa that like, is there something that you guys maybe slightly disagreed on or maybe like a really valuable piece of advice that he gave you throughout this process that you can reveal to us?

I mean, there's been a lot of little things like the first designs for Zawa when she was enslaved in the pits of the factory, she had a giant mask. Like she was supposed to look like a monster. They had made her look like a monster. And then he was like, have you read chroma? I was like, no. I was like, okay, I see the imagery. I see what you're throwing at me. I'll have to change the design now. Because literally she had a metal jaw and her head was in the middle of the jaw. man.

Do we get a look at that at all in the back, the back matter? Like, do you reveal that design at all? I didn't have many pages. don't see. Michael has the actual, if everyone For everyone listening, Michael has the physical copy with him. This does not come out till October 23rd, so he's got an advanced copy. But I'm just curious, some of the back matter, I'd love to see what that design actually looked like of the mask.

It's not in here, but I do have one of the first images of Zawa that I here. So for everyone, if you're not watching on YouTube, he's currently holding up some of the back matter here. And you said it was the very first design you had of Zawa? Yeah, and look at the kids. Very different up in the corner here. Yeah. You've got bandit there, Thatcher, looks like. Yeah. And my original story, she was supposed to be a ghost.

Yeah. You mentioned that in our first conversation that it was supposed to be like a goat. You just started off drawing like a ghost girl. That was your first thing that you did because you had another story that you wanted to tell and you were like burning over this idea and you couldn't quite figure out how to make it work. So you just sat down and you go, I'm going to create a brand new story. I'm going to write this ghost girl. And then you came up with Zawa.

Yeah, she was supposed to be a hungry ghost. It was actually called a hungry ghost in beginning. That's why she has the corpse pain look to her face. And I just couldn't figure out how to make a dead girl work. Then it just suddenly became, no, she's more than a girl. She's a deity. She's a mountain goddess. And then I brought the death part in as the many lives of how many zawaas have died before her.

So that's how I got the death part and the ghost part, basically, the zombie part more really into the story. But it started as a ghost and became what she is now. Yeah. You've also mentioned, well, you mentioned in our conversation before that the scripting for the series in the beginning was sort of initially challenging. Did you feel that challenging? Is that still the most challenging part going into the later issues, into issue five and so on?

Once the story got started, was much easier to... Because the world is breathing after the first issue. It's there. Everything in the first issue is alive. Things are moving. Places are established. So at that point, it's just following these characters go along. And some characters start to deviate. And that's when things got a little bit hard. I had five issues and then suddenly the mother, the kid's mother... became way bigger character than she was supposed to be.

I was like, okay, now I need more room for you, and now I'm gonna need more room for this one. And now the mayor, who was supposed to be just a background character, has now, you know, has a bigger part of the story. So then suddenly all these characters just needed attention. And that's when things got a little bit hard. And the thing Eric hates me for this, he says, we are never going to work on the story in the same way. But I just say to him, this is how I'm an artist.

I'm an artist first, and this is how I do it. I visualize. can't write. I can write the story, but I can break it down visually. that's how, and as I've read into other people's creative process, most people who draw and write, that's how they work. We draw out the thumbnails, and we think how things look on the page and how it flows, and that's how we write. And then we're going to be able to write down scripts. I can write down a, want four pages for this. want two pages for this.

And then this will happen and this will happen. And then I'll just figure it out as it goes. That's an artist specific perk right there. You can't do that as a writer writer. have to, you have to like sort of prepare, you know, sort of showcase what you want the artists to do. The artists can just go, Hey, it's all open here already. It's, it's good to go. We can just go ahead put this on the page. Yeah. I'll just figure out what the same. Well, Let's get into the actual story here.

So I found it really interesting in this first issue. Once we meet Bandit and Thatcher and the gang, we keep getting comparisons between Bandit and his father, who was this incredible cook that the entire town sort of adored and loved. Why was it important for you to create the parallel between Bandit and his father in that first issue? Going in deep. I am a person who I lost my dad when I was 16.

And the whole wooden crown, wooden king aspect that I have is because I come from a line of carpenters. So I felt that that was a very big part in my story that I wanted to tell, like the looming, who your dad was and what people thought of him in the town. Like I grew up in a small town and everyone kept saying, you we loved your dad, that your dad did this, that did the other. And everyone always had like expected things from me.

So I channeled that into that storyline and also bringing up my mom and how she dealt with some things and how everyone is a person at the end of the day. And some people might just, you know, do the best that they can for the kids. That's really cool. was a hard first question, I told you we're going to get in here deep. And you know what? Thank you so much for sharing that.

I really love the fact that you were able to sort of maneuver that in because if we're just going to go ahead and show our underbelly here, Aaron, if you don't mind, you know, I grew up without a father myself. So I feel like I always sort of lean into or gravitate towards stories where the father is either this sort of absentee beacon in the background somewhere or, you know, the child and the mother sort of overcome the idea that the father is not around.

So I just really love the fact that you included that because you can tell throughout the story, we keep getting sort of rumblings or mention of his father and how he was just this sort of beacon of hope through his cooking and how Bandit sort of resembles his father in that way. And I just, really love that comparison and it felt significant enough to where it was a deliberate decision. And it's cool to know the actual reason behind that now.

Yeah. And the, you know, taking over the business and trying to make it work as, as something. It's like the business is there, but it's become something else. But you know, he tries to bring out the family tradition, even though the world doesn't want it anymore. They just want bad food. Sort of resembling our modern day, right? Like that's we all do that right now. So, you know, ever since we ever since I finished the book, I've been on a nutritional diet because I succumb to my worst devices.

while working on the actual book. was like, energy drinks are bad, but I was drinking energy drinks just to get through my deadlines. So now I've become literally, I learned my lesson while making the book. So now I'm like, salads, protein. I've lost 50 pounds since then. wow. Congratulations. Interesting enough, you know, when we meet Mrs. Blackbird in the story, and you know, you said earlier that she's become like a much bigger character than she initially was supposed to be.

She seemed like a hardworking single mother just trying to take care of her kids. And then in issue three, we find out that this is not at all what she's up to. In fact, she's working for the mayor and specifically against Zawa. Was it her husband's death that in turn caused her to kind of, you know, do take this 180 against Zawa? Yeah, yeah, she puts all the blame on that weird thing that she has locked up. Like this is the this is the reason why her husband isn't around.

So you just channel all their hate against something that wasn't it wasn't their fault. 100 percent wasn't their fault. and we do that, right. As humans, sometimes we we often try to find something just to put our energy into, whether that be negative or positive or what have you. We we sort of channel all of that energy into one projecting. Yeah, exactly.

Like a pillar, we feel better about ourselves as humans if we can just find where to shift that energy, even if it's not, even if we know in our heart of hearts that is not correct, or if that's you know, morally or what have you correct, we need that direction, right? It was weird how I channeled all that. I just started, I started this pitch and this book to do something weird and fun.

And it suddenly became a, you know, therapy lesson So I was putting I was putting a lot of my my inner thoughts and just things that piled up in the last you know so many decades like my dad died when I was 16 so I Was 39 when I was drawing the book so I had a lot of baggage that in realize I needed it. I needed to Put it out somewhere because I was saying before I used to like being a Greek artist and starting off here in Europe.

Everything that we do as Greek artists and Greek creators is basically we create our own things. So we write and draw. We don't have writers. We have a few writers, but not everyone does the combo system. We all go in for 100 % solo books or solo issues. So before James kidnapped me 10 years ago, My whole thing was writing my own books.

So after those 10 years of me working with James, I just suddenly just got to that point where I was like, I think I need to write something because it's been a while. I just have all these things just rattling around the back of my head. Make comics, guys. Free therapy. Zawa became like an emotional lightning rod for you. yeah. So now I want to do it again. I I found, you know, how to project my, you know, my shit.

you know, you, Aaron and I, were lucky enough to sort of, I'm definitely not going to say anything, but we were lucky enough to sort of see what you've been working on here recently. That's going to come up here in the near future. And we're very excited. I'll tell you that. I think speaking on sort of the Zawa being your therapy being, the story is better for it, in my opinion. think this comes across pretty clearly in this book. We'll get into it here in just a bit.

think we butter you up a lot in this conversation, Michael. It's one of the easiest books to champion because of that. think you see so much love and care in this book. I think it's pretty evident almost immediately that this is very much your baby, as we've said. And I think that, again, it's better for it, again, based on what we know now. mean, it's the big cliche. Write what you know.

And I had a few things I didn't know I didn't know I knew that to tell so and Yeah, I think I'm have to you know, follow all the cliches of pulling out little pieces and Making them reality. There's no there's no reason to make things up if you suddenly have all these little things swimming around in your head Absolutely. I mean kind of like I feel like this is gonna hit on it as well. I feel like this is kind of It's a building block. It's a building block and emotional aspect of the story.

But we find out also in issue three, which is expanded upon in issue four, that Zawah essentially has like two personalities. One is this cute and lovable bringer of the greenery and life. And we all know and adore. And then there's this decrepit spawn version that it sees the humans of Mesa Boone as a plague that needs to be eradicated and wiped out for the preservation of the planet.

It feels like we get at the, you know, what we get at the end of issue five is a version of both, but which of the two versions of Zawa do you think has the stronger claim on how to exist as that last guardian? thing is, they both, as you said, they both exist. One has to happen first. Like you have to create a new slate and that's what the end of the Zawa is, create a new slate. And restarting, which is a feeling that I seem to have a lot last few years with humanity.

That I think we just need to restart. Like all our problems are just man-made problems. We have all the power of nature and the world on our side. Yet we decide to stick with man-made issues. And these man-made issues are just going to constantly bring our downfall. Look, the problem is, I think the darker side has the biggest claim. Like, she's been the one who's gone through everything. She's lived hundreds of years, she's dealt with humanity, and she's only seen the bad side.

Every time a new version of Zawa comes up, she just gets the worst. Our Zawa is hope and for us to get hope we have to destroy everything because things are not the way they should be and you know nature comes first and humanity doesn't want to do that. So I think right now in the story both versions have their place but for us to get to the fuzzy cute version of Zawa we have to go through the bad. Isn't that an interesting parallel with like today's world in general?

You know, we have a lot of pessimists, a lot of people who believe that, you know, everything that they do is for nothing and that there's no good left in the world. But it's almost like we need someone like that, like our Zawa to sort of inspire the hope to keep the good going. Because if we let the, you know, sort of the pessimistic folks rule the land, it will just be darkness. We sort of have to put the light into the world that we want, right? In today's 2024 life.

And it's interesting to hear you say that the older, more broken Zawa has the stronger claim. I don't disagree either. I think you're totally right that throughout her life, she's seen this, you know, cycle repeating, you know, time is a loop. She keeps seeing that she gives hope to the humans to help them as the mountain guardian. And then eventually at some point we fuck around and then Zawa finds out, you know what I mean? Like something happens in our lifespan.

where Zawa has to turn against the humans because we are greedy or what have you. Yeah, the whole point of the story was because each Zawa gets killed off the moment she appears. So all she gets is death. And at some point, the mayor has to, you know, the mayor's family, the previous mayors found out that if they, the only way they could stop this angry version of her showing up is just to lock up the version that shows up.

And that version had just been stuck there for hundreds of years, brainwashed of all this bad food, bad food. So that's how the break happens. Like this version doesn't know death, just knows being locked up. But all the anger is stuck with the head that's been severed. It went very dark, this story. don't know how this happened. Everyone, this is a kid's book, okay? This is for your children. All ages. All ages, All ages. made a cute foot.

Look, at the end of this, I saw a friend of mine the other day, was it Saturday? And they told me that they read the book. And the first thing they told me is that at the end of the story, you made me cry. I was like, yes, that's all I wanted. That's all I wanted. I wanted to make you cry. Aaron, that's theme you're on the show. Every time we have a creator on, they're always like, did it make you cry? Because that's what I was going for. I want you.

to feel emotion at the thing that I created because of emotion. I was crying while drawing it. There you go. Yeah. I was saying that that was my whole thing. Like the moment the idea came to that. Okay. The only way I can get out of this story. I'm just going to have to destroy everything. Like that was when we spoke the last time I hadn't gotten to that point yet. And I just got to where the climax was supposed to happen. And it was supposed to be this very different climax.

I was like, I think the only way out of this story is to be an nihilistic. I have to destroy and force a reboot. That's the only way. I think that's where my inner thoughts start coming out. Yeah, we need to start again. Humanity needs to start again. Well, it's you set me up so perfectly because the next question I have is around this idea. You've sort of answered my question, but I want to dig a little deeper if we can, if you don't mind.

You know, at the end of issue five, again, we see Zawa overcome and our Zawa I'll say our Zawa overcomes and brings peace to the many troubled versions of herself or that previous older version that we're attacking the town. However, that didn't stop the final desolation and the complete destruction of Mesabun. So, you know, based on that final issue of the series, you mentioned how in order to bring a better tomorrow, we have to sort of destroy yesterday, right? Elaborate on that a little bit.

How can we do that in 2024? How can we do that outside of Meso-Boon in today's world without the collapse of civilization as we know it? Look, I just think we need to be better to the newer generation. I think that's the only thing we can do right now. We as a, what am I, millennial? I think I'm a millennial. I think a millennial is 80. Is it 82 to 95? Is that millennial? Yeah, we started off with we had bad structure. Like we started off in a everything's great.

Look at all these amazing things. And then as we started to go through high school, you start noticing that things aren't as amazing as they should be. And inflation happens. in Europe, we had the we lost all our currency and became euros. And then everything just got way more inflated.

you know, for no reason, like something, cause we had Drackners before then and going out for coffee with 500 Drackners would get you, get you your coffee, would get you something to eat, would get you a lot of things. Those 500 Drackners became five euros, which does not make sense because that suddenly inflated prices by triple. So everything just got out of whack after that.

So generally, We're a generation who had the hopes of just living a normal life and doing what our parents and our grandparents did. And then suddenly we got stuck with the bill. Everything is way more expensive. Nothing makes sense. Going to school and coming out with profession doesn't get you anywhere. So we just need to make a better, like I'm sounding like an old man now, but we just need to make it better. Go off, Keep going. You're preaching the choir right now.

Aaron and I think the exact same thing. Keep going. Well, so does the next generation. They feel the same exact way. They feel like we left them with the pile of shit. worse. Yeah, they're even worse. They're starting off school. They're like, why are we even in school? Well, they don't even want to go through school because the world is in such a bad place and they're so like idealistic. They're like, I'm willing to give up my entire education or my chance at this education at this college.

because nobody's fighting for these people that are going through genocide, going through all this stuff. So they're actually like, they're actually being like, fuck the institutionalized, you know, system of, you know, certifications and, and collegiate bullshit. So, you know, I'm just going to care about my fellow man. And we're like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. Because it's, comes down to what is a job if you don't have a world to live in. Exactly. Yeah. You know, it's crazy.

And I don't, I'm not trying to like put my mom's business out there. I'm not trying to put my business out there, but at 33 with no kids and a dog, I make more money than my mom did at my age where she had two kids and was a single mother. And yet somehow I cannot afford to buy a house in 2024. Isn't that, that's wild to think about that. My mom had a four bedroom house with two kids working a factory job in third shifts. And I make upwards of 15 to $20,000 more than her now at my day job.

And yet I am living in a three bedroom house that I rent. that I'm paying way too much for, by the way, with a dog. It's wild. And I totally get what you're saying. It makes so much sense. And I agree with you 100%. I think Aaron does as well. And I'm sure the listener does as well that as millennials, seems like and I'm sure Gen Z will believe this. And I think it's alpha after Gen Z, whatever the next generation after that is that Gen A. Yeah, exactly. That should be.

That is it is it's going to Gen A. Gen A. I was going to be born with J. I. as a thing. Okay. I mean, it would make sense. Yeah. Yeah. But we're left sort of thinking like we can't go the same route as the previous generation because they've climbed up the ladder and then kicked it out from underneath them. whole thing. remember, what was it? 10, 20 years ago when everyone was like, you got to turn the lights off for an hour because we need to save the planet.

I was like, many lights did we turn off since then? How many, how many, how many times have we saved the planet? Like nothing is happening. It's just getting worse and worse and worse. And everyone is just keeps on signaling, signaling the the big issues and then all the people that are in charge are just like, no, no, those issues don't exist. We need to focus on your human rights.

No, no, we need to figure out the planet rights, world rights, and then we can start playing around with the, individual country by country and state by state and stuff. We have way bigger issues to deal with and no one wants to deal with them. It's just a very simple thing of just stop using fossil fuels, stop fucking up the earth. and it comes down to like Zawa, you gotta give people better food to eat. Like here's a fun story, whenever I come to the States, I go to the bathroom so many times.

Food just goes through me. Welcome to America. Yeah, that's kind of the thing. I struggled because as I mentioned before, I've been on a specific diet and I knew my diet would go off the rails when I'm traveling. It was so hard to get basic things. Yeah. And the fact that in the U S a bottle of water costs how much? Yeah. Like $4. It costs 50 cents here. That's yeah. It's insane. Let's bring this back around.

Cause you know, very similar to the conversation we're having here about sort of modern day issues and whatnot. In Zawa, as you said, the desolation happens and in order to create a better tomorrow, we have to destroy today. And that sort of happens again at the end of issue five, where we see.

a time jump at the end of issue five where the gang survives and Bandit seemingly returns to Mesabun with his son and daughter, telling them the story of how he had helped Zawa and hope to see her again at some point. And then we see that new version of Zawa and she's being called now the heart of the mountain. So selfishly, I have to ask here for everyone and the listeners and everyone else, does this mean that we could see Zawa again at some point in the future? I don't know yet, but.

My original idea for the book was it was supposed to be called Zawa and the Heart of the Mountain. That was the original title of the book. But my conversations with Eric brought me into making a title that brings out the message of food and monsters. So that's how we got to the Belly of the Beast. But in my heart, the original title was the Heart of the Mountain.

So that's why I got to bring it in at the end and put a little bow saying, no, this is the Zawa that I always wanted, the heart of the mountain, the good version. I don't think there's going to be a continuation. At some point I thought there might've been a continuation, but I think the story is up to the reader to interpret what's going to happen after that.

Even like at some point I was considering maybe doing a couple more books and doing something like a disc world where I would make other things happen in this world. Like Zawa didn't have to be a part of it, but she could still be a part of the world that we live in. She's kind of off in the background somewhere or the events of this story may have happened somewhere. Yeah. And then maybe if I figure out how to make it work, do a little crossover somewhere and bring in the version.

But I think we'll leave that up to time. to how I'll deal with that. Like right now, the next thing I want to do, it could even still be in that world. I'm still not 100 % sure yet. The next thing I want to do. It could happen. I could see it. I could see a link, but I'm not sure if that link is anything more than a reference. Okay. Right now. We'll see. We'll see. I love that.

I love that you're not feeling you're not pressuring yourself to continue on with the story because it would be too easy, right? This was a successful story for you. I think your fans, myself included, Aaron included, love this book. And I think if it was up to us, we would say, hey, hop on the we would just strap you to a Jack Kirby drawing board and make you continue on with the story.

But I love the fact that you're willing to sort of step away from it for a bit and maybe go back to it at some point, but maybe not. And I think regardless, we've got ourselves an incredible all ages book that anyone can enjoy an eight year old can enjoy it and an 80 year old can enjoy it. And there's something special about that. There's something very unique and important about being able to just sort of step away from a good thing, you know? And not just that.

So I come from a background of I like reading books and not every book needs to be a series. Some books are just a book. You have the whole story you need to say right there. If there's a continuation, there needs to be reason. I'm not going to force a sequel on it. Boom did ask me. if they want to, if I had a Zawa 2 in my mind, I was like, I don't think I have a Zawa 2, but I do have some other things, but we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Like let's focus on the work I have to do right now.

And there's time to figure things out. But yeah, like I did my one book. That was the whole point to have a one book story. yeah, we'll see. Awesome. You've got some wind coming up, right? And you've got some secret things happening as well. So you're going to be busy. You've got, you've got things going on. mean, wind wise, I've drawn like 90 pages already since, since finishing Zawa. And I think I have 250, I think around 250 pages to go. my gosh. Wind is not ending.

Like this is the one thing, wind's commu the communication on the new wind series starting, which is going to be the end. People have been a little bit confused on what we mean by the end, but it's actually like two books. The end is two more books. Okay. Yeah. It's gonna be eight issues. It's the beginning of the end. Like it's not going to be a four or five issue series that will come out. It'll be eight issues. And those each eight, each of the issues will be 45 pages long.

So I've done two issues, I'm two issues in, but I'll be starting on issue three soon. But yeah, we have the whole roadmap of how the whole of the the wind side out land and it'll be a very, big, be my longest series to date. That's saying a lot to you with what you guys did with the woods as well. And I think it's important to know that over a thousand pages. wow. Well, the wind, the power of the blood was announced here recently.

You recently put up not only a post on your website, but it's been announced through boom as well that when it will be returning in November. So everyone listening right now, as you're listening to this pick up Zawa at the end of October. And then you've got new wind coming out in November and two weeks after, like two, two weeks after we got three weeks.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then, you know, we were talking about this a little bit before the conversation and I don't want to spend too much time on it, but I think for fans of yours and fans of James, the, Kickstarter, the first, the beginning years of Tynan, was very successful. it surpassed its goal, I think within the first hour. So I will say as, as a fan of yours, as a mega fan of Michael D. Alenos, I can tell you, I'm so excited to get that. Kickstarter exclusive, the wind omnibus.

It's going to be this tome of wind. The woods. mean, generally this November is going to be kind of crazy because my first book is coming out at the end of October. So we have end of October Zara. We had the first week of November will be the retailer version of the woods omnibus. Then the week after would be the first issue of the new Wind series. Plus I think the 40 year anniversary edition of Turtles thing that we did. I think that comes out as a hard cover.

So it's like a whole big, is what I've been doing the last 10 years of my life. Here's Woods, here's Wind, here's Zawa, here's Turtles. Everything just comes out then. You also, you own like the back half of the alphabet from like T back. You've got turtles, you've got Zawa, you've got wind, you've got woods. So everything, if you ever want a Michael D'Alenos book, just go to your local comic book shop and go to the end of the bookcase. Cause it's all there. Well, yeah, we'll see.

I might have to change the, the next one would be different letter. Could be different. We don't know. I have no idea. Everyone wink, wink. well, Michael, it's been such a pleasure having you back on the Oblivion Bar podcast. I have one more question for you before I let you go. Yes. We like to end every conversation here recently by asking the interviewee, what's something you've been enjoying recently? it, know, comic, a movie, a television series, a podcast, what have you?

Is there one thing that you want to sort of highlight for the listener or something you've been really enjoying that you'd be willing to share? I do watch a lot of anime. I think the same thing happened last time we spoke. Yeah, it was anime and manga. Anime and manga. So this past season, We had a couple of good shows that I was watching over the summer. My keen, what's the name? Something Losing Heroines. Very good show. No clue about this show.

Amazingly animated, great story about B characters, C characters. Nobody's the protagonist. There are no protagonists in this story. It's just all the characters that get. Like the story is about three girls and a guy and each of these girls are not the protagonist of their own story. Like they wanted to find their love interest. The first one got shot down and had to help him find the girl of his dreams. The second one was too late to confess. The third one confessed and everything went bad.

So all the protagonists are just not the ones who are going to win at the end of the day. And that was the amazing part of the story. It was very well done. And out of the fantasy stuff, I was watching Wistoria, Sword and Wand, which I just clicked on it one day and it just happened to be the best combination of Shonen and Harry Potter that I've ever seen. cool. Very, very strong story. Great animation. Is this not Crouchyroll? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I got my subscription. I sit there.

I've like I watched like I watched like five shows a season Yeah, but the the big thing that I want to watch and I can't wait to the starts is down to them which starts next week I cannot wait for that show because it has everything That I love It has a teenage romance sandwiched between paranormal ghost stuff and UFOs So I'm ready for this show to start I'm sad that Aaron's done by my favorite come on I was just sad that Aaron's not here right now because he's a huge anime fan.

That's his guy like anime. I'm sort of a very passive anime fan. A big fan of Studio Ghibli. You know, I like a lot of the classics, Paprika and know, Perfect Blue and a lot of that stuff. But you know, it comes to like, you know, your show anime, I guess you would say outside of like Dragon Ball Z and One Punch Man. I am so inept when it comes to anime, but it's interesting to hear you say this sword and wand sounds interesting. I'm going to have to maybe check this out.

It was very good for what it was. Just looking at it, you're like, that's Harry Potter, this is Hermione, that's Dumbledore, that's Snape. And then you're like, that's Bakugo, that's Todoroki. You're seeing the best anime shown in which I'm a big fan of My Hero Academia. And that just gets sandwiched into a Harry Potter world. And it all works. And plus the end of My Hero Academia was very... I liked it. A lot of people weren't fans, but I liked it.

I was gonna say, I started watching My Hero Academia and I got to, I was enjoying it. I think I got about 15 episodes in and just sort of fell off because of life and whatnot. But I think I got to the point where the school was attacked. That's the last thing I remember watching was the school was attacked. Not far enough? A little further, a little bit more. That's still season one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Season two is the good one. Season two is where you're like, hey.

Season one is like all the set up and then yeah, you know, it's all like the basic These are the characters is the world when season two starts and you get like the power You know get the what's it called?

the battle royale you know showing off the powers like power Olympics, whatever it was and People just like you just seen all the characters and how they work and how they work against other characters It was just so good and he get all the character the back stories and the emotions We need to have you on for just an anime talk at some point. have a segment here on the show called Midnight Rewind where we go back and look at old animes that we want to just sort of celebrate.

We've done Princess Mononoke and Paprika so far. sort of wild spectrums of the anime genre. we'll have to you on sometimes. I've been trying to go down a rabbit hole of 90s weird stuff. Like going down and find all the demonic... demonic hardcore 90s anime that I never saw when I was a kid, but I knew were out there. The stuff you would see at midnight on midnight run on sci-fi channel, stuff like that. Yeah, just like you'd see images and you're like, what is this? But you can never buy this.

You weren't allowed to buy this. But there's so much anime out there. That's the weird thing. Talking about anime series, it gets very hard because I think in a given year, it's about 200 plus shows a year. So it comes, they come out every three months. So you get three, every three months you get a new, a new core. And then in that core you get 50 shows. So for those three months you have 50 shows to pick from. They're running right now. And then once they're done, another 50 shows.

You got another 50 shows. So every three months you're like, what's the new thing we're watching? Or you're just watching what came out in the previous three months. So you're just like bingeing. which is so much stuff out there. It's amazing. That's how I about comics. It's a totally different level. sure. Yeah, that is way, that's a lot for anime, like for comics, feel like every week I go to my comic store. I'm like, God, there's so much good stuff out right now.

I don't even know where to like, where did I leave off? What would I pick up? What's new stuff that I'm missing? Like it's just sensory overload. You're drinking out of a water hose type of stuff. Yeah. So I sort of empathize in that way. I find it very hard to read. So most of the things that I'm doing is like watching things while I work or taking a break and just watching my episode or something. But when it comes down to reading, I'm falling off a bit and I try to find that whenever I can.

Like I did a lot of reading on the plane. of watching things that most people do, I was reading. So was like, I need to be cornered somewhere and just like sit down, take the screen away. and now just enjoy all the books that you bought. I buy constantly new books and I just end up flipping through most of them, picking out some. I buy a lot and just read the first half and I'm like, okay, that was a good start. If it didn't hold me, I'll go into the next thing.

But I still like, do my support with my money on the book end, even if I don't get round to reading it. Like I recently got the omnibus of Deadly Class. I'm ready. Yeah. It's a baby book. I do the same thing. The other day I was planning on just sort of starting Firepower by Robert Kirkman and Chris Somney. Yes. And I read the first issue or two issues. like, by the time I was, I was like halfway through the book. didn't, I didn't realize that I was going to continue on.

I was just going to start it and then like go back to it. But I had ended up almost finishing book one by the end of my read. I think I've only read the first zero was it? Yeah. They put out like a Okay. Ash cans kind of issue. Yeah. That's everyone, but you know, great, great talents. Absolutely. Well, Michael, it has been an absolute pleasure having you here on the oblivion bar podcast.

You know, once again, discusses Awa, you know, I think it's a great opportunity to not only thank you for including us on the back of Zawa. We haven't talked about this at all during the conversation, but we have a poll on the back, which is incredible. Thank you so much for that. once again, that comes out on October 23rd, but also thank you so much for just creating this wonderful story, know, Aaron and I both absolutely adore if that doesn't come across in this conversation.

We absolutely adore Zawa and never miss an opportunity to champion this book. So for that, we believe this book, we think Zawa represents the best that the media can offer. We fully believe that. my God, dude, it's under my first book. Don't do this. Don't do this now. We're putting you on a pedestal already. No, no, no, no, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for this. But yeah, it was. I put a lot into this book and I'm happy that I did it. Like it was a, it was a hard 10 months making it.

Like that was the one thing I didn't, I didn't realize when I started it. Like I thought I was going to be, you know, I'm fast drawing. I got this. Like by the time the first solicitations would be out, like I'm nearly done. Nope. Took me 10 months. Yeah. For 140 pages, which is way too much for me personally. Well, I'm normally, yeah, I did it. And that's why I'm kind of like, okay, if I want to go bigger, how much time am I going to need?

As an artist, as an artist, I'm a 250 pages guy per year. But as an artist writer, I don't think I can do more than 150. Right. It's a hundred pages that just for the writing part. Yeah. Well, before you head out, is there anything that you want to? Say to the listener, anything you want to plug or highlight before we get out of here? And not really, but if you're in New York, come by the artist's alley. I'll be at table a 33 and know, going to be a kinetic kinetic collectibles.

Like we have the whole aisle and I have one of the tables there. So yeah, come by and say hi, give me a cookie. What was down for a cookie. yeah, and that reminds me, congratulations on Kinetic. You've recently signed with them as your new art dealer, so that's awesome. They've got themselves quite the cast of creators thus far. yeah, we're all good people, all good friends.

I've known Andrew for a while and they've been a good help, especially when you're European artist traveling to the States for cons. know, having an art rep is always helpful for cons. Sure. Well, Michael, excited to see you at New York Comic-Con. Again, this comes out the week of New York. So hopefully by this time, by the time people are listening to this, you and I already hanging out.

So we just so appreciate again, you coming on the oblivion bar and we hope to have you on in the future for whatever you're working on at the time, whether that be that secret thing that no one knows about or some wind or whatever. Give me two years for you. Well, hopefully we have you on before two years. That'd be my hope at least. I'll come back for if not earlier than the end of wind. Okay. All right. Yeah. I love it. That'll give us a good opportunity to talk about wind and its completion.

So yeah. Awesome. Well, Michael, thank you so much. And we'll talk to you next time. Thank you. Alrighty. There's that conversation with Michael. Once again, thank you so much to Mr. D'Ali Nass for coming onto the show. Once again, his second time here on the Oblivion Bar podcast, talking about all things Zawa. Gosh, dang it, Aaron, do I love that book? I really do. I'm not just saying that again, because we like Michael, not only because we're on the back of the first trade.

I really, really honestly, this is like my favorite book to hand new book fans and go, hey, this is what's great about comics. This is why comics are cool. Zawa best represents what I think comics do so well. Absolutely. This is a perfect representation of what a creator owned like I guess, what would you call it? Like franchise or a property? Yeah, I'd say like a title or yeah. Yeah. This is the, this is the perfect example.

And you guys can hear it in the conversation that this is a perfect example of the creator getting out of his head, what he wants, but also it turning into him getting out of his head and out of his emotions, what he needs. Yeah. And There's so many times where actors and artists and creators are like, just, didn't know I had these emotions in me. And that's what makes a book like this, like very special because you can, you can see it.

And when you hear him talk about the choices that he made, whether it was with the mom in the book or with, you know, Zawa herself or the ending and how things just needed to be kind of restarted and go to Bula Rasa, you know, when you need to go finally, just go back to a clean slate. You can hear in his voice that he needed this story to come out and turn out this way. He said, even after issue one, this was a living, breathing story. And I love that so much.

you can, and I'll go back and listen to the first, you know, interview with him about Zawa when, when he had, was working on issue three, when not even issue one had released. And you can hear the change, but still the excitement and the love and the energy that went into this book. And I absolutely echo what you're saying. This is a book for all ages. This is a book that anybody can pick up and find value in.

And we highly recommend October 23rd going and picking up the trade again, not just because we're on the back of it. And I that's pretty cool, but that's pretty cool. But that's going to be something in years coming down the road where it's going to be a collectible. That's right. And we will sign Zawa if you want us to. We will sign it for you. Yeah, no, just kidding. We would never do that, Michael, if you're listening for some reason.

But you know, will say to kind of build off what you're saying there, I thought it was really cool. Michael shared with us about the loss of his father when he was 16 and how this really played a part into bandits sort of relationship with his father and how everyone in the town of Mesa Boone very much compared him to his father, not only with his cooking, but how he looks and sort of his personality. I just found that really touching. I'm so grateful that Michael was able to share that with us.

Cause I had no idea. we pulled that sort of out of him on accident because I just had a question about how bandit and his father have this.

I mean, when you, when you read that first issue of saga or saga, when you first read that issue, you go back and listen to that conversation with Brian K. Vaughn for the episode before this one episode 165, but no, you can hear when he's talking about that first issue of Zawa that the dialogue, everything about bandit in that first issue is everyone comparing him to his father who had since passed away, which is also why his mother is so against Zawa.

And that's why she's obviously turned against him. You all just heard that in this conversation, but Michael, One of the coolest people in the comic industry. So happy to have him on the show. It's always such a delight. Sweetheart. Yeah, absolutely. And Zawa is one of those books again. know, my niece, she recently just started getting into comics. I gave her Batman year one and then I gave her a, know, know, Marvel does those like condensed collect.

mean, DC's have been doing it here recently as well, but they'll do like the condensed books. They're sort of smaller and they're like a, you just hand it to a new reader and they can sort of pick up the story right then and there. It's all in one. I gave her one of those for Gwen Stacy and she loved both of those. So I think Zawa honestly might be the next book that I give her, I hand her, and I know she's going to love it. Absolutely.

It's so again, it's so just an amazing experience to get to talk to these creators. And I keep saying the same thing over and again, but I'm not going to keep doing it we don't want to make this last forever. But to hear somebody speak so passionately, passionately, passionately, to hear somebody speak so passionately. about something that they obviously went through hell to create, but wants to do it again.

And we're not going to spoil anything, but we, we got to talk to Michael about some of the stuff that he's coming out with later on and go pick up Zawa, go pick up wind, go pick up the woods, go pick up anything that's, that's got his name on it. And you're going to see this evolution of where he's going. And when you guys see where he's going to get too soon, God damn, I'm excited for you. I'm so excited for you.

That's my favorite thing about talking to these creators is that sometimes we'll hop on the line with them and before we can even get into the conversation, they're like, Hey, let me show you when I'm working on him that I'll be releasing in 2026. And I'm like, Whoa, we've got like two years, but like they're always just so excited. And that's so refreshing, right?

To have a creator who's so willing to just sort of show their underbelly, not only with their work, but also what they have upcoming. And we've been very lucky in that sense to make a lot of friends in the industry that are willing to do that for us. So. Once again, thank you so much, Michael, for coming on the show.

I will say just to sort of point out the obvious, if you couldn't tell everyone there at the end, Aaron, I know you were really upset about this, but Aaron sort of disappeared there at the end of that conversation. Not a big deal. He just had to go pick up his wife from the bus station. It's not a big deal, everybody. But, you know, Michael and I were able to finish the conversation. know Aaron was pretty bummed that he couldn't talk about anime with Michael there at the end. Believe it that.

Well, we'll talk about anime next time he's on because we know we'll have Michael on the show at some point down the road. He even said he wanted to come on. I'm guessing when they finished wind, I think is when we decided that we wanted to have him back on again, which wind is also an incredible YA book. If you're not familiar, go check out wind with him and James Tynan, the fourth good friend of the show. So once again, thank you, Michael.

Next. Well, I was gonna say next week, tomorrow on the Oblivion Bar podcast for episode one 67, we are going to be talking to Sweeney Boo and Sue Lee, or as we like to call them, Aaron. The Sue Boo Crew. Right? The Boo Sue Crew. Is it Boo Sue? Boo Sue Crew? I guess we can switch it up if we really need to. You gotta keep it like alphabetical. know? Like the Boo Sue Crew. The Boo Sue Crew. Yeah. So we're talking to Sweeney Boo and Sue Lee.

Of course, Sweeney Boo is the illustrator of Harley Quinn with Teenie Howard. She was also the sole creator on the HarperCollins book Over My Dead Body. And of course, Sue Lee, who is currently working on Cheetara over at Dynamite. She also worked on Maleficent. As did Sweeney on Corrella De Vil. And then we also have Sully working on an upcoming minor threats book with Brian Michael Bendis, which is very, very exciting. Again, good friend of the show.

And make sure you go check out Sully's Carmilla, which is phenomenal, phenomenal vampire LGBTQ plus friendly vampire hunter. Just it's an incredible story that spans like the country and you just get a feeling of being there and it's amazing. I got a feeling. The tonight's gonna be a good night. That tonight's gonna be a good, good night. Let's move on. All No more black eyed peas. We've got to get out of here because we have more episodes.

We have four more episodes this week, everybody, for New York Comic Con. And if you're listening to this right now, Aaron and I are currently going to keep going with the black eyed peas. As you're listening to this, we're going to be losing our minds like As you are currently listening to if you're listening to it the day that it comes out, and I are currently losing our minds at the Javits Center in New York. So pray for us that that's what you do. Send us your good energy.

Send us your spirit energy via like Dragon Ball Z style. Ooh, maybe I'll bring my Goku costume. Love that. Do it. Do it, please. All right, buddy. That'll do it for episode 166 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. Aaron, if you will, please, now that we're officially back. We got again, everything's refurbished. Take us out of here with our brand new call to action. Because you said please. So pretty please. sweet summer child. All right, here we go.

Subscribe to our podcast, Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube, Audible, iHeartRadio, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. That's where we are. Thank you to our patrons. You still got everybody. Thank you to our patrons. Alex, Alice, Aaron, Bodder, Brad, Chris S, Chris White, Christie, David, Elliott, George, Gianni, Greg, Haley, Hamsticks, Jake H. Jeremy, Kenny, Kyle, Lossy Mac, Miles, Mike, Olivia, Ryan, Robert, Travis, Zach, and Brad and Lisa.

If you want to support the show without spending any money, a follow on your preferred podcasting platform and a five star rating and or review on Apple podcasts and Spotify helps the show a ton. Please, follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Blue Sky and threads at oblivion bar pod. What the dog doing? Brand new official merch for the show is on our website, www.oblivionbarpodcast.com. New t-shirts, everybody. New logos, because we've got a new look. We've got to get new merch.

We've got to update that wardrobe, son. That's right. Thank you, KXD Studios for all our Oblivion Bar art. He's at KXD Graphics on Instagram. Thank you, Dream Kid, for all of our musical themes. Thank you, DJ Skyvac, for our grid theme. And last but not least, Do not forget to tip your bartenders 20 % or more because guess what? It's gonna be a long weekend at the Javits Center.

And if you want those doubles and those top pours and those top shelf, you better give them 20 % or more because they will remember you. Also just remember it's a, it needs to be said that Aaron and I are going to be surviving off like hot dogs and Gatorades and just all the crappy stuff they have at the Javits Center. I'm just gonna have a pocket full of jelly beans, hot jelly beans, the Harry Potter ones that have like Ear, ear wick and far. Yeah. What is it? I got bogies. Bogies.

no, no. It's troll bogies or some shit. All right, everybody. Harry Potter. Come to die. The boy who lived come to die. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to episode one sixty six of the Oblivion Bar podcast. Post credits right there. We will see you tomorrow for episode one sixty seven. Bye, everybody. Bye. And joining me is the ain't ain't goodness. Now joining me is the anal mountain guardian. I got to reset. All right. go.